Finding software opportunities and common ground

[comradekingu]

The opportunity of selling more Pyras presents itself, along with the danger of putting them in the wrong hands too early. Exactly 2500 devices can be sold before having to source new LCD-panels, leaving ~ <1500 up for grabs.

Right now current-users-and-similar is good, whereas "have never used a computer before"-user, is somewhat next in line for when things get more dialed down on the desktop. Also the risk of something unforeseen being wrong lessens over time. Meanwhile, we can consider the PR and usability aspect of what to bundle with the Pyra, as shipped from ED. Keep in mind it is easier to uninstall for a pro user than it is for a novice user to install, or even know about things that add value. One such consideration is for how projects will take to being "featured" by default.

In terms of publicity, I thought it would be a good idea to now make connections with projects that have similar aims, and need an official device to endorse, for when the time is right to promote, use it as official platform, or otherwise mention the Pyra.

What sort of software would you like to see on the Pyra?

EvilDragon: Instead of bundling tons of apps, do it the Debian way and create some meta-packages which pull in a software stack.
EvilDragon: And for people who never used APT before, we can also create a small graphical UI which lets the user choose to switch to "full" install, for example.
EvilDragon: Then we can easily create different flashable images with different setups (minimal, default, full).
EvilDragon: I would also be happy to include a different browser instead of FireFox (which is pretty slow), but most browsers I tried (except for Vivaldi) don't render all sites properly.

A lot of us contribute to and develop different things, and in a further community effort we can decide on, test and optimize things.

My picks and suggestions: (to be discussed and voted on)

Minimal: (Optional script removing as much as possible)
Only scripts for basic Pyra-specific functionality and whatever the most basic is.

Minimal-extras: (Options for barebones ncurses-type things)
E-mail: Neomutt
Web-browser: w3m, qutebrowser, netsurf
Video: mpv
Editor: nano
Stuff: Screen, tmux, macchanger

Default: (Power on device, get this)
Audio; Rhythmbox
(Currently MATE desktop environment)
Web-browser: Firefox replaced by tor-browser/OnionShare, falkon, otter, midori, Chromium
Video: VLC
E-mail: Delta Chat
Editor: Abiword, Whatever elementaryOS uses, because having documents always saved is nice.
Torrent: Transmission
Image editing: Kolourpaint, gpaint, mtpaint. mypaint, pinta rgbpaint, xpaint
Extras: Gparted

Full: (Optional package for showing the powers of the Pyra)
Audio: Klementine(?)
Web-browser:
VNC/remote desktop: Remmina
Games: HASE, nubnub, https://gitlab.com/voadi/voadi
Chat: Dino
E-mail: Mailvelope
Office: LibreOffice
Graphics: GIMP, Krita, Inkscape
Raw image editing: Darktable
Sound recording/editing: Audacity
Video: Openshot, kdenlive
Torrent: Qbittorrent
VoIP: Mumble
Stuff: Susi AI, GPS?

 

[elw3]

Think of all the confusion that will cause.
"hey guys my default mail client does not work"
"Which of the three defaults are you using?"

 

[comradekingu]

Right now there is none, so unless doing at-least one, questions are going to be for every single one?

Minimal could either be fewer things vis-a-vis the default, or some ncurses type programs, with possibly another desktop environment.
And extra could download software to be added.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

You wanna do quantity discounts and address the student bodies of IT departments. Maybe get Brauerei Loscher involved to sweeten the deal with rebates on Club-Mate for the student bodies, that take the deal. This would up caffeine intoxication incidents, but I think it be worth it, since up would go our development man power and tinker madness, too.

 

[Grench]

VLC isn't working quite right for mp4 yet, though I think the current 'not working' is pretty cool. It overlays ghostly video over the then ghostly desktop, superimposing both on each other. The CPU use is very high, etc. I'm not sure where things are at for the video decode hardware in the OMAP5432.

Firefox is a pretty decent default. If it doesn't run, then none of the above mentioned niche Firefox based derivatives (Tor-Browser) are likely to work.

The baseline should be common Debian repository installed apps that are known 100% working on the Pyra, not what any single user wants to use later. Anything that requires installing/uninstalling from anything other than Synaptic should be avoided wherever possible. There will be some things specific to Pyra that should be exceptions to this. Those exceptions should be things that can be found in the Pyra repository.

Keep it simple and recognizable. You can install your own favorite toys later. The 'defaults' need to be recognizable by 'normals' and simply 'run'.

 

[levi]

Those exceptions should be things that can be found in the Pyra repository.

Do you mean the Pyra's DBP repository, or the .deb repo that's been mentioned before for pyra-specific package? Mind you, with a correctly configured sources.list, that .deb repo will become visible to synaptic and apt-get and whatever else you want to use.

 

[comradekingu]

There is clearly a way to ship software that is bad, not trying to emulate that. Knowing that there is a lot to be improved upon.
The added benefit is making the experience more of a community endeavor and appreciation.

You open the device, something happens. In my view this favors the user that doesn't know much about privacy, or what things are available.

Edit: There is a lot of things that can be done in about:config to help FF performance. Tor-browser generally crashes less often for me, but that is very anecdotal.

 

[Mese96]

Maybe get Brauerei Loscher involved to sweeten the deal with rebates on Club-Mate for the student bodies, that take the deal.

I would also like some Mate to go with my Pyra

 

[erico]

This is a tough (almost keyboard) subject. The common usage varies a lot.

Maybe sell it with minimal just os and have a front end for packs where then there could be a few sets.

 

[comradekingu]

Yes. That seems to be the plan. What do you put in each set/metapackage?

Knowing publicity in knowledgable circles is needed, and those mutually bring users to each-other, what are your picks?

