[Mageia-dev] Changing default media names

Sun Nov 20 22:36:06 CET 2011

On Sun, 20 Nov 2011, Samuel Verschelde wrote:
+
+> 
+> I'm not sure about it. I see the benefits, but to me there is a major drawback: 
+> they are not user-friendly :
+> - current names are readable, new ones aren't, they're just technical
+
+Adding capitals and replacing / with spaces does not make the name more
+user-friendly. If we want to be friendly with users, we should not
+confuse them by calling the same thing with different names all the time.
+The naming scheme for medias that is used almost everywhere including
+on mirrors is i586/core/release, not Core 32bit Release.
+
+> - current naming scheme doesn't bother you with arch information, except on 64 
+> bits system and only for 32 bits media
+
+That's the problem. Sometimes the arch is included, sometimes it is not.
+And sometimes two names can refer to different things (Core Release is
+not the same thing on x86_64 and i586 installs), or two different names
+can refer to the same thing (Core Release on i586 is the same as Core
+32bit Release on x86_64 installs).
+
+And 32bit is not more user-friendly than i586. Sources is not more
+user-friendly than SRPMS. We should call the same thing with the same
+name all the time.
+
+> - the order of items in current scheme is better : first you see whether it's 
+> Core, Nonfree or Tainted, then if it's Release/Updates/Backports/Updates 
+> Testing/Backports Testing, and then debug media have some more information. 
+
+The order of items in current scheme is totally random :
+ Core Release
+ Core 32bit Release
+ Core Release Sources
+ Core Release Debug
+ 
+Sometimes the arch is not included, sometimes the arch is included as
+2nd word (32bit), sometimes the arch is the last word (Sources). Debug
+is last, while on mirrors it is not.
+
+If we want to be user-friendly, we should use the same names all the
+time, so use the same order all the time.
+
+> Release and arch are important but many media share the same release and arch 
+> on a given system, so the information should be more discreet.
+
+Release and arch in the name is needed to avoid having different medias
+with the same name.
+
+> 
+> This proposal looks good for CLI but not for GUI. I share the objectives, but 
+> am not entirely convinced by the current proposal, unless it comes with 
+> improvements on the UI side.
+> 
+> Some ideas :
+> - change the naming scheme but translate it into human readable names in UI
+
+I think we should not confuse people by displaying a different name for
+the same thing. We can add a description text explaining what the media
+is, but this should not be the name.
+
+> - Implement item 40 for mageia 2 specs : "really use media tags in the package 
+> managers, CLI and GUI: testing, backport, update, etc. Currently, apart from a 
+
+Using media tags does not replace using consistent media names.
+
+