GNOME Shell UX Continues Improving For GNOME 40

[dragon321]

During the Gnome2 days Linux Desktop adoption in general was on the rise and Marketshare hit at least 3%, then Gnome 3 launched and Gnome lost 2/3rds of its userbase and overall Linux Desktop marketshare dropped below 1%... Now it's at around 2%, lets see how much marketshare they can lose and how bad Gnome can hurt linux this time...

Can you prove it?

I have yet to read a strong Gnome or Fedora fan say just once "OK, I don't like what they did there". It really feels like a sect dumbed down of their free will.

As Fedora and GNOME user - I don't really like new design. I prefer vertical orientation and actual Overview screen. I also don't like how actual GNOME sometimes performs in Wayland session (input lags are annoying) and lack of xdg-decorations support which causes some Wayland applications to appear with poor or no decorations at all. I would be probably fine with only GTK applications but I'm not using only GTK applications. I don't really like not having a tray. Should I say more or it's enough for you?

You are making weird assumptions. First saying that vanilla GNOME is unusable for anybody which is obviously false (although I can agree it's not the desktop that most users would expect, but "most" is not "everybody") or comparing GNOME users with Apple fanboys. And all of this without any arguments, just "I don't like it so it has to be bad for everyone". Is it really that difficult to understand not everyone will share your opinion? Also what is wrong with sentence like "If you don't like then don't use it"? Isn't Linux is about freedom? Freedom is not only for users but also for developers. GNOME developers can make their desktop look like they want any you have freedom to ignore them and use something else. If you don't want to accept their vision, why they should accept your vision? Maybe all Linux desktop environments needs to follow traditional metaphor and making something different is forbidden?

GNOME is not unusable. GNOME is different.

[JackLilhammers]

GI_Jack I agree with you. Am I failing to understand the contrast with my post? 🤔

[Mez']

Everything is also a few clicks away. What's the big deal?



Why does it matter so much if it takes 1 more click?

The big deal is adding extra steps for no valid reason. Would you put your coat rack further away from your entrance door just for the sake of it being irritating to go grab your coat whenever you leave?

Nobody can decide what is good for you, but yourself. You are free to choose which software you use, and you are free to choose what works for you best. If you feel that GNOME is not the best for you, then just use what works for you. That's completely fine.

That's actually my point, nobody can decide what's best for me. But Gnome devs try to though.
Which is why I disagree (as respectfully as you, it's implicit). I feel forced to use whatever they decided since they don't give you alternative options (especially as they strip down features regularly). 3rd party extensions can sometimes make up for it but it has nothing to do with Gnome devs. They don't take responsibility.
I like the Unity/Gnome 3 metaphor, and I'm tired of re-learning (at home MS from Dos to Windows XP to Gnome 2 to Unity to Gnome 3 and Budgie, while still forced to use W7 then W10 at work). We don't all have the time to tinker every few months and re-learn. I like the idea behind Gnome 3 or Unity, so I don't want to leave it (unfortunately Unity is unmaintained), but I'm disappointed in how little Gnome devs care about users.
So much so that I tried to move to Budgie. But there's still a few blockers to make it my daily driver. And it's time-consuming to report them and/or wait for them to be featured or solved some day.

Once again, I respectfully disagree. To me, part of the appeal is that I don't need to waste any time configuring, it just works and looks good by default. I use it with exactly 0 extensions.

I'm all about choices and options, so I'm glad bare Gnome works for you. Whatever suits you best and with which you feel empowered is my go-to.

For me, part of the issue is that Gnome without extensions totally gets in my way and prevent me from being efficient. I have no other choice for productivity's sake to spend a lot of time configuring it (through unsupported extensions breaking up at each release unfortunately). Another issue is how cheap and outdated stock theme looks like. My eyes need something more modern, more refined and cleaner. User theme already makes 0 extension impossible.

I use Activities Configurator, Caffeine, appindicators (Ubuntu or Manjaro), Compiz windows effect (love wobbly), Dash to Dock, Frippery Move Clock, GSConnect, Mpris Indicator button, Multi-Monitor addon, No Topleft Hot Corner, Onboard Indicator,OpenWeather, Panel OSD,Pamac Updates indicator, Sound Input & Output Device Chooser, Simpler Off Menu, Syspeek-GS, Unite, User Themes.
Some of them are obviously not for Gnome to take care of, but at least half of them are basic stuff to make up for Gnome lack of options, design flaws or plain issues.

[Mez']

Mez' Yeah I understood what you meant. Of course your opinion is really not relevant now that the large distributors strongly disagree with you.

Of course you can threaten to “give bad reviews” and “take your business elsewhere” but no one really cares. The distributors are happy and that’s pretty much the only thing that matters.

Long Live The Meritocracy.

Actually, large distributors agree with me. That's why they ship several extensions by default.

[GI_Jack]

Meritocracy is a farce, especially in the open source world.

The "distributors" are perfectly fine with gnome because linux they don't have to appeal to a wide desktop user base.
You see, outside of we silly little nerds, nobody cares about gnome, kde, or whatever.

