Re: gnome-shell-list Digest, Vol 19, Issue 19

[Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>]

>  I think it is very helpful for gnome-shell to have the effects turned off when it detects a video card is not capable of 3d acceleration due to these scenarios: old video card or no driver installed.

The entire Gnome Shell UI is build using Clutter and it uses OpenGL to draw everything. So basically, if you don't have a graphics card and a driver that supports OpenGL you will not be able tu run Gnome Shell.


> This is only my opinion, effects must be trimmed down to only a few, not like compiz to avoid complexity. Compiz in my opinion is still not production ready, application compatibility must be the primary goal when developing effects for the gnome-shell, for example, if I cannot run 3d games while gnome-shell is the default DE, then it is a show-stopper, not to mention blender, CAD and other 3D applications.

Compiz has been production ready and used in distsributions for very long by now. When stating about Compiz as to complex for the end user you might be thinking about the Compiz Config Settings Manager which is a very feture rich and complex configuration tool.
    If you feel baffled by the CCSM or feel that your grandmother will probably not want to get into all that just for changing an animation you might want to look into the Simple Compiz Config Settings Manager, which as the name hints is a more simple approach to configuring Compiz. Now admittedly it is not a revolution when it comes to design but it does the job.
    The point I'm trying to make is even tough the underlying architecture is expandable and configurable in every way the user might want it does not mean that the every day user has to face that interface. In fact there are few situations in a modern Linux distributions where the user is required to edit config files, well except of xorg.conf, which could be regarded as the most direct way of configuration. The trick is hiding away the complexities for the every day user but still having the configurability there for the enthusiast.
    The reason why it is important to ensnare the enthusiast is because that is the very thing that shapes the Linux community. There are a few sets of companies that hire have personnel working on various open source projects that the end consumer ends up using, *tips his hat at the red one* , but that does not diminish the importance of the community.

So I would argue that it is important that Gnome Shell is extensible and configurable because that is what will benefit "Linux" as a platform in the long run.

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