*Official Announcement:* Ubuntu Studio is switching to XFCE.

[Robert Klaar]

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 9:37 PM, Mike Holstein <mikeh789 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Robert Klaar <nim.batu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I agree with this, the only argument I've heard so far is that it's
>> different and sure, installed 11.04(with unity) to my laptop I use for
>> backup a few days ago and it is different but nothing that you won't get
>> used to, in some ways I like it even better, for one it's layout seems a bit
>> more simplistic than I find standard "gnome-based" systems to be. Even
>> though this might change workflow for some, the cons of switching to a
>> fairly less supported DE in return for this, are probably worse. If there is
>> one thing I've learned in these years using linux is to go with the
>> mainstream and use what people use most, not doing so might land you in a
>> position where something as basic, for a musician, as getting your soundcard
>> to work seem hopeless due to lack of support. The main strength in Ubuntu,
>> especially, has always been the vast number of people who use it, this is
>> also my main reason for using US, because it's basically Ubuntu, with a lot
>> of useful stuff added to it, forking of now might cut you out of the circle
>> in the future. Even though XFCE is fairly similar to gnome, when gnome
>> changes and Ubuntu with it so will the knowledge built up by it's vast
>> community and I think US would be wise to stay as close as possible to it,
>> and even though switching DE's is not really that drastic, changing
>> something like this might make it a lot more harder for an artist or a
>> producer etc., with little computer experience, solving problems as the
>> solution found in the forums might not be enough. Now, this is not a problem
>> for most people who use linux since you get used to these things after a
>> while switching distro's aso. and in general you get better at it but not
>> everyone does this, especially not your typical artist type, that's why many
>> musicians prefer mac's.
>>
>> And that's what most people are like, I think it's a bad idea to limit US
>> only to people with experience in linux and even though switching DE's might
>> not do this now, it sets a path towards it.
>>
>
> robert, i for one really appreciate your well thought out statements. you
> have some very valid points. one of which i would like to bring up for
> debate here. do you feel like moving from gnome2 to gnome3 is a more drastic
> change than moving from gnome2 to XFCE?
>
that was one of the selling points of this move. even though we will be
> moving from the mainstream ubuntu workflow, we feil like this move to XFCE
> would actually be *less* disruptive than moving to unity or gnome3 (from
> gnome2). another selling point was also that we feel XFCE is very well
> supported, and well developed. the hardware support will always be the same
> as buntu though. a kernel update will be more likely to break functionality
> than the UI change. however, i dont feel like we should *not* upgrade the
> kernel. i think most linux users expect possible changes in support when
> going to a newer kernel version. ...
>

Well, either way you risk loosing supporters but in my opinion it's much
worse to risk being outdated than getting a bit of disruption for some
time(and I can't see how this can get so disruptive to a serious
producer/artist that it get's such a big problem, but this is just my
opinion).


> ...this debate really comes down to the basic question, 'what is
> ubuntustudio doing?'. whos is it for. are we attracting new users? studio
> engineers? video professionals?. this is something we are constantly trying
> to be more clear about. right now, a move to XFCE has the intention of being
> the least disruptive change, while maintaining a similar workflow, and also
> pooling our resources with the xubuntu team. adopting early hopefully means
> that by the next LTS (12.04), things will be nice and solid and working
> well. if we are to target current ubuntu users, then unity would be the way
> to go. if we are to target OSX users or audio professionals, then the
> current plan to use XFCE with the AWN dock actually might be the best idea.
> XFCE+AWN has a very OSX look and feel (much more so that the current
> ubuntutsudio) which i think is arguably a good improvement, and easily
> facilitates some nice 'workflow' ideas that scott lavender has proposed.
> what do you think would be a target audience? and how to best implement a DE
> for them?
>

Well, either way the system seems to go towards a more OSX like feeling,
however I can't help but like the inovative style of Gnome 3, atm. I'm
running 10.10 with cairodock(which for some reason worked better than awn
for me, also, to me, it's visually more appealing) and it feels a lot like
OSX. This being said, I'm not a huge fan of OSX myself, obviously I found it
rather locked and that's one of the reasons why I'm keeping my linux-based
system over switching to a mac, also I don't think we should be locked into
thinking that OSX is supposed to be the ultimate goal, in my opinion,
although Gnome 3 is in some ways a lot like I thought it took things even
further, and in a good way, but that's also just my opinion.

And that being said, I think we ARE trying to attract the same people as
apple do, and that might be something we can learn from wether we like it or
not.

>
> keep it coming robert. i feel like this is the kind of educated exchange
> that could really help shape the future of ubuntustudio. thank you for your
> attention.
>
>>
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>
>
> --
> MH
>
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