GNOME 41 Released With Wayland Improvements, More Performance Tuning

[dragon321]

I just followed your STR, sorry - I don't have some special trick to make it work that I'm hiding from you.

I'm sure you're right and it's misbehaving where you are, but I can't tell you why. The code to do this is literally only about 12 lines, so it's pretty impressive that they managed to screw it up. Still, UI devs, amirite? :P

edit> The VM is on 21H1 too, so it's not that.

Nah, I just wanted to make sure I described my issue clearly. I don't have reasons to think you are hiding something or lying.

I believe you are right as well. Yeah, pretty impressive something like that doesn't work in all cases.

[ermo]

I love GNOME and look forward to this release!
I especially like GNOME with some shell extensions such as ArcMenu, Dash-to-panel, and Desktop Icons NG (DING).
There lots of great third-party apps for GNOME too such as Apostrophe (markdown editor), Gaphor (diagram editor), and Solanum (tomato clock).

GNOME Music is really, really terrible though. You cannot even skip in the song, and you cannot chose a folder where to find music, it is ridiculously bad. Rhythmbox is much better, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like its getting any love. 😢

(emphasis mine)

Isn't the bold part a bit like saying "Its default experience and workflow design does not quite do it for me. Despite its designers' insistence that extensions are discouraged, I need to fundamentally change its design ethos and assumptions in order for it to present me with the traditional desktop experience I need (a la, say, KDE Plasma or Windows 10) via the Arc Menu, Dash to Panel and Desktop Icons NG extensions (which break every time there's an update to GNOME Shell)."

FWIW, I'm writing this on a Fedora WS w/GNOME Shell 40.x box with a smattering of extensions including, yes, Arc Menu and Dash to Panel because they make it comfortable for me to switch between Windows 10, KDE Plasma Desktop and GNOME Shell in terms of muscle memory.

I deliberately maintain a couple of old desktop PCs (with identical CPUs, GPUs, SSDs and RAM Speed + amount) with poor single-threaded performance relative to modern systems and in my experience, KDE Plasma Desktop is _way_ smoother to use in terms of animations and general feeling of interaction responsiveness. And yes, I've tried switching the OS installations between the two hardware builds; the result stays the same: KDE Plasma Desktop feels much smoother to use to me.

If you gave me the option of Pure GNOME Shell as upstream intended, my personal curated GNOME Shell experience w/extensions and KDE Plasma Desktop (no extensions needed) and only allowed me to use one of them for a year, I'd pick KDE Plasma Desktop hands down. As a point of reference, I used GNOME Shell exclusively from around Fedora 19 to Fedora 29, so switching to Plasma felt alien at first if I'm completely honest.

That doesn't mean that I can't (or won't) appreciate what GNOME Shell is aiming for; it just means that for my workflow and expectations, KDE Plasma Desktop's UX and its fluidity of interaction is a better fit. Both have been relatively stable for me, which can likely (at least in part) be attributed to the fact that I use older hardware supported by open drivers only.

Are users "stupid" for preferring default GNOME Shell? No. Are users "stupid" for preferring GNOME Shell with Arc Menu and Dash to Panel? No. Are users "stupid" for preferring KDE Plasma Desktop? No.

Once people realise that personal preference is just, well, personal preference and that adopting a "live and let live" stance towards people's needs, tastes and lived experiences is probably a wiser stance overall, I would argue that this space wouldn't be quite so contentious. Not that it matters of course, since the people arguing here and insinuating that others are stupid for not sharing their experiences and points of view still only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the market for computer users anyway.

If you made it this far, good on you. I hope you have a pleasant day.

[indepe]

Gnome should at least include Dash to Dock with all the original options (more than Ubuntu). All popular OS'es have something like that: MacOS, Ubuntu, Windows.

"Floating Dock" kinda works with gnome 40.4, but new windows are created underneath the dock, as if it wasn't there, which is annoying.

Considering that the extension mechanism, and its maintenance/updating, generally doesn't work that well, gnome's minimalism goes too far.

(It probably was the lack of a stable API due to which the Dash to Dock is not available on gnome 40 anymore. Quality extensions seem to disappear more quickly than they appear, so pointing in that direction doesn't really help.)

Now on Gnome 41, "Floating Dock" doesn't seem to work anymore either. So apparently no visible (vertical) dock works anymore.

Subjectively, this gives me the feeling of a less capable OS.

