Hi, last week I asked on my Czech blog what people are missing on the Linux desktop, mainly Fedora Workstation. It was picked by all major Czech Linux sites and received literally hundreds of responses. I went through them and created a summary for you. Some of it are well-known issues/features, some points were new to me. If something is not clear, just let me know and I'll be happy to explain it: INSTALLER It was mentioned several times as something that put off users when trying Fedora. In pretty much all cases it was partitioning that was the problem (too complicated, different to what they're used to). Some of the experiences were a couple of years old, so it might have improved, but apparently we still have reserves here. One of the more concrete points: * Missing ability to choose where to place the bootloader (it's there, but very well hidden and cumbersome to set up). UPDATES Quite a few people complained about having to restart to install updates. I know objective reasons for this, but it's important to understand that it's perceived as annoying by users and we should strive for minimizing the number of packages that need to be updated offline. UPGRADES One of the most frequent request was an LTS version. When I asked why, the answer was typically that upgrades still bring incompatibilities, regressions, lost settings. The most frequently mentioned offender was NM, other mentioned problems were mostly hardware related (regressions in graphics, dockin station support, sound). SHELL * the Activities hot corner is triggered too easily. We used to have the "pressure" feature on X11 which prevented accidental triggering, but it seems to be gone on Wayland. It's a UX problem for many users. * Ability to turn off effects on less powerful computers. * Some extensions make the Shell crash. * Switching between keyboard layouts loses focus (e.g. when you press Super+Space while e.g. typing in a search field you need to click to the search field again to continue typing) * When you use one of the tiling gestures you then can't change the size of the tiled window. * There is no presentation mode which would disable notifications, screensaver inhibitor etc. * Multitouch gestures more widely used and unified across the desktop (GTK vs Qt). GDM * You can not turn NumLock on by default. * You have to restart to switch from GNOME Classic to GNOME (perhaps a bug in F25?). WAYLAND Not really big surprises here: * Missing remote desktop (one of the most frequent comments at all). * Missing color picker support. * Missing screen sharing. * Missing something like xdotool (shotcuts for window manipulations, e.g. to show/hide a window of certain app) SETTINGS * Many people complained about splitting settings into g-c-c and g-t-t, tried to explain the reason, but nevertheless it's one of the most common complaints. LOCALIZATION Users don't get a fully localized system after installing Fedora. Many languages don't have all l10n packages on the installation ISO and users have to run 'sudo dnf install langpacks-*' manually to install missing packages, but most users don't have a clue about this and just think that the missing localization is not in Fedora at all. Mainly LibreOffice suffers from this not being localized at all. This is a long known problem and we should really fix it and install the missing packages automatically either during installation or in the initial experience. There have been a couple of other complaints about locatization, everything language specific. But localization seems to be very important to users and they're very sensitive to untranslated pieces of UI, especially if it's what's perceived as part of the system, it makes the system look amateurish. PDF Many complaints about PDF support, mostly: * Evince doesn't support non-ascii characters in PDF forms, this is a major problem for many people. * Some PDF forms refuse to work with anything but Acrobat Reader although they may work just fine with Evince, faking a reader's identity might be a solution here. * Incomplete support for PDF 1.7. DIALOGS * "file save dialog" doesn't have "Recent" any more and if you save a couple of files in the same location, you have to go through the full path every time instead of clicking Recent and pick the destination folder directly. APPLICATIONS * gnome-software has problems to fetch content (e.g. screenshots) behind a proxy. * A new chat app (unlikely to happen due to the nature of current IM services). * More modern and better looking presentation templates and graphs in LibreOffice. * Ability to install Android apps. * Difficult Thunderbird<->Evolution migration. * OneDrive integration in Nautilus/GOA. * Firefox should have tabs integrated into the title bar just like on Window. * Cannot connect to GOA accounts after log out and log in to the account (it's a known systemd bug, but a pretty annoying one and we have had it for several releases already).   GPU as expected a very hot area, most frequent complaints: * Nvidia driver is hard to install and it breaks with kernel updates. * Support for switchable graphics cards (not sure the complainers have tried F25 and newer). * Support for video output through different cards. HARDWARE People ask for supported laptop models where stuff like suspend, hot keys, wifi, bluetooth would be quaranteed to work on Fedora. * Canon printers need to be set up after every kernel update. * Better battery life. * Missing a "Pan/Scroll" feature in Wacom tablet support. * Fedora support for ARM laptops (Chromebooks). * Bad support for screen between 120 and 192 DPI which is a vast majority of monitors with better DPI in the market. Users can partly fix it by manual tweaks (larger fonts etc.), but they can't be done per screen. SOUND * Can't control volume of a connected bluetooth speaker (general problem or device specific?). * PulseAudio doesn't remember settings for multichannel setups after restart. GRUB * a tool on a live ISO the user can boot and fix their broken bootloader. BUG HANDLING A couple of users complained that bug reports in RHBZ get ignored which discourages them to report problems. Jiri

