Gnome 3 is said to be a major milestone in the development of the Gnome environment. It’s latest generation brings in a lot of changes and several new features, including a global new design. We already had a nice preview of what it would be with earlier versions of Gnome Shell. Undoubtedly, Gnome 3 appears to be more modern than it’s predecessor, Gnome 2, that has never changed much since several years now. Rebuilding the bases, offering new features, is good. But since several years the Gnome project has decided to design their GUI in order to make it more “simple”. Now this is essentially the issue I will be talking about here because, even though I no longer use it that often. I used to appreciate Gnome 2, customize it a little, and found it quite comfortable (I currently use KDE 4.6, and still use Gnome 2 at work from time to time).

I am absolutely sure that the Gnome developers wanted to offer their users a new experience and offer a singular environment, making it better, more comfortable, and as nice as intuitive. But did they have to design Gnome 3 that much simplistically? I sincerely think not, but they still did.

A new layout

Gnome 3 has a new, yet interesting layout. There is now only one bar at the top of the screen, with three distinct parts : the Activities button allowing to switch between windows, run applications and switch between virtual desktops, here called activities as well. At the center is located the clock, that can also display the date and give access to the calendar and agenda system managed by Evolution. Finally on the right, are located the “system” notifications and the user menu.

The first thing you will notice if that you cannot modify anything of this layout : elements position, applets, panel background… nothing can be configured. In short, you have to put up with the elements as they are placed by design.

When clicking on Activities (or simply placing your cursor in the top let of the screen), a full screen menu appears, with your favorite applications placed on the left, the visualization as in spaces of the opened windows, and the list of active “virtual desktops” on the right. A button offers to list all the applications in full screen as well, with a category list on the right and a search bar on top.

Uncomfortable design

Gnome 3 is nice, all right. But the fact that you have to always have to go to the extreme upper corner to open an application, click on applications to list it if it is not pinned, and then use the applications after three clicks and long distance mouse moves is tiering. Always the same many moves to do without the possibility to optimize them, as it is not possible to pin the most used applications on the top panel. This, in fact, may generates some frustration (at least for me). Why was the menu designed that big? This useless huge size is useless and makes it’s use more uncomfortable. I would like to change it, but I can’t.

I said previously that there was now only one top panel. But in reality, there is a hidden panel at the bottom, that contains the “Application” notifications, distinct from the “System” notifications. You can access them either by placing the pointer in the lower right corner of the screen or by opening the “Activities”. Why is there now a separation and why the application icons are  hidden in this place? I have no idea, but I do not feel this as practical. This makes me do once again more mouse moves, as well as being counter-intuitive (it took me a little more than ten minutes to find them and understand the working). There are notification or status icons to notify the user. There should be no reason to separate system ones from application ones, and at least, no reason to hide them either.

To shutdown your computer, you have to log out first and then select shut down in the upper left corner in GDM.

The user menu offers access to several possibilities : user account management, preferences, and… status. Even if there is no instant messaging application configured, it seems like you can “always be connected” by selecting either “available” or “busy”. However, with the full Gnome 3 desktop, you cannot turn off your computer. You can only reboot, log out or put it in stand-by. To shutdown your computer, you have to log out first and then select shut down in the upper left corner in GDM. This “feature” is (in my opinion) like going back in 2004 when you had to log out and select “halt” on the user list screen. I fail to see the point as Linux operating systems tend to make their boot and shutdown process quicker and more efficient.

Thankfully, it is possible to shut down directly the computer when using the economic mode of Gnome 3, supposed to be used in the case of unsupported graphic cards.

What I call the “economic” mode of Gnome 3 is in fact a mode for “graphic cards that are not supported by Gnome 3″ and is hidden in the “System Information”. This mode allows the user to return to a sort of Gnome 2.xx appearance, with the same top and lower panels. However, because this is Gnome 3 as well, you no longer cannot change anything to them. Only can you finally shut down properly the computer, change some clock settings, access the classic application menu and see all the notifications at the same place. At least it seems more quick and easy to use, although many features have been lost between the shift from Gnome 2.32 to 3.0.

In this mode, the buttons for expanding or reducing the windows finally come back. The developers probably thought it was a feature that was too difficult to use in full mode. 

A look of déjà vu

Is it me, or is the general theme and GUI greatly inspired by a certain environment and theme from Apple? In Gnome 3, the majority of the details seem to have been taken from Cupertino’s world, aside of the major changes to make the whole look totally different, from the question/information dialogs appear from the top in a very similar way to the slider button that used to be found only in iOS. Some of the settings panels have an impressive similarity with the ones available in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, but with much less features…

I know it is wrong to judge an environment on such details, the same thing could be said of KDE with it’s default setting of placing a taskbar at the bottom with an application menu in the lower left corner. But the resemblance stops here. KDE assumes it’s desktop configuration but has it’s very own way of organizing it’s settings and features differently from Redmond’s interface. The user also has all the possibilities to change the entire layout. For Gnome 3, I see an environment where it has been attempted make things different in order to offer a new and better experience (which is not really the case, at least for me), but copying several appearance/gadget stuff without trying to add or change anything because it seems cool. This would not have been annoying if the Gnome developers decided to not imprison us in their environment, depleted of all sorts of basic functionalities such as having a normal desktop where I have my icons on it, or change the system theme easily, or change the way menus are placed or appeared.

