If you look at desktop market share numbers the vast majority of desktop users are using traditional desktops. Just look a the Valve Hardware & Software survey. This is a useful tool for gauging the #1 Student/Gamer user-base.
If we add up the numbers:
Windows 7 + Windows XP/Vista + Mac OS = 78% --- traditional desktops Windows 8 = 20% --- "mobile oriented" desktops Linuix = 2% --- mixed
link: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
The same is true if we look at Wikipedia's "Usage share of operating systems" page using Net Application's statistics:
Windows 7 + Windows XP/Vista + Mac OS = 87.7% --- traditional desktops Windows 8 = 10.58% --- "mobile oriented" desktops Linux = 1.6% --- mixed desktops
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
Abandoning Gnome 2 was a fatal error on the part of several high profile distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora. They abandoned Gnome 2 to chase mobile oriented ambitions when in reality the vast majority of Windows and Mac users were still using traditional desktops. This limited the growth of the Linux desktop as a platform and caused unnecessary confusion and chaos in the Linux community. Current Linux desktops that are achieving success such as Google's Chrome OS are still using traditional desktop design patterns.
So that leads to certain questions for the Fedora Workstation WG as to what the scope of their project is. Does the Fedora Workstation WG intend on expanding their user-base beyond:
1. Fedora/Gnome developers and current Fedora users? 2. Linux developers and/or users? 3. Mac and Windows developers and mainstream users?
If the answer is:
#1 "We only intend on targeting Gnome and Fedora developers" then make the default Gnome Shell and ignore Fedora.next and continue the methods and policies of Fedora Desktop and the spins as if nothing has changed.
#2 "We would like to consolidate the Linux desktop space" make the default MATE with Gnome Shell and KDE as optional extras at the installation screen.
#3 "We would like to market Fedora Workstation outside of the Linux community to Mac and Windows developers" make the default MATE with Gnome Shell and KDE as optional extras at the installation screen.
What would it take to get MATE up to current standards to be acceptable as a default for Fedora Workstation?
+ Have the Gnome project developers provide support resources to the MATE developers to accelerate their transition to GTK3 as well as act as consultants.
+ Perhaps even offer to make MATE part of the Gnome foundation as a legacy Gnome 2 fork and provide additional support resources?
+ Configure a MATE desktop that is Fedora branded that uses default Gnome applications currently used in Gnome Shell such as Files and make sure it integrates with MATE.
+ Bundle MATE with a lightweight compositor such as Compton or integrate Mutter as a MATE compositing window manager.
+ Replace the default menu in MATE with 'mintmenu' a plugin that replicates the Windows 7 start menu functionality and add additional plugins where necessary.
You see it's not that much work at all and well within the scope of something achievable by a distribution with sufficient resources like Fedora and/or provided by Red Hat. It all depends on whether the WG is serious about consolidating the Linux desktop, expanding to Mac/Windows developers and achieving the goals set out in the PRD.
I'm beginning to take a cynical view of the whole Fedora Workstation WG process, I don't anything will change and Fedora Desktop will continue to decline in relevance, but please prove me wrong.
Hi,
On Sun, 2014-02-02 at 14:38 -0500, Alex GS wrote:
What would it take to get MATE up to current standards to be acceptable as a default for Fedora Workstation?
- Have the Gnome project developers provide support resources to the
MATE developers to accelerate their transition to GTK3 as well as act as consultants.
- Perhaps even offer to make MATE part of the Gnome foundation as a
legacy Gnome 2 fork and provide additional support resources?
Er. Whatever happened to GNOME being independent and the workstation WG not dictating their goals?
- Configure a MATE desktop that is Fedora branded that uses default
Gnome applications currently used in Gnome Shell such as Files and make sure it integrates with MATE.
"make sure it integrates with Mate", Erm, meaning that GNOME upstream should stop working on GNOME3 and start porting MATE to GTK3 instead?
- Bundle MATE with a lightweight compositor such as Compton or
integrate Mutter as a MATE compositing window manager.
