Re: [desktop] why kde and gnome's menu situation sucks
On 10/23/2002 7:58 AM, Hamish Moffatt at hamish@debian.org wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 06:46:16PM -0400, Luke Seubert wrote:
>> On the other hand, the supposed desktop champion Mandrake 9.0 has an entire
>> subfolder devoted to X terminals, and you can choose from about six or seven
>> different ones. This is great for power users, but it is totally confusing
>> and pointless for newbies.
>
> That doesn't even sound great for power users. A power user might well
> choose his own terminal emulator, but does he regularly switch between
> six or seven different ones?
>
Excellent point.
> Whatever we do, we're sure to get bad reviews for it.
>
Heh. Yeah, you have a good point. Debian has always been a very powerful,
flexible, and configurable system. Desktop Debian seeks to change that
somewhat, by making default choices (hopefully really good ones ;-) and
limiting other choices for the sake of simplicity and newbie easiness.
Doing this will upset some folks who either don't like the default choices,
or who want the full range, power, and flexibility of regular Debian.
Desktop Debian I am sure will carefully listen to reasonable
complaints/feedack about the default choices. Those folks who want a
totally customizable Debian probably shouldn't bother installing the Desktop
Debian variant.
This desktop thing is something very different for Debian, and slightly
heretical. It will draw its fair share of flames, some of which will be
helpful, and others a waste of bandwidth. The goal is not to please all of
the traditional Debian developers and users who have already got their
systems tweaked to their satisfaction. Indeed, it is impossible to devise a
common desktop for such a diverse group of people and preferences that
pleases everyone. Rather, the goal is to develop an installation option
that creates a simple, newbie friendly desktop for Joe Average computer
user. That is, "Software Which Just Works". (Gee, I hope Xandros didn't
trademark that phrase. :-)
This is a new arena for Debian - a new market. Not one meant to please the
traditional Debian user/developer; but one meant to reach out to a new and
growing niche - computer users using Linux as a desktop.
Cheers,
Luke Seubert
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