Proposed F19 Feature: Cinnamon as Default Desktop

[Adam Williamson]

On Sun, 2013-01-27 at 14:53 +0000, Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
> = Features/Cinnamon as Default Desktop =
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Cinnamon_as_Default_Desktop
> 
> Feature owner(s): Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com>

Just some input on a few things that have been raised in this thread:

1. What is 'default'?

The 'default' desktop in Fedora is:

* What you get when you click on the big 'Download Now!' button at
https://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora

* What is selected by default in a DVD / network install

* What's pictured in all the official screenshots in press stuff,
documentation etc

* What's documented in our official docs (mostly)

2. Can't we just not have a default?

Not really. Others have touched on this, but the websites team really
wants the simplicity of a straightforward 'Download' link that gets you
a live image, and that pretty much requires a default desktop. We also
have to have _something_ that we take pictures of for the docs. We could
not select any desktop by default in DVD / network installs, but we
tried that for F18 Alpha, IIRC, and I don't recall that anyone really
liked it.

3. What does QA test? What do you think about this?

If I can presume to speak for QA - in theory, changing the default
desktop doesn't have a huge impact on us. Our desktop validation tests
are written fairly generically, and already applicable to all desktops.
We already provide the infrastructure for testing of multiple desktops:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Desktop_Test

and ask users of the major Fedora desktops to provide results.

What QA actually commits to testing is the set of 'release blocking
desktops', which is currently defined - pretty much entirely for
historical reasons - as 'GNOME and KDE'. We require that the GNOME and
KDE columns on the test matrix (see above) be filled out and no release
blocking bugs in those desktops be known, before a release goes out.

If somehow this feature got accepted, what we'd do is give Cinnamon the
position currently given to 'Desktop' in that matrix, adjust the text
"The current set of release-blocking desktops is GNOME and KDE" on the
release criteria pages (obviously this feature requires Cinnamon to be
added to that set; whether it replaces one or the other, or is just
added, would have to be settled), and...that'd be about it. Obviously,
we'd then prioritize Cinnamon validation testing.

If the proposal involved adding Cinnamon to the set of release blocking
desktops, that would add 50% to our desktop validation testing workload
(3 'release blocking desktops' rather than 2), which is a chunk of extra
work but not impossible. If the proposal involved replacing one of the
existing 'release blocking desktops', our workload would be mostly
unchanged.

My entirely personal take on this is that I don't really care that much,
but I don't see a convincing case for the change. My personal opinion is
that a lot of the 'GNOME sucks and everyone's switching to Cinnamon /
MATE!' stuff in the press is inaccurate; whenever I see actual people
using Fedora, they seem to be using GNOME 3. For e.g., at FUDCon NA, I
saw a large majority of GNOME 3 systems, a few KDE systems, and I think
less than 5 people running Cinnamon or MATE. And one of those was the
MATE maintainer. :) But if somehow this change went through, I wouldn't
mind.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net