Crazy idea / suggestion

[nightflier]

I am disappointed to hear that SOHO may disappear. SOHO 5.0 was the reason why I ended my distro-hopping. I purchased it as well as 5.1. When 5.8 came out I bought some other merchandise from the store.

I have experimented with adding KDE to Standard, but have never produced as good a product as the one put together by more capable people. It seems to me that SOHO is more than just an add-on, it is a refinement of Std. Usually, by the time SOHO appears, several issues/bugs in Std. are discovered and fixed. I do install and test the Standard releases, trying to be of some help, but my main desktop remains the stable SOHO.

So did I get this right, KDE will become part of the Deluxe package? Or will there be an actual SOHO disc that I can purchase?

[Dweeberkitty]

Looks like we'll end up with a lot of different versions:

VL "light?"
VL standard
VL standard Live
VL64 standard
VL SOHO
VL SOHO Live
VL64 SOHO
(several others have been suggested in the past)

So, the question is: Do you think there is enough manpower to test and release all of these? I don't think so, perhaps we should scratch some of these, and focus on a few 'core' products (IMO these should be VL standard and SOHO). All the rest is nice and funny, but just niches. We can't and shouldn't make a distro for every niche.

I have to agree. When there are too many choices, people are almost always deterred. They can be confusing to the person looking at VL as a possible distro and they may be overwhelmed with the choices and leave. Studies have shown this to be true. For example, in one study, people shopping in Draeger's, a high-end supermarket in Stanford, Calif., encountered a tasting booth displaying exotic jams. In one case, they were offered six different jams to taste and in another a selection of 24. Once they'd tasted the jams they were given $1 off coupons for the spreads. Thirty percent of those offered a choice of six jams to taste purchased a jar, while only 3 percent of those offered a choice of 24 jams bought any. Apparently, confronting 24 jams is just too much for most people.

Another study found that students were more likely to write a short essay for extra credit if they could choose among six topics rather than 30. Clearly, fewer choices can be key to attracting more customers or users. Microsoft for example has experienced great success in selling Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional. Those were the two choices that the average joe saw. However, with the coming of Vista and the many versions, they have not had as much success, partly to buggy software but also I think, to the fact that are too many choices. This is also a predominate problem in the Linux market today.

Here is a link to the research paper showing that too many choices can be confusing and produce less results: http://www.columbia.edu/~ss957/whenchoice.html

I believe that to draw users instead of repelling them, we must strip VL down to just a few choices. Sure we can have other versions and options laying around, but the main ones that we promote on the website, try to sell and advertise for should be the two or three flavors, thus making it simple for the average user (which makes up the majority of the market) to choose.

I have experimented with adding KDE to Standard, but have never produced as good a product as the one put together by more capable people. It seems to me that SOHO is more than just an add-on, it is a refinement of Std. Usually, by the time SOHO appears, several issues/bugs in Std. are discovered and fixed. I do install and test the Standard releases, trying to be of some help, but my main desktop remains the stable SOHO.

I agree. I think there is a need for a customized KDE version of VL. Just installing KDE on STD doesn't cut it and the result are always less satisfying than having a polished, fixed up, cleaned up, custom KDE version of VL. Please don't do away with that. A vanilla install of KDE is not even close to the sweet product called SOHO. Doing away with that seems to be a mistake.

[Triarius Fidelis]

I have to agree. When there are too many choices, people are almost always deterred. They can be confusing to the person looking at VL as a possible distro and they may be overwhelmed with the choices and leave. Studies have shown this to be true. For example, in one study, people shopping in Draeger's, a high-end supermarket in Stanford, Calif., encountered a tasting booth displaying exotic jams. In one case, they were offered six different jams to taste and in another a selection of 24. Once they'd tasted the jams they were given $1 off coupons for the spreads. Thirty percent of those offered a choice of six jams to taste purchased a jar, while only 3 percent of those offered a choice of 24 jams bought any. Apparently, confronting 24 jams is just too much for most people. 

A supermarket called Draugr's that sells two dozen kinds of jams? I'm there, dude!

[Masta]

A supermarket called Draugr's that sells two dozen kinds of jams? I'm there, dude!

Will you please slow down? You're going to get us into a jam   

[Witek Mozga]

We have to make the most people possible to give VL a try. Distro-hoppers or not.

First of all we have to answer the qusetion what is the aim of making a distro. Is it the technical challenge and ego that drives the project and devs couldn't care less if their app/OS dominates the world as stated by easuter or maybe we want to make the most people possible to use VL? Both ways are OK, but they are mutually exclusive IMHO.

