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A default desktop for openSUSE?The choice of a Linux desktop environment, typically between the "big two": GNOME and KDE, is one that inspires enthusiastic advocacy—some might even say religious fervor—among the supporters of each choice. So, it should come as no surprise that a distribution's default choice of desktop—the one that most new users will end up running—can be contentious, as the supporters of each desktop jockey for recognition of their choice. That battle is currently playing out for openSUSE after a proposal to make KDE the default desktop was made in the openFATE feature tracker; since then, a number of rather lengthy threads on the opensuse-project mailing list, as well as postings on various web logs, have made for a lively debate. The first argument for choosing a default desktop generally centers around new users. Most seasoned Linux users will have already chosen a desktop suited to their needs; as long as that desktop is supported, they should have no trouble installing the distribution. New users, on the other hand, are generally not even aware that there is a choice of desktops for Linux. By choosing a default desktop, a distribution can ease the path for a new Linux user. Unlike most of the major distributions, openSUSE has no default desktop, so users are presented with the choice of GNOME or KDE as part of the installation process. The other major distributions default to GNOME—with the exception of Mandriva—but support KDE users with a separate distribution of some kind (e.g. Kubuntu or the Fedora KDE spin). The lack of a default for openSUSE is, to some extent, a historical artifact. When Novell bought SuSE Linux a few months after it bought Ximian, there was a bit of a culture clash. SuSE was KDE-based, but Ximian was a sponsor of GNOME (and Mono) development. According to a blog posting by KDE's Sebastian Kügler, Novell wanted to move both enterprise and desktop distributions to a GNOME default—or perhaps remove KDE entirely—but eventually decided to only do that for the enterprise releases; for desktops, there would be no default. For a while, KDE was listed ahead of GNOME in the openSUSE installation dialog, but at some point, the order of the two desktops in the installation dialog was reversed. That makes sense, at least alphabetically, but, to some, it still felt like a KDE demotion. That dialog has a short blurb associated with each desktop choice, but neither is selected, so the user must choose. The openSUSE community is largely made up of KDE users; something like two-thirds of users run either KDE 3.5 or KDE 4 according to the openSUSE 11.0 user survey [PDF]. That leads some, especially KDE fans, to suggest that openSUSE default to the desktop used by a significant majority of its users. The proposal was quickly voted as the highest rated feature request in openFATE, with roughly 90% approval, according to openSUSE board chair Michael Löffler's blog posting. KDE-default advocates note that in addition to its potential to reduce confusion for new users, making KDE the default would raise openSUSE's profile within the KDE community, which might well lead to more users, developers, and packagers for the distribution. Part of the argument is that openSUSE makes default decisions for most kinds of applications (web browsers, email readers, etc.), but leaves the desktop choice to the user, so, instead, openSUSE should make a default decision there as well. By putting KDE on an equal footing with GNOME, openSUSE is actually treating KDE as a second-class citizen. As KDE and SUSE developer Lubos Lunak puts it:
This is actually not asking to make KDE special in any way or to grant KDE
any additional [privilege]. It is the common practice in openSUSE to select
the technically best solution, and in case that is not feasible for whatever
reason, the most popular solution. Therefore GNOME has the special [privilege]
of being presented completely equally (or actually with a slight advantage by
being first) with what in all other cases would be the presented default
selection in a choice or would be used without a choice at all. The feature
asks for applying the common practice to the desktop selection, in other
words, the feature actually asks for removal of the [privilege] that GNOME
currently has.
There is also a political subtext to making KDE the default. For much of its history, openSUSE was completely controlled by Novell, but more recently it has been opening up to become more of a community-led distribution—following a similar path to that taken by Fedora a few years earlier. To some, changing to a KDE default is seen as a way to show that openSUSE has moved out from under Novell's thumb. In some ways, openSUSE has been tainted by the patent deal that Novell made with Microsoft—at least to some—so, some distancing from Novell would be welcome as Will Stephenson points out: "This would go a long way to undoing the 'Novell is evil' smell that we can't shake off." Community manager Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier is sympathetic to the idea that openSUSE show that it can "make decisions independent of Novell", but doesn't agree that changing to a KDE default is the right choice for the project. He is concerned that elevating KDE to a position above GNOME might alienate users and developers of the latter, while not providing much in the way of a boost to the numbers of openSUSE KDE folks:
If the issue was merely sending a pro-KDE message, I'd be quite in
favor. But it's not neutral to GNOME (in my opinion) because we're
effectively choosing one over the other — even if that's not the spirit in
which it's intended (and I like to think that Frank is trying to send a
pro-KDE message, not an anti-GNOME message), I'm concerned that it will be
interpreted wrongly.
I appreciate the desire to make openSUSE a welcome home for KDE developers and users. I just think we could find a better way to accomplish it. Lunak suggests that there be guidelines to help determine what default choices openSUSE will make. As he has noted several times in the threads, there aren't choices for text editor or web browser, so why is the desktop treated differently? He also points out that the current default web browser—firefox for both GNOME and KDE—might need to change at some point:
Currently we have Firefox as the clear default and we do not even offer a
choice in any prominent place. I don't think there's anything wrong with
that, but if one day Chrome has 90% users and Firefox 9%, it would be clearly
very stupid to still keep Firefox as the default without any easy way to
change it. [...] According to what we have now with desktops, we should
offer a choice to use Chrome as soon as it gets at least somewhat significant
user base, and after it [is] exceeding about 25%, we should present a page during
installation where there is nothing preselected and the user must choose.
