Linux Mint Looks To Fork More GNOME Software, Make XApp More Independent

[cutterjohn]

KDE simply sucks so heavily that people put in the effort.

meanwhile GNOME is so nailed down that it's totally useless...

[EDIT]

Extensions are a sick half supported joke of a bone to those who want to make GNOME USEFUL again....

back in the day I preferred GTK2 and EARLY GTK3 GNOME, after GNOME became intransigent, I moved along to KDE again... early KDE was yeah not a very nice UI it was too much like windows and fugly, but oh my how times have changed...

KDE is still completely modifiable, meanwhile GNOME is our way or the highway and if we want to remove feature XYZ we will do so at any point(sooner rsther than later more likely)...

...and back to extensions?! they're a sick joke perpetuated by GNOME, they do NOT like them and they DO their best to make them useless... only good point is that they have not YET REMOVED extension support... but don't worry extensions will be a target of its teh too hard to support before long... just like every other removed features...

Seriously? does ANYONE use VANILLA GNOME? And I mean TRUTHFULLY no EXTENSIONS, no other forms of modification, and of your own volition not forced upon you by some entity? If you do, I pity you.

GNOME is the single worst DE extant in the linux DE ecosystem as it stands today IMNHO. Hell in the absence of KDE or MATE or etc. I'd rather use fluxbox, blackbox, enlightenment over GNOME... as yes they're NOT DE's in of themselves, BUT THEY"RE FAR FAR BETTER than GNOME as a basis of one... (OK maybe not totally trye but it take alot of work to get GTK usable for 3rd party DEs, probably also true of KDE but KDE is already to malleable, and QT is well QT, although kwin_wayland oh wait brings some good wayland support, better than GNOME ATM at any rate...etc. GNOME has fallen into its own little insular ecosystem at this point, which is NOT a good one... GNOME exists in it's own little echo chamber of poor design decisions and overall laziness...

Hell trying GNOME today I feel like it's a half assed touch UI that is NOT good for touch NOR is it good for traditional mouse and kb use...

some day I will have to write a full scathing review of GNOME as this only touches the surface of my problems with the GNOME DE, and why it is just a poor choice of a DE... (extensions and frequent 'feature' 'deprecation' should give you some clues...)

[/EDIT]

[You-]

This article is brilliant bait.

But I have a different question. What are the XApps everyone uses (outside linuxmint/cinnamon)?

[IverCoder]

GNOME designed the apps to exclusively use libAdwaita which may be great for GNOME, it breaks on other desktops.

That's not so accurate, though. GNOME's LibAdwaita apps get a hardcoded and consistent style and behavior regardless of whatever DE you run it on, and it never "broke" for me before. I think the actual issue you're referring to here: it doesn't follow the system color palette, which leads to off-putting and kinda "broken" appearance on other DEs.

Proper support for the color palette addendum to the XDG settings portal should fix that issue.

[IverCoder]

meanwhile GNOME is so nailed down that it's totally useless...

[EDIT]

Extensions are a sick half supported joke of a bone to those who want to make GNOME USEFUL again....

back in the day I preferred GTK2 and EARLY GTK3 GNOME, after GNOME became intransigent, I moved along to KDE again... early KDE was yeah not a very nice UI it was too much like windows and fugly, but oh my how times have changed...

KDE is still completely modifiable, meanwhile GNOME is our way or the highway and if we want to remove feature XYZ we will do so at any point(sooner rsther than later more likely)...

...and back to extensions?! they're a sick joke perpetuated by GNOME, they do NOT like them and they DO their best to make them useless... only good point is that they have not YET REMOVED extension support... but don't worry extensions will be a target of its teh too hard to support before long... just like every other removed features...

Seriously? does ANYONE use VANILLA GNOME? And I mean TRUTHFULLY no EXTENSIONS, no other forms of modification, and of your own volition not forced upon you by some entity? If you do, I pity you.

GNOME is the single worst DE extant in the linux DE ecosystem as it stands today IMNHO. Hell in the absence of KDE or MATE or etc. I'd rather use fluxbox, blackbox, enlightenment over GNOME... as yes they're NOT DE's in of themselves, BUT THEY"RE FAR FAR BETTER than GNOME as a basis of one... (OK maybe not totally trye but it take alot of work to get GTK usable for 3rd party DEs, probably also true of KDE but KDE is already to malleable, and QT is well QT, although kwin_wayland oh wait brings some good wayland support, better than GNOME ATM at any rate...etc. GNOME has fallen into its own little insular ecosystem at this point, which is NOT a good one... GNOME exists in it's own little echo chamber of poor design decisions and overall laziness...

