bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Quiliro]

It would be nice to create a desktop.scm file that contains all
necessary packages to have a fully functional desktop installation for
the end user. It is for that user that only uses the machine to write
and read emails, create and read text documents and spreadsheets too. I
know the current desktop.scm contain some of those features and that
after that
guix package --install pidgin libreoffice icecat clawsmail
(and so) can provide the necessary packages. But I would like to make
an installation that is just as trisquel is. It is not necessary to
have the same configuration or the same packages. But it would be
useful to have it as easy to just use as is Trisquel.

Any ideas of how to do this?
-- 
Saludos,
Quiliro

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net> skribis:

> It would be nice to create a desktop.scm file that contains all
> necessary packages to have a fully functional desktop installation for
> the end user. It is for that user that only uses the machine to write
> and read emails, create and read text documents and spreadsheets too. I
> know the current desktop.scm contain some of those features and that
> after that
> guix package --install pidgin libreoffice icecat clawsmail
> (and so) can provide the necessary packages. But I would like to make
> an installation that is just as trisquel is. It is not necessary to
> have the same configuration or the same packages. But it would be
> useful to have it as easy to just use as is Trisquel.

The desktop example contains all of GNOME, when choosing GNOME, which
provides an email client, Web browser, and lots of other things.

Additional packages like those you mention could be added to the
‘packages’ field, in which case they will be installed globally, like
the rest of GNOME.

I wouldn’t recommend adding those 4 packages you mention by default
though, because it’s really a matter of choice (and it’s redundant with
what GNOME provides, I think.)

WDYT?

Thanks for your feedback!

Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Quiliro!

Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net> skribis:

> On Mon, 02 Jan 2017 22:11:01 +0100
> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:

[...]

>> The desktop example contains all of GNOME, when choosing GNOME, which
>> provides an email client, Web browser, and lots of other things.
>
> I don't find the email client.
> The web browser will not reproduce videos.

This is a bug that needs to be treated separately.  Clearly Nautilus
should be able to play videos.

> I have no idea how to chat in Gnome. (Of course I will investigate.)

There’s Pidgin, but maybe it’s not really part of GNOME.

> What you say makes sense. But what users that cannot learn to install
> need to work on their own matters is very important in order for them to
> be able to advocate the free system. Perhaps we do not want to promote
> the use of Flash or Microsoft Office formats. These issues are
> critical. But they are not against the FSDGs. And the user must notice
> we are able to offer those capabilities. We must always insist in
> suggesting to use the libre alternatives. In this case, we should not
> avoid including the ability to read those formats.

I agree, but again, I think GNOME provides everything for these tasks.
Also, at this point, the target audience of GuixSD is not “users that
cannot learn to install”—if someone managed to install GuixSD, surely
they’ll find out how to install LibreOffice.

> I have also had problems with Mimetypes. Many files will not open
> because the Gnome will not identify which program is appropriate.

Sounds like a bug.  Could you report all the details to
bug-guix@gnu.org: how to reproduce, what you expected, and what you got?

Thank you!

Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ricardo Wurmus]

>> I have no idea how to chat in Gnome. (Of course I will investigate.)
>
> There’s Pidgin, but maybe it’s not really part of GNOME.

The GNOME way is to use Empathy, which depends on the Telepathy
framework:

   https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Empathy

-- 
Ricardo

GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
http://elephly.net

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Mathieu Lirzin]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Hello!
>
> Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net> skribis:
>
>> It would be nice to create a desktop.scm file that contains all
>> necessary packages to have a fully functional desktop installation for
>> the end user. It is for that user that only uses the machine to write
>> and read emails, create and read text documents and spreadsheets too. I
>> know the current desktop.scm contain some of those features and that
>> after that
>> guix package --install pidgin libreoffice icecat clawsmail
>> (and so) can provide the necessary packages. But I would like to make
>> an installation that is just as trisquel is. It is not necessary to
>> have the same configuration or the same packages. But it would be
>> useful to have it as easy to just use as is Trisquel.
>
> The desktop example contains all of GNOME, when choosing GNOME, which
> provides an email client, Web browser, and lots of other things.
>
> Additional packages like those you mention could be added to the
> ‘packages’ field, in which case they will be installed globally, like
> the rest of GNOME.
>
> I wouldn’t recommend adding those 4 packages you mention by default
> though, because it’s really a matter of choice (and it’s redundant with
> what GNOME provides, I think.)

