20 Dec
2011
20 Dec
'11
5:05 a.m.
On 19 December 2011 16:50, Darrell Anderson <humanreadable(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Over the past few months I have read several articles
like this:
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/LXDE-and-Xfce-the-other-desktops-1392…
I'm not sure Xfce is a cholesterol free desktop or that LXDE is ready for
prime time with non geek users. Yet I am sure that Trinity is receiving
little comparative press coverage.
Time, time time. I have noticed a serious uptick of Trinity mentions in
every reddit thread about KDE, GNOME3, or the whole current desktop
environment disaster.
I'm not calling for a marketing campaign, but I
would like to request all
team members focus on making R14 the best release yet. To me that means
three goals:
I think we need a slight marketing campaign and have a few people up my
sleeve who are already helping develop ideas for a campaign of sorts.
* Eliminating many, many paper cut bugs.
* All packages build with minimal fuss.
* Provide an improved web site.
Yes +3
The paper cut project never got off the ground. Paper cut bugs discourage
non geek users. They don't care or want to
understand the nuances of
programming or why something fails to function as intended. Paper cut bugs
are a public relations nightmare. People vote with their feet. :(
KDE4.0 had this exact problem. Overall it worked well but there were many
things users hit and missed, then never returned. The current stable branch
is much more stable and performs without hesitation recently, but they are
still paying the price in skeptical users.
Struggling to build packages is a good way to ensure
little exposure
because the desktop then is not available to users. A significant portion
of the discussion in this list is build issues. Simple things like
autotools looking for Qt4 rather than Qt3 are frustrating to non geeks.
Remember that until Trinity is provided as a regular prebuilt package
option in most distros, end-users are left to build the packages on their
own. That means the wiki needs attention too and should be revised for non
geeks.
Obviously there is the ongoing CMake effort. Though we should focus more
attention on getting packages out the door, so that users won't have to
build packages for widely used distrobutions.
We have been discussing web site changes and a
possible RSS feed. Those
plans likely will fall into place shortly. :)
Despite what reviewers declare, I don't see Trinity "competing" with KDE4
--- or GNOME. I see the "competition" as Xfce and LXDE. I use the word
"competition" in a friendly, comparative way. Long-term we should be asking
ourselves questions such as whether there is anything those desktops do
better than Trinity? Is there anything those desktops do that Trinity does
not? Trinity does not have to be at the top of all comparison lists, but
should look favorable all around.
LXDE and XFCE fall miles behind in functionality and integration. I laugh
at the fact they even call LXDE an environment. All components are so
modularized (which isnt bad) that they are all independent. They don't
even have their own window manager and use Open Box instead. Basically as
I see it, the functionality provided by LXDE is that of me running Openbox,
with a panel and desktop, using a File Manager of my choice.
XFCE is more of a competition, but we still beat them by miles with
Konqueror and our other integration. That said, I love XFCE and it is my
favorite GTK desktop.
There is one thing those two desktop environments do
better than Trinity:
start and exit faster. I don't know whether that observation merits an
enhancement request. While I agree too much discussion is wasted on the
topics, I'd like to think both can be improved in Trinity.
In the article I linked the writer mentions that "One developer in China
has ported LXDE to a device with 128 RAM, 400 MHZ CPU." How does Trinity
perform with such hardware? I have PI and PII machines sitting here with
256 MB of RAM. I have run 3.5.10 on those machines for several years and
3.5.10 is, well, sluggish. I suspect my problem is the video cards in my
machines and I haven't fully tested yet. Yet I am guessing Trinity will
fare only a tad better than 3.5.10.
What if we created some sort of "lo-fat" settings to help it run minimally
and fast?
Opportunity is waiting. Let's strive to make R14 a
desktop reviewers want
to review and praise. :)
hear, hear!
Calvin Morrison