What would you like to implement to Ubuntu?

[bluecode]

Hi,
I'm doing a new Linux distribution (based on Ubuntu) for the i386. When it is finished it will be for home users (because the most distributions are too complicated so they aren't very good to use it at home).
I'd like feedback what you are like on Ubuntu or other Linux distributions.

bluecode

[ramin.honary]

You are not the first one to want to make Linux easier for home users. If you want to create a new distribution, I suggest you check out your competition first.

The easiest to use distributions are: Mint, Zorin, and Ubuntu. Mint and Zorin are both designed to look and feel like Windows to make it easier for non-Linux users to understand. Ubuntu doesn't care about being like Windows or Mac or any other commercial system, they just do whatever they think is necessary to make their distribution the easiest to use and install. Lately they have started using "Gnome Shell" as the default user interface, which I think takes the best of Windows and Mac, and leaves out all the confusing stuff.

The problem with designing a Linux distribution is not technical, it is more of a business issue. Most major software companies like Microsoft partner up directly with consumer electronics companies to design and test their software specifically for hardware. Without the partnership, it is very difficult to make your software work well with most hardware. Fortunately, thanks to electronics industry standards, open source developers can make their own free software to work with a lot of computer hardware. But this is really hard to do because there are so many different kinds of hardware out there. Things like graphics cards, sound cards, WiFi cards, game controllers, digital cameras, monitors with built-in cameras, are all similar and all follow industry standards, but they still might be different enough to make existing Linux software not able to work with it smoothly.

And that is the problem for Linux in the consumer electronics world. Ubuntu and Mint tries to be "easy to install" and "easy to use", but this requires pulling in tens of thousands of drivers and testing them on thousand's of beta-testers computers before you can safely say "this works as soon as you plug it in".

Then, what happens when Sony comes out with a new Vaio laptop that has changed around all of its hardware and drivers from previous models? Suddenly, Linux doesn't work too well anymore -- but that's funny, Windows works just fine. So you have to start all over again with developing and testing, and Microsoft's software is already working perfectly with it (except for all the bugs that their well-paid software engineers never caught during testing) because they had been developing and testing since before Sony even released it's new model computer.

Making a distribution that can be installed and used right out of the box without tweaking or requiring you to build and install special drivers -- this is an incredibly difficult problem that can be solved in one of two ways: 1. either a major corporation (like Microsoft) partners with the hardware company and gets all the technical support they need for their software developers to make sure the software works smoothly, or 2. it requires the cooperation of thousands of developers and testers working together in a massive social network.

Ubuntu and Mint are among the first distributions released by a major corporation (Canoncial) specifically for home users. They do the best they can, but hardware is very diverse, and it is very difficult to make a one-size-fits-all solution, and most home electronics hardware companies just don't trust the Open Source philosophy, so they won't partner with Canonical. This is not true for other Linux distributions that are not used in consumer electronics. In the computer industry, Linux has become something of a defacto standard in and of itself, and is now supported by several multi-billion dollar corporations, including Google, RedHat, and Novel.

I don't want to be too discouraging to you, but if you look at distrowatch.com, and see how many different distributions there are out there, most of them are set to solve a very specific problem. It seems unnecessary to create a new distribution simply to make it easier to use.

[bluecode]

I think the problem is by the people. People think free or Open Source software is bad only software that costs money is good. But with that distribution I want to show this is not so. The difference to other distributions is that this will be for users with no computer skills.
The Hardware problems will be the same then in Ubuntu because this distribution will based on Ubuntu.

[ramin.honary]

Your biggest challenge is to figure out what the unskilled computer user thinks is "easy", because everyone has a different idea of what is "easy." Really, the easiest computer ever to use would be a computer that can talk to you like it was another person. But this is still beyond the limits of the best modern technology, but they are getting closer, what with the IBM Watson computer winning a contest of the game of Jeopardy.

I think the easiest to use system (for people with no computer skills), is Android. You could try installing the Android user interface on top of Ubuntu.

Another idea might be to program a first-person shooter game using an open-source game engine like ID Tech 3, or Blender, and use it as your graphical interface, but instead of going around a war zone shooting monsters with a gun and picking up upgrades, you go around an office or house with a virtual pen and "attack" documents by opening and editing them, and you can pick up "upgrades" which will cause software to be installed onto your computer. I've never seen anything like that before, although there are some "3D desktop environments" like the Looking Glass project, they might not be as easy to use as you would like.

I guess the issue is, for people with no computer skills, you must design an simple and intuitive desktop environment. A desktop environment is a graphical user interface that has been designed according to certain guidelines and philosophies. So the desktop environment you want to design, your first guideline will be "easy to use for the computer illiterate".

