Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1696 mails)

[Lars Müller <lmuelle@xxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:25:48PM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On Tuesday, 2009-07-28 at 19:25 +0200, Lars Müller wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 06:13:41PM +0200, Graham Anderson wrote:
> > [ 8< ]
> > > You can vote for this either way at the openFATE feature request Frank
> > > created. <https://features.opensuse.org/306967>
> >
> > Please vote _and_ provide reasons/ arguments.
> >
> > I see a main advantage in having a preselected desktop.  It is one
> > question less.  This is no advantage to a long time Linux user.  But it
> > is one annoying question less to a new user.
>
> I don't.
>
> I much prefer openSUSE to remain agnostic, as it is now, same as I prefer 
> the state to remain agnostic.
>
> I find the idea of having a default desktop - any desktop - almost 
> offensive.

Sounds like said by a dogmatist.  Bash is enough!  vim or emacs?  Why do
we nedd it we have printf. ;)

> And about new users... let them choose! Linux is about freedom, and freedom 
> requires choices. The sooner they start choosing, better.

Users new to an operating system don't care about the name or type of
the desktop.  With the install they intend to get a working system.

Any extra question causes an extra hurdle.

That's one reason why Apple is successfull while we on the Linux side
still keep going on with the discussion(s).

Instead of focusing to the real issues we discuss the 20th rename of a
package.  And so on.

It is a very small minority of new users which intend, need, and like
the freedom of window manager choise.

And this freedom still would be there.  Even if we would implement some
type of default window manager preselection - maybe depending on the
geographical location or the used language.  It's a very, very basic
task for a non Linux beginner to change this to the preferred
alternative.

But it is a sucking hard question to someone new to Linux or Open Source
Software at all.  At this level the majority of users does't know nor
care about Gnome, KDE, fvwm2, or xfce.  Install fast and give me a
browser.  That's what the majority needs.

I don't get the offensive part of making it easier to newcomers.

The only 'offense' I'm able to see is if I'm a long time Gnome guy from
Italy and the default for Europe would be KDE.

But even in this example I currently must switch from none preselected
window manager to Gnome.  Oh well, this is a small step for the mankind
but a big one to a dogmatist. :)

But on the other side we would provide a well fitting default to 60 or
70% of the users of a region.  And it would be one question, one hurdle
less to a newcomer.

Hey dogma, sorry for trying to drive this in a more userfriendly
direction.

Dudes, I'm not ready nor willing to switch to Mac OS.  Let us try to
make this Linux as user-friendly and easy to use as possible to new
users.  If we're not able to manage this task I fear we'll keep stalling
at this low point of market shares.

Lars
-- 
Lars Müller [ˈlaː(r)z ˈmʏlɐ]
Samba Team
SUSE Linux, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany