What Linux Users Are Saying About GNOME In 2012

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 18 December 2012 at 09:15 AM EST. Page 6 of 10. 66 Comments.

501: Stop "overproducing" it, please

502: Keep the experimental UI-spirit going and don't shy away from bold moves .. nothing a properly organised extensions system won't fix. Innovation meets user-friendliness. Thanks to efforts like GNOME 3 the future of digital workflow management looks bright indeed.

Many thanks to the GNOME community

503: Do not needlessly kill well-tested desktop models. With a little configuration flexibility, it's possible to allow for them to continue while still doing the experiment (which I do _not_ hate!) gnome is doing.

504: I appreciate the experimentalism, but christ GNOME 3 is a workflow nightmare. Go back and try again.

505: Keep doing what you are doing it is appreciated. And thank you for moving the Linux desktop into the future.

506: The way GNOME 3 is now, I would only consider using it for a tablet since it seems well-suited for that but for a desktop, I much rather Xfce. In fact, I've come to realize I prefer Xfce over Gnome 2 even but, the old interface should remain (in a polished-looking way that has all the same features and, possibly, more). I believe GNOME 3 should have "Desktop mode" and "Tablet" mode where the current GUI should be "Tablet" mode.

507: Listen to your users; don't be arrogant and think you know better than your users; don't shove worthless gnome-shell down the users' throat; stop removing features (i.e., removing extra pane, search as you type in Nautilus) for the sake of simplicity.

508: I am seriously happy with Gnome. I miss its features when I load a different OS. The amount of clutter that Unity throws on my Desktop is unbearable after Gnome 3.

509: keep at it, experiment, then stabilise.

510: Start adding back configuration options.
Make a theme API that is backward and forward compatible from now on

511: Stop removing features and hiding config options, the windows 7 control panel is actually set up quite nicely with easy access to most options in an organized fashion, but regular users don't have to go there if they don't want. Also most of the other stuff mentioned in question 9 too.

512: Put more focus on desktop/workstation usage and less on laptops/netbooks/tablets.

513: I would be very grateful if anyone could help to resolve this issue: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=280131

514: More configurations. Please, this is Linux , Not Windows! . Atleast document where everything is, or give tools to manipulate. Using third party extension just to remove an icon from the top panel is really embarrassing. Moreover, the Removable drive notification that pops up in the bottom panel is kinda annoying, and there is no method to remove it. Also, if there is a method to customize the bottom panel, it would be great! . Zeitgeist is good for search. But for people like me who doesn't use it, there should be an option to remove it/ disable it completely and still use the gnome 3 desktop without any problems. In a laptop, it isn't nice to have many running apps even in the background. So I normally switch to other DE's for comfort. Moreover, gnome shell is using about 18% of the Cpu every 1 minute or so. That's very bad for laptops. (In desktop's you may not even notice it) . It seems like as more is being integrated/removed for 'user's' it's getting more buggy/bloated/unusable. I really like what you've done there and if it's more 'Linux' friendly, It'd be Superb!

515: You should not only consider tablets. Linux is not primarily a consumption environment, we use and produce so the desktop is a real need. We are not Mac Zealots nor Windows slaves.

Your efforts engaged on Gnome 3 are more than needed to rejuvenate the field. However, your direction is obviously blunt.

You should preserve and extend your platform characteristics so others base their efforts on yours. And you should get hints from those derivatives, this would be very wise.

516: Don't waste time and oversimplify the interface due to targeting tablets.

517: No comments they haven't already heard and ignored a million times.

518: Activities view work well on single, small monitor. But with multiple monitors or large monitor, there should be a better way to switch windows. I feel comfortable with vanila GNOME Shell in my 14" laptop, but on my dual monitors desktop, I normally have to use Panel Docklets (really miss it in GNOME 3.6)

519: Stop being arrogant asses, and listen to the community. Making systemd a dependency is the shittiest thing ever done in the history of linux.

You may be dreaming of making a slick unified linux desktop, but without user satisfaction, you'll be driven to oblivion.

520: I respect the work you have done, but GNOME just isn't what I want out a DE. I think you should keep GNOME 3 and improve the performance when using underpowered computers that can only do 2d acceleration. Honestly I don't have too much of a problem with the UI, but XFCE 4.10 seems to be much closer to what I would like out of my DE than GNOME 3.

Thank you for taking the time to have a survey, and maintaining one of the best DE's around.

521: Stop packaging twitter apps with core gnome.

