On 22/06/07, andrewk9 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Here is my first stab at a list of stuff I would personally like to see in
Indiana:
2. Support *many* more SATA controllers and VGAs.
I would just like to comment that people's assumption that a new
project will somehow make hardware support magically appear that does
not exist now is illogical.
The goal for supporting hardware is the same for Solaris as it is for
any distribution based on OpenSolaris technology.
I think its safe to assume that more hardware support in general is a
good thing and is desirable in any situation. A new project does not
somehow make resources appear that did not exist before to make this
happen though.
3. Some less brain-dead defaults:
-- Root user home directory under /root
I would like to know why we can't do this as well. I've also hated all
the "." files and directories that are littered on my system *even if
I don't ever do a graphical login." Of course, we should be
discouraging people from using root login wherever possible and take
advantage of RBAC.
-- Command completion at shell prompt using arrow keys (ksh93 and/or
bash).
Definitely. ksh93 is awesome for this! Personally, I think with the
right setup, most people wouldn't even realise they were using ksh93
instead of bash. Roland has an amazing script for ksh which does by
number completion which is really handy.
-- Ability to use backspace key, whether I've logged in yet or not.
(No more trying to correct an password and getting ^H fscking it up). Surely
the longest running bug in Solaris history.
This is not a bug because it is working as it is supposed to. However,
I do think that it should be changed to work differently. Just as I'm
horribly annoyed that I can't use my Home, End, PgUp, and PgDown keys
by default in JDS in gnome-terminal in vim.
5. Deprecated root user - set up initial admin user during install and
encourage use of pfexec / sudo for root privileges.
Yes please.
7. ZFS options
-- ZFS boot and root by default
-- ZFS boot and root from any type of zpool (if Linux can do it, why
not Solaris???????????????? Hell, my Windows XP box at work boots off the
motherboard's fake-RAID 5 - ZFS needs to be demonstrably better than that.)
Huh? What are you talking about here? Are you talking about support
for RAID devices or booting off raidz or... ?
-- Handle ZFS write more gracefully. Taking down an entire box, zones
and all, because one pool went south is very much a *bad* thing! Take the pool
offline and pass the error up the stack.
-- If the zpool won't mount, don't panic! Try to recover. YES, ZFS
doesn't need fsck-ing. YES, it needs to be able to recover the zpool somehow.
Those doesn't sound like a goal for Indiana so much as ZFS. There have
been many discussions about that on the ZFS project list. You should
take about that there.
9. UI enhancements
-- "happyface" boot by default (see
http://blogs.sun.com/setje/feed/entries/rss?cat=%2FSolaris)
-- Default install gives user choice of KDE and/or Gnome (JDS). CDE
available as add-on option.
No, we need one desktop by default so we can fit on one CD ala Ubuntu,
etc. GNOME should be that default since our community is already
centered around it. However, it should be very easy once installation
completes to install and switch to an alternate desktop environment
such as KDE, XFCE, etc.
CDE can't be an option because of redistribution rights I'm guessing.
11. Give us back fast find please! "locate" in default install.
I question this one. I honestly know incredibly few "new users" or
even Linux users that know about or use the locate command. I've been
using Linux since 1996 and I have only used locate a few times since
then.
12. Support a wider range of audio, LAN, and other devices.
Again, something that is general goal of any distribution and not
something I think Indiana itself has to worry about. Instead, the
focus should be on having a good experience for hardware detection and
configuration, not specific support.
13. DVD playback using non-DVD cartel sanctioned decoder. The use of region
codes to prevent playback in certain regions is against WTO rules and is
barrier to fair trade.
No. We don't want the legal issues this has. Regardless of your
feelings about it, as a US-based organisation there are too many
issues surrounding this.
14. Friendly names for drivers. I shouldn't need to google for the 3 or 4
letter driver name I need, add it, tweak driver_aliases.......: I want the
hardware to Just Work (TM).
I don't see how the driver names matter. Windows sure doesn't have
"friendly ones." Besides, if the hardware just works, why would you
need to know the name?
15. Related to 14, add driver_aliases entries for hardware we already support
in the drivers but don't have the appropriate driver_aliases entries for. There
are *loads* of these! That would improve hardware support greatly - no new
drivers needed!
This is just a matter of making sure that we have an update to date
database of driver information. Again, this is something that should
be strove for in general.
--
"Less is only more where more is no good." --Frank Lloyd Wright
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/
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