Well, I've been a member here for a couple years so I thought it might be time to post a poll.

I have been using linux for about 3 years now and have tried several distros - 7 or 8 to be less than exact - and have really "used" 3 - RedHat (7.3 and 8.0), SuSE (8.0 and 8.2), and my current desktop Slackware (8.1, 9.0, 10.0, 10.1).

My favorite DE is KDE and when I use a light window manager it's WindowMaker.

As some of you may be aware, Mr. Volkerding has decided that Gnome is too much of a pain in the ass to continue maintaining in any serious manner and, based on what I have read, I can't say I disagree with him. Of course, I don't use Gnome so it does not bug me much - I am certain Gnome users that use slack feel differently though.

My experience has been that - though not explicitly stated - many disros that offer both DE's, put most of their energy into either one or the other. RedHat was always known as a Gnome distro. SuSE was a KDE distro. Slackware appeared to be better at KDE than Gnome and I think that may be why Dropline became as popular as it did. SuSE did an awful job with Gnome and I had to rely on www.usr-local-bin.org to "fix" my Gnome installation in SuSE. I'm not certain what things are like since Novel took over. Slackware's Gnome right now has some bugs that don't look like they are going anywhere soon (officially at any rate).

I recently tried Ubuntu which is a Debian-based distro that offers only Gnome as the DE. While I had some definite disagreements with how they did some things, the concept of choosing one DE and doing it well really feels like the right thing for distros to be doing from now on (in my opinion).

There are those that may argue that this limitation of choice goes against the basic spirit of linux, but I feel that the half-assed inclusion of a buggy Gnome or KDE does linux no favors in the realm of puplic opinion - it also may give Gnome or KDE a bad name - do I dislike Gnome because of how poorly it worked in SuSE/Slackware (for me - YMMV)?

So that's the poll:

1. I think distros should put all their energy into either Gnome or KDE and stop shipping buggy DE's so they can say the have both.

2. I don't care if Gnome/KDE is buggy in distro X, I want to have both so I can have my favorite DE without changing distros.

note: I've never done a poll before so if I screw this up I appologize in advance.

1. Who says it's half-assed?
2. Both are works in progress and both work extremely well
3. Variety of environment choices is a GREAT thing

If distro X provides Gnome 2.6 that works flawlessly and distro Y provides Gnome 2.6 that has features missing an/or non functioning, distro Y meets my definition of half-assed implementation.

Don't misunderstand - I am talking about the implementation of Gnome or KDE by a given distro that is flawed, not the DE itself.

If dropline Gnome can make Gnome work well, but PV has neither the time/interest in doing so (and I love slack) why bother? That is my point. If I want Gnome, I would rather KNOW that the distro I'm choosing is commited to providing the best Gnome environment. Likewise for KDE.

Mmmmmkay Well I can think of a reason:

A distribution may try to standardize on a particular window manager and contribute back to the project, but out of fear of offending the weenies who will cry foul if they include only one window manager, they include multiple - but may not devote the same time in developing and testing those other environments - they include them as a convenience.

But then, you get the yahoos who complain because TOO MUCH comes with a free OS.

I guess you can't make everyone happy.

I prefer my distro to ship with neither, I'd rather pick my lightweight window manager and compile it from source myself

At any rate I voted they should focus on one and make it good. That's one thing I hate about many linux distrobutions, they have bugs that should not be there. it's stupid, don't call something finished if it's not and by supplying a product you are claiming it's in a "finished" state.

I personally like the choice of DE with my Linux, but I also think that the spirit of Linux is not just the user's choice of programs to run, but the maintainer's choice of what to include. After all, if you really disagree you can fork it, or switch to a different Distro, or install it yourself. I think the simple fact that we all have the choice (both users and maintainers) is great! Even if sometimes it doesn't work out for the best.

I'm all for some specialization in this area. This is one of the reasons I'm contemplating a move to Ubuntu, as it seems to be a really sweet distro with a very nicely optimized Gnome desktop, as most of the apps I use regularly are gtk apps. About the only KDE app I really like is K3B. I'm sure something else will work well enough for me if I don't have that .

I've found Gnomebaker is pretty good

I have a problem with ubuntu's (dis)use of root and the fact that the installer will not allow you the option to specify the home directory - a problem if you share /home on a dual boot machine. Other than that, I liked the concentration on Gnome and found it to be one of the better Gnome desktops. (speaking as a KDE user)

I just yesterday downloaded and installed LiNuCe's Gnome packages for Slackware 10.1 and all I can say is this is a perfect example of the point I am trying to make here. LiNuCe has done an exceptional job here providing a nimble vanilla Gnome desktop. Why should PV or anyone else bother to provide a DE or any package set that is ... compiled in a mediocre manner ... I don't know how I want to put this.

I guess how I feel is that I would rather have less, but have what I DO get put together well/optimally, than have everything included because "that's the way linux does it" and have some stuff appear broken when in fact it's not broken but compiled wrong.

Well,
General Motors doesn't make light bulbs.
But it makes cars than can accept light bulbs made
by Sylvania, or Philips, or anyone else.

Wouldn't it be nice if a distro could accept any standard
bolt-on desktop? One KDE that would bolt-on to any
distro?

A guy can dream, can't he?

Well the first issue there (root account) is taken care of easily enough with sudo passwd root. 2nd issue would be easily solved by a simple edit of fstab, no?

As far as bolting on KDE (or Gnome) to anything, well as long as your dependancies are taken care of, it's really not a problem. The problem is in the specific optimizations to get it to work swimmingly with everything else the distro maker includes, this is everything from allowing easy use of other window managers instead of your DE's default to making sure all the menus are correctly updated when you install software. It's the little things that count, really. You can easily install KDE on a Gnome based distro, or vice versa, but just don't expect everything to be as well optimized as what is included as their standard environment. In a perfect world, with the ideal distro (I'm still lookin for that one) everything would integrate seamlessly without fuss, but look around, we're in the real world . Things work, but at the moment you gotta pick either specialization, or jack of all trades, master of none.

1. sudo is not the same as having a root account with a root password.

2. No.

Suppose my first distro is slackware, my user is steve, and my home directory is /home/steve. I then install ubuntu and use a shared /home partition (not a shared /home/<user>). The ubuntu installer assumes, if I use the same user name steve, that I want to use the current /home/steve as my home directory and does not allow me the opportunity to edit this to something intelligent like /home/steve-u. Other distros will not allow you to do this, and for good reason. Sharing /home/user between distros can cause some pretty flakey behavior. Attempting to change the home directory in ubuntu later can cause issues as you are the only user with sudo rights and if you screw it up (as I did the first time) you have no sudo and no root. Your kinda screwed. I learned my lesson the second time, but the installer made me conform to it and that (IMHO) is not a good thing.

way to make assumptions.. or not mention names.. either way it makes me not participate in the poll.

I prefer stock kde, gnome, enlightenment.. whatever.. I don't think they should be buggy or outrageously overhauled by the distro to the point of actually working again..

What distros should do is stop tinkering with the DEs and thus introduce bugs in them. Leave them as the developers wanted them to be.

I didn't say that. I did say that sudo passwd root would take care of that issue. To translate (since it appears to be needed), that creates a root password allowing root login and normal use of su.

As far as the home issue, I've never experience that specific situation so can't make any further suggestions, but you might get help on the issue at the ubuntu forums.