Gnome 3 is not an environment good for productivity. It is good for those who want a nice desktop with many nice animations and who do not mind the unusual and unoptimized (and unoptimizable) layout. I used to like having Kwin or Compiz effects without enabling too much animations, just for having a more smooth desktop. But Gnome 3 is far too much. Gnome 3 wants us to launch one activity with three times more mouse distance, three times more clicks, and three times more animations than any other environment, apart of the “run” dialog that helps running a task more quickly.

This is sad because I feel like I am always criticizing. I have to say the notification system seems good, I do love the possibility to answer someone in IM through the notification bubble. But all the other issues and the fact I am extremely limited in terms of possibility of customization overcomes the good points I am attempting to spot.Gnome 3 has reproduced one of the major errors KDE did for 4.0 and 4.1 : deleting too important features (including the desktop icons) in order to push a brand new concept to which not everyone is ready and/or has not yet found the use. KDE had to reintroduce the classic desktop concept, still massively used, had to reimplement quickly several features that were missing from KDE 3.5, and started developing by the way it’s own netbook interface. Gnome 3 also looks too much orientated like Unity : particularly good for netbooks and, in the case of Gnome 3, for touch-screens. But not for the classic screen/keyboard/mouse(or touchpad) interface.

I’ll stick to KDE, but track the changes for Gnome 3. I think the current alternative for a productive environment that can be an equivalent to Gnome is Xfce currently. It can be compatible with several gnome components and applets (I am working on an Xfce LiveCD that would integrate some few features that are originally designed for Gnome 2). And I guess that between Xfce and Gnome 3, Xfce might no longer be as much a castrated sibling of Gnome as it used to be since it’s latest milestone does not leave any freedom of customization and control. There are Tweaking tools that came out, but you should not have to rely on such programs.

I know evolution is necessary. Evolution and changes are required to correspond to new needs and habits. Gnome 3 is stable, far more stable than KDE 4.0 and 4.1. The inly bug I have is due to the graphic card support (nVidia driver is usually required) in OpenSuse or Gnome 3. But there are so many regressions and usability issues to me that this is no way a good solution. It has nothing to do with habits, it has to do with both functionalities, freedom of changing things easily in the environment, and having a good ergonomic for the one who has a keyboard and a mouse, or a touch pad.

The true revolution for a modern desktop is the velvet revolution type that supposes smooth and progressive changes, although important and offering a new concept that could develop and progress through time, but still keeping the bases of the previous ones, and not forcing a brand new concept that is too young and deleting the previous one (or seriously harm it). I fail to see to what new need Gnome 3 is supposed to offer an answer; except on the netbook and touchscreen markets. I think they could have only improved the way the application menus were designed and the way the windows were listed, it would have been better. But currently, I won’t ever use Gnome 3 on any of my computers… except my eeePC eventually.

This is my personal opinion, and it is certainly very subjective and biased by the fact I like an environment that is both cute and simple, while offering a good quantity of settings. I am usually using KDE, XFCE and learn to configure thoroughly Openbox. They do not have the same aims, but all leave quite a great freedom and can be eye candy if you want to without affecting the user experience. But I would like to have other people’s opinion if they do not agree with one or more points I have attempted to explain.

I am using my web browser everyday, and use to work all day on the computer. I have been privileging Firefox since it’s version 1.5 and encouraging it’s use since then for both usability and ethical reasons. But as time passes, as web evolves and as web browsers start adding more functionalities, I am sincerely starting to doubt about Firefox’s position in what is commonly called the browser war, and hesitate more about changing of browser. I also fail to understand Mozilla’s strategy to stay ahead in the competition as Firefox seems to start lagging.

I am still satisfied by Firefox, most of the time… But when using other browsers such as Opera and Chrome/Iron, I feel like Firefox is starting to miss a certain flavor, a lack of originality.

Opera is known since a very long time for it’s successive innovations and for offering a lot of well designed built-in functionalities. The tabs are coming from Opera originally, and have greatly improved the way we used to managed various pages. They also invented the very practical speed dial. More recently, all menu buttons have been regrouped inside one red Opera button, leaving the space left for tabs and more vertical space for web browsing. The Opera Link and Unite services are also a great advantage and are significant innovations in the use of this worldwide network. Opera has also a wide variety of built-ins functions and modules, rendering the addition of extra modules useless for the average web surfer that has good knowledge of the Internet.