Some guidelines, at least for the desktop case, have been proposed by former openSUSE board chair Andreas Jaeger. In his proposal—which seems to be gaining some support—he suggests that desktops be listed in alphabetical order and that the most popular be selected by default. He also suggests that the desktop choice screen should "explain that both GNOME and KDE are first class desktops and the default is based on popularity". How ties or near-ties would be broken is not specified, but there would have to be a fairly sizable shift in the openSUSE community for that to be a problem—GNOME users account for roughly 26% of those surveyed. This is not the first time distributions have struggled with this problem; Fedora went through a similar exercise back in April. The initial suggestion, made by Jóhann Guðmundsson, was to change references to "default desktop" or "Fedora desktop" to "GNOME desktop", so that the desktop choice made by the project was clear. His point was not change the default, but just to call it out so that other desktops and their users would be on an equal footing. That led to a lengthy thread—sound familiar?—discussing how to handle desktop choices at installation time (among other things). The problem is that there is no "right" decision that a distribution can make. Forcing the user to choose is bad for new users; as Naheem Zaffar put it: "Choice is only good if you are informed enough to exercise it." Distributions are expected to make these choices, and, in the end, they have to. When booting a Live CD of some distribution, the last thing a potential new Linux user wants to do is make an uninformed decision about which desktop to use. As an aside, it is interesting to note a complaint made by Josephine Tannhäuser who was unhappy to see that KDE 4.3 will be coming to Fedora 10 and 11, without a similar upgrade for GNOME (to 2.26) in Fedora 10. The stability required for GNOME as the default desktop may be part of the resistance to a major GNOME upgrade for a distribution that is getting towards the end of its lifecycle. There may be other reasons as well—the GNOME 2.26 upgrade may be more intrusive than KDE 4.2.4 to 4.3 for example—but it is likely that non-default desktops are afforded more flexibility. Clearly, some in the KDE community would like to see there be a high-profile distribution that defaults to that desktop. There are undoubtedly some who are still smarting from the perceived—or real—slight when SUSE moved from KDE to GNOME/neutral after the Novell acquisition. At some level, openSUSE seems like a good candidate for that distribution, but it could conflict with the stated goal to be "the distribution with the best GNOME desktop and the best KDE desktop", as Jaeger described. With two full-featured desktop solutions—as well as more minimal choices for those who want them—Linux can certainly meet the needs of most users. There is a hurdle to get over, though, one that the proprietary alternatives don't require. The best long-term solution is likely to involve raising the profile of the desktop choice to new users, so that they can make a reasonably informed decision—similar to the distribution choice they already have to make. How they get that information is an open question, but that question once existed for the various distributions as well. It would seem that the desktop projects may need to get better at educating users—and potential users—about the strengths of their solution. If that happens, the default desktop choice will likely become less politicized and lead to fewer lengthy mailing list threads. (Log in to post comments)
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 5, 2009 20:52 UTC (Wed) by Tara_Li (subscriber, #26706) [Link]
Yah know...
I don't have a problem with the default being chosen by the distro, but you know something that *would* be really nice?
How about a nice for changing *ALL* of the default handling? Sort of a nice entry in the System Menu for changing most everything that happens automagically?
Run as root, it'd present the option to change defaults system-wide, or for root user only, otherwise, it'd install the changes only for that particular user...
So, you'd have a chooser with a nice drop-down box for web browser (Seamonkey, Firefox, Galeon, Dillo, Konqueror [even if your default desktop is Gnome!!!], Opera), console text editor (nano, vi, emacs, joe...), graphical text editor... and here's where it gets sneaky!!! default desktop and window manager!!! Why, people might find out they actually *CAN* run Gnome with Enlightenment 16, instead of Metacity (which I *STILL* haven't found out how to make happen properly in the so-called session manager BS that used to be fairly nice back in RH7 or 9...) You could even chose the default java engine, image viewer...
Then again, it'd be really nice if I could just install a package as a user, and have it install itself in my home directory, instead of having to be root. But then, the standard Linux distros are barely concerned with truly being multi-user.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 5, 2009 21:38 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Ya. That already exists. Somewhat.
It's called 'alternatives' and there is GUI configuration called 'galternatives'. It's not very slick, but it works and has been around for a long long time. This is part of Debian. So if you install multiple versions of Java, for example, then the administrator can use alternatives to set the default java version and those 'other' java things can still be used by users directly.
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAlternatives
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 5, 2009 23:34 UTC (Wed) by Tara_Li (subscriber, #26706) [Link]
Ok - interesting - apparently galternatives was installed on my system [Fedora 10] (though there's no menu entry that I can find for it on the System menu I could find...) However, it's not that well populated, really. cdda2wav, cdrecord, ettercap, fedora-usermgmt, java, 2x jaxp(something), 4x jre(something), print, totem-backend, mp3-cmdline...
No descriptions, nothing for web browser, e-mail client, window manager, desktop... I may have seen this at some point; if I did, I probably decided that messing with it was way *WAY* above my geek level. Oh, and I had to give it root permission - WHY? Why can't I use Seamonkey, when everyone else I let on my system defaults to Firefox?
But I'll admit, that's reasonably close to what I'm looking for - now, how to find it without a lucky tab hit on the bash command line? (I was checking on how to spell galeon earlier, and gal<tab> gave me galeon and galternatives, but I had no idea what galternatives was..) (Even odder, it comes out of galternatives-0.13.4-5.fc9.noarch - I guess some of the packages for F10 were never rebuilt from F9, because this system never had F9 on it - it's been upgraded from F6 to F8, and then a fresh install of F10)
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 3:35 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Like I said it's a Debian thing. I am surprised that it's on Fedora at all and I expect to to be much less complete then it is on Debian.
But I don't have a Fedora system handy so I don't know for certain.
