Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8

[Raphaël Jacquot <sxpert sxpert org>]

On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:12, Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me> wrote:
> 
> Hey!  Long time no talk, hope all is well.
> 
> GNOME shell should work on any graphics card 5 years or older.  We should have good data backing this up as I know that Fedora has done QA on a number of hardware to test gnome-shell in order to know what hardware profiles shell will work on.
> 
> I read many testimonials where shell has worked nicely on netbooks which don't have good 3D hardware.  A the very least, llvmpipe makes software rendering work fairly well on older hardware without a 3D card.
> 

I do use, daily, an ACER aspire D257 that I bought just last year containing the following :

* N570 2 core 2 threads CPU
* Pineview GM graphics
* 1024 * 600 screen
* 2G of ram (system maximum)

* system useability - NOT snappy :
start from a rebooted debian sid system (just to be fair)
from the logging screen to usable desktop: about 30 seconds
pressing anything (activities, calendar, user name), takes about 1s to show the appropriate window
clicking the applications tab, 6 seconds for stuff to appear
searching takes about 1s per keypress
advanced setting app is SLOW to react to clicks in the categories list (about 2 to 3 seconds)

* system useability - UI issues
some windows are way too large (and can't be resized or scrolled), for instance, system settings
My mother, 70 years old, worked on various versions of windows for 20 years or so.
when she retired, she looked at my linux desktop (at the time gnome 2 on some ubuntu), and requested that I install it on her machine instead of the windows she had
come ubuntu unity... she called in despair "I can't find anything anymore, where is my solitaire game ?"
so, I installed debian instead... suddently, gnome updates, she calls again "I don't understand, everything is changed, can't find $game anymore"
so I setup the "Gnome (classic)" as default.

guess gnome 3.8, when it shows up on said debian will leave me no choice but move her to some other desktop again.
as an alternative, Emmanuele is invited to come over to her place and give her private courses in "the new Gnome"
(ouch, that felt like an Apple keynote conclusion)

On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:17, Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com> wrote:
> writing modern software for old and
> underpowered hardware is not really an option. if you want to use
> really old hardware there are better projects that can benefit from
> contributions.

I'm not talking about OLD hardware, but even recent hardware that's sold to run windows 7 (ok, starter edition, but that's besides the point)

>> now the REAL question is :
>> Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware Upgrades ?
> 
> let's not resort to out of place hyperboles, please.

it is not an hyperbole, but a real question, coming from the heart...