What Linux Users Are Saying About GNOME In 2012

701: Fix NetworkManager.
Separate User options (status, notifications) from machine options (system parameters, shutdown).
Windows in preview become too small to be userful quickly. Make them bigger, and add icon and full title. Maybe group by application.
Fix notifications.

702: Please re-implement features in nautilus that worked perfectly, like 2 pane view.
Do a better centralized customization and configuration.
Give the desktop a feeling of what it really is. My Desktop seems like a BIG cellphone at the moment on Gnome3.

703: optimize vertical screenspace !

704: Keep up the good work! :)

705: GNOME should listen to their users and address "real" features that users need and not what developers "feel" user need. It's no use taking 2 steps back with a new release and one steap ahead when you fix it in a later release.

The most stupid decision was to remove the start/stop/reboot option -- as basic as that and then to only add them later only because it was stupid to remove them in the first place. Let users "wake up" to usability.

706: - integration of Gnome Tweak Tool features
- improve GDM (settings, load speed ...)

707: Encourage more developers to write extensions. I feel there are limited extensions as of now.

708: Don't try to be Apple or Microsoft, you are too small. Just try to build stable software that doesn't break ergonomy and hardware compatibility each 2 years.

GNOME 2.X was for me almost the "best" desktop I could ever use... Now, with Gnome 3 everything has changed. For this reason (and for unity too), I don't recommend Linux desktop to people anymore...

709: There are manu small bugs which really wreck the whole user experiance.
Cleaning these usabilty bugs are a must if you want to gain adoption!

710: fix the scrensaver, notification area should be visible by default

711: Show the applications grid faster (instantaneous) when I click for first time "applications menu" (now a icon).

712: Due to I'm beeing a laptop user, I have pretty much adapted to the way Unity handles the titlebar when a program window is maximized. I understand that it would be difficult to integrate the whole program menu in the top bar, but could it somehow be possible to displace just the titlebar in maximized mode?

713: My main issue with gnome-shell is the inability to easily change themes or to update extensions. It has recently become clear why this is with the (appreciably open development lists) lead devs suggesting that customization is against the design goals of the project.

Whatever the devs intention (I do not assume it ominous), this greatly reduces my interest in the gnome project simply because the freedom to change what I want is the main reason for using GNU/Linux. If you remove that ability, GNU/Linux with gnome becomes a far less compelling platform.
If you wish to create a controlled and consistent UI that people (especially GNU/inux users) wish to use, you must give them the ability to change what does not suit their usage pattern. Remove this ability and you either drive people to a more customizable DE or you create controversy where none need exist.

I sincerely hope you come to understand this issue.

714: Please make yourself a Forum, so that community gains more influence and that it may contact the developers easier.
I have had VERY many suggestions for GNOME 3 when it came out (not rejecting GNOME 3 but enriching it), but I never found a forum where I could post it.

715: I am currently using the AXEMenu extension as an aid to improve flexibility

716: Keep up the good work!

717: bring back old functionality like gnome 2.20...

718: when you remove features with no other alternative, it's a big regression (nautilus extra pane, emblems). Stability is bad on 3.6. And all gnome-shell freeze when nautilus freeze (which could be often when accessing remote shares). Arrogant responses when giving actual user feedback.

719: Gnome team is doing wonderful work. First ever from opensource world, I am really proud of my default DE. Keep it up.

720: Gnome 3 is too dynamic.
It takes too many steps to do something in comparison to Gnome 2.
It's not usable on a low spec Netbook despite HW Acceleration (too slow, in particular Version 3.6).

721: Linux users generally want more control over OS including desktop, taking away such control mean alienating existing users

722: 1. GNOME Shell is clearly not a user-driven idea. Management should change FUNDAMENTALLY so that this never happens again. If developers want to play, they should play on a fork of the project.

2. Bring back a gnome-2-like shell, with gnome-3 like libraries/performance improvements.

3. Implement a tiling window manager like I3, but more mouse-based, like the window management in blender.

4. Make stuff WORK. Too many libraries / compoenents are broken, or fragile, like bluetooth support, sound support, etc. This is much more important than doing fancy things like gnome shell.

