After reading this Blog Review (http://roundsl.blogspot.com/2013/10/vsido-2-review-like.html) ,both ISO's were updated, built, installed, tested and uploaded today with no issues. Thanks to the unknown blogger
- Reconstructed the FluxBox menu
- Changed the way themes are loaded to save space
- Updated GMusicBrowser to the latest git levels
- Updated all applications to the latest SID levels
Certainly not a scathing review by any means and some interesting points but a fair amount of whinging. It looks like the Vsido forum over there. I suppose I should post this in response to his post but I am lazy :) You all knew that. FWIW:
- Dist upgrade in the Vsido-welcome vs just smxi. Seems whingy to me, you are installing apps and the first thing I would do anyway is an update. Yes you could use smxi, I appreciate both being there
- I will add that I don't like the jre install with the welcome script since there are new version for Debian and I would rather get the latest JRE, you might want to either change to the latest JRE or make the JRE install a separate choice.
- Menus. This is whinging to me but would like to see what you have done to menu's since I am pretty happy with my current install and not likely to re-install. I think menu's are really personal and I expect any distro to put stuff goofy places. One man's poison ... the key point I think that is not stressed in his post is if you don't like the way the menu's are fluxbox/Vsido make it really easy to change it to how you like it.
- I like having ceni and wicd. I could care about gdebi and aptitude or even diskmanager for that matter. They take up little space and really don't hurt the install/distro. I mean having them does not weaken it.
- OK, I'll admit I hate the standard panel and change it immediately, but again so what. Takes a few seconds and no harm is really done by it
- Regarding terminals and transparencies. Yes the transparent terminal is a no for me, but sure some like it. It sounds like there was still some xfce stuff in the build at that time he tested. Am I correct in understanding that is all gone now? I use terminator so I replace everything with that and remove the other stuff.
- I think this is a to each his own thing. lxappearance, bum, things like that aren't really in the road for me. But again you are looking for the common-denominator, what do most of your target users use?
- Icon's and that stuff is again whinging. If I don't like an icon I can swap it out, same with an app. The key here is that with Vsido I do less of that than with any distro I have ever seen.
Feedback is good, hearing what people think is good. But, it can be distracting. Boiling down the essence what really matters is:
- As a distro you are trying to produce a high quality sid distro that comes with an exceptional set of tools that fits your target users needs
- It is rock-solid, installs reliably, easily and quickly
- Your users are provide with the tools they need to quickly and easily change what they don't like and get the specific tools they individually need to get an advanced working environment in the shortest time possible
If you aren't careful you can waste valuable time running hither and yon trying to fix issues that don't answer your core values. That would hurt the distro in my honest opinion. I may have missed some points but in my mind you have hit these targets and then some. This is an exceptional distro and is constantly moving forward to meet the primary goals and beyond. Are their ways it can be improved? Sure, but those would be more about adding items that enhance the three above points (and any I may have missed) and not distracted by targeted user interface issues. JM2C
Thank you statmonkey, I appreciate that.
I agree with your assessments and honestly, the only thing that really caught my attention on that blog was the menu being a bit of a mess and after looking at it, I agreed somewhat. It was very minor changes and attached is the menu for you to look at and evaluate
menu1 is what is seen on the LiveCD
menu is what is on the install
Thanks man, I really appreciate your input!
Thanks for the menu stuff I will take a look at it. I still don't think that you are ever going to satisfy a majority of people regarding menu's. I think there is a distro (Semplice?) where they wrote a pretty cool little auto-menu app and I also think he still gets a lot of complaints.
Really only 1 theme running through that jumbled lot.