- Replace the default menu in MATE with 'mintmenu' a plugin that
replicates the Windows 7 start menu functionality and add additional plugins where necessary.
So, not vanilla MATE either?
You see it's not that much work at all and well within the scope of something achievable by a distribution with sufficient resources like Fedora and/or provided by Red Hat. It all depends on whether the WG is serious about consolidating the Linux desktop, expanding to Mac/Windows developers and achieving the goals set out in the PRD.
Erm. It is quite a lot of work. Not sure why you think making MATE (based on an unmaintained code base of GNOME2) work well with GNOME3 and further cherry picking components like the mintmenu is "not that much work", even with RH providing resources (which they probably won't). If RH did want to continue with GNOME2, they wouldn't have invested in GNOME3 in the first place.
I'm beginning to take a cynical view of the whole Fedora Workstation WG process, I don't anything will change and Fedora Desktop will continue to decline in relevance, but please prove me wrong.
What you're really saying is that we need to provide a desktop that is well, quite simply a Linux clone of Windows, because Windows users are erm.. used to Windows. What I'm wondering is why someone will take the trouble to shift to Linux at all, if all it tries to be is a Windows clone in the first place?
Moving users from Windows/Mac has always been a challenge, more because people that buy systems off the shelf get systems that run these operating systems. When this happens, they accept these OSes as the only choices. What non developer would want to remove a copy of Windows he paid for and replace it with another, any other, OS?
The data in your mail was very helpful. Thank you for that. However, rather than building a Windows 7 UI clone, which even Windows isn't continuing with, by the way, it makes me think that we need to spend more time and effort helping the marketing team show off our product, and may be even think of making it more easily available, like making systems running it available off the shelf, for example.
I think what he was saying is that the traditional desktop has already been defined, and accepting by the mass audience. It's just that Windows was the pioneer that happened to be prevelant when the desktop was being defined. The statistics he provided shows us that even though Microsoft is trying to shift to a more mobile and touch centric inteface with Windows 8 and 8.1, their audience is refusing to make the jump, because they favor that traditional interf?ace. Heck Microsoft is even changing things back to more traditional interface because their customers are not liking this new "way of doing things", hence some of the changes from Win8 to Win8.1 and there are rumors of even more traditional approaches coming up in the next iteration of whatever Win8* will be.
We have been trying to push this same transition onto our Linux users for quite sometime now, and its just not being accepted well by the majority of the market, otherwise Gnome would not have become so fragmented with off-shoots like MATE, Cinnamon, and the others.
I am one of those long time Linux users whom prefer the traditonal ways of interacting with my machine that Gnome 2 provided. So, I would say we shouldn't focus on making our product more "Windows like" but rather more "Gnome 2 like". Now, I know I will get barraged (as people like me whom speak against Gnome 3 always do) with the "You need to move forward and stop being stuck in the past" comments. But thats how I actually feel. I admin a decent sized RHEL environment at work, and I do it by using Fedora, because I apprecaite the similarities between the two (yum, system-config-*, etc), but I aboslutely hate trying to use Gnome 3 because it so ineffecient for someone like me whom prefers the traditional interface. Every time I stare at the big bar at the top of the screen I cant help but feel like all that useful real-estate being wasted for a clock (in the middle) and only showing me one application of the many I have running (and its the one I am presently working in.... I already know which one I am in....useless).
That's why I awlays install Cinnamon and use it as my primary workspace. So, instead of trying to shoehorn MATE into GTK3 standards, why not use Cinnamon which already uses GTK3 and still gives the traditional desktop experience for its users? If Fedora and Red Hat were to start spending resources on Cinnamon, I honestly think it would be the desktop that unified the Linux DE market. Not only that, I think it would be an attractive desktop for people that don't want to switch to Windows 8 from Windows 7 (My mother is the perfectly example, she loves Cinnmon because her new laptop shipped with Windows 8). When I setup Fedora 19 for my mother using default Gnome DE, she hated it and WANTED Windows 8 back. Once I installed Cinnamon, and let her try it, she instantly was able to use it with no re-learning. If my 58 year old mother can learn how to navigate Cinnamon within 5 minutes of using, that speaks volumes to its marketability.
