What People Are Saying About GNOME [Part 3]

[Kivada]

Such design starteed much before IOS. At least, I remember the SLAB menu on openSUSE.

Now I can understand some people like you don't like change, but don't you think it is very personal ? And that it is impossible to make everyone happy ?
Many improvements (in any field) would have never happened without changing habits. Innovate or die, that's the rule in terms of market share. There are many people (developers, designers and users) who thought it was time for some change.
That's life and we are many liking it.

Because "New" and "Better" are not the same thing. Just look at Vista... It's very possible to make everyone happy in the OSS world, but only if they are willing to listen to their user base instead of being microdictators trying to rule over their tiny digital fiefdom causing the OSS community to once again fracture and become just a little less relevant to the mass market because of it.

[diriel]

@Kaczu

Did you just call Linus Torvalds and company a bunch of slackers sir?? What part of Gnome 3 gets right in the middle of what I am trying to do, and Stays in the middle and in the way are you missing sir? I frequently have more than one thing going on, and gnome 3 seems to say "hey I will only tolerate you doing one thing at a time!". You know what? I have multi tasked for many years, I am NOT going to stop because some backwards devs think I should only do one thing at a time! Talk about a pain in the ass.

[Teho]

Wrong, If they wanted to reinvent the wheel again they should have started a side project.

Like they did? Gnome Shell. The reason why classic Gnome desktop is dying is because developers have no intrest in it. No one here's stopping anyone of forking, maintaining or improving it.

One would think that both they and us want to see Linux succeed, but they don't seem to want it to.

They want to take "Linux" to the masses and you think that it should remain as a relic of past, unchanged. I'd say that it's you who seems to want Linux on desktop to die. Gnome hasn't been able to penetrate the desktop market in the past even though it remained the same for a long time. The way to move foward is to try something new.

[rafirafi]

So far I haven't seen a post so far that has identified a problem with GS itself

You're right the functionnalities implemented in GS are working pretty well, people complains about things they cannot do in GS and this is not forcely relevant for gnome dev.

Gnome-Panel.....??

It's not about gnome-panel per se it's workspace selector, windows selector, menu... and have the ability to not use the dock, use desktop with icon, have multi-screen configuration well supported, window minimize and maximize buttons... Maybe I'm all wrong and with version 3.2 you can change the default settings without editing conf files manually and not have to use keys shortcuts all the time just to not lose a lot of time. Anyway I will keep trying it have to get better.

[alazar]

Did you just call Linus Torvalds and company a bunch of slackers sir?? What part of Gnome 3 gets right in the middle of what I am trying to do, and Stays in the middle and in the way are you missing sir? I frequently have more than one thing going on, and gnome 3 seems to say "hey I will only tolerate you doing one thing at a time!". You know what? I have multi tasked for many years, I am NOT going to stop because some backwards devs think I should only do one thing at a time! Talk about a pain in the ass.

I don't know you, but I'm able to switch between apps with alt+tab (and between windows of the same app with | + tab), or use the activities menu and select the proper one - at least you know what it's inside each window with the preview. So I don't understand why you say gnome 3 wants you to focus at one thing.

The only thing I've felt to be slower is changing between workspaces with the mouse, but the intended behaviour is to have everything on sight and be able to organise quickly the stuff. If I want to change between workspaces on work, I just use the shortcut keys.

[kaczu]

Did you just call Linus Torvalds and company a bunch of slackers sir?? What part of Gnome 3 gets right in the middle of what I am trying to do, and Stays in the middle and in the way are you missing sir? I frequently have more than one thing going on, and gnome 3 seems to say "hey I will only tolerate you doing one thing at a time!". You know what? I have multi tasked for many years, I am NOT going to stop because some backwards devs think I should only do one thing at a time! Talk about a pain in the ass.

You are basically making my point. You've started off with a strawman argument, basically a non-sequitur. Then follow it up about how it "gets in your way" without actually saying how. How in the world is there going to be improvement if you can't communicate?

[kaczu]

It's not about gnome-panel per se it's workspace selector, windows selector, menu... and have the ability to not use the dock, use desktop with icon, have multi-screen configuration well supported, window minimize and maximize buttons... Maybe I'm all wrong and with version 3.2 you can change the default settings without editing conf files manually and not have to use keys shortcuts all the time just to not lose a lot of time. Anyway I will keep trying it have to get better.

I think most of these have been addressed by either extension or Advanced Settings in 3.2. Multimonitor support got added in there I think somewhere around June or July.

[alvadoraemon]

If you read carefully the comments, you will answer yourself.

