yeah, that tool should be improved, thats more or less planned for the future, but i would like also to have a kind of "dynamic integration" (that will import the updated improvements without need to use a new conf), but that's much much more complex to reach
i know, but there's only possible the actual different ways (which stills much better than in any other distro, because they simply don't have any such features, just plain new installs lol), which basically allows a user to "simply use the system", "update packages", "update more", "benefit of all the improvements" etc
yeah it could be possible in an ideal world, but the work needed for do it more automated (like an iphone update does) would require much more deep development which will sacrifice the entire progress of elive
yeah but not all these confs are always updated, just sometimes some of them are updated... you must know that better from reading the changelog / changes from the updated versions to know if you should update any conf (if you want to benefit from the stated improvements or just continue using your system as previously)
this will upgrade the entire system, sometimes a few confs are included to upgrade (like cairo dock and e16 now), no other user configurations are changed, you should do that from elive-skel upgrade but as said, only if you want to restart them or use the updates (if they included any)
about reinstalling some applications that will be missing i dont understand what you mean, the reinstall of the system includes all the applications needed, but you have an own selected application you should add it to the list included on this FAQ howto (tips section)
But as for the upgrade process, it not that simple for users new to linux or inexperienced user.
And half-experienced or may be lazy people like me will simply wait for the final release at reinstall " again" to get all the new " tweaks and features"
it's ok... Just saying outloud how some " not too bad " linux users will find the upgrade process.
What I understand is :
if I want " all the new tweaks / improvements " I have to either upgrade the components that were improved, running elive-skel upgrade and choosing the right one from that list ( it is for technical people that know which components is doing what)
OR
reinstall in Upgrade mode and in there. during installation, there will be a window, where I can list all the package I need in extra ( some of mine are not in the Debian Repo so I suppose I will have to reinstall them anyway manualy)
I prefer Linux 50 times to Windows
But upgrading WIndows keeping all our apps is " a lot user friendly " for non experienced users
Question :
What is that " you must know that better from reading the changelog / changes from the updated versions " ? Where is this ?
(optinally) to benefit all the improvements, you could perform extra things, that's not a requeriment, users can stick to the version they downloaded just like in any other distro (and again, elive-upgrader includes updates automatically)
in short, other distros just lacks many features, customizations, automations that elive has... thats why they don't even have any of the included in elive updating details; just the simplest process of updating packages (software versions), which in elive, this is already included and automated without worries
After to read a few times in the forum things related to updating the system, and a few complains about these "extra needed procedures", I wanted to make clear that they are not "needed" and they are just extra features that the user can enjoy, optionally
Yes, I agree it's a problem due to nature of humains, as much as we have, as much we complains without think that we should better say thanks for things we have.....
Seeing that a lot of distro's profile themselves with the specific tools they have to alter settings and or modify/tweak stuff.... like their wizards and/or updaters.
Isn't it an option/idea to create a GUI app that includes all of them, giving a sort of oversight what is on offer? Sort of like Suse's "yast"
I know I've asked this more often, in relation to aliases and settings but I see more and more reasons to do so. I am still surprised, or not fully in the clear (or simply forgot) on some options sometimes.
It gives to think that without the head dev-honcho jumping in to help on the forum, a lot of the users would "live happily ever after", never knowing/using any of those tricks.
The latter can be a "feature" like on Apple but I think Linux users want to feel "in control" of most aspects, otherwise they wouldn't even bother to try.
So practically an "elive-tools-gui" on steroids.
I suspect that would "wow" a lot of critics and add an extra dimension to Elive.
Again, not all merit a mention but some are just too nice (like apug and apif) to leave out.
To all those coming from Debian derived distros they are self explainatory but for others quite mystifying IMO.
Like in "vlc", "mplayer", "synaptic" and my "elive-tools-gui" proposal ..... I am infinitely aware that a GUI can never contain all the options and fine- tuning the commandline does.
But a GUI allowing a user to click through a lot of basic settings/tweaks would, at the least create an awareness of what's available.... Maybe a sort of "laziness" too but that's a small price to pay.
As @Thanatermesis made abundantly clear: People do not read explainatory documents.
Hell, even I start out constructing IKEA stuff straight away (how hard can it be?) and ..... only read the manual when I get stuck.
