Steve McIntyre dijo [Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 04:40:48PM +0100]: > Hi folks, > > This goes back to during the wheezy release cycle. There was a little > discussion around a change in tasksel [1], but rather too late in the > day for the change to make sense. Now we have rather more time, I > feel. Let's change the default desktop for installation to xfce. > (...)
Hummm... As a non-desktoped guy, I thought quite a bit before starting to write this. I am not a GNOME user, nor have I ever been (although it is the desktop environment I most often recommended to my friends — At least until Squeeze). GNOME had historically been the DE that better catered to simple user's needs, and was a good, easy starting point to get into the Unixy world. Also, we cannot downplay the impact GNOME had on the serious Linux desktop attempts. However, the trend that has been repeating with each time more components (and, of course, the user experience as a whole) is IMO very bothering and burdensome: The GNOME devs attempt to rule how the user should run *everything* in their computer. And that's basically antithetical to the Unix culture IMO. Yes, it's understandable, as GNOME tries to push user-friendliness into bits the classical Unix environments didn't consider — And yes, many bits (such as SysV) are outdated no matter how hard we argue. Ben Finney's remark is quite important: Choosing a default for our user in as many areas as possible is very important. Yes, this is Debian, but that should mean that I am able to change from the defaults — Not that I *have* to. I do believe we have to stick to offering a default experience. Also, users love doing screenshots-based walk-through, and not having a default environment can be irritating for them. Now... Again, since I started using tiling window managers in 2006, I haven't tried again to use traditional desktops (and before that, I prefered a WindowMaker setting than a desktop experience). At various points in life, just not to be too unfamiliar with what our users see, I have made the point of using a different DE for a week — And, at least three times, I managed quite well with GNOME, had some gripes with KDE, and absolutely hated XFCE. (and no, I have never tried LXDE). I am not suggesting we should switch to KDE — But I'm quite puzzled of not having anybody suggest it so far. Why XFCE? Just because of the installed size? AIUI, KDE does not suffer from the attitude problems GNOME has. It is a much more blingy-blingy desktop, which has put me off (and maybe many others), but I understand it is a solid, robust environment nowadays. Oh, and regarding the feared headlines, the "Debian says GNOME sucks"... It will happen. With all the changes GNOME is pushing down distributors' (and users') throats, I do not see us sticking with them.
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