UPDATES Quite a few people complained about having to restart to install updates. I know objective reasons for this, but it's important to understand that it's perceived as annoying by users and we should strive for minimizing the number of packages that need to be updated offline.

UPGRADES One of the most frequent request was an LTS version. When I asked why, the answer was typically that upgrades still bring incompatibilities, regressions, lost settings. The most frequently mentioned offender was NM, other mentioned problems were mostly hardware related (regressions in graphics, dockin station support, sound).

* Some extensions make the Shell crash.

* You have to restart to switch from GNOME Classic to GNOME (perhaps a bug in F25?).

WAYLAND Not really big surprises here: * Missing remote desktop (one of the most frequent comments at all). * Missing color picker support.

LOCALIZATION Users don't get a fully localized system after installing Fedora. Many languages don't have all l10n packages on the installation ISO and users have to run 'sudo dnf install langpacks-*' manually to install missing packages, but most users don't have a clue about this and just think that the missing localization is not in Fedora at all. Mainly LibreOffice suffers from this not being localized at all. This is a long known problem and we should really fix it and install the missing packages automatically either during installation or in the initial experience.

There have been a couple of other complaints about locatization, everything language specific. But localization seems to be very important to users and they're very sensitive to untranslated pieces of UI, especially if it's what's perceived as part of the system, it makes the system look amateurish.

PDF Many complaints about PDF support, mostly: * Evince doesn't support non-ascii characters in PDF forms, this is a major problem for many people. * Some PDF forms refuse to work with anything but Acrobat Reader although they may work just fine with Evince, faking a reader's identity might be a solution here. * Incomplete support for PDF 1.7.

* Firefox should have tabs integrated into the title bar just like on Window.

* Cannot connect to GOA accounts after log out and log in to the account (it's a known systemd bug, but a pretty annoying one and we have had it for several releases already).

BUG HANDLING A couple of users complained that bug reports in RHBZ get ignored which discourages them to report problems.

Well - shouldn't you at least make an effort to announce this change very prominently to packagers *before* making it? They may, at present, not be paying a lot of attention to that field, if it's well known that it doesn't affect the prominence or frequency of notifications in practice.

> BUG HANDLING > A couple of users complained that bug reports in RHBZ get ignored > which > discourages them to report problems. We must close all GNOME packages to bug reports. GNOME problems just have to be reported upstream. We can't handle the volume on Red Hat Bugzilla, which half the relevant maintainers do not check.

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Adam Williamson <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote: > This would be a major problem for the release validation process. We > need to be able to track the *downstream* status of release blocking > fixes. An upstream bug is not a good way to do this. Probably the best solution is not to actually forbid filing bugs, but to have a bot that adds a comment that the bug is unlikely to be reviewed on Red Hat Bugzilla and instructing the user as to how to report the bug upstream. Then we can just ignore that comment when we need a bug for release validation purposes etc.

