[Mageia-dev] xguest and the display manager

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2012/2/20 Guillaume Rousse <guillomovitch at gmail.com>:
> Le 20/02/2012 15:45, Olav Vitters a écrit :
>
>> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 11:59:02AM +0100, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
>>>
>>> No. Configuring a user computer should be left to end-user, not to
>>> packagers providing 'just click here' blackbox solutions.
>>> Documenting how to achieve the same result manually, and outlining
>>> consequences, would be a far better solution toward user awareness.
>>
>>
>> I just want to get something done, I don't want to have to care about
>> the details (not interested). E.g., to follow network time, I'd like a
>> "follow network time" on/off checkbox instead of knowing to install
>> ntpd, configuring it, ensuring it starts up when needed, follows IP
>> address changes, etc.
>
> In order to follow time change, you need a dedicated program, so it makes
> sense to install a package, and to configure it. You can it manually, with
> any kind of fancy configuration wizard, no problem.
>
> In order to have a 'guest user', which usually means a passwordless user,
> you don't need any additional software, you just need to configure your
> computer. Hence my point than using a package to automatically performing
> those configuration changes doesn't make sense, and than either a plain
> documentation, or another fancy configuration wizard would work as well.
>

One of the strong points of Mandrake/Mandriva which was advertized
everywhere was that a novice user was able to install the system
without any "expert's" help while at the same time it was ready to be
used by an expert with all the tinkering and customization an expert
would love to spend his time on. Mageia 1 met this level.

I would be very disappointed (to say the least) if this "two lane
road" would be narrowed down, whether it would be towards a fast lane
or a side road.

xguest is a must have for many (example: everybody who takes his
machine to events or to demo Mageia anywhere). Adding it after
installation is not as easy as adding a regular user - xguest has
special features (like only temporary saving of changes/new
documents). So having a rpm which does that for you is one of the
"nice to have" things which makes the distribution userfriendly.

-- 
wobo