Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:59 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote: Doesn't matter. The question is whether there is a change in trend. It's improbable that KDE adoption is increasing in statistically significant numbers, while at the same time KDE spin downloads remain flat, just because people can install KDE from the standard DVD installer. If there is a new trend developing, downloads and even yum updates would represent much more valuable data from which to draw general conclusions than a poll off one forum. The very poll's existence, and question structure, will disproportionately draw disaffected Gnome users to participate in the poll. Let's not forget there are KDE affectionados who were not pleased with KDE4. That is certainly true at the time KDE4.0 was released to users. However the situation with disaffection is not a static thing. KDE4 in its initial phases lacked functionality big time and had a great deal missing. A lot of linux users moved on. Since then things have improved vastly and the developers have honed KDE4 into a really nice DE - and with version 4.8 it is really usable and functional and most of the major problems that were present in its early stages have now been fixed, and users have been returning to the new playground and enjoying it. I was one of those who left KDE for Gnome at the time KDE4 came out. I have now reverted to KDE4.8 as my primary desktop, although I also have a number of machines with xfce which is light and fast especially on older hardware. I tried Gnome3 and found it simply slowed up my workflow so I felt the need to move on. Of course it is a personal choice and others clearly love Gnome - and thankfully there is a choice - unlike the situation with some other OSes than Linux! People will switch DE and even will switch distro altogether despite the learning curve and the pain in that process - if they get sufficiently irritated for long enough. Many people will accept some temporary irritation but if things are not resolved then at some point many people will just give up and not feel it is worth the fight any more. Not dissimilar to a bad marriage - many will soldier on despite continuous frustration but only for so long - in the end separation and divorce are not uncommon and a new partner often emerges at that time! Nevertheless although one can argue whether polls have any value - they do give some representative figures that are worth keeping watch on, but of course the uncertainties are large for smaller datasets - and the figures are not sufficiently different for different DEs that there is predominance of only 1 DE for current polls - but there may be a trend and changes over time - and of course if the figures for a poll showed a huge predominance of one DE over all others then even in a small poll that would be significant. -- mike c -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
I wonder if there is a way to accurately gauge hours spent using one DE or another. I've only ever used Gnome although I tried KDE briefly (at least one major release ago) and tried other distros Suse and Ubuntu, but only when Fedora was unstable on my hardware. I blogged a few 'gotchas' with Gnome 3 when it was launched but overall recorded my satisfaction with it. Is there a smolt-like solution that wouldn't be unpalatable to many? It would surely be better than relying on out-of date and questionable polls. I'd be happy to be counted as using Gnome shell on several systems. -Cam -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On 14/02/12 11:05, Camilo Mesias wrote: Is there a smolt-like solution that wouldn't be unpalatable to many? It would surely be better than relying on out-of date and questionable polls. I'd be happy to be counted as using Gnome shell on several systems. -Cam How would you gauge it, Smolt currently calls home monthly? Personally Xfce, on all Boxes Real\Virt. -- Regards FRank -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:56 PM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote: I'm going to reply to both in one go here: drago01 wrote: Why must a desktop resemble the windows 95 UI paradigm? Because that is what all current computer users are used to! And an inconvenient fact often ignored in usability studies is that the vast majority of your users will NOT be new to computers, but current computer users. It's a common pitfall (especially in the GNOME world) to underestimate the power of habit. There was a time where users where used to have no display at all. There was a time where users where used to have no GUI at all. Just staying with the old UI due to habit means stagnation. And just look at what other vendors are doing (Windows 8, OS X Lion, Ubuntu, ...) ... the world is moving on we either should move on too or otherwise we will start to play catch up games. You call that unconventional I call that progress. Change is not always for the better. This is not useful progress, but a useless change which breaks the habits of millions of existing users, just for the sake of being different. Your use of the word progress implies that there is some improvement in the change, but here I only see something different, not something better. Well for me it *is* better not just different. I feel like I am thrown years back in the past when working with a win95 style UI. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On 13.2.2012 01:12, Kevin Kofler wrote: IMHO, not only should the KDE spin become the default, but the Xfce spin should replace the GNOME spin (which of course needs to stop calling itself the Desktop spin) on the mirrors. GNOME is no longer a major desktop! Xfce is now the second most popular desktop after KDE Plasma Desktop. Kevin? I am usually close to being on your side in most flamewars here, but changing the release policy based on the vote of 627 people on a random website? Really? Best, Matěj -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
