Linux Mint 12 to Blend GNOMEs 2 & 3

dartttt writes "Linux Mint 12 'Lisa' will come with its own customized desktop and it will be based on Gnome 3. The core desktop will be based on a series of Gnome Shell extensions called 'MGSE' (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions) that will provide a layer on top of Gnome 3. MGSE also includes additional extensions such as a media player indicator, and multiple enhancements to Gnome 3. Thus Linux Mint 12 will be more like a hybrid desktop balancing traditional desktop and new modern technologies."

Comments

i wonder

[lister king of smeg]

will this be available up stream for oh say Ubuntu or will i have to switch distro? perhaps there could even be a unity variant.

Re:i wonder

[KugelKurt]

Mint is just Ubuntu + additional repositories. Just add the Mint repos manually and you'll have it.
Once extensions.gnome.org is up and running, I guess the Mint Extensions will be hosted there for everybody.

Re:i wonder

[hedwards]

Mint is, however LMDE isn't. I'm not sure how long Mint is going to remain around, seeing as it seems to be diverging from Ubuntu as it becomes more and more obvious that Canonical is batshit insane. At some point it's probably going to be less work for mint to just standardize itself around the Debian Edition.

Re:i wonder

[ArcherB]

will this be available up stream for oh say Ubuntu or will i have to switch distro? perhaps there could even be a unity variant.

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 and installed Gnome. It installed Gnome3 and something called Gnome Classic. It has the same look and feel as Gnome2, but it's still Gnome3. In other words, I can't right click on the bar up top and add system monitors or any "widget" like items. I am able to drag applications up there, however, but as far as I can tell, that's about it.

I believe THIS is what I'm talking about.

Re:i wonder

[rubycodez]

That Mint team has Debian releases, it shows they are planning for a Canonical-less future. I for one welcome our new Canonical/Ubuntu/Unity shunning overlords

Re:i wonder

[KugelKurt]

Mint is, however LMDE isn't.

So? The question was whether the GS modifications from Mint will be available for Ubuntu. The answer was "Just add the Mint repos manually and you'll have it."
So why do you mention LMDE at all?

Re:i wonder

[Compaqt]

>Just add the Mint repos manually and you'll have it.

?

Won't that potentially make it so apt will offer to upgrade all your packages to the Mint versions, depending on the date of the Ubuntu vs. Mint packages?

Re:i wonder

[Lusa]

The main problem with the Debian edition as it stands is it's a rolling release. Taking updates can be *very* hit or miss as to whether you have a working desktop afterwords. Still, I regularly use two machines with it installed and generally I'm happy. I use one as an experiment to determine if I should update the other :)

Re:i wonder

[KugelKurt]

Mint uses Ubuntu repos directly. It basically is Ubuntu with another additional repo and different defaults.

Re:i wonder

[hedwards]

And precisely why are you replying without reading my post? The answer to your question is shrewdly hidden within the plain English of my post. LMDE is probably going to be the way of the future if Canonical makes it increasingly hard to work with.

Re:i wonder

[Compaqt]

OK, thanks, I thought that they had their own (like Ubuntu has their own instead of being Debian + extras).

Re:i wonder

[KugelKurt]

Again: The question was if those extensions are available for Ubuntu. Answer: They are.
How you feel about collaboration between Mint and Canonical has nothing to do with it.

Re:i wonder

[lsatenstein]

I have a feeling that UBUNTU satisfied the early adapters, but that UBUNTU does not have exclusivity on intelligence, ideas and innovators. Linux Mint understands users, UBUNTU did that prior to Unity, but then began rightly concentrating on recovering their investments. It reminds me a bit like the car industry of the 1920's, where suddenly innovators leap ahead of the leader, and for a few years are the best.

No company has exclusivity on innovation and abilities.

If it is Debs or rpms, one will parallel or leap-frog over the other.

Re:i wonder

[DaVince21]

RPM-based distros also have one-click repositories. So sharable package repos are common in other distros too, yet also split as completely different software (which is expected).

Netbooks

[Xanny]

Why don't they just fork the GNOME project into small and large form factors? That might be a misnomer - its more like close and far displays, because you would probably like a Gnome 3 style interface when you are 10 - 15' away from the screen. Hopefully the devs working on Unity and Gnome realize that end users just want customization. Nothing wrong with introducing start menu search and OSX style docks but let the user decide how they want their desktop configured, because you never know what they want. I use XFCE right now, but the lack of a built in global application search drives me insane, and the inability to get a Windows 7 / Unity esque task bar where I can pin applications rather than have duplicate quick launch / active windows buttons is a feature I miss. The inability to drag / drop apps to a panel is also extremely cumbersome. Then again, you can't really complain about all of the X desktop environments because you could just go fork the project and fix them yourselves if you didn't like something.

Re:Netbooks

[supersloshy]

Hopefully the devs working on Unity and Gnome realize that end users just want customization.

Then why is iOS so popular? It's certainly not because users can configure every little detail. It's because the interface is pleasing to use and doesn't require a lot of customization.

While GNOME's audience right now might be configuration-obsessed Linux users, they're trying to branch out into the audience that includes grandmas and teenagers with this new interface by making it simpler (in the long run, I mean, when people get used to it). I think that's as good of a goal as any, and it's only going to make GNOME more popular in the long run.

Re:Netbooks

[advocate_one]

Hopefully the devs working on Unity and Gnome realize that end users just want customization.

fat chance of that... they've been working to remove means of customisation from the user for a long time now... basically, it's the Gnome way, or else find something else instead...

Re:Netbooks

[gbr]

iOS is for my phone or my tablet. Not my computer.

Eventually, we'll want the same flexibility we've grown to enjoy on our computers, on our small devices. Then, iOS will not be acceptable anymore.

Re:Netbooks

[jellomizer]

This shows off a weakness in open source. The people who can make changes to the system are not necessary the ones who should make the decisions on what changes to make.
Half of the complains about GNOME 3 is just from a bunch of Old Farts who do not want to see anything change. The other half are from people who don't like the trade offs chosen to make it. This second half will try to make this hybrid and end up making something that will split the group again as still people will not like the trade offs chosen again.

Sometimes you just need to force the new version down the mouth. The old farts will always be there but they will end up liking it when GNOME 4 comes out. And the others will at some point find the tradeoffs wasn't so bad. The bloat after a PC upgrade isn't that big of a deal.

Re:Netbooks

[Sancho]

Then why is iOS so popular?

Many on Slashdot would say that it's because iOS devices are status symbols. That real, discerning users use Android.

It's because the interface is pleasing to use and doesn't require a lot of customization.

Right. It is a sane set of defaults that work well for most people.

While GNOME's audience right now might be configuration-obsessed Linux users, they're trying to branch out into the audience that includes grandmas and teenagers with this new interface by making it simpler (in the long run, I mean, when people get used to it). I think that's as good of a goal as any, and it's only going to make GNOME more popular in the long run.

Only if they provide good, useful defaults. Low-configuration plus low-usability doesn't usually make something popular.

Re:Netbooks

[KugelKurt]

Why don't they just fork the GNOME project into small and large form factors?

"Just fork"? If you think it's so easy to do to maintain a whole desktop environment, why don't you do it yourself?
How do you think that would be easier than Mint's route to write a handful of GS extension files and let upstream GNOME take care of the rest?

Re:Netbooks

[bill_mcgonigle]

basically, it's the Gnome way, or else find something else instead...

I went over to KDE when GNOME started pushing mono as their preferred technology for default applications. GNOME continues to make bad choices for my use cases.

I'm amazed by how many Slashdot computer geeks still feel a strong affinity for running whatever the distros set for a default in spite of the obvious long-term negative outlook.

Don't get me wrong - I have complaints about KDE, but they're normal complaints, not massive fundamental disastrous complaints.

Re:Netbooks

[Rogerborg]

Nice try, but us Old Farts have and have enunciated very specific reasons why Unity and GNOME 3 are exactly the antithesis of why we use Linux based systems in the first place - we want multi-purpose machines for doing a variety of tasks, not "CLICK HEER 4 TEH LULZ" OSen.

So we won't "always be here", we'll be over there, having tucked-and-rolled off of the Canonical train wreck and switched to another distro. It's not like there's a paucity of choice.

Re:Netbooks

[EasyTarget]

See the post from Sancho below..

I'm not bothered by the fact is it changing (in fact I love it) or by the trade-offs (I dont see many anyway).

It's the dork defaults that I hate; starting with the hidden poweroff feature(*) and application switchers where users actually want application launchers.

(*) Dont tell me to use suspend; I have 3 current machines, with three industry-standard chipsets, none of them suspend then resume properly; neither did my previous thinkpad.. Suspend in Linux is basically broken at the kernel level for many common chipsets, and has been for years. It's obviously really obscure and hardware dependent, nobody knows how to fix it so the bugs get talked down in severity then marked 'wontfix'.
Basically: Any Gnome 3 defender who assumes suspend works for everyone is a ludicrous fantasist; try the following google search: "site:bugs.launchpad.net suspend" and note how many results there are; half a million! FFS.. Now try the same for poweroff; under 8 thousand.

Re:Netbooks

[supersloshy]

Usability is relative. GNOME is very usable to me, even if it doesn't seem usable to you. Many GNOME developers like the new interface, too, from what I've read.

Re:Netbooks

[Sancho]

Usability is relative.

Yes, but if you're going to reduce configurability, you damned well better design with usability for as many people as you can.

Many GNOME developers like the new interface

Developers ideas of usability may not align with users ideas of usability.

Re:Netbooks

[fnj]

I didn't even think it was a nice try, just a supercilious know-it-all.

Re:Netbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid that iOS is also the future for your macbook. Just like webapps the future for windows. Everything is moving to that kind of platform. Windows 8 also introduces a tablet like OS. I think everybody is moving towards the same kind of foundation. Traditional computing is going to change thanks to these devices.

Sure the desktop is going to be there, but it'll be better to have an OS that defaults to the most popular type of device while having the flexibility through extensions to modify it for other things.

