On 1/10/22 19:10, Tim via users wrote:
> On Mon, 2022-01-10 at 14:07 -0800, Samuel Sieb wrote:
>> Gnome really isn't intended for those systems anyway. Gnome-shell
>> requires a reasonable 3d-capable video card to run well. I have a
>> bunch of old P4 computers in a school for students to use. I set
>> them up with Mate which works great there.
>
> I find this just crazy. Why should just the desktop interface require
> a beefy graphics card? I use Mate because of that silliness.
It doesn't need to be beefy. Pretty much any video card made in the
last 10 years should work. Since the capability is there, why not use
it to make the desktop work better?
> If I was doing fancy graphics in the programs that I use, then I'd
> consider spending an outra
geous amount of money on the graphics card.
> But not just for the sake of the desktop interface.
Whatever graphics card you have, whether integrated or discrete, will
work, unless you have a really old computer. Like I mentioned in
earlier, I run Mate on some old P4s from 2005. That's fine, they can't
hold enough RAM for much else anyway.
I don't understand why the few of you in this thread feel the need to
exaggerate so badly in order to put down Gnome. I get that you don't
like it for whatever reason, but you haven't actually given any reason
other than it's different and you don't like it. Your comments about
the graphics requirements are just hyperbole. The only current usage
where it might matter is in a VM, but then why are you running a Gnome
desktop in a VM? I even setup a vnc login for my son to use temporarily
and that also used Gnome and worked reasonably well.
With commercial OS's you are pretty much stuck with this year's desktop,
and each new version gets similar complaints from certain groups of
users.
One advantage of linux is that you can choose a UI you like and stick with
it for years. Complaining that Gnome is horrible only serves to trash the
reputation of linux and linux users. What would be more helpful is some
insight into use cases (e.g., ancient hardware) where other desktops have
advantages over Gnome.
The diversity of linux is confusing to new users. We need to do a better job
of explaining that linux allows people to develop UI's that are better suited
to a particular use case that the alternatives. In the academic world, students
start out on the distro and desktop that faculty are using, and often stick with
that for years afterward because colleagues in their field are using the same
configuration and workflows tuned to that environment. In economics this is
called a "network benefit". When new users who need to run a linux application
in my field ask me which the "best" linux distro, I tell them to check around at
their institution to see what distros are popular. Some institutions have local
mirrors of certain distros and documents for access to file servers, VPN, etc.
for those distros. If you have peers using the same distro, they can often
help you sort out glitches because they have seen them before.
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