Well, I supposed basic hardware support was included from the start. So , if I have a sound card, a network card and a graphical card, I want them working with appropriate drivers. That’s why didn’t mention sound support, for example. But I do think it’s important in any system.
In regard to kate, I forgot to mention a basic GUI text editor, but, like the web browser, nothing is lost by including it. These are small applications with very wide use. In KDE I use kate, but I wouldn’t mind if a lighter one was included instead.
EDIT: on a second thought, maybe a GUI text editor isn’t needed when there’s a terminal one, like nano or micro. I personally use micro.
I think we have narrowed it down some basics - I think using the environment defaults - like kate for KDE and mousepad for Xfce would provide a familiar interface.
basic desktop / window manager
file manager (environment default)
basic text editing (environment default)
terminal emulator (environment default)
network drivers
audio drivers
audiio configuration tools (not too intimidating like alsa-cli)
basic web browser (not too intimidating like lynx - falkon or midori)
Basic console text editor is provided by the Packages-Root but I wouldn’t mind including micro.
Adding some common command line applications wouldn’t be out of the question either.
Clonezilla is already a part of the Packages-Live so we don’t need that - except if it desired as an additional tool for the installation.
whois, nslookup, bind and a couple of others is tools I would want to include - but that is probably the trouble shooting guy talking.
I also thinks its fine to include some decent default theming.
(I thought this was sort of granted … but dont know for sure if it was really considered)
PS - I’ll trade you the browser for those net tools
maybe it will be unpopular but none. Trying to guess which one is best for user it’s kinda time waste. With all created noise by tech geeks in social media about what app you should use or not it doesn’t have much sense, plus usually it ends with “which app you suggest for x” form thread.
Codecs probably be good idea, I don’t know is music or media player will pull codecs while installing. Those minimal rather not but I can be wrong.
best for everybody (including regular ISO) will be if browsers list to install will be available in Calamares. It always ends in Firefox vs Chromium, so there is 50-50% chance to guess.
for image viewer I will say Viewnior, it’s simple and have name easy to remember and for PDFs qpdfview (still use it from day I’ve installed Openbox) but name for program is not the best choice, so maybe will be better to choose something similar but better name.
I also have some thoughts about Applications from Manjaro Hello. Is it possible to add color for button? Green or maybe blue? I think most people miss it because of “Read me, forums bla bla bla, ok bye, bye” and after the third reboot “where I can disable it, oh there it is, bye bye”
Expert User minimal ISO - could be stripped back to bare essentials only (no mediaplayer, no codecs, no browser, no image viewer). Perhaps only a Windows Manager.
Non-expert User Minimal ISO. Yes to all the above. Although I only use Manjaro and have for sometime I am not an expert user and haven’t invested in the skills so my minimal ISO would preferably have all I need to run with, including a Desktop Environment.
I was thinking, maybe we stretch a little perspective and check out what “x things to do after install x OS” will say us. Because it’s a bit of maintainers vs tech tubers. You guys spend time to figure out the best experience and then “30 things to do After Installing Manjaro XFCE (2020)”, “Top 8 Things To Do With a Fresh Install of Manjaro” and so on. Maybe I’m overthinking but most “opinions” comes from YT, tech websites etc but mostly YT (to the forum). On the forum we are kinda in own ecosystem and there are “interesting things” outside, mostly cringe
I have been following the development of Manjaro for five years and have been actively using it for two years. There are only a few programs I use daily.
…hum … thats kind of the point and kind of missing the point?
The way I see it is …
full version. you know what that is.
minimal edition … this is enough to get you online and have a working desktop … but not much else
architect. everything. or nothing. its architect, do what you want.
Us here in this thread are discussing what constitutes the middle one.
As in - how minimal can it be ?
The whole intention of this thread is to shave that down.
I installed Manjaro 5 years ago via a net install (manjaro-net-0.8.13-x86_64.iso). I think it included pacman and networkmanager and basic Manjaro polishing so that one did not have to do the full detailed Arch route to get to a basic functioning system at tty level. It did not include a DE/WM and that was what I wanted, because I intended to install my own choice of DE/WM and all other applications.
Personally, I think this is what a minimal ISO should be - get to tty level with the least amount of setup required. With internet access and pacman, all else is possible afterwards. (I would even suggest not to include networkmanager but rather the most basic network capable utility (systemd?) because I ditched networkmanager soon afterwards for connman.)
Good documentation on how to install and configure various WM/DEs, sound, graphics and printer support will be a bonus.
I don’t dislike your idea. But a minimal GUI ISO is fast to download and provides a graphical environment to do troubleshooting, for example. It’s more useful than a net install.
EDIT: unless the DE/WM installation was optional or had several choices.
I think this is a very possible approach now given how Arch has moved their aims and goals over the most recent years. I was very impressed by the talks given during Arch Conf 2020 this weekend about their approach to moving interactions to make sure people interact with “non-violent communication” and I think this shows in the chat that was going on, it was very friendly, and they are even now making an installer which should mean installing Arch is much easier than it has been up until now, I am looking forward to this.
This post was flagged and hidden but I do not know why. It asked me to edit the post so I have done so.
Yeah, I know.