I think your remark applies to pidgin and clawsmail but not to
Libreoffice and Icecat (Firefox) which are commonly installed OOTB by
mainstream distros (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora) along with the GNOME
desktop.

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761  070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> skribis:

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net> skribis:
>>
>>> It would be nice to create a desktop.scm file that contains all
>>> necessary packages to have a fully functional desktop installation for
>>> the end user. It is for that user that only uses the machine to write
>>> and read emails, create and read text documents and spreadsheets too. I
>>> know the current desktop.scm contain some of those features and that
>>> after that
>>> guix package --install pidgin libreoffice icecat clawsmail
>>> (and so) can provide the necessary packages. But I would like to make
>>> an installation that is just as trisquel is. It is not necessary to
>>> have the same configuration or the same packages. But it would be
>>> useful to have it as easy to just use as is Trisquel.
>>
>> The desktop example contains all of GNOME, when choosing GNOME, which
>> provides an email client, Web browser, and lots of other things.
>>
>> Additional packages like those you mention could be added to the
>> ‘packages’ field, in which case they will be installed globally, like
>> the rest of GNOME.
>>
>> I wouldn’t recommend adding those 4 packages you mention by default
>> though, because it’s really a matter of choice (and it’s redundant with
>> what GNOME provides, I think.)
>
> I think your remark applies to pidgin and clawsmail but not to
> Libreoffice and Icecat (Firefox) which are commonly installed OOTB by
> mainstream distros (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora) along with the GNOME
> desktop.

I’m not sure what we could do, though.  Should the desktop example
include a comment like “Uncomment the following lines to add LibreOffice
& co.”?

This is something that the ncurses interface should make more
discoverable.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Hello,

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> skribis:
>
>> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>
>>> Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net> skribis:
>>>
>>>> It would be nice to create a desktop.scm file that contains all
>>>> necessary packages to have a fully functional desktop installation for
>>>> the end user. It is for that user that only uses the machine to write
>>>> and read emails, create and read text documents and spreadsheets too. I
>>>> know the current desktop.scm contain some of those features and that
>>>> after that
>>>> guix package --install pidgin libreoffice icecat clawsmail
>>>> (and so) can provide the necessary packages. But I would like to make
>>>> an installation that is just as trisquel is. It is not necessary to
>>>> have the same configuration or the same packages. But it would be
>>>> useful to have it as easy to just use as is Trisquel.
>>>
>>> The desktop example contains all of GNOME, when choosing GNOME, which
>>> provides an email client, Web browser, and lots of other things.
>>>
>>> Additional packages like those you mention could be added to the
>>> ‘packages’ field, in which case they will be installed globally, like
>>> the rest of GNOME.
>>>
>>> I wouldn’t recommend adding those 4 packages you mention by default
>>> though, because it’s really a matter of choice (and it’s redundant with
>>> what GNOME provides, I think.)
>>
>> I think your remark applies to pidgin and clawsmail but not to
>> Libreoffice and Icecat (Firefox) which are commonly installed OOTB by
>> mainstream distros (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora) along with the GNOME
>> desktop.
>
> I’m not sure what we could do, though.  Should the desktop example
> include a comment like “Uncomment the following lines to add LibreOffice
> & co.”?

IMHO Guix should mimic what Debian is doing in this particular case.
Meaning having desktop packages that contain a “full” desktop with
default applications for common usages.

This would consist in adding ‘libreoffice’ and replacing ‘epiphany’ with
‘icecat’ in the ‘gnome’ package.  Additionally a ‘gnome-core’ package
(or ‘gnome-minimal’ which seems to be the name convention chosen by
Guix) could be created with the minimal set of packages required to have
a working GNOME desktop, for OCD people that don't like having unused
packages installed.

> This is something that the ncurses interface should make more
> discoverable.

That could be a solution.  However even if the current target audience
of Guix(SD) are tinkerer who may like options, I don't think this
approach scales well to a broader audience.

Thanks.

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761  070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[myglc2]

On 01/15/2018 at 14:26 Mathieu Lirzin writes:
[...]
> IMHO Guix should mimic what Debian is doing in this particular case.
> Meaning having desktop packages that contain a “full” desktop with
> default applications for common usages.