723: Gnome 2 was awesome for the desktop :(

724: Make the most of the desktop advantages (screen size, keyboard) instead of attempting to make one interface serve all devices, like Unity. I like the new focus on tasks instead of workspaces.

725: Keep up the good work!

726: Hello GNOME Devs,

i really like gnome3 (and the shell), but it doesnt go far enough.
thats why i have answered "mostly" on the "how satisfied are you with gnome3" question.

some of the design decisions simply end at the "Gnome" layer.
but from my perspective should be taken a level higher (interop with other toolkits, and the user).

as an example a simple scenario:
i dont want to be an expert user, just an user.
i want to be able to play videos (VLC is the way to go for me, totem would be fine, but i used VLC for years and want to stick to it.).
those videos to reside on my local NAS which is a windows machine.

so first i need to access my NAS using samba.
nautilus allows me to mount a drive, this part is fine so far.
i doubleclick the video file i want to play, VLC starts up.
looks good so far.
and then it happens, vlc can not play the file, because it hasnt found
the video file (i havent investigated how and where nautilus actually mounts the share in the file system).

i assume the problem is some inconsistency between gnome and interop with KDE applications.

as you can see this usage scenario is broken for the user.
which makes "gnome" or the linux desktop alltogether look worse compared to windows, or macOS. where such casual things simply work with a few clicks.
the expert user on the other hand could find workarounds.
of course this is a death sentence to the linux desktop.
and i think you want to open gnome (as a viable representation) to the masses.

i know that you are getting there, but please dont stop at the UI layer. before even releasing a new version, please perform a smoke test, not on code, but rather on the most common user scenarios to see if they are broken, or implemented satisfactory, and if there's room for improvement.

but now enough with criticism:
i really like gnome3, and you've done an astonoshing work!
there really are many benefits to working with the shell,
as are some inconsistencies, but so far i was able to adapt to them.
keep the quality up, and things will get very nice.

Best Regards
Zbigniew ([email protected])

727: I'd like to see more out-of-the box polish - modern and consistent icons, a default font that has a more normal width with better hinting. Support for gestures and related configuration options are also important.

728: Let me minimize windows, make the dash visible always/autohide so I can easily switch to those minimized windows, remove the hole systray from below and let notifications not be so annoying.

729: The strong focus on usability and consistent application presentation is great for me. There's a lot of flak about it in the blogosphere/twitterverse. If there were some mechanism (besides reading mailing lists) for explaining design decisions, I think it would be reasonable to ignore the flack. Without more thorough explaination, some of the flack is reasonable. In general though, I believe that the design decisions are justified, just not publically enough for the peanut-gallery to see.

730: keep it simple and utilitarian, too much glitz gets in the way of productivity (eg: unity ... as a long time ubuntu/gnome2 user I switched to linux mint running MATE because of the introduction of unity in ubuntu)
give users lots of options for customization of their interface according to their needs

731: stop breaking themes for every new installment of gnome

732: Add some more customization than just your desktop background:
- Let the user pick their favorite color and use it for things like menu selections and other parts where blue is used in Adwaita
- Let the user configure the icons displayed in the top panel and add more of them, for instance mounted filesystems, online syncing, etc.

733: Your going the way of Windows 8... Listen to your users. I currently us Gnome 2 (RHEL) and Mate (Mint), and love them both. But I do feel that Cinnamon is the future of the Linux Desktop. No enterprise user wants a Metro experense. I believe, Simple/Fast/Clean should be the new rallying cry for Gnome 3... Perhaps an enterprise fork, Gnome 23 (the best of 2 and 3)...

C

734: Listen to the users.
Don't remove good features just becuase they are not tablet friendly.

735: I love the behavior of the command key on Mac OS X. I would love the Windows key behave in the same way on GNOME. Also, tracker should be a dependency of GNOME. Sorry for my English.

736: fallback should continue, improve gnome-panel

737: Questionary is bugged. Questions 10-12 makes no sense if you answer no on first question OR "not currently using it" on question nr 3. Also no option to indicate that I'm using Cinnamon.