This is precisely what they did. GTK3 libs started entering into G2 at least 2 years ago. There's an entire page talking about the switch over on Gnome 2.28 and that came out in what 2009? They had discussions on the implementation of GTK3 a good 6 months to a year before that. How slow do you want them to go? It seems to me that people wanted Gnome to never change, to be frozen in time, which would have been perfect because these same people were moving over to KDE because it was so new and fresh and because of the changes it brought.

So far I haven't seen a post so far that has identified a problem with GS itself (aside from the fair criticism of updates to well known apps). I've seen posts around Global Menu (which is Unity). I've seen the nebulous argument about loss of productivity without much explanation as to how. Loss in customisability compared to G2 I'll give you, but productivity? Nope. Last time I checked gnome-panel itself wasn't a application that directly helped me with getting work done. Vim? yes. Firefox? yes. Virtualbox/KVM? yes. Terminal? yup. Nautilus? You betcha. Remote Desktop? Couldn't live without it. Apache? Ya damn right. Gnome-Panel.....??! Are you serious? I'm pretty sure my boss would be pissed if I spent all day adding widgets and applets to Gnome panel all day, or hovered in the Gnome menu without actually opening the application I needed to be working in.

You only need to read the first 1000-2000 posts carefully, without "fanboys eyes" :-D... Trolls are easy to identify and discard in a quick review.

Most people outside the "oneiric" GNOME Shell planet uses a standard "panel + taskbar + app menu" in their desktops, a paradigm used today because in 20-30 years is the best GUI model for a "multitasking" Desktop Computer - even Apple use this model -. When you try to impose a radically different model to your users, this model MUST be much better than the old model, and Shell isn't precisely better for many desktop workflows, where "multitasking" is "having many app windows active at the same time" in a time efficient way ;-).

Shell is designed for mobile touchscreen devices and the minimal "web browser - mail client - Office suite" workflow - said by GNOME developers -, but this paradigm has many design "failures" that make Shell difficult to use with non-minimal workflows in Desktop computers... You loose too much time in desktop tasks only, and your productivity in many technical and non technical workflows is affected seriously.

Do you want some examples? Lets go...

1) Launch an app from the dock:

- Click on Activities, or press the "windows" key, or move the mouse pointer to the upper left corner. 1 physical action or mental process.

- There is a change to a totally different screen, and you must "relocate" your mind and identify where is the dock in the screen; just now, the Shell has broken your workflow and distracts you from the task that you was doing before... Very "useful" when you only need to do a rapid check of the servers log in a terminal, for example. And another mental process.

- Move the pointer to the dock, search your app launcher and click on it. 3 more actions.

- Leave again to a totally different window and wait to the new program window. 2 more actions.

You spend 6 actions or mental processes to ONLY launch an app from the "quicklaunch" dock, with a total disruption of your workflow... And i don't tell you how much time you loose when you must search the app in the "Applications" view... An enormous amount of time lost when you ONLY want to launch quickly an app most times, and you don't mind anything about active windows or workspaces.

2) Change between active windows when you use more than 3 or 4 programs at the same time: you spend too much time searching what window you want to mut on top, or you must use apps with tabs that doesn't fit vwey well in some workflows - like programmers or IT techs -... Even with the use of workspaces, this task is difficult with many active windows.

3) The "suspend" only option in the User menu: no comment, it explains itself... I only hope that the designer who decided this stupid option should be condemned for life to use most "real life" linux computers and enjoy the bugs, hangs and energy bills that you obtain with "suspend only" in Linux; pleeeeeeeease :-D - I work in IT tech support -... I suppose that the "genius" behind this brilliant decission hasn't to pay his/her employer's energy bill :-D.

4) The lack of BASIC customization: most GNOME Tweak Tool functions should be incluided by default in the Control Center - extensions control, for example -... If you have a graphic tablet control since the 3.0 release - oh, the all-powerful designers :-) - , why I can't have control over my installed extensions, themes and very important energy options in laptops like lid behaviour? Is more important a control for a designer tool than a common sense control of laptop lid behaviour?

5) Why I must use the Alt key for "discovering" hidden options when most desktop computers have a two button mouse - LEFT and RIGHT? Please, someone explain me this "feature" :-D.

Most of this "features" could be improved by using a persistent dock - with auto-hiding option -, a taskbar-window list-active windows only view - the lesser evil -, a workspace switcher icon in the Shell panel and integration of the lost "common sense" options on the GNOME control center; but GNOME devs look at "bad" GNOME Shell reviews as personal attacks, and they maintain the "we have the biggest penis in the town and we are always right" attitude. Look at the survey proposition mail list and you don't have to look elsewhere. And the fear of desktop customization doesn't help GNOME devs to look better :-D.

