Debian Wheezy May Ship With XFCE As The Default Desktop Environment

[mamamia88]

Strikes as fallacy of the middle.

In the case of ubuntu, I think a lot of its strength comes from focusing so much on the default experience. Things like KDE4 are still very accessible, but I think it is sane to provide a well-tweaked default rather than just assume giving choice is going to be all fine. Most users would rather not care about this.

linux users do care or else they would be using windows or macs instead of installing an os on their computer that didn't come with it. they both provide sane defaults

[mikodo]

I think a growing number of Xfce users are starting to care more about having a Gnome replacement than having a lightweight OS. I never understood the people who have a terabyte of RAM and they stress over keeping their OS down to using a few megabytes.

Yep, count me as one ...

[Peripheral Visionary]

The default DE probably only really matters to first-time users. Linux veterans know how they can change / modify / tweak whatever desktop environment they choose.

But the 'buntu family is aimed at newcomers to Linux and for them, the default matters! You know, first impressions and all that.

KDE is great for that, and Xfce is especially easy for beginners (both for Linux newcomers and even computer beginners for that matter). For distros aimed at novices Xfce is a great choice.

Debian users are rarely novices, though. For them Xfce is a great choice because it's infinitely configurable (the latest version especially) and customizable while retaining it's blazing speed and simplicity. Xfce is a good fit either way.

[vexorian]

linux users do care or else they would be using windows or macs instead of installing an os on their computer that didn't come with it. they both provide sane defaults

Speak for yourself. If customizability was the only reason not to use windows I wouldn't be using an almost completely vanilla unity sesion right now.

But I meant most prospective Linux users. When they get accostumed to things, they might want to begin customizing.

My point is that it is far easier to introduce a new OS to users when the first thing you ask them is "Want GNOME or KDE or XFCE or what?". A new user will reply "I don't care about your acronyms why are you making my life harder already?". So I think giving equal prominensce to all DEs is a good move for a distribution that is less headed towards beginners. But what ubuntu does - to provide a good default - was a big improvement in Desktop Linux.

[mikodo]

The default DE probably only really matters to first-time users. Linux veterans know how they can change / modify / tweak whatever desktop environment they choose.

But the 'buntu family is aimed at newcomers to Linux and for them, the default matters! You know, first impressions and all that.

KDE is great for that, and Xfce is especially easy for beginners (both for Linux newcomers and even computer beginners for that matter). For distros aimed at novices Xfce is a great choice.

Debian users are rarely novices, though. For them Xfce is a great choice because it's infinitely configurable (the latest version especially) and customizable while retaining it's blazing speed and simplicity. Xfce is a good fit either way.

Yes, all of that and Stable. It has been around since, what 1995? Stable DE, for the next Stable Release of Debian. Makes sense to me.

[mamamia88]

Speak for yourself. If customizability was the only reason not to use windows I wouldn't be using an almost completely vanilla unity sesion right now.

But I meant most prospective Linux users. When they get accostumed to things, they might want to begin customizing.

My point is that it is far easier to introduce a new OS to users when the first thing you ask them is "Want GNOME or KDE or XFCE or what?". A new user will reply "I don't care about your acronyms why are you making my life harder already?". So I think giving equal prominensce to all DEs is a good move for a distribution that is less headed towards beginners. But what ubuntu does - to provide a good default - was a big improvement in Desktop Linux.

I think that all of the major desktops offer pretty good defaults right now. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a live cd with the major ones on it and let the user try them out before picking one on the first install (instead of having to download multiple isos) . Or write up an article explaining the difference between the ubuntu spins with in depth youtube videos showing each desktop in action. And maybe actually mention the other possible desktops on ubuntu.com and provide download links to kubuntu/xubuntu etc from the main ubuntu.com site,instead of having separate webpages for each spin. Heck you wouldn't even know that each one exists by looking at ubuntu.com. Maybe they can just get rid of the spin branding and just have a drop down menu on the download page to chose which desktop you want. I seriously believe that people know what they want better than canonical does. If you educate them on the choices and just explain that they are the same underlying os with a different gui the user can make an educated choice. And if canonical wants to pursue unity then by all means they should do so. Just mention in the article explaining the different desktops that Unity is the preffered desktop of canonical ltd. Maybe even put something similar to this on the front page of ubuntu.com

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...op_Environment

[Buntu Bunny]

I think a growing number of Xfce users are starting to care more about having a Gnome replacement than having a lightweight OS.

Yep, count me as one ...

Ditto for me.