What is the best way to cater for low end machines? (Poll)

[shane]

We are planning to introduce some new features in the Felicia Fluxbox release to make it easier to install on low end machines. For a start we have disabled a number of system services on the Live CD that most users will not need in a Live CD. This will improve the Live CD performance. The services that are disabled are: acpid, acpi-support, anacron, apmd, atd, bluetooth, cron, cups, dns-clean, mpd, powernowd, powernowd.early, readahead, readahead-desktop, samba and ufw. They are enabled in the installed system.

At the moment, we have come up with a Live CD that provides the user with 3 choices when the Live CD session starts (after booting). These are:

1. Installer only mode: In this mode only Ubiquity (the installer) runs and nothing else. This is the lightest of the 3 options.

2. Minimal Live CD mode: In this mode only Fluxbox, the wallpaper and the menu system are run. None of the background or system tray applications are started. This provides a light Fluxbox environment from which you will have access to everything on the Live CD provided you know how to get it.

3. Default session mode: In this mode all the system services that have been turned off by default in the Live CD are started, Fluxbox and all background and system tray applications are also started. Basically, it gives you all the functionality of an installed system.

Our questions to you, the users, are:

Will this be a useful feature?

Will it over complicate the Live CD?

Are there too many options?

Should we just choose one and have that as the default?

Is there an easier way to go about this?

Let us know what you want in the poll and comment!

[FedoraRefugee]

Hello Shane,

It sounds like you have thought it all out and come up with a great solution! I think what you propose is awesome. I would not make any selection default, I would force a manual selection. As long as the three choices are adequately explained I do not see any problem with this. Cant wait to see what you got.

[icolvin]

It sounds good as it is - except I voted for choosing one of those options as a default because however you do it one of them must come first in the menu. I'm not sure which it should be, however. Probably the one that is closest to a regular install, with explanations that one can try the low requirements options if that doesn't run well. That said the low requirements option would probably run better on any machine. What drawbacks would it have to make that the default?

Anyway, keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to seeing your end result.
I

[FedoraRefugee]

It sounds good as it is - except I voted for choosing one of those options as a default because however you do it one of them must come first in the menu. I'm not sure which it should be, however. Probably the one that is closest to a regular install, with explanations that one can try the low requirements options if that doesn't run well. That said the low requirements option would probably run better on any machine. What drawbacks would it have to make that the default?

Anyway, keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to seeing your end result.
I

I do not follow your reasoning. Why does any one have to be a default? Default means that if no selection is made the selection is automatically made for you. Like when you dual boot with Windows, grub will always default to the Linux distro it was installed from. So if you do not make a manual selection in the alloted 3 seconds (unless you change the timeout to something longer) it will automatically just boot Linux. I hate this, I always comment out the timeout so I have to make a manual selection each time I boot. This way if I want Vista, and if my attention is diverted for a few seconds during boot, it does not just boot into Linux causing me to restart again. Why do we need to default to one of these choices? These choices are presented after boot but before the live session starts. Why not just put up the window offering all the choices and force the user to make a decision? This ensures the user has read the selections. You could probably add something to the effect that the current selection 3 is the normal session, and I would recommend reversing the order of these entries putting #3 as #1.

Of course this is a minor detail, if you absolutely have to default to one then I would suggest the normal session, current #3. But can we at least make the timeout something substantial, such as 10 seconds, so that we can be sure the user is aware of these choices? After all, this is not a normal thing, though fluxbox users will generally tend to be a little more experienced than the average noob.

[Gnarly]

This will be a Beta right? If so just release it so we all can try it out.

[satellite360]

Sounds good but it will need some simple explanation as to what the different options do - pref with a nice graphical walk-through on the linuxmint site.

[shane]

Thanks to all who participated in the poll... and it seems like we have a clear winner!

The system is pretty much finalized. It provides the same 3 options as above... with a very brief description of system resources that are required. Also, it analyses the system it is running on and gives a recommendation of what the user should do. This is to avoid having too much information in a cramped dialog. Hopefully, this is the more elegant solution. There is no default selection and nothing happens until the user makes a choice. The normal mode (everything on and running) is the first choice. I think all these aspects should make it pretty easy to understand and avoid unexpected results for users.

We are still doing some internal testing, but we are approaching something that is good enough for a public Beta.

Cheers.

[tradaonline]

@shane: Thanks, you rock

Can't wait for the public Beta

[shane]

Not so quickly I think you should try it first I think some will still not be happy with the default selection of apps... The gain in using other applications wasn't worth the effort when there were other areas that needed work...

Minimum RAM requirement will be 128MB... And anything less than 192MB needs swap to be created before installation. This is because Ubiquity, the installer, will simply crash the system with anything less. It is quite a beast. Otherwise, after installation and turning off all the bells and whistles, it should be possible to get it to use about 50-60MB RAM at startup. You just have to turn the stuff you don't need off... sysv-rc-conf is installed by default so you have the tools to do that.

The default setup is not as light as other Fluxbox distros, but it does support everything it possibly can out of the box. Better something that works that you can turn off rather than something you have to make work... I guess.

[Fred]

Shane wrote:

Better something that works that you can turn off rather than something you have to make work... I guess.

I tend to agree. Especially when considering the audience this is aimed at. You made the right decision.

Fred

[FedoraRefugee]

I agree also. You are obviously cognizant of trying to create a version that is as lite as possible so this means the compromises you made are well thought out and what you feel is necessary. It sounds like a winner, I cannot wait to try it out. It just may replace the Gentoo/Flux install I have on my main desktop rig.

[acidburned]

so far the rc1 live cd looks great and works great.keep the boot options its a awsome addition.

[KLonsdale]

Sounds like a good idea, I am looking forwarded to trying it out. I hope the rest of the editions follow suit.

[shane]

Sounds like a good idea, I am looking forwarded to trying it out. I hope the rest of the editions follow suit.

The release candidate is out... you can try it out now!

[KLonsdale]

I have tried to boot the cd but it hangs and the screen goes blank just before the progress bar finishes.

[shane]

I have tried to boot the cd but it hangs and the screen goes blank just before the progress bar finishes.

I have posted a reply in the Bug thread.

viewtopic.php?f=143&t=22755&p=136005#p136005