Before fanboys start to attack me with the stupid "whinning user" argument, I must say that I use Shell on my home Desktop PC and my netbook since Fedora 15, and I have used Linux computers since 1998... I'm not just the "moron" and "illiterate" user afraid of changes :-D, and I want GNOME to improve... But at work - IT tech support - I use Debian's GNOME 2.30 and SuSe's KDE 4.6 because I can't allow myself to loose too much time in desktop-only "tasks"... This is very important on a business Desktop environment, and GNOME Shell design failures are too big for that market; and corporate desktops are the main door into the Windows monopoly castle.

A funny final thought: I don't know many tablets having Alt or Windows key, fellas :-D...

[At0mic]

Sounds like GNOME 3.2 is fixing a lot (but not all) of the issues that keep people away from it, and extensions are taking care of the rest. Still, I don't understand why GNOME 3 was released when it was and the team didn't keep it as perhaps a "research project" until it became more mature. Releasing something too early can seriously hamper a product's image (just look at KDE 4), and despite the "release early, release often" mantra, it doesn't seem to work as part of a large project a lot of people are bound to be uses. Not unless of course, the "release early, release often" sticks to pre-release builds, which I think GNOME 3 should have stuck with for a while longer.

[ninez]

So far I haven't seen a post so far that has identified a problem with GS itself (aside from the fair criticism of updates to well known apps). <cut> I've seen the nebulous argument about loss of productivity without much explanation as to how. Loss in customisability compared to G2 I'll give you, but productivity? Nope.

I was the one who pointed updates to 'well-known' apps (if you were talking about my nautilus post?). I do want to point out a few things, specifically to do with customization and productivity. depending on the type of applications you are using, and your workflow, gnome-shell DOES get in the way, regardless of extensions or what-have-you....there are some limitations based on GS's design (for some users).

I myself, love Gnome3 not Gnome-Shell -> Gnome 3, meaning the gnome 3 stack (application suite, backends, utlities and libs). I do NOT find GS to be useful or useable (that being said for many people i am sure it is fine). Nor do i find Mutter to be all that good of a WM. I would make the argument that in fact, customization has a direct impact on productivity, as it can enhance it. I use a few applications instead using GS (i also don't use gnome-panel, so #3/4 are partly to replace gnome-panel, while also providing features that surpass there counter parts in GS);

1.Compiz: No wobbly windows, cube or any of that crap. (i don't use compiz for eye candy). I specifically use the more productive plugins. ie: scale, expo, put, window rules, desktop wall, place window, tile ..to name a few. Mutter/GS doesn't even handle or provide similar functionality to many of those plugins - and they most definitely speed up and optimize my workflow. As a tablet/stylus user - i can tell you, in no way, shape or form does GS even compete for tablet usability. not even close. I also find compiz is more efficient for managing large numbers of apps. (meaning both Activities overview and alt-tab - are both what i consider a slow method of navigating).

2.Kupfer - much faster for keyboard shortcuts / launching than native GS tools. more advanced functions also. (so gnome-shell provides a similar tool that is slower, and less functional. great).

3. DockbarX - much better for managing groups/tabs, also added benefit of adding OSX-like 'expose-grouping' features to compiz' scale plugin, which is very useful for me. As a prime use-case, often i will have 16-20 VST instruments/fx open at a time. - these are all individual apps, but are grouped in scale... i can quickly navigate between them, much faster with dockX's hooks to scale in compiz than with GS' features . (gnome-shell can't handle in 'organized fashion' my average 35+ applications open at any given time...compiz? - no problem)

4. Gnome-pie - circular menu. great for tablet users, less obstrusive than using 'activities'. quick as well. (replacement for main-menu). As a sidenote: i also use easystroke (gesture recognition software, very useful for stylus/tablet users).

Now, yes - some of these do work with GS, but guess what - some work better with compiz and provide faster, more sensible ways of doing things. 'Activities' in GS is a huge caveat for me, it's distracting and to blingy. the way GS manages desktops kinda sucks(dynamic or statically, yes i know of gnome-flippery). I find GS is going out of it's way to replace tools that are better than what it is providing, and that is annoying. Who knows maybe by Gnome 4.0 it'll all smooth over, but i think there are valid points from some of the disgruntled users (especially those who have been using Gnome 3 since it's release, and who know about all of the various extensions, etc).

I myself won't be using GS anytime soon. it's not a lack of being able to adjust, or not knowing what is available/GS tricks. It just doesn't work for my needs, it's designed to work a certain way, where as i require a more modular desktop - which GS (and gnome, more and more) is arguably NOT.

....and i know there are many people who feel the same way.