Hello Dne úterý 18. dubna 2017 18:01:07 CEST, Richard Brown napsal(a):
On 18 April 2017 at 17:04, Richard Brown
wrote: On 18 April 2017 at 16:45, Todd Rme
wrote: On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 10:39 AM, Richard Brown
On 18 April 2017 at 16:28, Todd Rme
wrote: On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 10:11 AM, Tomas Chvatal
> > Given the latest thread about the desktop on our bellowed factory mailing list I would like to propose the following:
"Desktop selection dialogue won't have preselected any default value."
I don't think this is a good idea. openSUSE is the best distribution providing KDE. This is one of most visible (yes, the DE is seen by most of people, not great YaST, Snapper and other cool tools) features make it distinct from other Linux distributions. I use KDE since version 2 and I don't like GNOME 3, but I can live with LXQt, XFCE, MATE or Cinnamon. But KDE is not only the desktop, but also whole ecosystem of excellent applications. digiKam, Krename, Krusader, Dolphin, KIO, ... to name just few Yes, I can use most of it in other DEs, but it is not so comfortable. I like KDE (the way it works, its design ideas) and I admire our KDE team for their great work! The main reason I argue against Tomáš's proposal is that newbie/non-technical user needs some default, otherwise he/she is confused and installs something ehm... like Ubuntu (it doesn't ask too much questions). Experienced user doesn't matter any default, he/she can easily change it. No problem, I believe.
We already had an enormous discussion about this when the decision was made to select KDE as the default some years back. Please look at the mailing list discussions on the topic. If, after reading those discussion you have something to add, please explain what that is. But repeating the exact same arguments that were made when the decision was originally adopted isn't going to benefit anyone.
I think the argument that 'we made a decision in the past' is not a valid counter to Tomas' suggestion.
Things change, KDE has changed, GNOME has changed, the linux desktop ecosystem has changed, the Project in particular has changed dramatically.
When that decision was made we offered one distribution, with a key audience clearly being 'new linux users'. We are now a project that offers two distributions, clearly stateing our target audience is "SysAdmins, Developers, and Power Users".
In this way, this is not in contrast. New users do need some guide to help them to decide - why not the default selection? We say this is what we consider as the best for most of the people. I believe power users don't care about some default choice of DE and can choose whatever they like.
I can think of some obvious 'new' things that have changed in the Linux desktop ecosystem in the last 8 years since the last discussion on this topic
- KDE 5 Plasma was released
I must say transition from KDE 4 to 5 was very smooth! Big thanks to openSUSE and its KDE team!
- MeeGo was released and died - GNOME 3 was released - LXQt was released and added to openSUSE
I like it very much, but it still seems unfinished...
- MATE was released and added to openSUSE
When I tried it last year, the version in OSS wasn't working correctly. All the time something was crashing. Same with Cinnamon. Versions from respective OBS repos worked well. I like both of them, but I'm afraid they need bit more care...
- Enlightenment was added to openSUSE
Isn't this more targeting power users? It doesn't seem to me that immediately familiar as others DEs.
- openSUSE went from offering 3 desktop environments to 7
This is great, but bit hard to advertise. It can be confusing for some people, that the very same distribution has very different designs. Probably not for members of this ML, but for significant part of outside world yes. That is why I like the idea of https://geckolinux.github.io/ And I'd also like to see bigger convergence of openSUSE's styles for KDE5, Qt5, GTK2, 3, etc.
- GNOME became the de-facto default in all major distributions besides openSUSE (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS)
No, this is not any argument. Are we anonymous member of some flock? I hope not. DE is the most visible part of the distribution. And great KDE state makes us different, unique, wished.
- GNOME became the default in all commercial linux distributions (RHEL, SLE, Ubuntu)
Same as previous point. Whatever can be default, but it must work well. And being 198th distribution with GNOME doesn't seem to be good tactics...
- KDE stopped being the default in all of the top 25 Distrowatch distros except openSUSE and PCLinuxOS
Here I wonder why it happened...
- openSUSE's KDE maintainers became a totally volunteer group
Which is big strategical mistake of openSUSE with possible future problems. The KDE team does fantastic job. Wouldn't they deserve more?
- openSUSE went from a singular distribution targeting new users to two distributions aiming for a more technically savvy sysadmin/dev/power user audience
See bit up.
And to follow up my objective unemotional view as to why we should be allowed to discuss this with my opinion on the topic:
I agree with Tomas' proposal
Given the above facts, I think the situation within the openSUSE project and the wider Linux distribution ecosystem demands we consider Tomas' idea
I think actively deciding to not have a default is the correct choice for the openSUSE project given the nature of the project, the contributions for 7 desktop environments and god-knows how many Window Managers.
For the reasons above, I politely disagree. :-)
I realise that no default still does not sit well with what the 'majority' of our 'competition' are doing. It also does not sit well with my personal desktop of choice for myself. But I think we can justify that as a united "we're openSUSE and we do stuff differently".
Yes, so that we offer KDE. :-) Sorry, just kidding here.
I think that position is easier to take as a united, cohesive project who should ALL be able to support the idea of 'no default', vs the current situation where our volunteer KDE team have to shoulder an unfair burden of peoples expectations because of a tickbox in an installer that does not reflect the actual diverse nature of our project.
If we're going to be different from the rest of the world, I feel it is best for everyone that we choose a path the whole project can get behind, not just a small team of half a dozen volunteers.
As Chairman of the project I additionally remain fearful that we are probably only one nasty flamewar away from enough of our KDE team being demotivated or quitting to threaten openSUSE's ability to offer KDE as a default.
They're volunteers. The current situation is a lot of burden on their shoulders. Over the last years we've had enough "close calls" where tensions have raised, KDE contributors have openly discussed stepping back from contributing. In those cases I have felt compelled to intervene to help support our KDE team to avoid such a circumstance, but I do not feel confident that I can always be there or always do enough to help if it happens again.
This is great You take care. But what can be long time solution? If we decide to keep KDE as the default choice, what can be done (by SUSE, oS Board, community, ...) to support them and ensure the team works in sustainable way?
I have long wished for a solution that would reduce the likelihood of such an incident affecting openSUSE. Shifting from a 'KDE default' Project to a 'No default' Project would do that. Speaking unemotionally and openly, I also see how shifting to a 'no default' project would potentially reduce the impact on openSUSE from any future KDE problems, in our team or upstream, which I also think is a strategic benefit, if not exactly a nice thought to have.
Shifting to 'no default' clearly and publicly should allow us to gain attention aligned to the ways the Project is actually already operating, and should discourage people from having unfair expectations from any one desktop of openSUSE.
This is a very important factor in ensuring openSUSE and all of its desktop environments are noticed, considered, praised, and reviewed on their own merits, not because of some arbitrary decision that made sense 8 years ago but no longer reflects the reality of what openSUSE offers in 2017.
So to summarise, my opinion is not that we should consider Tomas' idea, but that we must implement it.
I'd also start here few points which appeared in the discussion and inspired following paragraphs. Very good point is how to decide which DE to use. Might be it would help to add to respective part of the installer (where the DE is selected) screenshot slideshows, videos showing features, look and feel of all the DEs. It could be relatively easy job to do. BTW, this is one of reasons I didn't like canceling of LIVE CDs - users could try few DEs easily (more easily than installing everything in some VM). I liked very much the idea that installer should somehow "check" the hardware and if it is too weak to run KDE/GNOME, the installer should as default promote e.g. XFCE and/or notify user KDE/GNOME would require more CPU, memory, whatever. I have no idea how difficult would it be. I think everyone can imagine frustration from running terribly slooooooow system. Especially when some more lightweight DE would run fast on very same HW. I hope I may rise here more philosophical point of 'for Linux newbies and non- technical users' vs. 'for power users and gurus' discussion. I don't like Ubuntu and its derivatives, because it tries everything to go smooth and automatic - which is good! Especially for HW - BUT (really big BUT) when some autotool doesn't work, it doesn't provide any tool comparable to YaST to fix the issue manually. I DO like openSUSE also because of YaST - I can very easily do advanced tasks. On the other hand, when I install openSUSE to Linux newbies, they like it (design, everything is working well, regardless DE), but they are commonly bit confused by e.g. bit technical YaST Software module working per package, but not well per application. IMHO we need some extra step here: to be able to do very simple application installation/removal and, if required, an easy switch to advanced features (e.g. current YaST Software - it is fantastic tool, but for some people too complex). To get to the point. We are targeting two different audiences. Non-technical, not experiences users AND very experienced users. It is hard job. Sometimes I feel like we need very smooth default choices and automatic tools (which we mostly have) and then easy switch for more advanced solution of the same problem. I think software management is good example. Same appeal also for DE. Let's have good well-balanced defaults and easy access for advanced possibilities. I think KDE serves this. GNOME not. Others some in the middle. I just mus admit, I'd like to see in this aspect splitting of options in KDE and its applications settings to 'default' and 'advanced'. :-) -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/