Hell trying GNOME today I feel like it's a half assed touch UI that is NOT good for touch NOR is it good for traditional mouse and kb use...

some day I will have to write a full scathing review of GNOME as this only touches the surface of my problems with the GNOME DE, and why it is just a poor choice of a DE... (extensions and frequent 'feature' 'deprecation' should give you some clues...)

[/EDIT]

Undestandable, because you are an advanced user. But for normal people like me who doesn't want to waste time aggressively customizing every single setting under the sun, GNOME with just a few extensions is the best.

[Eirikr1848]

Anybody over at Mint planning on taking up the flag and becoming official maintainers for X11/X.org server?

With all the security vulnerabilities out there? Someone really better start maintaining that more. Maintaining and pen testing.

[Eirikr1848]

Remember Gnome 2 and KDE 3.5? They were getting polished by everyone until Gnome and KDE leadership let everyone down and broke them.

Gnome and KDE will never be good desktop environments. They have had decades to become good and have failed.

I suppose that’s why MATE (GNOME 2) and KDE 3.5 (Trinity) desktops are still around, ey?

[Yndoendo]

LOL. I was so into theming and yet migrated to just wanted a consistent desktop environment that is simple and easy to use. I learned that Gnome did it right with their display all open Windows and select the one to switch to. Versus DE like Windows always order Windows in last used. Gnome allows for temporary muscle memory by keeping the layout consistent. Windows style makes you stop and think and destroying a capability of temporary muscle memory engagement.

This allows me to use a programmable mouse and switch between windows with muscle memory. Even controlling volume from increase to decrease and mute while standard usage and gaming.

Number of comments make me laugh. I just keep thinking of Planck's principle; "scientific change does not occur because individual scientists change their mind, but rather that successive generations of scientists have different views.". Have you used a touch screen laptop with a DE? How much time have you wasted on trying to theme? I rather spend that time doing other things.

KDE and other DE help create new ideas. KDE Connect is awesome and the only way I like engage with an Android phone. GTK2 and older style environments do not properly engage with new input interfaces such as touch-pad gestures or touch screen. Example, Windows 7 suck with touchscreen while Windows 10 improved and yet still sucks compared to other DE environments like Android or iOS. Last time I started using KDE, I found my self wasting so much time to try and configure it. Gnome may need extension to improve it yet that time spent enabling them is so much less.

[Paradigm Shifter]

But currently it is stuck in the early 2010s. It's like BSD.

Constant (visible) change is the mentality which gave us Windows 8 and Windows 11, where most of the underlying bits didn't change, but the UI did... for the worse.

It's like saying a project is dead because it hasn't been updated recently. If it does what the creator(s) wanted and has no (known) bugs or vulnerabilities, why this constant demand for tinkering?

It's kind of funny in a way; if Gnome Shell was, by default, the exact desktop layout I wanted to use, I'd be happy with it. But it's not, and it does not allow significant adjustment. KDE always takes me too long to get adjusted to be "perfect" (although I've been testing 6 and it doesn't need as much adjustment...). I've found a public Hyprland config which is not too uncomfortable to use, but I don't have Hyprland on anything beyond an experimental laptop. Cinnamon needs a minimal amount of adjustment for it to be comfortable for daily use for me, the only GUI which needs less is Openbox, and that's because I just copy over config files I've been tweaking for years... so does it count? Mint made several changes to themes in Cinnamon a while ago and given how quickly they tweaked it back to close to how it was before, it wasn't a popular change. Not everyone wants or needs everything to change or (d)evolve endlessly.

One of the things I've always liked about Linux is the flexibility provided by choice. My closest work colleague a few years ago loved XFCE, and he enjoyed tweaking it and tweaking it and tweaking it constantly. I did the same with Openbox. Now, however, I'd rather my computer work with/for me, rather than actively against me. A regularly changing UI is working against me... explaining Windows 11 to a family member on their new laptop (to replace a Windows 10 laptop which just hit 8 years old and is feeling sorry for itself) was an experience. The freakout at the new Start Menu, ads scattered around, rounded corners everywhere and the "simplified" right click menu had to be heard to be believed...

[rmfx]

Please stop selling KDE as the solution… Some people including myself do not like it. It’s heavy, messy, and not very good looking (and I have other things to do than customizing it for 5 hours to get it more decent looking).

At least they do their own thing now instead of using a tweaked gnome.

I also think there is too much fragmentation but regarding the desktop environments, it’s less of an issue since that won’t change the platform compatibility too much and if there are issues, it’s on the DE team side anyway.

I wish they chose to use Cosmic instead and contribute to fixing bugs and issues but it’s their choice, and they did Mate and Cin with success already, so they know what they do.

[tenplus1]

Wouldn't it be nice if they skipped forking libadwaita, didnt use gtk or qt, and actually went with the lighter and more optimized EFL ui when making apps.