Again, I am not very technical when it comes to the development involved in building Gnome3, Cinnamon, and MATE, but I can tell you from honest to goodness experience, that literally everyone I introduce to Cinnamon, aboslutely loves it. Those same folks when introduced to Gnome will often say "why?" and "how do I do X?". I teach a few introductory Linux courses at a local college, and when we disuss DE's I always have my students install several (KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon, MATE, etc) and write reports over which they prefer, and my top two results are usually KDE or Cinnamon. These are students whom have little to no experience with Linux mind you. This is empirical evidence that I have gathered on my own.
On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Ankur Sinha sanjay.ankur@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
On Sun, 2014-02-02 at 14:38 -0500, Alex GS wrote:
What would it take to get MATE up to current standards to be acceptable as a default for Fedora Workstation?
- Have the Gnome project developers provide support resources to the
MATE developers to accelerate their transition to GTK3 as well as act as consultants.
- Perhaps even offer to make MATE part of the Gnome foundation as a
legacy Gnome 2 fork and provide additional support resources?
Er. Whatever happened to GNOME being independent and the workstation WG not dictating their goals?
- Configure a MATE desktop that is Fedora branded that uses default
Gnome applications currently used in Gnome Shell such as Files and make sure it integrates with MATE.
"make sure it integrates with Mate", Erm, meaning that GNOME upstream should stop working on GNOME3 and start porting MATE to GTK3 instead?
- Bundle MATE with a lightweight compositor such as Compton or
integrate Mutter as a MATE compositing window manager.
- Replace the default menu in MATE with 'mintmenu' a plugin that
replicates the Windows 7 start menu functionality and add additional plugins where necessary.
So, not vanilla MATE either?
You see it's not that much work at all and well within the scope of something achievable by a distribution with sufficient resources like Fedora and/or provided by Red Hat. It all depends on whether the WG is serious about consolidating the Linux desktop, expanding to Mac/Windows developers and achieving the goals set out in the PRD.
Erm. It is quite a lot of work. Not sure why you think making MATE (based on an unmaintained code base of GNOME2) work well with GNOME3 and further cherry picking components like the mintmenu is "not that much work", even with RH providing resources (which they probably won't). If RH did want to continue with GNOME2, they wouldn't have invested in GNOME3 in the first place.
I'm beginning to take a cynical view of the whole Fedora Workstation WG process, I don't anything will change and Fedora Desktop will continue to decline in relevance, but please prove me wrong.
What you're really saying is that we need to provide a desktop that is well, quite simply a Linux clone of Windows, because Windows users are erm.. used to Windows. What I'm wondering is why someone will take the trouble to shift to Linux at all, if all it tries to be is a Windows clone in the first place?
Moving users from Windows/Mac has always been a challenge, more because people that buy systems off the shelf get systems that run these operating systems. When this happens, they accept these OSes as the only choices. What non developer would want to remove a copy of Windows he paid for and replace it with another, any other, OS?
The data in your mail was very helpful. Thank you for that. However, rather than building a Windows 7 UI clone, which even Windows isn't continuing with, by the way, it makes me think that we need to spend more time and effort helping the marketing team show off our product, and may be even think of making it more easily available, like making systems running it available off the shelf, for example. -- Thanks, Warm regards, Ankur (FranciscoD)
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ankursinha
Join Fedora! Come talk to us! http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Join_SIG
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Lynn Dixon boodaddy@gmail.com wrote:
I think what he was saying is that the traditional desktop has already been defined, and accepting by the mass audience. It's just that Windows was the pioneer that happened to be prevelant when the desktop was being defined. The statistics he provided shows us that even though Microsoft is trying to shift to a more mobile and touch centric inteface with Windows 8 and 8.1, their audience is refusing to make the jump, because they favor that traditional interf?ace. Heck Microsoft is even changing things back to more traditional interface because their customers are not liking this new "way of doing things", hence some of the changes from Win8 to Win8.1 and there are rumors of even more traditional approaches coming up in the next iteration of whatever Win8* will be.
