Beta in risk - a related story

[ttoine at ttoine.net]

> 2010/9/2 Marc R.J. Brevoort <mrjb at dnd.utwente.nl 
> <mailto:mrjb at dnd.utwente.nl>>
>
>     On Thu, 2 Sep 2010, Ara Pulido wrote:
>
>     > Right now, and for Beta, the Ubuntu Studio ISOs haven't been tested:
>     >
>     > http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/build/ubuntustudio/all
>     >
>     > I am afraid that, if they remain untested, the Release Team
>     might decide
>     > to NOT release Ubuntu Studio Maverick Beta.
>

It's probably because most of users don't install Studio from iso, but 
install first Ubuntu with the live cd, then, install the meta-packages, 
or only what they need. Continuing to provide a text only install in not 
a good idea. Who wants today to install in text mode when the current 
live cd offer a direct, simple and usefull gui ?

IMHO, it has always been a bad thing to propose only the alternative 
install CD/DVD I mean that our user are more focused on using 
application than in tweaking the system, nor in installing it. Even if 
we consider that most of the potential users of Ubuntu Studio are 
experienced Linux users, two cases are possible:
  - They are looking for a fast install and an easy day to day use, so 
they will use the Ubuntu live cd and add only the applications they 
need, because the Ubuntu Studio cd/dvd installer is not user friendly 
and install too much stuff;
  - If text installation is not the problem, so Ubuntu Studio is not 
tuned enough for high performance and they will choose something else 
like the 64 Studio distribution.

So, two solutions:
  - Having a live cd, and the community will welcome it very well, from 
users to third party application developers, who can consider it as a a 
good showcase solution. I think that if Ardour developers have a lot of 
MacOS X actuality, it is because there is no serious Linux distribution 
providing a working live cd/dvd for multimedia production, to 
demonstrate their product and catch new users.
  - Stopping providing a media, and build a site like getdeb/playdeb, 
with the list of applications, good multilingual descriptions, 
screen-shots and tutorials; and then, focus more on backporting and 
optimising, than on themes, and other non important stuff for multimedia 
production.

IMHO (again), the best way for Ubuntu Studio is between this two 
solutions: create a good Live CD (and not a DVD), optimised, focusing on 
main multimedia applications (need to be defined by users, not by 
developers, e.g using some polls on the website), and to have a good 
multilingual website, focused on applications, backporting (current LTS, 
and current distribution only, no need to backport for all releases), etc...

In a few words: be more users, functionalities, and usefulness focused!

Toine
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