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Debian Switches Back To GNOME As Its Default Desktop

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  • #21
    Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
    The reasons given for the switch are not very compelling. I run XFCE on my laptop using Arch and I have no problems with it at all. Interestingly, my office debian build, also running XFCE, has many problems.

    XFCE is a good default choice because it's very "failsafe", it is reliable (when set up PROPERLY *squinting at debian devs*), it is lightweight, and you can fit the packages for it on the first installer CD.
    It really doesn't matter in any case.
    What default means in this case is that the GNOME install CD1 is not labelled GNOME while those for any other desktop are labelled as such.

    It basically just makes the GNOME option harder to find for anyone wanting to run GNOME as their Debian desktop, it has not effect what so ever on people wanting to run others.

    Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
    Considering debian holds back important updates for the sake of "stability", GNOME 3 is not a good option for them.
    I doubt that matters either. Anyone running Debian as a Desktop is at least using "Testing", even more likely "Unstable"
    Both of which are usually up to date.

    Cheers,
    _

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    • #22
      Originally posted by dh04000 View Post
      I was making jokes, not political statements, but go and ruin the fun why don't you?

      You people are broken. Everything is a fight, everything an argument to win. Sad really.
      I knew that, lol. Just that it served to prove my point.



      Don't be so sensible, you ruin the fun too.

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      • #23
        Originally posted by misGnomer View Post
        I still use XFCE occasionally, but its development has been slow for a long time now the devs seem to like it that way. They'd probably argue that stability is a virtue and not be totally wrong about it.
        They're probably busy porting it all to Qt5.

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        • #24
          Originally posted by Sama Vim View Post
          As a Slackware user, which runs a pretty plain, un-modified KDE, I tend to ignore all the complaints about akonadi and nepomuk. Why not just uninstall things you don't like or need?
          Yeah, I did that for a few years, but it was kind of annoying, at least to me: I needed to uninstall most of KDEPIM, make sure that I don't accidentally uninstall KDE, and then I also have, every now and then, a desktop refusing to login, in which case it's hard to go back. Also, the way to disable akonadi and nepomuk was really complicated, some had to be disabled instead of uninstalled, etc. Basically, I like KDE but it was too painful for _my_usage to maintain. KMail was one. I had used it for years, but when they moved to KMail2 or whatever major change, it would takes sometimes 20s to open an email, so I had to spend what, 3 hours migrating everything carefully to Thunderbird, but I haven't looked back. It feels to me as a continuous testbed for super cool stuff. It's fun but it never seems finish for my usage, while Unity seems much simpler but just works. Again, I love all the devs working on this environments and appreciate their work. It's lovely to have so many choices!

          These days, except for the occasional home movie editing or some particular apps, most of the stuff is on the browser, so the desktop is less important to me.

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          • #25
            Originally posted by Allard View Post
            I wish Debian switched to Unity as its default desktop.
            I'm fairly certain that we'd sooner see a theme for Gnome3 that turns it into a functional Unity like DE, than Unity or a fork of Unity.

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            • #26
              Originally posted by anda_skoa View Post
              It really doesn't matter in any case.
              What default means in this case is that the GNOME install CD1 is not labelled GNOME while those for any other desktop are labelled as such.

              It basically just makes the GNOME option harder to find for anyone wanting to run GNOME as their Debian desktop, it has not effect what so ever on people wanting to run others.
              XFCE is, IMO, the best "generic" desktop environment. It isn't feature rich but it isn't lacking. It isn't simple but it isn't complicated. It isn't heavy but it's not the most light-weight environment either. It has all the fundamental features you need, except proper rendering for UHD screens. I don't dislike GNOME - it isn't my cup of tea, but I think it's a lot better than people make it out to be. It doesn't matter if GNOME is "harder to find", the point is if users choose the "install desktop environment" from the debian installer, chances are this person isn't aware of the alternatives and therefore should be introduced to something that is plain, familiar, and compatible. GNOME is plain, but very foreign (which is why a lot of people hate it) and isn't effective on non-GPU-accelerated platforms.

              I doubt that matters either. Anyone running Debian as a Desktop is at least using "Testing", even more likely "Unstable"
              Both of which are usually up to date.
              Relatively, but still several months behind. I've also noticed lots of mixed versions of GNOME packages. On a computer I set up debian+gnome+testing, I noticed there were packages ranging from 3.8 to 3.12. That's pretty bad IMO.

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              • #27
                I also forgot to mention, if Debian is going with Wayland, Gnome is the way to go since it seems to have made the most progress.

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
                  XFCE is, IMO, the best "generic" desktop environment. It isn't feature rich but it isn't lacking. It isn't simple but it isn't complicated. It isn't heavy but it's not the most light-weight environment either.
                  I agree,

                  Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
                  It doesn't matter if GNOME is "harder to find", the point is if users choose the "install desktop environment" from the debian installer, chances are this person isn't aware of the alternatives and therefore should be introduced to something that is plain, familiar, and compatible.
                  I actually doubt that there is a significant number of people doing that.
                  I think Debian is used as a desktop system by people who either know Debian from servers or have learned about it while using a different distribution.
                  These people will look for desktops, the "default" just makes it harder for them to find GNOME if that is what they were looking for.

                  Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
                  Relatively, but still several months behind. I've also noticed lots of mixed versions of GNOME packages. On a computer I set up debian+gnome+testing, I noticed there were packages ranging from 3.8 to 3.12. That's pretty bad IMO.
                  I don't have any experience with the GNOME packages myself, but the KDE packages are usually available in Unstable at the day of the release announcement, which normally make them available in Testing two weeks later.

                  Over the last decade of using Debian as a desktop system the only times when this was not true was when there was either a major transition upstream, in which case I value Debian's "delay", or when Unstable got frozen for the next stable release, which does not happen very often.

                  Cheers,
                  _

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                  • #29
                    Accessibility

                    Depressing how accessibility concerns are largely ignored by this thread.

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by bison View Post
                      [Xfce] ... porting it all to Qt5.
                      Source?

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