blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</div>
  24       <div class="date">29th July 2011</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
  26 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
  27 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
  28 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
  29 issues.</p>
  30
  31 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
  32 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
  33 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
  34
  35 <ol>
  36
  37 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
  38 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
  39 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
  40 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
  41 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
  42 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
  43 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
  44 Debian.</li>
  45
  46 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
  47 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
  48 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
  49 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
  50 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
  51 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
  52 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
  53 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
  54 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
  55 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
  56 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
  57 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
  58 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
  59
  60 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
  61 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
  62 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
  63 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
  64 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
  65 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
  66 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
  67 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
  68 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
  69 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
  70
  71 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
  72 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
  73 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
  74 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
  75 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
  76 latter behaviour.</li>
  77
  78 </ol>
  79
  80 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
  81 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
  82 it do not matter much.</p>
  83
  84 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
  85 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
  86 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
  87 </div>
  88
  89       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.</div>
  90
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