> No descriptions,
Ya. The names are self descriptive. Remember this is a administrator's tool. It's expecting that you know what your doing.
> nothing for web browser,
There is x-www-browser for GUI and www-browser for shell accounts. (at least in Debian)
> e-mail client,
I don't see a option in there. But it's possible I don't have a program installed that uses that alternative. Also you can make up your own if you want.
the list of alternatives tend to grow the more software you have installed.
And email is a little bit more involved then typical stuff. What do you want to set? MTA, MUA, etc ?
> window manager,
Ya. It's there: x-window-manager
> desktop...
x-session-manager
> I may have seen this at some point; if I did, I probably decided that messing with it was way *WAY* above my geek level.
Maybe. It's not really that useful for most people. It's more for a more traditional multi-user setup type thing.
> Oh, and I had to give it root permission - WHY?
Because it works by setting symbolic links in your system.
> Why can't I use Seamonkey, when everyone else I let on my system defaults to Firefox?
You can. It's just outside of Alternative's scope. It's for setting system-wide defaults.
> But I'll admit, that's reasonably close to what I'm looking for - now, how to find it without a lucky tab hit on the bash command line?
Documentation is useful. It's one of the reasons I like Debian.
Every command must have a man file associated with it, or it's a bug. Also every package has /usr/share/doc/package-name directory which contains documentation. Some packages are sparse, but most important packages have all sorts of documentation and readmes and example configurations in them. It's much better then any other Linux systems.
When I use Ubuntu I can tell right away when using packages which are from Debian and which are from Ubuntu. Ubuntu's software doesn't come with any documentation.
See:
Knock yourself out on:
Very nice stuff.
See the installation guide support:
Look at it.. do you see any other distro come close to offering that level of documentation? Documentation is how real people get real shit done. Everybody else has a few dirty Wiki pages in comparison.
I like other distros (especially Fedora since they produce actually much higher quality desktop experience then Debian does), but stuff like this is why I always come back to Debian. <3
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 3:43 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Oh. And the documentation is all available via apt-get, too. So that when I don't have a internet connection I am not completely fcked like I am with other systems. <3 <3 <3
And have you ever heard of things like modconf or module-assistant.
Back when I was still using nvidia hardware I was doing things like
m-a a-i nvidia
(that is module-assistant auto-install and it would download all the kernel headers, compiler, nvidia source code, and everything else that I would need... compile it, build a debian package containing the driver, and then install the driver, and load it up... Fantastic stuff. Everything done in a single command.)
For a long long long time before Ubuntu had it's driver manager stuff.
Of course none of Debian's Debian-specific stuff comes close to the usability and quality that happens when distros all work together...
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 9:29 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] It's just outside of Alternative's scope. It's for setting system-wide defaults.But the "feature-request" was for user-wide default. For example on my desktop Firefox open gedit to check textfiles, when I absolutely don't want to use gedit, I want to use gvim. Nautilus also uses gedit, while crontab uses the EDITOR variable (or the VISUAL variable?). Also in Firefox if I click on an e-mail link, it starts Evolution when I have absolutely no desire to run Evolution, I use alpine. In Nautilus when I click on an MP3 file, it starts banshee(?) when I want to use xmms. Now there's a "Default applications" (?) setting in GNOME, but that's very far from complete. Actually with my Windows experience I've found where I could change the default application for MP3 files to xmms, but maybe it would be useful if there would be a single window where the applications can be setup.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 14:50 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> But the "feature-request" was for user-wide default.
Hrm. I thought I read it as being able to set system-wide defaults AND user-specific defaults. Alternatives can do the system-wide so it 'sorta' meets the requirements.
> But the "feature-request" was for user-wide default. For example on my desktop Firefox open gedit to check textfiles, when I absolutely don't want to use gedit, I want to use gvim. Nautilus also uses gedit, while crontab uses the EDITOR variable (or the VISUAL variable?). Also in Firefox if I click on an e-mail link, it starts Evolution when I have absolutely no desire to run Evolution, I use alpine. In Nautilus when I click on an MP3 file, it starts banshee(?) when I want to use xmms. Now there's a "Default applications" (?) setting in GNOME, but that's very far from complete. Actually with my Windows experience I've found where I could change the default application for MP3 files to xmms, but maybe it would be useful if there would be a single window where the applications can be setup.
Ah.
That sort of stuff is easy to deal with. At least the file type associations. It's already taken care of.
It's part of the FreeDesktop.org .desktop standard. (as in DOT-desktop).
If you look at your system directory tree closely you'll notice that there are lot of these *.desktop files for various applications and whatnot. Like 'totem.desktop' and things of that nature.
These are used to tell your GUI system various details about applications and their executables. Stuff like International names, comments, mime associations, execution commands, and things of that nature. It's a simple ini configuration file for each application.
Then there are a system-wide defaults files called 'defaults.list' that contain the default associations with various file types and whatnot.
--------------------------------------------
So here is how it works in Gnome:
To set user-specific associations with file types you go to a file on your desktop and right click it. Goto properties --> "open with" tab --> then choose which item you want to be the default.
If the program you want associated with that file type is not in the list then you can click the '+ add' button and choose a installed application.
If the application you want is not in that list either then you can enter a command to be ran.
Now what happens with that is when you pick something other then a default your preference is record in your ~/.local/share/applications/ directory.
This is designed to be cross-platform and should be honored by all your applications. If you make settings in KDE it should be honored in Gnome and visa versa.
that is the 'GUI' way to set your defaults stuff.
So if you want to set vlc to launch mp3s instead of rhythmbox you just have to find a mp3 and right click it into the properties --> open with tab and select the vlc radio button and save it.
