deadowl
March 12th, 2008, 04:31 PM
I'm just curious. I had installed Xubuntu Feisty on a computer that used to run Windows 98. I had installed Ubuntu Feisty on a computer that used to run Windows XP. I decided I'd use the GNOME-based distribution because the usability differences were quite large, and not so much due to things that would add a lot of code.
Anyway, my dad was in need of a computer, so I decided I would give him the one that I installed Xubuntu on. The problem is that he's technologically retarded (he almost had a heart attack when he accidentally moved a Windows panel horizontally and couldn't figure out how to put it back. Ironically, Xfce lets you configure panels to remain in one position while Metacity doesn't, but that's beyond the point.
I decided to upgrade the distribution for him because I figured there would be a vast amount of usability improvements (which there were, and also performance improvements). Doing this, I encountered many problems.
First the hard drive was too small for the upgrade to run.
I downloaded the CD.
The installation wizard doesn't do well with an 800x600 screen. This was due to misconfiguration, but that's still no excuse because there are people hard of sight who would rather use an 800x600 resolution.
By the way, the login screen looks ugly in 800x600 resolution (on any version of Ubuntu).
It had a problem in the sense that fonts were way to small, and I still don't know if I can fix that solidly (other than increasing font size to something that would normally be much larger), and I certainly think it's a horrible bug that should be fixed as soon as possible.
Once up and running, however, the performance gap between the Windows 98 computers beforehand was, needless to say, quite large.
Now it's not much, and that's a bold difference.
My question is, what features positively differentiate a GNOME desktop from an Xfce desktop?
The only reason I can really see is that GNOME gets a lot more support, but I'm feeling a bit confused because there should be a reasonable explanation as to why GNOME gets a lot more support.
Anyway, my dad was in need of a computer, so I decided I would give him the one that I installed Xubuntu on. The problem is that he's technologically retarded (he almost had a heart attack when he accidentally moved a Windows panel horizontally and couldn't figure out how to put it back. Ironically, Xfce lets you configure panels to remain in one position while Metacity doesn't, but that's beyond the point.
I decided to upgrade the distribution for him because I figured there would be a vast amount of usability improvements (which there were, and also performance improvements). Doing this, I encountered many problems.
First the hard drive was too small for the upgrade to run.
I downloaded the CD.
The installation wizard doesn't do well with an 800x600 screen. This was due to misconfiguration, but that's still no excuse because there are people hard of sight who would rather use an 800x600 resolution.
By the way, the login screen looks ugly in 800x600 resolution (on any version of Ubuntu).
It had a problem in the sense that fonts were way to small, and I still don't know if I can fix that solidly (other than increasing font size to something that would normally be much larger), and I certainly think it's a horrible bug that should be fixed as soon as possible.
Once up and running, however, the performance gap between the Windows 98 computers beforehand was, needless to say, quite large.
Now it's not much, and that's a bold difference.
My question is, what features positively differentiate a GNOME desktop from an Xfce desktop?
The only reason I can really see is that GNOME gets a lot more support, but I'm feeling a bit confused because there should be a reasonable explanation as to why GNOME gets a lot more support.