On May 3, 2017, at 00:34, Adam Williamson <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote: > > > On Tue, 2017-05-02 at 20:59 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote: > > On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Adam Williamson > > <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote: > > > This would be a major problem for the release validation process. We > > > need to be able to track the *downstream* status of release blocking > > > fixes. An upstream bug is not a good way to do this. > > > > Probably the best solution is not to actually forbid filing bugs, but > > to have a bot that adds a comment that the bug is unlikely to be > > reviewed on Red Hat Bugzilla and instructing the user as to how to > > report the bug upstream. Then we can just ignore that comment when we > > need a bug for release validation purposes etc. > > OK. And to be honest, this isn't limited to release validation and > blocker bugs. What generally happens when an RHBZ report gets kicked > upstream is the bug gets fixed...upstream. Often it only gets fixed on > git master, which means it will likely *never* get fixed in the Fedora > release it was actually filed against. If we're lucky the fix might > also be committed to the most recent stable branch, which is probably > the GNOME in the most recent Fedora release, so if there's ever another > point release on that branch (often there aren't any after .2), the fix > might *eventually* make its way back to the most recent Fedora release. > But if we're at .2, or the bug was filed on the previous stable Fedora > release, the fix may well never actually make it back to the Fedora > release the reporter is running without someone taking ownership and > bugging people to commit to different branches, do point releases, and > ship updates to Fedora. Other than more point releases and more branches, what's really the solution? I only see three real options: we convince upstream to do more point releases; we 'fork' it and do our own point releases, regardless of upstream; or we just bite the bullet and always ship latest Gnome, even if that means bumping major versions.  Is there a fourth option to you, Adam? Other than the status quo I mean.

OK. And to be honest, this isn't limited to release validation and blocker bugs. What generally happens when an RHBZ report gets kicked upstream is the bug gets fixed...upstream. Often it only gets fixed on git master, which means it will likely *never* get fixed in the Fedora release it was actually filed against. If we're lucky the fix might also be committed to the most recent stable branch, which is probably the GNOME in the most recent Fedora release, so if there's ever another point release on that branch (often there aren't any after .2), the fix might *eventually* make its way back to the most recent Fedora release. But if we're at .2, or the bug was filed on the previous stable Fedora release, the fix may well never actually make it back to the Fedora release the reporter is running without someone taking ownership and bugging people to commit to different branches, do point releases, and ship updates to Fedora.

From: "Michael Catanzaro" <mike.catanzaro(a)gmail.com&gt; To: "Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop" <desktop(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt; Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 8:32:20 PM Subject: Re: User's Feedback

> BUG HANDLING > A couple of users complained that bug reports in RHBZ get ignored > which > discourages them to report problems. We must close all GNOME packages to bug reports. GNOME problems just have to be reported upstream. We can't handle the volume on Red Hat Bugzilla, which half the relevant maintainers do not check. We also need to do some major, major work on ABRT client-side, maybe even rewrite the client side app from scratch. Michael

Problem is: most security updates are not high-priority. We do need daily notification for the most serious security updates, but the vast majority of security updates do not require expedited release. Our updates already have metadata to indicate the severity of the security issue (low/medium/high), so we should start notifying daily only for the high priority security updates and see how well that goes.

Well that's the result of turning off the version checks. There's no way to avoid this without removing support for extensions entirely, or requiring extension authors to validate compatibility. We decided to get rid of that step, so more crashes are to be expected.

What we should probably do is have a mechanism for flagging extensions as broken, so that they can be removed from extensions.gnome.org until they are fixed.

We must close all GNOME packages to bug reports. GNOME problems just have to be reported upstream. We can't handle the volume on Red Hat Bugzilla, which half the relevant maintainers do not check.

We also need to do some major, major work on ABRT client-side, maybe even rewrite the client side app from scratch.

Are you sure about that? in my opinion, any security update is high priority.