----------------------------
If these preferences are not honored by another application (say you want to listen to a MP3 from a RSS feed in Liferea) then that application probably has it hard coded or makes the user choose through preferences, which is stupid, but it is usually just because the program pre-dates xdg stuff and hasn't been fixed yet.
For applications like that that are kinda stupid you can have them just launch either 'xdg-open' or 'gnome-open' command which will then launch the prefered program with the associated mime-type automagically.
It's not perfect. For example if I want to have Mutt use my default browser I can't use gnome-open since Gnome-open kills itself as soon as it launches the browser, which confuses Mutt. So I have to use a python script to emulate gnome-open.
------------------------
Now if the idea of manually clicking through different file types to set associations does not appeal to you then you can do it manually.
Now I've done this in the past, so I am hoping that it still works.
So you pick a defaults.list file. For me, since I am using Gnome, then I'll pick /etc/gnome/defaults.list
Copy that file to ~/.local/share/applications/
Then edit it. If you want to swap gedit for gvim then you need to figure out gvim's *.desktop file (or manually make one if one does not exist) (which one does, called gvim.desktop) and then run something like this in vim:
:% s/gedit/gvim/g
And that is it. Your done. You've successfully switched all the defaults from gedit to gvim.
------------------------------
But that is not perfect. This is only for file ---> mimetype associations. So when you double click on a file or launch a file from another program then it should honor these settings.
but that does not change your default email settings.
For that see: http://portland.freedesktop.org/wiki/EmailConfig
There are a few different xdg-* style commands. Check them out.
they are very useful for scripts you want to integrate into your desktop.
-----------------------------
For setting defaults for launching applications during login it's pretty simple to....
Simply copy the file or make a symbolic link from the application's *.desktop file to the ~/.config/autostart/ directory.
This way you can launch applications. To make custom launchers for scripts and such then you can just make your own desktop file and copy it to that.
It's pretty simple.
This is why Gnome broke it's session management stuff a while back.. to be compliant with the XDG stuff. (hopefully they will eventually make it feature complete)
Now this isn't so important for Gnome and KDE, but if your using a something like LXDE this sort of thing makes your life much much easier.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 5, 2009 21:43 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
I remember Debian having a few things in that area, where you can set some
variables and stuff. The XDG tools are similar in that regard.
And KDE has offered a 'default applications' SystemSettings module where
Either way, this kind of functionality (together with things like the
I guess we just have to wait for someone or some organization to push this
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 5, 2009 21:48 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I think it's silly to make users choose during install time.
I also think it's silly to use seperate 'distros' or 'spins' for 'KDE' vs 'Gnome'.
What should happen is that a distro picks a default, then users pick whatever they want.
So for Fedora, for example, there should be no 'KDE spin' or 'LXDE spin'. There should only be Fedora and the default should be Gnome. Then if users want to use KDE or XFCE or whatever then they do the 'yum group install kde' (or whatever) to install KDE. Then they log out, choose KDE in the session chooser, then log back in.
Simple, be done with it. The only penalty is disk space and even old computers should have no problem sacrificing the space necessary for having both KDE and Gnome installed.
Then for OpenSuse, if they want the defualt to be KDE4, then that's fine. If I want to run Gnome then I should install the Gnome desktop over it.
Whatever.
The point is 'just make a choice'. Not making a choice is actually a choice and it almost always is the wrong choice.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 5, 2009 21:52 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Oh, and as a consession for older machines or people that just have irrational hatred of Gnome or whatever... then there should be a 'advanced setting' during the install time to select a alternative desktop. Like how Debian always chooses Gnome as the default unless the person installing the system goes and does the correct install option at the boot prompt.
It shouldn't pose any problems for advanced users as long as it's documented correctly.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 1:57 UTC (Thu) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]
"It shouldn't pose any problems for advanced users as long as it's documented correctly."
That's the problem: many, many users aren't anywhere near "advanced".
How about making the default behavior of the installation script(s) be to NOT install any cumbersome desktop manager and, instead, give them TWM (or VTWM) -- lightweight, and a fine jumping-off point for further travels.
Later on, users could opt-in for a more robust window manager, such as Fluxbox, JWM, and others; and, if a user feels *really* perverse, s/he could install KDE, Gnome, or XFCE.
Although I upgraded (fresh-install) to Linux Mint 7 (KDE CE) only yesterday, I "downgraded" to KDE/3.5 alongside KDE/4, and might just get to feeling "perverse", myself, and "upgrade" to Debian/5.02 with a barebones window manager -- this on a dual-PIII/1.4GHz motherboard w/2GB RAM.
Stop asking/demanding that users be "advanced". A knowledgeable, user-oriented sysadmin can do it all at work, and for home-users, well, what are friends for, if not [computer] support?
Even if the government starts giving "cash for clunkers" for computers, some of us will continue to run older PII and PIII workstations and laptops; don't plan on us going away, any time soon.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 3:59 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> That's the problem: many, many users aren't anywhere near "advanced".
That's why it's very important to give people a nice default that is well supported, well documented, and well integrated.
Forcing people to make decisions during install time and forcing people to install different distros, when it's very likely that they have no clue what those differences are, is evil.
> How about making the default behavior of the installation script(s) be to NOT install any cumbersome desktop manager and, instead, give them TWM (or VTWM) -- lightweight, and a fine jumping-off point for further travels.
Because that's insane. I can barely use TWM. For normal folks they need something that works by default. Forcing them to choose when they don't have the knowledge or understanding is evil.
More advanced users should not have a problem choosing their own personal environment.