Matej Cepl wrote: Kevin? I am usually close to being on your side in most flamewars here, but changing the release policy based on the vote of 627 people on a random website? Really? It's not just that website. Survey the Fedora blogs a bit to see how many people switched away from GNOME 3. That poll is the first time I see this trend quantified in numbers, but it matches my expectations fairly well. And I have been arguing for defaulting to KDE Plasma Desktop rather than GNOME 3 for a while, see: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/KDE_Plasma_Desktop_by_default (which unfortunately got summarily rejected by FESCo on the grounds that it had only my name on it rather than the KDE SIG as a whole), so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I still support that notion. And yes, I think Xfce is also a better desktop than GNOME 3, plus we should base our primary spins on what workspace environments are actually most popular rather than on history. GNOME Shell would make a great spins.fedoraproject.org spin, that kind of unconventional UIs is exactly what spins.fedoraproject.org is for (see also the Sugar spin). Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 7:21 PM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote: Matej Cepl wrote: Kevin? I am usually close to being on your side in most flamewars here, but changing the release policy based on the vote of 627 people on a random website? Really? It's not just that website. Survey the Fedora blogs a bit to see how many people switched away from GNOME 3. Well because people who stay with GNOME 3 don't go and write a blog post I did not switch away ... it is just the other side that fells the need to leave with noise. That poll is the first time I see this trend quantified in numbers, but it matches my expectations fairly well. The poll is scientifically useless and you know that; and the one Olav linked shows the opposite by the way. unconventional UIs is exactly what spins.fedoraproject.org is for Why must a desktop resemble the windows 95 UI paradigm? You call that unconventional I call that progress. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
drago01 wrote: Why must a desktop resemble the windows 95 UI paradigm? You call that unconventional I call that progress. Not even Microsoft is staying with the 95 UI. @Kevin, Windows 8 will look more like Gnome Shell than KDE. What then? Will we see millions of Windows users flock to Mac? I think not. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
drago01 wrote: The poll is scientifically useless and you know that; and the one Olav linked shows the opposite by the way. The one Olav linked to said only GNOME rather than GNOME 3 or GNOME Shell and as such people who are still sticking with GNOME 2 will have voted for GNOME too. Several distributions are still shipping GNOME 2 (and users don't always use the latest version of their distribution either), so they might not even KNOW about GNOME 3 yet, or at least not have tried it yet. Plus, the poll is outdated by at least 2½ months (published Dec 1), which also contributes to people still rating GNOME based on the old GNOME 2. (Again, most distributions are much slower in adopting GNOME 3 than Fedora.) Even the article itself admits that Due to the timing of the GNOME 3 release, it's hard to tell if the victory is because of version 3 or in spite of it. The LQ poll proves it was the latter. Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Feb 13, 2012, at 1:38 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote: The LQ poll proves it was the latter. I don't like Gnome 3 either. From the largely outsider perspective and new to linux in general, I get the impression Gnome dev is on a mission, of unknown origin, and could absolutely care less about any feedback, except large scale rejection of Gnome 3. Nevertheless, the LQ poll can prove nothing. It is unlikely to be a scientific sample. And even if it turned out to be one, there is no data to prove it's a scientific sample. Fedora DE vs KDE spin download ratio compared to past release ratios would be more suggestive of a trend, if it exists. Chris Murphy -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
