Well I expected some improvements from fedora 8 but what i got is a
rocking Ubuntu killer! I have some suggestions for Fedora 9 ...
1)Gnome-mount should mount partitions in the Computer folder rather than
on the desktop..Its really troublesome for people with 12 partitions..
2)Make thunderbird the default mail client instead of evolution ...I
guess a Thunderbird lightbird combo would rock!
3)A graphical screen for shutdown as nice as rhgb
4)Now since Fedora is a complete opensource product i guess we should
add a nice little presentation or a startup video sort of a thing which
lets people(newcomers) know that they are using an opensource product
and they should be proud of it(similar to windows xp tour) [putting it
in sessions startup won't be a bad idea]..Most people shift to linux
bcoz they are fed up with windows ..with fedora they should know what &
why they are using and i guess this would create an awareness of
opensource rather than people shouting in mailing lists "why the hell
can't it play mp3?"..Now I know that when you first start fedora firefox
comes up but all we do is hit the close button or goto our favourite
site rather than reading the release notes.A simple yet attractive
presentation/slideshow(some sound wud also do) telling people what is
open source and why they should use open source will make people aware
of this magical world ..Most important the catchline should be "Free as
in Freedom".Also a nice graphical tutorial sort of a thing abour kde and
gnome desktops would be great
5)Also when the user tries to play mp3 it comes with a nice plugin
finder ...thats's great but i guess there should also be a
note/catchline there that "Move to freedom Go Opensource> Convert all
your mp3s to ogg!" and when the user clicks it, it should present the
user with the advantages of open codecs the quality specs and stuff in a
little window and side by side it should open this program called
oggconvert..Oggconvert is a very useful tool and i believe it can
accelerate the opensource movement ...B'coz when people start using open
codecs rather than spending hours on mailing lists trying to figure out
how to play an avi file they would start realizing the importance of
open codecs.Coz when they use it the know about it and then they start
depending on it..
6)There should be a general encouragement about filing bugs..Me being a
gnome user a small panel app saying "Spot a bug" or file a bug will be a
great thing to do..There should be a note that there is a fedora mailing
list to which you can subscribe..This Spot a bug thing i noticed in
Safari beta where just besides the address bar they had this little bug
icon and it was really easy to file a bug..So this spot a bug thing
should be brought in to the "normal user" visibility range.I know people
would tell about bugzilla sites and stuff but normal users are
lazy..When making a desktop software always consider the user as the
laziest person on earth and then u have the easiest desktop to use.!
7)I know people would criticize about my opinions and so called
suggestions ...its just a point of view nothing else ...some may agree
and some may disagree..
-Abhishek Rane