Red Hat doesn't care in the slightest for a full featured desktop, because it's not needed on the vast majority of RHEL installations.
And we've seen how much they care for the community.

Canonical maybe is a little more invested in the desktop, in fact they're the reason why we've seen such big performance improvements in the last few years.
And they ship with a few extensions just to avoid freaking out newcomers.

I hate to be that guy, but this is the one instance this is wrong.

When GNOME 3 came out, Linux desktops where at the verge of going mainstream. Pulse Audio finally worked out all the major kinks, so did network manager. GNOME2 was stable, mature and competant. GNOME won the GNOME vs KDE war. Vista was the latest windows.

Ubuntu had more features and a better UX than Windows XP and more stable than Vista, which was a shitshow. There was a supported nVidia binary driver that just worked with jockey on ubuntu, and was feature complete and performance wise equal to windows. Most drivers where now in the kernel, the new 802.11 stack was merged. Wireless and sound worked, mostly.

At this point, Ubuntu had a software store and no one else did.

Linux Desktop usage was around 5%, and was in position to be a serious competitor. There was nothing really holding it back.

Then GNOME 3 happened. And then the flame wars. And now you have GNOME, Cinnamon, Unity, and MATE, and more yelling than the KDE vs GNOME days. That was the end of the linux desktop.

[JackLilhammers]

JackLilhammers Oh the ol’ “The distributors are not really into desktop Linux unless they support my favorite desktop” trolling.. There’s really nothing to answer then.

Not at all, they do not care because linux on the desktop is negligible. Because Linux is profitable on servers.

Have a look at GNOME’s Gitlab and the GNOME affiliated Freedesktop projects. There’s devs from all the major distributors and they have no problems working on a single desktop.

👏because👏it’s👏the👏most👏efficient👏way👏of👏working👏

Gnome and Gtk are developed mostly by Red Hat and in lesser parts Canonical and others.
👏Because👏it’s👏the👏way👏it👏is👏



https://hpjansson.org/blag/2020/12/1...ying-of-gnome/

[JackLilhammers]

Long Live The Meritocracy.

Meritocracy is a farce, especially in the open source world.

The "distributors" are perfectly fine with gnome because linux they don't have to appeal to a wide desktop user base.
You see, outside of we silly little nerds, nobody cares about gnome, kde, or whatever.

Red Hat doesn't care in the slightest for a full featured desktop, because it's not needed on the vast majority of RHEL installations.
And we've seen how much they care for the community.

Canonical maybe is a little more invested in the desktop, in fact they're the reason why we've seen such big performance improvements in the last few years.
And they ship with a few extensions just to avoid freaking out newcomers.

[Venemo]

Key strokes? You're either an old dinosaur from before mice or a dev. Normal users only use the keyboard for a few shortcuts and to type.

Everything is also a few clicks away. What's the big deal?

I don't want my laptop to suspend when I close the lid. And the power in my desktop is 3m away. And doesn't even suspend. Thanks, but no thanks.

I have an uptime of 135 days on my desktop (broke it at 120 on my laptop, sadly). I'm using suspend several times a day, I don't want to click 3 times instead of 2 to do it. That's another extension (Simpler off menu) for basic stuff. If you want Gnome to be the least intrusive and not get in the way, you quickly pile up extensions for trivial stuff. That's how flawed it is. If there were basic options, it would solve these flaws by empowering the user to decide what's best for him.

Why does it matter so much if it takes 1 more click?

Yes, they do. They've decided what's best for me (and boy, it isn't) with little configurability for me to get back to what's actually best for me.

Nobody can decide what is good for you, but yourself. You are free to choose which software you use, and you are free to choose what works for you best. If you feel that GNOME is not the best for you, then just use what works for you. That's completely fine.

I need at the very minimum 12 external 3rd party extensions to have it somehow work for me. And the same goes with other users. They've never listened or taken responsibility for their shortcomings. It's a top-down rather than bottom-up approach.

Once again, I respectfully disagree. To me, part of the appeal is that I don't need to waste any time configuring, it just works and looks good by default. I use it with exactly 0 extensions.

[JackLilhammers]

bash2bash
Gnome 3 caused more than a split. It caused 4 desktop environments!

[bash2bash]

Gnome 3 caused a collapse of Fedora's user base, which was partially saved by releasing the Spins (alternative desktops like xfce and cinnamon).

No other desktop has caused such a huge split in its user base than gnome3. The android/mac "mobile" interface feels great to small-time users and users who mainly work with a single application (like a browser), but everyone else plainly hates it.

Lets be honest, gnome3 devs insist on a UI/UX design that clearly has issues and causes a lot of pain. Essentially, they are only causing problems to their own project, by insisting on keeping up with this mobile-first design on desktops.

Personally, I've moved on to Cinnamon, its modern, practical, usable and clean. Plus, it uses less memory, requires less packages to run, has fewer dependencies. Gnome3 is a looser in all aspects.