Presentation + A debian-based for audio creation and production, stage technics and video blend (or "the future of TangoStudio")

[Reinhard Tartler]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Andreas Tille <andreas at an3as.eu> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 09:30:20AM +0100, Aurélien Roux wrote:
>> >Just ensure that the blend metapackage(s) don't depend on it.
>>
>> Maybe it might even have a conflict with pulseaudio, no?
>
> We discussed the option of having conflicts in metapackages several
> times.  If I remember correctly the main drawback is that users who
> really really want to have pulseaudio need to deinstall the metapackage
> which is not always what you want.

TBH, I do not think that a conflicts in the meta package is the right
technical solution.

What you want here is to provide the users the best technical
environment to get his work done. I think a much better solution would
be a something like a wizard that examines your system installation,
educates the user about the findings, and then does specific
recommendations (ideally with "fix this" buttons to just do so).

Things that I imagine that this wizard could do would include:

 *  "The pulseaudio seems to be running. This can cause the following
problems <...> do you want to a) disable pulseaudio in your user
profile, b) remove it from your system c) do nothing
 * "Your Gnome System Menu is missing the following entries. Do you
want to add them?"
 * "We recommend installing the following applications: <app> <purpose>"
 * "You are not running a -rt kernel: do you want to install and reboot?"
 * "Your system needs special configuration to reduce the system
latency, do you want me to do the following changes to /etc/...?"

I think you get the idea. That would leave the choice to the user and
still be very functional and easy to use.

BTW, the idea is not really novel. See for example the powertop
application, which makes such suggestions (albeit in text mode) about
power management to save battery time.

I guess that would be an interesting application for a Debian multimedia blend.

-- 
regards,
    Reinhard