We have been trying to push this same transition onto our Linux users for quite sometime now, and its just not being accepted well by the majority of the market, otherwise Gnome would not have become so fragmented with off-shoots like MATE, Cinnamon, and the others.
I am one of those long time Linux users whom prefer the traditonal ways of interacting with my machine that Gnome 2 provided. So, I would say we shouldn't focus on making our product more "Windows like" but rather more "Gnome 2 like". Now, I know I will get barraged (as people like me whom speak against Gnome 3 always do) with the "You need to move forward and stop being stuck in the past" comments. But thats how I actually feel. I admin a decent sized RHEL environment at work, and I do it by using Fedora, because I apprecaite the similarities between the two (yum, system-config-*, etc), but I aboslutely hate trying to use Gnome 3 because it so ineffecient for someone like me whom prefers the traditional interface. Every time I stare at the big bar at the top of the screen I cant help but feel like all that useful real-estate being wasted for a clock (in the middle) and only showing me one application of the many I have running (and its the one I am presently working in.... I already know which one I am in....useless).
That's why I awlays install Cinnamon and use it as my primary workspace. So, instead of trying to shoehorn MATE into GTK3 standards, why not use Cinnamon which already uses GTK3 and still gives the traditional desktop experience for its users? If Fedora and Red Hat were to start spending resources on Cinnamon, I honestly think it would be the desktop that unified the Linux DE market. Not only that, I think it would be an attractive desktop for people that don't want to switch to Windows 8 from Windows 7 (My mother is the perfectly example, she loves Cinnmon because her new laptop shipped with Windows 8). When I setup Fedora 19 for my mother using default Gnome DE, she hated it and WANTED Windows 8 back. Once I installed Cinnamon, and let her try it, she instantly was able to use it with no re-learning. If my 58 year old mother can learn how to navigate Cinnamon within 5 minutes of using, that speaks volumes to its marketability.
Again, I am not very technical when it comes to the development involved in building Gnome3, Cinnamon, and MATE, but I can tell you from honest to goodness experience, that literally everyone I introduce to Cinnamon, aboslutely loves it. Those same folks when introduced to Gnome will often say "why?" and "how do I do X?". I teach a few introductory Linux courses at a local college, and when we disuss DE's I always have my students install several (KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon, MATE, etc) and write reports over which they prefer, and my top two results are usually KDE or Cinnamon. These are students whom have little to no experience with Linux mind you. This is empirical evidence that I have gathered on my own.
You are right about Microsoft.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245965/Leak_hints_Microsoft_will_rec...
Countless users want new features, but they don't want to give up their traditional desktop experience.
For example, if Microsoft had introduced Metro without completely destroying the classic Windows 7 interface people loved, Windows 8 would have been a lot more successful. To this day, Windows 8.1 is still not 100% what Windows 7 was, and until it is, it will continue to have issues with adoption.
Microsoft is finally realizing that they are shooting themselves in the foot by killing their desktop market. Nobody cares about the surface or Windows phone OS. Windows as a desktop OS is popular, so when they try to force a mobile oriented OS on the desktop they end up with the failure that is Windows 8.
The article also notes that Windows 9 will probably be even less "Metroish".
Dan
I see the claim of GNOME 3 being targeted at mobile or touchscreen devices again and again, yet doesn't become more true. What GNOME 3 did try to do was to look at various mobile and touchscreen devices and try to think if there where innovations in that space that should get translated back to the desktop. In terms of input devices the primary usecase for the GNOME 3 desktop was to make it easier to use the desktop with minimal need of the mouse, letting you keep your hands on the keyboard. Which I think it has succeeded with, the combination of the 'windows' key and just typing the first few letters of the app you are looking for in the activities overview works like a charm for example.