Chromium/Chrome/Iron has made it’s way, but it’s origins are also due to a criteria that tended to be forgotten by all other browsers at that time : making a simple browser that was doing it’s job well without “pushing others too much” or “taking too much space”, being more lightweight and with a much more simple interface. They did a huge work on making their browser as light and stable as possible, with a graphical user interface that is much more simple and economical in terms of space, with what is needed for browsing, but with still intuitive functions. They contributed to make browsing lighter and faster, when browsers started to become increasingly heavy, and could hardly hit the current record in terms of browsing speed.

Now, what is characterizing Firefox then? I do not have the souvenir that it has invented a lot. They surely well designed the add-ons functionality, that allow every user to make their web browser look the way they want it to look and the functionalities they want it to have. Firefox is also among the safest browsers available today. Firefox has allowed a wide variety of users to have a browser that was finally more respectful of the users and the Internet. It has been good for the web as it has influenced the way webmasters conceived their websites, even though Firefox always had some difficulties to perfectly conform to the web standards. Most important of all, Firefox is the first browser to give and show users rights explicitly, the guarantee of an independent and uninterested entity of worldwide contributors to built a browser for the web.

But the issue is that Firefox seems to be aging. Without inventing much, but taking ideas from other browsers to evolve, it seems to rely more on communication than on solid proof improvement like it has done in it’s first versions, in comparison to IE 6 and 7, massively used at that time. It claims to be fast, but isn’t really as fast and lightweight as Opera, Chrome, or even Internet Explorer 9. The other point is that Firefox is not as feature-rich as Opera or Chrome, and you need to add modules to improve the web browser. And as you add modules, you feel like Firefox is missing many key features (popup and cookie control, identity control, advanced bookmark management, etc.), and as you complete your browser, it seems more and more heavy and slow. If Mozilla claims the fault belongs tot he extension developers, I believe Mozilla should ensure its browser cannot be more optimized and faster before rejecting the fault to the community that make it so popular, even if their are extensions who are really far to heavy (probably due to bad programming and/or not optimized code).

They should try to do some more research about how they can improve the way we browse the web both with the community of users and webmasters, rather than putting all efforts on marketing. As Firefox starts lagging behind other major browsers, open source or rights is not what will ensure the survival or the increase if market share of a product such as a web browser, it is it’s quality and the features it offers to the users. And currently, I feel like Firefox is decreasing in quality compared to Opera or Chromium and does not offer anything new any more. Firefox can be in the same philosophy as ArchLinux, consisting of having a base that you complete with what you need, but without more basic functionalities are a more lightweight and fast base, which is relevant of the quality and the efforts made into the browser, I do not know for how long Firefox will have increasing market shares.

When I look at Firefox mobile, that yet can implement Firefox’s modules, I see a heavy and slow browser that has a huge catchup to do on the Android default web browser and even more on the current reference on Android, Dolphin. And I am currently asking myself much more questions about which web browser is convenient for me. I still use Firefox though, but for how long? Some of my friends have already shifted to either Opera or Chrome. I hope Mozilla will improve both Firefox and Thunderbird.

It has been my first time in Belgium. It has also been the first time Mageia could be represented and present officially. And despite getting lost in Brussels awful transportation system, it was really a great experience.

Trying to get up at 8AM of course often led to getting up at 12, for me and for some other people as well apparently. This thankfully did not prevent from meeting with many people taking part of the Mageia project. First, discovering the Mageia stand and meeting the people there, then meeting progressively more people from everywhere. The ambiance was great. Fosdem is one of these great unformal events where you can share with many people from different projects. As a young programmer, I have been able to get and share, especially with the CentOS people and learn a few things.

But the most significant event for us was that this was the first time Mageia could participate at an event and present the project. It is one way to place a start point for the project, it is now that we need the participation and the contribution of the communities and their members that have chosen to follow Mageia. As the first alpha release (I suggest to name it pre-alpha as we do not know the quality of this build at all) is preparing for it’s release next week, there will be more services that shall be activated as soon as the unified account system is working. I myself plan to (attempt to) participate more in the Wiki, marketing mailing list, and in the french association of course, that is currently working to offer a reorientation towards Mageia.

There is a good opportunity for Mageia to impose quickly itself, if only it receives the help of many contributors, as much as possible of those that were so excited when the Mageia fork was announced. Progress is now much more visible than before, and it is a good factor for motivation. There are already several projects running around Mageia, such as AppStream and mageia-app-db.

Mageia's Cardbox by AlexN83

You can visit AlexN83′s gallery, there are some many very nice and interesting artwork ideas he is thinking about. I only hope the colors would be a little be more vivid (Skiper’s never happy of anything).

There is one point that has been missing in some parts of Mandriva, essentially in it’s own tools : a clear, correctly commented and organized codes and scripts.

