Revision as of 22:12, 3 January 2009

Fedora Lite Spin

Summary

Fedora LXDE Spin - Fedora for systems with limited resources

Owner

Name: Christoph Wickert
Added: Kam Salisbury
(feel free to add yourself)

Current status

Targeted release: Fedora 11
Last updated: 2009-01-04
Percentage of completion: 50% (we have a working kickstart file here and are doing final tweaks)

Detailed Description

The Fedora LXDE spin is meant to be a lightweight but yet complete desktop based on LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. For more information about LXDE please visit the LXDE wiki page .

Benefit to Fedora

Current Fedora installs need a lot of disk space and resources. This is an attempt to make Fedora suitable for older and smaller machines.

Scope

Some package reviews, livecd

Test Plan

get the kickstart file accepted by the spin SIG and add it to the KickstartPool
Run basic spin testing
Get the missing packages into Rawhide
Release alpha and beta releases in sync with Fedora 11 via torrent for testing
Test installs from livecd and usb, test livecdcreator
Things to test on LXDE
Work with Fedora QA to ensure that we have sufficient coverage
Spin should be released with F-11

User Experience

A modern but lightweight desktop including a panel, desktop icons and a file manager together with a collection of lightweight applications for every day needs.

Screenshots: Features/LXDE#Screenshots Fedora, Upstream

Package Selection Proposal

In addition to the packages already provided by LXDE here is a proposal for packages for the livecd.

Terminal Emulator	LXTerminal	X	roxterm, xterm	X
Web Browser	Midori	X	Kazehakase, Skipstone	X/-
Email Client	sylpheed	X	claws-mail	X
Instant Messaging	ayttm?
IRC	lostirc	X	xchat	X
Bittorrent	transmission	X	bittorrent-gui, linkage	X
Office	abiword, gnumeric	X	Siag Office
Calendar	dayplanner	X
Address Book	gfa	X
Document Viewer	E-PDF	X	gv	X
Audio Player	quodlibet, lxmusic	X/-	audacious, eina	X/-
Movie Player	gxine	X	whaawmp
CD Ripper	asunder	X	grip	X
Disc Burning	gnomebaker ?	X	graveman	orphaned
Image manipulation	mtpaint	X	[MyPaint]	X
Login Manager	SLiM	X	xdm	X
Calculator	galculator	X	xcalc	X
Clipboard Manager	parcellite	X
Wireless	NetworkManager-gnome		wicd, Wifi Radar

Please add your suggestions at Talk:Features/LXDESpin#Proposed_applications

Dependencies

Features/LXDE (done)
SIGs/Spins/SpinSubmissionProcess
Some new LXDE apps that should be in the final spin

Contingency Plan

Don't ship the spin

Documentation

Most of the packages ship their own manpages and are well documented

Upstream documentation:

Release Notes

tbd

Comments and Discussion

feel free to add a comment at Talk:Features/LXDESpin

References

LXDE Forum - Lightweight applications list: http://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9
Xfce Wiki - List of recommended applications: http://wiki.xfce.org/recommendedapps
tuxmachines.org - Top 5 Tiny Distros: http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/26480
DeviceGuru - Getting to know Ubuntu Lite: http://www.deviceguru.com/getting-to-know-ubuntu-lite/

