Non-flattering review of Fedora XFCE

[Jayson Rowe]

Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html

Now, it's not a great review - he recycled a home directory from
Xubuntu, so not sure why he made it a point to show off the
funkalicious configuration that occurred as a result, but when it
comes to the part after "Live Session and Installation", I can't say I
totally disagree with him on all points.

There really isn't anything 'polished' looking about the default
setup. I know I'm new here, and I have no clue how the default look of
the spin came to be, but I can't help but wonder - has any thought
ever been given to spiffing things up a little? Even if everyone
involved with the spin *loves* the Nodoka+Adwaita combination, I think
two small changes would make for a better first impression:

* Using the Fedora branded xfce4_xicon1 by default on the Applications Menu
* Setting the Clock and Notification Area to have 'no borders'

Honestly, I could care less about anything else the review said - most
of it seemed to be him rambling on about Fedora not having proprietary
codecs and such, but I *can* see how a new user might find the default
presentation a little un-polished.

Any other thoughts?

[Charlie Kravetz]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Jayson Rowe  wrote:
> Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html
>
> Now, it's not a great review - he recycled a home directory from
> Xubuntu, so not sure why he made it a point to show off the
> funkalicious configuration that occurred as a result, but when it
> comes to the part after "Live Session and Installation", I can't say I
> totally disagree with him on all points.
>
> There really isn't anything 'polished' looking about the default
> setup. I know I'm new here, and I have no clue how the default look of
> the spin came to be, but I can't help but wonder - has any thought
> ever been given to spiffing things up a little? Even if everyone
> involved with the spin *loves* the Nodoka+Adwaita combination, I think
> two small changes would make for a better first impression:
> Using the Fedora branded xfce4_xicon1 by default on the Applications Menu
> Setting the Clock and Notification Area to have 'no borders'
>
> Honestly, I could care less about anything else the review said - most
> of it seemed to be him rambling on about Fedora not having proprietary
> codecs and such, but I *can* see how a new user might find the default
> presentation a little un-polished.
>
> Any other thoughts?
>
> --
> -jayson
> ______________________________

Having used Xubuntu for 6 years, I found the default desktop background of
fireworks to be exciting. It really showed up bright and colorful on my LCD
monitor. From the no contrast, blue and gray of Xubuntu to the colorful
theme of Fedora XFCE was a welcome change. I did bring some of my old
configuration forward, but I did not allow it during the installation.
Instead, I carefully copied my panel configurations and Orage Global Clock
after installing.

Perhaps down the road, I will find fault with Fedora, but for an initial
installation, I was quite happy with it.

[DL Neil]

> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Jayson Rowe <[e-mail]
>     Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html

...

As a personal reaction I couldn't help but feel that the author (really) 
likes chocolate cake, but he is criticising an entire wedding because 
the celebratory cake doesn't contain the flavor of chocolate.

Fedora doesn't try to be either Ubuntu or Debian. This is not a 
right/wrong decision - some people don't enjoy chocolate.

He lost me at the point of criticising his (own) inability to preserve 
his screen-shots of an interim system. Why would anyone using a 'live 
distribution' expect persistence? I've not used live-distros very much 
(have been a 'bare metal' sort of guy, and am now into VM separations) 
but I've always plugged in a USB drive at the same time as the CD/DVD...

Measuring the looks of one desktop with another is rather beside the 
point. Within ANY system I've seen themes and color schemes that made me 
shudder. Other people use them perfectly happily. Is one of us somehow 
better than the other.

Personally I think his comparison of the appearance of dialog boxes was 
totally wrong! They remind me very much of the legacy Windows 2000 
system (plus a few button icons).

The author is speaking personally but possibly doesn't make enough 
effort to acknowledge this, or that others may prefer otherwise. It 
would be a mistake to assume that he speaks for all, or indeed an entire 
class of user. He wants his screens looking nice and with a dramatic 
image as his desktop. I like mine stripped and basic (and not consuming 
those resources he seemed to fret about). Who is (more) correct?
(I am! (of course) It is easier to read screen-icons against a 
contrasting back-ground and less distracting. Oops - but I'm biased!)

Yes, I agree that it would be nice if Linux was Linux, but Fedora-Linux 
is not the same as Ubuntu-Linux - as indeed he evidences (but doesn't 
appreciate) in comparing PackageKit with the more familiar (to him) 
apt-whatever. The idea of being able to carry desktop settings between 
distros and/or desktop/windows managers strikes me as appropriate only 
for those who have invested a lot of time and effort into their screen 
primping and fussing. However, it's not something upon which I would 
have contemplated placing any reliance. It's like installing a new 
distro without first making a precautionary backup of /home (etc). He 
did. It mostly worked. Bravo! the boys (and girls) who worked on that! 
More to the point, and to be fair (in the interests of journalistic 
integrity) when you trick-out an XFCE desktop and then carry that to an 
Ubuntu-based system, how well do 'they' do? What a baseless comment!

Finally it is obvious that he is unable to separate his criticisms of 
XFCE with those of Fedora. Wonder what he would have had to say had he 
been running XFCE on Ubuntu?

Should XFCE be totally defined by Ubuntu's aim at new Linux users and 
with a MSFT-like mantra of bringing it all up by-default?

Should it be defined in terms of its efficiencies (machine resources, 
speed of response, user interaction, ...)?

Should it be defined by pretty wall-paper???
(first define "pretty"!?)

Should the installation and user-level documentation take note of his 
criticism that new-comers may find it difficult to establish certain 
facilities, eg joining a Samba domain/work-group or network 
storage/printing facility?