738: Keep up the good work!

739: New Gnome 3 & Gnome Shell has both some positive and negative changes in comparison of Gnome 2. The look is great (almost, well I do not like those round corners) and focus on tablets/touch devices is right. Some things are still improving during Gnome 3 development. But one biggest (and almost unbelievable) insanity remains:

Those web-installed hacks called "extensions" which breaks randomly every minor release!!!
Please burn it with fire! And bring back some REAL extension & applet API to have these compatible with each other and also between Gnome releases. I am really going crazy when I must hack (and fail with it in many cases) to bring absolutely necessary features back to gnome, again and again!

Yes, and move the clock to the right! There should be only 2 bar element groups: One on the left growing to middle and to the right and second one on the right growing to middle and the left. On small screen (and hey, Gnome is going towards tablet devices, right?!) there is no space for the third group, sitting in the middle and stealing the space for one of other two groups when they became large enough to grow more through the mid point... And it is simply ugly to have clock in the middle. With this and other things: Look to android and learn something...

I still hope these thing would be solved and I would join Gnome users community again to march towards bring multitouch tablet gnome future... But until this happen I am going to stay with Cinnamon.

740: The interface of tablets are not for desktops.

741: I like Gnome Shell it took some getting used to but it is definitely easy to use. I am not a real big fan of the dumbing down of the apps several features that were removed from nautilus I was not happy about but what can I do. To me it seems once Gnome devs make up their minds to do something your are just kinda out. I am involved with Gnome University though as a student and am looking very forward to learning to code and create with Gnome. All in all I love the shell and would love to have a tablet running Gnome Shell.

742: let's user to have more configuration choice

743: Please treat the survey serious

744: Keep the good work, thanks for your awesome apps and desktop

745: I like some things with gnome 3.6, but there are many things which don't work correctly.

Maybe the Gnome developers should spend more time polishing before release.

746: Gnome 3.x was going pretty well. However, Gnome 3.6 is absolutely horrific. The way some programs integrate the toolbar into the application name is awkward, especially when using them in another DE. Also, I can no longer make bookmarks in Nautilus, nor can I right click and make a new text file.

No homepage in Epiphany is plain stupid.

Gnome 3.0 -> 3.2 and Gnome 3.2 -> 3.4 were great improvements.
But, Gnome 3.6 actually drove me away from Gnome completely. I have gone back to KDE very happily. KDE is lighter on my machine than Gnome shell. That's pretty sad. It's also quick, more configurable, more stable, etc.
Please remember that the desktop/laptop world is the primary focus. The Linux desktop is nowhere near dead.
Thank you for hearing my thoughts.
Note: I did not like Gnome 2.x; Gnome 3.x actually brought me to Gnome.

747: Please avoid removing more features and functions that people find useful. Sometimes removing almost everything doesn't make things more streamlined and simple, it just makes them more awkward to use.

748: I need to be able to find and launch my programs easily. I need to be able to peruse directories easily and copy from one to another. I don't want to have to remember to type in some keyword like 'office' if I want to create a document and then wait for the computer to search and suggest something. This is especially true for something I may use infrequently like the log file viewer for instance.

749: Gnome 2 just worked. With Gnome 3 I'm constantly having to do searches because the new way of doing things is extremely awkward or slow (too many clicks). Also, it is extremely non-intuitive. I'm constantly having to do searches to figure out how things are supposed to be done.

Frankly, after over a year I still don't 'get it'.

750: I genuinely felt like I'd walked into a Windows 98 demo when I first used Gnome 3 - I was shocked at how backwards it felt.

Why such a comparison? When metacity or nautilus crashed (which they inevitably did from time to time and I accepted that), I could simply kill the affected process, restart it, and carry; but no longer with Gnome3. If it crashes, you get a miserable full-screen overlay with a pathetic icon and message leaving you with one choice of logging out. I couldn't believe it! It truly felt like an "explorer.exe has performed an illegal operation" moment! This was the moment that Gnome stopped being the most powerful and useful desktop out there! Then, of course, there was the menu - WHY? My mouse cursor hasn't become a fat finger. I do not have a touch screen. I do not need a touch screen. Seriously, why shove an interface - optimized for a touch screen - onto a desktop that is mostly pointer driven.

