The Challenges In Ubuntu Switching To The GNOME Desktop

[grok]

My gripes about Gnome resolve around their design philosophy more than the UI experience however. Their reliance on systemd, (alienating every other unix like os on earth) or making tracker dependent on everything. (breaking the crap out of system that would not want such a "feature" as NFS mounted /home setups). They are moving forward throwing in the kitchen sink when they have some stuff that's needed attention for a long time in their base like Evolution.

Wow.. they do have a component named "tracker"! What a descriptive and helpful name. /s

From apt-cache show :

"Description-en: metadata database, indexer and search tool
Tracker is an advanced framework for first class objects with associated
metadata and tags. It provides a one stop solution for all metadata, tags,
shared object databases, search tools and indexing."

Oh great, it's a database of metadata. (or a framework? ). Metadata about what? What kind of object? First class objects, do you mean like in Java or something? Or abstract objects that can be anything? (tables, chairs, animals, songs)
And why call it "tracker"? you might call the package "metadata" instead. Or "object". Oh wait, please call it "database", that will go will with the video player called "video", the web browser called "web" and the text editor called "text". "bash" is confusing, please rename it to "shell". Hopefully Gnome's next major version will be called "Desk 4.0". Some overarching daemon could control everything, we might call it "system" or something similar.

[DanL]

just because it is scrapped, it does mean it's a worthless effort

It may be worthless to you, but not to the users who enjoyed it, the devs that gained valuable experience from it, or the future users that prefer the Unity feel over vanilla Gnome Shell.
Oh, and development on Unity 8 continues, but that's another story.

[gbcox]

I'm kind of surprised Canonical didn't go with KDE/Plasma rather than GNOME. There have been many articles discussing how to customize Plasma to look like Unity - seems like that would have been an easier migration for current Unity users.

[edwaleni]

Canonical lost competition at the Start, and this since 2011 when they forced users to switch from Gnome2 to Unity, many of them migrating to MacOS.
Canonical has a long list of widely known failures
Ubuntu Phone
Ubuntu Touch OS
Ubuntu MIR
Ubuntu Unity 8

That's because of poor (or non existent) communication or due to lack of response to users [negative] feedback.
After Mr. Shuttleworth threw away, to Recycle Bin, the greatest [non] achievements of Cannonical, now he makes a 180 degree turn, back to Gnome3.

A better solution could be migration to another distribution Fedora, OpenSUSE or Arch, eventually to another DE maybe KDE/LxQT.

OK, so they have a few things that didn't work out. At least they tried to expand their ecosystem. They didn't sit in a corner and argue over Linux nuances (like systemd) they chose, they invested, they tried and for the most part, it didn't work out. But I am sure they learned a lot in the retreat than most of the distros learn ever. Companies who are willing to stretch themselves are healthy to the overall market.

[F.Ultra]

Canonical lost competition at the Start, and this since 2011 when they forced users to switch from Gnome2 to Unity, many of them migrating to MacOS.
Canonical has a long list of widely known failures
Ubuntu Phone
Ubuntu Touch OS
Ubuntu MIR
Ubuntu Unity 8

That's because of poor (or non existent) communication or due to lack of response to users [negative] feedback.
After Mr. Shuttleworth threw away, to Recycle Bin, the greatest [non] achievements of Cannonical, now he makes a 180 degree turn, back to Gnome3.

A better solution could be migration to another distribution Fedora, OpenSUSE or Arch, eventually to another DE maybe KDE/LxQT.

They didn't force users to switch from Gnome2 to Unity, they saved as from being forced to switch to Gnome3 which at the time had more hate on Slashdot than systemd manages these days.

[Delgarde]

Extensions are sometimes a crutch to make Gnome operate in a way that is similar to other desktops.

Some are essential, though. I don't use many extensions - the stock Gnome works pretty well for me - but the AlternateTab extension is absolutely critical functionality...

[Delgarde]

alienating every other unix like os on earth

If the users of "every other unix-like OS on earth" contributed more to the desktops, maybe they'd have more influence over them? But when 99.999% of the development is being done by Linux users, it's little surprise that decision-making tends to favour Linux...

[onicsis]

They didn't force users to switch from Gnome2 to Unity, they saved as from being forced to switch to Gnome3 which at the time had more hate on Slashdot than systemd manages these days.

For many Ubuntu users coming from Windows, the most accessible option was default DE Unity, offered by Canonical. Personally I used Gnome 3 Classic or without 3D acceleration - GNOME 3 2D Fall Back Mode. Let's not forget about Mate, Gnome2 fork as alternative to Gnome 3, at that time.

[Danny3]

I'm kind of surprised Canonical didn't go with KDE/Plasma rather than GNOME. There have been many articles discussing how to customize Plasma to look like Unity - seems like that would have been an easier migration for current Unity users.

I was surprised too by Canonical decision.
I found this video (in two parts) that demonstrates how awesome and customizable KDE is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1i7jAtHcw4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qatfGIq_LQs

[mike44]

Yes and how slow:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu-xenial-skldesk&num=2

Unity is doing better than Gnome, hence I might stay with Unity not only because of the workflow etc.