Re:Netbooks

[Sri Ramkrishna]

All you've enunciated is that you don't like it because it wasn't what you've been used to. I believe we went through this before with GNOME 1.x -> GNOME 2.x. Go back and look at that thread on slashdot and see if it doesn't sound like the same thing.

Re:Netbooks

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Exactly. GNOME Extensions are pretty extensive. You could theoretically implement any user interface using it.

Re:Netbooks

[rhizome]

Many GNOME developers like the new interface, too, from what I've read.

What a fascinating coincidence!

Re:Netbooks

[Cajun Hell]

Then why is iOS so popular?

It's not. I am in an office full of Macs right now, and not a single one of them is running iOS. It's all "keyboard and mouse" edition Mac OS X. This is Apple fanboy territory and even here, there is little evidence of iOS popularity.

Part of the reason for this is that iOS ala cart is not for sale; you can't put it on your desktop computer even if you want to. And part of the reason is that it would be stupid to even if you could.

Once you understand why Mac OS X users would consider iOS to be a downgrade, I think you'll understand why Ubuntu users consider Unity to be a downgrade.

Re:Netbooks

[supersloshy]

Well they sure align with my ideas of usability, hence the relativity of usability. GNOME 3 isn't perfect but I find it to be much more usable than GNOME 2 in several (though not all) areas. Give it some time; GNOME 2 had years and years to mature, while GNOME 3 is relatively fresh. By the time GNOME 4 comes around everybody is going to be bitching about how it's not exactly like GNOME 3, just like with every eventual desktop OS upgrade.

Re:Netbooks

[Riceballsan]

IOS has it's place, particularly in places where you intend to do exactly what the limited functions given to you are, and very little branching out. IOS is great for things that require little thought, posting twitter and facebook updates. even basic pictures. Working on a basic research project where you are going to be working with a few dozen webpages, some extra files while simultaneously IMing a study partner etc... not so much. IOS is the perfect OS for consuming information, Great quick mindless way to do 1 thing at a time, it is the worse creator OS. Horrible for keeping track of many things at once, working with eachother etc...

Re:Netbooks

[ADRA]

They've chased this vaporous market for 10 years and have gotten them basically zero adoption into the consumer mass market. I think its time to start focusing on making their products good for the people actually using them.

Re:Netbooks

[TuringTest]

let the user decide how they want their desktop configured, because you never know what they want.

All the Usability lore is based on that you can know what the user wants (and needs) and build the system around it. A system designed to cover those needs should ideally require little to no configuration, because the creator would satisfy all the requirements through a single interface - once the optimal design is achieved, any change to it would be worse for the stated needs.

That only works for a particular group of users and contexts, though; there's where Gnome 3 is having problems, because Open Source desktops are used by a bigger amount and variety of users than what Gnome 3 was designed for.

Traditional FOSS applications include lots of configuration options because that's an easy way to reach a wide amount of needs, but that doesn't mean that it's optimal. Non-technical users have problems when there are lots of configuration options, and they tend to stick with the default interface no matter what it is - usually because they're afraid to break things.

If you're interested in how to reduce the need for configuration and how to design for the widest audience, have a look at Jef Raskin's book The Humane Interface. It's based on designing for the cognitive capabilities common to all people, and it has influenced many of the design idioms found in modern in web and mobile applications.

Re:Netbooks

[jbolden]

Maybe not. A computer is a device someone interacts with for complex tasks 8+ hrs a day. A phone is a device someone interacts with for ad-hoc tasks possibly as little as 10 minutes a day (excluding time actually talking on the phone).

I could see those two interfaces never converging.

Re:Netbooks

[jbolden]

Long term these hybrid OSes are tough to maintain. We used to have KDE / Gnome hybrids on Linux, but Redhat, Mandrake... got tired of it.

Re:Netbooks

[ifrag]

It's not just GNU/Linux though, I still have serious problems with resume in Windows 7 (and I think Win 7 actually puts that as the default "power" button on the menu). In my case, as soon as the video driver has been updated to current, resume can pretty much be abandoned as never working again. Screen just stays black, or maybe its a brief blink then back to black. In any event, totally broken.

The only machine I have that can actually suspend / resume correctly is my Macbook. It's sad, but I actually point that out specifically when people ask what is good about it.

Re:Netbooks

[Anne Thwacks]

I'm amazed by how many Slashdot computer geeks still feel a strong affinity for running whatever the distros set for a default in spite of the obvious long-term negative outlook

As an authentic, card carrying SCG, I routinely introduce others to the wonderful world of Linux, most of whom are impoverished students, desperately clining to to a life-expired WinXP box bursting with viruses. For the past 4 or so years, I have been able to take a CD, boot from it, show them its really not more different than moving to Vista, except that it actually works.

Install it,
???
Prophet
Well actually, give them a few hours of practice, and return a fortnight later, and add the features they have missed.

I recently tried to upgrade my own Ubuntu machine. Unity is not compatible with my graphics card - Ubuntu actually said so, but installed it anyway as the default WM, leaving the machine unusable. I eventually managed to reinstall it avoiding the evil.

Then I went to install it on someone else's laptop. The default Unity installation is not actually usable. Someone's idea of intuitive is presumably based on some world from an arcade game I have never seen, and I was not able so identify what any of the icons were (I did eventually recognise the firefox one).

I was not able to configure the system in a sensible amount of time - and the lack of hierarchical menu structure was a total show stopper, and the owner demanded a return to XP.

There you have the problem: XP is MILES better than Unity! If that is the best they can do, then "batshit crazy" is indeed an accurate assessment of Canonical.

Anyone who thinks UI that requires mousovers t work needs a brain tranplant. 30 years of computing should have taught people that menus (with WORDS in) are readable and understandable by everyone who understands the relevant language. Icons are often understood by no one. (You can visit http://www.websitesthatsuck.com/ if you reall NEED to known how not to do it, but it seems the Unity developers already did.

Unix's success is that it can be customised. If you want locked down stuff, Unix will do it - or you can buy "the other brand".

I have no problem with Unity as an alternative, but before they make it a default, it needs to at least half-work on older machines, and be usable when its installed - which means hierarchical menus structure is BLOODY essential!

Re:Netbooks

[TuringTest]

The convergence is what you find in tablets. And kiosks. And TV media centers. And web applications.

All those examples can be used for hours at a time.

Re:Netbooks

[ADRA]

There were some trade-offs between 1 and 2, and I thought at the time really really annoyed at the fact that I couldn't drag in new launchers into the menu (Hello still obvious need for this!), but trade-offs were worth the features and streamlining that was added to the release. Of course all the enlightenment peeps felt put out and left, but I'd say they were quite in the minority in terms of the community as a whole.

IMHO Gnome 3 is not functionally similar in any way to Gnome2. If Apple, Microsoft, RIM, etc.. had released a DE looking like Gnome3Shell, I wouldn't have thought, oh look they ripped off Gnome! There's a fundamental departure in feel to Gnome in a way that I will not accept. The same can be said about Windows XP/7. I'm not a windows fan in any extent, but given the choice in which version to use, I'll use XP every time because I'm a lot more productive in that environment. It allows for just enough OS to do what it needs to do without all the gloss that Vista/7 adds to the mix.

Maybe I'm just one of your old curmudgeons who refuse to learn a new tune, but guess what? I'd say the vast majority of the Linux community would fall into my age range or older (I'm only 31), and don't want to go down the same broken roads that Microsoft and Apple are steering the desktop world.

Re:Netbooks

[supersloshy]

Vocal people tend to be more negative than positive. News at 11.

Re:Netbooks

[silanea]

You may want to lay off the "They're just stubborn old fools" attitude and reread what Rogerborg wrote. I have Unity on my laptop which I use mostly for browsing and OSM editing and - leaving aside such petty annoyances as the lack of a GUI for changing font sizes or anti-aliasing in the stock installation - it is quite a nice interface for such utilisation. But Canonical will have to take GNOME 2 from my cold dead hands as far as my workstation is concerned. I tried Unity there, I tried GNOME 3 there, and I still cannot make up my mind as to which one sucked harder. I have a 27" screen, three panels and almost nothing left of the stock configuration. Not because I have too much time on my hands or because my ego requires daily customisation so I can feel special but because I need to get shit done. And those new interfaces get in the way of that. This is why I, along with quite a number of people, do not see Unity or GNOME 3 as the Second Coming. They are one possible approach to GUI design, and they offer advantages in some areas but fall short in others where more traditional paradigms are better suited.

Re:Netbooks

[jbolden]

I don't have good predictions for tablets. I'm not sure where they go long term. As for kiosks, I think those get used for seconds to minutes unless we are talking about something else. As for web applications those aren't OSes but a style of delivering applications.

Re:Netbooks

[Pausanias]

Many on Slashdot would say that it's because iOS devices are status symbols. That real, discerning users use Android.

iPhone as "status symbol" was maybe about 4 years ago? I just saw my garbage man checking his iPhone, somehow I don't think they are status symbols anymore. I think you need to get the spray-painted yellow or diamond-encrusted to get back to status symbol.

Smartphones---whether android or iOS---they are just now common tools that any person would spend money on if they have the money, like a car or a TV.

Re:Netbooks

[Sri Ramkrishna]

I'm much older. But I know that IOS and Windows 8 are all going to be pursuing similar avenues. I do not think that you can avoid that OS GUIs are going to be developed primarily for mobile devices and that there will be a convergence of the OS to use the same GUI for all hardware types. In this case, GNOME has reached that point earlier and will be able to develop their ideas ahead of Windows. There is no "if" about releasing a DE that looks like GNOME3Shell. Search for windows 8 on youtube.

Re:Netbooks

[Windwraith]

You know, the conclusions from the recent UDS is that Unity will have customization options finally (they wanted to focus on making it work first), and that the Dash will be dramatically changed to a less zany approach. I don't think the Unity bashing is justified.