Just focus on stable API, usability/performance on net books, multi monitor hdmi support - the rest should be taken care of by third party developers.

522: I forgot to mention about extensions. It's very powerful and should be improved. Also, you should add questions about extensions in your survey, or have another survey just for extensions :)

523: i don't want to use evolution nor do i want to it installed on my system ,i also think it is meaningless to click when a notify appears about mounting a media to make it disappear...

524: Stop writing stand-alone applications that only run in GNOME (shell or control panel). ie color management

Shell search is slow, unintelligent, and is ugly with lots of unrelated results showing low-quality (xpm) or default (cli) icons.

525: I don't use Gnome any longer partly due to the need of a GPU for the 3D desktop, and partly due to the larger number of clicks to do the same things. I have moved to XFCE and don't miss Gnome one bit. I won't be back.

526: I don't care much of GNOME Desktop, it's crap, it's dead, most people prefer other desktops or other systems, but that'd be great if GNOME guys could stop breaking compatibility in their libraries. That'd be great for the all Linux system to have better quality and more reliable libraries with better documentation. Unless being a no-life, creating and maintaining programs in GTK/GLib is just impossible.

527: Need to engage in community and encourage openness. This whole "you have to decide if you're a Gnome app or a Unity app or an XFCE app" isn't the right attitude. Easy to use UIs are a start, but strong community is the end goal to encourage usability, and that comes from being nice.

528: fix the focus on the new window of the same app

529: When I first saw Gnome (2.x) I was impressed of its look and feel. I was almost happy with the functionality. Only some things like connectivity problems (Secure-Webdav access via proxy) distracted me and were never fixed.

Gnome 3.x I saw on the laptop of another person and I was astonished of how bad Gnome has developed. Because I saw that Gnome has gone in the wrong (i.e. not my) direction and 2.x will not be developed anymore I switched completely away from Gnome.

530: Wobbly Windows + Trail Focus + Drag windows between desktops. Thems are the features I miss most.

531: New features on GNOME3 like windows expo are excellent,
but should retain the traditional functions(eg. minimizing
windows) as well like what KDE does.

More configuration options are highly desirable.

The attitude of developers also have to improve,
they force us on how to use desktop, this is
arrogant. (e.g. a developer said FFM is outdated, sigh!)

532: Listen to your users more. Make greater considerations to flexibility and configurability. Simplification is good, oversimplification isn't. And, as always, thanks for a great desktop environment!

533: Make sure to CLEARLY communicate why you are removing features that appear integral to the traditional desktop. While the developers, I assume, have an end-goal to work towards, changing features that have become intuitive without explanation upsets the community. I enjoy using GNOME 3, and hope you keep up the good work. Thank you!

534: Stop slacking off and back doing great a _desktop_ environment.

535: take a look at Cinnamon and how they react to user feedback

536: Please replace Evolution with different applications for mail, calendar etc.

537: I haven't used Gnome for longer than a week since Ubuntu switched to Unity. I tried Cinnamon and found it usable. I tried Gnome 3 through Fedora and was horrified. This happened too long ago for me to remember specifics. I am currently using MATE. Good luck with Gnome. You are more patient that I was.

538: The GNOME shell needs to be a little more stable, faster, and responsive. Personally, I like GNOME 3, and so far gnome 3.4 was my favorite. The 3.6 notification tray is horrible. It would be awesome if GNOME's performance improves and if it becomes even more customizable.

539: Great job! GNOME3 is something, so don't give up, and keep going.

540: Keep it up, Gnome 3 was the reason I switched from my own Openbox setup.

541: Stop with the arrogant attitude, you aren't special and you are gathering hate among the community because of it.

Listen to your users. If you don't use a feature it doesn't mean the users won't use it and that you can remove it, especially if your users tell you they want it.

Look at other desktop environments, you cannot develop anything without looking at your competition. Also GNU/Linux isn't only GNOME, there has to be compatibility between software for each DE, you can't just do whatever you want if it's gonna cause problems for users of other DEs.

542: 3D accelerated desktop is killing my pc.

543: Listen to your users. Stop with the stupid tablet junk, we're all sick of it but you continue to this stuff THAT NOBODY WANTS.

544: Listen to your users. Stop with the stupid tablet junk, we're all sick of it but you continue to this stuff THAT NOBODY WANTS.

545: Please focus on desktop usability, don't hide or remove features, allow more customization such as addition/configuration of taskbar/panels and in general don't force usage paradigms on users.