Another similar: XFCE has taken a stand about networking services in 
general. Have the solutions to the user-level consequences of this 
philosophy been appropriately addressed so as to be encouraging or is 
the net result negative to XFCE adoption and use?

Yet another similar: where is the help for XFCE users who are prepared 
to add A/V facilities, proprietary CODECs, etc?

If XFCE is only for purists then idealistic stances are fine. If however 
it is to be used by a wider range of different flavors of user, then 
perhaps the modification of philosophical stances is as valid as the 
stance in the first place?

If the author represents XFCE's "target market" then his writing is a 
wake-up call. If not, I'm saving space for some chocolate cake...

[Jayson Rowe]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 2:50 AM, DL Neil  wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Jayson Rowe <[e-mail]
> >    Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html
>
> ...
>
> As a personal reaction I couldn't help but feel that the author (really)
> likes chocolate cake, but he is criticising an entire wedding because the
> celebratory cake doesn't contain the flavor of chocolate.

I couldn't agree more - as I said, I didn't agree with 99% of the
review. He seemed prejudiced going into it.

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2012-06-19 at 18:50 +1200, DL Neil wrote:
> He lost me at the point of criticising his (own) inability to preserve 
> his screen-shots of an interim system. Why would anyone using a 'live 
> distribution' expect persistence? I've not used live-distros very much 
> (have been a 'bare metal' sort of guy, and am now into VM separations) 
> but I've always plugged in a USB drive at the same time as the CD/DVD...

The problem he had is that if you quit the live installer, the system
reboots. This is obviously a bug, not user error.

[Jayson Rowe]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:04 PM, Charlie Kravetz
 wrote:
> Having used Xubuntu for 6 years, I found the default desktop background of
> fireworks to be exciting. It really showed up bright and colorful on my LCD
> monitor. From the no contrast, blue and gray of Xubuntu to the colorful
> theme of Fedora XFCE was a welcome change.

I agree about the low-contrast. My eyes are fairly good too. I was
trying out the Greybird GTK theme (which is default in Xubuntu), and I
liked it at first - looked sleek and modern, but after a little daily
use, I wound up switching back to Adwaita and Nodoka...

I *do* like having the Fedora icon on the Applications menu, and I
think no borders around the Notification area and clock area look more
professional though.

[Jayson Rowe]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 8:21 AM, Jayson Rowe  wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:04 PM, Charlie Kravetz
>  wrote:
> > Having used Xubuntu for 6 years, I found the default desktop background of
> > fireworks to be exciting. It really showed up bright and colorful on my LCD
> > monitor. From the no contrast, blue and gray of Xubuntu to the colorful
> > theme of Fedora XFCE was a welcome change.
>
> I agree about the low-contrast. My eyes are fairly good too. I was
> trying out the Greybird GTK theme (which is default in Xubuntu), and I
> liked it at first - looked sleek and modern, but after a little daily
> use, I wound up switching back to Adwaita and Nodoka...
>
> I *do* like having the Fedora icon on the Applications menu, and I
> think no borders around the Notification area and clock area look more
> professional though.
>
> --
> -jayson

Just for reference, here is an example of what I'm talking about:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YfHHtbmjsgg/T-C0LwzP9bI/AAAAAAAAAtc/5LJjqJOJKwc/s1...

[Suvayu Ali]

Hi Jayson,

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Jayson Rowe  wrote:
> Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html

This person has a history of biased/oafish reviews. You can look through
some of the older entries. And then there are the write-ups under
"Hillbilly Physics". As a physics researcher myself, I find it difficult
to take the person seriously after going through some of those.

That said, (s)he has also written some good guides (I believe there is a
particularly good Grub2 guide).

And since we are sharing desktops; I thought maybe you would like to see
mine, simple and functional. http://imagebin.org/217139

:)

[Jayson Rowe]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 5:02 PM, suvayu ali  wrote:
> Hi Jayson,
>
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Jayson Rowe  wrote:
> > Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html
>
> This person has a history of biased/oafish reviews. You can look through
> some of the older entries. And then there are the write-ups under
> "Hillbilly Physics". As a physics researcher myself, I find it difficult
> to take the person seriously after going through some of those.
>
> That said, (s)he has also written some good guides (I believe there is a
> particularly good Grub2 guide).
>
> And since we are sharing desktops; I thought maybe you would like to see
> mine, simple and functional. http://imagebin.org/217139
>
> :)
>
> --
> Suvayu
>
> Open source is the future. It sets us free.
> _______________________________________________
> xfce mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce

Suvayu, nice. Interesting layout. I'm fairly new to XFCE for
day-to-day use, so I'm constantly tweaking mine - both panel layouts
and flopping between the default Adwaita/Nodoka and Greybird/Greybird
themes. Can't decide what I like best :)

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2012-06-18 at 21:10 -0400, Jayson Rowe wrote:
> Just saw this: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-17-xfce.html
>
> Now, it's not a great review - he recycled a home directory from
> Xubuntu, so not sure why he made it a point to show off the
> funkalicious configuration that occurred as a result, but when it
> comes to the part after "Live Session and Installation", I can't say I
> totally disagree with him on all points.
> Any other thoughts?

FWIW, dedo is famous for being an extremely harsh reviewer; I don't
recall reading a particularly positive review by him of anything. But he
is quite fair, I think, and I agree that quite a few of his points in
the review are valid, though others might not put as much weight on them
as he does.

I've been writing to him each time he reviews Fedora for a while, I
already sent him a mail to respond to a few of the points he made in
this review.