Feature changed by: Joseph Mitzen (duncreg) Feature #313180, revision 2 Title: User Interface Flexibility openSUSE Distribution: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Michael McCarrey (wa7qzr) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Suggest that you maintain and support the 11.x versions along parallel lines with 12.x versions. Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: Having just upgraded my openSUSE-11.3 to 1.4 on my Compaq Presario V2000, and performed a test installation of 12.1 on another Compaq laptop of the same model, I would like to suggest that both versions, 2.x and 3x, of the Gnome desktop be made available and maintained. I can see how someone who is not real techie or geekie might appreciate how Gnome 3.x, by default, hides the system from them. There are no doubt a lot of people who really like that feature. For me, that "feature" is one of the reasons I dumped KDE4. I liked KDE3 because it didn't hide the system from me and, at that time, Gnome 2 did. Then, the situation changed. Gnome came out and KDE hid. Now, both KDE and Gnome are hiding with KDE4 and Gnome 3. I like Gnome 2.x with Compiz, Cairo Dock, and Screenlets. That's my interface and distributions that implement desktops which it impossible to use those three items (such as Gnome 3 does) end up losing me as a user. I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. Everything else about openSUSE, (I don't know about dual-head - I couldn't get it to work with Nvidia cards, but Mandrivia's 2010.2 did), is wonderful. It installs easily and the defaults work well with most hardware (Except Nvidia, where that idiotic Nouveau driver is used), including WiFi. Anyhow, this is about the desktop application. If you have no intention of making Gnome 2.x available to openSUSE 12. x, maybe you could maintain and support the 11.x along parallel lines so those of us who like Gnome 2.x could stick with openSUSE instead of having to change our lives (yet again) because our distro has tossed us under the proverbial bus. + Discussion: + #1: Joseph Mitzen (duncreg) (2012-01-31 00:21:24) + Gnome 2.x is dead, sorry. Any other distribution using Gnome 2.x is + either going to switch to 3.x or is relying on dead code without any + future fixes or security updates. KDE 4 doesn't hide anything from the + user; Gnome is the desktop with the history of removing features in + favor of simplicity. You could easily move your task bar to the top + window, install Cairo Dock and use KDE plasmoids and -voila!- have + everything you liked about Gnome 2.x along with much more modern + features. Alternatively you could use XFCE (also available with the + OpenSUSE install DVD) that is Gnome 2.x "lite". A third option is using + the "Cinnamon" shell Mint is developing which makes Gnome 3 work like + Gnome 2 did. + It's not the distro that tossed you under the bus; it was Gnome. You + can't blame OpenSUSE for the radical interface changes. OpenSUSE + doesn't have the resources to maintain an entire desktop environment by + itself, which is what you are asking it to do in either version of your + proposal. Even the Gnome people themselves acknowledged that the Gnome + 2.x codebase had become unwieldy and very difficult to maintain, and + they wrote it! Between XFCE, KDE, LXDE and Cinnamon, you have a lot of + options open to you for a more traditional desktop environment. I'd + still suggest giving KDE a try, because you seem to have it confused + with some other desktop environment. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/313180