F23 changes and the workstation
by Matthias Clasen
I haven't been following the F23 change proposals very closely, so I
was a little surprised when I found that the 'default local dns
resolver' feature as currently implemented will affect the workstation
quite a bit, despite what the Change page claims ("It is not something
a user would notice").
I think we should take a look at other changes that are in the queue
for F23 with an eye towards unexpected surprises like that.
8 years, 9 months
concern over fedora's meeting videos
by kendell clark
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hi all
The subject is kind of vague, so I'll try to clarify. In order to
participate in video meetings with fedora's council or anyone else
that uses it, you currently have to use google hangouts. I'm not
averse to this even though it's closed source software, but there's
still a rather concerning issue. Currently, I believe, I don't know
for sure, but I think the only way to do this is by installing either
google chrome or chromium. This wouldn't be a problem, except that
chrome and chromium provide no accessibility support. That is, orca,
the main linux screen reader, cannot get at the contents of web pages
to read them. This can be fixed by installing an addon to
chrome/chromium called chromevox, which is a screen reader
specifically designed for chrome. This isn't a major problem, except
that until this is done, a blind person cannot use chrome. The
procedure for doing this isn't at all intuitive. You have to go to the
chrome app store, type in chromevox, and install it. After this,
chrome will be accessible. This isn't easy to do in fedora, largely
because fedora doesn't feature chromium, and I object to chrome's
license. I'm not writing in to complain, but just to ask if there are
any plans in place to migrate away from something that requires a
specific web browser to participate in? If this were doable in firefox
or any derivitives, this would not be an issue, because firefox and
it's spinoffs are accessible to orca.
Thanks
Kendell clark
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8 years, 9 months
Patent-free software where it makes sense
by Alex Puchades
Hi, my name is Alex and I've been a Fedora user for a long time. Also, I'm
quite new to this list. I know a lot of people (myself included) that agree
with Fedora not integrating propietary software into the system, as Ubuntu
does in many different ways, especially in the installer. To put things
clear, I'd never advocate for that.
However, there's one issue I think deserves a little more consideration.
There is another kind of software that is perfectly fine free software but
is also excluded from a default Fedora install. That is, patent encumbered
software. As you know, there are some patents that are not valid outside
USA (ie: subpixel rendering, MP3). That software is provided in third-party
repositories like RPMFusion in the form of "-freetype" packages.
The lack-by-default of these packages presents a clear usability issue for
non-quite-that-technical users and it greatly hurts the user experience for
everyone. So, is there any way that Fedora could enforce this patent-free
position where it makes sense (the USA), but includes it (or at least gives
the user the option at installation time) if allowed by local laws?
--
Álex Puchades
8 years, 9 months
LAS F22 review - summary
by Ankur Sinha
Hi,
The LAS reviewed F22 recently (the F22 review starts at about
1:07:00)[1]. They had quite a few good things to say and some
suggestions on the issue that they ran into. Just forwarding them here
FYI :)
Positives:
- Ease of setting up on-line accounts etc
- Notifications that tell you what you need but don't disturb you
- Network captive portal that comes up automatically
- Gnome software and the work done to make apps available in it
- Focus that the rings approach brings
- DNF works well
- Improvements to anaconda
- FedUp redesign works well (although I've read that fedup will be
dropped from F23)
- Server product defaults to XFS
Issues:
- After login on the captive portal, no indication that you've been
connected (he said his wife would've gotten stuck there, for example,
since she'd assume the captive portal is the browser itself).
Suggestion was that the captive portal closes once the user has logged
in and connection to the internet established.
- GDM Wayland on some Nvidia cards didn't work - documented on the
common bugs page, though, with a workaround.
- Global dark themes seem incomplete - text and text boxes are both
black, so text can't be read easily - needs the user to tweak to fix.
[1] http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/83032/fedora-22-review-las-367/
--
Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur Sinha "FranciscoD"
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ankursinha
8 years, 9 months
Font rendering, 2015
by Matthew Miller
Okay, so, here we go again with this... well, actually, hoping *not*
to, but one specific thing keeps coming up. As far as I know,
the patents affecting freetype expired, and the "freetype-freeworld"
package from third party repositories no longer has any special sauce.
