On Wed, 2011-06-22 at 08:09 -0400, Darryl L. Pierce wrote: > On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 11:56:35AM +0900, 夜神 岩男 wrote: > > > Corporate and home users are already being expected (by that company in > > > Redmond) to upgrade to higher end hardware for their latest offerings as > > > well. The difference is that Fedora has fallback functionality that > > > works without the hardware acceleration, as well as other options for > > > the desktop. > > > > My customers (small and mid-sized businesses in Japan) are interested in > > Linux specifically because they can cheaply clean and refurbish old > > desktop hardware and save tons of money in the office. Telling them that > > the next big thing on the Linux desktop is a cumbersome beast which > > requires high end hardware the in a similar way Windows does tips the > > balance away from cheap (read as "harmless" or "low overhead") > > experimentation with Linux and back towards just sticking with Windows. > > And let's face it, any smart company plays with a future platform before > > they commit, so the cost of experimentation is a significant point to > > consider. > > But does Fedora 15 "require high end hardware"? No, it doesn't. You can > run other desktops, such as XFCE (which you mention as well), and still > run all of the same apps. > > So while Gnome 3 may require better video hardware than was available on > an eight year old machine, that doesn't mean Fedora 15 itself requires > that better hardware. True. I was arguing against the general principle of the first statement above which made it seem that "since Microsoft forces the average home and business user to buy high-end hardware that it makes it OK for a Linux distribution to as well" if the user wants to install the default desktop. My position is that high-end desktops are definitely worth exploring, but not as a default -- not just yet anyway. In Fedora's case this point is a bit blunted by the fact that the platform itself is purposed toward development and testing, and messiness is a big part of that (well, all the fun anyway!). What better way to find out exactly what isn't working on what hardware than to release to tens of thousands of daily users through the Fedora? In other words, screwups in Fedora and unanticipated outcomes are the norm -- which serves to permit concrete anticipation and aversion of problems in production releases such as RHEL. My worry is the sort of thinking that pushing high-end defaults encourages, and I fear that it will seep too soon into other areas -- which is already happening to some degree. Part of Linux's uniqueness and strength is its amazing ability to adapt to a variety of hardware environments without requiring significant tweaking for the average user (granted, this is a relatively recent development, but it is a user expectation at this point). Blah blah. ResumeComa(Iwao); -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
