Adieu, Fedora

[James McKenzie]

On 6/12/11 3:36 PM, Andras Simon wrote:
> On 6/13/11, Patrick Bartek<bartek047 at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Considered XFCE and LXDE instead, but
>> decided the best option was to abandon the Desktop GUI environment
>> all-together in favor of a well-featured window manager, simple launch bar
>> for most used apps, floating menus for the others, and a terminal or two.  I
>> don't really need all the other crap.  Not even 3D.
> Welcome to the club :-) I never understood what these desktop
> environments give mankind that a window manager doesn't.
<Soapbox drug out of the corner, and James steps up on it>

Give you a wonderful clue.  Look at DOS/Windows 3.1 and then look at 
WindowsNT.  That is what most users are looking for.  They don't care 
about the command line and really don't want to even mess with it.  For 
those of use 'smart' enough to figure our way around the CLI, we are 
either considered:
1.  Geniuses.
2.  Snobs.
3.  Arrogant bastards who want the days of the 'Green Door' to come back.

Most of the people that I work with are Computer Scientists or Computer 
Engineers.  We are constantly answering questions and most people 
consider us either 1 or 2.  However, if you go out and read the "other 
Linuxes" forums you will find a group that is slowly but surely calling 
us, with increasingly poor wording, number 3.

The thing is, either you embrace change and adapt to it or you will be 
crushed.  I'll give you a really good example that most of us live with 
today:  Airbags in your automobile.  When they were introduced by 
Mercedes Benz in their 1973 autos, they were considered a death device 
and were actually banned from sale in the United States.  Today, try 
buying an auto, in most countries without one.  Good luck.  They are now 
required in the United States for all passenger type vehicles.  This is 
the same with the desktop system.  Either we can embrace and learn how 
they work and how to work around them, or we can sit there and watch 
what happens.  I, for one, embrace a technology that gives people with 
less skills the ability to use a superior operating system.  Linux can 
either be the OS/2 of the computing world or the replacement for 
Microsoft's Windows products.  Which do YOU want?  I want the latter.  I 
want people to use, with ease, a vastly better OS.  We, the community 
have to be willing to assist those who want that goal.  And remember, we 
have variety.  We can CHOOSE to use Gnome3, KDE 4, XFCE or a number of 
frontends.  If we want, we don't have to use ANY of them.  That is 
called convenience, and I like that.
<Soupbox off>
Folks, we can discuss this to the end.  The decision has been made, for 
us by others, that the desktop will move into the 21st Century.  Our 
thoughts, comments and other such are not even under consideration.  In 
other words, we are wasting our time even talking about it.  The best 
use of our time is to find and report problems that will affect those 
who do not have the skills we do.   We can choose to use other 
desktop/windowing systems and be happy.  All of the grumbling I've read 
did not and cannot stop RedHat from adopting Gnome 3 or KDE 4 as the 
primary desktop for Fedora and RHEL.  That is and will remain a fact of 
life.  If you feel otherwise, that is your feeling/opinion.

Have a great life.

James McKenzie