>
>
> On Dec 29, 2014 11:26 AM, "Vince Mulhollon" <vince@???> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> In an "emperor has no clothes" moment, does that audience exist other
>> than devs and corporate support aka are there any voluntary users who
>> wouldn't be happy with something else?
>>
>
Excellent point.


> You can recognize the disease from afar by devs writing "user speak"
>> instead of "I speak".
>>
>
Also true.


>
>> I googled around and finding numbers about DE use is apparently
>> impossible. I don't think it farfetched that the number of Emacs users
>> exceeds Gnome and KDE combined by a large integer multiplier, for example.
>> If this data existed, it would help in prioritization.
>>
>
You're looking for data in a market that does not measure that kind of a
metric. Majority users that are measured at all are generally Windows
users. Popularity does not a useable computer make. If it did, we would
all be using Windows. Personally, I think that trying to decide on a DE
for someone else is like trying to predict the weather. It's hit and miss
at best.

If you want a direct OPINION rather than a fact, I think
that the best "default" UI out of our of the available ones is XFCE, merely
because its memes are familiar enough that any Devuan user can generally
figure it out and then install what best fits their workflow. It's also
relatively lightweight, and has a large featureset, and can easily be
uninstalled without breaking the system's dependency chains.


There is a popular meme that the primary purpose of a distro should be a
>> bootloader for either KDE or Gnome. I'm convinced thats wrong.
>>
>
That's what you get when everyone is focused on trying to copy Windows,
because they believe that majority success is the only success. If there
is one thing that the rise of mobile and the downfall of Microsoft has
pretty much proven, it is that one size does NOT fit all people, and that
the majority CAN fail.

What people are interested in is filling a need and having the
tools sufficiently familiar so that they can move on to the next thing
without wasting excessive time.


>
>> There is a difference between "This distro is a qmail bootloader and all
>> that matters is how well it runs qmail so qmail release blocks absolutely
>> the entire project" vs "This distro is marching along with or without us
>> and if qmail can't keep up or has license issues or can not implement
>> Policy in time, well, guess the release will use exim tough cookies"
>>
>> Another meme is engineering driven distros vs marketing driven distros.
>> A commercial marketing driven distro could ship a "non-desktop, server"
>> release without xorg because "servers". However my xmonad / urxvt / emacs
>> / chromium desktop will run just fine on the "server" release if no one
>> intentionally screws it up, and if the "desktop" release ships with
>> mandatory Gnome, the first thing I'll be doing with all that work is dpkg
>> --purge ing it and installing xmonad / urxvt / emacs / chromium.
>>
>> I mean, personally, I kinda like Stella and Simh but I'm not proposing a
>> distro bend over backwards for them and I think that is the proper place of
>> bloated DEs.
>>
>
A better question might be: "What is the absolute minimum that Devuan needs
to boot and manage a system?" I'd call that "Devuan Core." That IMHO
should be the sole main focus of the Devuan team.

Everything else can be tailored later to fit a need, say a "sendmail
spin" or a "XFCE spin" and make them as "turnkey" as might be
accomplished. Create what can fill a need, and then Devuan will be a
success. Try to copy Windows - with a "one size fits all" install and I
think Devuan will end up the same as other distributions. It will have a
passionate fanbase, but only the fans will take the time to tailor it
for real world use.