Who is Vector addressed to? a narrow group of users? Newbies? Geeks? or maybe not users are important but older hardware? If we know the answers we can choose direction to go. You cannot please everyone and you shoudn`t.

If you want to make a distro for geeks or older hardware then make minimal barebones.

If you want to address average user then there is no other way than SOHO or maybe Deluxe. Doing something in beetween will not attract average MSwindows users (maybe you don`t want them, that`s OK).

[rbistolfi]

Not really, Witek. That is an assumption. Why cant you do a distro technically good, and expect people actually using it?. It's just no true. Note I said "give vl a try"; i.e. we want the chance to convince people to use vl. It was an argument in favor of the live-cd. If people dont look at vl, they will never use it. VL have to be noticed, so we have a chance to gain users. If AFTER giving vl a try they say 'is too techie' or something, well, I am affraid we cant do too much.

[Triarius Fidelis]

Who is Vector addressed to? a narrow group of users? Newbies? Geeks? or maybe not users are important but older hardware? If we know the answers we can choose direction to go. You cannot please everyone and you shoudn`t.

It seems that most of our new users are inexperienced, but willing to learn. I hope we continue to aim for that audience.

[nubcnubdo]

When we invite a visitor on our site to give VL a try, I think we have an obligation to provide this visitor a means to try VL with no commitment of money or material resources. Visitor shouldn't have to buy a hard drive to install VL, or dedicate a spare computer to VL, or even risk borking the OS on his working computer with a dual boot, just to try out VL. This is good reason to have at least one VL version in liveCD form, that is, to demonstrate VL without cost or risk. If we choose just one version for the liveCD, it almost certainly should be Standard because Std will work on the most computers, particularly low-end machines, to give the full effect of a VL install.

[Triarius Fidelis]

I guess I agree.

[no2thesame]

Initially I was sorry to hear that SOHO would be leaving the building. Not only is it the reason I stopped distro--hopping nearly 3 years ago but, I think this is the where Vector stands out from the crowd: it is stable, business-friendly (it just works) and has the software I like to use. All in a small, unobtrusive distro.

On reflection though, it IS a good business move, I buy a polished Deluxe version, at most twice a year, and still get what I need to keep my home-office and family happy and regularly support the Vector team as well.

I vote we go with three Vector versions:
Light
Standard
Deluxe (with a similar feel to what we now call SOHO)

[Triarius Fidelis]

Warning: some, perhaps many will feel disenfranchised by the loss of SOHO.

[Rusty Guy]

Warning: some, perhaps many will feel disenfranchised by the loss of SOHO.

My .02. There are several reasons why I'm keeping an eye on VL. One is the SOHO idea. I think I could live with no SOHO version - provided that some of us in the adult educ/non-profit community could do a remaster for our specific purposes. This has been discussed before but not in The Lounge.

[uelsk8s]

some comments to hopefully ease concerns.

Nothing I say is final, and as you may have noticed nothing is final around here until the ISO is burned

5.9 will have its SOHO, but at this point it probably will not be free for everyone.

after 5.9 our idea is to combine deluxe and SOHO most likely call it SOHO and have an integrated SOHO bulk instead of just the KDE packages that currently come with Deluxe. so that way with deluxe you would have the option to install STD or SOHO or both from the purchased disks.

Thanks for everything,
Uelsk8s

[nightflier]

Well, I have been thinking about this and just logged on to post my suggestion. Looks like some of my opinions harmonize with uelsk8s' post above:

Three 32 bit versions:
- A light and fast VL Std. For stand-alone computers and those who like to take manual control. Text installer, minimal default services and light window manager. Good for lower powered machines. Small ISO. Free download.

- A Live version of Std. Intended as a demo or power tool. No hard drive installer. Free download.

- VL SOHO/Deluxe. Big package with all goodies (but still fast, please!). KDE default. Maybe DVD ISO. Available for purchase.

As far as 64-bit versions go, that is undoubtedly the future, and in the future I think most computers will have the power to run SOHO. That could be the only 64 bit version needed.

[nubcnubdo]

A Live version of Std. Intended as a demo or power tool. No hard drive installer. Free download.

Why would we not have a hard drive installer on the LiveCD? That's like fishing without a hook in the bait. If we get a prospect to try the live CD, he should be able install from there. What, he's gotta download and burn another CD just to install VL?