It's time to jettison CCSM

[Micah Gersten]

On 01/26/2012 11:17 AM, Marc Deslauriers wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-01-26 at 11:02 -0600, Micah Gersten wrote:
>> On 01/26/2012 10:28 AM, Jorge O. Castro wrote:
>>> With tools like MyUnity now in universe, and didrocks putting basic
>>> configuration in the control panel I'd like to propose the removal of
>>> compizconfig-settingsmanager.
>>>
>>> I don't mean "stop telling people to use it" or "add a warning", I
>>> mean total removal from the archive until the tool is either better
>>> tested or doesn't break people's configuration. Here are some of the
>>> problems with the tool.
>>>
>>> - It's possible to accidentally uncheck the Unity plugin, breaking the
>>> user's desktop.
>>> - It has a load of checkboxes for plugins that we don't support,
>>> allowing infinite combinations of untested options, which result in
>>> either a broken desktop or a misconfigured one.
>>> - People report these bugs, and instead of fixing real bugs we have to
>>> deal with corner case bugs for things we never plan on supporting.
>>> - Since it's settings are separate from Unity a "unity --reset"
>>> doesn't fix it, you have to blow away .compiz or some other dotfile
>>> directories to get a desktop back.
>>> - Alex Chiang has documented some of the issues he's run into here:
>>> http://askubuntu.com/a/80590/235
>>> - I'm sure at UDS you've seen didrocks show you one of the ways it
>>> breaks even when using parts of it that shouldn't break.
>>>
>>> MyUnity is a better user-facing tool anyway for those that want to
>>> play, it would be a shame to have the ccsm tool ship in an LTS. If
>>> anyone cares about it they can plop it in a PPA.
>>>
>> -1, CCSM isn't just for unity, but any other desktop that uses compiz. 
>> I'm wondering if other desktops even work with the newer compiz in the
>> archive.  In any event, adding a Breaks unity to
>> compizconfig-settings-manager wouldn't be unreasonable IMHO.
> 
> CCSM breaks other desktops also, not just Unity, and novice users are
> installing it to customize their desktop without being aware of the
> damage they can cause. Other desktops should gain a reasonable settings
> manager, much like MyUnity.
> 
> Having an advanced tool being used by a large quantity of novice users
> and ends up leaving them with an unusable desktop is problematic.
> 
> Marc.

Because novices are using a power user tool does not mean we should
remove a power user tool.  I think attention just needs to be called to
the problems that can be caused and what better tools exist for novice
users. Places like askubuntu.com and the Ubuntu forums would be good
places to evangelize this as well as omgbuntu and maybe webupd8.

Micah