This is a recurrent issue within Linux-based operating systems, in opposition to BSD-based operating systems. There is often a large number of components and tools that lack either a good structure and/or commenting or lack a good quality documentation about how they work or how they can be used. This make contributions and developer appreciation much more difficult when these points are lacking.

Looking back to Mandriva, the point I want to make is that the DrakXtools, despite doing their job quite fine (most of the time), have lacked a huge effort of making the code readable by anyone. The source code is there, it is accessible, but it is such a nightmare you probably need two or three aspirins per perl module script to understand (more or less) how one tool works, knowing perl often has various commands and calls to do one single job. In such conditions, only the creator of the tool can understand how it works, and he is the only one who is able to fix it if required. As many open source projects and running with non of the original developers, this poses a big issues on the sustainable development model of the application, not mentioning is also makes outside contributions rare. The application has less chances to survive through time.

There are DrakXtools that appear very opaque : there is a total absence of comments inside the code that could help understanding how each part of the program works, and to know what points to where in which function in which separate library. Perl is complicated itself and there are less programmers for it, and not having a minimum of comments in such a situation is really a great disadvantage. There is also a total absence of man pages even for tools that are executable in console mode or that may have some options (tools in console mode are also appreciated to make some operations more automatic), only msec and urpm* tools have some documentation through man, and these man pages seem to be quite good, except the french version of msec may be outdated as the last modification dates back to 2005 according to its man page (mans must also be updated in many languages, mseclib manual no longer exists). It is perhaps not necessary for most other tools as they are graphic and perhaps more basic, yet in general, these lacks are a handicap.

So I believe that if Mageia and Mandriva want to get contributions more often and want to see their tools used more often by very advanced users, then explaining the code and documenting it technically is important. A wiki page on it’s own, often read by users having a level from basic to advanced, is simply not enough as it is just a basic explanation of how the tool can be used and offering some basic tweaks.

Now, I have very few experience in coding. I have only started seriously since October. But for the few I have practiced, I have been able to code, read other’s code, trying to understand, reading tens of mans pages to learn how a command could be used to do a specific task, and also learning how BSD systems and OpenBSD communities were working on their documentation to make their systems and tools really understandable and to explain clearly each functionality they have to offer.
And I think that Mageia and it’s community should work on that way, documenting and making the source code of the projects it handles really understandable, and making sure to maintain and make easily accessible a very good quality documentation, both for technical (man and info pages) and basic (wiki pages) users. All right, BSD distributions are not that much popular compared to GNU/Linux in general, yet this documentation issue is a criticism that persists for all GNU/Linux distribution. And when I see that Ubuntu’s popularity in France is also partly due to the enormous resource that is Ubuntu-fr’s wiki, I think this is a serious point to take in account for such a big open source project like Mageia. It is easy to make it open and claim it is great, but documenting is also part of the massive work, even though it is somehow difficult and even though there are developers who do not like documenting and commenting. In the end, I consider this vital for open source projects.

There are some tools such as Xterm that are widely used and included in GNU/Linux distributions, but when you read in it’s headers and readme files that the developer who understands the source code is a mad person that has to be interned, and knowing there are parts in the Linux kernel where you have comments saying /*This part must not be modified. It works but we don’t know how*/, you know that conceiving and maintaining executables and projects without comments and documentation is rather more a handicap than a good idea.

As someone who had to recode UNIX system functions as part of my weekly scholar projects, and as someone who learns how to configure a server in text mode using OpenBSD, I find man pages extremely useful. My two cents…

Yep, I am now also part of those who complain about the choice done (yet, not about the process of decision).

So, finally, the Mageia logo has been decided by the major participants in the construction of Mageia. And it seems it has been the one I hoped would not be elected, but I felt it would still be because it just fits perfectly the rules. But anyway, it has been decided and I accept this choice, I am making it clear that I will use and contribute to Mageia in due time. This, is the elected logo.

Designed by Olivier Faurax, this logo has interesting advantages : it is very adaptable and is extremely simple (this last point is also it’s main flaw. I’ll discuss about it later).This simplicity makes it very easy to select various color schemes for different uses.

These two images show very clearly that there are a wide variety of color schemes available for this logo, with a maximum choice of three color variation. This is good because it makes rework very easy and it means it is very adaptable, depending on the use we want to do of it. The logo is also very well explained and well presented. The colors can be changed, tempered, adapted freely without making a radical change to the logo’s design : it stays the same.

This image is self-explanatory. It shows that the so-called “cauldron” can fit every space and can even be very easily customized to fit community patriotism. It shows wonderful compliance with the art guide rules.

And honestly, many other works are possible. The following is quite nice actually :

 

The logo is so simple that there are a wide possibilities of improving it. Yet, the retained logo is the one chosen as is, without any modification.

So this is where I come to the part I really dislike about the logo : it is far too simple. The issue stands for me very clearly. The font is fine, but what does this really mean for anyone?