Re:Netbooks

[Sri Ramkrishna]

GNOME 3 requires that you change how you interact with your computer. Some people find that hard to do. It's not they are "stubborn old fools", but rather it's hard to adjust to a new way of doing something. The rate of adjustment is variable. But there are plenty of people who have adapted to using the new way and are productive. I've had a similar experience when moving from Perl to Python, you spend 3 weeks struggling to learn the python way of doing things knowing full well that if you move back to Perl you can get this piece of code working in minutes instead of an hour because you're google searching relevant docs to figure out how to do it in the new way. Eventually, you'll figure out how to do it. If not, in GNOME 3's case, there are extensions that can help ease the transition. Mint for instance, completely changed the paradigm back to something similar to GNOME 2. Extensions are extensive, you can pretty much mix and match just about every desktop component that has a GObject interface that is exposed through javascript. I expect GNOME 3 to go places that other desktops won't be able to do as easily.

Re:Netbooks

[Peaceful_Patriot]

Call me an old fart. I have used Linux for over a decade. I have used dozens of distros and desktops. Blackbox, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, XFCE, KDE, Gnome and yes, Unity. Over the years of experimentation and practice, I figured something out about myself. I always come back to Debian or a derivative and I always come back to Gnome. This combination hits the sweet spot for me and if Ununtu chooses to move in a different direction, I choose to find an alternative.

I don't get why I would want to add layers of cpu eating complexity, just to simulate what I have right now. I see the direction Canonical is moving. Smartphones and tablets may be the wave of the future but this old fart knows what I like on my desktop.

Deb + Gnome = Perfection

Re:Netbooks

[silanea]

You still make it sound as if GNOME 3 was inherently better, as if we all were just not putting enough effort into making the switch. I have gone from Win 3.11 to Win NT 4 to Win 98 to KDE 3 to Win XP to OS X to GNOME 2, and now added Win 7, Android and Unity to the mix. There are things in each of them that I admire and things that I despise. I see uses for GNOME 3 and Unity. But they are limited to certain tasks and audiences. Which is why at any given time I usually have almost as many tabs open in my shell as I have in my browser.

Re:Netbooks

[Sloppy]

This shows off a weakness in open source .. Sometimes you just need to force the new version down the mouth.

The purpose of Free Software is to avoid becoming bound by other people's decisions in situations where you don't want to be. That is, it should always be totally impossible for someone to "force anything down the mouth." What we see here is that by having the freedom to fork, what you call a "weakness" acted as a strength. The needs of downstream outweigh the needs of upstream.

That is, of course a Free Software way of looking at it.

If you wish to promote Open Source instead of Free Software, you can make an argument that it is expedient to force other people to do what they don't want, because the needs of upstream outweigh the needs of downstream. By preventing forking and fragmentation, Open Source developers can roll out their changes to a wider audience, more easily achieve Global Domination, etc. Yes, by that measure, the fact that other people are allowed to control what software they run or maintain, despite whatever you want, is a weakness rather than a strength. Open Source advocates don't necessarily have to adopt that conclusion, but yeah, I can see that PoV.

I guess it just depends on whose side you're on and what's most important to you. It comes down to why you care about Open Source.

Re:Netbooks

[Sancho]

I agree, but it doesn't stop that opinion from being spouted on every iPhone story, of which there are many these days.

Re:Netbooks

[Nemo137]

I think that the words "finally" and "less zany" show that it is. They rolled out a half-finished product forcing a dramatic change on their end users. Most people dick around with their settings even in Windows and OSX. Just being taken along or the ride with Unity with the promise that you'll be able to make it do what you want someday is wrong.

Re:Netbooks

[aftermarketgirl]

What Mint is doing is possible because the Gnome devs have given us a UI with really clear code and a plugin architecture. Mint has been able to completely change the character of the desktop with a few plugins.

How much more customization do you want?

Re:Netbooks

[RCL]

Half of the complains about GNOME 3 is just from a bunch of Old Farts who do not want to see anything change.

We are using an OS with 40 years of tradition for a reason.

Re:Netbooks

[RCL]

Don't you think this is a bubble that is going to pop sooner or later? Using mobile devices always feels constrained - even if I *can* do something on my phone, I often postpone the task until I am at the computer, so I can do it more comfortably (without any "please ignore the typos" messages).

I certainly don't want this feeling on the PC.

Re:Netbooks

[hairyfeet]

Actually I'd just like to point out you are wrong about windows 8 for two reasons. One windows 8 aka Ballmer's Folly has a simple reg entry that can be used to kill the shitastic Metro UI and instead you'll have the Win 7 desktop with a square button for start instead of round, big whoop. Second if the users decide that is too much and Ballmer's Folly does suckth the big wet titty (which is what i'm predicting) then according to the roadmap windows 7 is supported until 2020 which means just like how we saw all these "Vista" machines sold with XP and a "Here is the disc if you actually cared" copy of Vista so too will we see the OEMs selling "Windows 8" machines with Win 7.

As for TFA when the next batch of PCs come through the shop I intend to try out Linux Mint so I have a question...what was the Mint release from 3 years ago? Because before i'll let a machine be sold in my shop it has to pass the "is it safe?" test which sadly so far no Linux has managed to do yet, which simulates a user owning the machine for a few years. I load up the distro from 3 years ago, make sure everything is working, then let it upgrade to current, just as a normal user could be expected to do. If ALL of the hardware continues to function then it is safe, and I think this is a fair test since I have XP machines that have been in the field for 7+ years and are current so I don't think 3 years worth of updates is too much to ask.

So if someone lets me know what version I need to look for I'll get in on the weekend and when the new boxes get here I'll slap it on a couple of random machines and see if it passes. i do like the looks of it though, especially the LXDE version. It has a nice clean look and supposedly is pretty low resource which will help on the P4s, i just hope it passes the test.

Re:Netbooks

[Compaqt]

Have you switched to a Dvorak keyboard? Or Kinesis?

If not, why not?

Re:Netbooks

[Compaqt]

The bashing is highly warranted.

Ubuntu only relented because it was bashed.

Re:Netbooks

[TuringTest]

Tablets, e-readers, mobiles, folding screens, projector whiteboards, tangible UIs like the Reactable... they are here to stay; keyboards will be a wireless peripheral used only when a heavy data input is required. The laptop/netbook without a touchscreen will no longer be the king of content-creation devices.

Complex tasks are no longer done on an isolated desktop environment; they are right now distributed among people using mobile devices, touchscreens, remote applications in web browsers... Kiosk-like devices will be used for collaborative creation on video-walls, big surfaces like the Microsoft table or the Sphere, and gesture recognition like with Kinect and Move. These technologies have been around for a while as prototypes, and they're finally ready to be used as affordable commercial products.

Even single-user tasks will not be performed on a desktop alone. The computer user will want to display data on the multiple available displays; dual screen configurations are only the beginning, and the desktop metaphor is not well suited for it - it was created for a single small screen, and it requires a peripheral bounding box close to the work area which is no longer available with multiple screens.

Users will want to move item lists to be displayed on peripheral devices and have them controlling the main view on the master screen. The stand-alone monitor as the single output device is a thing of the past, and there's where the computer interface will have to converge in order to collaborate with all the other information devices.

Re:Netbooks

[jbolden]

Maybe. But one could have made the same predictions about television a few decades ago when computers could still use TVs as monitors. TV based systems (console game systems) and PCs completely forked they didn't converge.

I don't know why touch screens would be heavily used for content creation. Content creation is still complex. Large displays for computers that have touch interfaces already exist. Right now the experience can be a bit off but assuming that's worked out that doesn't prove much about whether that's a niche or a large player.

In periods of time when people are thoughtful there is a lot of work centered on
meet & discuss -> work alone for long periods of time -> meet & discuss -> work alone...

In periods of time when people are trying to pull diverse things together there is a lot of collaboration.
Right now we've been in a collaborative period as a country for white collar work. I don't know that we can assume that will be the case for the next 50 years. We might need more thoughtful type interactions with more concentration and less collaboration.

Re:Netbooks

[Sri Ramkrishna]

The hope is that it will be better, but like everything GNOME 3 will continue to evolve just like KDE4 evolved and GNOME 2 evolved over time.

Re:Netbooks

[F.Ultra]

No this is a weakness in humans, there is no difference here if the source is open or not. Closed sourced applications share the exact same problem. The benefit we have with the open source is that people like the Mint developers actually can fork of Gnome and do with it what it likes.

Re:Netbooks

[TuringTest]

Good point about computers and consoles, though consoles are single-purpose so non-gaming interfaces are not comparable. When computers are used for gaming, they do best when having console-like interfaces (Steam, web flash games...)

The point is not that touch screens will be the medium for content creation; it's that there will no longer be a single medium, but multiple input/output channels.

Personal computing has been the realm of keyboard+mouse for almost 30 years, but the multiplicity of cheap sensors that is arriving will allow for complex tasks taking advantage of a variety of peripherals, each one good for a particular interaction modality: 3D input, direct selection by touch instead than by a remote cursor, wide gestures for navigation between tasks... they can be done now with more than mouse selection and key combos.

That's true either for collaboration (that is not going to disappear even if works are no longer in the office) or for isolated thoughtful work. A single worker will want to take advantage of multimodal interaction and separate information surfaces to keep track of different subtasks and for multitasking, which are difficult to do on the traditional desktop metaphor.

Re:Netbooks

[NeoTron]

GNOME 3 requires that you change how you interact with your computer......

Your entire reply rests on the premise "this new way is a lot better than the old way, so eventually you'll have to deal with it".

I'm still to be convinced that a touchscreen interface is suitable for a desktop meme. And I don't think it will ever be, unless your desktop monitors are touch sensitive (and how practical would that be? You'd soon have aching arms reaching over to your screens).

Re:Netbooks

[Sri Ramkrishna]

I think you're being distracted by "touch screen" interface. It isn't exactly designed around a touch screen. It's designed around "application centric" vs "workspace centric". The animations are used to make a distinction that you're moving from one task to another.

The reason you see similarity is because on mobile devices, it's also application specific. But there is still a different domain involved.

The new way *is* better mostly because we have greater control to make changes over the entire desktop than we could before. In the old way, we had a lot of inconsistency between various parts. Applets didn't behave like other applets, the network applet didn't have a uniform GUI.

