I just learned that openSUSE is opening up more and more for the community. They even have a public website http://features.opensuse.org where everybody can suggest features and changes and the community can vote.
Somebody told me that about 75% of all openSUSE users use KDE as a desktop but KDE is not the default.
So why not fill in a feature request and see what the community wants?
I decided to try it.
Please vote for this feature request: https://features.opensuse.org/306967
The interesting thing is that this makes sense for 75% of the openSUSE users and also for openSUSE.
The benefits for openSUSE are:
- It is confusing for new Linux users if they have to decide between KDE and GNOME during the installation. New users don´t know either of them. So it is easier for beginners if there is a default. openSUSE has more KDE users than GNOME users so it is logical to make KDE the default.
- Unique Selling Point. It is important for openSUSE to provide something that Ubuntu and Fedora don´t provide. It would be beneficial for openSUSE to be the only big KDE distribution.
- This could attract more developers because KDE developers need a nice distribution to develop on.
- This would increase the popularity of openSUSE in the KDE user community. The negative impact on the GNOME community is not that bad because Ubuntu is the most popular GNOME distribution.
openSUSE should, of course, also ship and support GNOME. So experienced users can choose. But new users should have KDE as default.
What do you think?
Posts
15 Kommentare:
Of course not long ago KDE was the default. Then for purely political reasons SUSE was forced to remove the default - but KDE was kept on top, then in the following release GNOME was put on top in the selection screen.
Only at the great mercy of these morons GNOME wasn't made the default.
It's funny to see the people in power at Novell completely disregarding the vast majority of SUSE employees and the community and userbase. I guess the old rule that "it's easier to keep existing 'customers' happy, than going out and getting new ones" doesn't apply for Novell.
What's even more ironic is that after several years of this madness, they haven't managed grow the share of GNOME users to any notable degree.
+1
Great idea! I support it.
I'm not an openSUSE user,
but I totally agree with you...
-------
+1
Miguel de Icaza started the GNOME project with Federico Mena in August 1997. He is now the Vice President of Developer Platform at Novell.
"42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot." (Steven Wright)
"the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself" (Winston Churchill)
;)
By the way :
"It would be beneficial for openSUSE to be the only big KDE distribution."
wow, do you know mandriva ? :)
Yeah it's cool that they're opening up, because I've never felt as if I really knew anything or anyone behind the doors of openSUSE. And while (K)Ubuntu and Fedora are getting there, they're still focused on GNOME which is a shame as it is obvious that KDE4 develops much faster now. openSUSE has great potential!
"Unique Selling Point. It is important for openSUSE to provide something that Ubuntu and Fedora don't provide." - Except Kubuntu does provide this, even goes beyond it.
"This could attract more developers because KDE developers need a nice distribution to develop on." - SUSE already is very attractive to KDE developers (SUSE is most used among them, it seems to me), and developers certainly don't have any need for something to be selected by default that they can select easily by hand, nor does it provide any benefit to them.
Anyway, I am not against making KDE the default on SUSE. Just your arguments need a little improvement.
Well,
ok, let me something about me: I am just a user, (avid user) but (still) user... I did love SuSE 6-11 and OpenSuSE for their Openness and freedom to choose. I do not prefer KDE before GNOME, I never had to do it, nor will I now...
The OpenSuSE community should add all three (big) next to each other with obviously NO "on Top" or default... Having a possibility of choice is sometimes just wonderful.
And NOW all together KDE! KDE! KDE!...4.3 (:-D)....bye andreasp
I cannot go to the link at all ... is the site down?
I am afraid I have to disagree.
I don't think it's necessary to make KDE the default desktop in openSUSE, as long as OpenSUSE is desktop-agnostic and asks the user for its choice.
IMHO, the right proposal to do should be to make SLED as desktop-agnostic as OpenSUSE currently is.
At this moment, SLED has GNOME as default (although it includes KDE as a supported alternative if you decide you want to run it).
This is what should change. I even dare to say that your proposal will never succeed while SLED in biased towards GNOME.
KDE support in SUSE is much stronger than GNOME support - maybe because so many KDE developers use SUSE. This is especially if you use the factory build service - the KDE factory builds for 11.1 are virtually flawless, but the GNOME factory is unpredictable and full of bugs,
Maybe the only reason GNOME is default for openSUSE is that Novell is afraid to make it default for SLED for the business users.
But practically speaking, it's easy to see the bias - try using GDM in SUSE, and then switch to KDM and see all your problems vanish.
I think this is a stupid thing to suggest and speaks of utter disregard for one half of the opensuse-community.
Please, don't incite a desktop-war inside of our community.
-1
To exemplify where the dangers of your proposal are:
"- It is confusing for new Linux users if they have to decide between KDE and GNOME during the installation. "
Yeah, it is - but then why default to the newbie-unfriendly desktop KDE? KDE is for advanced users only. Let's default to GNOME!
"- Unique Selling Point." Apart from being the most polished GNOME-distro out there, openSUSE features the only GNOME-deskto with a single-panel layout, features its own start-menu and application manager, beagle-search etc. That IS a unique selling-point.
"- This could attract more developers"
Yes, by all means: let us attract more GNOME-developers...
"- This would increase the popularity of openSUSE in the KDE user community."
KDE is mostly a European/German phenomenon; the popularity of Ubuntu clearly shows the superior popularity of the GNOME desktop world-wide; so we should concentrate on that desktop...
See what I mean? Let it be.
I think it is a good idea. There are pletora of GNOME distributions out there. Kubuntu lacks resources, so Mandriva is the only one.
So yes, gp fpr it!
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