On Mon, 2004-11-15 at 12:21 +0000, Michael A. Peters wrote: > > Just to make myself clear - I'm not talking about ripping that stuff > from RHEL. What I'm after is LOTD. Linux on the Desktop. > > Ticking off either the KDE or the GNOME users doesn't matter. > The path to LOTD is through the OEM - the OEM doesn't want to support > 4,5,6 CD's worth of software. > > Ticking off the current GNOME or KDE fans by choosing one and dumping > the other doesn't matter, that's not who I want to target - I want to > target the masses and masses of people who don't have a KDE or GNOME > preference because they don't use Linux. > > What these users do need is a vendor who will be able to supply phone > support, and to supply adequate phone support, your support > representatives need to be familiar with the software. Do you train > them on 4 CD's worth of software or 1 CD worth of software? > > It doesn't take a kernel developer to figure out which is both cheaper > and faster. The masses that don't use Linux now don't need servers, > that's RHEL territory - not LOTD territory. Interesting... I (via my company) just finished engineering some custom- loaded FC2 and FC3 systems with *both* GNOME and KDE for a client. We could have done XFCE as well, but didn't mainly because it wasn't as important for our needs. Assuming we hit our targets, we're going to be supporting customers across the country. The support model we came up with in doing so should be quite profitable. My point is this: LOTD as you call it, is alive and well with both GNOME and KDE. We didn't need to cut anything feature-wise to make it profitable for us. It's just a custom installed FC3 system with a few settings changed to make it install with the packages we wanted (can you say custom kickstart file?) and a centralized install server. No smoke and mirrors and it works very well. Cheers, Chris -- ==================================== "If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' someone else's dog around." --Cowboy Wisdom