On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 09:56:40PM +0900, 夜神 岩男 wrote:
But does Fedora 15 "require high end hardware"? No, it doesn't. You can run other desktops, such as XFCE (which you mention as well), and still run all of the same apps.
So while Gnome 3 may require better video hardware than was available on an eight year old machine, that doesn't mean Fedora 15 itself requires that better hardware.
True. I was arguing against the general principle of the first statement above which made it seem that "since Microsoft forces the average home and business user to buy high-end hardware that it makes it OK for a Linux distribution to as well" if the user wants to install the default desktop.
I'm sorry if I gave the impression that the above was my position. My position was more to the point of "Windows requires you upgrade to the _latest_ video hardware to use their platform: Fedora is only asking you to have something built within the past 4-6 years." ;)
My position is that high-end desktops are definitely worth exploring, but not as a default -- not just yet anyway. In Fedora's case this point is a bit blunted by the fact that the platform itself is purposed toward development and testing, and messiness is a big part of that (well, all the fun anyway!). What better way to find out exactly what isn't working on what hardware than to release to tens of thousands of daily users through the Fedora? In other words, screwups in Fedora and unanticipated outcomes are the norm -- which serves to permit concrete anticipation and aversion of problems in production releases such as RHEL.
My worry is the sort of thinking that pushing high-end defaults encourages, and I fear that it will seep too soon into other areas -- which is already happening to some degree.
I think here we have part of the confusion: Fedora is _not_ requiring "high-end defaults" with the Gnome 3 shift. You can run Gnome 3 with older (but not antiquated) video hardware just fine, or without the acceleration on other video chipsets.