Re: Default desktop for jessie Was: Re: Debian/Wheezy general rant ...
I've assisted a number of people with various distributions, and I will tell you right now that there is only one new user-friendly way to do it: provide a DE out of the box, and choose it for them. People will generally not research and do not know which is "better". They are willing to try something new (even if it is different than what they thought Linux might be) because they have little to nothing to base it on.
It should be trivial to install other DEs as a user starts learning and wishes to experiment, and Debian makes that quite easy to do, overall. If there were any room for usability enhancement, maybe create a friendly application that provides a tour of DE options and gives the user a front-end to installing other choices. OTOH, I could easily argue maintaining that could prove non-trivial (keeping all the messages friendly and the choices sane), and ultimately provide little merit.
If the goal is to attract users, it shouldn't be done by plaguing them with a sea of options they are not likely to really understand at install time; it should be by promoting and enhancing the configurability that has made Linux, especially Debian, what it is.
Ron Scott-Adams
ron@tohuw.net
"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." (Winston Churchill)
On Jun 6, 2013, at 16:13 , Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 06, 2013 at 08:11:49PM +0200, Bjoern Meier wrote:
> [...]
>> Ok, an example. my Girlfriend was really pissed of Win8. She hate it
>> (for good reasons). She came to me and asked:"Can you show me Linux
>> and how it works?". I sweat blood, but I took my honor.
>> After a successful install she said:"That's not Linux. The button on
>> the left has no K."
> [...]
>
> This is a good example of why providing choices can be unhelpful. If
> someone doesn't know that there are multiple desktop environments
> available and what the differences are, how will they choose when
> prompted to do so? Maybe they will go and do the research when they
> reach that point in the installer, or maybe they will try a different
> distribution whose installer JFDI.
>
> Ben.
>
> --
> Ben Hutchings
> We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
> - Albert Camus
>
>
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