OSNews

But no one has put together the complete pieces.

Install -- Choice between text for the hardcore and a good anaconda style gui install. Hardware detection to allow for the installation of optimized packages for your cpu gentoo has multiple images even for higher stage installs and to enable dma by default on both hard drive and the cdrom/dvd Suse does this for the harddrive and I think Mandriva does this too.

Postinstall -- If Suse and others can include a download script for the MS ttf fonts for install by choice for the user after install then a great tool like Ubuntu new install script that downloads all the codecs and such for seamless media playback should be included with any new distro. The community has given you the tools. You don't have to use them and get into legal crap but you can include them on the install somewhere.

Grub -- Gui tools for configuring GRUB and a nice grub splash should be a mandatory feature for linux desktop distro.

Bootup -- Early login and retooling of the init process is needed. I am too old-school to assume that a total re-write is needed and lots of very neat tricks can be achieved with "simple" shell scripts. But in the end the only thing that matters is that it works and the bootup process is faster. Users should be given the choice between a graphical and text based boot on install.

Desktop -- I am a gnome user so excuse my emphasis on this desktop. KDE is great desktop but I have not used it enough to speak to any of its faults without getting the insta-flame treatment. Ubuntu has a nice clean desktop but gnome still needs too much memory to run at a speed comparable to XP. If you have 512MB+ you are fine but there are still new laptops today being sold with 256MB to ignore this point. The memory leaks are being addressed but in general the goal imho should be to be almost as fast as XFCE. I use that as an example because it uses a major widget set and is designed to be fast. Not saying they can ever reach that speed but it makes for a noble goal.

Small niggling usability annoyances like no doubleclick feedback for launching of desktop objects and the problems with browsing network shares need addressing and are just two examples.

In addition the reliance on OpenOffice for application support of basic word processing, presentation and spreadhsheet needs has to stop and gnome badly needs a presentation tool so those who do not want the bloated slow OpenOffice as their main office suite have a real choice.

Configuration tools -- Ubuntu in a sense has it right. The reliance on distro-specific configuration tools has stunted the overall development of the OS for the laptop. Gnome System Tools or the KDE System Tools are the proper tools and should be beefed up by every distro outside of the large commercial arenas. This includes the need for BIND, and Webserver configuration tools in the native widget sets.

Package tools -- This is a problem. Sometimes I feel it is not as large of a problem as some people make it out to be. Sometimes I feel it is the point of having to re-learn something very basic to the user experience like instead of downloading and installing an app you open a graphical yum or apt interface possibly add a repo and click to install. Not terribly hard but opposite of the way users are used to doing things. In addition there are times I feel that distro makers should work with the autopackage folks so that one package management tools can keep track of native and autopackage apps. That way distros can distribute their version of linux in their native format and then projects can just use autopackages if they offer binary packages. Very smooth. Sometimes I feel like the only package format that is universal is source and that source based portage style systems may end up being the way to go if they offer tools for handling downloaded source packages in a coherent fashion.