> Stop asking/demanding that users be "advanced". A knowledgeable, user-oriented sysadmin can do it all at work, and for home-users, well, what are friends for, if not [computer] support?
I don't understand were your coming at from all here.
Even knowing there is a different from KDE vs Gnome is far in advance of 90% of the potential users out there.
You have to give them something that works, something that they can depend on working. Something that is robust, well documentation, and integrates well into the system and not force them to choose at all for anything.
It's not about making it easy for 'stupids' or 'six pack joe' or anything like that. I am talking about making something that actually works as expected out of the gate.
Then if users that are advanced enough to want to make changes from the defaults then there is nothing stopping them from doing that.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Most new users on modern hardware should use KDE or GNOME - they handle things that new users expect like automounting of USB sticks, hardware detection (with distro help), etc.
If you are on much older hardware then Puppy Linux et al will run in 128 MB and default to something very light like JWM.
All this goes to show why for most new users, a distro or respin is the way to go - it doesn't make sense for them to have to figure out which of the many window managers / desktop environments is the best option at install time, or even shortly after install when they are still struggling to get used to Linux.
Advanced users will have no problem about replacing the WM/DE, or selecting a different respin.
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 6, 2009 8:29 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Even if the government starts giving "cash for clunkers" for computers, some of us will continue to run older PII and PIII workstations and laptops; don't plan on us going away, any time soon. There are no need. You can use your ancient PII or PIII workstation - just like you can use your ancient car. Just don't expect to buy spares and compatible addons in normal shop! For example I see no point in default GCC flags of Suse/Ubuntu/Fedora. Come on: why -msse2 -mfpmath=sse is not default today? Such changes should be no-brainer, but somehow every time it's rejected because some ancient CPUs don't support SSE2... Sigh...
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 6, 2009 8:54 UTC (Thu) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]
And modern CPUs should be running x86_64, where those flags are the default.
Tell this to Intel! Posted Aug 9, 2009 12:24 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Sure, but they don't. Millions of netbooks sold today are sold without x86-64 support. Yet even distributions like Ubuntu Netbook Remix don't use SSE2 by defalut...
Tell this to Intel! Posted Aug 9, 2009 12:43 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
You can't just change the x86-32 ABI like that. You'd need to recompile
absolutely everything that used float/double/long double (at least in the interface and any exported variables). Every closed-source thing would also break and need recompilation (unless glibc took special measures to keep non-relinked stuff working against an old-ABI version of libm, and why would it?)
There's a reason the SSE2 shift only happened when we moved to x86-64:
Tell this to Intel! Posted Aug 14, 2009 4:44 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Every closed-source thing would also break and need recompilation (unless glibc took special measures to keep non-relinked stuff working against an old-ABI version of libm, and why would it? ) Why not? GlibC developers already introduced symbol visibility and versioning mechanisms in version 2.1 to solve this problem - and it works (there were quite a few changes in GlibC ABI over the years - all 99%- backward compatible; it's rare to see program which works with GLibC 2.x but not with GLibC 2.x+1 if x is at least "1"). Biggest win of "-msse2 -mfpmath=sse" mode is not fact that it's faster (it's roughly the same in speed) but the fact that it generates predictable code! Your program works the same way with -O0 and with -O2, it conforms to IEEE 754, etc. If you are doing a lot of math the benefits are enormous so you should switch and if not then you don't have a lot of FP in interfaces and/or exported variables so switch is no big deal...
Tell this to Intel! Posted Aug 14, 2009 7:26 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
So, you suggest... what? Versioning *every symbol* in *every shared
library* that uses a double anywhere in its interfaces? That's going to fly. (I wish symbol versioning were used more widely, but let's face it, upstreams mostly don't care and just stick to older techniques.)
Not exactly Posted Aug 14, 2009 9:29 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] So, you suggest... what? Versioning *every symbol* in *every shared library* that uses a double anywhere in its interfaces? You only need this for libraries used by closed-source programs. Everything else can be just recompiled (with usual bump of library version). It's not a rocket science...
Not exactly Posted Aug 15, 2009 10:24 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It's not rocket science, but still the upstreams of most major shared
libraries would simply laugh at you for suggesting it (except Ulrich, who'd snap at you instead).
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 6, 2009 19:11 UTC (Thu) by jlokier (subscriber, #52227) [Link]
Distros have a version for older computers (32-bit), and a version for new computers (64-bit). New desktops and laptops are 64-bit now, so use the 64-bit version.
So why do you think the 32-bit version should drop support for computers which don't have SSE2? It's only purpose is to support old or unusual computers anyway.
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 7, 2009 8:11 UTC (Fri) by farnz (guest, #17727) [Link] New computers and laptops are 32-bit, and are running CPUs that benefit from SSE2 math. Quite why Intel's Nxxx Atoms don't have EM64T or whatever they're calling it today is a different question.
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 7, 2009 9:57 UTC (Fri) by jlokier (subscriber, #52227) [Link]
I see. I'm sympathetic, having a 32-bit Core Duo myself, and I guess I've been led astray by the KVM people who keep implying that 32-bit host support is some kind of anachronism which doesn't apply to new machines.
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 11, 2009 11:42 UTC (Tue) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
Before hyping all that 64-bit stuff one might do well to ensure that it works even half as good as 32 bits first. I'm dismayed to see that there is very little actual benefit to 64-bit system, yet a neverending sequence of downsides. Pretty much all advanced features in any new thing are delayed by years before they finally make it to 64 bits.
- firefox 3.5: no tracemonkey jit for 64 bits
In other words, the world is still firmly in 32-bit camp and 64-bit is an oddity looming in the horizon. The situation is probably changing, I guess, but in the meantime the practical choice is to improve 32-bit support as much as possible.
