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- <item>
- <title>What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
-mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
-desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
-parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
-issues.</p>
-
-<p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
-implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
-do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
-
-<ol>
-
-<li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
-are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
-indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
-tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
-through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
-this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
-time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
-Debian.</li>
-
-<li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
-plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
-currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
-should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
-and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
-advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
-Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
-it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
-type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
-license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
-more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
-make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
-not the browser for any missing features.</li>
-
-<li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
-handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
-it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
-should search for a package that would add support for it. This
-happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
-and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
-plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
-gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
-the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
-explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
-
-<li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
-displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
-start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
-in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
-know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
-latter behaviour.</li>
-
-</ol>
-
-<p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
-upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
-it do not matter much.</p>
-
-<p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
-Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
-maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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