ReleaseNotes

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Summary

Display release notes while installing from the desktop CD.

Rationale

Few users go to the trouble of looking up the release notes before or during installation. Ubiquity should offer to show them to the user automatically.

Use cases

  • After release, a bug is discovered in the installer that may cause certain users to be unable to install, or to require a certain workaround. They should be warned about this in advance.

Scope

The actual contents of the release notes (as opposed to their location and format) are out of scope and will be the responsibility of the release team.

Design

The first page of Ubiquity is for selecting a language, with welcome text displayed in the currently-selected language. This text should end with (a translation of) the following:

  • If you have Internet access, read the release notes for information on problems that may affect you. ( Release Notes )

The button should open the default Web browser to a non-Wiki page on the relevant Web site (e.g. ubuntu.com or kubuntu.org) for displaying the release notes of the appropriate distribution flavor in the currently selected language. If the release notes are not available in that language, ubuntu.com should redirect to the English version.

The release notes available on this URL should be written in such a way as to target people doing new installations (as opposed to upgrades); it may be simplest for them to be a stripped-down copy of the main release notes, and link to the main release notes for everything else.

Implementation

The release notes URL should be in a file in the .disk directory on the CD image, with a substitution done for the selected language. As agreed with Matthew Nuzum of the Ubuntu web team, we will use URLs of the form http://www.ubuntu.com/products/GetUbuntu/ReleaseNotes?os=kubuntu&version=7.04&lang=de. This will redirect to appropriate locations maintained by the web team, which may be on www.ubuntu.com, help.ubuntu.com, or elsewhere (e.g. loco team web sites) as appropriate.

Unresolved issues

  • A trivial point, but "/products/GetUbuntu/" is a quirk of ubuntu.com's current topic organization, and will likely change in the future. Since the URL Ubiquity opens will redirect to the appropriate page anyway (so that it can be kept up to date after ubuntu.com reorganizations), there doesn't seem to be any point in including "/products/GetUbuntu/" in that original URL. -- MatthewPaulThomas

    • /products/GetUbuntu/ReleaseNotes was what Matthew Nuzum told me was appropriate. I suggest you take this up with him directly ... --ColinWatson

CategorySpec

Ubiquity/ReleaseNotes (last edited 2012-04-24 15:25:07 by eth0)