GNOME 3 also made theming both apps and the desktop easier by using CSS instead of some custom .gtkrc or some other insanity. There are a lot of cool things under the hood. But it's all not being talked about because of issues around user interaction. We can do things with GNOME 3 that we likely couldn't do with GNOME 2. I expect that you'll see some interesting things that people have come up with once extensions hit critical mass.

Re:Netbooks

[lastx33]

Personal computing has been the realm of keyboard+mouse for almost 30 years, but the multiplicity of cheap sensors that is arriving will allow for complex tasks taking advantage of a variety of peripherals, each one good for a particular interaction modality: 3D input, direct selection by touch instead than by a remote cursor, wide gestures for navigation between tasks... they can be done now with more than mouse selection and key combos. That's true either for collaboration (that is not going to disappear even if works are no longer in the office) or for isolated thoughtful work. A single worker will want to take advantage of multimodal interaction and separate information surfaces to keep track of different subtasks and for multitasking, which are difficult to do on the traditional desktop metaphor.

This is the kind of thinking that gave us Gnome 3 Shell and Unity. Quite frankly I and almost everyone else I know is quite happy with a 2D interface, keyboard and mouse for most tasks. I certainly find almost anything else including the new whizz-bang phone-on-a-desktop interfaces rather less productive and after a while, irritating. I don't want to wave my arms around, swipe or pinch things, or indeed have my handwriting translated or talk to a machine. These sort of things are entertaining for adolescents who don't need to make a living and are fine for tiny amounts of interaction on a phone but don't scale up too well. They are gimmicks like 3D TV - solutions to problems that don't exist. There is a reason that the 2D, menu based interface has been around so long and it isn't that there was a lack of technological capability to make something better. The reason is that it works well and people like it.

Re:Netbooks

[EasyTarget]

As a relative measure of the popularity of 'suspend' in kernel bug reports vs that of 'poweroff' I stand by this; It IS a real-world measure of the prevalence of defects related to suspend as compared to poweroff. Users DO have far more problems with suspending their machines than with powering them off. Poweroff should be the default; with suspend being an option users can enable in the unlikely event it works.

Re:Netbooks

[EasyTarget]

I agree about win7; I'm Fedora based at work but run Win7 in KVM on the system; if it would suspend/resume properly it would make my life a lot easier. As for Apple devices; I should bl**dy well hope it works given the integration between iOSx and the hardware.

Re:Netbooks

[TuringTest]

The reason is that it works well and people like it.

You're not been hanging around common people lately nor watching how they use their systems - what you say is true only for highly trained office users, and then only to some extent.

As I said, people are TERRIFIED from using their computers to their full potential, because of the very real possibility to break the system, and because most actions are overly complex even for simple tasks (such as syncing their music folder with their mp3 player). They learn how to perform their usual four or five tasks, and any deviation of their known flow (such as popup error) means that they won't be able to finish the task, diagnose the reason for the unexpected behavior, nor remotely close to fix it.

That's the reason why task-based flow environments work much better than object-oriented environments for these users; auto-contained tasks offer all the information they need to achieve their goal, while in object environments the user needs to hava a thorough understanding of all the virtual objects and their relationships before anything cat get done at all. Users simply don't have the background nor the time needed to learn all those concepts, since the objects are designed in a way that it's hard to make sense of.

The WIMP widgets certainly were extremely well designed and flexible for their time, and that's why they could have survived all those years at all; and if you think of it, they were at first quite task-oriented in the way that I explained above. But they've largely overexceeded their useful life for many purposes, and they're not well adapted to the needs of modern applications (how many menu bars do you see on Twitter, Facebook, Google or Wikipedia?). They've not been replaced because we haven't found an optimal replacement yet, and because the HUGE investment in existing tools (widget libraries, IDEs and peripherals) supporting their model. Those make for a strong conservative force. (Yup, developers are extremely conservative people when it refers to their profession tools).

Certainly some gestural and natural interactions are gimmicky when applied to traditional tasks. The trick is that they will allow for new kinds of tasks, those that have been held back by the dominant desktop metaphor - primarily, sharing information between people on the same physical and/or virtual room, and working on analyzing and editing huge data sets.

In my view there are two kinds of configuration options. The first one allows the user to create new workflows (adding widgets to panels and the desktop, installing apps from the market...), the second one (far too common in FOSS software) is used to get rid of design decisions that get in the way of the preferred workflow.

In its effort to get rid of the second kind, Gnome 3 and Unity seem to have made the mistake to also remove the first one. That doesn't mean that the underlying design, centered around a task model that can be expanded to accomodate new tasks, is the wrong one.

That "kind of thinking", as you put it, is a solid and much needed one. That's why the public is flooding toward the mobile appliances and nobody really bother to try the FOSS alternatives (Plasma, Meego) - no one is able to make sense of them because they're not task-oriented, at least not for the tasks that are more commonly needed.

Re:Netbooks

[bingoUV]

No, poweroff (single word) is not a word people use very frequently to describe the event of shutting down their computers. So Google search would obviously return less results (obvious provided you know the ABC of how Google search works)

Re:Netbooks

[EasyTarget]

No, poweroff (single word) is not a word people use very frequently to describe the event of shutting down their computers. So Google search would obviously return less results (obvious provided you know the ABC of how Google search works)

BZZZT: Google search is stemmed and expanded.. so that it gets these variations ("power-off" "Power Off" etc.). But if you knew the ABC of how Google search works then you'd know that.

However; searching for 'site:bugs.launchpad.net shutdown' produces far more matches; so maybe I was hyperboling there a bit; except that most of those issues actually relate to things other than the system shutting down ('webcam continually shuts down', 'application X wont shut down', 'application Y hangs and prevents the system from shutting down', etc). So I still stand by my argument; forcing suspend as the default action is silly because it is broken very badly on most installed systems.

Re:Screenshots...

[nharmon]

Goatse. Don't click

A bit of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be moving desktops as soon as this comes out. This is the best thing about Gnome 3/Shell it's so configurable as it's written in Javascript. Needs to be as I want my normal desktop back.

2012 is now officially...

[lsolano]

the year of the Linux HYBRID Desktop !

Yo dog...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I herd you like linux on the desktop, so I put an unprecedented number of dubiously thought out desktops on your linux.

Unfortunately, that makes about as much sense as the current state of gnome and gnome-derived desktops...

Better, go straight to the source

[arielCo]

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851

Gnome 3 is shiny, elegant and modern looking. It’s a sleek desktop but it comes with a few problems:

• It changes the way people use their computer
• It’s application-centric, not task-centric (you switch between applications, not windows)
• It doesn’t do multi-tasking well (you can’t see opened windows, system tray icons, etc..)

[...] So with this in mind, Gnome 3 in Linux Mint 12 needs to let you interact with your computer in two different ways: the traditional way, and the new way, and it’s up to you to decide which way you want to use.

For this, we developed “MGSE” (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions), which is a desktop layer on top of Gnome 3 that makes it possible for you to use Gnome 3 in a traditional way. You can disable all components within MGSE to get a pure Gnome 3 experience, or you can enable all of them to get a Gnome 3 desktop that is similar to what you’ve been using before. Of course you can also pick and only enable the components you like to design your own desktop.

The main features in MGSE are:

• The bottom panel
• The application menu
• The window list
• A task-centric desktop (i.e. you switch between windows, not applications)
• Visible system tray icons

Re:Better, go straight to the source

[666999]

Hope they can pull it off. Mint is a pleasure to use, for the most part.

Re:Better, go straight to the source

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Actually, if you read Clem's post on it, you'll see that he does in fact thinks it's great technology. He may not like all elements of it but what he is happy with is that he'll be able to modify it to provide a hybrid user experience.

Re:Better, go straight to the source

[Anonymous Coward]

The main features in MGSE are:

        The bottom panel
        The application menu
        The window list
        A task-centric desktop (i.e. you switch between windows, not applications)
        Visible system tray icons

Add customization and this actually is what people want. The gnome 3 developers have a lot to learn. I was very concerned about mint's adoption of gnome 3. This proves the mint developers are not only vastly smarter than gnome 3 developers but that it really is Ubuntu decrapified.I hope their execution is nearly as appealing as it sounds.

Oh Lord in computer... why in the hell are the gnome 3 developers so fucking stupid? Surely they are the creation of hell spawn and all that is evil... The end of days is here. Gnooommmmeeee thrrreeeeeee......aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Re:Better, go straight to the source

[sqldr]

I hate to add to the flames, but will there be any way to DISABLE the bottom panel? I haven't used or needed one since gnome 3...

Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[dyingtolive]

So pretty much all I use a GUI for is having multiple terminal windows open at once and being able to have access to a non-masochistic web browser. For this, I need a clean and lightweight UI. GNOME 3 works just fine in that regard. Other than "because it's different", why does everyone hate it?

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The interface sucks and it is a resource hog. Who had the bright idea to write a DE in Javascript?

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[SwedishPenguin]

1. Middle-click/right-click->open new window
2. Alt-<key above tab>
3. Sounds very odd, if it's really the case then there are alternatives to gnome-terminal...

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Junta]

1. Ctrl-Alt-N
2. Alt-[key-above-tab], though two-tiered tabbing is a bit weirder, it can be more powerful in the face of many heterogenous windows.
3. This is not new to Gnome 3, gnome-terminal has been that way for a long time. I don't necessarily agree with this.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[0123456]

3. This is not new to Gnome 3, gnome-terminal has been that way for a long time. I don't necessarily agree with this.

Well, duh. In Gnome 2 you had the choice of opening terminal windows in a single process or opening multiple terminal windows. In Gnome 3 you're forced to open just one, which is a disaster for people who need to use the command line a lot.

If Mint fixes that too, then I guess I'll be dumping Ubuntu soon.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[jcupitt65]

For 1) I have a keyboard bind to open a new terminal window, and another to maximise vertically.

For 2) I use focus-follow-mouse and just drag over to a different window. On a laptop this is a tiny swipe of the thumb and does not interrupt your typing.

3) was a bit odd at first after spending years in xterm, but it's fine now. I can't remember the last time I had a problem with it.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[KugelKurt]

The interface sucks and it is a resource hog. Who had the bright idea to write a DE in Javascript?