And since it isn't only users, but also donations, contributors and developers going both ways, I am hoping to see more projects that people think would like to see on the Pyra, why, and the chances of the project being open to showing their users the Pyra in due time.

I think Firefox/Mozilla is a lost cause, and I have much more faith in Tor-browser for example. It ties in with the security/libre software aspect, and has a userbase of people that would like the Pyra over something like a full laptop, or buttonless device.

I also really like the idea of having community games in Full, (or even Default) because that is something people have in common from different operating system experiences.

 

[EvilDragon]

Errm, I think I need to clear a few things up:

Usually, these META Packages in Debian add things ON TOP.
That means: DEFAULT usually has the MINIMAL stuff included and FULL has MINIMAL and DEFAULT installed.

And MINIMAL means MINIMAL.
No email program, no Webbrowser, just a simple WM and that's it.
Users who install MINIMAL are experienced users, they install all their stuff themselves.

DEFAULT should be what we are shipping the unit with. It should consist of programs most users use.
A common webbrowser and eMail client (maybe FireFox and Thunderbird, not sure why Tor should be used as default) and stuff like a video player, audio player, office, etc.
Just the stuff you expect from a normal desktop.

FULL should add stuff that is useful on the Pyra but not needed by everyone.
For example, LibreOffice, Gimp, etc.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

@EvilDragon MINIMAL should still include all Pyra specific packages though right? Stuff to control the LEDs and keyboard, and scripts for turning on and off the wifi, 3/4g, etc.

 

[comradekingu]

@EvilDragon Seeing as the Debian netinst way of installing minimal stuff and adding more afterwards means that having no Internet when installing is going to be more miminal than perhaps wanted, your IRC idea of doing a default install, and then removing a meta-package to get to minimal is better.
I think a ncurses/tiled window manager/tmux/screen environment is good on a device like this, and with the community we have and that exists in the broader sense, would be interesting. Everyone using it could swap configs and whatnot. (Called minimal minimal-extras for now)

 

[erico]

My use case "would" be very artistic directed, something on the likes of ubuntu studio.

-pixel art and img processing tool with animation support(stuff that should benefit from the stylus for sure).
-sound processing, editing and a tracker.
-video editing and processing.
-vector and 3d modeling and renderer.
-some simple programming language.

I could name some of my preferences but stuff like open/free/closed I really don't care.

I would use a browser with gmail support for example. Would not bother and app to handle that and maybe even drop libre office for the sake of using google online tools.

Id try to turn it into a pocket art creation computer. But that is just me, everyone else would probably run it differently, specially those with linux experience, which is not my case.

 

[comradekingu]

Good points!
The current selling-point of only having libre software code is great. And the nature of closed source makes it sometimes illegal to ship.
Give the names of what you would think meets general expectations of value and increased focus or user reach.
LibreOffice has online tools too.

 

[docbroke]

I think DEs like mate pack too many services and eye candies to cater almost everyones needs, but it also makes system slow. While well customized WM like openbox / i3 or my now favorite cwm are much snappier on the same system.
Window managers may feel barebone as they do not include many things like filemanager, displaymanager, panels, menus, clipboardmanager, networkmanager clients but it allows to choose lite weight alternatives. But good thing is we may choose appropriate default accessory/support applications to make window manager feel like full fledged DE and still be snappy. One nice example is puppy linux with barebone jwm window manager which feels very nice to use due to their beautiful customization.
I intend to customize my pyra around cwm with applications of my choice ( vifm, gvim, conky, rofi, cron, remind, connman, dunst and xclip, mpv, fim, vimb/firefox etc. )

 

[levi]

I run i3 on many of my systems in this house, but this machine I'm typing on is running openbox. I sometimes run GIMP on here, and I can't imagine those toolbox windows are very nice to use in a tiling manager if I'm honest, but I'm not tried it to be fair.

Edit: I don't have any experience of running Mate, but it seems to me like a reasonable thing to install for most people. I'll give it a spin on my Pyra for sure if it comes with it pre-setup, and will only switch away to something else if it offends me sufficiently. The pyra probably has more graphical grunt than what I'm currently typing on so it might be a good fit there for all I know.

 

[comradekingu]

@docbroke It seems the path down that road is long and arduous, with everyone doing everything themselves or from scratch every time. Crunchbang had great results with a common offering that people could play with and share configs for.

@levi Be it openbox, i3 or bspwm. Screen/tmux is ideally enough, so maybe that discussion can be limited to programs.
Gimp has a fullscreen/one window thing now.

 

[levi]

Yes, I use tmux on a server I connect to over ssh. It allows me to set off long running process such as transcoding videos for playback on different devices that can take many hours to complete, so I can spawn off a new terminal and continue using the machine normally. But it's not a system I'd recommend for everyday users, and I've not been convinced to run it on a system with graphical capabilties yet. On a normal X-windows system I normally manage with a handful of terminal windows spawned across multiple workspaces.

 

[docbroke]

@docbroke It seems the path down that road is long and arduous, with everyone doing everything themselves or from scratch every time. Crunchbang had great results with a common offering that people could play with and share configs for.

@levi Be it openbox, i3 or bspwm. Screen/tmux is ideally enough, so maybe that discussion can be limited to programs.
Gimp has a fullscreen/one window thing now.

Not that long. I just need minimal working system with x and internet working, rest is the matter of few sudo apt installs and copying config files from my current laptop. It will need few pyra specific changes. Once that is done I intend to make a thread and share a guide with readymade config files for anyone interested in that. Over the years I have gathered/created many bash scripts that help with such minimal system, to be shared at right time.

In short I will prefer to have minimal system so that I don't have to go through uninstallations.