GNOME Shell In Ubuntu 19.04 Should Be Faster, Ubuntu Devs Still Working On New Installer

[treba]

We've been hearing of a lot of "big" performance improvements in Gnome every now and then for the past few years and so far NONE of these optimizations were noticeable to the naked eye. I bet this one will be under the same category. I hope I'll be proven wrong by April.

I'm not sure what you intend by such language, because if NONE of this was noticeable for you eyes, then they simply can't see. But to make one example: at the beginning of the year they discovered they weren't doing proper garbage collection, leading to excessive ram consumption. The now working gc has spiked CPU usage in certain places, making for example the lamp/show applications animation very sluggish. This again has been mostly fixed now, so now we have acceptable ram and cpu usage.
For me, there was a big step from 3.28 to 3.30 and I expect an even bigger one to 3.32 as most/all really bad performing areas will have been sorted out plus lots of improvements all over the place.

[fuzz]

No, its about designing a user interface for human beings.
It is about neuroscience and neuropsychology.
It is about science.

Context switching in the human brain is an expensive operation. The HCI and UI should strive to minimize it.

Human multitasking on Wikipedia
Multitasking: Switching costs by American Psychological Association
The True Cost Of Multi-Tasking on Psychology Today (40% productivity loss)

You are assuming everyone context switches for the same reasons. You are wrong.

[uid313]

That is a problem with how you work, not GNOME. Not everyone thinks like you. Welcome to life.

No, its about designing a user interface for human beings.
It is about neuroscience and neuropsychology.
It is about science.

Context switching in the human brain is an expensive operation. The HCI and UI should strive to minimize it.

Human multitasking on Wikipedia
Multitasking: Switching costs by American Psychological Association
The True Cost Of Multi-Tasking on Psychology Today (40% productivity loss)

[fuzz]

When I am working on something, I want to see what I am working on while opening another application.
When using Dash in GNOME Shell it opens it fullscreen and I lose sight of what I am working on.
So then my mind switches context from one task to another, and then back again.

That is a problem with how you work, not GNOME. Not everyone thinks like you. Welcome to life.

[uid313]

I don't see what the problem is; I use GNOME just fine on a 13" laptop and a 55" desktop screen, along with some other sizes in-between. Had no issue with Windows 8 either at the time on desktops.

When I am working on something, I want to see what I am working on while opening another application.
When using Dash in GNOME Shell it opens it fullscreen and I lose sight of what I am working on.
So then my mind switches context from one task to another, and then back again.

Sure, but that is on a laptop.
This full screen app picker / Dash is great on phones, tablets and smaller laptops.
But not on a 24" screen on a desktop computer.

I don't see what the problem is; I use GNOME just fine on a 13" laptop and a 55" desktop screen, along with some other sizes in-between. Had no issue with Windows 8 either at the time on desktops.

[uid313]

I disagree. I bought a touchscreen laptop that came with Windows 8 out of the box and it was pretty nice. Maybe it feels worse on a desktop.

Sure, but that is on a laptop.
This full screen app picker / Dash is great on phones, tablets and smaller laptops.
But not on a 24" screen on a desktop computer.

[bearoso]

We've been hearing of a lot of "big" performance improvements in Gnome every now and then for the past few years and so far NONE of these optimizations were noticeable to the naked eye. I bet this one will be under the same category. I hope I'll be proven wrong by April.

That about sums up this work. It’s just a bunch of small things. I’ve tested most of the patches, and they’re beneficial, but not miraculous. Daniel has the right ideas and frame of mind, but nothing has been done regarding the separation of the shell UI and the compositor into different processes, and that’s where the big performance improvements lie. I don’t think anyone maintaining the project is willing to stir the pot to do that.

[cynical]

I like GNOME, it is really good! ❤

But the bad thing about GNOME Shell is the Dash which not only is slow, but it covers the whole screen so it is very disturbing and intrusive in workflow as it introduces a context switch in the workflow. Which is why avoid the Dash screen and instead use ArcMenu and Dash-to-panel.
The Windows 10 approach is much better. Microsoft tried an approach similar to Dash in GNOME Shell in Windows 8 and it was hated and abandoned.

I disagree. I bought a touchscreen laptop that came with Windows 8 out of the box and it was pretty nice. Maybe it feels worse on a desktop.

[jacob]

We've been hearing of a lot of "big" performance improvements in Gnome every now and then for the past few years and so far NONE of these optimizations were noticeable to the naked eye. I bet this one will be under the same category. I hope I'll be proven wrong by April.

That's not really true, there have been very visible improvements over the past 2 years or so. But there are many problems left, which is why it's good that Canonical has someone working on them.