openSUSE Survey Results Online 173
apokryphos writes "openSUSE have announced that the results from the openSUSE survey (PDF) are now online. The survey was live for almost 3 months and more than 27,000 users participated, making it one of the largest Linux distribution surveys ever."
It's bigger but it's not new (Score:2, Interesting)
There may be more respondents, but the data is still the same.
2 cents,
Queen B.
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:5, Interesting)
Not using the command line (Score:3, Interesting)
Either desktop linux tools have changed a lot in the past few years, or these people aren't digging that far into their systems.
Re:Not using the command line (Score:3, Interesting)
[sarcasm]
You know what? I'm a physicist, and I am seriously offended at people who show no curiosity whatsoever about the quantum mechanical theory of the semiconductor (which after all, is the basis of the whole shebang) when they use their computers every day.
[/sarcasm] Oh wait, that's rather stupid isn't it?
I have just as much contempt for this flavor of arrogance as I do for the macho idiots who sneer at you if you get an oil change at a shop rather than do it yourself :P.
[offtopic rant]
I have used the Linux commandline in numerous stages of my life (as also DOS and even VMS) and I wasn't impressed. Memorizing arcane commands to do simple things (vi as a text editor is an extreme example of its absurdity) is on par with memorizing Clebsch-Gordon coefficients :P. Above all, why it's become fashionable to run these tasks in your own personal RAM (*points to brain*) when the mindless computing machine in front of you can handle them quite easily is a mystery to me. It's all so...twentieth century... that I'm amazed that people actually consider that "advanced". I would rather have the workstation do the things it's supposed to do behind the scenes and spare me the irrelevant details so I can actually focus on the task at hand.
[/offtopic rant]
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:5, Interesting)
It always saddens me to see the Big Distros rallying around GNOME and pouring funds into it as I've always viewed Open Source as a meritocracy, whereas the decision to back GNOME development is quite clearly not based on its merits (or at least, not its technical ones), nor even, clearly, on what the end users want. It also strikes me as a terrible waste of resources: GNOME's shaky technical base and general bureaucratic attitude means that even though money is thrown at it, nothing ever seems to get done, with GNOME's busiest days barely matching [cia.vc] KDE's laziest, while the KDE team are completely shaking up the code and architecture of their massive [blogspot.com] code-base on a shoestring. A real shame, but - c'est la vie, I guess!
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:3, Interesting)
Name them. Go on, I dare you.
Refer to one of my earlier posts [slashdot.org] if you need some help.
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:2, Interesting)
But this is just it: I'm not complaining about the fact that it is funded, per se (frankly, any funding for Free software is welcome in my book, and GNOME technologies quite often benefit KDE, too: see e.g. d-bus and NetworkManager), but about the fact that practically everywhere I have seen, the market has spoken and it has chosen KDE, yet a truly disproportionate amount of funding is directed at the second choice. Does this not strike you as the least bit
1) Community!
The Ubuntu Forums number over 200k people, and have a strict anti-RTFM/ trolling code of conduct. They are an immensely helpful resource, and have massive amounts of HOWTO's and documentation.
2) Nicely printed, professional-looking CDs shipped to your door for free!
This one pretty much speaks for itself, I think.
3) It "Just Works" mantra.
The "If it doesn't Just Work, it is a bug" mantra is very enticing.
4) Advertising!
I don't mean to imply that this as a deliberate cynical attempt on Canonical's part, but Ubuntu has a massive grass-roots advertising campaign. For most people, the word "Ubuntu" is their first exposure to Linux.
5) Glamour!
You'd be amazed how impressed people are that it is funded from the personal fortune of a millionaire astronaut.
Since the Ubuntu Forums statistics are so thoroughly out of whack with everything else I've seen, I can't help but see them as an anomaly. Maybe this is remiss/ dishonest of me; I honestly don't know
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:1, Interesting)
I think the difference between KDE and Gnome can be explained sufficiently well by two screenshots, taken from random places on the web.
Copying a CD with KDE [plainblack.com]
Copying a CD with Gnome [launchpad.net]
I don't see much explanatory value in talk about "power users". That I am an expert on speech recognisers does not make me want to manipulate zillions of settings when I'm burning a CD. I have better things to do. KDE is not the desktop of choice for "power users", but for people with too much time on their hands.
Come to think of it, that's exactly the psychological profile of the average Slashdot reader!
Re:Not using the command line (Score:2, Interesting)
So I guess knowledge just magically jumps into your head. Must be nice. I know whether it's a GUI tool or the command line I have to research how to configure and do things on my computers. I find a set of clear concise documented tools much easier to use than a maze of undocumented menus, windows and tabs.
When's the last time you used your drill for to track your expenses or edit a picture or do your taxes or research refrigerators? You know what? I think a computer just might be a just little more complex than a drill. Kind of makes your comparison a little fallacious.
Reference information? I thought you were the one who didn't feel that kind of thing should be necessary? It's not a matter of using the control. It's a matter of finding the control for what you're trying to change. It's the difference between digging through layer upon layer of menus, windows and tabs to find the checkbox or typing "man vi".
Don't you think it's a little unreasonable for people to have to memorize which of million or so menu/window/tab paths (do the math sometime) gets them to the thing they want to access with limited or no documentation rather than simple typing "man whatever" to find the switch they forgot.
a GUI tool often isn't the quick and easiest method of doing things. At least with Linux I have the option of either way 90% of the time. Oh, and the other 10% are mostly things you can't even do on Windows at all.