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Does the Linux Desktop Innovate Too Much?

Posted by kdawson on from the billg-at-least-pretended-users-demanded-innovation dept.

jammag writes "The Linux desktop has seen major innovation of late, with KDE 4 launching new features, GNOME announcing a new desktop, and Ubuntu embarking on a redesign campaign. But Linux pundit Bruce Byfield asks, do average users really want any of these things? He points to instances of user backlash, and concludes 'Free software is still driven by developers working on what interests or concerns them. The problem is, the days when users of free software were also its developers are long gone, but the habits of those days remain. The result is that developers function far too much in isolation from their user base.' Byfield suggests that the answer could be more user testing."

1 of 542 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Continuity is the winning strategy. by Daengbo · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Wow.

    1. Top menus? You can install globalmenu
    2. Mac? There's no dock in Gnome, either, so I don't see that it's particularly Mac-ish.
    3. LXDE is GTK, too, so it doesn't do global menus without the globalmenu package, either.
    4. Looks? Gnome uses GTK, just like LXDE, so the themes are the same. If you don't like Gnome's looks, then you don't like LXDE's, either.
    5. Memory? 192MB RAM use for a fully loaded desktop isn't much these days, though it's certainly not LXDE's 48MB.
    6. Ubuntu has Tomboy by default, which includes Mono, but it's easy to remove, doesn't remove anything else, and isn't a part of the default Gnome desktop.
    7. Ubuntu doesn't ship with Beagle. It uses Tracker, which is written in C. It's not on by default in Natilius, either.
    8. Gnome has looked and acted nearly the same for six years. It gets assaulted for that. That's vision. It also has a strict HIG.
    9. The Gnome Foundation has elections. That's not community governance?

    LXDE does virtually nothing. That's why it's fast. Don't pretend that Image Viewer has the same features that EOG does, or that LXDE has a document viewer, or a video player, or any of the hundred other things that Gnome has that LXDE doesn't. Deskbar? Heck, LXDE doesn't even have a browser.

    If LXDE on Debian does everything you want, you must not want to do much. Either that, or you install a bunch of extra stuff to make up the difference.

    And, yes, I know what I'm talking about. I use LXDE (on Sid) at home and Gnome (via Ubuntu 9.04) at work.

    --
    Put identity in the browser.