EDIT: Actually, works again in Gnome 41 after new version update + restart (in that order). However, new windows still all appear underneath the dock (on the left side). Unfortunately, that might be why it is called "floating" dock....so I wonder if Gnome 40/41 does not have an API for moving the location of new windows anymore, or if that's "just" the different dock concept...

EDIT 2: Among other things, I was thrown off by there being at least 2 extension pages (currently):

https://extensions.gnome.org/extensi...floating-dock/ Currently shows versions for up to Gnome shell 3.38
https://extensions.gnome.org/extensi...floating-dock/ Currently shows versions including for Gnome shell 41

[arQon]

Can you describe what you did to check this?

I just followed your STR, sorry - I don't have some special trick to make it work that I'm hiding from you.

I'm sure you're right and it's misbehaving where you are, but I can't tell you why. The code to do this is literally only about 12 lines, so it's pretty impressive that they managed to screw it up. Still, UI devs, amirite? :P

edit> The VM is on 21H1 too, so it's not that.

[dragon321]

* checks...

Nope, that's a lie, on W10 at least. Can't speak for earlier versions since I don't have VMs of those any more.

I checked this again (on Windows 10 version 21H1) and it still working in the way I've described before. So "lie" is not very suitable word here. Can you describe what you did to check this?

[oiaohm]

* checks...

Nope, that's a lie, on W10 at least. Can't speak for earlier versions since I don't have VMs of those any more.

That not 100 percent correct. Windows 10 can have this fault in one set of versions. High security applications on enterprise version going full screen and the show desktop button had all low security applications. Welcome to flushed. Yes this is Windows 10 enterprise setup a particular way problem. All other versions it should work as you checked. Yes windows 10 enterprise not setup for secured applications will not have the problem either.

So it is possible for a person to seen this behavour at a job placement place or equal with locked down windows 10 enterprise clients and walked away with that this is general windows behavour when really it is particular windows 7/8/10/11 corner case behavour with the enterprise versions. The behavour from secure applications appears at windows 7 enterprise versions Yes this is wacky because Windows 7 Ultimate does not have the behavour even that the feature set lists by Microsoft suggest it should have the behavour as well.

[arQon]

Well, not really. Show desktop button on Windows fails to restore minimized windows if you run something else when they are minimized.

* checks...

Nope, that's a lie, on W10 at least. Can't speak for earlier versions since I don't have VMs of those any more.

[krzyzowiec]

Yeah, it almost exactly the same as the launcher in Win 8, less functionality and slower. Even MS recognized that their full screen launcher was not exactly great idea. OSX has their launchpad but they still keep dock and you can easily launch apps just fine from Finder. Oh... and you can clear windows from desktop to access it and than bring them back in OSX all you need to do it is touchpad gesture or single shortcut so no workflow interruption.

I personally do not use desktop icons, but I know a lot of people who does and their workflow would have been completely broken without desktop icons. And most people strongly dislike altering their habits so no chance for GNOME with them.

I stopped using Windows, but I actually enjoyed the Windows 8 interface when I picked up my laptop long ago. I'm glad I can enjoy the same thing with Gnome. I dislike altering my habits too, but I'm glad to lose desktop icons. They were annoying to manage and rather pointless. If you want to launch apps, you have a launcher for that. If you want to access files, you have a file manager for that. It's simpler and clearer, and requires less management.

[Mateus Felipe]

And that gentlemen, is what makes gnome sad... you need many extensions to make it usable...

an extension to add icons to the "desktop" that is not a desktop.... sad... just sad...

I usually use raw GNOME with no extensions. I don't used to use desktop icons not even when they were built-in. Using icons in desktop hinders my workflow.

[Sonadow]

Kindergarten-level courses in both reasoning, and reading comprehension, are strongly indicated; and---quite obviously---seriously needed. But, then again, you may need to start with the more basic of these courses...

Just for you---

"There is no such thing as an ‘empty mind’. ‘Empty minds’ are filled to the brim with garbage---hence the impossibility of putting anything into an empty mind."---Eric Hoffer

and (you may---no; make that "you WILL"--- need to get help with this one)---

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."--- Mark Twain

The day you can justify to me clearly how a blog post from a Solus maintainer carries more weight than a blog post of a Gnome developer responding to said comments on the very topic that is being politicised on Twitter is the day I will spare a minute of my time to think about considering whether you should be even taken seriously.