GNOME Shell is not a resource hog at all. Even my low-end laptop can run it without any trouble.
And if you thing the GUI sucks: Modify the JS files and get a completely different work flow with minimal work. That's why writing a DE in JavaScript is a great idea and shipping modified JS files for GNOME Shell is exactly whet Mint 12 will do.

Qt/KDE go a similar route with QML (a JavaScript dialect). Plasma Active is already written completely in QML and with Plasma Desktop 4.8 some desktop components will be ported as well. QML/JS makes development easier and it makes customization by users and distributors easier.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[drjones78]

Alt-tab works beautifully. Alt-~ switches between open windows of the same app. Its quite lovely. And there's two more way to start another terminal (or another window of any app) that others haven't mentioned:

1) Drag the terminal icon to the desktop you want to launch it on 2) Invoke activities screen, begin typing "terminal", then while terminal is highlighted.. brilliantly easy.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Junta]

In Gnome 3 you're forced to open just one,

Huh? gnome-terminal --disable-factory works in my gnome 3 and gnome 2 system identically. I'm unaware of another way to select all-in-one or distinct processes in either environment...

which is a disaster for people who need to use the command line a lot.

I get uncomfortable with the reliability implication of all my terminals being beholden to a single process as complex as gnome-terminal, but calling it a 'disaster' is a bit much. I currently have about 70 terminals open under a single process and it hasn't broken me. There *was* a file descriptor leak that was pretty nasty at one point, but with that addressed I haven't seen anything that afflicted me in practice, even if in theory it's a little less isolated than I would like.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[drjones78]

* ctrl-enter (in activities)
* right-click -> new window (in activities)
* ctrl-n (from terminal)

C'mon people... learn to use the thing before you knock it.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[rubycodez]

no, that's brilliantly adding unnecessary steps to what should be a *single fucking click*, which is of course very dim-witted.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[0123456]

And if you thing the GUI sucks: Modify the JS files and get a completely different work flow with minimal work.

Yeah, because every user wants to have to learn Javascript in order to fix a broken GUI.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[tpotus]

I thought I read somewhere that you can not in fact have more than one terminal window open. Haven't tried it myself, though.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[KugelKurt]

And if you thing the GUI sucks: Modify the JS files and get a completely different work flow with minimal work.

Yeah, because every user wants to have to learn Javascript in order to fix a broken GUI.

Idiot. RTFA!
JS makes it easy for distributors to modify the user experience. Users can just switch distributors (or wait for the official GNOME Shell Extensions website to go up).
Mint 12 will provide a very different GNOME 3 user experience in Mint 12 (that's what TFA is about!!) with minimal work required.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Javascript is by far one of the most popular languages for emerging developers. Javascript has it's problems of course, but by far there is a very large base of people who know it, much more than C these days.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

I can see why you posted as Anonymous Coward. :)

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[jbolden]

Gnome isn't a lightweight UI. What you need is really not even a GUI but more like a window manager, I.e. below a GUI all together. Essentially you need far less than a GUI so the issues others are having wouldn't matter.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Anne Thwacks]

Do not mistake "widely used" for popular. Most of the JS users have no choice. Its not that they actually, positively chose it. They are lumbered with it, and had to use it. If that is your definition of "popular", maybe you should go for congress. "Widely despised" is not "popular" in my dictionary.

Why not learn Snobol? Someone has to, and it could be you!

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[jbolden]

Debian doesn't send that kind of message. Debian has not lobbied projects regarding their direction in their existence and is not going to do so.

Debian is respected because they stay out of exactly this kind of squabble.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Very well, we can use your term "widely despised" if you wish, but it still stands that it's a widely known general purpose language that crosses a lot of boundaries.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[dyingtolive]

You rightclick the terminal window icon and choose "Open another instance" or something worded similarly. It's not obvious, but it's there. Really no less confusing than the OSX way of managing windows.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[rasmusbr]

It should be a single click for those (and only those) who open new terminal windows a lot. Opening a video player should be a single click for those who use their Gnome Shell box as an entertainment center. Opening a web browser and navigating to facebook.com should be a single click for those who uses their Gnome Shell box as a social networking center.

This is one of the main failures of the vanilla (no extensions) Gnome Shell UI. There's no way to streamline stuff that you do often. There's no way to do it with the mouse and no way to do it with the keyboard. The text search doesn't adapt to which apps you open the most often.

Can this be fixed? Sure. You can tack on Gnome Do and Cairo Dock or whatnot. You can write extensions or install the few that exist. All I'm saying is that vanilla Gnome Shell is either broken or not done yet and that's not good considering that they have abandoned Gnome 2.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[ConceptJunkie]

Why Alt-~, which requires a key that is in a different place on a lot of keyboards.

Ctrl-tab served this purpose since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary (i.e., the 1980s), why change it?

Or am I missing something?

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[jbolden]

OK well first there are 8 equally sported desktops under Debian, 4 GUI and 4 window manager + accessory setups. There is no default at all. Debian has not had a particularly close relationship with Gnome for a decade, they have tried be be neutral. Interestingly Windowmaker is not even one of the 8 desktops they support. Debian Desktop does install a full GNUStep environment but the GNUStep packages don't follow the Debian desktop guidelines. So to even start this, the GNUStep packages need to be better maintained.

But mainly you are missing the point. Debian has no position on whether Gnome 2 or Gnome 3's way of configuring desktops is better or worse. Their goal is to provide a good quality Gnome 2 package and a good quality Gnome 3 package. Their goal is to provide canonical bugs about compilation problems on different hardware. Their goal is to figure out a canonical set of dependencies. Their goal is get the compilation scripts really clean.

It is because Debian is completely and totally uninterested in whether Gnome 2's way of doing things is better than Debian has the sort of credibility it has on other issues. When Debian broke with KDE they did so on legal grounds and the second KDE was legally complaint Debian worked to fully support them. While Debian had a better relationship with Gnome because of the licensing issues they wanted to step back from that quickly once those issues were resolved.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[shutdown -p now]

QML is not a "JavaScript dialect". It's a language to define object trees that uses JS-like syntax overall, and JS specifically for property bindings and inline event handlers. However, they do not intend you to write the entire UI in JS - you're supposed to define the UI markup (i.e. view) in JS, and bind it to a data model defined as C++ classes.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[uvajed_ekil]

So pretty much all I use a GUI for is having multiple terminal windows open at once and being able to have access to a non-masochistic web browser. For this, I need a clean and lightweight UI. GNOME 3 works just fine in that regard. Other than "because it's different", why does everyone hate it?

Most everyone hates it because they rely on it a lot more than you do and it absolutely sucks for them. Gnome 2 has flaws but is highly functional in many respects. The "clean" look of Gnome 3 is appealing, but the damn thing just doesn't work well - it makes normal use for normal users a pain in the ass, which completely defeats the purpose of a GUI, no matter how cool it looks. If we were all just using it to desplay terminals, it would be fine, but that is not reality for a general purpose GUI.

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[gargll]

It's actually Alt-"key-over-tab", so it's the same place for all keyboard layouts. Ctrl-tab is to move between tabs (ex: switching tabs in a firefox window), while this Alt-"key-over-tab" is to move between instances of an application (ex: moving from one firefox window to the next).

Re:Why the GNOME 3 hate?

[tyrione]

So pretty much all I use a GUI for is having multiple terminal windows open at once and being able to have access to a non-masochistic web browser. For this, I need a clean and lightweight UI. GNOME 3 works just fine in that regard. Other than "because it's different", why does everyone hate it?

Great question considering what they call hybrid is a top strip from GNOME 3 and a POS look from Windows, KDE and every other relic of the past.

Great idea, but I worry about the implementation..

[seandiggity]

I've been slowly switching to Linux Mint on my machines and I've found some pretty annoying bugs with the Gnome version of Mint that I didn't find in Ubuntu or Debian. It seems to me that the Mint devs may have already done too many customizations to the desktop. In some cases, I've moved to LXDE because it's more stable.

So, we'll see how this turns out, but there has to be a healthy community of devs around MGSE to deal with all the problems that will no doubt arise...as Gnome 3 begins to drift further away from the Gnome 2.x codebase, MGSE is gonna need to do more heavy lifting to keep everything working smoothly.

Re:Screenshots

[Atriqus]

Goatse warning.

You only altered your nick by a character and posted the same message and link?.. I expect more from trolls. At least change up the wording or something. This is sheer laziness.

Lack of *accessible* configurability

[Junta]

gnome-tweak-tool, despite being well out of the way, still offers very little in the way of customization.

customization requires people to put on a developer hat and write 'extensions'.

Despite all this time no one has restored 'search by window title' functionality (there is one, but it doesn't interact with the window preview view, which is still well behind the state of KDE or compiz). We also still don't have a 'preview all windows belonging to a single app' despite the lengths of having a 'dock' group windows together that provides an intuitive trigger for such a behavior (this behavior is in KDE and compiz).

I honestly would not mind the experience given a rich set of themes and those two particular behaviors added. On the flipside, I do know many people consider the overhead of the graphical strategy to be too much, and being told an even more resource intensive software OpenGL rendering engine is going to be the answer is just putting salt in the wound.

Re:Not blending

[Brad1138]

A very good synopsis can be found here. It will incorporate MATE, a fork of Gnome 2.32.

the year old the linux desktop fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

has everyone suddenly started using the desktop in a weird and wonderful way? i just use a menu to launch applications, and keep track of what's open in a taskbar. what was so wrong with that?

Re:the year old the linux desktop fragmentation

[rilles]

That is so yesterday you old fart.

Re:the year old the linux desktop fragmentation

[rubycodez]

Even worse, how utterly mainframe era in thinking, to want to refine and make even more robust what is proven, to add new features without breaking backwards compatibility.

Note we're still in the era of the mainframe, the mainframe can run the latest software technologies (even can run GNU/Linux), can cluster and share storage and do distributed computing using latest tech, while also running decades old wares. There's a lesson there for the GNOME dev scatterbrains.

Re:Screenshots...

[Atriqus]

Again with the goatse? We get it guy, you're edgy and cool because you're ten years late to a meme.

