Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME

[Zeerak Waseem]

Having recently installed gentoo, I can see hwo it could get confusing  
with DE specific profiles. Especially as a number of users that are new to  
linux might very well have no idea what DE they're going to use. And the  
same can be said for users who decided to run ubuntu "to try linux" and  
then decide to go further.
having to choose a profile, gives less time for the wavering user, if you  
ask me. Particularly because a number might well believe that having a DE  
specific profile would restrict them to use such profiles.

Instead I'd say it's a better idea to give a suggestion of useflags in the  
handbook for the different choices of DE's.

And also I don't thin it's relevant to talk about gentoo in relation to an  
out-of-box experience. To me it seems to be counterproductive, being that  
by creating an out-of-box experience would, intially at least, make  
choices on the users behalf, which is against gentoo's philosophy as I  
understand it.
The way I understand Gentoo, is it is a distro to allow freedom of choice,  
whether it being a choice of having a graphical interface or a choice of  
which graphical interface. And to aim for an out-of-box experience, is  
counteracting that freedom, or rather, only allowing a choice of removing  
it after the decision has already been made for you.

I don't think the developer profile should be removed however. There could  
very well be users installing gentoo, with the purpose of getting involved  
with developing gentoo. So the profile should be there, and it is well  
enough documented as being geared towards developing gentoo, and not  
developing in general.


> (New) users already find it confusing what the differences between
> profiles are (the number of users I've seen using a "developer" profile
> because they do some programming, for example*) and frankly I think
> having these extra profiles will make some users think you can only have
> one of kde or gnome.
>
> Why are we talking about "out of the box" with a distro that doesn't
> even come with a pre-compile kernel? Or X installed? Gentoo isn't an
> "out of the box" distro. If disabling use flags is considered too
> confusing for users, maybe the entire system needs to be revised.
>
>
> * Why is the developer profile even shown on "eselect profile"? Wouldn't
> it be better to keep "unsupported" profiles off this list. Surely Gentoo
> devs can cope with setting their profile manually in favor of a little
> sanity preservation for the rest of us?