These are the words that came to me when I saw this logo for the first time, and that still come to me when I see it again : a pot, a sort of cauldron, with bubbles coming out of it. It may be a reference to wizardry or to witchcraft, but I fail to see any link here through the extremely standard/abstract aspect of the logo.

I have asked the opinion of several people I work with, and their comments were almost the same : “nice, but too simple”. And this is my opinion as well. By too simple, I personally mean that there is no meaning of clear significance that come from this “pot”. Aside of the idea of a cauldron, that only someone who already knew well the Mandrake/Mandriva spirit can see, there is nothing in practice that come out from it.

Well, nothing is perfect anyway. The logo has been designed with more than one idea in mind. There has been some time spent on it, whatever can be said on the logo. Here are the meanings that are supposed to come out from the logo, as described by Olivier Faurax himself :

So the meaning is there! It is there, and there is just not only one meaning that come out from this logo : there is a whole concept that I really do love!

…but who in anywhere from earth is able to see all the “dynamic, international and open nature” in this pot logo, seriously? The idea of nest is great as well, but here as well, very few people are able to imagine the true meanings of this logo. Even me, who took the time to look closely at this logo, hardly saw most of them. I only imagined the five bubbles boiling from a cauldron, and the five continents contributors come from, about the five bubbles coming out of it.

I believe a logo representing a project or a product is not supposed to be some kind of abstract art, but a logo that shows no more than one or two clear ideas in an attractive way. Myself, I hardly see the “cauldron” as a button for my Applications menu in KDE, Gnome or Xfce. Could do a nice Plymouth boot theme but not more. I don’t even have a single idea of what background and window manager theme can be done in link with such a minimalistic logo.

It is not in accordance with the idea that have made the logos of other popular operating systems :

 

This logo root has it’s roots in a time where Graphical User Interfaces were starting to show up and make computer much more easier to use for newcomers. This whole GUI idea was symbolized by a window. Working in what was seen as windows seemed to be more simple and user-friendly than using command line utilities. These simple ideas are shown clearly at all stages for the Microsoft Windows operating system and speak immediately to the one who looks at it.

 

The Apple logo, present on all Apple products, does not have great meaning usually. It can have many different interpretation, especially depending on the time when each logos were used. Initially, it comes from the apple getting Isaac Newton to find out about gravity. It can refer to logic or things that work the right way. But nowadays, the Apple logo is used by design and is intimately part of the identity of all Apple products by design.

This is the logo of the most popular Linux-based operating system, Ubuntu GNU/Linux. The name and the logo have been very carefully chosen to fit the supposed spirit of the project : the meaning of Ubuntu that has itself several meanings inside, relevant for a reliable and helpful community work, and a logo, with warm colors remembering Africa and as well three people taking hands together in a circle, also expressing clearly a sort of unity. This is indeed both clear and very attractive, honestly.

 

The Fedora project’s logo is more close to Mageia’s one now actually. It seems abstract and you do not necessarily see the meaning in it. To be entirely honest, I never saw the inner meaning of this artwork. I just felt it attractive and good looking, but nothing really more. What is really interesting is to see at how this logo has been designed here and there. So, like the logo designed by Olivier Faurax, you do not see at all what this logo may mean, but it is still attractive and does accomplish well it’s role of giving an identity. Parts of the logo have been reused independently for other specific artworks.

 

But there are also well known successful products that have much more meaning less logos, that are still appreciated, adopted, and participate in giving an identity to their related projects.

These logos do not have a deep meaning at all. At most, there can be a mascot behind it (such as Beastie for FreeBSD or Puffy for OpenBSD) to enhance the personality and/or identity of a logo. But furthermore, these logos may have been adopted or not mostly for their appearance and the effect they create on the one who sees it. I do not affectionate them particularly. I think the Red Hat logo is stylish and offers a clear and distinguished identity. The cameleon is nice as well, and can make adaptation for artworks easy. For the rest, well, nothing sensational, but nothing repealing as well.

 

This raises a fact : no need to spend millions on a logo, no need to take years as well and to do deep studies to find one. However, there should be a certain reflection about it, and this does take some little time. I do not know what was the time spent for the design and selection of the Mageia logo.

 

Now, my question is, what to you see in this logo, by itself, after thinking of the exposed logos? Do you find any clear meaning and a true identity than can come out for someone who does not know Mageia? Or, if the meaning is not that important as it is possible, can this logo still be attractive enough to create effectively an identity, or could it push people to look somewhere else?

I have my doubts, essentially because of it’s extreme simplicity, lack of detail and clearer representation of what it is. I am not sure it represents the core values and attributes of Mageia optimally and aesthetically. At least, this is my own personal opinion and from my own point of view. This may differ depending on the person.

However, I have nothing to say about the process of decision for the logo. I am completely confident in the board that is in charge of Mageia.

I could have posted a comment on the orange and red sets of retained logos. I wanted, but did not have the time up until this day-off I took arbitrarily.