Improving touch screen support is a goal for both GNOME and Fedora, simply because laptops are heading that way and if we offer something that doesn't even try to use the touchscreen where it makes sense, users will go elsewhere. Currently if there is a conflict with something being touchscreen optimal or desktop optimal, desktop has won. Parts of the GNOME 3 UI can for sure be nice with a touchscreen, but for instance the top bar (i.e. activities menu) of the desktop is to small to be optimal for touchscreens (as one example of where the focus was on preserving real estate for desktop applications as opposed to making it easier for people to 'click' using potentially quite chubby fingers on the screen.
Christian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex GS" alxgrtnstrngl@gmail.com To: desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Sunday, February 2, 2014 8:38:02 PM Subject: Re: Underlying DE for the Workstation product
If you look at desktop market share numbers the vast majority of desktop users are using traditional desktops. Just look a the Valve Hardware & Software survey. This is a useful tool for gauging the #1 Student/Gamer user-base.
If we add up the numbers:
Windows 7 + Windows XP/Vista + Mac OS = 78% --- traditional desktops Windows 8 = 20% --- "mobile oriented" desktops Linuix = 2% --- mixed
link: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
The same is true if we look at Wikipedia's "Usage share of operating systems" page using Net Application's statistics:
Windows 7 + Windows XP/Vista + Mac OS = 87.7% --- traditional desktops Windows 8 = 10.58% --- "mobile oriented" desktops Linux = 1.6% --- mixed desktops
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
Abandoning Gnome 2 was a fatal error on the part of several high profile distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora. They abandoned Gnome 2 to chase mobile oriented ambitions when in reality the vast majority of Windows and Mac users were still using traditional desktops. This limited the growth of the Linux desktop as a platform and caused unnecessary confusion and chaos in the Linux community. Current Linux desktops that are achieving success such as Google's Chrome OS are still using traditional desktop design patterns.
So that leads to certain questions for the Fedora Workstation WG as to what the scope of their project is. Does the Fedora Workstation WG intend on expanding their user-base beyond:
- Fedora/Gnome developers and current Fedora users?
- Linux developers and/or users?
- Mac and Windows developers and mainstream users?
If the answer is:
#1 "We only intend on targeting Gnome and Fedora developers" then make the default Gnome Shell and ignore Fedora.next and continue the methods and policies of Fedora Desktop and the spins as if nothing has changed.
#2 "We would like to consolidate the Linux desktop space" make the default MATE with Gnome Shell and KDE as optional extras at the installation screen.
#3 "We would like to market Fedora Workstation outside of the Linux community to Mac and Windows developers" make the default MATE with Gnome Shell and KDE as optional extras at the installation screen.
What would it take to get MATE up to current standards to be acceptable as a default for Fedora Workstation?
- Have the Gnome project developers provide support resources to the MATE
developers to accelerate their transition to GTK3 as well as act as consultants.
- Perhaps even offer to make MATE part of the Gnome foundation as a legacy
Gnome 2 fork and provide additional support resources?
- Configure a MATE desktop that is Fedora branded that uses default Gnome
applications currently used in Gnome Shell such as Files and make sure it integrates with MATE.
- Bundle MATE with a lightweight compositor such as Compton or integrate
Mutter as a MATE compositing window manager.
- Replace the default menu in MATE with 'mintmenu' a plugin that replicates
the Windows 7 start menu functionality and add additional plugins where necessary.
You see it's not that much work at all and well within the scope of something achievable by a distribution with sufficient resources like Fedora and/or provided by Red Hat. It all depends on whether the WG is serious about consolidating the Linux desktop, expanding to Mac/Windows developers and achieving the goals set out in the PRD.
I'm beginning to take a cynical view of the whole Fedora Workstation WG process, I don't anything will change and Fedora Desktop will continue to decline in relevance, but please prove me wrong.
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
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Alex G.S. -
Ankur Sinha -
Christian Schaller -
Dan Mashal -
Lynn Dixon