I'm going to reply to both in one go here: drago01 wrote: Why must a desktop resemble the windows 95 UI paradigm? Because that is what all current computer users are used to! And an inconvenient fact often ignored in usability studies is that the vast majority of your users will NOT be new to computers, but current computer users. It's a common pitfall (especially in the GNOME world) to underestimate the power of habit. You call that unconventional I call that progress. Change is not always for the better. This is not useful progress, but a useless change which breaks the habits of millions of existing users, just for the sake of being different. Your use of the word progress implies that there is some improvement in the change, but here I only see something different, not something better. … to which Michael Cronenworth replied: Not even Microsoft is staying with the 95 UI. @Kevin, Windows 8 will look more like Gnome Shell than KDE. What then? Will we see millions of Windows users flock to Mac? I think not. Maybe. Maybe even to Plasma or Xfce. :-) Or maybe they'll just stick with the old version. Many people are still running old versions of Office due to the infamous ribbon crap. Some have even switched to OO.o/LibreOffice due to it, and those will become more once the old versions stop being viable. Users can be very used to even small UI details. Power users have memorized them as part of their routine and will get annoyed if you force them to get used to a different workflow; non-technical users lack the kind of abstraction computer interfaces expect of them and instead remember the exact items to click on to do a specific task, and thus will feel totally lost in front of an unfamiliar interface. Don't underestimate the power of habit! M$ is actually WAY TOO KEEN on breaking their UI paradigms these days (see the ribbon fiasco) and we should use that to our advantage (by offering users the UI they expect, and loudly advertising that), not stupidly copy everything M$ is doing. Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On 02/13/2012 03:47 PM, Chris Murphy wrote: Fedora DE vs KDE spin download ratio compared to past release ratios would be more suggestive of a trend, if it exists. Not necessarily - I always used the standard DVD to install and use KDE and frankly never used the KDE spin - not once. gene -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Feb 13, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Genes MailLists wrote: On 02/13/2012 03:47 PM, Chris Murphy wrote: Fedora DE vs KDE spin download ratio compared to past release ratios would be more suggestive of a trend, if it exists. Not necessarily - I always used the standard DVD to install and use KDE and frankly never used the KDE spin - not once. Doesn't matter. The question is whether there is a change in trend. It's improbable that KDE adoption is increasing in statistically significant numbers, while at the same time KDE spin downloads remain flat, just because people can install KDE from the standard DVD installer. If there is a new trend developing, downloads and even yum updates would represent much more valuable data from which to draw general conclusions than a poll off one forum. The very poll's existence, and question structure, will disproportionately draw disaffected Gnome users to participate in the poll. Let's not forget there are KDE affectionados who were not pleased with KDE4. But in any event, the users almost don't matter when it comes to desktop experience. It's which environment has the most development (both for apps that run in it, as well as developers for the environment itself). Windows is an example of abysmal UI and UX, yet has a huge installed base who are not punishing MS over an objectively poor UI design. And long time Mac users have been expressing in larger numbers than any other release how irritated they are with the incorporation of iOS UI into Mac OS Lion (10.7) - and yet it's one of the most successful, by raw numbers, Mac OS upgrades of all time. So the complaining, the anecdotes of people switching environments, and totally non-scientific forum polls, probably means almost exactly zero. What is a valid concern for RH though, is whether and when Gnome 3 makes sense on RHEL, and if the fallback mode experience is a better and practical default, than the standard experience, for the RHEL market. Chris Murphy -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On 02/12/2012 06:19 AM, mike cloaked wrote: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2011-linuxquestions-org-members-choice-awards-95/desktop-environment-of-the-year-919888/ Shows an interesting result in terms of DE popularity - though given the many discussions not only on Fedora lists but on other lists for other distros also I am not really that surprised to see which are the top few in the poll. Interesting poll - of course some will jump on it as a non-scientific and why it's inadequate because it either is too broad an audience or too narrow .. :-) Or perhaps with only 600+ participants the std error may be too high (what is it anyway if one makes reasonable distributional assumptions for the poll takers .. stats quiz :-) ) .. however it jives exactly with my own experience where everyone I know dropped gnome shell and moved to either KDE or xfce (not without grumbling) .. of course my experience is def too small a sample size :-) While it may make sense to make KDE the default DE for fedora - I suspect that this cannot happen in fedora due to pressures from the large number of gnome devs associated with Fedora - or could it? Should it? I wonder if moving Gnome shell as a tablet spin and making KDE the default laptop/desktop DE would have been a really smart move. Is it too late? Perhaps we all really want a phone DE on our 42 inch desktops with a touch screen that somehow doesn't cause muscle strain ... g -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 4:35 PM, Genes MailLists li...