I could have attempted to do a logo on my own to offer better than this one, or I could improve it. But I do not know how to use the Gimp, and I do not have the time. I just cannot fail my Unix system, C and MySQL modules only to learn how to use Gimp for this.

However, I do explain myself on my opinion about the decided logo. And even though I personally accept it, while I still do not like it much, this not might be the case for everyone. I cannot see this logo represent well our project on Distrowatch or on LinuxFR.org, I just do not feel it at all. I believe this is extremely subjective, but as I have explained, there may be some objective reasons for not taking the current cauldron logo. This is why I strongly advise either to rework the current logo to fit more conditions or adoption by more people or accept to retain a second round, keeping less logos than last time, and give a chance to their creators to explain, rework and show various kinds of adaptation of their logos, for them to present them at their best like Olivier Faurax wonderfully did for his logo, in a very professional way. He was the only one to do this, this may have played a role in the adoption of the logo… or not.

If I had to choose a logo, I would rather have taken a logo that has really been designed to carry a clear single meaning and identity. I would have chosen the compas logo. Despite it’s fantasy font, it seems to me the most appropriate and yet unique logo designed for Mageia, taking out the one with the star.

I wrote and completed this article to offer a more constructive way of thinking about our new logo. Perhaps I, with many other people, will get used to it, but perhaps not. I have no idea yet. What I want to make sure is this will not harm our project even before being really born by thinking about it more deeply.

Anyway, please take care of yourselves, good job to Olivier for his work despite my criticisms,

and last but not least, long live Mageia…

NB 1 : All the images inserted in this article either come from Flickr and are released according to the license chosen by their author, or come from the Wikipedia articles related to the corresponding product.

NB 2 : I have attempted to explain my opinion, with all the respect I must have to the one who spent hours designing it. But if you feel something is unclear, unjustified or if I missed something, I am entirely opened to discussing and improving this article in my (restricted) free time.

NB 3 : I have edited this article, fixing some typing mistakes but also completing with other types of logos, hoping to offer more details to think of.

There has always been something with Mandriva I hardly stranded as a user : some lack of polishing on various graphical parts of the system.

I always appreciated the DrakXtools and DrakX. Even if there tools are a little bit old, they honestly have absolutely nothing to envy to other installers, in my opinion. They have improved through time and there is nothing really bad that appeared. This has not prevented many websites to criticize them on the lack of polishing they had recurrently.

These tools are generally well conceived. RPMDrake is a well designed package manager that knew how to evolve through time. Yet, download dialogs and information gathering are just very ugly and non suitable for the end user eye looking for eye candy and delicate words. Compare the download dialogs of RPMDrake and Synaptics, you should see the flagrant difference in polishing. This has been the object of certain of my Bugzilla requests (or direct) requests to developers. There has been one ticket specifically for this.

But there isn’t all this. Several other tools could have a better GUI. Draksnapshot had to be revamped after it’s 2008.1 version appeared to be chaotically organized. It also took a lot of time to take of the “Drakwiz” bug out of Draklive-install 5this little message was showing when closing Draklive while in the setup process by clocking the cross).

I do like to compare the setup processes between distributions. I did so for Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuSE. I felt Mandriva had the most simple and better organized setup process, but honestly is the less polished one both in the tool’s GUI as in the artwork. This has not been improving through time. I feel like the polishing was at it’s best in 2008 Spring. Even 2007 Spring process is not bad in terms of polishing, with neat banners that clearly say in which step you are.

I know that programming a good and clean GUI is a HELL, especially with such an old library as the DrakXtools used (the “empty dialog” bug is apparently really difficult to solve due to the complexity of the code), yet I still insist on this point as Mageia will also be an operating system heading towards end users like Mandriva and other popular distributions. I suggest a few things like adding a little bit more text telling the current step and a little about what the options are about. Currently the DrakXtools only tell you most of the time what you can do, full-stop. The use of few images to make these tools nicer and of a better artwork does improve user experience and help feeling more comfortable (or not, specially if you are having a difficult relationship with your computer or really afraid).

The main issue here is that this requires a lot of work. More people have to work on the DrakXtools to make them feel younger (yet still stable) and look more welcoming like others. The lack of people for the rewriting or improving of the DrakXtools is probably among the first bugs to solve. This could even help reviving some really liked tools in the past such as Drakbackup or PrinterDrake, and perhaps others.

I have seen several times discussions in the Mageia mailing lists about RPMDrake and application management. I do even think about the application management issue since some time now, a couple of months. But without technical knowledge, I cannot produce anything of course. Nether the less Mandriva, and now Mageia have to catch up on Ubuntu systems in the way *applications* are managed and installed.

We have RPMDrake. It is a *package* manager, it is yet slow but powerful, well designed and pretty much intuitive. Only some texts and dialogs need to be really much more precise. However, package management is quite complex and really not practical for people who do not have any knowledge (nor the time to acquire it) when it comes to installing application. This issue has been partly solved in mid-2008 with the arrival of the Applications with GUI filter in the package manager. But this has brought yet another issue, where a lot of people have been complaining a lot.

