On Thu, Oct 24, 2002 at 11:17:30AM -0700, Christopher DuPuis scribbled: [snip] > > > A newbie who is using a computer with << 256 MB RAM is not likely > > > to use either Gnome or KDE. At least not for long. They'll either > > > switch(Snip...) > > Times have really changed. People have more memory and cycles for less > > these days. Sure, there still are people who don't have them but you > > can't win everything for everyone... > > > > OK, point taken. I won't mention trying to run mozilla and xemacs > while using Gnome with Nautilus and Enlightenment on a 200 MHz, > 32 MB system (no more memory slots) ever again. (Heh. Now I'm starting > to sound really old. "When *I* was your age...") heh :), don't worry, I remember running XFree on an 8MB, 40Mhz i386 :-)) (and with a 512MB Trident video card :-) > If this project is targeted at real newbies rather than "switchers", > then there is no call for being too stingy on memory requirements. A I think both groups can be targetted, but you have to think about the majority. Both groups will likely to have moderately powerful machines these days, so the remaining group with the old hardware will not be that big. For people with the hardware you mentioned above even running XFree86 3.3.x is a painful experience, so giving them something to chew on would indeed require adding icewm support to DeDe (btw, what happened to that Japanese XFree shell which looked like the Win95 explorer? I forgot the name, but I recall it was quite light on resources) > true newbie, someone who has never used a computer, won't be worried > about using older hardware, as you say. Of course, if you do Same goes for the Windows users which have been using their machines for, say, the past 3, 4 years. > want to attract people who have never used Linux but have heard that it > will run on older systems and be more secure and crash-proof than > Win9x, then some moderation on resource-intensive stuff is called for, > at least as an option. Indeed. But then we should think about replacing XFree with something else, too :) (MicroWindows?) > How about having three options for desktop configuration: "De-Luxe" > (installs Gnome or KDE with all the bells and whistles turned on), > "Normal" (installs Gnome or KDE with reasonably moderate defaults), and > "Spartan" (no session manager, and just some reasonably nice window > manager). Sure, that would work, I guess. IceWM or WindowMaker, perhaps Openbox or something like that would make a nice environment without too much hassle, I think. marek
Attachment:
pgp1iGt_EGgwJ.pgp
Description: PGP signature