-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rajko M. wrote:
On Tuesday 14 April 2009 04:21:56 am G T Smith wrote:
I would suggest that those unhappy with KDE 4 take a look at some of the alternatives
That was one of questions that I can't find answer. If you are unhappy, there is quite a few desktops around.
Sorry, you lost me there...
I use ICEwm for old machine that can't handle KDE3 stripped down to bare minimum. It is lesser effort to learn how to customize it, then to write endless mails around asking someone to change KDE to fit very old hardware (1998).
(there seem to be quite a few).
Not that many in number of people, but for sure in number of posts, which combined with ureasonably high effort needed for that, compared to research of alternatives, wakes suspicion that there might be other problems they don't want to publish.
I think this is mainly because for most the Desktop==OS, and KDE is closer to the familiar world of Windows for many it has a standard. In my times working in a User Support the number of times the reply to what (Operating System) are you using and getting the answer Word was embarrassingly frequent. The truth is for most people the computer is a "black box" that should perform like any other electronics "black box" (i.e. the radio, CD player). When in fact it is not, and most attempts to make a general purpose computer act like a specialist electronics 'black box" have usually introduced functional complexities that make the device perform badly in both roles. Give this group the concept of choice of desktop and you can see the rising level of panic and confusion. At some point people will wake up to the fact that a standard CD player (Games Console, Video Player) is better at the job than a general purpose computer configured to perform the job for most people. Having a Home Computer is often equated with having e-Mail and the internet, many game consoles can deliver both in a "black box" a lot more cheaply than a Home PC. When people start adding this all up, the bottom will fall out of the Home PC market and in the current economic climate this kind of calculation is increasingly likely. A computer is good at processing digital information (visual, aural, mathematical, statistical) and producing reports, presentations, and documents. Most people do not need this functionality. It will always have a place in commerce, engineering and science which is a more critical area than multi-media presentation and flashy desktop for people at home. (Multi-media production is a different issue). This is where Linux can (and does) have an impact, most of such users have a better idea of what they want and Linux is a much more tailorable environment than Windows. I personally think targeting the home desktop is a mid to long term strategic error. Targeting Business and Professional usage is much more important. At the moment while adopting some innovative concepts KDE4 misses the issue that most System Admins rolling out large numbers of systems tend to prefer simple, well understood and fairly stable to complex, poorly understood and questionable stability. Gnome/GTK based desktops score well on this one (and I do not think is an accident that OpenOffice, Mozilla apps, the Sun and Eclipse SDKs are more GTK rather than QT based). For the Linux to grow on the Desktop corporates need to persuaded of the benefits (not Joe/Jill User on their home PC).
Having paying customers, where selling point was "it runs on older hardware" comes in mind. Now when KDE3 will be left in a dust, and some hardware upgrades are advisable, it will be problem to explain why.
- -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAknloq4ACgkQasN0sSnLmgLNvQCg7j76fVeGnzEUdfNBvgp9yifk uvoAmgJIeqe1pghkuY/qu5ma7qqKB5RB =5s20 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org