Re: default desktop: availability on all arches
On 11/09/14 16:36, Adam Borowski wrote:
>> What happens otherwise if trying to start GNOME3 (or others)?
>> * without 3D, with llvmpipe
>> * without both
>
> llvmpipe doesn't work at all -- not ported to -- on !x86 !armhf.
>
>> Does it fall back gracefully to a fallback/flashback mode, and does that
>> still work these days?
>
> All you get is a non-windowed screen that says:
> .----
> Oh no! Something has gone wrong.
>
> A problem has occured and the system can't recover.
> Please log out and try again.
>
> Log Out.
> `----
> You can't even press "Log Out", upon clicking the mouse cursor disappears
> and pressing any key on the keyboard turns the screen black, without no
> way out other than Alt-Ctrl-F1.
Fair enough if a Debian desktop doesn't want to support "toy
architectures" (I don't mind use of this term).
But if the above is true, it is a step further: only 3D-accelerated, or
i386/amd64/armhf systems seem to get a sensible out-of-box experience.
It still isn't clear to me what "default desktop" means or the impact of
deciding one.
Ultimately I think we'll be saying "the default Debian _system_ is an
amd64 machine, with modern Intel, Nvidia (or Radeon + nonfree microcode)
graphics, running the GNOME 3 desktop", and fair enough, the Debian
homepage could serve a direct link to a GNOME amd64/i386 ISO download.
That install media should default to installing GNOME.
Is that what we're *really* deciding with the process here?
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDesktop/Requalification/Jessie
In most _other_ situations (the 1 to 20%, who knows), where that .iso is
not appropriate, it perhaps won't make sense to always suggest GNOME.
Maybe where I'm going with this is a "tier-1 default" and a
"everything-else default", or maybe we don't even need that. I'm unsure.
Regards,
--
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org
Reply to: