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GNOME 3 Released
Blacklaw writes "The GNOME Desktop team has sent its latest creation into the wild, officially launching GNOME 3.0 — the biggest redesign the project has enjoyed in around nine years. 'We've taken a pretty different approach in the GNOME 3 design that focuses on the desired experience and lets the interface design follow from that,' designer Jon McCann explained during the launch. 'With any luck you will feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease.'"
There's always Xfce for those of you who still want a traditional, stable environment. Uses the same Gtk+ themes that Gnome used, and the panel is flexible enough to emulate Gnome 2.x, KDE/Windows, or CDE.
I know, they turned their back on the *BSD's with Xfce 4.8, but it's still the only desktop environment worth using anymore.
Oh yeah, and they plan on sticking with Gtk+ 2.2 for the next couple of years.
The World is Yours.
I _do_ feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease... of course, that might just be the Ritalin...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Actually press release link: http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better-for-users-developers-3/
This is not the penguin you're looking for.
Read the release notes in your favorite language here: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.0/
The press release link is a moving target. It's now: http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better-for-users-developers-3/
Here's a link to the official GNOME 3 site.
To me it looks more like a smartphone interface (nice for a tablet PC), but errrr.... quite a paradigm change for notebook and desktop users.
They ran out of features to remove from GNOME itself so they just took down the website.
Now, before I get flamed for what I have written, let me remind everyone that what I have written reflects my personal opinion...and I am entitled to that.
And remember...I am not alone. When will these GNOME folks produce a shell that is a beauty to look at by default?
Actually, the UI is fairly unique. Well, sure, it still uses windows, and it's entirely true that the window decorations are awful with far too wide grey title bars, but I'm pretty sure the menu system is different from any other desktop and tablet.
I wrote a blog post all about how to tweak GNOME 3's hidden settings to be more like how you want it to be. You can read it at my blog, here. To summarize, I explain how to go back to GNOME 2, install extensions, change themes, and much more. However, I do want to note that I don't even use my own tips; GNOME 3 so far has been nearly perfect for me and I see very little need to change the settings I mention, or even use any extensions. In fact, I wrote another blog post detailing the 10 things that I love about GNOME 3 in a sort of mini-review.
To summarize my latter post, I love how GNOME 3 "puts me in the driver's seat". There's no annoying, blinking lights, there's no "are you sure?" dialogs, the design is minimalist and takes up very little screen space, and it only gives me things like the window list, application list, and even notifications when I explicitly ask for them. If I don't want notifications I just mark myself as "busy" and check up on them at my leisure. If I want to switch a window I just tap the Windows key and click the one I want; fast and simple! Yes, that's "one more step", but it takes barely any more time than any persistent window list would take up (and less screen space, too). I love how easy and fast searching for applications and places in the Activities search bar is (you don't even need to click it; just start typing!), which gives it a GNOME Do vibe. Regardless of the search, I also love how easy it is to launch applications with the favorites list on the dashboard. GNOME 3 lets me add extensions as well just like any modern web browser so I can customize it or add features as I choose. No other desktop combines empowerment, distraction-free working, extensibility, and simplicity like GNOME 3 does and I have to say that it is the greatest desktop environment I've ever had the pleasure of working with so far. Even better, it looks like it will only get more awesome as time goes on!
Congrats, GNOME team, for your amazing work! :)
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
"With any luck you will feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease."
So... they're outsourcing their marketing to Taiwan?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Respected? Right. "The reason we take away all the UI for configuring options is because we respect you. It certainly wouldn't be because we feel you're too dumb to decide how you want your own desktop configured or because we worry that users, if left to themselves, might configure their software to work the mundane way they want it rather than the superior way we UI elite have envisioned."
Maybe it just escaped.
Changing the user experience for the sake of "changing the user experience" doesn't do it for me. Gnome3 is a downgrade for me and a nudge to check out KDE.
I guess you can't please all the people all the time, but this effort is headed in the wrong direction.
Best,
That’d be “its”.
I am all for rethinking the desktop paradigm, but I'm not sure whether Gnome 3 is a complete rethink or a desperate attempt to break out of the Windows 95 mould (which I think most linux users, given the popularity of mint and pclinuxos, would grudgingly admit is a sensible way of organising a desktop).
When I moved from Win XP to Gnome 2, I appreciated the rapid access the upper and lower bars gave me to applications, places, open applications, control of access, desktop, shortcuts, other panels and a full calendar - something that greatly improved productivity. Gone were the days of clicking on the same spot in the lower left, and then trying to manoeuvre your mouse around the nested menu upon menu just to find the setting or application you were after, which often led to the mouse losing focus and frustration all round. I feel like Gnome 3 is a step back in this regard, channelling almost all operations through the same spot in the corner could create exactly the same sort of inefficiency and bottleneck.
When I can get Gnome 3 to work properly on my setup, and give it a go for a decent period of time, maybe I'll change my mind. But I think it's more likely I'll find the answer to my own question, and realise that the problem is Linux struggling to clearly define it's niche and uniqueness between Mac OS X and Windows 7.
'With any luck you will feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease.'" ... "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? " -- Dirty Harry
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
"more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease." Wow! If it also made me more continent, gas free, fresh, and leave me with cleaner hair, it would be perfect!
Why can't I click any links in slashdot comments anymore? I'm using Firefox 4. Can't even right click.
Any why is that yellow box overlapping everything when I'm previewing a message? Slashdot seems a bit messed up
I actually emailed the press team. Here's what I wrote:
"I think a thank you is in order from the XFCE team, as the release of GNOME3 has urged me (and many others) to switch to XFCE. With XFCE 4.8 released, the featuresessentiallymirror those found in GNOME2. With that being said, I think you can confidently send the XFCE team a "you're welcome" message for addingnumerousnumbers of people to their user base. Remind them that without the GNOME team ignoring the myriads of complaints about thedirectionof the GNOME project, none of this would of happened.
Thank you very much for reading"
Anyone here should feel more than welcome to use this message, no credit needed. Spread the word, the XFCE team NEEDS to thank the gnome team for all of their hard work removing everything we needed, and giving us everything we didn't.
Feel free to mod me down, just know that unlike some Anonymous Cowards I'm not afraid to express my views as myself.
I just noticed that on gnome.org it says "Hosted by Canonical" at the bottom. Isn't it great how they're getting along, what with all the drama? :)
Yes, it is. Of course, I notice that there's no Ubuntu release on their download page ...
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
At least they have decided on a Gnomenclature.
Yes, you can read all about it in the Necrognomicon.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm afraid you are wrong. I wish Gnome 3 would look and feel like OS X.
Compared to Gnome 3, OS X is a OS for geeks that love to change settings and personalize their desktops.
You do realize that you are probably replying to a bot?
Not that I doubt you're right, but out of curiosity, what did they take out now?
The maximize and minimize buttons, and the window menu which contained those and other actions. Only the close button remains as a common to all windows (although an application can make window-specific action buttons). Maximize and minimize functions are available still, in a non-intuitive way. This is one of the most irksome changes which has rubbed many people the wrong way. I'm delaying any decision on embracing/rejecting Gnome 3 until I've tried it out for a while.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
What genius decided to fuck with that convention? What do you have to do now, go into a shell?
Seriously, when I read this in the heading:
I almost laughed. I don't think I've ever used a massively changed GUI and ever felt "delighted, and at ease". I expect if I tried using GNOME 3 I would be frustrated, irritated, and cursing out loud. Just looking at the screenshots on the GNOME site gets me irritated, much less actually using the thing. And I like at the bottom of the page they include this:
Oh fun, the hide-the-system-settings-game, everyone enjoys playing that. I still haven't found the setting that controls the right-click menu in GNOME 2...
I'm specially insulted by the
You will, you must, it's imperative that you feel respected.
That's the most disrespectful thing they could say, I love how they speak with their feet in their mouth like that.
Gnome 3 will have you do our way. You have no configuration. Start feeling respected now.
But... the future refused to change.
Yes you may never ever change the current paradigm! Evil!
Seriously. If min/max buttons are what pisses you off, GNOME3 is a success.
If you have ever used Mylyn for example, you will notice that some, more focussed UIs make you much more productive. I think it is good that the GNOME team tries to go down this road.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
More focused UIs make you much more productive when doing focused tasks. How do you "focus" a general-purpose desktop environment?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Its' the Slashdot jinx: every post correcting somebody's grammar has to have a grammar mistake of its own (including this one).
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
it does put you into the driver's seat alright - that of a train on a single track.
Hint: the passive voice was used in the summary.
We've taken a pretty different approach in the GNOME 3 design that focuses on the desired experience and lets the interface design follow from that
Well, the experience desired by whom? Me? Well, no GNOME developer ever asked me. I bet they didn't ask you either. I think they just sat around and discussed among themselves what users should want, and then created whatever they decided people should want.
FVWM FTW :-)
Don't bother. They only read the email messages they've written themselves.
A few questions:
vi +