Non-flattering review of Fedora XFCE

[DL Neil]

> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Jayson Rowe <jayson.rowe at gmail.com
>     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...

-- 
Regards,
=dn