If your goal is to create a new desktop environment, you should probably not worry about creating a new distribution yet. Your first step should be to install Ubuntu onto your computer, then download the source code for a desktop environment like Gnome, Compiz, Xfce, KDE, (or take a look at the list of window managers on this page) then start experimenting with some new interface features.

You can then package your new desktop environment into a ".deb" installer file, and let others download/install it into their own Ubuntu computer, and play around with it. If it becomes popular, then you might think about making your own distribution that uses your own window manager as the default desktop environment.

[bluecode]

Thats a very good idea to write a new GUI. But to create I need much help from other hackers (programmers), because I have to write all programms again (and new) like a Mail Program, an Internet Browser, Log In screen,...
If somebody wants to help we coding, you can write me a message. I think that can be realized.
What do you think what programming language is better to create a GUI C, C++, Phyton or C/C++ with Qt? I also need a name for it.

PS: "the easiest to use system (for people with no computer skills), is Android" Yes that it's true but I always thought that some parts of Android are not Open Source.

[ramin.honary]

Android tries to compromise with big corporations who are afraid of open source software, and this will result in some non-open software to exist in Android. But Android is almost completely open source, using mostly GNU-GPL, Apache, BSD, and MIT open source licenses. Linux purists, like myself, demand use of the GNU-GPL license for everything, but you must recognize that sometimes it is not possible. For example, Firefox is not GNU-GPL (it is Mozilla's special open source license), and many Linux users don't like it because of this.

As for which language, C++ is the best language for Qt because Qt itself is written in C++. The open source nature of Linux makes writing a new GUI only as difficult as understanding Gtk+ or Qt, or whatever underlying graphics system you are using. Spend time learning about Gtk+ and Qt.

Probably, you should not write a whole web browser or e-mail program from the beginning, it takes too long. You should use a stable, trusted, secure web engine, like WebKit (used by Google Chrome and MacOS Safari) or Gecko (Firefox), and a stable, trusted, secure e-mail engine, then you can focus on the important goal of writing a nice user interface. The underlying technology is incredibly complex, and it is best to reuse existing technology.

Unfortunately, I think most hackers will tell you the same thing as me. They will ask you why you want to create your own version of the software when already Ubuntu, Mint, and Android exist, and, I think, most of them will choose not to help. However, inventing a good GUI is an art form, and any art is a good thing. If you wan't to make your own GUI, I think once you have created a working prototype, you will find people who like it, and who will like to help you.

I work with the Haskell language, which is still relatively new, about 21 years old now (one year older than Python), but it is not as easy to understand as Python so it has not become as popular. However, Haskell is my favorite language because it is mathematically very beautiful. I've been writing my own versions of common software, like a command line shell, a music software, and an animation software in Haskell. Command line software like Bash, music software like Ardour and LMMS, and animation software like Synfig and Blender already exist and are stable and very popular. But no one has written these kinds of software using Haskell before, so that's why like to spend my time on it. If it were not for the new language, I would not bother spending my time.

[bluecode]

Ok, I will first program the GUI prototype in Qt with C++. Do you know some people who can help me coding (after I've programmed the prototype)?

What do you think, should I use (for starting the GUI) gdm or kdm?

[ramin.honary]

Well, KDM is written with Qt, but GDM is not. If you want create your prototype in Qt, I would definitely suggest KDM because it will be easier to integrate with your desktop environment.

Your first prototype does not have to be a working model. You can animate some example GUI features by hand first, then present your animation on YouTube. You can say, for example, "files are presented to the user like this..." and show an animation of what files on a desktop would look like. You can say, "when I open an e-mail, it looks like this...", then show what that looks like. Right now, even I don't know if I want to help you, so it would be nice to see some examples of your ideas first.

You can just make a YouTube video presentation that shows people what your interface will look like when it is complete, but make sure to explain that you don't have any real code yet, and that you are looking for people who might be interested in helping, you can say, "if you would like to help me make a user interface that looks like this, send me a message."

It would also be a good idea to have a plan for what code needs to be written, like step 1: modify the code from KDE's "Dolphin" file manager, then step 1.1: make files look like this, step 1.2: opening a file looks like this, and so on.

And don't forget, always look at other people's ideas first. Like search YouTube for many different keywords, like "open source GUI" and "open source desktop environment" and "open source 3D desktop". Maybe someone already has the same ideas as you, and you can help them instead.

[bluecode]

Ok,
I will make a presentation and upload it to YouTube. When I have uploaded it I will send you a message and/or write it into this Thread.

Thank you. (See you soon)

[Jonathan183]

My advice would be
1. base what you are doing on Debian rather than Ubuntu - no-body new to computers wants everything to change every 6 months, and thats the Ubuntu release cycle.
2. for a GUI take a look at something like eldy.
3. a distro is going to be a lot of work - be very clear about what you are trying to achieve, who will use it, and why they will be better off using what you are developing rather than something else.