A Week With GNOME As My Linux Desktop: What They Get Right & Wrong

[antokara]

I used to be a Fedora KDE spin user for quite some time. The Gnome desktop without the minimize/maximize and task bar (by default) was daunting at first glance.
Then, one day I tried the default Fedora Gnome and installed some shell extensions to tweak the Gnome Shell to my way of working. Did not regret it.

KDE has lots of features out of the box, thing is, most home users do not need and worse, get confused by.
Take activities for example. You need to explain what they are, what they do and how they differ from virtual desktops.
How many times people I know misclicked and switched activities, then in a state of panic, called me to "restore" their desktop (which I simply switched back the activity).

Finally, I have experienced some annoying bugs which do create some problems.
Using Fedora KDE with SSO (FreeIPA) with a 90 day password expiration created a frustrating experience for my users every 90 days, why?
There was a bug in KDM which "If the user is forced to change their password and takes longer than 40 seconds to fill in the boxes then kdm deadlocks, leaving the system unusable."

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=906865

That bug was reported back in 2013. I know that with Fedora 20 KDE, this bug still exists but have not tried with Fedora 21 or 22, which may still be the case...
Point is, a simple task of changing your expired password can easily become a true TASK in KDE due to some crazy bug which no one took the time and effort to fix.

Anyway, nothing is perfect but we choose what's best for us and for me, Gnome appears to be more user friendly and more stable in many ways, let alone the fact that it will be the first desktop environment with stable wayland session support (can't wait to drop X).

[Luke_Wolf]

I used to be a Fedora KDE spin user for quite some time. The Gnome desktop without the minimize/maximize and task bar (by default) was daunting at first glance.
Then, one day I tried the default Fedora Gnome and installed some shell extensions to tweak the Gnome Shell to my way of working. Did not regret it.

KDE has lots of features out of the box, thing is, most home users do not need and worse, get confused by.
Take activities for example. You need to explain what they are, what they do and how they differ from virtual desktops.
How many times people I know misclicked and switched activities, then in a state of panic, called me to "restore" their desktop (which I simply switched back the activity).

The real problem with Activities is they were never really fully implemented, and as a half implemented idea that has just floated around KDE since the 4.x days they never really made sense, one can hope that in the Plasma 5.x days there will come a time when they're properly implemented but we'll see.

Finally, I have experienced some annoying bugs which do create some problems.
Using Fedora KDE with SSO (FreeIPA) with a 90 day password expiration created a frustrating experience for my users every 90 days, why?
There was a bug in KDM which "If the user is forced to change their password and takes longer than 40 seconds to fill in the boxes then kdm deadlocks, leaving the system unusable."

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=906865

That bug was reported back in 2013. I know that with Fedora 20 KDE, this bug still exists but have not tried with Fedora 21 or 22, which may still be the case...
Point is, a simple task of changing your expired password can easily become a true TASK in KDE due to some crazy bug which no one took the time and effort to fix.

Anyway, nothing is perfect but we choose what's best for us and for me, Gnome appears to be more user friendly and more stable in many ways, let alone the fact that it will be the first desktop environment with stable wayland session support (can't wait to drop X).

KDM is effectively unmaintained at this point, SDDM is the officially endorsed DM of KDE.

[GraysonPeddie]

Hi Eric. Very nice written article. Unlike most users here, I don't think of your article as a rant. I like what the GNOME team has going for and I'm looking forward to GNOME 3.18, even though I'm using elementary OS (Pantheon desktop environment). I understand you don't like the GNOME Shell's workflow and I don't like it either, but with some extensions like showing the dock and having it at the bottom of the screen, disabling the topleft hot corner (gets annoying when I was trying to find my mouse pointer), and a couple of other extensions, I found that GNOME Shell is very easy to use. As for Rhythmbox, my preference would be GNOME Music that you might want to install and check it out.

[sarfarazahmad]

this may seem a little off topic. in my experience and from a desktop perspective, gnome 3 feels more polished . however if you run on hardware a couple of years old. it gets sluggish and starts to get in the way. this is where kde 5 wins. gnome2 was good fast and used to get the work done quick. gnome 3 should focus on this point a little more. Overall the article makes sense, highlights the right points.

[smitty3268]

Hi Eric. Very nice written article. Unlike most users here, I don't think of your article as a rant. I like what the GNOME team has going for and I'm looking forward to GNOME 3.18, even though I'm using elementary OS (Pantheon desktop environment). I understand you don't like the GNOME Shell's workflow and I don't like it either, but with some extensions like showing the dock and having it at the bottom of the screen, disabling the topleft hot corner (gets annoying when I was trying to find my mouse pointer), and a couple of other extensions, I found that GNOME Shell is very easy to use. As for Rhythmbox, my preference would be GNOME Music that you might want to install and check it out.

I didn't either, I thought most of the article was quite reasonable.

[Luke_Wolf]

Hi Eric. Very nice written article. Unlike most users here, I don't think of your article as a rant.

It's a long article with an angry / incredulous impassioned and in many places over the top tone, therefore by definition: a rant.

[FuturePilot]

To be honest most of these complaints are Fedora's fault for the way they did their KDE.

[Ericg]

As a journalism major I'd have thought you'd understand the importance of using the neutral tone even in editorial pieces, particularly one meant to invoke a change. I really think you need to pull the article, step back for a few days from this particular piece and then edit/rewrite it

I sent an email off to Michael, as well as my faculty supervisor, asking for their opinions on the piece. If they agree that it crossed the line into ranty-ness then yes, I will pull the article and try to tone it down a bit. But if both of them say it didn't cross that line, in their eyes, then it will stay up. Which, might be the problem: I was trying to stay juuust on the good side of the line between "painfully blunt" and "ranty attack", because nothing is gained by me sugar-coating this piece or ignoring problems where they exist. The only way things can possibly get -any- better, even marginally, is by being completely blunt and honestly critical.

I have no problem with editing the article again, I have no problem if my opinion is an unpopular one and people disagree. This is an opinion piece after all. The only thing I care about is whether or not the piece is unfair. I said from day one that I would accept any and all criticism of my pieces as long as the criticism is constructive and direct-- which I am trying to do. Which is why I hope, Luke, that you do not think I am simply handwaving your posts and not taking them seriously, because I am.

[lucas_]

Eric are you aware that core members of the GNOME Design Team are employed by Red Hat?

https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/

William JonMcCann - design lead

https://wiki.gnome.org/WilliamJonMcCann

Jakub Steiner - visual design lead

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubsteiner

Allan Day
user experience designer working for Red Hat

https://wiki.gnome.org/AllanDay

In the other words GNOME Design Team can dictate GNOME developers (also mostly Red Hat developers) what they should do (design).

On the contrary all members of the KDE Visual Team are volunteers and all what they can they do is to encourage KDE developers to follow HIG and mockups. And this is the core difference between GNOME and KDE

[edmon]

to write 5 page article about something that don't have minimize and maximize.......useless .......do we have to remove the another two buttons of our mouses to follow apple designs??!?!?!?!?