I fail to see the point... Posted Aug 11, 2009 21:41 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Uh, doubling the size of pointers is *expected* with 64-bit. It's one of
the normal costs. Complaining about that is like complaining that 32-bit systems don't have 16-bit pointers.
I'm not sure tracemonkey JIT is terribly necessary on 64-bit systems right
I don't use Mono, but 'no support for SSE math' is very unlikely: the FPU
KVM has worse virtualization in 64-bit? Where? A good few virtualization
In the end, 64-bit is all that matters for larger systems.
Yes and no Posted Aug 14, 2009 4:36 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] In the end, 64-bit is all that matters for larger systems. Actually for most tasks on "big systems" 32-bit mode is still better. The only piece of software which must be 64-bit is kernel. Sparc systems used this mode (64-kernel, 32-bit userspace) for years, funny how Linux world decided to skip this step and inflict unnecessary pain from the start...
Yes and no Posted Aug 14, 2009 4:52 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
there is one key difference between 64 bit sparc systems and the amd64 architecture.
on sparc systems there is very little difference between the two modes other than the pointer size (memory addressing), so the overhead of the larger pointers is noticable and a mixed-mode makes a lot of sense
also when sun designed the 64 bit sparc mode memory was _very_ expensive, and multi-user machines were the rule. so even if you had more than 4G of ram in a box, it would be very unusual for you to want a single process to use that much ram.
with the AMD64 architecture, one huge difference between 32 bit mode and 64 bit mode is that 64 bit mode has 16 registers instead of 8. this difference means that a lot more things can be done without spilling out to main memory (and as CPU's get faster the cost of spilling out to memory gets more significant)
if you want to see an example of this sort of optimization, look on the git mailing list for this month, there s a thread going on about optimizing the SHA1 code. the effect that eliminating thrashing out of the registers has is amazing, I think they are seeing a faxtor of ~6x between the different C implementations, and the 64 bit C code is within a percentage or so of the hand-tuned 32 bit assembler
also with home systems now selling with 8G of ram, and servers having 32G or more of ram, the odds that you want to have a process use more than 4G of address space go up significantly. I have perl scripts that I run doing log analysis that won't work on 32 bit systems due to memory limits.
Crypto is not a big part of life Posted Aug 14, 2009 10:02 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] if you want to see an example of this sort of optimization, look on the git mailing list for this month, there s a thread going on about optimizing the SHA1 code. the effect that eliminating thrashing out of the registers has is amazing, I think they are seeing a faxtor of ~6x between the different C implementations, and the 64 bit C code is within a percentage or so of the hand-tuned 32 bit assembler Yes, it's well-known fact that crypto benefits from big number of registers, but is the SHA1 speed matter to you this much? More realistic tests show modest increase (more and bigger registers) or decrease (more memory pressure) in speed when you switch to 64bit! You can often win more with more sophisticated compiler (ICC, for example) - and no 2x memory requirement there! also with home systems now selling with 8G of ram, and servers having 32G or more of ram, the odds that you want to have a process use more than 4G of address space go up significantly. I have perl scripts that I run doing log analysis that won't work on 32 bit systems due to memory limits. Some few specialized processes will need this capability, yes, but most processes can live happily in 4GiB for long time yet. 16bit => 32bit switch happened when typical PC memory grew over 4MB - that's 64 times more then what native 16bit addressing can use! So I think 32bit switch should happen when typical PC memory will grow over 256GiB - not today.
Crypto is not a big part of life Posted Aug 15, 2009 3:07 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
two points.
it's not just hashes that benifit from more registers, most cpu-bound applications will benifit (not as drasticly, but notciably)
second 80286 16 bit systems had 24 bits of address space thanks to segmentation, so it could address up to 16M of ram, it was only after that that you _had_ to get a 32 bit processor (and even then you could fudge it with the hardware equivalent of PAE addressing)
so the move to 32 bit happened while system memory was still 1/4 what could be addressed by the processor
the problem with saying that only specialized processes need this much memory is defining ahead of time which processes those are.
should a distro compile perl for 32 bit or 64 bit? how are they going to know that I am going to run my log analysis scripts on this system and consider a 64 bit perl important?
it is _so_ much easier to just move everything over to 64 bit.
there are some things that don't work on amd64 systems, but those are closed-source plugins (stand-alone binaries have very few problems), and those same plugins won't work on arm, sparc, powerpc, etc.
Easier? Hardly. Posted Aug 16, 2009 6:57 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] second 80286 16 bit systems had 24 bits of address space thanks to segmentation, so it could address up to 16M of ram, it was only after that that you _had_ to get a 32 bit processor (and even then you could fudge it with the hardware equivalent of PAE addressing) so the move to 32 bit happened while system memory was still 1/4 what could be addressed by the processor. You have a point - it means mass migration to 64bit is just around the corner: when 16GiB of RAM will be norm 64bit kernel will be norm. And just like then 32bit programs will be used for years after that point. should a distro compile perl for 32 bit or 64 bit? how are they going to know that I am going to run my log analysis scripts on this system and consider a 64 bit perl important? That's why it's important to have 64bit versions for different programs. For example Windows Vista does include 64bit version of MS IE and sizable list of other programs - even if hardly anyone uses them right now. it is _so_ much easier to just move everything over to 64 bit. What's the rush? there are some things that don't work on amd64 systems, but those are closed-source plugins (stand-alone binaries have very few problems), and those same plugins won't work on arm, sparc, powerpc, etc. Exactly: because "these same plugins" only work on IA32 "arm, sparc, powerpc, etc" are now extinct on desktop. Even much-hyped newcomer (I mean Itanic) went the same way. If you want to kill Linux too - feel free to force "pure 64bit" mode.
