Abandon "Default Desktop"

Callum Lerwick seg at haxxed.com
Tue May 5 03:50:47 UTC 2009


On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 23:15 -0400, Trever Fischer wrote:
> I'm confused. Is this thread about bashing other desktop design philosophies 
> now? I thought this was all originally a thread to introduce a way to put the 
> major desktop environments on even footing.

My point is putting GNOME and KDE on "even footing" is not advantageous
to our overall ease of use. Yes, I'm disagreeing with the OP.

> I think you two should take a step 
> back here and look at what we're trying to accomplish.

I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but IMHO ease of use is
far more advantageous to the distribution's overall health than
political neutrality that no one but a bunch of nerds cares about.

> Let's just put a big 
> 'ole 3-way radio button in the installer with "GNOME", "KDE", and "Other/None" 
> in the DVD installer and be done with it. I realize that picking a desktop 
> environment probably isn't something a new Linux user is familiar with. But 
> that doesn't mean we can't put some link on the download page explaining the 
> term and the differences between the two.

And as Joel's essay points out, no amount of explaining or lecturing is
going to make the user care. You can't make them care. They will never
care. They want Firefox. They've heard of Firefox. They don't want GNOME
or KDE, they don't want Epiphany, they don't want Konqueror, they want
Firefox, they want their Myspace, and they want their webmail.

> The only way I see this being resolved is with:
> 
> A) We cave in and give the user a choice, which is something few other distros 
> with a graphical installer do (only suse comes to mind), or
> B) We remain a stick in the mud, staying with the tried and true GNOME 
> desktop.

> Picking A will almost certainly bring in more KDE users and help make KDE less 
> of a second class citizen in Fedora. Picking B will make one less decision for 
> linux newbies to make when they install Fedora.
> 
> I believe option A will benefit fedora in the longer run.

And I disagree. B is better.
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