Gnome is a problem for OEMs

[Mailing Lists]

On 11 Apr 2006, at 16:56, Daniel Carrera wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've spent all afternoon trying to figure out how I, as an OEM, can  
> configure Gnome before giving it to a user. I just want to change  
> some icons on the panel and maybe a menu entry.
>
> After exhaustive search, I can only conclude that there is no way  
> to do this. You are stuck with what the Gnome developers think  
> everyone in the world needs. You can't even add a new icon to the  
> default panel. Every user must learn how to locate software on  
> their own and add icons on their own, and if they don't like it,  
> they can go use Windows.
>
> At this rate, I have serious doubts about Linux or Ubuntu being  
> "ready for the desktop". I work for a very pro-FOSS OEM. We  
> contribute heavily to open source projects. We are *trying* our  
> darn best to give Ubuntu desktops to our customers. But Ubuntu/ 
> Gnome just don't give us any way to offer even the tiniest bit of  
> configuration. So we'll have to keep selling Windows computers  
> instead.
>
> The problem is not that Microsoft has a deal with us to block  
> Linux, they don't. It's not that we don't know Linux, I've been  
> using exclusively for 8 years. The first computer I owned ran  
> Slackware Linux. The problem is that Gnome just doesn't give us any  
> way to make any adaptations, no matter how small. The problem is  
> that the damm thing just wasn't designed with an OEM in mind.
>

This site should help http://www.howtousegoogle.com...  Perhaps if  
you asked a question of "how do I" instead of you can't the users on  
this forum may have been more help...