+1

Benefit: Helps "less-hackerly" users get started.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> skribis:

> IMHO Guix should mimic what Debian is doing in this particular case.
> Meaning having desktop packages that contain a “full” desktop with
> default applications for common usages.
>
> This would consist in adding ‘libreoffice’ and replacing ‘epiphany’ with
> ‘icecat’ in the ‘gnome’ package.  Additionally a ‘gnome-core’ package
> (or ‘gnome-minimal’ which seems to be the name convention chosen by
> Guix) could be created with the minimal set of packages required to have
> a working GNOME desktop, for OCD people that don't like having unused
> packages installed.

Hmm, OK.  Do you think it’s too much to ask, given the current audience
(tinkerers), to add those packages to their config, or to install them
with “guix package -i”?

Admittedly this is a very subjective issue.

Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Danny Milosavljevic]

Hi,

> Hmm, OK.  Do you think it’s too much to ask, given the current audience
> (tinkerers), to add those packages to their config, or to install them
> with “guix package -i”?

I think one of the nice features of Guix is that the user can install packages on their own.  Other distributions leave the decision of which packages to install up to the administrator (a separate person in companies).  I work in a very large company where often some simple stuff is missing on servers and admins will not install it for fear of fucking up some unrelated already-installed package (understandable since all the dependencies are dynamic in Solaris and applications will just pick up whatever is lying around in the global namespace).

Long story short, I think it's a good thing that the user has his own profile which isn't magically updated and doesn't magically pick up things not in the user profile - except when it's already in the store bitwise-identical.  That way, if he needs some application for work it will not randomly break and he can be sure that it will do what it did yesterday.  If he wants to update, he updates.  Otherwise not.  His choice.

So long story short, I myself prefer having no applications in the system profile and the user installing all (business-relevant) applications themselves.  It gives control to the user.

(my "packages" field is:
  (packages (cons* nss-certs         ;for HTTPS access
                   font-adobe100dpi font-adobe75dpi font-bitstream-vera font-dejavu font-gnu-freefont-ttf font-gnu-unifont font-liberation font-ubuntu
                   adwaita-icon-theme
                   %base-packages)) ; xterm is there by default.

And the ones that are still in there bother me :)
)

As for libreoffice and other large packages, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but huge packages waste disk space and provide an attack surface for exploits - and maybe no regular user uses it.

That said, I've installed it :P

I'd vote for adding libreoffice and icecat to desktop.tmpl and not to gnome (since they are not part of the GNOME project).

Users who like a minimal system can always use lightweight-desktop.tmpl or even bare-bones.tmpl.

And I think it's important to mention the approximate space requirements for desktop.tmpl in the manual (for partitioning).

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Danny Milosavljevic <dannym@scratchpost.org> skribis:

>> Hmm, OK.  Do you think it’s too much to ask, given the current audience
>> (tinkerers), to add those packages to their config, or to install them
>> with “guix package -i”?

[...]

> Long story short, I think it's a good thing that the user has his own profile which isn't magically updated and doesn't magically pick up things not in the user profile - except when it's already in the store bitwise-identical.  That way, if he needs some application for work it will not randomly break and he can be sure that it will do what it did yesterday.  If he wants to update, he updates.  Otherwise not.  His choice.

Agreed, though in this case (GNOME), we’re pretty much talking about
single-user machines.

> I'd vote for adding libreoffice and icecat to desktop.tmpl and not to gnome (since they are not part of the GNOME project).

OK, why not.  There’s still the issue that it will make download times
and disk size requirements longer (a problem we should fix, but this
won’t happen overnight.)

Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Chris Marusich]

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ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Danny Milosavljevic <dannym@scratchpost.org> skribis:
>
>> I'd vote for adding libreoffice and icecat to desktop.tmpl and not to gnome (since they are not part of the GNOME project).
>
> OK, why not.  There’s still the issue that it will make download times
> and disk size requirements longer (a problem we should fix, but this
> won’t happen overnight.)

While I think it's fine to include this in the example desktop
configuration file, I don't see why we couldn't have a few example
configuration files for various use cases.  One of those use cases could
mimic what other distros normally include, like LibreOffice etc, and one
of those could be a more minimal desktop environment.  Does it add a
maintenance burden to have multiple example desktop configuration files?