Then, why remove the max/min buttons - again, for tablets that only run one full-screen app at a time. Tablets are NOT for productivity, they are toys - desktops are for productivity - DON'T CONFUSE THAT. I'd expect Micro$soft to make such a monumental mistake, but not Gnome.

Then how about that attitude - the one that say "users are not advanced and do not need advanced functionality" epitomized here in my own "Advanced feature request" (that to me or my other 15 colleagues was not an advanced thing - more of a useful every day thing): https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=629835

Honestly, I give up on you guys. I am head of an IT dept. and our strategy is now 100% not Gnome3 future - likely Cinnamon, failing that, Mate desktop.

R.I.P. Gnome2... You will truly be missed.

751: Please don't forget your workstation users! This means advanced window-manager features (which Metacity has [if only in g/dconf], so just don't get rid of them), robust multi-monitor support, and an effective way to launch and manage lots of terminals.

Please try to improve the configurability in future releases - right now I rely on dconf and gnome-tweak-tool to get a usable desktop environment - it'd be nice if these settings had an official interface.

And please try to make fewer arbitrary decisions without thinking them through (numlock warnings? no shutdown option? do these make any sense for desktop users?). I know it's kinda a tradition for Gnome (raise-on-click=false was the default for one version [which I liked], but was quickly reverted), but more predictable changes would alienate fewer users.

752: Cooperate more with Compiz, bring back the Clearlooks theme. Basically roll back to Gnome 2.32.

753: Linux is great for its customizability and being able to install even on low end hardware. Gnome 3 lost a lot of that. Go back to what made Gnome 2 great. For now there is XFCE and MATE to replace you and perhaps exceed you. Adding new options is good, but don't remove all the features your users rely on.

754: Just keep up the good work. Some of my proposals:
1. implement indexed file search into Gnome Shell
2. make Epiphany more usable (back/forward mouse buttons do not work, no flash)
3. make Evolution better compatible with Microsoft exchange
4. improve Empathy/Telepathy as it is much less usable and customizable than Pidgin.
5. implement batch operations into Nautilus (e.g. mass rename)

755: can create custom launcher, some png icons invisible, improve notification bar, last opened documents, improve nautilus network folders like a add ssh key to use my amazon ec2 acound(I need run ssh-add in console) before use, theme chooser, better suport a non-gnome api, others things i can't remember now.

756: I like Gnome's simplicity. But sometimes features are removed in the name of stability that shouldn't be: No shutdown was just dumb dumb dumb. That's one of many possible examples, I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about.

(Why can't I get rid of the useless-to-me accessibility menu!!? The extension doesn't work anymore, I should be able to get rid of this easily).

Aside from that complaint: Gnome 3 is a lot better than advertised. Faster and more stable than KDE, and I like the clean look of the Shell. Turning off notifications is great, extensions *mostly* work well for me. All in all it's great work. I wish I would have tried it a lot earlier but the negative PR turned me off.

757: I prefer Gnome 3 to Unity or KDE if I am using a desktop environment but please make it easier to use extensions and customize and tweak.

758: add some effects to opening and closing windows.

759: You're better than Microsoft, keep the good work and thank you for the amazing UI

760: I want have in Gnome all configurations / applet / apps I used in Gnome 2 and a low-power-consumption modality for my old PC like gnome-fallback but more complete and stable.

761: - Improve handling of many opened windows in Gnome Shell
- Integrate the most popular Gnome Shell extensions directly into Gnome (i.e. auto move windows, weather, media player indicator...)
- combine different configuration tools into a single settings center (advanced settings, extension preferences...)
- use the first desktop as an quick info screen, kind of similar to windows 8, i.e. weather forecast, new mail, news, new rss, messages...

762: I think you're doing a great job. I think the Shell experience is substantially better than the 'desktop' experience. I wish we have had it sooner perhaps people wouldn't complain so much about their system not functioning like windows 95 did today.

