[Feature] Update desktop xfce4 profile

[guglovich]

Please add NetworkManager, Network Manager Applet, and thunar-media-tags-plugin packages to desktop profile in xfce4 script.

This would be logical considering that for example xfce4 script installs secondary packages such as image viewer, video player, very controversial plugins, but there is no basic plugin for thunar and network has to be configured in the console. And it's not even clear which utility and if it was, I tried through systemD.

A bit of emotion and misery. Not a must-read. Considering the problems after installation I spent 4h and failed to install packages due to core.db failed to download etc., and it is not clear whether it was the network I misconfigured in the console, which I never did, or the problem happened to pacman itself. If I had at least the internet and a browser and it all worked, it would have been easier to fix it in place rather than running around for over 2 hours from room to room looking for solutions on another machine.

[dylanmtaylor]

We ONLY install NetworkManager if it is selected in the ISO config. I feel like for any DE that can benefit from it, we should install nm-applet if and only if NM is chosen by users.

-1 on thunar-media-tags-plugin. That's post-installation configuration. Users can install this if desired. If it was required, it'd be a dependency of thunar.

[guglovich]

We ONLY install NetworkManager if it is selected in the ISO config. I feel like for any DE that can benefit from it, we should install nm-applet if and only if NM is chosen by users.

-1 on thunar-media-tags-plugin. That's post-installation configuration. Users can install this if desired. If it was required, it'd be a dependency of thunar.

The Network Manager Applet requires NetworkManager, which is why I specified just NetworkManager. In general this one, or the other one is lighter, otherwise it comes out that the old kind of installation is the same in terms of comfort as the new kind of installation.

I don't agree about the plugin for the reasons described above. There's also a bunch of junk in the script, including Dictionary, Notes, Xfburn, Picture Viewer and Player. I may have forgotten something else, but it's really rubbish and they weigh more than the two packages I'm writing about.

Good UX is when there is audience research based on feedback, no subjectivity and no "I see it this way".

[dylanmtaylor]

NetworkManager has always been an install-time option. It's in the main menu under network configuration. What I'm saying is that we could also install nm-applet in the case Network Manager is selected. It looks like xfce4-goodies already includes the mentioned plugin. We ship goodies because it includes many things that would otherwise make the desktop feel unusable for a large number of people if we omitted them. That said, we generally aim to ship very minimal profiles and allow users to add more and configure them post-install as much as possible.

[guglovich]

NetworkManager has always been an install-time option. It's in the main menu under network configuration. What I'm saying is that we could also install nm-applet in the case Network Manager is selected. It looks like xfce4-goodies already includes the mentioned plugin. We ship goodies because it includes many things that would otherwise make the desktop feel unusable for a large number of people if we omitted them. That said, we generally aim to ship very minimal profiles and allow users to add more and configure them post-install as much as possible.

I don't seem to have noticed the point with the network, perhaps DHCP would have worked automatically. Because of my inattention, I should probably consider "foolproofing", e.g. notifying me of unselected options or displaying a list of selected options before installation, with a warning in red about unselected options.

Thanks for the feedback, hope to see nm-applet in the script as well.