[Bug 66234] Re: Edgy artwork reverted to Dapper

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen]

I'm actually a bit shocked that you, Mark Stuttleworth actually replied
to my bug. I probably would have tried to formulate it better ;-)

The reason I filled this bug is that i'm one of those that promote
Ubuntu from the market-place out. I have currently made three small
companies, for which I manage their software and hardware, switch to
Ubuntu. None of these companies are very tech-related. And selling this
choice to them was everything but rational to them. The choice ended up
being the choice of the owners of the companies. They were not very
computer literate. But when they liked their new system, they allowed me
to switch everyone and everything.

I've found the best to sell it to them is to make them feel hip. I make
them like the fact that they use something different than all of their
competitors. One of these owners still types alt+f2 and 'free the fish'
every time he logs on to his dapper-box. Then he launches Streamtuner
and tries some random radio station. The brownish themes were actually a
big selling point as well. It felt different and new to them.

Still some of the staff disliked the transition a lot. The whole
playing-field of expertise within the normal staff got leveled. The more
clueless types, which required help on windows a lot, actually got
around on their new Ubuntu desktop more easily. On the other hand, the
type of people that knew their Windows quite well, and never needed my
assistance, were most upset. Esspecially when they weren't able to solve
a problem by themselves, they would normally be able to solve. I am
actually very thankful for that: The types of hacks they perform to
'solve the problem', instead of calling me, usually did more harm than
good.

But to come back to the main point. The look and feel is very relevant
to me, in the field, being able to sell it. They might actually get
disappointed when I upgrade their machine. I will most likely change the
artwork manually, so they feel 'its upgraded' and that they paid me to
do something useful. I know Edgy is not supposed to replace Dapper on
the workplace, but I personally feel its more stable and polished than
Dapper was. It will also solve the most heard complaint among the staff:
'it takes too long to startup and to shutdown'.

I can certainly understand you control the quality of the artwork
personally. With all of us nerds here, it might seem it doesn't really
matter. But first impressions mean a lot. And the brown theme made
Ubuntu feel much less intimidating.

Do not underestimate the power of good artwork. (nor the lack of
penguins in the artwork! I like them too, but I really can't sell them)

<sidenote>
We should do whatever we can to integrate the whole grub-gdm-desktop. Not just make them look similar. They should all look the same. The desktop-wallpaper, the gdm-background and preferably a graphical grub should look identical. As if the casual will not notice the difference between the three faces of booting. I will post a feature request for edgy+1 about this. 
</sidenote>

-- 
Edgy artwork reverted to Dapper
https://launchpad.net/bugs/66234