Yet, I still see people swearing up and down that this makes a big
difference, it's included in "making fonts in Fedora look good" guides
everywhere — even though that patent expiration was now long ago. And I
see that in RPMFusion, the "freetype-freeworld" package still exists
and is regularly updated.
So, what's going on with this? My uneducated guess is that the
"freeworld" package simply enables autohinting that we have off by
default and does not contain any magic sauce. Is this correct?
(On the other hand "Infinality" is a set of patches to Freetype, and
appears specifically tuned for various sets of non-free fonts.)
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
8 years, 9 months
Fedora.next PRD refresh
by Stephen Gallagher
== Overview ==
Back at the beginning of the Fedora.next initiative when we created the
working groups, we tasked them with creating "Product Requirement
Documents" (PRDs) to guide the development of each of these core
groups.
* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/Workstation_PRD
*
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Env_and_Stacks/Product_Requirements_Doc
ument
* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Cloud/Cloud_PRD?rd=Cloud_PRD
* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Server/Product_Requirements_Document
More than a year has passed and the Fedora Council feels that it's a
good time to give another pass at these documents and re-align them,
both with the current reality and the next phase of this process.
Additionally, the Council feels that it would be good to perform such a
re-alignment and update each year.
This year, we have set an admittedly short deadline: the PRDs need to
be updated and ready for review on June 12th (11 days from now). In the
future, this will be scheduled further in advance and with more time to
address it (see below).
== What do we have to do? ==
There are two things that should be done during a PRD refresh exercise
(though their implementation is left as an exercise to the Working
Groups).
1) Review the PRD for plans that are outdated. Some examples:
* Support for CPU architectures that no longer make sense
* Features that have been de-prioritized or indefinitely deferred
* References to technology that has been replaced or obsoleted
2) Add new plans and requirements for the evolving technology. Some
possible examples:
* Fedora Cloud commits to producing an implementation of the Nulecule
Container Specification
* Fedora Server commits to producing Server Roles that can be
migrated to a Fedora Atomic deployment
* Fedora Workstation integrates seamlessly with a self- or publicly
-hosted ownCloud deployment.
(Optional): The PRD review period may be an excellent time for those
WGs with persistent membership to evaluate whether it is time to
refresh the WG membership as well.
== Future PRD Refreshes ==
Starting at Flock 2016 (yes, *next* calendar year), each working group
will have a workshop scheduled at Flock to go over its PRD and plan for
the following year. Note: because Flock generally falls between Alpha
and Beta of a Fedora release, all PRD planning is presumed to be a
directive for Fedora N+1 and N+2 at that time, not retroactively
applied to the current release.
The workshops are expected to cover the majority of the update, and
then they will be brought back to the respective mailing lists for
further review before being due to the Council one month after Flock
concludes.
8 years, 9 months
Workstation WG Recap 2015-Jun-08
by Paul W. Frields
Minutes: http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2015-06-08/workstation.20...
Minutes (text): http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2015-06-08/workstation.20...
Log: http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2015-06-08/workstation.20...
* * *
===============================
#fedora-meeting: Workstation WG
===============================
Meeting started by stickster at 13:00:01 UTC. The full logs are
available at
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2015-06-08/workstation.20...
.
Meeting summary
---------------
* Roll call! (stickster, 13:00:09)
* PRD refresh (stickster, 13:04:02)
* LINK:
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2015-June/012419.html
(juhp_, 13:09:47)
* IDEA: Future discussion: How to make developer software/tools/docs
more discoverable at first login (stickster, 13:20:11)
* IDEA: Add to PRD: A set of important third party apps are
installable -- (tested/verified before Beta) (stickster, 13:23:45)
* LINK: http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/intellij-idea.git/ --
retired. (stickster, 13:24:40)
* IDEA: work xdg-app into technical specification or relevant roadmap
document (stickster, 13:46:07)
* LINK:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/2015_report_to_Council
(stickster, 13:49:28)
* Contributions to that page will be gratefully accepted (stickster,
13:50:53)
* ACTION: stickster Make changes to Workstation PRD page based on
mcatanzaro contributions (stickster, 13:51:32)
* ACTION: stickster Start assembling Council report at above link, and
note to list for WG member contributions (stickster, 13:57:11)
Meeting ended at 13:57:51 UTC.