@sapience.com wrote: Interesting poll - of course some will jump on it as a non-scientific and why it's inadequate because it either is too broad an audience or too narrow .. :-) Or perhaps with only 600+ participants the std error may be too high (what is it anyway if one makes reasonable distributional assumptions for the poll takers .. stats quiz :-) ) .. however it jives exactly with my own experience where everyone I know dropped gnome shell and moved to either KDE or xfce (not without grumbling) .. of course my experience is def too small a sample size :-) While it may make sense to make KDE the default DE for fedora - I suspect that this cannot happen in fedora due to pressures from the large number of gnome devs associated with Fedora - or could it? Should it? I wonder if moving Gnome shell as a tablet spin and making KDE the default laptop/desktop DE would have been a really smart move. Is it too late? Perhaps we all really want a phone DE on our 42 inch desktops with a touch screen that somehow doesn't cause muscle strain ... Yes it is a very small sample of self-selecting llinux enthusiasts who were prepared to enter their opinion on that site (as you say of order 600) - however it just might not be too far from general opinion on a much wider basis if the rumours one hears are anything like representative. I know this might be considered trolling but that is not the intention - there surely must be some level of concern that the things that have been chosen for primary support and development seem not to have the majority support of users and some of them could be influential in many ways. If that is the case then there is a risk that an ostrich like head-in-sand approach to the views of users may mean that the way things are planned for the future could lead to a migration away from Fedora to other distributions which could inflict lasting damage to Fedora and later Redhat. If I was a senior leader in Fedora I might want to know much more about what the general feelings were concerning this issue since the future development direction of where the effort in desktops should be concentrated could depend on it, and of course we all know it is impossible to measure with any real certainty. Maybe I am wrong completely - and Fedora has made all the right decisions all along and the new projects will just need a few bugs sorting out and all will be well with superb performance at the next GA for F17. I do hope that this will be the case. Nevertheless there has been a lot of disagreement on several key projects given several extremely long-running threads on the lists in recent weeks, which is in itself potentially damaging - and it would be more valuable if a future path was chosen and agreed by the majority that had more general consensus in support for which way to move ahead. That might be none to easy - but dissent in the ranks extended over a long period of time could cause difficulties. I would not like to see Fedora lose general support but the decisions on which version of grub, which main default desktop, which default daemon startup system and so on, is very important to people who will be using the distribution on a day-to-day basis - and some proportion of those day-to-day users are the test team on which development crucially depends. It is really important to have the significant majority on-board with the way things are moving. -- mike c -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 11:35:17AM -0500, Genes MailLists wrote: Interesting poll - of course some will jump on it as a non-scientific and why it's inadequate because it either is too broad an audience or too narrow .. :-) Or perhaps with only 600+ participants the std error may be too high (what is it anyway if one makes reasonable distributional assumptions for the poll takers .. stats quiz :-) ) .. Right, this poll is most probably in no way representative for the majority of the Fedora end-users. however it jives exactly with my own experience where everyone I know dropped gnome shell and moved to either KDE or xfce (not without grumbling) .. of course my experience is def too small a sample size :-) I have the same experience (and I moved to Xfce myself too), but most people I know are long-term UNIX/Linux developers. While it may make sense to make KDE the default DE for fedora - I suspect that this cannot happen in fedora due to pressures from the large number of gnome devs associated with Fedora - or could it? Should it? I wonder if moving Gnome shell as a tablet spin and making KDE the default laptop/desktop DE would have been a really smart move. Is it too late? Perhaps we all really want a phone DE on our 42 inch desktops with a touch screen that somehow doesn't cause muscle strain ... KDE is pretty nice these days, but IMHO way too complex to use/configure for the average end-user. -- --Jos Vos j...@xos.nl --X/OS Experts in Open Systems BV | Phone: +31 20 6938364 --Amsterdam, The Netherlands| Fax: +31 20 6948204 -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