Re:Not blending

[KugelKurt]

Both will be available but default will be GNOME Shell with Mint Extensions.

Re:Screenshots

[DemonGenius]

My habit of opening new pages in tabs that don't focus immediately has saved me this time. Thanks for the warning!

But will it run properly on two screens?

[mikehunt]

I ditched Fedora when they introduced Gnome 3 as it simply does not run properly on two screens
and switched to Linux Mint.

I use my laptop's screen and an external monitor configured as separate X servers. This setup works
perfectly with Gnome 2 and is totally useless with Gnome 3.

So, anyone know if the next Linux Mint will support this?

Re:But will it run properly on two screens?

[rubycodez]

Since the release candidate is coming out in a couple weeks, why don't you find out and contribute feedback/bug reports?

Re:But will it run properly on two screens?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

The new noveau driver seems to be heading towards fixing that. I almost had mine working, and I'm hoping that subsequent versions will finally get it working properly.

Re:Goatse above

[hedwards]

At this point I'm having a hard time remembering what the big deal about goatse was.

Re:Not blending

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Mint is wonderful. I have been very pleased, with 10 and 11.

The "Husse" fortunes, are a reason to switch, all on their own. ;-)

If they keep the network proxy controls from Gnome2 on Gnome 3, I will then be a happy man with 12.

Re:WARNING: ABOVE LINK IS DISGUSTING

[hedwards]

You must be new here.

As ever

[AdmV0rl0n]

Mint and its devs have had a bit of thought, and unlike some others I could mention actually have a core idea on what to give users. But then Mint has for quite a long time been a very good distro specifically for end users. And frankly, Linux needs at least one to be so.

So, in the next round of new Distro updates, Mint will again top the distrowatch charts, and deservedly so. The other distro's need to start taking note, becasue they think they are leading and others will follow. In truth, Mint is leading because Mint's process and view on users is ballpark correct, and many of distro's are off target.

As for Ubuntu and Unity. Well. Not much to be said there. They need to learn the lesson but seem to be determined to drop themselves down the distrowatch chart.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[DemonGenius]

I actually see that the way Mint is now is how Ubuntu was when it was just beginning to gain in popularity. Give Mint time and eventually they will take the #1 spot from Ubuntu. I only hope that the Mint team doesn't eventually stop listening to users the way Canonical did.

Why wait for Linux Mint 12?

[Briareos]

I'd rather have Tom Dickson tell us whether GNOME 2 and 3 blend or not...

News for Nerds . Stuff that Matters

[0-until-pink]

Can I just say that, despite all the Gnome/ Unity bickering, it's nice to occasionally see Linux distro stories in Slashdot again and to read comments by users who use and embrace open source software at least occasionally (whatever their desktop preference). :)

Re:News for Nerds . Stuff that Matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. I'd like to say that I want a desktop that is optimized for a mouse and keyboard combination (so no large tiles please) and a screen size of 13" and up. I'd like to stay with Ubuntu, but if they insist on optimizing for a 7" tablet, then I'll switch to Mint 12 in a heartbeat. As a user I don't really care if it's called Gnome, Unity, KDE, or something else.

The problem, of course, is applications. Once the major applications are going to develop under the assumption they run a tablet as well, there's going to be some difficulty using them on a traditional interface system.

Re:News for Nerds . Stuff that Matters

[Cndymn]

Agreed!

Re:News for Nerds . Stuff that Matters

[jbolden]

I agree. Though I wonder how much the fall off is lack of general interest news about Linux. The applications getting lots of work now are very specialized. I'd love to see discussions on /. about things like groupware.

Futility, thy name is MGSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till the Gnome developers change the gnome-shell API that causes Mint's extension to break in a thousand pieces. You know it's going to happen because most of the core Gnome coders are arrogant assholes and won't tolerate an end-run around their design decisions.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till the Gnome developers change the gnome-shell API that causes Mint's extension to break in a thousand pieces. You know it's going to happen because most of the core Gnome coders are arrogant assholes and won't tolerate an end-run around their design decisions.

Spot on +1.
The only way to make users win is not to play. Ditch Gnome.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[rubycodez]

Not really a problem, their project will be forked off by people who want a useable well-designed UI. Those distros that give alternatives will grow. The arrogant GNOME assholes will find themselves twirling batons and holding banners and leading a parade of no one down the street, watched by a crowd of no one.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Why would they do that? You realize that most of GNOME's api have been stable since 2.0. The goal was not to break API compatibility unless it happens. Also you don't quite understand how extensions. Extensions are done using something called GObject introspections, it basically means that you can write a library and put meta data into the code that exports its interfaces. Then languages automatically pick up the API from the core C library. So python, ruby, javascript will all pick up the new API. So, you don't have to play catch up or break anything. If you break the API, you break everything including all the software on the C library. They won't be doing that.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[Sri Ramkrishna]

See above.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[jbolden]

Who are you kidding. The "arrogant Gnome assholes" are funded by RedHat who pays for Gnome and work for the Gnome foundation. Mint doesn't have the resources to do 1% of what they do.

Mint can switch from Gnome, but they cannot replace it.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[rubycodez]

sure they can, they could if needed spiff up xfce or something even cooler. But right now they have a good strategy of taking the stink out of GNOME3 with their common sense so lacking in many other GUI projects
and note even with all that money, neither RedHat nor its guinea pig distro are ruling the Linux desktop realm, Mint is eating their lunch

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[jbolden]

First off RedHat doesn't really make a desktop Linux. I guess Fedora, but Fedora is a testbed for RHEL more than a best possible distribution.

RedHat has over 4000 employees in 70 offices in about a dozen countries. They are the 22nd best stock in total return in the SP500 over the last 5 years. Mint is a group of a few dozen volunteers. I really like Linux Mint. I don't personally like RHEL if I can avoid it. But lets get serious about relative scope.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[frito_x]

They already did going from gnome 3.0 to 3.2... a bunch of extensions were broken due to changes to the API...

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Ah yes, that's true. Most of the GNOME libraries are stable, but GNOME Shell and the extensions ystem is still considered "work in progress" and have not yet stabilized since it's going through that cycle of responding to various bugs, user enhancement and so forth. Once they move to a more stable api, extensions shouldn't break from release to release.

Re:Futility, thy name is MGSE

[frito_x]

it seems like Gnome 3 is going through the same KDE 4 woes, actually worse considering its larger user base, i mean even the penguinman himself is bashing it. Still, GP is right that MGSE will probably be broken a lot during upgrade cycles, i just don't see it as something intentional or ill-willed.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[seandiggity]

I actually see that the way Mint is now is how Ubuntu was when it was just beginning to gain in popularity. Give Mint time and eventually they will take the #1 spot from Ubuntu. I only hope that the Mint team doesn't eventually stop listening to users the way Canonical did.

Mint's gain in popularity probably had a lot more to do with the fact that it bundled proprietary software, non-free drivers, etc. by default, since it was basically Ubuntu with different themes in the beginning. Now, I expect them to gain from Ubuntu's shift to Unity and (possibly) every other major distro's commitment to Gnome 3's new interface. So we'll see, but it really doesn't matter much...Debian-based systems are all good and very customizable, it's good to just have such a huge and healthy ecosystem.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[rubycodez]

No, Mint userbase jumped over 40% because of Canonical's poorly designed UI

Skip the backwards, get on to KDE

[G3ckoG33k]

Skip the backwards, get on to KDE

Flamebait? No, not necessarily.

See "Sabayon 7 Review / Overview Kde +Gnome" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyBsUrxxEYk

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[thsths]

> In some cases, I've moved to LXDE because it's more stable.

LXDE is a great option for a more traditional desktop. It is fast, light, and works very well. It may not be as pretty as Gnome 3, and it may lack some of the "social integration" of KDE 4, but it gets the job done. I use it on a number of light systems and in all my VMs.

Sounds like Debian Squeeze

[leftie]

Well... untested Debian Squeeze that needs to be debugged from scratch.
Why don't we quit mucking around and just go back to Debian? I finally figured that out.

Re:Screenshots...

[sunderland56]

How do you know that isn't the default Mint 12 screensaver?

W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[halfdan the black]

What is the obsession with Windows 95 being the gold standard on which all desktop environments need to be based???

I for one really like Gnome 3 because it is finally no longer a Windows 95 clone like Gnome 2. I'm sorry to people whose first computer used Windows 95 or any of the other Windows 95 based desktops (like Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, KDE or Gnome 2.x), folks there are other ways to use a computer.

So, Mint took Gnome 3, and made it look like Windows 95 again, freaking great!.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[unixisc]

Why not go w/ GNUSTEP - which is identical to NEXTSTEP, and doen't resemble Windows 95 in the least?

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Hah, that's what some of us thought too. I'm sure people who want to show off their Linux desktop and how cool it is that they have a windows 95 desktop compared to all the shiny stuff coming out with windows 8 and IOS on Macbook.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[halfdan the black]

I love the NeSTStep UI. But it has the same problem as Gnome 3, GNUStep is not a Windows 95 clone, so everyone will hate it.

The point I'm trying to make is that for the last almost 20 years, Windows 95 has been held up as the gold standard of UI, for a UI to be accepted, it evidently needs to be a clone of Windows 95. So basically thats why all these people are freaking out over Gnome 3: Gnome 3 is not a clone of Windows 95 so its bad. KDE and Gnome 2 are clones (fairly bad clones in Gnome 2's case) of Windows 95 so they are good.