Crypto is not a big part of life Posted Aug 15, 2009 19:50 UTC (Sat) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]
I think you're also underestimating the magnitude of the address space issues.
First, on 32-bit, processes only have 3G of address space (1G of addressing is reserved for the kernel so that syscalls won't require a memory context switch).
Second, that doesn't mean you can actually use 3G of memory in a 32-bit process, because of address space fragmentation. It's very easy, for example, to find yourself in a situation where you cannot allocate a large array (say, dozens of megabytes or larger) because there is no free gap in the address space that large where it can be placed. (There may also be TLB issues? I forget.) In general this gets complicated and its hard to know how fragmented any given program's address space will get, but as a rule of thumb one wants a fair amount of headroom. IIRC Linus has ranted somewhere about wanting a factor of 2-3x more address space than memory, and I bet your Firefox uses enough memory that by that standard it should be 64-bit :-).
Also, IIUC, The 16 -> 32 bit switch was delayed waiting for proprietary software vendors (Microsoft) to get their stuff together (they had to write a new OS and all that), with kluges like segmentation to carry things over in the mean time. We are a lot more competent these days.
Crypto is not a big part of life Posted Aug 15, 2009 23:10 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
on my laptop top shows firefox is using 1862m Virt and 1.0g res
Crypto is not a big part of life Posted Aug 16, 2009 7:17 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] First, on 32-bit, processes only have 3G of address space (1G of addressing is reserved for the kernel so that syscalls won't require a memory context switch). Have you forgotten what I wrote just above? I think it's time to use 64bit mode for kernel, but it's few years yet before we'll need 64bit in userspace. IIRC Linus has ranted somewhere about wanting a factor of 2-3x more address space than memory, and I bet your Firefox uses enough memory that by that standard it should be 64-bit :-). My Forefox uses 200MiB with it's two tabs - everything else is handled by Chrome. And each Chrome process is small enough to mollify even Linus: 290MiB at most. Not even 1/10 of address space available. Sadly Chrome for Linux is not yet compatible with a lot of plugins. Also, IIUC, The 16 -> 32 bit switch was delayed waiting for proprietary software vendors (Microsoft) to get their stuff together (they had to write a new OS and all that), with kluges like segmentation to carry things over in the mean time. We are a lot more competent these days. I'd say we are a lot more reckless these days. May be because we don't need to care about actual users and happy to leave them to certain vendor from Redmond...
Yes and no Posted Aug 14, 2009 7:25 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Linux on SPARC did *not* skip that step.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 6:05 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]
> ... and the default should be Gnome.
... > ... that just have irrational hatred of Gnome or whatever... then > there should be a 'advanced setting' during the install time to select > a alternative desktop.
This sounds a lot like flaming.
Why "should" Gnome be the default ?
KDE is a perfectly fine option, I don't see an obvious reason why
Alex
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 14:18 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
I guess the 'irrational hatred' thing got to him ;-)
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 14:20 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Your not read it right.
> Why "should" Gnome be the default ?
Because there needs to be a default. So pick one. In the case of Fedora having a seperate 'spin' for KDE is going to be similar to Kubuntu. The project does not have enough resources to maintain multiple seperate desktop operating systems that just happen to use different DEs. I am not sure about the KDE spin for Fedora, but I know that KDE users complain up and down about the lack of quality for Kubuntu. What they should do, IMO, is just produce one desktop OS, pick a default, then if users want to use KDE then they can just install it and choose it.
It's a bit of a subtle difference, but this means that people can use KDE without having to give up anything in terms of usability or software compatibility. Also your not requiring users to choose what DE they want to use at install time. Think about it... If you install Ubuntu and want to try out KDE are you suppose to format and reinstall Kubuntu?
It does not make any sense to me if your trying to produce a usefriendly system that you require people to choose a desktop environment either when they download a CDROM or choose during install time. That is the least likely time that people are going to be able to make a decision and be comfortable with it and understand the ramifications.
So what should happen is that distros pick a default desktop. Make it as nice as they can. If users want something other then the default then they can just install it via apt-get virtual package or yum group install.
> Why should somebody need an "irrational hatred of Gnome" in order to prefer e.g. KDE ?
No. It's not 'prefer KDE'. It's 'purge Gnome from their system'. I've seen lots of people here and in other places that do things like go out of their way to delete all traces of Mono and get rid of Gnome apps and tend to get very angry when distros install "unnecessary bloat".
If the idea of having a *.exe and *.dll anywere on their system frightens or pisses a person off then they can avoid it by adding a option during the installer boot-up.
That way it's a lot easier for them to get rid of it then later on having to go 'apt-get remove --purge' and things like that.
I think that wanting to purge all traces of some software you don't like is irrational.. it just takes up a relatively small amount of disk space. But this approach still accommodates people that feel that way for whatever reason.
And it goes the same for people that don't want to have anything installed at all. If they want to do a 'server install' then it shouldn't require them to download a separate installer or anything like that.
> KDE is a perfectly fine option, I don't see an obvious reason why something else "should" be the default.
It's not 'something else'. It's just _something_. For different distros it may be different. Some may like LXDE and specialize in 'lighter' installs or whatever.
It's just that most distros already choose Gnome by default, more or less. But if OpenSuse wants KDE then I don't see any problem with it. It would be much more efficient and user friendly for them to choose KDE as the default then try to make a user choose between Gnome and KDE (and whatever) during install time.