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 == Summary ==
-Fedora Lite Spin - Fedora for systems with limited resources
+Fedora LXDE Spin - Fedora for systems with limited resources
 == Owner ==
@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 * Targeted release: [[Releases/11|  Fedora 11]]
 * Last updated: 2009-01-04
-* Percentage of completion: 50%
+* Percentage of completion: 50% (we have a working kickstart file here and are doing final tweaks)
 == Detailed Description ==
-Fedora lite is meant to be a lightweight but yet complete desktop based on LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. For more information about LXDE please visit the [[Features/LXDE|  LXDE wiki page]] .
+The Fedora LXDE spin is meant to be a lightweight but yet complete desktop based on LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. For more information about LXDE please visit the [[Features/LXDE|  LXDE wiki page]] .
 == Benefit to Fedora ==
@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 == Test Plan ==
-# get the kickstart file accepted by the spin SIG and add it to the [[SIGs/Spins/KickstartPool]]
+# get the kickstart file accepted by the spin SIG and add it to the [[SIGs/Spins/KickstartPool|KickstartPool]]
+# Run [[JeremyKatz/SpinChecklist#Testing_of_the_Spin| basic spin testing]]
 # Get the missing packages into Rawhide
 # Release alpha and beta releases in sync with Fedora 11 via torrent for testing
-# Run the spin through the QA team basic set of tests on i386 and x86_64 platforms
+# Test installs from livecd and usb, test livecdcreator
+# [[Features/LXDE#Things_to_test| Things to test on LXDE]]
 # Work with Fedora QA to ensure that we have sufficient coverage
 # Spin should be released with F-11
@@ Line 41: / Line 42: @@
 A modern but lightweight desktop including a panel, desktop icons and a file manager together with a collection of lightweight applications for every day needs.
-Screenshots: http://lxde.org/image_galleries/screenshots
+Screenshots: [[Features/LXDE#Screenshots Fedora]], [http://lxde.org/image_galleries/screenshots Upstream]
 == Package Selection Proposal ==
 In addition to [[Features/LXDE#Detailed_Description|  the packages already provided by LXDE]]  here is a proposal for packages for the livecd.
 {| style="t1" rowclass="th" tablewidth="97%"
 |-
@@ Line 67: / Line 68: @@
 | Document Viewer || [http://trac.emma-soft.com/epdfview/ E-PDF]  || X || gv || X
 |-
-| Audio Player || [http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet/ quodlibet], lxmusic  || X/- || audacious, [http://eina.sourceforge.net/ eina] || X/-
+| Audio Player || [http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet/ quodlibet], [http://wiki.lxde.org/en/LXMusic lxmusic] || X/- || audacious, [http://eina.sourceforge.net/ eina] || X/-
 |-
 | Movie Player || [http://xinehq.de/ gxine]  || X || [http://home.gna.org/whaawmp/ whaawmp] ||
@@ Line 87: / Line 88: @@
 <!--  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||
 -->
+Please add your suggestions at [[Talk:Features/LXDESpin#Proposed_applications]]
 == Dependencies ==
@@ Line 104: / Line 106: @@
 Upstream documentation:
 * http://lxde.org/faq.html
-* http://lxde.org/wiki/
+* http://wiki.lxde.org/
+* http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Fedora
 == Release Notes ==
 tbd
-== Issues/Questions ==
+== Comments and Discussion ==
-* (Un)mounting of removable media. Can be done via hald with pcmanfm.
-* Inclusion of system-config tools
-* What about wireless? We cannot include NM-gnome because it would pull in gconf and friends. Will system-config-network suffice?
-* Remove locales or docs to minimize the space requirements?
-* get rid of NetworkManager-gnome. ATM there is no proper alternative in Fedora
-* get rid of Gconf. ATM several apps require it.
-== Long Term ==
-* Make Fedora lite even lighter.
-** Firefox -> Midori
-** gnomebaker -> ?
-** ...
-* Make Anaconda work with less RAM?
-** Anaconda doing a live install will require less RAM (as it's not doing package installs).  Your biggest RAM requirement will be that changes to the live image are kept in RAM and so lower RAM systems suffer on the live images.  Requiring that they use persistence (which is landing in Fedora 9) will help, but make things less easy  (katzj)
-* Encourage cooperation with [http://www.rule-project.org the RULE Project] . Can we integrate (parts of) RULE into Fedora, e.g slinky?