No, I don't think Gnome 3 is perfect, far from it, but at least it tries to show that you do not have to clone Windows 95 to have a desktop UI.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[grumbel]

And what's wrong with being a little like Windows95? All I want from my desktop environment is a panel with a task bar and some small icons to start applications, neither Gnome3 nor Unity can handle that and instead do some ugly full screen filling start-menu replacement crap that makes no sense on a large screen.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[ADRA]

Guess what genius, people really like the interface because it works, and works well for people. If you wanted a brand new shiny looking desktop, some clever developer could've come up with a hybrid desktop environment along the lines of what Microsoft is doing in Windows 8. Instead, we the not so silent majority of people unwilling to work with a piece of garbage Tablet UI for hours and hours of daily -productivity- work, will not more to functionally crippled DE.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[ifiwereasculptor]

Well, that's closer to the heart of the issue. Yes, it's basically Windows 95, an interface that has been slowly improved for over 15 years. Anything new is obviously going to be not as polished. Not even the frequently hailed as masters of usability got Aqua right on their first try. It's been around since 2000 and got a lot better over the years. So there's two factors: people get used to working in a certain environment and that environment also gets used to working with people. When Gnome 3 or Unity comes along, we have to start all over on both sides. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but time has to be given so that those UIs will mature. Maybe they'll have less configuration options, maybe they'll be riddled with bugs, but they can get substantially better with time. Look at KDE4, that finally got it sort of together now, on 4.6, three years after their first release. So it's too early to judge Unity and Shell, bad though they may seem, because it's kind of unfair to pit rough versus finely lapidated stones.

On a side note, I haven't used Shell, but Unity has a few nifty ideas. Listing installed programs alongside repo stuff is useful and a good sort of cloud integration. When they get that damn left panel right (adjust lag, allow for direct customization, let me move it etc), things are going to get a lot better.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad *you* like Gnome3 because of the way it looks. However the rest of us have things to do, and could care less what it actually looks like, but how easy it lets us complete the things we need to do quickly without frustration. Most of us don't use Linux because it's popular or has a "trendy desktop".

Seriously, both KDE and Gnome should have both split into "classic and functional" + "flashy but useless" projects. However, I took KDE 4.7 for a spin recently (openSUSE 12.1 RC2) and things seem a lot better these days. Gnome3 is still in denial.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[maztuhblastah]

What is the obsession with Windows 95 being the gold standard on which all desktop environments need to be based???

The "obsession" is with using a paradigm that's received nearly two decades of refinement.

The "obsession" is with not changing something just because it's old.

But hey, we're each free to do as we please. You can run the normal GNOME 3 shell, and I can configure it to behave like GNOME 2.

Oh. It seems I can't. They removed most of the configuration options.

No matter, I can still use the "fallback mode", which is simply the GNOME 2 UI ported to GTK 3. That way I... hey wait a sec... Ok, well it appears that they've actually gone out of their way to disable and remove the old functionality from the port so as to "better match the GNOME 3 experience".

Ah. So *that* would be why we're pissed then.

Re:W00t! Gnome looks like Win95 again

[evilviper]

I for one really like Gnome 3 because it is finally no longer a Windows 95 clone like Gnome 2.

Yes, good old Windows 95... menu bar across the top, Umm, what?

GNOME 1.x was quite a bit like Win95, GNOME 2.x snagged some of the worst elements from MacOS, crippling itself in the process.

What is the obsession with Windows 95 being the gold standard on which all desktop environments need to be based???

Windows 95 had many problems, but when you simplify the desktop to it's minimum, it inherently looks a bit like Win95.

I use Blackbox. It operates NOTHING like Win95, but you know, it does have a toolbar, and in Fluxbox, the default is to put a list of tasks in there... And you can even configure it to put a button on the toolbar to open the menu (it's completely useless, because it's a non-descript triangle, and doesn't even say "MENU", but I digress) so pretty quickly you've got something that looks a bit like Win95, though it sure doesn't act like it.... Multiple virtual desktops, NO desktop icons, etc.

XFce (based on CDE) as well. There's a bar across the bottom, and when you iconify things they become icons on the desktop, so it looks a bit like Win95, though, again, it doesn't work anything like it. If anything, Mac OSX copied some elements of CDE and Windows 7 copied a mix of Mac OSX and CDE.

And in AfterStep, there's a bar, it's just vertical, and a 3-pane file dialog, and...

I think the question should be, what is with YOUR obsession with using desktop environments which clone Windows? Get the hell away from GNOME and KDE, and there's a whole world of desktop environments out there doing different and innovative things.

Ubuntu w/ Legacy Desktop?

[Doc Ruby]

I haven't upgraded my Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10 because I like my GNOME Desktop the way it's been, not whatever this new thing is. But I don't want to miss the rest of the upgrades. Is there a way to keep the old style Desktop, but complete the rest of the upgrade?

And what about on my old machines that run Intel motherboard integrated graphics (82854G/GL), that often break with Ubuntu upgrades for at least a few weeks until xorg-intel patches are released? No, I don't want to buy new machines that otherwise do their job exactly the way they should, especially not to suit a "$free" OS.

Re:Ubuntu w/ Legacy Desktop?

[grumbel]

You can upgrade to 11.04, as it still provides Gnome2, you simply have to switch off Unity at the login screen and it will behave otherwise as usual. For 11.10 there is no way to do that, it doesn't provide Gnome2 and there is no easy way to install it at all. Ubuntu 11.10 still provides the gnome-fallback-session, which is build on Gnome3, but sort of looks like Gnome2, but is kind of broken and buggy, it also doesn't reuse any of your configurations, so you have to start from scratch.

For 11.10 I'd recommend installing xubuntu-session and then using that, the XFCE4 it provides is extremely similar to Gnome2, much more so then Gnome3.

Re:Ubuntu w/ Legacy Desktop?

[Doc Ruby]

I'm already at 11.04, as I noted. If what you say is the only way, then I'm not upgrading to 11.10. If Ubuntu doesn't give me back my "legacy" Desktop in 12.04, I'm switching to a distro that will. And since a lot of other people will also do so, the advantage of "most popular Linux" will move away from Ubuntu - sooner than later.

I do remember several years ago GNOME tried some kind of stunt with File Open dialogs, and with Nautilus filesystem folders, that was fairly quickly reverted. That'll probably happen with Ubuntu. Or I'll switch, as I once switched to Ubuntu.

If there were a better email app than Evolution by default in some other distro that's no worse than Ubuntu, I'd probably switch to that now. I've had enough of Evolution, but all my many megabytes of mail and state indices are in it.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[seandiggity]

No, Mint userbase jumped over 40% because of Canonical's poorly designed UI

Sure, but that's a recent development. Mint was already at the top of DistroWatch, for example, before that.

Does Mint offer choices like GNUSTEP/Etoille, KDE?

[unixisc]

What if one doesn't like any Gnome @ all? Does Mint offer the choice of other desktops - GNUSTEP, KDE, XCFE, et al? Or is one out of luck w/ the first, and have to go to Kubuntu/Xubuntu or look for another distro that supports these?

Do not want

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

No, no, no. Don't want. That roaring sound you hear is all the Mint users installing LMDE, or Debian, itself, or some KDE distro like SUSE

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[HiThere]

IIRC, LXDE was the desktop that wouldn't recognize a left-handed mouse. I.e., it had an option to set it as left handed, but the option didn't do anything. This had been a know bug for over a year. ... possibly over 2 years. I'm just not sure it was LXDE...It was one of the desktops I was trying after Debian Testing ruined the Gnome2 GUI. Currently I'm using Debian stable, and am unsatisfied with ALL of the alternatives to Gnome2, though Pearson is getting close to releasing a KDE3.x. KDE3 was better than Gnome2. Both are better than KDE4. And KDE4 is better than Gnome3. For my use case, KDE3 was nearly optimal.

All of the alternatives being pushed seem inferior to the ones that were being pushed a couple of years ago. (Well, to be honest at that time I only considered KDE3 and Gnome2.) I suspect that it's the race to grab the phone market, but that's no excuse to cripple the desktop environment.

Stop moving everything around!

[drwho]

Why are so many people still running Windows XP? Yea, Vista was a disaster, but Win7 is actually decent. But people don't want to move. The reason is that they are tired of having to re-learn how to do things each time a new user interface comes out. Why do open-source GUI people copy from Apple and Windows? Because they are trying to make the user experience in their desktop OS likable for that audience. BUT, they are PISSING OFF the same people that got used to the old Linux/Unix way of doing things. One of the problems is the self-selection of 'improvements' by the GUI developers, who are people who want to make things 'better' ('Kamtrya!'). The rest of us are more concerned with getting tasks done, and don't want to be bothered with the learning curve. Customization ability is fine, but the default behavior should be that of Tradition, with an option to set things back to 'traditional' in any customization.

I don't care about rounded corners, opacity, and lots of screen candy. What I was is speed, reliability, consistency and the ability to change text size/layout within a window, and also to have windows maintain their aspect ratio as the default behavior when appropriate. I also like the idea of being able to focus on a background window. I'd like an 'unclose' option to bail me out when I accidentally close a window, but I know that's difficult to do properly. But please, just focus on the speed, reliability, and consistency.

Re:Stop moving everything around!

[unixisc]

Well, you have 2 audiences:

1. People who have just moved to Linux, or are giving it a try, and you want them to be comfortable w/ whatever they are moving to. Hence, you give them a desktop you think they'll be happiest w/ as default
2. People who are your installed base, and have been for years. They are capable of tweaking what you give them to their own liking, assuming of course you make that easy for them. Something like KDE 3.5's Kontrol Center

Given that people in category 1 are not likely to mess w/ the desktop, you want the default to be something that they're automatically happy w/. Most extreme case - you can have an optional theme wizard the first time in that allows a user to select her wallpaper, screensaver, window decoration, et al. After it's all done, click OK and get down to work.

The people in category 2 very likely don't use what you give them as default anyway, but tweak the theme to their liking. Which is fine - just leave the nooks & crannies that they use to do these thing differently, so that they aren't inconvenienced by this attempt to win over new users.

All said & done, the reason Linux/KDE or other DEs change their user experience is to attract people from Windows, which is why they change things from previous versions. Contrast that to MS Office, where they overhauled everything b/w 2003 & 2007, changing everything - from file formats to the toolbars.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[jbolden]

Canonical wasn't listening to the Linux users of the time when it started. It recruited a new group of users and created its own niches. My guess is you started with Canonical

Re:Goatse above

[RDW]

Something to do with the Olympics, wasn't it?:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43006000/jpg/_43006883_sean_stayte_416.jpg

And KDE?

[allo]

Seems like Mint with KDE is dead?

Re:And KDE?

[swilly]

What did it get you that Kubuntu didn't?

