Feedback: My two cents' worth on Darnya

[professorsnapper1]

Well, after giving the Mint 4.0 Gnome Live CD a go on a couple of machines (and getting it to work on one of these), here are my thoughts after an hour or so's investigation:
(perhaps this will help for Mint 5 as well?)

Computer 1: Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz with only 192MB RAM.
Didn't work, most likely because of too little RAM. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Live CD needs to state realistic minimum specs needed to run it, rather than saying "128MB or better" on the help screen, saving unnecessary effort and frustration from those with minimum-spec machines. Further, I'd suggest that the help screen list some alternatives (perhaps Mint Fluxbox & E17?) and THEIR minimum specs, to be more helpful. Or even, get Mint to auto-detect the amount of RAM available & CPU speed first-up, and make a suggestion on an OS based on that...

Computer 2: 567Mhz Intel Celeron with 512MB RAM.
Booted seamlessly from the Live CD, with the exception of an error message reading "Error Box: The panel encountered a problem while loading "Oafiid: Gnome_mixerapplet". Do you want to delete the applet?" I don't remember what I selected, but it seemed to work OK anyway. Not sure why the error message - I created the boot CD from the DVD on the cover of APC mag (Australia), Feb 08 edition.
My thoughts - firstly, NICE WORK! Maybe it's a small thing, but Darnya recognised my mice (Logitech and no-name) straight away, unlike XP SP1, which wouldn't work even with a Logitech driver disk (possibly not for the right model, but anyways)...
I was impressed with the general feel of the OS - the spit and polish has paid off. Even though this is based on Ubuntu, it looks more modern than Gutsy, possibly because of fonts used and a few minor theme improvements... Gutsy out-of-the-box looks a little bit outdated to me.
I'd like to make a few suggestions, having looked at this through a beginner's / XP user's eyes:
- The Mint button on the bottom toolbar with "Darnya" alongside it is too small and indistinct, and for a newbie may not clearly enough indicate its' purpose as a "start" button. This could be made more intuitive by more clearly labelling it a "start" button or similar. Also, clicking on that button a second time should toggle the start menu open / closed (currently, it does not).
- Further, when the bottom toolbar is resized, the icons on it are resized inconsistently (or in the case of the Mint button, not at all), which looks a little clumsy. Perhaps they could all be made to behave uniformly, and I'd suggest making the toolbar a bit bigger by default (people can minimise it as they wish, but for first-timers, visibility and ease-of-use are key).
- When you hit the Mint button to start, the search toolbar at the bottom should be the Tracker search tool (ie find documents AND apps, not just apps). As a mild confusion, the icons for the default search toolbar on the start menu and the Tracker are almost identical, yet the programs are different in functionality (as above). Also, running off the Live CD, tracker didn't find the .doc and .xls files I saved under the "Documents" folder, even though I was able to go back and find them manually.
- Mint Assistant: I agree with one of the Mint reviews I read via DistroWatch - the Mint Assistant in Darnya is not very helpful, and the options therein would make no sense to a newbie.
- On the topic of "making sense to newbies", I suggest looking at ALL the menu options through "newbie goggles", and aiming to de-jargonise them, as well as putting the advanced options out of sight (but accessible, say, through a sub-menu). For example: The pop-up description for the Keyring Manager icon, rather unhelpfully, says "Manage your keyrings". How about the person who doesn't know what a keyring is, or why/how they should be managed? Example 2: Sun Java 6 Policy Tool - huh? Example 3: "Login window" icon- "configure GDM login window appearance and behaviour" - what? The less bewildering detail up front, the better for the newbie...
- Also on the start menu, perhaps the "system tools" and "preferences" could be combined, as I can't really tell the difference between them (and one of them has only one item listed in it anyway).
- When taking a screenshot, is it possible to have the option of saving the image as a jpeg? I've had people on Windows machines say they've been unable to display .png files without downloading extra codecs or similar, and have seen .png's in MS Word refuse to display.
- And lastly, I'd like to second the suggestion made by another poster on the forum that video Mint tutorials be made available, possibly via Miro media player (and possibly included with the default distro, perhaps on a second CD for those interested & without a good net connection). The Ubuntu "Month of Screencasts" offers some possible direction here...

Keep up the fine work! Hearty congrats to all!

Thanks,
Snapper.
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[Husse]

Mainly good points
but

rather than saying "128MB or better" on the help screen

Where is that? I've never seen it - but I've not seen it all
With the exception of Fluxbox we recommend a minimum of some 384 MB in the forum when asked.
The search in the menu (Does it say filter? It does in my localized version) is to search the menu
Very handy, I almost only use it
Say you want Virtualbox > Open menu > type vir in that box and Virtualbox appears alongside your antivirus program if you have one (I have an on demand scanner scanning about once a month)

clicking on that button a second time should toggle the start menu open / closed (currently, it does not).

Then there's some error....

[professorsnapper]

Hi Husse, my answers to your answers...

Mainly good points
but

rather than saying "128MB or better" on the help screen

Where is that? I've never seen it - but I've not seen it all

When using the Live CD, the boot screen appears (as shown on p.11 of the new Darnya user guide), and when I hit F1 from this screen, that's where I got the "128MB or better" from.

