lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Mario Behling <mb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,

I would like to exchange with you some thoughts that came up in an
exchange with PCMan concerning using Mplayer, Qt4 and the release date
of lubuntu.

I agree with PCMan that we should get feedback from the community
first before releasing a stable lubuntu. The current lubuntu is
already quite good, but there will probably be some bugs that we dont
know, besides bugs that we know of e.g. in PCManFM. As PCMan is
working on a new version of the file manger, I hope we will be able to
include it.

Read on below.

- Mario

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: PCMan

Hi all
Clearly Mplayer has the best performance on old machines which are the
target of Lubuntu.
However, the usability of currently available mplayer GUI frontend are
quite problematic.
SMplayer, although being developed with Qt4, undoubtedly has quite
good usability compared with others. Qt4 is not a problem. It's
bigger, but it's not very big. Besides, there will be more and more
applications written in Qt4 in the future. Denying the use of Qt4 is
quite unwise, IMHO. If you can find something that are as good, feel
free to replace it. But the problem is, there isn't. The other usable
player should be VLC, which is also written in Qt4, too. Xine is yet
another solution, but it doesn't have good performance, and the
usability is not good, either. So it's good for nothing. Rather than
including something that is good for nothing, I'd rather include
something that at least give you good usability. This is the
rationale.

Another concern is, can we postpone the release of Lubuntu? Rather
than releasing something new but broken, I'd rather release it when
it's really ready. Give the users something that is half-done is not a
good way for marketing.
I'm confident that Lubuntu will be ready for everyday use at the time
of next Ubuntu LTS release. However, if we want to make it for 9.10,
we might end up with a broken distro that is problematic. IMHO,
keeping it in Alpha or Beta status is more preferable. Then just use
9.10 release to get enough feedback from the users. Things should be
ready in Q1, 2010. Then the next LTS will be the right time for first
official release of Lubuntu.

For application selection, I'd suggest creating a modular installer
and let the user choose what they want. This doesn't need to be
included in the Ubuntu installer. We can run a app selection wizard at
first-time startup. This can be the perfect solution for application
selection.

Any thoughts?