GNOME 3.8 Release Candidate Now Available

[F i L]

I'm really looking forward to this. I have run Gnome Shell on Fedora, Ubuntu and now openSUSE 12.3. Fedora is nice, Ubuntu's Gnome distro is total crap and openSUSE 12.3 handles like a dream. While the liveusb of Gnome 3.8 that I played with was much snappier in certain respects, the Gnome 3.6 implementation in openSUSE 12.3 is terrific. I had been running the Ubuntu 12.10 Gnome Shell Remix and it was a very buggy experience.

I'm really looking forward to 3.8 and don't really get the hatred towards Gnome Shell. Yes, it is a bit different and they have gone a bit nuts with taking features out, but most of them are restored with a few extensions. I have about four or five I install I'm ready to go. The Dash to Dock is one that people should check out if they haven't.

Yeah the Gnome hate is odd to me too. It's almost like people try Gnome Shell for 10 minutes then get pissed there's no taskbar or minimize button (which they're used to), so they rage-quit instead of trying work with Gnome Shell as it was intended to be used (multiple activities, search, etc). I do think things like "Dash to Dock" should be built in (at least as an option) so there's not breakage with the extension from one version to the next. Still, people should give it a bit more time. You can get a pretty "classic" desktop with only a few extensions.

[lakerssuperman]

I'm really looking forward to this. I have run Gnome Shell on Fedora, Ubuntu and now openSUSE 12.3. Fedora is nice, Ubuntu's Gnome distro is total crap and openSUSE 12.3 handles like a dream. While the liveusb of Gnome 3.8 that I played with was much snappier in certain respects, the Gnome 3.6 implementation in openSUSE 12.3 is terrific. I had been running the Ubuntu 12.10 Gnome Shell Remix and it was a very buggy experience.

I'm really looking forward to 3.8 and don't really get the hatred towards Gnome Shell. Yes, it is a bit different and they have gone a bit nuts with taking features out, but most of them are restored with a few extensions. I have about four or five I install I'm ready to go. The Dash to Dock is one that people should check out if they haven't.

[Delgarde]

I wanted to second this. Though I no longer own the netbook, I used to run very early GS (from around 2009-2010) on a first gen netbook and it worked really well. It would drop frames, but it wasn't particularly laggy (well, no more so than linux desktops in general).

Very much a question of good drivers, I guess. Given well-written drivers like the Intel ones, Shell works okay on even crappy old netbook hardware. And it works fine for me on the onboard AMD graphics (a Radeon 4000 series chip) on my current desktop machine, using the open drivers. I'd be interested in knowing what hardware/drivers people are using and having issues with Shell performance...

[bwat47]

I tested it briefly on a liveusb, gnome-shell seems significantly faster and more responsive than gnome 3.6. searching the overlay in gnome 3.6 was often quite laggy, but seemed smooth as butter in 3.8. It seems like a much more polished release ui-wise too, I like the improvements to gnome control center in particular.

[liam]

I tried gnome 3 the other day for the first time, in virtualbox, and I gotta say I don't hate it. It isn't my cup of tea and I find it relatively slow to work with on a desktop but I think it makes a very nice tablet DE. What bothers me most about it is how it seems to be equally as restricting as a jailbroken iOS, and I don't like how fallback mode is now removed. I also think shading should be enabled by default, since you can't minimize anything.

However, considering GNOME 3's hardware demands and the fact it isn't practical outside of casual PC/tablet usage, I do not think it should qualify as the linux default anymore. I strongly feel XFCE should take the new title of linux default, considering how balanced it is in usability, performance, compatibility, and features.

I think the reason GNOME 3 is hated so much is because it isn't really GNOME anymore, just as how Windows 8 doesn't feel like Windows anymore. I'm sure there'd be a lot less hate for GNOME 3 if it had a completely different name, and if it didn't lack so many features that even Windows 95 would have.

I hate uninformed opinion stated as fact. GNOME SHELL IS TERRIBLE IN TABLET USAGE. My gf has an X230T, runs GS, and using it with only the touchscreen is a HORRIBLE experience. For one thing, there is massive input lag (part of the problem seems to be X itself with how it understands edges of the screen, but I think the driver also simply uses low sampling rates). For another, the keyboard is terrible (certainly not helped by the input lag, but there are other problems). The hot corner doesn't work at all with touch. So, you have to careful press the activities button. W8 really got this right with their edge gestures, IMHO. Then again, Windows has actual, trained UX people (sorry, but I really get annoyed by the Gnome team's unwilingness to accept input from people who have expertise in that area, but that's all I'm going to say about this). Likewise, since so much shell functionality exists on the edges of the screen you have similar problems with the rest. Oh, and the messaging tray is pretty much completely inaccessible unless you either: 1. go to the overview first, or, 2. use a keyboard.
Much of the problems lie with the lack of gesture support. That was something that should've been CLEARLY mapped out years ago (not coded, mind you, but the UX should've been clearly framed, whiteboarded, and workflowed).
So, please, no more of this GS is for tablets. Casual usage I grant, though that doesn't mean you can't get real work done, simply that it doesn't help you with said work except in relatively special cases (where only a few apps are needed, and concurrent research isn't necessary).
GS is very much Gnome, IMHO. It is Gnome to the Nth, in CONCEPT, but it is fairly poorly managed and executed (oh, don't get me started on their inability to sketch out extension points...Drupal has done this for years, and that is why it has been so successful, IMHO).
However, I very much like the original design doc for G3, and JS/CSS as the primary development targets (at a high level), with the strong C underpinnings (I also like glib). So, I think there is a really nice base there, but the shell needs nearly a complete redesign and rewrite (I'd also start targeting asm.js with emscripten, but you'd need a JS frontend for LLVM).
Mutter itself, BTW, I think is quite good. Owen Taylor has written a surprisingly performant WM that is also pretty lightweight (seriously, try it without running GS).