546: Firstly, thank you GNOME developers for providing a modern, libre desktop!

I think there could be a better way to manage gnome-shell extensions than navigating to a website. Ideally, something should be integrated in the GNOME Control Center to search, install, remove, and configure gnome-shell extensions.

Please display volume controls (volume level and mute) in the gnome-shell volume applet for each application by default. These settings should not be so tedious to access. This functionality is available via the Advanced Audio Menu gnome-shell extension but this should be available out-of-the-box for ease of use.

Also, please consider taking more advantage of PulseAudio by exposing more advanced settings in the Control Center to allow streaming music to other computers and moving application playback between devices to compete with other solutions like Apple's AirPlay. These options are exposed via third-party applications such as pavucontrol but it would be nice to have them cleanly integrated in GNOME.

Finally, XMPP multi-user video chat in Empathy would be nice.

547: I dare not say it because I want to remain civilized.

548: listen to the users, please! :)

549: I know you guys seem to take a lot of flak recently, but remember there are quite a few people who appreciate your hard work.

550: Listen to their users.

Offer more interface options,and allow more advanced users to configure their desktop environment as much as possible. Design the GNOME desktop like GNOME 1.4, which has even more options than the
GNOME 2 desktop with the GTK+ 3.6.0 Toolkit.

New users do not have to use all the configuration options available in desktop environment. KDE users currently can use their desktop environment in its initial configuration without difficulty. More advanced users can alter the KDE desktop to fit their needs.

Users should not have to use extensions written in JavaScript to obtain a usable desktop environment.

Shutdown, restart,and suspend options should be available in all desktop environments without question.

Code most of the GNOME desktop in C with GTK+ Toolkit for better performance. Allow the use of different window managers with GNOME 3 desktop. Do not require the use of systemd startup daemon, and omit the option of using GNOME 3 with the FreeBSD kernel.

Hopefully, the GNOME desktop will survive and succeed in remaining a viable desktop environment for Unix like operating systems.

551: just thanks for your work. and please keep memory/resource usage low (it's the reason why i hate that resource hog called "kde").

552: plaese keep gnome seasion fallback it is the only reason i use gnome at all.

553: Gnome 2 is dated I'm very glad things have moved on. GnomeTweakTool seems to have many of the changes that people complained about. Put it into System Settings?
I find Activities, Applications trip a bit of a bore, what about making a hot corner in the bottom left for Applications, or on the top bar after the current application icon?
The categories of applications being on the right requires very long mouse strokes after hitting Activities, what about putting them on the right, next to dash?
Add command history to Alt-F2.
The large Browse with files after inserting removable media should disappear after 5-8 seconds.
Notifications seem to have a history, but it's not always obvious. Perhaps old messages are disappearing cleverly, I think the developer should be able to rank them. This way a critical notification would stay visible till clicked on or an action done within the application.

554: Please, PLEASE, try to make GNOME have a "smaller" UI. By that, I'm referring to how there seems to be a recent tendency to enlarge everything so that it could fit easily on an iPad. This is a serious UI mistake, and I'd hate to see it incorporated in new apps (like Videos in 3.8, looking to replace Totem). Look at Windows and Mac, and try to obtain a similar design "size" (just the size is necessary) as they do.

Oh, and listen to whoever's developing Calendars right now (it's currently a 3.8 mockup, I guess). The UI elements for it look great and seem to conform to this whole "size" issue I'm referring to. It's a great concept, and if the GNOME Team took the UI aspects of Calendars into their other apps, some serious improvements could be made.

555: extensions web interface needs a major overhaul.. maybe take Firefox Addons site as reference.

556: Don't dumb it down too much. Let the users have the final say on how the interface should behave. Read this as keep configuration options, let the users decide. Don't be like Apple and their know-it-all attitude.

557: Make it better than Unity, so i can start using it again.

558: Keep rocking!

559: just listen to the Users, bring back old interface with innovations of Gnome3.

560: Keep up the good work! Don't let those flamers get to you, you've a great piece of software there.

561: Keep up the good work, and thanks.

562: They certainly don't know the meaning of the word: "user-friendly"

563: Gnome really needs to Focus on Desktops/Laptops. The obvious try to be conform with portable devices, as seen in the ridiculous lock screen drives me mad.
Extensions should be able to interact more deeply with the gnome-shell. It would be nice to form some gnome2 like business interface (for 4:3 screens) only with extensions.

Beware of breaking backward compatibility! Especially for extensions.

