Linux Questions Desktop Environment of the Year - interesting result

[Chris Murphy]

On Feb 13, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Genes MailLists wrote:

> On 02/13/2012 03:47 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
> 
>> Fedora DE vs KDE spin download ratio compared to past release ratios would be more suggestive of a trend, if it exists.
> 
>  Not necessarily - I always used the standard DVD to install and use
> KDE and frankly never used the KDE spin - not once.

Doesn't matter. The question is whether there is a change in trend. It's improbable that KDE adoption is increasing in statistically significant numbers, while at the same time KDE spin downloads remain flat, just because people can install KDE from the standard DVD installer. If there is a new trend developing, downloads and even yum updates would represent much more valuable data from which to draw general conclusions than a poll off one forum. The very poll's existence, and question structure, will disproportionately draw disaffected Gnome users to participate in the poll.

Let's not forget there are KDE affectionados who were not pleased with KDE4.

But in any event, the users almost don't matter when it comes to desktop experience. It's which environment has the most development (both for apps that run in it, as well as developers for the environment itself). Windows is an example of abysmal UI and UX, yet has a huge installed base who are not punishing MS over an objectively poor UI design. And long time Mac users have been expressing in larger numbers than any other release how irritated they are with the incorporation of iOS UI into Mac OS Lion (10.7) - and yet it's one of the most successful, by raw numbers, Mac OS upgrades of all time.

So the complaining, the anecdotes of people switching environments, and totally non-scientific forum polls, probably means almost exactly zero. What is a valid concern for RH though, is whether and when Gnome 3 makes sense on RHEL, and if the fallback mode experience is a better and practical default, than the standard experience, for the RHEL market.

Chris Murphy