[Mageia-dev] xguest and the display manager

Wolfgang Bornath molch.b at googlemail.com
Tue Feb 21 09:25:10 CET 2012


2012/2/20 Olav Vitters <olav at vitters.nl>:
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 05:49:49PM +0100, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
>> 2012/2/20 Olav Vitters <olav at vitters.nl>:
>> > I have the GNOME view on the world: why have distribution specific tools
>> > if you can configure it from GNOME itself. That said, GNOME usually
>> > focusses on the very basic options.
>>
>> Oh yes, We are GNOME, is there really a world besides?
>> Most systems with this view of the world went down the drain :)
>
> You mean like Microsoft Windows? :P
>
>> Besides this more philosophical/historical view there is a technical
>> background for my opinion, see my first point.
>
> Yes, and I (as usual) disagree. You see GNOME as a desktop environment,
> where it should not touch anything that might be part of the
> distribution.

Yes, I agree to the way it is described on the gnome.org website:
"The GNOME Project was started in 1997 ..... Their aim: to produce a
free (as in freedom) *desktop environment*."

Or on wikipedia (which I care less about but describes exactly what I mean):
"GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs
on top of a computer operating system."

> where it should not touch anything that might be part of the
> distribution.

Not exactly what I wrote. I wrote "system" (as in "operation system"),
not distribution. I don't care what distribution or what desktop one
uses (as long as he uses Mageia!).

But let's take Mageia as example: It consists of 2 parts: the
operating system and the desktop. The operating system is common for
all Mageia users while for the desktop the users can choose one of
many (including different window managers) or even none at all, an
xterm would do. This means that settings of the operating system
(screen resolution, networking, software management, sound system,
user management, etc.) should be done by tools common to all Mageia
users and installed by default, no matter which desktop environment
the user selects during installation.

Besides, each desktop environment having its own setting tool for
these system functions would be an unnecessary redundancy and could
even cause conflicts if the same functions can be set with a system
tool (such as the draktools) and a tool of the desktop environment
(such as GNOME system-settings or the KDE equivalent). Lately we had
some cases in the forum where a user complained that he had switched
something off in the MCC but it remained unchange, until he was told
he had to switch it off in the GNOME system settings as well (or
similar situations).

-- 
wobo


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