Even though I still support the applications with GUI feature by default, this is not the right way to manage applications. RPMDrake is a *package* manager. When several people start RPMDrake, they expect to be able to fiddle with the packages themselves. The Packages with GUI filter, as it is unclear in the meaning, is confusing : it does show the packages, but hides others that are quite intrusive (libraries, modules, etc…). It sort of limits RPMDrake by default, in the hope of helping newbies installing the applications they can start through their Applications menu. Yet people can still be confused even with the Packages with GUI filter: there can be more than one choice depending on the available versions and releases, etc. I do remember myself back when I discovered 2008 Spring, I was really enthusiastic to see this new feature, but it was not really perfect and I could still sometime mess up or fail understanding what I was selecting.

Aside of this confusing feature, RPMDrake, as a package manager, also provides advanced technical messages and often asks for technical choices for packages even me, with almost three years of Mandriva behind me, still cannot understand. What do I mean here? To install… let’s say… gnome-games, should I install tetex or texlive? Which sub-dependencies should I select? What do they mean? Awful choices where I often answer randomly.

Looking at these issues when it comes to wanting to manage *applications*, I am convinced that Mageia will need a dedicated AppManager, without all the technicalities that can be encountered in RPMDrake. To manage applications, you need simplicity, non technical data, abundant information on applications (complete description, information on the support eventually provided, screenshots, comments, etc…), and no need of technical knowledge, what RPMDrake does require even with the Packages with GUI filter on.

An AppManager would make a clear distinction between high level and easy application management and low level and more technical package management. An AppManager can also be a chance to offer companies using/distributing Mageia to implement services in it, in a possible commercial aspect aside of the usual community version provided by the Association.

Conceiving an AppManager for Mageia would finally allow to remove the Packages with GUI functionality or, at least, turn back to default the “All packages” filter (it should be renamed that way, instead of just ‘All’). Package and Application management would certainly be more convenient for both unexperienced and experienced users that way. Ubuntu seem to have seen that soon enough and has done a good job on this aspect, Mageia must follow as well if it wants to catch up and win the public it is targeting.

It has been a while since I have given no news. This is for a simple reason that, as I am among the youngest in this community, I still had to begin my *real* studies. Since my arrival back in 2008, I was only a power-user discovering Linux through Mandriva after Ubuntu. I probably was a sort of fan-boy as well, trolling in the forums from time to time. If my knowledge of Linux improved a little bit, I still could not program anything and could not imagine using the console to work.

Well, this time is coming to an end. I am coming back from a three week “pool” where 350+ students, including me, learn the basics of C programming. I had almost no life during these three weeks and am only starting now to reconnect with normal life. In the mean time, I have learned C by recoding most the system’s basic functions (putchar, putstr, printf, putnbr, getnbr, list_to_wordtab, programming a basic calculator, etc…) and also have learned the joy of Fluxbox and of the shell itself. I have spent hours readong the Man pages and info manuals (who are amazingly complicated yet useful and complete).

Learning these basics some hackers actually think they are easy to know actually takes time. Many hackers to not understand that several people new to Linux to not have the time nor the courage to ream man pages and spend time discovering by themselves. Explaining is more efficient when it comes to complicated stuff. You need patience with non-programmers. I learned all these basics because I wanted to and it took time. I managed to acquire the most basic knowledge on that side, but I would not really have done all this outside school. This is why I think there need to be some work to preserve tolerance towards new users, except when they refuse to read a clean and easy to read wiki or for similar cases. Many hackers seem to be quite intolerant towards new users, I want to work this out and avoid this issue personally. This would be a shame for an operating systems aiming at non-experienced or low-experienced users.

Basically, all this is really interesting and great. Yet to learn all the basics (as I had absolutely no competence in programming at all and just could not use that much the shell, bear in mind I got a literary baccalaureate) I had to work more or less about 15 hours per day during these three weeks with one -forced- pause day where we did not have the right to login to work and where the school paid us an entry to an Aquapark (other more real type of pool).

Basically, what we have learned during these three weeks at a very tense pace is what someone would have learned a french university or faculty student in two years.

Now the interesting thing is that I will continue to learn but might also start working in various departments and labs such as Lab’Free or the Security Lab as well, talking about Mageia. The surprising thing is that there are several people there working on Ubuntu and discovering that this distribution sucks more and more when it comes to developing, according to what I hear in the corridors.

I am following Mageia, trying to be up-to-date while the project is in the starting blocks. I have sent a message, attempting to get a backup copy of the Mandriva Wiki, I should get a positive answer anytime soon, according to the terms of the license. Yet… what should I expect from Mandriva? Not much, so I am waiting to see…

I have been able to go at the Open World forum in Paris… quite a bit late as I had sort of a registration issue at the entrance, but I finally was able to enter to meet several nice people there among those who are behind the Mageia project.I have been able to talk to them and get some few news on what is happening behind the hood.

