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.'"

Comments

Xfce

[Moderator]

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.

Re:Xfce

[arth1]

I'm seriously considering switching from Gnome.
The main reason is that I use remote logins and lots of VMware. Gnome shell won't even work unless you have hardware acceleration, so you can forget a consistent UI, and have to fall back to Gnome 2. So you now need both.
Never mind getting the file manager to work remotely. I still remember with fondness how easy it was in IRIX to just enter "fm ." in a remote session, and get the file manager for whichever directory you were in. Try that with cutter or nautilus.

So, yes, I expect I will be migrating. But not to Gnome 3. I'll migrate to something functional, and Gnome ain't it.

Re:Xfce

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Oh brother. Do you know how much flammage GNOME took for 2.0 from slashdot? Everything that was said in this thread was repeated 9 years ago with even more vitriol. Most of the people responding haven't tried it or even intending to try it. They still remember 9 years ago and are rehashing and recycling the same damn emotions back then. I can tell when people haven't even given GNOME 3 a test drive when they only complain about minimize and maximize. Give it a week with an open mind and see how it works. That's what GNOME asks.

It works!

[Locke2005]

I _do_ feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease... of course, that might just be the Ritalin...

Re:lol wut

[slaxative]

Actually press release link: http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better-for-users-developers-3/

Translated release notes

[ReinoutS]

Read the release notes in your favorite language here: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.0/

Re:lol wut

[Anonymous Coward]

They ran out of features to remove from GNOME itself so they just took down the website.

Re:lol wut

[Noitatsidem]

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.

Re:How To Tweak GNOME 3

[O( inf)]

To summarize my latter post, I love how GNOME 3 "puts me in the driver's seat".

My problem with GNOME 3 is that it does put you into the driver's seat alright - that of a train on a single track.

Re:How To Tweak GNOME 3

[techno-vampire]

To summarize my latter post, I love how GNOME 3 "puts me in the driver's seat".

That's not what I see in your review. What I see is a new interface that's designed with the assumption that there's One True Way to configure a desktop and that there's no reason to let mere users decide for themselves how they want things to work. As an example, that "feature" of showing the desktop when you move the mouse to the top right corner of the desktop is the first thing I got rid of when I started using Compiz because I personally find it obnoxious and repellent. If this is how you want your desktop to look and work, enjoy the new Gnome. Personally, I'm in the process of abandoning Gnome altogether and moving both my laptop and desktop to XFCE.

That, I might add, is one of the reasons I use Linux, not Windows: when Microsoft comes out with a new "look and feel" for Windows, you have no choice but to learn how to use it; with Linux, if you don't like one DE, you're free to try a different one.

Re:How To Tweak GNOME 3

[Kjella]

I would much rather have a desktop that only allowed the most efficient ways to do things than one that gave me a bunch of configuration options and told me to "figure it out for myself", in a sense. *cough cough*.

"Most efficient" is highly dependent on the user. For example:
1) Do you have a strong spatial memory of where things are in menus, on the desktop or the taskbar? If so you'll hate all auto-intelligence that keeps adjusting your favorite functions. You'd rather have an ordered alt-tab list than an unordered expose function like OS X.
2) Are you a person who remembers a great number of shortcuts and prefer the interface doesn't use much screen real estate to show you the buttons and toolbars? Or do you prefer most functionality to be visible to you?
3) Do you prefer arranging windows or do you like maximized windows and easy switching? Is it important for you to group windows into virtual desktops?
4) Can you recognize software by its icon? If not you'll hate Windows 7.

The "One True Way" is an illusion which may be true for things like kernel benchmarks. But when it comes to what is best for the user that depends on his mental skills, familiarity with the interface and the software and sometimes simply preference. Sane defaults are important, but if you've built the "perfect desktop" the chances are very high you've built YOUR perfect desktop.