Thank you for a great computer experience.

763: I like Gnome 3 and use it at home, but I cannot use it at work because of the lack of persistent on-screen notifications for Pidgin/Empathy - I receive Jabber messages all day and can't afford to miss them.

764: Gnome shell is simply unusable for day-to-day work. It seems like it was made to catter to a non techie audirence, but forcing everything on everyone. While fallback mode it supposed to be just that, at least it mimics an easy way to acess every program esaily, while the activitie view simply eats up you whole screen, and you can't have more than one window.

Fallback mode shoudn't be called falback, and rather offered as another choice over shell. I simply end up using mutter and the notifications with gnome-panel, instead of gnome-shell, gettng all the usability and the fancy gizmos I need.

765: Keep doing what you're doing -- I like it, even if some people don't.

I don't like that it makes my laptop (i5 2nd gen) run the fan all the time.

766: I'm bored of bitching about you.

767: First, i would like to thanks for all the hard work from GNOME developers. I would like the developers somehow enable an "advanced option" in all apps of system configutarion. Another suggestion, make all the apps, including the default GNOME software, always maximazed by default. It would be great to use GNOME OS preinstalled in a ultrabook, supported by the GNOME team.

768: Get rid of Nautilus. It has always been bad, and it isn't getting better.
Hitting the Windows key to bring up the application menu is the one thing I like about Gnome 3. Everything else is awful.
I understand what Gnome is trying to do, but it's still a bad design no matter which way you look at it. Gnome needs to think past the current metaphors, and crib liberally from KDE's Plasma. Start with a blank desktop and add widgets that do different things. Strip everything down to the bare essentials with minimal decorations.

769: (This is written on my Fedora 14 system, running GNOME 2.32. I do use
Fedora 17 on other, testing, systems.)

Gnome 3.8 might be my last Gnome environment - I only use it because the 'frippery' extension takes away most gnome-shell stupidity.

Media - many MP4 files no longer work with gnome 3 - Windows can play them, gnome 2 can play them. gnome 3 can't read the media files

GTK3 development. Glade3 is not maintained well. Software development went from generating code and compile to - write your own Makefiles. Or are you supposed to use Vala? Javascript? Python 3? The only programming language that isn't talked about is 'C'. Guess what my code is written in. To write for GTK3 means completely rewritting all my code.

770: Liking the whole concept of gnome shell, just need the final fixes to be up there, you are kinda locked into the default unless you fiddle around with gnome-tweak-tool, But really liking the main concept of the new Gnome

771: Keep up the good work!

772: Question 06, better answer is: it is somehow better in some aspects, but overall it is worse.
Question 14, better answer is: "No, never wanted"
In short, I think this survey is too basic to help on anything, except to tell other people the gnome is "better" comparing with data from last year.
It would be better to have questions asking for specific features of gnome, or some future features; and simple questions if feature X is more important than feature Y. (eg: more configuration options or more easy configuration)

773: Cinnamon is doing it right. Nautilus 3.6 is horrible. I tried moving to xfce and cinnamon but they're worse than gnome for stability.

774: Get rid of dconf. My primary reason for barely using GNOME is because binary registries are just WRONG. At least add the possibility to completely purge entire keys, rather than having to delete the entire registry.

775: Keep up the good work!

776: Don't make gnome applications work worse with other desktops than gnome.

777: for gnome team i don't have any suggestions.
i do have for you, some of the questions are irrelevant and pointless like How satisfied are you with GNOME version 2?

778: Keep up the good work, I love it.

779: Keep up the good work!

780: The whole conception of shell is now great. Just don't remove useful features from GNOME, please. Cheers

781: I don't like the tablet-oriented design and development that GNOME 3 devs are doing. I like the traditional desktop better. I'm using LXDE right now. I like XFCE as well.

782: Continue kicking asses and taking names. Also, ignore stupid, non-representative "polls" made by people trying desperately to demonstrate they are right and the maintainers of a project are wrong.