-- 
Chris

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bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> skribis:

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> Danny Milosavljevic <dannym@scratchpost.org> skribis:
>>
>>> I'd vote for adding libreoffice and icecat to desktop.tmpl and not to gnome (since they are not part of the GNOME project).
>>
>> OK, why not.  There’s still the issue that it will make download times
>> and disk size requirements longer (a problem we should fix, but this
>> won’t happen overnight.)
>
> While I think it's fine to include this in the example desktop
> configuration file, I don't see why we couldn't have a few example
> configuration files for various use cases.  One of those use cases could
> mimic what other distros normally include, like LibreOffice etc, and one
> of those could be a more minimal desktop environment.  Does it add a
> maintenance burden to have multiple example desktop configuration files?

Not much, though we’d have to make sure they still work.

The only difference in this case would be the ‘packages’ field, which, I
was hoping, didn’t warrant a separate example.

Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Konrad Hinsen]

Hi,

> Hmm, OK.  Do you think it’s too much to ask, given the current audience
> (tinkerers), to add those packages to their config, or to install them
> with “guix package -i”?
> 
> Admittedly this is a very subjective issue.

How about organizing Guix in a layered way, with the core distribution 
containing narrow-purpose packages (mostly one piece of software), and 
another layer (in a distinct module, perhaps with a distinct naming 
convention) containing collections of software that works well together 
or is useful for a specific application domain? I see other use cases 
than just desktop stuff.

The main rationale for distinct layers is that assembling software at 
different levels requires different competences and different ways of 
documenting the assemblies. In the long run, I'd expect different people 
to be in charge of each layer.

Konrad.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Konrad,

Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen@fastmail.net> skribis:

>> Hmm, OK.  Do you think it’s too much to ask, given the current audience
>> (tinkerers), to add those packages to their config, or to install them
>> with “guix package -i”?
>>
>> Admittedly this is a very subjective issue.
>
> How about organizing Guix in a layered way, with the core distribution
> containing narrow-purpose packages (mostly one piece of software), and
> another layer (in a distinct module, perhaps with a distinct naming
> convention) containing collections of software that works well
> together or is useful for a specific application domain? I see other
> use cases than just desktop stuff.

In GuixSD, that’s more or less what happens with ‘gnome-service-type’
and ‘xfce-service-type’, for example.  (I’m not sure how that could work
at the Guix level, nor whether this is necessary.)

Ludo’.

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Hi,

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> skribis:
>
>> IMHO Guix should mimic what Debian is doing in this particular case.
>> Meaning having desktop packages that contain a “full” desktop with
>> default applications for common usages.
>>
>> This would consist in adding ‘libreoffice’ and replacing ‘epiphany’ with
>> ‘icecat’ in the ‘gnome’ package.  Additionally a ‘gnome-core’ package
>> (or ‘gnome-minimal’ which seems to be the name convention chosen by
>> Guix) could be created with the minimal set of packages required to have
>> a working GNOME desktop, for OCD people that don't like having unused
>> packages installed.
>
> Hmm, OK.  Do you think it’s too much to ask, given the current audience
> (tinkerers), to add those packages to their config, or to install them
> with “guix package -i”?

Definitely not, it is even better for tinkerers to not have those
“bloated” bundles/meta-packages full of defaults they don't like.  :-)

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761  070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37

bug#25296: fully functional desktop installation

[Oleg Pykhalov]

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Hello,

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

[...]

> I’m not sure what we could do, though.  Should the desktop example
> include a comment like “Uncomment the following lines to add LibreOffice
> & co.”?

Agree.  Maybe we could provide a hint like:

gnu/system/examples/desktop.tmpl

  (packages (cons* nss-certs ;for HTTPS access
                   gvfs      ;for user mounts

                   ;; Following packages recommended to be installed
                   ;; per-user with `guix package -i PACKAGE'.
                   ;; Otherwise uncomment them to install globally.
                   ;;
                   ;; icecat ;GNU version of the Firefox browser
                   ;; libreoffice ;office suite

                   ;; Basic administrator tasks
                   %base-packages))

> This is something that the ncurses interface should make more
> discoverable.

When I saw a lightweight-desktop template for the first time, there was
a good ad about ratpoison window manager which I didn't know before.
This is a really good way to promote reasonable software.  :-)

Oleg.

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