GNOME v. KDE, December 2005 edition

Posted Dec 13, 2005 22:32 UTC (Tue) by justi9 (guest, #7522) [Link]

Inexperienced users do not say "I wish I could configure things more". That's just not one of their top concerns. Most inexperienced users don't use much of the configuration that GNOME offers.

So, no, I don't agree with you that inexperienced users want (demand!) the functionality offered in gTweakUI or Devil's Pie. They don't, because they don't care.

You, however, do care a lot, it seems. *And* you're smart and can install gTweakUI or something similar with ease. So go to it.

Posted Dec 13, 2005 22:57 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (guest, #216) [Link]

If one is trying to make a corporate environment uniform so that desktop support costs don't bankrupt the company, then making it 'very difficult' for inexperienced users to change things is an absolute requirement. ('Impossible' would be even better.)

I wished many times that we had been able to do this when I was a desktop support tech.

This is not the only target market for a GUI environment, of course. But it is an important one, and one that would generate a significant part of any revenue that companies would pay for a free-software desktop. So I understand completely why it would be a high priority for Gnome developers that are working for Novell via Ximian. Making all the options available to individuals would be a nice thing too. But the simple case probably has to come first... and, also, I would assume that in such a situation the printers and such would be administrated remotely by an sysadmin, rather than adjusting things on each individual desktop. But as always, I could be wrong...