OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05 [LWN.net]

Dan Kegel has been taking notes at OSDL's Desktop Architect meeting. "[Novell Linux Desktop] was a quick test. Turned out to be wildly successful. Next version will be more serious. Gap-filling needed to hit basic office user. We do usability testing during development (betterdesktop.org). We even send usability testers out to different countries to avoid country bias. Test ten tasks per week. Actually have developers for those bits on hand. Evening after the tests, developers try to address the issues. Sometimes this lets us improve rapidly during the week. Other times it's too hard, hopefully the videos on the web site will let others do the improvements later."

OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Posted Dec 2, 2005 23:37 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (2 responses)

Non-uniformity of wireless drivers is obviously a kernel issue, but it's also not something that only the desktop people would want. Sure, there are desktop people who care, and they're complaining in this case, but I'd guess that it would be an issue for anybody who actually uses wireless. Setting up wireless to get ssh going on a PDA with no keyboard is even more of a pain that what the desktop people are worried about, I bet.

I think it would be fine for the desktop to be seen as on top of the OS, so long as people recognize the obvious consequence that the OS has to have a suitable interface for programs like the desktop to use, which means that the kernel can't rely on users' ability to figure simple things out (which of these options is likely to be the WEP key?) and know what's going on (did I just mount or hotplug something?)

Uniformity of wireless drivers

Posted Dec 3, 2005 0:56 UTC (Sat) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (1 responses)

Things are improving now. The generic 802.11 layer is in the kernel, and it has a homepage and a mailing list.

Uniformity of wireless drivers

Posted Dec 3, 2005 5:36 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Ya.. the generic 802.11 protocol stack is nice, most new drivers are going to be using it.

For instance the effort to support broadcom based on docs gathered from reversed engineered binary drivers are going to be using the generic protocol stack.

Also support for rt2400 and rt2500 usb/pci/minipci devices are being reworked to the generic 802.11 protocol stack even though open source drivers work fine (for x86 only though.. they seem to be windows ndis drivers ported to Linux and have many issues such as endian problems). Called rt2x00 btw.

The module is ieee80211 and once that is done it should make it much easier to support things like new encryption methods and make those changes aviable to as many devices as possible instead of having to go thru and update each and every driver.

OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Posted Dec 3, 2005 5:07 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Sorry i dont know if its related, but i happen to have read, 2 days ago, that some William dont know who?, was found under his bed, with his bedpot sticked on his head... because of open desktop or something !?.. does anyone have a clue ?...

Nevermind.

I belive that now *finally* is the time to start to see who's? got the best desktop,... Who's gonna have the power in the future to influence world politics on IT matters because the majority of users are on his side.

Its going to be a little slow, OK!, naturally... and even more because of that natural slowness, the end goals can never be nothing short of the best "Full 3D" with voice inputing/outputting ergonomics.

I mean small gaps and lacks, in entreprise office and elsewhere, can be filled in the way, but end goals can be nothing short of *BOLD*, or all this turns out to be a short and time wasting frustration.

OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Posted Dec 3, 2005 9:15 UTC (Sat) by samb (guest, #32949) [Link] (1 responses)

Very very interesting reading.

OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Posted Dec 4, 2005 11:28 UTC (Sun) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link]

Yes, very interesting. I found this little jewel in there, concerning "a migration of 20000 desktops for a retail chain":

Overall solution cost was about 1/4 the cost of a standard PC/Windows solution; the savings was about the same as what the customer would have spent to open a new retail location. Starting last year, security has been a major selling point; customers are really tired of windows viruses. Pricing is flat per user, plus a small maintenance fee.

[emphasis added]

OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Posted Dec 4, 2005 19:22 UTC (Sun) by bryce (guest, #16388) [Link] (1 responses)

I've written up my own observations about the meeting, but more
high level than Dan...

http://www.bryceharrington.org/blosxom.cgi/2005/12/03#dam

OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Posted Dec 4, 2005 22:49 UTC (Sun) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link]

Thank you for providing additional information and insight. Most of us will never have the opportunity to experience such a gathering first-hand. This makes such reports by participants a valuable resource.