With the exception of Fluxbox we recommend a minimum of some 384 MB in the forum when asked.

From Kynan's response, it seems that there's the beginning of a consensus forming I suggest a three-pronged approach:
1) Offer the potential Mint user the option of having their PC queried for it's specs, from which a recommendation could be made;
2) For the security-conscious who may baulk at option 1), offer a quick visual "how-to" on how the user can find this info themselves (mainly aimed at Windows users);
3) Even aside from 1) & 2), some minimum specs for each version should be listed up-front, for example on the "Downloads" page.

By the way, do you mean ALL other versions aside from Fluxbox require 384MB or greater? From another of my posts on this forum (entitled "Which version of Linux Mint for me?") I gleaned that the Xfce version might work OK on 192MB (2.4Ghz CPU), and I presume the E17 version is for really low-spec machines - certainly some of the Mint E17 videos on youtube suggest so...

The search in the menu (Does it say filter? It does in my localized version) is to search the menu

I don't remember it saying anything about "filter" - I'll check it out and report back if it does.

Very handy, I almost only use it

I see how the search tool is pretty handy in its' present form - I've just seen how the "Spotlight" desktop search tool on Mac OSX gives really clever and useful search results, and groups them according to Applications, Documents, etc for ease of reference. If you've not seen it, I recommend having a look, even if only to see how they've implemented it.

clicking on that button a second time should toggle the start menu open / closed (currently, it does not).

Then there's some error....

I wonder if I'm the only one experiencing this error? Should I file a bug report, or what would you suggest?

Thanks,
Snapper.

[professorsnapper]

Firstly i'd like to say wow great post! and thank you for all the time and effort you went to in helping here, I'm sure the developers will appreciate the very good detailed feedback like this.

Thanks, Kynan. I do my best

We could have something built into the web page and on the liveCD? that if allowed will probe the users PC for there system specs and then gives them a detailed comparison including there system specs, the minimum for each mint version and a suggestion

Cool - have a look at my reply to Husse & see what you think. I hope the devs are reading this stuff...

- The Mint button on the bottom toolbar with "Darnya" alongside it is too small and indistinct, and for a newbie may not clearly enough indicate its' purpose as a "start" button. This could be made more intuitive by more clearly labelling it a "start" button or similar.

Currently mintMenu is under a bit of development i am testing the beta 3.1 and there are alot of new features and a GUI to change things to users preferences, I would hate to call it 'start' for fear of copying Microsoft i quite like the naming convention to be the codename of the release personally, you can instantly see other peoples screenshot's what version they are running. I have heard from Clem that the logo will be scalable as some people like myself thing that it is too small in the new mintMenu 3.1 but i would like to see a bit of a button design overhaul.

My main concern in suggesting a "Start" button was to assist the rank beginner to find their bearings, as those unused to computing won't necessarily know where to begin when presented with a (nearly) bare screen, apart from trial-and-error. Believe me, I think that MS should only be copied where it's necessary and makes most common sense to do so...

And I agree, having the version name /number on the screen is a good idea for the reasons you mentioned - it just needs to be better flagged, as the newbie sees the Mint button, the word "Darnya" and may not recognise the importance of either.

I'll have to have a lookie at MintMenu 3.1 for myself...
**** EDIT***** Having seen the screenshots of MintMenu 3.1 on other posts, it looks like this particular point may have already been addressed, by having a "System Menu" on the toolbar. Hurrah!

- When you hit the Mint button to start, the search toolbar at the bottom should be the Tracker search tool (ie find documents AND apps, not just apps). As a mild confusion, the icons for the default search toolbar on the start menu and the Tracker are almost identical, yet the programs are different in functionality (as above). Also, running off the Live CD, tracker didn't find the .doc and .xls files I saved under the "Documents" folder, even though I was able to go back and find them manually.

I quite like the way it is setup here actually i dont really want to look for or get confused by documents when searching my menu for programs.

I'm all for keeping things confusion-free myself. As in my comment to Husse, I think there are ways to have the extra functionality which are simple, intuitive and effective. Spotlight is one such example.

one of the first things i do is go and edit the menu and untick all the things i never use and i make a new category for mint tools so i can find them easy.

I reckon a category for the Mint tools is a great idea, and should be there as standard.

i'd actually go as far as to say i cant usually determine the difference between "system tools" "preferences" and "administration"

Couldn't all these things be neatly stowed away under "Control Panel" or similar? That's at least one thing MS does which is halfway decent...

- And lastly, I'd like to second the suggestion made by another poster on the forum that video Mint tutorials be made available, possibly via Miro media player (and possibly included with the default distro, perhaps on a second CD for those interested & without a good net connection). The Ubuntu "Month of Screencasts" offers some possible direction here...

yep once again agree!

Now I'm pretty new at Linux, but would consider being part of a "Mint media collective" to get some heads together on how to get video tutorials, screencasts etc off the ground... I wonder if it's worth posting a new thread and seeing if there's any interest out there?

Thanks,
Snapper.

****Edit: Oops - corrected misspelling of Kynan's name! ******