-== Comments ==
-* I have hard to believe that this stripping down is useful when installer doesn't work with less 512MB of RAM. :-( MatejCepl
-** Huh? I remember I did a graphical install of F7 on a laptop with 256 MB of RAM. ChristophWickert
-* For IM and IRC, I propose Pidgin, considering that it works as both the IM Client and IRC solution. - JuanRodriguezMoreno
-** but this would pull in gconf _and_ gstreamer again ... - ChristophWickert
-** pidgin sucks, because it requires a lot of stuff (evolution-data-server, pango), shouldn't we say that our users shouldn't use anything else than Jabber (and IRC via irssi or xchat) and then we can use tkabber (never used, so I am not exactly sure how lightweight it really is). MatejCepl
-* What is the target audience for this spin? Beginners, advanced users, experts? This could also affect the used packages (imho emelfm's target is not beginners) SebastianVahl
-** Perhaps users who cannot afford to upgrade their hardware?  For example, in the rural or inner cities areas in America, or in the poorer countries elsewhere in the world?
-=== Suggestions for additional packages (by SebastianVahl) ===
-* Multimedia Engine: xine or gstreamer (IMHO the latter would be better)
-** I suggest Xine, IMO gstreamer would blow things up to much. ChristophWickert
-** Movie Player: [http://home.gna.org/whaawmp/ whaawmp]  (somehow broken atm; not in Fedora) or gxine (in Fedora) SebastianVahl
-*** whaawmp is definitively worth a look if we decide to use gsteamer, otherwise I agree with gxine ChristophWickert
-*** whaawmp has one disadvantage in my eyes: it prints a confusing error message when a needed codec for a file isn't installed. SebastianVahl
-* Instant Messanging: licq? (never used it; in Fedora)
-** licq would be good because it also ships a gtk interface, but for me it was crashing very often when I tested it :( ChristophWickert
-** The basic licq package in Fedora has a Qt frontend and so Qt as a dependency. And licq-icqnd (the gtk frontend) requires it.
-* Additional tools for openbox: obconf, obmenu, with [http://lewk.org/blog/securitylivecd xdg pipe menu] )
-** good Idea, I added obconf to the lxde-desktop comps group. The pipe menu is already in the fedora openbox package, so I modified the config in lxde-common to take advantage of it.
-=== ConsoleKit support in slim/xdm ===
-* ATM both login managers don't support ConsoleKit. This would prevent fast user switching and mounting removable devices (eg. via gnome-mount) and maybe other stuff via hal.  SebastianVahl
-** this should have already been fixed: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/452156
-** IMO fast user switching is something we can ignore in the light spin. It is most likely that nobody will ever use it if his computer already suffers from limited resources with one user logged in. ChristophWickert
-** With gdm we could have fast user switching, I just enabled in lxsession. Nevertheless I tend to stick with SLiM.
-feel free to add a comment
-=== GConf ===
-You wrote several times to not have apps which require GConf. Don't you want apps that _use_ Gconf or don't you want GConf on the live images at all? The latter would be hard to realize because anaconda requires system-config-keyboard which requires firstboot. And firstboot requires metacity (and so GConf and some other Gnome stuff). Eg.: GConf, Metacity and some other Gnome packages are also on the KDE live images.
-It's not that easy (or maybe impossible in Fedora at this time) to break this dependency chain up. SebastianVahl
-I know excluding GConf isn't possible ATM, but I'm happy if it's not needed for runtime of the desktop. ChristophWickert
+* feel free to add a comment at [[Talk:Features/LXDESpin]]
 == References ==
 * LXDE Forum - Lightweight applications list: http://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9
-* Xfce Wiki - List of recommended applications: [http://wiki.xfce.org/recommendedapps]
+* Xfce Wiki - List of recommended applications: http://wiki.xfce.org/recommendedapps
 * tuxmachines.org - Top 5 Tiny Distros: http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/26480
 * DeviceGuru - Getting to know Ubuntu Lite: http://www.deviceguru.com/getting-to-know-ubuntu-lite/
-== Credits ==
-A special Thanks goes out to SebastianVahl for his suggestions.
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