[Discuss] Gnome Shell

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Chris O'Connell wrote:
> I suspect the people who developed Gnome3 didn't understand their audience.
> I think they may have been trying to attract new, and less technical
> users.  By doing so the developers have alienated their existing user base.
[...]
> The Gnome developers should have kept this in mind and designed an
> interface that catered to us, the power users.

This is a re-run of the Canonical/Unity discussions. (And equally
applicable.) The conclusion I came to was that they should have created
a separate UI layer for novice users, and maintained a UI layer that
replicated what power users were used to. (Or any number of similar
approaches to achieve that same result.)


> They've wasted their time developing a "user friendly"
> shell...targeting an audience that doesn't even know Linux exists.

At least for Canonical, it is less about convincing some random user to
reformat their drive and install Ubuntu, and instead about presenting a
friendly user experience to someone who buys a netbook, nettop, or
tablet with Ubuntu installed. (See appliance thread elsewhere.)


> The reality is that most users will not be technical enough to use Linux in
> general, regardless of what changes are made to Gnome. 

I don't buy this at all. A typical novice users has such shallow
interaction with the OS that these days you could swap out any of the 3
major desktop OSs, and (perhaps with a bit of conf tweaking to make them
more uniform) the user would hardly notice the difference. As technical
users I think we have a tendency to blow the subtle differences out of
proportion.


> I know, some people will cite examples of  their wives or parents
> using Linux.  However, without help installing, setting up and 
> maintaining a Linux system the chances of a user adopting the OS are
> slim to none.

You're right that a non-technical user is unlikely to install Linux, but
they're also unlikely to install any other OS themselves. It's unfair
that you can't go to your hardware vendor of choice and pick Linux as
your OS (if that's what your more technical friends recommend).
Unfortunately this is the current reality, so practically speaking you
are correct that this limits the audience.

However, once you get past the OS install, I don't see why maintenance
is any more involved with a modern Linux distribution than with Windows.
Both systems break, from time to time, in ways that go beyond the
abilities of a novice users. For the most part, maintenance is just a
matter of of installing updates when the GUI prompts you, or setting it
to automatic.

I've migrated desktops from Windows to Linux for clients who got sick of
the virus cleanup costs. In that respect, the Linux maintenance costs
are substantially less.


> I myself have tried to install Linux for my less technical family
> member's computers only to revert back to Windows after slow video/flash
> performance and issues with printers/peripherals.

Flash will be irrelevant in the not too distant future.

Video and peripheral issues would largely be avoided if you obtained the
machine with Linux installed by the vendor. (Or more practically
speaking, accepted that any OS won't run perfectly on any arbitrary
hardware. Besides, is this really much of problem in the last 3 or 4
years? It more the exception than the rule that Linux is incompatible
with some bit of commodity PC hardware.)

Printers could still be a problem, and with a substantial increase in
the popularity of Linux unlikely, the only recourse is to choose your
hardware carefully. (Be nice if there was a "Linux compatible" logo
program, to make it easier to spot compatible hardware for those that
don't know where to dig up this info.)


> Further, why would the average end user/computer buyer even want
> Linux at all?  ... For many people Windows works just fine.  Of
> course, there are virus and malware issues, but that's just the way
> life is.

For lots of people, "that's just the way life is" isn't an acceptable
compromise.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/