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 12:47 AM, Jiri Eischmann <eischmann(a)redhat.com > wrote: > Hi, > last week I asked on my Czech blog what people are missing on the > Linux > desktop, mainly Fedora Workstation. It was picked by all major > Czech > Linux sites and received literally hundreds of responses. I went > through them and created a summary for you. Some of it are well- > known > issues/features, some points were new to me. If something is not > clear, > just let me know and I'll be happy to explain it: > > INSTALLER > It was mentioned several times as something that put off users when > trying Fedora. In pretty much all cases it was partitioning that > was > the problem (too complicated, different to what they're used to). > Some > of the experiences were a couple of years old, so it might have > improved, but apparently we still have reserves here. One of the > more > concrete points: > * Missing ability to choose where to place the bootloader (it's > there, > but very well hidden and cumbersome to set up). > > UPDATES > Quite a few people complained about having to restart to install > updates. I know objective reasons for this, but it's important to > understand that it's perceived as annoying by users and we should > strive for minimizing the number of packages that need to be > updated > offline. > > UPGRADES > One of the most frequent request was an LTS version. When I asked > why, > the answer was typically that upgrades still bring > incompatibilities, > regressions, lost settings. The most frequently mentioned offender > was > NM, other mentioned problems were mostly hardware related > (regressions > in graphics, dockin station support, sound). > > SHELL > * the Activities hot corner is triggered too easily. We used to > have > the "pressure" feature on X11 which prevented accidental > triggering, > but it seems to be gone on Wayland. It's a UX problem for many > users. > * Ability to turn off effects on less powerful computers. > * Some extensions make the Shell crash. > * Switching between keyboard layouts loses focus (e.g. when you > press > Super+Space while e.g. typing in a search field you need to click > to > the search field again to continue typing) > * When you use one of the tiling gestures you then can't change the > size of the tiled window. > * There is no presentation mode which would disable notifications, > screensaver inhibitor etc. > * Multitouch gestures more widely used and unified across the > desktop > (GTK vs Qt). > > GDM > * You can not turn NumLock on by default. > * You have to restart to switch from GNOME Classic to GNOME > (perhaps a > bug in F25?). > > WAYLAND > Not really big surprises here: > * Missing remote desktop (one of the most frequent comments at > all). > * Missing color picker support. > * Missing screen sharing. > * Missing something like xdotool (shotcuts for window > manipulations, > e.g. to show/hide a window of certain app) > > SETTINGS > * Many people complained about splitting settings into g-c-c and g- > t-t, > tried to explain the reason, but nevertheless it's one of the most > common complaints. > > LOCALIZATION > Users don't get a fully localized system after installing Fedora. > Many > languages don't have all l10n packages on the installation ISO and > users have to run 'sudo dnf install langpacks-*' manually to > install > missing packages, but most users don't have a clue about this and > just > think that the missing localization is not in Fedora at all. Mainly > LibreOffice suffers from this not being localized at all. This is a > long known problem and we should really fix it and install the > missing > packages automatically either during installation or in the initial > experience. > There have been a couple of other complaints about locatization, > everything language specific. But localization seems to be very > important to users and they're very sensitive to untranslated > pieces of > UI, especially if it's what's perceived as part of the system, it > makes > the system look amateurish. > > PDF > Many complaints about PDF support, mostly: > * Evince doesn't support non-ascii characters in PDF forms, this is > a > major problem for many people. > * Some PDF forms refuse to work with anything but Acrobat Reader > although they may work just fine with Evince, faking a reader's > identity might be a solution here. > * Incomplete support for PDF 1.7. > > DIALOGS > * "file save dialog" doesn't have "Recent" any more and if you save > a > couple of files in the same location, you have to go through the > full > path every time instead of clicking Recent and pick the destination > folder directly. > > APPLICATIONS > * gnome-software has problems to fetch content (e.g. screenshots) > behind a proxy. > * A new chat app (unlikely to happen due to the nature of current > IM > services). > * More modern and better looking presentation templates and graphs > in > LibreOffice. > * Ability to install Android apps. > * Difficult Thunderbird<->Evolution migration. > * OneDrive integration in Nautilus/GOA. > * Firefox should have tabs integrated into the title bar just like > on > Window. > * Cannot connect to GOA accounts after log out and log in to the > account (it's a known systemd bug, but a pretty annoying one and we > have had it for several releases already). >   > GPU > as expected a very hot area, most frequent complaints: > * Nvidia driver is hard to install and it breaks with kernel > updates. > * Support for switchable graphics cards (not sure the complainers > have > tried F25 and newer). > * Support for video output through different cards. > > HARDWARE > People ask for supported laptop models where stuff like suspend, > hot > keys, wifi, bluetooth would be quaranteed to work on Fedora. > * Canon printers need to be set up after every kernel update. > * Better battery life. > * Missing a "Pan/Scroll" feature in Wacom tablet support. > * Fedora support for ARM laptops (Chromebooks). > * Bad support for screen between 120 and 192 DPI which is a vast > majority of monitors with better DPI in the market. Users can > partly > fix it by manual tweaks (larger fonts etc.), but they can't be done > per > screen. > > SOUND > * Can't control volume of a connected bluetooth speaker (general > problem or device specific?). > * PulseAudio doesn't remember settings for multichannel setups > after > restart. > > GRUB > * a tool on a live ISO the user can boot and fix their broken > bootloader. > > BUG HANDLING > A couple of users complained that bug reports in RHBZ get ignored > which > discourages them to report problems. > > Jiri Is it worth trying to track some of these in the Fedora Workstation pagure queue? I know some of these are upstream fixes, but we might be able to track them primarily in the pagure queue, and maybe discuss some temporary workarounds to ship while they are being fixed upstream.

