Re: task-desktop: default desktop environment for Jessie

[Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>]

Hi,

I don't think this needs to be taken as a 'change of default desktop',
just rather a change in how install media are offered.

On 31/05/13 19:56, Michael Gilbert wrote:
> Since it was rather difficult to fit gnome onto 1 cd in wheezy (and I
> think some pieces were left off anyway), [...]

If someone is to download just one CD, it seems better that they get a
complete XFCE system out of it, rather than an incomplete GNOME system
(we had to force network-manager onto Wheezy CD-1 for example).

If changing the 'default' in tasksel is the best way to accomplish that,
it still doesn't prevent us from promoting (USB-capable) GNOME DVDs as
equally or more-preferred media for offline installs.

> start moving toward something like xfce as the default that's small,
> and mostly capable, [...]

Yes, for low-bandwidth, or old-system-supporting-only-CD-media use
cases, someone may download CD-1 or a netinst CD only;  in either case I
think XFCE is a more sensible default than GNOME because of smaller size
(with presumably smaller size of stable and security updates too), and
AFAICT lower memory/CPU/diskspace requirements.


p.s. regarding the relative popularity of desktops, I wonder if the
selection of (meta)packages on this graph gives a fair comparison?

http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=gnome-shell+plasma-desktop+xfce4+lxde-core&show_installed=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org