Re:And KDE?

[KugelKurt]

Stability? (Gave up on Kubuntu long ago, never tried Mint/KDE)

Mint KDE never had any special KDE packages. Mint's base system is exactly the same as Ubuntu's -- it just ships roughly a month after Ubuntu which means a month of bugfix patches. Mint KDE makes absolutely no sense. The only Mint KDE project that makes sense is the planned Mint Debian Edition because Debian never has current SC packages.

Re:And KDE?

[unixisc]

That's been my dilemma. I'd like to use Debian due to apt-get, but they tend to prefer Gnome, which is unacceptable for me. Either give me KDE, or give me GNUSTEP (I'd like Etoille whenever it's ready). If I want a KDE, more often than not, I end up w/ a RH derived distro, and there, the problem is dealing w/ those gazillion yumm dependencies. I like the ease w/ which Debian can install things, and I like the ease and extent to which I can customize KDE. I'd like something that gives me both.

Re:And KDE?

[ConceptJunkie]

I just switched to Mint a couple months ago after using Kubuntu for years. Although losing KDE to LXDE was something I didn't want, other things just worked better and I like the fact that LXDE is lightweight and simple. It doesn't stop me from doing what I want, even if it's not quite the way I would prefer it.

I like KDE, but Debian takes precedence.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[jbolden]

I agree with you. I use Knoppix quite a bit and have really enjoyed it there. But then again I rarely want much more than a window manager. I actually suspect Gnome 3 would be fine for me.

Re:Not blending

[ifiwereasculptor]

The extensions do make Gnome Shell look a lot more like Gnome 2, meaning a menu and taskbar. And, frankly, it seems good to me. I doubt they will be able to make the Shell more customizable, which is a shame, but what I like is Mint's attitude of not wanting to alienate its user base. At least someone out there is being wise and/or listening to complaints.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[DemonGenius]

Canonical wasn't listening to the Linux users of the time when it started. It recruited a new group of users and created its own niches. My guess is you started with Canonical

Actually no, I didn't start with Ubuntu. Nice attempt to make yourself sound intelligent with a sweeping generalization, although you really do come off as elitist. When I said "listen to users" I meant that they addressed the issues that prevented most people from doing day to day tasks on a Linux distro with minimal hassle. I like tweaking an OS and using the command line as much as the next guy, but when I've got stuff to do, I like to get it done quickly and only focus on the task at hand. I like being able to install an OS on any random desktop or laptop and have most of the important bits reasonably work. I've played around with Ubuntu for quite a while, but only switched my main OS to that when I felt it was reliable enough (8.04) to use it for that purpose. Before that, I've played with Mandrake, and even used Suse through part of university until playing around with Ubuntu.

Love it or hate it, there's a reason why Ubuntu is still on the top spot. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it, and you definitely don't have to condescend anyone who does. And as much as I hate Unity, I definitely won't insult anyone who chooses to use it, especially if it works for them. Those insults are better left to the companies and developers that alienate their main userbase.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[DemonGenius]

Ubuntu's gain in popularity probably had a lot more to do with the fact that it bundled proprietary software, non-free drivers, etc. by default, since it was basically Debian with different themes in the beginning.

FTFY

I think Mint and Ubuntu are gaining popularity in very much the same way. JMHO. And yes, a large and healthy ecosystem is a very good thing!

If I pay somebody...

[poppopret]

Will my paid developer get commit rights to GNOME's source control? For an edit war, reverting changes as they occur?

GNOME developer's essentially forked their own project while unjustly keeping the name, web site, and so on. The "new" MATE project is the real GNOME. Nobody would be pissed if the GNOME 3 developers had gone off and started some new project -- call it PHOME maybe -- for phones.

Re:Screenshots...

[flimflammer]

Probably the same reason most everyone else knows too: that exact url has been circulating around for months.

Re:Goatse above

[flimflammer]

Cable telelvision?

damning with faint praise

[poppopret]

Really no less confusing than the OSX way of managing windows.

This is probably my biggest complaint about OSX. Seriously, WTF? If you open one copy, you get a tiny dot on the dock to tell you. If you somehow manage to open another copy, I guess with the command line if you can find it, you'll get a **second** icon on the dock. You don't get a second dot, you get a second icon. WTF!!! The interface is conceptually confused, inappropriately muddling the "can be started" and "is a running instance" concepts. It's like not knowing the difference between a class and an object, or between a file type and a file.

This is also one of the yucky things about the OLPC XO's Sugar, but at least there is a good excuse: they don't always have enough RAM to run the first copy of an app, so you'd best forget about wanting to run more than one app at the same time.

Re:damning with faint praise

[dyingtolive]

I never said it was GOOD, but I see your point. It's still really my only major gripe with the interface. I haven't noticed GNOME3 consuming more resources than GNOME2 as others report, and honestly, if I were that concerned about the resources that I'm probably not using to their fullest anyway, I'd probably be using XFCE, or better still, nothing at all.

not just a window manager

[poppopret]

I lost too many hours tweaking config files for twm, ctwm, vtwm, and fvwm. Dragging icons to configure that layout it nice. Restarting the window manager to test a config file is not nice. Having the window manager die because of some typo in the config file is not nice.

That said, my needs are simple. I don't even want a file manager.

I want a taskbar on an otherwise empty (adjustable solid color) screen. I want a start menu that gets updated as I install/remove packages, ideally without restart but I'll settle for restarting. I want a 24-hour digital clock. I want a desktop switcher. I want a launcher button for 100% genuine xterm, not some defective (but pretty) imposter.

I want rounded window border corners, both top and bottom. I want window borders that clearly change to indicate the active window. I want focus-follows-mouse. I don't want any sort of see-through transparency bullshit making things harder to read.

It shouldn't need to be said, but... NO NOISES!

GUI config is sadly needed for the network, since modern Linux does some convoluted disaster involving D-BUS and udev and other weird shit. Probably the same is true of modern audio, since some ass couldn't leave audio working simply and sanely like it was 15 years ago.

Re:not just a window manager

[jbolden]

Gnome and KDE both run window managers they just run other stuff on top of them. The window managers you are listing were mostly pre-Linux with the exception of fvwm which was popular on Linux. I started Linux in '95 and never used any that primitive. The only time I've ever used twm was cygwin and when it was hardcoded into some xterms (physical dumb terminals) I was using in the late 80s. I'm not sure what you were doing but I think you made live header on yourself.

that is horrible, WTF!

[poppopret]

Ubuntu's unity also does this. I **never** want to maximize a window. The closest thing I ever do is to have a video player go full screen, but that is a weird special case because it also hides the controls.

Re:Great idea, but I worry about the implementatio

[jbolden]

Demon.

You made statements about history of what Canonical was like when it started. Those statements were false. I didn't insult you for using Ubuntu I was condescending if anything regarding your age or how long you've been in the community.

When I said "listen to users" I meant that they addressed the issues that prevented most people from doing day to day tasks on a Linux distro with minimal hassle.

Which isn't listening to users it is designing for user friendliness. In general the existing users of Linux did not want the kinds of changes Canonical was proposing and engaged in. For example they would have wanted an easier install system for Debian not a complete fork of Debian.

they're just stubborn old fools

[epine]

Someone mentioned Raskin, here's one of his core principles from Wikipedia:

Monotony of design - there should be only one way to accomplish a certain atomic task in an application.

I'm not so hung up as that. I'd be equally satisfied to kick, punch, or pull his hair out.

If we're on that track, why don't we standardize the ideal user, and certify products for use by standardized users only. This kind of sentiment makes Raskin a pompous ass in my books. If I smack Raskin hard enough, perhaps he'll spend the rest of his life wheeling around in a power chair. I sure hope he gets one of universal design making no concession to his special needs. Sorry buddy, joy stick and blow stick put up their dukes in the OK Corral and the blow stick lost. One control only, you know.

I wonder how many kitchen knives this guy has? Just one, for the single task of cutting? Is peeling just a slightly different cutting task?

Is cut and paste a single task or multiple tasks? Is it the same task when I'm writing source code as when I'm posting on Slashdot? I might use the keyboard in one case and the mouse in the other, the same way I switch chef knives for chopping soft vegetables or hard vegetables (my chef knives have a pronounced wedge profile, which makes them useless on turnip, unless approached as an axe and maul).

In Japan, I bet most people would concede it takes decades to develop precision knife skills across all kitchen tasks. Walk into a high-end sushi kitchen and start randomly upgrading the knives to Gnome 3 and see if you make it out alive. On what I've read, there's more difference between Gnome 2 and Unity than there is between a German and a Japanese chef knife. What's the problem, you stubborn old goats?

While we're at it, just grab some guy's bike from the Tour de France and inform him that his shifter location needs to move before his next race because of some new development in the mountain bike market and, oh, here's your bike back as modified, no charge special occasion, you can thank me after the race.

I didn't particularly like Gnome 2 when I first installed it. It wasn't initially a comfortable garment. Over time with some perseverance, I mastered a desktop configuration and workflow that together are well adapted to what I'm trying to accomplish. There's a substantial amount of personal equity invested in making Gnome 2 home. I still don't like Gnome 2 in particular, I only like what I've managed to make of it.

When you get into developmental psychology, what you learn is that no two human beings are exactly the same. We have very different cognitive approaches, and even a single person will use different cognitive modes from one task to another.

Ebert sums it up nicely modulo s/movie/Raskin's monotony/g:

I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

On my present desktop, my panels have the same pixel size but the right panel is a bit deeper and wider than the other as it is newer and has greater resolution. I use the extra depth on the right screen for my task bar. This is my primary screen, since the left screen suffers more glare from the window beside me. If Unity slams a vertical menu bar onto my desktop, where do I put it? On the left side of my right monitor? Making it pretty much useless to stretch windows across my two screens when I wish to do this? Well, I make one change for that, then it impacts something else I liked, so I make another change for that ...

And for what gain do I sacrifice my many small hard-won accommodations? So that I can become sooner compatible with twenty-something world when I have yet to purchase my first ce

Blending GNOME 2 and 3?

[Dwonis]

Don't breathe that!