783: Using Fedora 17 on my desktop, with 24" 1920*1600 resolution monitor. Looks good on a big screen. Use Kubuntu on my laptop, somehow feels better on the smaller screen, though KDE on the big screen is not that nice. I also use Debian on my home server, and every time I log in into it I fell how Gnome 3 is much better. However one feature that I miss dearly is "add to panel". I need it for one thing only - start a shortcut for a radio stream, but not having it is annoying. Having extensions is a big plus, though some features like tiling or shut down should be by default.

Thank you for your great work!

784: Keep on making hard choices.

785: I was disappointed to find "Files" (nautilus) has been thoroughly ruined in 3.6, instead of a file manager you get some crappy search thing.

To ensure you get rid of any remaining annoying complaining users of GNOME, I suggest deleting gnome-terminal entirely (or perhaps replace it with some command line search rubbish), and "simplify and enhance" gedit by removing all its features. That should ensure those annoying people who have been using gedit and gnome-terminal for years can stop complaining about GNOME and go find something else to use.

786: Please keep the classic mode!

787: Pretty sure surveys like this *mostly* get attention of super geeks who have complaints. The reason is simple: people are more willing to complain than praise. That is because if everything works for you, why would you want to even think about doing something about this situation? OTOH, when you got problems, you got a very compelling motive to find a way to influence the future.

The only way to get everyone motivated to bother to take surveys is to give some incentive, a treat or a small payment for example.

While I had no complaints on gnome3 itself, I did have a complaint about this survey itself and that is why I participated. If this 'comments' entry was not here, I would have not felt like going through this at all.

Also, if there is people out there who prefer gnome2 over gnome3, I think they are pretty obviously stuck in the past and can't be helped.

788: It's time to bring us the multi-touch!

789: Less Simple Applications

790: -Do not completely remove features. Rather make them optional via system settings.

791: Get your ass out of your heads dear developers,your paradigm sucks,reducing configurability and functionality is not the linux way,Gnome 2.xx series was a "hit",Gnome 3.xx series is a flop please wake up!

792: With Gnome 2.x days I eagerly waited for each new version because of small, steady improvements. Now, I am afraid of every next version of Gnome. Themes do not work (and I loved how beautiful Gnome 2.x could be thanks to themes, now I am just bored with default theme). I like notifications just as they are in 3.4, but you are changing them again and I am afraid they will be useless to me. I wanted multiple clocks for long time now, but you create app that will be useless to me probably (judging by mockups). I can't use Gnome without extensions (cpu/network meter), but you don't work on improving it. Application search was so slow, that I almost stopped using Gnome of frustration (but bought SSD drive and now it works ok). Used totem for long time, but it has weird performance issues (VLC works smoother). I have trouble with using my gtalk account with gnome shell. In practical terms: I am using Gnome only because it comes as default with Fedora. I was optimistic about 3.0 and 3.2 but now I think I'll ditch Gnome in a couple of months. I am clearly not "target audience" for you guys. I guess no linux enthusiast is.

793: Please don't kill GNOME Panel

794: The only feature I will miss about nautilus is the inline folder expansion in the list view that was removed. The side by side or compact mode removals do not worry me.

795: Keep up with the good work you're doing. Even though lots of morons rant about the changes, you're doing an amazing job.

796: Try to at least reply to bugreports that you've acknowledged the problem and inform people about the plans to get it fixed (or that it won't be) so that we at least know what to expect, instead of leaving it as UNCONFIRMED for several MONTHS (and counting).

797: Keep up the awesome work :)

798: Great things are done, thanks.

I need to get used to gnome-shell (especially the topleft corner where I put the mouse without wanting to).

799: Keep up the good work. It's great to see computer interfaces beginning to evolve past the basic WIMP design they were stuck in for 20+ years.

800: I think Gnome is improving, but some things need improvements in my opinion:
_stability. I've had some freezes but I don't know if it's due to my setup (fedora 18)
_notifications. The way they are in Gnome 3.6 is really good but as for the empathy notifications, I don't want them to steal the focus or I would like to be able to switch to my work with the keyboard (without using the mouse).