Action Items
------------
* stickster Make changes to Workstation PRD page based on mcatanzaro
contributions
* stickster Start assembling Council report at above link, and note to
list for WG member contributions
Action Items, by person
-----------------------
* mcatanzaro
* stickster Make changes to Workstation PRD page based on mcatanzaro
contributions
* stickster
* stickster Make changes to Workstation PRD page based on mcatanzaro
contributions
* stickster Start assembling Council report at above link, and note to
list for WG member contributions
* **UNASSIGNED**
* (none)
People Present (lines said)
---------------------------
* stickster (68)
* mclasen_ (23)
* mcatanzaro (18)
* kalev (15)
* cschalle (11)
* juhp_ (6)
* zodbot (5)
* rdieter (4)
Generated by `MeetBot`_ 0.1.4
.. _`MeetBot`: http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
The open source story continues to grow: http://opensource.com
8 years, 9 months
alsa-firmware missing from major desktop spins
by Enrico Tagliavini
Hi there,
I've just done a fresh install of Fedora 22 KDE spin on a Dell
Alienware 15 and stumbled upon a very weird issue: audio works, but
volume control is broken. This is due to alsa-firmware being missing
from the default installation group.
Had a quick chat with Rex Dieter (rdieter) in #fedora-kde and he told me:
<rdieter_work> commit 320e6ccc3b524a5146daafe7717cdc18598d97e6 Author:
Peter Robinson <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat May 31 21:02:43 2014
+0100
<rdieter_work> make alsa-firmware optional. It supports a tiny
collection of specialist devices and adds reasonable size to minimal
images
but I wonder if this is still the case. Currently it seems there are
root@alientux ~ # rpm -ql alsa-firmware | grep '^/lib/firmware' | awk
-F / '{print $4}' | uniq | wc -l
19
drivers and about
root@alientux ~ # rpm -ql alsa-firmware | grep '^/lib/firmware' | grep
'\..\+$' | wc -l
100
firmware files. I can agree that most of them might not be very
common, but it doesn't sound very good not to give people with such
hardware a sub-optimal out of the box experience.
My specific case:
root@alientux ~ # lspci | grep Audio
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core
Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset
High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
which means snd_hda_intel with creative chip. The driver requires
firmware file ctefx.bin to work correctly.
The minimal image size argument is still very valid in my opinion.
People using this kind of minimal images are unlikely to have this
hardware. However people installing Workstation or KDE spins are
1. interested in having a good out of the box hardware support
2. possibly are not expert enough to know about dmesg or firmware
packages (not I'm a professional SysAdmin, and still this turned out
not to be trivial mostly due to cluttered dmesg because of the
wireless driver ath10k having massive problems with firmware)
3. size matter less for these images. They are over 1 GB already and
the entire alsa-firmware package is 11 MB on disk.
I would like to ask for your opinion and possibly bring alsa-firmware
back by default for the proper use cases (mainly desktop spins).
Best regards.
Enrico Tagliavini
8 years, 9 months
proposal: provide more complete freedesktop sound theme support compatibility in gnome
by kendell clark
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hi all
I've been thinking on this for a while, and I think this is something
gnome should do well. Gnome's support for the freedesktop sound theme
standard is a little incomplete. The sounds that currently play are,
desktop-login, hardware-added, hardware-removed, power-plug,
power-unplug, terminal-bell for when you've reached the end of a line
or end of a list. It's possible that the chat sounds play, but in my
experience they only work if the application you're using supports
sounds, and then it uses it's own. Incoming and outgoing call might
also work, I've never gotten a call that triggered any sounds. New
mail sounds also work. I've verified this by installing a different
sound theme, known as fresh and clean, which has lots more sounds than
the basic freedesktop one does. Incidentally, I really hope that gnome
can add back the ability to choose a different sound theme in the
sound control panel. Taking it out was a bad idea. I'd be happy to
help anyone who is interested in improving this, I know a little bit
about the freedesktop sound theme spec. These are just suggestions,
But I can start working on it if anyone is interested. I'm not exactly
sure what component needs changing, perhapse the libgsound library? I
think this fits into gnome's goal of being a user friendly desktop,
especially since sounds are useful for the visually impaired.
Thoughts, suggestions?
Thanks
Kendell clark
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8 years, 9 months