I’ve been a lurker in the Linux community for some time and have noticed the recent rise in a more “clean” Linux desktop experience. Canonical has led the way in this effort with their Unity desktop environment for Ubuntu, and I am starting to see that, after most of the bugs were squashed, Unity actually has become a formidable user interface for Linux and is regarded as having nice levels of polish. The same can be said for Ubuntu’s cleaned up userland and utilities, among other things.
I wish the same thing can be said for OpenSuSE, but in some respects, the OS just feels less refined, especially with the use of the cookie-cutter desktop environments like KDE 4.x and GNOME 3.x, both of which are pretty bad in their own right. There are other things that would be nice to improve on, such as a more “out-of-the-box” readiness by supporting wireless cards and multimedia codecs right away without requiring separate downloads, improved graphics driver support, inclusion of Wayland instead of X11, and so on so forth. I think that, in order for OpenSuSE to revitalize itself and rise alongside with the likes of Ubuntu and Mint, a new approach to the user experience for OpenSuSE should be considered with great earnest.
I think that it would be nice if the OpenSuSE team dedicated themselves to a brand new, Wayland-based desktop environment written from the bottom up exclusively for OpenSuSE. This can take a very pragmatic and practical approach to user interface aesthetics and usability that are not seen in the KDE and GNOME environments. I really want to see OpenSuSE stand out from the rest of the me-too Linux distributions that pop up everywhere, and I know that OpenSuSE has the resource potential to start a “soft” reboot of the OS. Would there be a need for a volunteer UX strategist? I would like to assist in this effort if anyone is interested in giving this facelift for OpenSuSE a shot in the arm for once. I hope the development team will consider my idea as one that is conducive to growing a larger following of Linux users, looking for a fresh new outlook and taste on this legendary distribution. Thank you all for reading and feel free to comment!
One would hope you are here to make constructive comments… we’ll see.
I use Ubuntu and would agree to it’s nice refined desktop. It makes excellent use of the available space, which is particularly good if you machine is a netbook.
It takes a while to get used to the way it uses the panel as a tray too.
The drivers question is perennial and all I can emphasise is the word ‘open’. After that you can get drivers if you wish.
I really want to see OpenSuSE stand out from the rest
IMO it already does.
Let’s not start a KDE Gnome bashing thread, it’s so yesterday
They are by far the most widely used environments. But like I said, Unity is good too.
There will always be differences in distros. Different doesn’t mean bad. People are Fickle… the Unity Exodus is a classic example
Oh I’m not here to beat KDE and GNOME like dead horses. But I do know that some in the community, Linus Torvaldsnotwithstanding, are none too happy about the directions that both environments (and OpenSuSE) have taken as of late. Just because they are widely used doesn’t necessarily equate with people liking them. After all, there really isn’t much else choice out there for a fully-featured desktop environment.
Actually, I beg to differ. Aside from the YaST package management interface and its unique userland, I still feel that OpenSuSE could opt for an edgier approach. Now unlike how Ubuntu is going with Unity, we can leave the choice for KDE, GNOME and other desktop environments open to people so that there is true choice. However, ultimately the community has to have the same feelings as I do and the enthusiasm and desire to make this all happen. One man cannot simply stand alone in this effort. Is there something wrong with my proposal? Am I asking too much to consider the idea of really adding more polish to a venerable distribution like OpenSuSE? Think about it.
On 07/17/2012 06:26 AM, mattrock1988 wrote:
> I still feel that OpenSuSE could opt for an edgier approach.
to some folks an operating system is a thing useful for doing work (or
even play)…they want stability, dependability, predictability and
security… ‘edgy’ is not conducive to any of those things…instead it
is counterproductive.
openSUSE is a test bed for an industrial strength operating system well
favored by supercomputer experts…
and still we are already more “edgy” than Debian and scores of other
distros…
you are entitled to your opinion as am i…and my opinion is that
openSUSE is plenty edgy…but, if you don’t think so, then why not grab
the source for Unity and run that on top of the latest openSUSE kernel…
Ubuntu’s decision to go with Unity has a downside… only Ubuntu is developing and deploying it. Just like their Ubuntu One and Ubuntu One Music Store.
OpenSUSE seems, to me at least, more involved with the whole open source community and doesn’t go around building things that it cannot share.
While Gnome and KDE may have their own issues with their user interface, performance and/or stability, having a single distro re-vamp everything so it works for them only (unless another distro wants to follow suit) doesn’t feel like the “collaboration” FOSS fosters. Rather it sounds like “competition” orientated which Microsoft and Apple are the pinnacle examples of what happens.
Why not suggest openSUSE developers try to work more with the Gnome or KDE developers to improve it upstream instead? Actually, isn’t openSUSE one of the big contributors to the KDE project?
Unity is better than Gnome-shell, I’ll grant you that, but it also isn’t perfect (yet). I am using it on one machine as my current “oasis” on my personal desktop environment quest.
Plus, from reading some feedback on how openSUSE should be moving forward after the announced schedule slip of 12.2, it appears people were more interested in a less-frequently released stable openSUSE than an “edgy” (and along with that inevitably is “buggy” for some packages) version. They are talking about a once-a-year release cycle and larger use of OBS for up-to-date packages and Evergreen for LTS support.
On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 04:26:02 +0000, mattrock1988 wrote:
> Actually, I beg to differ. Aside from the YaST package management
> interface and its unique userland, I still feel that OpenSuSE could opt
> for an edgier approach.
openSUSE aims to be a stable distribution as opposed to a bleeding-edge
distribution.
This is part of the openSUSE strategy documents published in the wiki.
If you want bleeding edge, then you could use factory or tumbleweed.
