can I have some popcorn with this?
br Hari
LMAO. These threads do get a bit like that, don't they? This isn't the first, nor, I suspect, will it be the last!
Mods - you may as well lock this thread, it's pointless now.
I disagree. If we return to your initial posting, you
did, IMHO, make some valid points. Unfortunately, they hav been lost in the ensuing flame war!
Various people have commented on the whole "if you don't contribute, your opinion is worthless" debate (on both sides). For my own part, I think a lot depends on what you mean by contribute. If you mean coding, then I disagree with the statement. If you mean involvement in all aspects (testing, documenting, helping, etc.) then I would agree with it. FWIW, I am considering going down Skeptic's path, at least until it's beyond Beta. My reasons are twofold:
- At a Beta level, as various people have said in other threads, it isn't ready for production. I work away and I need the system to jus keep working. Without failure or excuses. My own WAF / FAF depends on it. My wife is doing an MSc., my kids their school exams and the simply cannot have the internet go down. Even showing them which cable to move is not an acceptable solutions (you haven't met my family) so if MCE needs to be the router, then at a Beta level I cannot use it as I would like to.
- At this time, I ONLY want Media. I have no interest in (or use for) HA, Security, Telephony etc. Therefore the interface is cluttered. If I stick with MCE, I will hav to re-skin the interface to exclude the stuff I don't want or use (if that can be done). Again, I don't want to start a debate on this, but IMHO, the Telephony "row" in the Orbiter shouldn't even be shown until Telephony is set up. Same with Lighting etc. etc. Perhaps in the Orbiter re-write?
I am not, however, ready to move away from MCE yet. My reasons for staying are:
- I do want a unified system. Off-air TV. Recording TV. DVD's Music. Pictures. All with one interface. So far, I havn't seen anything else that does this.
- Whilst I support skeptic's desire for a non-PXE option for MD's. I want PXE booting. At least with MCE, I don't have to really think about it!
- I have already invested a lot of time and effort into MCE. I haven't (yet) got it up and running (!) but I don't want to chuck all that away. Plus, you're such a great bunch! (And I do NOT say that with any sense of sarcasm!)
Returning to Skeptic's original posting. What we MUST recognise, is that (almost without exception) everyone here is a techie. Getting genuine feedback from the target "end user" community is valuable and should not be ridiculed in this way. l3mce, your postings with pictures are inflamatory and pointless. It ISN'T about whether YOU find it easy, it's about whether the USER finds it easy. Call it personal preference. Call it stupidity. It doesn't matter. This user has made a comment and that comment is vslid.
Whenever I complete any work at all. Techie or otherwise. I always seek comment and approval from "outside". Often, a fresh pair of eyes sees something differently and can offer suggestions that I would not have considered, which may improve my project. Hell, I even get my wife to proof-read SMS messages to my ex-wife! Please, guys, see this thread in that light. You may not agree with Skeptic's wife, but you have to value her opinion (even if you ultimately ignore it!)
I would like to take his posting point-by-point though. Each point could well spawn its own thread!
Well guys, I hate to admit it but the wife has been somewhat unhappy with LinuxMCE from the start. She loves the idea of a central media center and various frontend MDs, as well as the potential for all the home automation stuff, integrated security and phone system, etc. Unfortunately she hates the interface. Ugly, non-intuitive, sometimes glitchy. She wants to be able pick up a remote and have everything make sense, not need to learn where stuff is or how to do things.
Since I had a spare 500G SATA drive in my closet, I went ahead and installed Mythbuntu for her to try. The wife is happy with it, so it looks like I'll be stepping away from linuxmce for a while. To be completely honest, I like it much better myself except for the lack of HA features.
So, a user finds the interface counter-intuitive and doesn't like the bugs. Furthermore, they have sited an example of something they prefer. Fair enough.
*rip out, rewrite, or otherwise get away from any proprietary code. LinuxMCE needs FOSS programmers, some FOSS programmers may shy away from a project built from and still limited by non-free licensing, even if it's just some areas.
Yes, he may be simply re-stating MCE "policy" here, but it's a worthy aim. I know a lot of FOSS developers are highly principled and wouldn't consider involvement in a project that wasn't totally open. Even here, the thought of integrating a proprietary system is met with hostility!
*stop chasing away potential users and developers. Rude belittling posts do nothing but hurt the project.
I ahve already commented on this above.
*listen to the users. If a question or complaint comes up often, there is a reason.
This is true, although not often a technical one! Maybe it's the documentation that's at fault. The one that springs to mind (for me) is the whole issue of having 2 NICs. We ALL know by now why 2 are required, but I'd bet every one of us cn think of reasons (at least for now) why we would rather it not be like that!
*more linux standard stuff, less wizardy stuff. Think of how many people run into the "black screen, press 1, 2, 3, etc." on hardware where a standard linux install works fine.
I agree. If I want to change something, I want that change to stick. Maybe better documentation is the key? For example, what if I want to keep my 2-NIC core, but have a second machine act as my internet router? (I.E. have two machines that are dual-homed) Where do I change the default gateway in MCE's setup? (I may have chosen a bad example here, but you get the idea.)
*If at all possible, get this to run on other distros.
I don't think this is practical, although (as I said above) I was under the impression that once 810 goes to release, future versions will be much faster to produce and we should be able to pretty much keep up with the Ubuntu releases. (Can anyone confirm this?)
*Do not force PXE booted MDs. Net booting is nice, it's slick, but sometimes being able to boot a MD from a local HD is a better option.
Again, I like this, but can see times when a local MD boot would be useful. Say I want to put an MD in a place where I simply cannot get a network cable? WiFi is the obvios solution, but PXE over WiFi?
*Put an end to the constand "need to reload router" and "need to regenerate orbiter" stuff.
Err. Yes. But how?? Would it be possible to have the orbiter regeneration be a background task so that the system can still be used while the regeneration is done? If I add something to the system which requires all orbiters to regenerate, that shouldn't stop people form using existing functionality (like watching a dvd) elsewhere.
Of course these are all suggestions, nobody can demand or even expect the devs to work on anything they don't want to (unless they are being directly paid for specific items). I'll still be lurking from time to time, I may even setup a test environment and continue to play around.
Like the man says, they are only suggestions!
