It's Easy To Guess What Angers GNOME Users

[krisher]

Gnome Shell not so bad...

I really don't understand why people hate gnome shell so much. After a week or so of using it I realized that it supports power users just as well as noobs... When used properly, it just stays out of the way, and lets you focus on using your computer to work, play, or whatever. I used to spend hours configuring each new version of gnome, kde, xfce, etc. to provide easy access to the launchers that I needed, setting up themes, panels, etc. With gnome shell I feel that this is unnecessary (OK, and difficult to some extent), since virtually every piece of functionality is easily accessible via the keyboard.

Almost every complaint regarding Gnome Shell is (in some form or another) that it is not Gnome 2. Well, it isn't. Like any radically new user interface, it takes a little time to get used to. Instead of figuring out how to do the things that were possible in Gnome 2, figure out how to use your computer to do the things that it was intended for. The desktop environment is really there to allow this, and if you are spending too much time using it then it was probably not well designed in the first place. Give it a chance, let yourself like it, and I think that you will.

[ninez]

Ok, this is officially the best troll thread here in Phoronix. Great going, Michael, 10/10!

hilarious. lol.

Gnome Shell is lovely, I'm a power user and I love it. Haters gonna hate! Go back to windows, we don't need you anway.

What does Windows have to do with users that don't like gnome-shell?? (hint: absolutely nothing!)

I don't really like gnome-shell, although i am a gnome 3 user (G3 + compiz). The thought of switching to Windows is laughable to me. (as i am a long time linux user, almost 10years) and not a Windows user aside from at work. But i also wouldn't consider myself a gnome-shell hater ~ it's easier to just disable it, and customize my own desktop, rather than wasting my time using gS or hating on it

I'm glad Gnome 3 can still be used with other WMs and compositors.

cheerz

[ludovic.silvestre]

Yes in an ideal world computers should never be shutdown. However we dont live in a perfect world, and suspend doesnt work on every machine, and even if it does, it doesnt make sense. Computers boot quick enough as it is, especially with systemd.

Completely agree, even OSX, which is considered by most people a DE for dumb people (not saying they are...), have the option to shutdown/restart/suspend the PC. In fact, that's 1 of the extensions I use for gnome-shell.

But as it stands switching between apps is a joke in gnome shell. Its impossible to tell just from a quick glance whats currently running or even how to switch to them. Instead its hidden behind alt+tab/alt+` (stupidest thing ever btw) or in the activity menu. Which means everytime someone needs to switch they need to wrestle with the keyboard or go into a menu system to get an expose type feature. And if theres multiple desktops running multiple apps this is a mess. A dock or taskbar is simple to use and it works.

Again, I completely agree. If you look at OSX, the default setting of the dock is to be always visible, because of the new users. As the user evolve in the DE's usage, he might want to save some space, so he will auto-hide the dock. As a final step of the evolution, the user can use 3 kind of shortcuts: trackpad shortcut, screen shortcut and keyboard shortcut. Windows 7 and Gnome 2 have all those steps of evolution (but with a taskbar), but gnome-shell misses the first two.

Now thats not to say completely get rid of gnome shell. I dont think thats going to happen. But it would make sense to offer a dual desktop, or even offer a power user extension pack which gives a dual desktop mode. The default could be shell as it stands, and a power extension pack to revert to a gnome 2-esque metaphor.

They shouldn't divide their resources to make to 2 DE designs, but instead keep the fallback mode and make it stable. Eventually, gnome-shell will take care of those problems that are mentioned in this thread (I hope for their own good).

[Kirurgs]

Some short thoughts about what I don't like, no rant

I'm a power user using computer to do actual work, I have my workflow which is fast, rational and suites me best. I'm using fixed workspace count - each for every project I'm working on and a couple more. I know exactly to which WS to switch to get into work for every project. I usually do that using superswitcher (pressing the same super button and clicking on number or at lower panel in the switcher), as I have 8GB of RAM, I'm restarting computer very rare, that way I don't forget things to be done and I don't have to remember that. I'm using multiple applets, like sensors applet, sysmon, netspeed, hamster, clipper and more.

Why I don't like gnome shell is:
* unlike gnome2 I can't take a look at panel with small applets to see the behavior of system, network speed, my thinkpad harddrive sensor, cpu/gpu/hdd temperatures cpu usage, cpu freqency and stuff like that, now I have all that in my upper right corner. Easy, take a look and you know what your computer is doing, not a rocket science. One may wonder why, well sysmon basically is there to check hard drive activity for background / batch tasks, cpu usage and stuff, some apps hang and then I see that immediately, network speed is to check connection usage on every of interfaces (I'm always connected to public and internal network and have routes set up), there is force app kill applet, which is needed sometimes, etc. For me - quite needed stuff and a nice extra.

*switching between apps is a joke, I never use alt tab because I have a lot of apps open in every workspace, alt tab is used to switch between previous and current task only, swirching to apps I'm using superswitcher which shows all tasks in small nice window, it's even better than taskbar, but there are time when I'm using taskbar as well. People who use handful of apps at the same time, like browser, maybe terminal, skype, won't never get why it's important to have an overview of apps running in the system, in gnome shell scale feature won't really cut, because it's big and more apps opened makes them smaller and harder to see, in superswitcher and taskbar all is the same size, I don't have to focus on big, smaller, small and tiny things to distinguish tasks from each other. Dock is not usable as well, it has all apps opened, it won't work for me, example: I have firefox profiles for each project, couple of windows per workspace and then dock show em all, how to understand easily which is which, say for 8 firefoxes? No good way.

