Slashdot Mirror
GNOME 3 Wins Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Award
msevior writes "Although Linus Torvalds and some Slashdot commentators may disagree, GNOME 3 has many admirers. GNOME 3 was awarded the Linux Journal Readers' Choice award for 2011." Though I'm one of the complainers, I hope to be converted with the help of Gnome Shell extensions.
Like a lot of people, I hated GNOME 3 (and GNOME Shell) when 3.0 released. I skipped around a little, tried KDE4 (again), tried Unity, tried XFCE (again), but eventually came back around to GNOME 3 with the GNOME 3.2 release. The advent of extensions, as well as spending some time actually learning to use the new environment and making some small changes to the way I do things, has actually brought me to the point of liking GNOME 3 and the new Shell. I now enjoy using it, and I prefer it over the other available options.
Extensions are a big deal, and if they had been there Day One, I think a lot of the hate for GNOME 3 would not have arisen. I added lots of extensions to re-create the GNOME 2 type of environment. What I found is that in some cases the extensions duplicated functionality already in GNOME 3, but that functionality was achieved in a different way with the new environment. As I began learning the GNOME Shell and building new habits, I found myself disabling extensions one by one. At this point, I'm running with minimal extensions.
Desktop developers should take note of that. There is nothing wrong with innovative change, but you don't want to shock your users. If you are going to radically change paradigms, make it possible for your users to continue to use the old paradigms and adapt at their own pace by migrating from the old to the new. Don't try to force them down this new path. Extensions to GNOME 3 were the training wheels I needed for my brain to learn the new environment and adapt. Once I got my balance, the training wheels came off.
Yes. The project leader of Linux Mint is also the project manager of MATE desktop. AFAIK, it has a few developers working full time on it to iron out the bugs.
Not any more. It started out on Arch, but recently Mint started using it as an optional DE for those who didn't want to use Gnome 3. The project is still pretty young, but with Mint (hopefully) helping out the development, maybe it will become more usable.
"It's a trick. Get an axe."
I know, I know, it's hardly news when slashdot gets something wrong. Nevertheless, it can be worth pointing out what they got wrong, and in this case, what they got wrong was the "3". Gnome won; the version wasn't specified. From TFA:
"Due to the timing of the GNOME 3 release, it's hard to tell if the victory is because of version 3 or in spite of it.
Personally, I'm waiting to judge Gnome3 till they release a working version. Same as I did with KDE4. :)
Wakey wakey! ;)
You can right-click the titlebar and then click Minimize, which can also be done with Alt-F9.
Or, you can use the gconf-editor to add the minimize button back to the windows. The lack of minimize/maximize buttons is just the default, you can change it.
You're typing up a document and want to reference other things in a different window.
You're writing code and want to keep it's documentation/requirements. your code, and your language's/libraries' API all viewable by a glance. It would be too mentally jarring to have the screen switch to a task switcher then having to think for a moment which item you want to view than simply glancing at a different part of the screen to get the info you want.
I don't understand how other people can't understand this.
You can't see the content of other windows in the task bar, if the window was visible without switching that what the hell does Gnome Shell vs a taskbar to do with it, if you need to quickly switch applications while typing... alt-tab was the best way to do it before, and continues to be it.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.