I could be nice to have ubuntus HUD in Gnome. Although I never really worked with it, I think it has some potential.

564: Please dont drop the classic mode and improve it.
To require proprietary graphics drivers for desktop rendering is definitely the wrong way.

565: I really miss the possibility to have some built in options for customizing the panel (moving it, adding another one, adding some widgets, etc...) It just annoys me, if I have to install an insane amount of extensions – and even then, not be able to rearrange my panel, etc.

Couldn't there be an "I'm an expert"-Flag which can be set via dconf, which let's you be in control of your desktop layout again?

566: Keep on the good work and build your own pure GNOME distro (I'm not talking about the developper focused distro project).

567: Make advanced configuration more accessible without the need for things like Gnome Tweak Tool or dconf-editor.

568: Listen users. Otherwise all of them will go away and never return. But perhaps it's too late for this advice.

My Gnome 3.6 test turned out to be surprisingly short... and sad. Elegant, but physically impaired DE. New broken features are looking like symptoms of a severe disease, not unconsidered modifications, so it becomes uncomfortable to blame the project for buggy home-born substitutions for keyboard layout switching, new ugly icons and indistinguishable grouping in side panel of nautilus, new removed features and new frightening way in which notification panel is appearing in front of the user... May it be strong among weak & infantile tablet GUIs - if tablets ever come...

Never thought KDE to be the most ergonomic DE, but it is, now... while Gnome will have nothing to do with desktop very soon, nibbling itself into a graphic shell for non-existent tablets.

569: Although Gnome 3.x gives the appearance of a more modern and "with it" environment the reality is that it just gets in the way of just about anything you need to accomplish that is just a shade out of the ordinary. Much has been written about its shortcomings but once you slip beneath the glitz it is just frustrating. I still play with it but have moved back to KDE for my main usage.

570: Bring back the gnome 2 interface, keep the memory usage low and just be the last good traditional desktop environment in times of tablet UIs.

Thank you.

571: Could you also with own cloud add UbuntuOne support and google drive support via that third party tool. Sorry I can't remember the name.

572: Could you also with own cloud add UbuntuOne support and google drive support via that third party tool. Sorry I can't remember the name.

573: Do not break theme compatibility between minor releases if possible.
The network manager (not sure of part of the Gnome project) does not always reconnect after resume from suspend. Did not happen with Unity.

Window management becomes a little big laggy when there are more than 5-6 windows opened.

I like how the newest releases fixed the lag when searching for an app for the first time :)

574: Keep it simple but functional.

575: Please work with the XFCE team to integrate the "plumbing" better. XFCE supports my workflow, but it would be nice to have the GNOME support layer properly integrated as an option rather than the XFCE layer.

The reason I'm not using Cinnamon, is because videos lag when I do I/O.

The reason I'm not using GNOME DE, is because it doesn't support my workflow.

The reason I'm not using Unity, is because it doesn't support my workflow.

576: Don't create a touch interface for non touch computers.

577: Please fix the dual monitor mess. Gnome is completely useless for me only because it cant treat my second monitor in a descent way.

I have a workstation with a dual head where i have both screens as one workspace area. Trying to navigate windows with current G3 is more or less impossible.

578: Gnome-shell is great, but there is a thing that always annoy me. I usually use more than one desktop, but I still need more than two windows on one of the desktops. Usually one is maximised and when I want to put the other windows on top of it I have two options: Use Alt+Tab(the one I use now) or goto to Activities... select first... then goto to Activities again and select second and so on. I would like to have a way when I'm in Activities to be able to select more than one window to show on top of my maximised one.
Other suggestion is that I want to be able to move workspaces, not only windows.
And the last one is that if I have a lot of workspaces... let's say 20 in Overview they are really small(Ctrl+Alt+(Up?Down) as well). It would be great if workspaces were grouped. I mean this: let's say I have 10 workspaces and I request eleven. The eleventh one wouldn't be under the tenth one but next to it. When I go to overview I will see my 10 ones but there would be something to indicate that I can scroll workspaces horizontally to see more. The experience would be even greater if I'm able to configure how many workspaces are allowed in a column, before starting the next one.

579: Gnome developers have a common attitude about how the user should interact with the desktop which is "It should just work!", and hide functionality from the user; F**k that. I'll go back to Motif before I'll use Gnome 3.8, or any derivative of it {cinnamon, Gnome OS, or even Mate if it migrates to GTK3}. Gnome seems to be migrating toward apples' OSXI. WE HATE OSX.

