On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:53:25 +0200
Alessandro Selli <alessandroselli@???> wrote:

> they chose it because it was simple, easy to use
> and came with a large number of wallpapers, themes and a full choice of skins
> and element colours.

Most of the non-geek people I know would choose a desktop experience because it just stays out of the way and lets them edit their documents and read their email. Not even customizing look and feel is of any importance to them. If they had the choise of not choosing then they would choose not to choose because they have other things on their minds like work or the garden or the kids or the wife/husband or something else.

The problem is that FOSS is *all about choise* and these people *don't want to choose*. At least they don't want to put effort into choosing tech-solutions. They are quite happy letting Fruit INC or M$ or A Company That Derived It's Name From The Name Of A Very Large Number make their choises for them. If we want these people to use FOSS instead of $PROPRIETARY_SOLUTION then we need to provide as many sane and pleasant (GUI-)defaults as possible. Where the sane defaults are chosen based on a very solid understanding of the target non-geek userbase.

On the other hand, I personally don't like any of the currently available desktop environments. Why should I be forced to have ha panel or a systray or an icon indicating my WiFi- or battery-status that is allways visible? I find these items distracting! I don't want to have to move my hands between the keyboard and the touchpad! So what are my choises? Hack up or pay up, I guess...

/Radagast