Hey, ----- Original Message ----- > Hi, > last week I asked on my Czech blog what people are missing on the > Linux > desktop, mainly Fedora Workstation. It was picked by all major > Czech > Linux sites and received literally hundreds of responses. I went > through them and created a summary for you. Some of it are well- > known > issues/features, some points were new to me. If something is not > clear, > just let me know and I'll be happy to explain it: This kind of mega bug list is really unactionable. Somebody needs to take all the feedback, review it, and then start *separate* discussions about specific items. There's a bunch of items in there that are plain bugs, and a few that make no sense because they ask for things that already exist[1]. Reviewing and removing those items would shrink the apparent task, and avoid megathreads where nothing much ends up happening.

[1]: There's been a GSettings key for disabling animations for at least 7 years, there probably was a GConf one for 10 years before that too.

Bastien Nocera píše v St 03. 05. 2017 v 05:05 -0400: > Hey, > > ----- Original Message ----- > > Hi, > > last week I asked on my Czech blog what people are missing on the > > Linux > > desktop, mainly Fedora Workstation. It was picked by all major > > Czech > > Linux sites and received literally hundreds of responses. I went > > through them and created a summary for you. Some of it are well- > > known > > issues/features, some points were new to me. If something is not > > clear, > > just let me know and I'll be happy to explain it: > > This kind of mega bug list is really unactionable. Somebody needs to > take all the feedback, review it, and then start *separate* > discussions > about specific items. > > There's a bunch of items in there that are plain bugs, and a few that > make no sense because they ask for things that already exist[1]. > Reviewing and removing those items would shrink the apparent task, > and > avoid megathreads where nothing much ends up happening. It was not meant to be an actionable list, I just wanted to share what users see as the main pain points. I've already filed a couple of bugs about those problems and am making action items for problems in components my team is responsible for. If I have time, I'll try to process the rest into actionable items, too. > [1]: There's been a GSettings key for disabling animations for at > least > 7 years, there probably was a GConf one for 10 years before that too. Well, then it's a problem of discoverability. People just don't know about this key and they rather use an extension (Inpatient). I think running Fedora Workstation on an older computer is enough common to have it at least in the Tweak Tool.

> Both machines are capable of running GNOME, playing videos, and > launching > multiple applications at the same time. The only things that make a > difference > are the amount of RAM in the machine, so we can open multiple > applications > without swapping, and whether the storage device is a spinning hard > disk, or > a faster Flash drive. I use Fedora Workstation on an EndlessPC. It's not a particularly powerful machine, but it's sold with an GS-based system, and I wouldn't call it a smooth experience even without any apps opened.

My mom's T400 is at the edge.

> Being able to disable animations could still be an accessibility > setting, > but it will have no impact on people's ability to run GNOME and > applications > on older machines. That's correct, I must admit after some testing. Maybe people just confuse it with the low-graphics mode (or whatever they call it) from Ubuntu/Unity which is tuned to work on less powerful computers and where the effects are disabled and think that disabling effects in GS would have the same impact on performance.