What kind of hardware are you running? I use Shell (via current Fedora) on my crappy five-year-old netbook, and it's responsive enough. I mean it's not exactly snappy - nothing is on that hardware - but it's certainly usable enough...

(Edit: the netbook runs some crappy-but-open intel graphics chip... not the binary-only Paulsbo)

I wanted to second this. Though I no longer own the netbook, I used to run very early GS (from around 2009-2010) on a first gen netbook and it worked really well. It would drop frames, but it wasn't particularly laggy (well, no more so than linux desktops in general).

[Marc Driftmeyer]

It looks like all 20 KDE fans are posting in succession about software they can't stomach. Grow up folks.

[psychoticmeow]

KDE (like Enlightenment) is very ugly IMO. Way too many slow and "shiny" effects everywhere, tons of inconsistent multi-colored icons all over, etc. I don't like everything about Gnome's design, but they at least understand how to use Minimalisn, Whitespace, and Consistency.

Yeah, I've got the same problem with KDE. I suppose that the platform itself is technically superior, but they defaults they set up are frustrating. For example, when you click to drag a window it goes partly transparent, I found this particularly disorienting and tried to change the configuration. And well, there sure are a lot of configuration settings, in the end I gave up and switched back to Gnome.

Most peoples complaints about Gnome are due to missing features (like no "taskbar"), but most, if not all, of those are fixable with Extensions (like "Dash to Dock"). Granted I do agree they sometimes go a bit overboard, and I do think they should build in some more advanced default settings to enable the most commonly requested features (again, like the missing taskbar, and natulius features).

I've been using OS X at work, but I simply have no use for a dock to maintain minimised windows in. However sometimes I do want to hide a window, if it's something I know I'm not going to need until the end of the day (timesheet entry for example). On OS X you have to minimise it, which works just fine. On Gnome 3.8 the minimise function has been rebranded as "hide", and while there's no dock to hide the application in, you can find it in the overview.

Gnome 3 works well on my desktop, better than Gnome 2 ever did.

[Delgarde]

A few hours ago I gave Gnome 3 another spin... and now I'm back to KDE.

The performance of Gnome 3 is unacceptable on my Laptop, it kind of "lags" when moving windows (enough to consider it a nuisance). Gnome "classic" seemed to have the same problem, and it felt very very incomplete to me.

What kind of hardware are you running? I use Shell (via current Fedora) on my crappy five-year-old netbook, and it's responsive enough. I mean it's not exactly snappy - nothing is on that hardware - but it's certainly usable enough...

(Edit: the netbook runs some crappy-but-open intel graphics chip... not the binary-only Paulsbo)

[F i L]

That probably explains the "lags" I was experiencing.

It depends. Mutter tries to do fancy shit with VSync, and fails at it with some proprietary drivers. Mostly on AMD hardware, but I've seen it happen on Nvidia as well. When things aren't working right, everything feels all "floaty" like your iterations are a few frames behind your actual inputs. It's pretty easy to fix though.

That aside, the one thing that can be said for the Gnome team (and their cousins working on Cinnamon and Pantheon) is that they know how to design a good looking system. I use and love Dynamic Activities, which is one of the main reasons I don't really like KDE, Unity, or Xfce. Unity isn't an option for me (I use Arch) and Xfce doesn't have the nice features of Gnome, at least not with Gnome's elegance (system settings, applications search, overview, etc). KDE (like Enlightenment) is very ugly IMO. Way too many slow and "shiny" effects everywhere, tons of inconsistent multi-colored icons all over, etc. I don't like everything about Gnome's design, but they at least understand how to use Minimalisn, Whitespace, and Consistency.

Most peoples complaints about Gnome are due to missing features (like no "taskbar"), but most, if not all, of those are fixable with Extensions (like "Dash to Dock"). Granted I do agree they sometimes go a bit overboard, and I do think they should build in some more advanced default settings to enable the most commonly requested features (again, like the missing taskbar, and natulius features). That said, I've installed stock Gnome Shell on both my Mother and Grandmother's machines, and both of them didn't have any problems understanding how to use the system. Indeed, gnome's design kept there computers much cleaner (no desktop icons everywhere confusing them, no way to fudge up system settings, etc). They understood how to change basic settings cause Gnome's settings area is so basic, and they instantly understood how to access apps and switch windows. They even really liked the overview area as a way to get to their "background" windows (over the "listed on taskbar" concept Windows 7 uses) cause it makes visual sense when you see all the windows zoom out.

[schmidtbag]

I hope there will be a way to easily install Gnome 3.8 on Fedora before Fedora 19 gets released...

Are you having problems installing gnome on fedora now? Fedora is actually where I tried it out earlier this week and I didn't get any problems. It took a really long time to install but it was successful.