I was greeted by Anne, who I met first in the forum. She seemed quite happy and enthusiastic, and she greeted me very warmly. We have been able to talk for a while on how things were getting organized for Mageia. It appeared clearly that our famous “ex-employees” are facing a huge load of work planning the future of the Mageia projects, and are putting on themselves extra pressure on their shoulders, as they did not imagine at all there would be such a massive positive reaction from the community, ready and impatient to invest itself into Mageia. I was then able to join and talk with Damien, Arnaud Patard and Boklm. I only sadly missed Romain who could only be there in the morning.

What Anne told me was very clear : Mageia will be an open source project governed by a French association under the 1901 law, domiciled in Paris as an absolutely non-profit organization. The association’s status are still being carefully written to ensure there would be no way of causing any trouble or leave any possibility of hostile workaround that would we dangerous for the project. Yet, legal papers should be deposited at the Police Headquarters of Paris very soon, embracing the process of foundation of the association. The Mageia association will be officially created the day all of its status will be voted by the yet-to-be-formed association’s new board of directors.

But there is more that is prepared. The technical staff has been busy looking for extra domain names and hosting possibilities offered by several hosting services. The French Free Foundation (Free being one of the major ISP in France) will probably be able to offer free Internet access for the association and it’s facilities.

Currently, none of the money that has been received as donations from donate.mageia.org to Mageia has been used at all. In fact, they had to afford the first expenses themselves, Romain being the one who apparently spent the most money from his own pocket. However, the money received from the donation can be used any time soon, but I myself cannot tell when. Among the next expenses, brand new machines have to be bought, between one and six, to finally get a build system running and a reliable development platform. These machines are very expensive, but I cannot tell if once again they will pay from their own pocket or with the donations. I just do not know, but this is among the current steps they are in.

The logo should also be chosen in a few weeks time, as there has been discussions about a community goodies shop, where people could by nice Mageia tee-shirts and products showing the colours of our project at a reasonable price – Mageia being an association, there is apparently a way of cutting prices down. If I understood well (which is not guaranteed), there is also a web site design layout that is in progress. On the official forum side, I do not have news at all, except that there are people working on it as well.

So, this is basically all. Once the Open World Forum was pretty much over, we all went for a drink on the Avenue des Champs Élysées where I noticed, with some help, that I was indeed capable of being sometimes often off track when suggesting things on a mailing list (I definitely need to avoid posting late during the night), especially when retelling badly stories I learned from the past. People who read me know what I’m talking about. Anyway, that was a nice day, and I look forward to visit once again for another occasion.

The difficult thing is that, as I am going to start my first year at the Epitech (European Institute of Technology) and will be studying (very) hard from 8:00AM to… midnight for the next couple of weeks, I will certainly have much less time to participate than I ever used to do before. Let’s see how I manage to “organize” myself… in one way or the other…

As people are probably asking themselves what is happening currently, an answer can be provided for that : a massive amount of things are currently happening in Mageia. I guess a note from time to time to give clear news may help a little bit.

Basically, the association’s status are still in progress, the servers and build system are also in progress, and there is a Chinese translation that is to be published, but I do not have very precise information on all that stuff. However, there is some progress on the forum’s side.

Anne has asked for an official forum to be set up as quickly as possible. She has asked Raphael Jadot, one of the administrators of the AUFML, to find a way of hosting the forum for Mageia. But apparently, the one supposed to offer the hosting possibilities and providing the service seems to take his time, too much time… This kind of little issue often complicates things a lot, but there’s nothing much to do so we’re looking for a temporary yet comfortable hosting.

Once this hosting will be found (it may have already been found when you read this, who knows…), the following base rules will be applied, as Benoit Audouard (baud) has written it :
- use a free (as in freedom) forum engine
- international forum uses english language
- official & non-official local forums can be linked from
forum.mageia.org
- perhaps use openid to permit a single login (SSO) at least among
official forums / bugzilla / ideas / wiki
- official forums may be hosted on mageia’s own infrastructure once it’s
available
- CSS are welcome to enhance the appearance
- structure of the forum has yet to be defined (sub-forums, localized
forums)
- moderators team will come in time, just be patient
phpBB3 will probably be used, despite it’s cheesy security reputation, as it is one of the most used and practical platforms we can use. I do not know on what basis this is decided. But people coming from the Mandriva forums shall not be lost. There still needs to be an evaluation of the platform’s integration of future services for Ideas, bug tracking system, other languages, OpenID, etc.

So, there is a lot of work being made behind the hood of the project itself. And do see a small part of what’s going on. But to make it short, the official forum will appear anytime soon. 

(This image belongs to it’s respective owner. I just added it because I really like it and displays perfectly the image of the cauldron, with a potion being prepared in it. )