Basically I am saying:
1. Don't have multiple 'spins' or separate installs for KDE vs Gnome vs Whatever. (aka Ubuntu vs Kubuntu). Distros don't have the reasources to do a polished job on multiple different OSes like that. Pick a default, make that work as well as you can, and then if users want to have a alternative desktop then let them install it post-install.
2. Don't make users choose between DEs during install time. It's the wrong time to have them force a decision like that. If the majority of users prefer KDE then have that be the default. That way if I prefer Gnome I can just install it without losing any of the GUI tools or configuration options that the distro provides and I don't lose anythng in terms of application compatibility. This makes installing software and whatnot much easier later on.
But having the option during install time is fine. Just don't ask them to choose, don't bring it up. It's confusing and difficult to deal with.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 19:29 UTC (Thu) by jlokier (subscriber, #52227) [Link]
I believe you can just install 'kubuntu-desktop' on Ubuntu and get the same thing as Kubuntu. It's that simple.
You can install 'ubuntu-desktop' on Kubuntu to get GNOME, too.
The only difference between the 'spins' is which one gets installed by default.
The only effect of merging the 'spins' would be to remove a convenient way to install and get the desktop you prefer without being asked - which is quite handy when you give the CD to someone who wouldn't know what to choose.
If people have quality problems with Kubuntu, it's due to the KDE packages and integration of other things with KDE not getting as much attention, not 'spins'.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 14, 2009 14:10 UTC (Fri) by ariveira (guest, #57833) [Link]
>Think about it... If you install Ubuntu and want to try out KDE are you
>suppose to format and reinstall Kubuntu?
No you are supposed to « sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop» log out
The same applies to xfce (xubuntu-desktop) and gnome (ubuntu-desktop)
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 7, 2009 1:19 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] The objective of Fedora spins is mostly LiveCDs: There just isn't space for more than one graphical environment on those. Sure, they also serve as focus points for various subsets of enthusiasts.
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 7, 2009 10:01 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
I agree it wouldn't be useful to have separate distributions based on desktop environment but Fedora KDE Spin or a Fedora LXDE Spin is NOT a separate distribution. It is exactly the same distribution using the same repositories but in a different Live CD's for those who prefer that particular desktop environment and want a way to conveniently install it.
Fedora has a default and it is GNOME clearly reflected in http://get.fedoraproject.org
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 6, 2009 9:17 UTC (Thu) by ctg (subscriber, #3459) [Link]
What are the "big" desktop distros? Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, Slackware...
I think all these except Slackware and OpenSUSE sort of default to Gnome? Not sure of Xandros has any significant use.. gentoo or what is probably gnome too..
For the sake of Bio diversity I wholeheartedly endorse OpenSUSE defaulting to KDE. It would be good for KDE too - people who opt for it are more tolerant of it than people who have it served up to them.
I run Fedora and Gnome on my Work laptop (90% of my desktop use), but OpenSUSE with KDE on my home desktop (doesn't get used so much as I have a EEE with Asus/Xandros whatever on it which I tend to use most of the time when at home).
It could actually benefit GNOME Posted Aug 6, 2009 11:22 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] As an aside, it is interesting to note a complaint made by Josephine Tannhäuser who was unhappy to see that KDE 4.3 will be coming to Fedora 10 and 11, without a similar upgrade for GNOME (to 2.26) in Fedora 10.Actually, OpenSUSE can mirror this situation, i.e. make KDE the stable desktop and keep GNOME closer to the bleeding edge. That would put Open SUSE in a unique position, and could actually benefit GNOME, not only KDE.
It could actually benefit GNOME Posted Aug 6, 2009 14:19 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
+1 insightfull
It could actually benefit GNOME Posted Aug 6, 2009 16:29 UTC (Thu) by Velmont (subscriber, #46433) [Link]
Yes. Agreed.
Anyway. It's stupid that none of the big distros default to KDE. Diversity is a good thing. I like Gnome and use that, but when a distro like OpenSUSE have such a big KDE-following (that's rare), they should well be able to be the «KDE distro».
I'd like to see a well set up KDE, with a distro that focuses on doing KDE correct. :-)
as long as we're in "like to see" mode... Posted Aug 6, 2009 18:19 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] ...I'd like to see KDE and GNOME combine their HIG documents into a common "Free Software HIG" project--documenting persistent differences of opinions where necessary, but trying for consistency where there's no reason not to have it.
as long as we're in "like to see" mode... Posted Aug 8, 2009 17:56 UTC (Sat) by filipjoelsson (subscriber, #2622) [Link]
YES!
My wife is working on her dissertation using an Aspire One with Linux on it. Some stuff has been moved over from an older computer and is in Abiword documents, and other stuff she writes in OO.org Writer (it supports her use cases better). And the inconsistencies in the HIG department is killing her (and as an extension, me). Having 'Yes', 'No', and 'Cancel' switch places, still in the year of our lord 2009, is bad bad baaaaad. And this isn't even a KDE vs Gnome issue, but just plain lack of consistent interface guidelines.
So, yes please, a common set of HIG would be, if not heaven - so at least an EXIT sign in the lunatic asylum.
Oops, sorry for the rant.
as long as we're in "like to see" mode... Posted Aug 11, 2009 19:33 UTC (Tue) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link]
yes - and at install time we could ask the user, in what order she wants her ok and cancel buttons...
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 7, 2009 23:41 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
This is Suse going back to it's roots. Before being purchased by Novell,
Suse featured KDE and quite a number of the core KDE hackers were employed by Suse.
This will help opensuse become the kde distro of choice for those who
Derek
A default desktop for openSUSE? Posted Aug 8, 2009 7:21 UTC (Sat) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link] This will help opensuse become the kde distro of choice for those who can't stand (k)ubuntu.And what about Mandriva ?
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