As a "user" (I hate that term - makes me sound like an addict) - I would agree with @triantares. If you want to get a user to feel an attatchment to Elive, to feel like they control it, possess it, shape it - then an an app like this that allows some control without the command line will be attractive to that portion of the users not comfortable with using a terminal. These little conveniences can make a distro really stand out and become little aspects that after a while a user cannot do with out. Uh-oh - here comes the addiction...
Something that drives me barmy is having to open nemo or thunar just to eject a usb drive...seriously - some will never realise how good Elive is, because they do not realise what it can do...I am still learning...
we have already a (not much featured but working) gui, just run "elive-skel upgrade" without the specific conf parameter - yes it can be improved, but a lot of work needs to be done to make it more "smart & auto"
is not yast (just) a package manager ?
exactly that's the point, the users "use what they gets" (on every specific version, each new one is more improved), since the development and customizations happens fast, we can feel like there's a ton of changes to "do" on our systems, but in the end is a good thing to have these changes happen fast , in the end, we could just read the changelogs and see if we want to update any provided default conf
there's a lot of already existing "wow's" in elive but yeah it can be an extra one
maybe we need a launcher (desktop menus) for run "elive-skel upgrade" without parameters? (try it)
hum, that could be nice, by other side:
most of them doesn't needs a launcher (like elive-startup-sound, which is a configurator launched on first desktop run)
others are CLI tools, is nice to know about them but a menu entry is not exactly the place for a commandline tool which runs on commandline for commandline-familiarized actions
most of these things are already integrated in specific menu entries (specially on the cairo-dock menus), but maybe in e16 we miss some entry that was existing in e17
what i have in mind (since long time) is to write an extent "commandline features" page in the elive website (future Features menu section) describing them, in order to make the users know about them, learn / use them, and promote better the elive features too
as about the Features page idea: it can be shown like you said 2 of them as an intro and the command "alias | grep apt" to "know more..." tip
In any case, for improve a GUI about elive features, should be first listed "what is needed / could be good to have" in a gui, as said before, some are tools, some are configurators (which are not needed to run everytime, not even annoying in menus, like the startup song configurator which is always configured on new desktop restarted settings), etc
I wrote (hacked from Mint) in the past a gui that can be nice to use for that, try it:
api elive-welcome
elive-welcome
well, we will need then to make a list of the needed things and brainstorm how to add / put them in elive in a non-obstrusive way (like a single launcher to a gui menu similar to elive-welcome, etc)
in elive 3.0 stable you have a gadget in the desktop that appears where you can directly click on it to eject devices, and watch the % used of the disk (pretty useful / nice) - in new alphas maybe you can do it in cairo-dock too from the folders icon right-clicking on devices
yep, that's why i think its needed to write an extensive Features menu sections in the website, as a good presentation / description
My point was that, as you yourself also know -- people don't read manuals or docs:
So I was thinking along the lines of a toolbox like "settings" and "tweaks" in Ubuntu/Mint or (at the time) Mandrake Control Centre.
A sort of visually appealing (lots of icons) starting point from where the machine can be configured and tweaked in all respects available as well as some iconified "alias apt" options.
So indeed something like "elive-welcome" (all in all a promising starting point ) but then with some of the settings options I pointed out in my post.
...... And as it is, after all the flag the ship sails under: Be as visually appealing as possible using gtk3, not zenity i.e the "elive-skel" interface doesn't really cut it and would only disturb a newbie.
BTW.
In the "elive-welcome.py" dict error -- where would one find /etc/linuxmint/info or a similar formatted file on an elive system? It can't be that simple, can it? It is
Played around and found that you need split(":") in place of split("=") when using "/etc/elive-version" as input file. it then gives {'kernel': ' 4.19.0-5-amd64', 'date-builded': ' 2019-06-26', 'debian-version': ' buster', 'elive-version': ' 3.7.6', 'stable-release': ' no', 'elive-codename': ' alpha'} on a subsequent "print config"
An excellent manner of showing new users the power that they hold, instead of forcing them to rummage around the system for all sorts of obscure config options.
I think it's something worthwhile to create an own Elive version of.
Nice idea but why do they use Qt5 if they want to be distro agnostic?
Try "api -s calamares" and you'll see what I mean. It almost brings along the whole shebang of KDE libraries.
Using GTK3 interface (or even just TKinter, seeing it's in python) would make it realy independent and at least a lot lighter.
, in the end, we could just read the changelogs and see if we want to update any provided default conf