580: User friendlyness is a disease. Get the mentality out of your heads right now that you need to design for average joe. Average Joe is not using Linux.
There is nothing wrong with making things look good and adding in new functionality or changing things over to use js and css. But removing features and functionality is bad. Palimpsest is an example, dont move it to stable it until it has ALL of the features of the original.

581: I can live with everything in Gnome bar the waste of desktop real estate. The amount of dead space in the GTK / Gnome shell themes are horrific.

582: Please change your attitude, GNOME is a community effort and users are part of this community.
In my opinion GNOME and KDE are two extremes with the same result, from the total minimalistic approach (can't customize how you like, because the aren't any options available) to total control of everything (can't customize how you like, because you can't find the settings to do it).

583: I don't care for dumbing down the user interface. I want DETAILS!!!!, don't try to simplify it too much. You've succeded in confusing the interface and increasing memory consumption.
Get your act together. Until then I shall be hapilly running MATE 1.4

584: Some of the extensions available, should be considered to be standard options since many users want them, like the gridlayout for workspaces. It would also be nice to have some built-in extension store, to make it easy to discover new extensions.

About tiled window management:
Since no links and files are shown on the background, there is no reason to ever show it. Hence, the normal case would be to always use all available space to display the current windows. There would probably be a need for untile specific windows and let them float on top of the tile-layer, for things like gimp brushes. Also, to make it work and easy to use it must be possible to rearange/resize the tiles by using the mouse. For that I suggest you take a look at how VisualStudio handles rearangement of docks.

585: Please, continue to support the fallback mode. This is the only thing that keeps me on using gnome 3. If I had i choise i would use gnome 2 for ever. It was fast and less resource hungry.

586: Yes. Don't fuck with your users. Listen to them and do what they want. Don't remove/hide (and then give back) menu options like power off. Don't remove/hide other often used options and menu items. I don't want to be forced to think how to switch off my computer just because you have too much time. Sorry, but DE should be invisible to the users and do the job (but the glory comes after all to you devels).

587: 1)
Without extensions or Gnome Tweak, Gnome is unusuable. With both, it is brilliant.

So work needs to be done to integrate extensions and Gnome Tweak in a better way, and to promote it.


2)
Evolution isn't bad, but it's bloated and buggy as hell. I'd happily trade it for Thunderbird, but I need an always-on (locally stored) calendar that isn't dependent on Evolution.

588: Please remove the need to change config files (for an average user) by adding sensible configuration options. Right now you see too many solutions to problems on fora which include editing configuration files. Even in comparison to Windows this can be daunting for new users.

589: Just fucking listen to users!
Return control over system-configuration back to user.
Remove stupid dependency to predefined directorys/Bookmarks in Nautilus! ( Who the fuck uses them anyway? )

590: All widgets should be smaller. I know it's a gtk problem, and not gnome problem, but it affects gnome so I think gnome team should do something about it. Because of this problem, lists show less items than any other modern desktop, buttons are too big and whole UI wastes alot of space.

591: Improving the Gnome SDK (having a good Gjs & Vala documentation for the class libraries, making a good IDE...) is a must, and it's urgent.

592: Stop removing and hiding configuration options!

593: Mutter is very good but it should be more configurable, bring it up to speed with compiz in terms of options. Plus, applications are sometimes slow to load. Make theming easier for gnome3.

594: The desktop has a tight integration, and this is good and bad at the same time. It's good because it looks nice and uniform, but is bad because you can hardly change any component of gnome.
I'm very happy with the feel of speed of the desktop, so please keep that going, don't bloat it.
Keep up the good work, guys.

595: Keep up the good work.

596: Thanks to Gnome3 and Unity, they made me switch over to Linux Mint.

597: Please, remove GNOME's dependency on non-free software. Basic functionality and compatibility needs to be fully based on free software only. Please, don't cripple GNOME with non-free dependencies. Its awful. People can't use it.

598: Thanks Guys,

Keep up the good work and happy hacking!

599: I know there will be many requests for you guys, this is just my two cents.
Gnome2 was a desktop environment where as Gnome3 is completely a tablet interface.

Although I like the seamless search of Gnome3, Gnome2 was simplistic and a better user experience due to its familiar interface.

Would like to see Gnome3 search in Gnome2 look and feel.
Keep different environments for desktops and Tablets.

600: IMHO this survey approach is skewed. "Comparing" GNOME 2 and 3 is like comparing apples and oranges.


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