GNOME's Need To Broaden Its Audience For Greater Impact & Funding

[linner]

In my experience KDE has always been unstable as hell. I blame it mostly on Qt but who knows. GNOME is just plain unusable and gets in my way. Unity is the same way, always in my face annoying the bejesus out of me.

So I use XFCE. Lightweight, relatively bug free, and I don't even have to think about what desktop environment I'm using. When I set up systems for non-computer people XFCE is always their favorite because it's just straightforward to use.

The only other acceptable DE might be GNOME Flashback but it's heavy and can be buggy like GNOME. But it uses the newer modern GNOME stuff unlike MATE.

[Grim85]

Yes, I am sure they are just awful and no one wants them anywhere near their system. About like all those horrendous Ubuntu respins.

Spins are the same level of support as the Workstation versions. The KDE version is really good and doesn't get the sort of attention it deserves, because traditionally Fedora is associated with Gnome so heavily

[Mez']

For me, my main PC uses KDE, and my laptop uses Cinnamon (my dad wanted to try linux since he was fed up with windows, and settled on that, so I use it to have a reference when troubleshooting). A big thing for me is screen space efficiency, and is a big gripe for me on most DEs - Gnome has insane padding, KDE can feel like toolbar hell, Cinnamon actually does okay (I'd still like nemo to merge it's toolbar and titlebar, and the cinnamon memory leak that the developer refuses to acknowledge). Mate feels sane, if not ideal. Tiling WM's have just never clicked for me, though they would really scratch my pixel efficiency itch. GNOME has always felt so wasteful and counterproductive, with a massive dock and poor window management, the need for gnome-tweaks, the hostility towards extensions and the idea of different workflows, and the "GNOME 40 is revolutionary" when it's just felt incremental at best. Cinnamon and MATE have felt logical enough that they would not benefit from a major UI overhaul, and KDE seems to actively challenge the community to be as creative as possible with making your desktop environment fit your goals instead of adapting to the desktop.

I guess my main point in that rambling is: if they're actually looking for external input, they should be ready to have their core paradigm challenged, and be ready to adapt to that. "My way or my way" only works when you don't need outside help (see apple, hobby projects.) Canonical have made several missteps, but I have to applaud their willingness to adapt to the wants of their userbase, memorably the window controls on the left or right and 32bit support. Both times they were adamant in their position being right, but when the community showed them otherwise, it took them like 2 weeks to accept it and move in the direction wanted by the community. I haven't seen that from anyone else that I can remember.

I hop on that train, seems like I could go somewhere interesting with it.
I will just detach the last car, the one wanting to merge nemo titlebar and toolbar, it's inefficient and slowing down the train for no good reason.

[Old Grouch]

De gustibus non es disputandum.

Arguing over which is the best or most correct desktop is futile and stupid. What is important is that the choices available work well for the people that choose them. If the funding from the userbase is insufficient for the developers' needs, then either the individual users need to pay more, or the userbase needs to expand, or a combination of both (or you could have fewer users paying considerably more for 'purity' - maybe Apple is a case in point).

I use neither GNOME or KDE, and the desktop I use is just about good enough for my purposes, but is by no means perfect. I just hope the choice beyond the 'big two' continues after Wayland. Good luck to GNOME, but I'm not in its target userbase. If I am, they've missed by a country mile.

[Slartifartblast]

What's old is new again, Gnome developers I suggest you read this and think how to make your UX & UI a less shit experience for users.....

[acobar]

Ah the ol’ “Gnome won’t listen” narrative. You are partly right. Gnome listens to do’ers and ignore the sh!t posters. And like any meritocracy you need to prove yourself. Lack skills, patience and commitment? Then you are out. Got the skills and commitment, great then come and do crazy and disruptive like shell40 designs and libadwaita.

Any sane upstream need to discriminate against idiocy. Linux got an extremely efficient method. Linus flames a few people each year. Keeps the insecure people away and works like napalm against complacency. Gnome? They are a bit too nice in my opinion. And that’s the main problem.

Keep your eyes closed, I'm sure it is the best way to solve the problems with FOSS software, and while we are at it, shut off lights to prevent people to see them, never mind things still keep been noise and smelly.

Pretending to know better does not mean to really have an upper hand. That has been the main fault of leaders of many project I gave patches to or appointed glitches on. Also, it is a ticket to failure or irrelevance. It has happened already many, many times, but some never really learn the lesson and go reproducing their mistakes throughout their lives, proud of them.

[andre30correia]

all kde users come to comment this threat, gnome works and since canonical use it again it improves a lot, its fast and pro, the workfload is good, people use the pluggins they want, easy to make a custom ux

[Charlie68]

Whenever we talk about DE, here is the usual story KDE is better, Gnome is better, XFCE is better .... actually we are lucky because we can choose. Stop throwing shit on what you don't like or don't meet your expectations. Each DE has its pros and cons, each DE has bugs, but all DEs are usable and they all work fairly well. Use what you prefer and live happy!

[Filiprino]

If the ideals of GNOME are those of Open Source, I'm out.

[skeevy420]

I’d bet my left testicle icons are easier to discern from the rest of the visual information and therefor quicker to locate. Additionally removing icons is a disservice individuals with dyslexia as the words themselves present an interaction/interface challenge.

As a dyslexic.....eh.....it's mixed. Simple icons, like the outline-like ones that KDE Breeze and Firefox use, get just as flippy and screwy as letters. Icons like that are actually less helpful. As much as I like how nice and clean they look, I find them just as difficult to use day to day. I prefer full color 3d icons like Windows 10 and KDE Oxygen have. I find that that style doesn't go all flippy and screwy on me.

What I did for the longest time was treat different sized word blocks as Icons. "File" was an icon. "Options" was an icon. Since there is usually only the one Big F, the Big O (I should rewatch that), the Big H, all I have to do is find the right capital letter within a block. It also helped that the letter was also underlined and tied to a keyboard shortcut.

Two visual clues tied to a physical activity. I found and still find that easier than an Icon. Especially first use of a program. I might have to read it two or three times, but I won't be surprised by what it does.

Icon-Only interfaces feel like lots of guesswork that force me into having to point and click until I figure out what does what. They actually make me feel like I have no idea what's going on until I've clicked everything to see what's what. That's what I meant above by them being less helpful. We have to learn what they do and they might go all flippy screwy depending on the artistic style.

I hope you appreciate a dyslexic's view on the matter.