A web poll from linuxquestions.org? Surely you can't be serious with this mail? -- Evandro Em Dom, 2012-02-12 às 11:35 -0500, Genes MailLists escreveu: On 02/12/2012 06:19 AM, mike cloaked wrote: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2011-linuxquestions-org-members-choice-awards-95/desktop-environment-of-the-year-919888/ Shows an interesting result in terms of DE popularity - though given the many discussions not only on Fedora lists but on other lists for other distros also I am not really that surprised to see which are the top few in the poll. Interesting poll - of course some will jump on it as a non-scientific and why it's inadequate because it either is too broad an audience or too narrow .. :-) Or perhaps with only 600+ participants the std error may be too high (what is it anyway if one makes reasonable distributional assumptions for the poll takers .. stats quiz :-) ) .. however it jives exactly with my own experience where everyone I know dropped gnome shell and moved to either KDE or xfce (not without grumbling) .. of course my experience is def too small a sample size :-) While it may make sense to make KDE the default DE for fedora - I suspect that this cannot happen in fedora due to pressures from the large number of gnome devs associated with Fedora - or could it? Should it? I wonder if moving Gnome shell as a tablet spin and making KDE the default laptop/desktop DE would have been a really smart move. Is it too late? Perhaps we all really want a phone DE on our 42 inch desktops with a touch screen that somehow doesn't cause muscle strain ... g -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
Genes MailLists wrote: While it may make sense to make KDE the default DE for fedora - I suspect that this cannot happen in fedora due to pressures from the large number of gnome devs associated with Fedora - or could it? Should it? IMHO, not only should the KDE spin become the default, but the Xfce spin should replace the GNOME spin (which of course needs to stop calling itself the Desktop spin) on the mirrors. GNOME is no longer a major desktop! Xfce is now the second most popular desktop after KDE Plasma Desktop. I wonder if moving Gnome shell as a tablet spin and making KDE the default laptop/desktop DE would have been a really smart move. Is it too late? Perhaps we all really want a phone DE on our 42 inch desktops with a touch screen that somehow doesn't cause muscle strain ... For a tablet spin, Plasma Active makes a lot more sense than gnome-shell: http://plasma-active.org/ https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PlasmaActive Plasma Active is actually designed for tablets, whereas the gnome-shell developers denied on more than one occasion that tablets were their intended target, even though its bizarre design happens to work out better for tablets than for normal computers. Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result
On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote: Genes MailLists wrote: While it may make sense to make KDE the default DE for fedora - I suspect that this cannot happen in fedora due to pressures from the large number of gnome devs associated with Fedora - or could it? Should it? IMHO, not only should the KDE spin become the default, but the Xfce spin should replace the GNOME spin (which of course needs to stop calling itself the Desktop spin) on the mirrors. GNOME is no longer a major desktop! Xfce is now the second most popular desktop after KDE Plasma Desktop. I wonder if moving Gnome shell as a tablet spin and making KDE the default laptop/desktop DE would have been a really smart move. Is it too late? Perhaps we all really want a phone DE on our 42 inch desktops with a touch screen that somehow doesn't cause muscle strain ... For a tablet spin, Plasma Active makes a lot more sense than gnome-shell: http://plasma-active.org/ https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PlasmaActive Plasma Active is actually designed for tablets, whereas the gnome-shell developers denied on more than one occasion that tablets were their intended target, even though its bizarre design happens to work out better for tablets than for normal computers. Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel The confusion in the Linux Desktop space was a big reason why I jumped from Fedora to a Mac. I love KDE and it would be a great default, I just wish that the decision hadn't been made to develop KDE in such a way as to push the graphics envelope. While I realize by Dell B130 is old, I should be able to drag a window around without artifacts (with or win out compositing. Ubuntu's Unity run the best. I feel that a lot of effort is being put into bling for bling's sake. On my Mac most of the bling enhances usability. I wish KDE didn't use 5-10% of my CPU at idle. IMO, the DE should attempt to consume as few resources as possible. -- Mark Bidewell http://www.linkedin.com/in/markbidewell -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