> In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the animations not being smooth > should > be considered a bug. That'd mean synchronous I/O in mutter, or a horrible > block I/O scheduler in the Linux kernel. I've never seen smooth gnome-shell overview animations on my Intel Clarkdale (2 Cores, 4 Threads, 3.2GHz Frequency, 733MHz GPU Frequency) system from 2010. Same on different other machines, all newer (and better iGPU). Seems like you are pretty lucky. Especially the fade in transition on user login has never been smooth either: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=747599 Anyway, animations should be disabled on virtual machines, but they are not: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=771311

Maybe animations should even be disabled on all machines older than (e.g.) 5 years by default.

* Firefox should have tabs integrated into the title bar just like on Window.

* Switching between keyboard layouts loses focus (e.g. when you press Super+Space while e.g. typing in a search field you need to click to the search field again to continue typing)

On some web pages something similar does happen: if you switch layout mid-typing, the text in the form field is selected and if you don't take notice, you lose everything typed in the previous layout. I have seen it with several forms and facebook's graph search field. Maybe there is something amiss there.

Kamil Paral píše v Út 09. 05. 2017 v 14:48 +0200: > > On Thu, May 4, 2017 at 9:07 AM, Alexander Ploumistos <alex.ploumistos > @gmail.com> wrote: > > On some web pages something similar does happen: if you switch > > layout > > mid-typing, the text in the form field is selected and if you don't > > take notice, you lose everything typed in the previous layout. I > > have > > seen it with several forms and facebook's graph search field. Maybe > > there is something amiss there. > > > I can confirm this is sometimes happening, but I don't have any > example ready at the moment. You can open e.g. gedit, Ctrl+F, start typing to search, switch keyboard layouts and suddenly the search field and all you have typed is gone.

Hi, last week I asked on my Czech blog what people are missing on the Linux desktop, mainly Fedora Workstation. It was picked by all major Czech Linux sites and received literally hundreds of responses. I went through them and created a summary for you. Some of it are well-known issues/features, some points were new to me. If something is not clear, just let me know and I'll be happy to explain it:

INSTALLER […] UPDATES […] UPGRADES […]

SHELL […] * Some extensions make the Shell crash.

* Switching between keyboard layouts loses focus (e.g. when you press Super+Space while e.g. typing in a search field you need to click to the search field again to continue typing)

* When you use one of the tiling gestures you then can't change the size of the tiled window.

GDM […] WAYLAND Not really big surprises here: * Missing remote desktop (one of the most frequent comments at all).

* Missing color picker support. * Missing screen sharing.

* Missing something like xdotool (shotcuts for window manipulations, e.g. to show/hide a window of certain app)

SETTINGS * Many people complained about splitting settings into g-c-c and g-t-t, tried to explain the reason, but nevertheless it's one of the most common complaints.

LOCALIZATION […] PDF Many complaints about PDF support, mostly: * Evince doesn't support non-ascii characters in PDF forms, this is a major problem for many people.

DIALOGS * "file save dialog" doesn't have "Recent" any more and if you save a couple of files in the same location, you have to go through the full path every time instead of clicking Recent and pick the destination folder directly.

APPLICATIONS […] * A new chat app (unlikely to happen due to the nature of current IM services).

* More modern and better looking presentation templates and graphs in LibreOffice.

* Ability to install Android apps.

* Difficult Thunderbird<->Evolution migration.

* OneDrive integration in Nautilus/GOA.

* Firefox should have tabs integrated into the title bar just like on Window.

* Cannot connect to GOA accounts after log out and log in to the account (it's a known systemd bug, but a pretty annoying one and we have had it for several releases already).

GPU […] HARDWARE […] People ask for supported laptop models where stuff like suspend, hot keys, wifi, bluetooth would be quaranteed to work on Fedora. * Canon printers need to be set up after every kernel update. * Better battery life.

* Missing a "Pan/Scroll" feature in Wacom tablet support. * Fedora support for ARM laptops (Chromebooks). * Bad support for screen between 120 and 192 DPI which is a vast majority of monitors with better DPI in the market. Users can partly fix it by manual tweaks (larger fonts etc.), but they can't be done per screen.

SOUND […] GRUB […] BUG HANDLING A couple of users complained that bug reports in RHBZ get ignored which discourages them to report problems.