* workspace management is for kids, as I said I have a project for every WS and I have them strictly defined, I know that 3rd is for project B and when I need I instantly switch to that and start my work whether it's empy or not. I'm not working in all the projects in all the time, so some of them might be empty. In gnome-shell I can't do that because there are ws on demand, I can't really get how I can use that for my case, also I can't guarantee that WS 7 (the last one is for my own tings), because I can't open 7 WS right away. This is distracting to a power user. Also I don't get how people work with workspaces on demand, I mean how they structure their work. If that works for them - good.

Fallback is crippled, applets won't be updated and so on, so that is not what gnome2 is now, that is not an alternative.

There are some extensions and skype integration and stuff, maybe one day there will be things I like, I hope.

[kraftman]

Ok, this is officially the best troll thread here in Phoronix. Great going, Michael, 10/10!

Gnome Shell is lovely, I'm a power user and I love it. Haters gonna hate! Go back to windows, we don't need you anway.

Gnome shell isn't Linux, but just some piece of software. You could recommend them moving to KDE or something first. As for troll thread it seems Phoronix loves a lot such threads. One time stupid and invalid conclusions from benchmarks another time some os x and bsd lover article where he wants to teach Linux users what should they do about licensing etc.

[ludovic.silvestre]

In gnome-shell I can't do that because there are ws on demand, I can't really get how I can use that for my case, also I can't guarantee that WS 7 (the last one is for my own tings), because I can't open 7 WS right away. This is distracting to a power user. Also I don't get how people work with workspaces on demand, I mean how they structure their work. If that works for them - good.

Workspace on demand is not the problem. The problem is saving your window/workspace setting when you log off/shutdown/restart.

Edit:

...in gnome shell scale feature won't really cut, because it's big and more apps opened makes them smaller and harder to see, in superswitcher and taskbar all is the same size...

For that problem, I have a possible solution for new users and power users:
1) add the app icon and name near the scaled window (so new users can associate the icon to the application);
2) when searching in the activities screen, add the opened windows result above the applications result, and used a small icon with a number to identify the workspace where the window is. For example, by typing 'Firefox', you would have at the top the opened window result with 8 icons of firefox, each with a number, and below those results, you would have the applications result.

The only problem I see with 2) is when you have multiple windows in the same workspace.

[Kirurgs]

Actually, to continue constructive debate, I would suggest that
a) activities, shown by super key, could be divided into at least two sections, for instance, pressing super, will load default layout with search, but pressing super + x, will search through opened apps. search result could be divided into WS which will be identified by WS name. Superswitcher have this sort of feature to search through window titles

b) also it would be good if dock could show apps opened on currently opened WS, make it a preference option.

[ludovic.silvestre]

Actually, to continue constructive debate, I would suggest that
a) activities, shown by super key, could be divided into at least two sections, for instance, pressing super, will load default layout with search, but pressing super + x, will search through opened apps. search result could be divided into WS which will be identified by WS name. Superswitcher have this sort of feature to search through window titles

Are you talking about soomething like this -> http://www.notgeeklycorrect.com/wp-c...erswitcher.png.
If that's the case, gnome-shell already does something similar with Alt+Tab, although it doesn't show all information right away, nor have the same organization. But let me ask you a question: when you want to switch to an app in another workspace, do you think "I want to switch to Firefox in Workspace 5" or "I want to go to Workspace 5 to see Firefox"? If you answered the last one, then Alt+Tab should be as you said. Otherwise, gnome-shell does the right thing, first show a list of applications, then show the applications in all workspace (press down arrow to get the list). Their problem is that they don't identify the app's workspace, that's why I suggested a little icon with a number.

b) also it would be good if dock could show apps opened on currently opened WS, make it a preference option.

I don't agree, but I also don't understand why you would want that (give a use case?). Anyway, the activities screen should show all information that the user can have. The dock shows all opened application (and favorites) because the middle section show the opened applications for the selected workspace. If the dock show the same information as the middle section, you loose information (the opened applications in the other workspaces).

[sebastianlacuesta]

How?

I don't really like gnome-shell, although i am a gnome 3 user (G3 + compiz). The thought of switching to Windows is laughable to me. (as i am a long time linux user, almost 10years) and not a Windows user aside from at work. But i also wouldn't consider myself a gnome-shell hater ~ it's easier to just disable it, and customize my own desktop, rather than wasting my time using gS or hating on it

I'm glad Gnome 3 can still be used with other WMs and compositors.

cheerz

Could you please give us a hint on how to do it or a link where it is explained? I'm right now trying xfce and lxde, but while I think they're not bad, they doesn't convince me.
Thanks!

[Hamish Wilson]

Problem is that they crippled the Gnome-Panel. A lot of the configurability of it is gone. I can't even slide my applets anymore, it is ridiculous.

What do you mean by this? You can add more applets, and move them about the panel. You have to press the Alt key while right clicking to toggle this (there also used to be a bug that affected the Fallback mode in the versions that Fedora 15 shipped that made it so this would not work if you had num lock, caps lock, or scroll lock on, but this has been fixed upstream). It is true that you can no longer randomly place applets, with them either having the be grouped on the sides of the screen or the centre, but the reasons for this are sound and in many ways this is actually easier to configure.

Please read these three links if you are going to keep making statements like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Panel

http://www.vuntz.net/journal/post/20...ve-gnome-panel!

http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/2011/08/do-we-really-need-gnome-2-forks.html

The truth of the matter is that the Fallback mode is just as good or better than the old panel. All the old official Gnome applets have been ported. If you do not like the Shell and preferred Gnome 2.x, just use the Fallback. It is as simple as that.