Re: Gnome is a problem for OEMs

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Daniel:

As mentioned the "System Administrators Guide" is the document which
covers this, but it is a bit out of date.  To my understanding, GNOME
supports the following interfaces for OEM's:

1) Application menu integration - refer to the Desktop Menu
   FreeDesktop specification
2) MIME Integration - refer to the Shared MIME Info FreeDesktop
   specification
3) Icon integration - refer to the Icon Theme FreeDesktop
   specification.

   http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards

4) /usr/share/gnome/default.session seems to be a reasonable
   interface to specify additional programs to launch on startup.
   Since this isn't a FreeDesktop spec, I suppose it could change
   in the future (hopefully not in a backwards incompatible way
   for GNOME, though).

Yes, there does not seem to be a Stable mechanism for adding icons
to the panel or the background.  These have been mentioned before
as interfaces that would be good to add.  Any additional ones
you know would be useful to hear about.

I suspect that at some point the SysAdmin guide will be updated to
reflect the above (and maybe any other interfaces I'm missing).

Brian

> I work for an OEM that eagerly wants to sell Linux computers.
>
> I've spent all afternoon trying to figure out how I, as an OEM, can 
> configure Gnome before giving it to a user. I just want to change some 
> icons on the panel and maybe a menu entry.
>
> After exhaustive search, I can only conclude that there is no way to do 
> this. You are stuck with what the Gnome developers think everyone in the 
> world needs. You can't even add a new icon to the default panel. Every 
> user must learn how to locate software on their own and add icons on 
> their own, and if they don't like it, they can go use Windows.
>
> I have serious doubts about Linux being "ready for the desktop". I work 
> for a very pro-FOSS OEM. We contribute heavily to open source projects. 
> We are *trying* our darn best to give Linux desktops to our customers 
> and we do have customers interested in trying them. Everything is in 
> place, but Gnome just doesn't give us any way to offer even the tiniest 
> bit of configuration. Not even an "OpenOffice icon" on the panel. So 
> we'll have to keep selling Windows computers instead.
>
> The problem is not that Microsoft has a deal with us to block Linux, 
> they don't. It's not that we don't know Linux, I've been using 
> exclusively for 8 years. The first computer I owned ran Slackware Linux. 
> I know infinitely more about Linux than Windows. The problem is not that 
> there is no support, *we'll* support it. the problem is not lack of 
> demand. We have demand. The problem is that Gnome just doesn't give us 
> any way to make any adaptations, no matter how small. The problem is 
> that the damm thing just wasn't designed with an OEM in mind.
>
> Daniel.