UserLinux Continues Debate Over GUI

An anonymous reader writes "Following up the earlier Slashdot item on this, LinuxWorld is carrying both sides of the discussion as to whether UserLinux GUI should be GNOME only, as Bruce Perens last week decided "by fiat," or include KDE."

Comments

Why I'm not optimistic for UserLinux

[jbellis]

They're targeting the enterprise market -- defined explicitly by Peren's whitepaper as (paraphrasing) the market that Red Hat gets $$$ in support fees for.

I just don't see companies who want that level of support settling for "here's our linux distro, and if you want support, uh... here's a list of 3rd party providers." Remember LinuxCare? They're still around, but only because they moved away from providing third-party support solutions.

Here's the Trolltech Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

The argument is this :

SCO's bosses at Canopy controls Trolltech which controls Qt which controls KDE.

(do an nslookup of www.trolltech.com and www.kde.org to verify that last bit of logic)

The second contention that's a touchy subject is "Canopy controls Trolltech". Somebody is going to post a link to the trolltech site that says "only 8% of Trolltech is controlled by SCO/Canopy".

Then what the hell is Ralph Yarro (Darl Macbride's boss) doing on the board directors of Trolltech?
Link here for the skeptical.

The issues is real simple. If Canopy doesn't control Trolltech and Trolltech support Linux, then why haven't they

1) Come clean on exactly what their relationship is with Canopy ... and ...

2) Voted Ralph Yarro of the board.

Trolltech should come clean. What is their relationship with Canopy? Does canopy have contractual rights to sit on the board? Do they owe debt to Canopy? Does Canopy have warrants on Trolltech? The silence is deafing. Speak Trolltech, tell us the truth.

The sad thing is QT is a good product. They could increase their respect and marketshare by telling the Canopy chumps to take a hike.

Re:What's the big deal

[ankit]

Its just like you can simply download and install mozilla/firebird/opera/etc on any windows machine - internet explorer would only be the default. You dont have to use it.

UserLinux is targeted at the enterprise community. It probably (and hopefuly) be used by non-geeky types who simply use what is installed on their computers. You can see KDE go the same way as netscape if UserLinux ever becomes popular.

I am not sure what the right approach would be though. It makes sense for an OS to have a consistent "face" to a non-techie user. Though choice is great (and it is the reason why I use linux), it can be a hinderance for someone who is not inclined to try out 5 different window managers before she decides which one to use!!

What I don't understand

[theantix]

I can understand the business decision to go with one DE over the others... this makes good sense. What I *don't* understand is why Perens refuses to include the KDE libs by default. Including the libs and a few choice applications to fill the gaps where kde apps outperform what gnome offers (k3b and others) would do a lot for improving the total package of UserLinux and keep some of the critics at bay.

If I can put on my tinfoil hat for a second here, the best reason I can think of for not including the KDE libs is to stir up the traditional KDE/GNOME debate and get more coverage on slashdot and other sites. Trolling for media coverage, it's the wave of the future!

Think about users, not geeks

[rueger]

Lord, this arcane bickering seems pointless. From my reading Perens' goal is to develop a distro that "just works" for the average corporate user.

I just wrapped up my semi-annual "download a linux distro and see if the damned thing will work" exercise, and once again I'm falling back on Win2K, which does everthing that I need, and does it with a minimum of BS.

Over the last few years I've tried RedHat, Mandrake, and a half dozen other distros, on both bare machines and dual boot systems. In every case I hit the wall when trying to implement some simple or essential feature. Every time I found myself led into that arcane and recursive hell known as man pages and how-tos. (and mailing lists, and discussion groups and...)

I'm good with hardware, and can make Windows do anything I need. I have managed to troubleshoot some exceedingly obscure problems in the past. Still, once again I've abandoned Linux because I can't afford to invest weeks of obscure research just to do day to day work.

I really want to be rid of Microsoft products. I find them more irritating than useful, and surely don't like MS' business practices.

I love OpenOffice and have pretty much abandoned MS Office. I like Mozilla, and use a wide variety of freeware and open source products.

I would in a minute abandon MS Windows if it were practical, but to do that I need a distro that will do what Windows does:

Find and configure all my hardware, set up internet access and networking to allow all of the computers on our system to share files, and easily allow others to use the printers attached to my PC, easily set up my two video cards and monitors, set up to sync my PalmPilot.

And have decent looking fonts.

So far every distro I have tried has blown at least two of these basic goals and has offered no easy way to achieve them.

Again, I cannot afford to spend days or weeks tracking down the obscure solution to make something like HotSync work.

It does not matter to me whether this happens with GNOME or KDE. If I can boot from CD and have all of these things come up working, I'll buy it.

If including only GNOME allows Perens' the time to make a truly reliable installer, then I'm for it.