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.

Comments

There will be no GNOME 4.

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME 3 is basically a dead project at this point. No serious developers use it these days, and when that happens to an open source project, it dies.

It was taken over by failed web designers. They screwed up the user interface and the user experience in a way that nobody can use it for real, productive work, and thus no serious users actually use it.

GNOME users have moved on. There are a small group that stick with GNOME 2. The rest now use KDE, XFCE, or a variety of apps under some standalone window manager. The only GNOME 3 users are those who try it out before moving on to a better desktop environment.

The same thing is happening with Firefox, too. The productive users are fleeing it because the failed web designers have moved on to fucking up its UI, too.

It's sad to see these once-great projects fall away like this, solely because failed web designers started trying to apply their failed web design techniques to desktop applications. I suppose that it's a self-correcting problem, however. Software projects like GNOME 3 and Firefox 4+ just don't end up surviving because they lost the users who formerly made them great.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[masternerdguy]

I call bullshit, sorry, but GNOME 3 is fucked. There's no way that with all its hate and problems it was picked in a fair poll in any competition, except for shittiest GUI. I bet that these people are either trolling or just pushing the GNOME 3 agenda.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME was nothing but NIH combined with FSF fud over Trolltech's licensing of Qt. It would be nice if we could retroactively abort it.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[tomhudson]

And they didn't publish the vote tallies, which means that "voter turn-out" was embarrassingly low. Same as their readership numbers, I guess.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[0123456]

I never understood why someone would use Gnome over KDE anyway. Gnome always felt kind of a toy or candy interface.

That's odd, because that's how I've always felt about KDE. I try to use it every now and again but rapidly go back to Gnome 2, which generally stays out of the way and doesn't waste my time with stupid animations.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the parent modded "Troll"?

There are almost 50 comments in this thread, and I count 3 that aren't saying something negative about GNOME 3. The general consensus is that GNOME 3 is no good. That's exactly why we see major Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint rejecting it, and putting considerable effort into projects like Unity and MATÉ.

The parent is exactly right to question how GNOME 3 could be picked as "Product of the Year" when it's universally despised.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[arth1]

... or try using Gnome 3 with multiple large monitors. You quickly get tired of moving the mouse the extra kilometers every day.

Or use remote X11 or VMs, and you can't even get gnome shell, so users have to deal with two different UIs. That's so clever!

Gnome 3 was made for single-taskers by single-taskers.
It was apparently designed by people too young to even know about standard x mouse functionality and the power of having focus separate from z order, nor aware that X is a TCP/IP protocol, nor a myriad of other things completely lost on the cell phone generation.

Yes, get off my lawn, kids. You haven't earned the right to camp here yet, cause you're BLOODY IGNORANT.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[epyT-R]

1. what about the conventions that've been around forever for minimize/maximize? they have staying power for a reason. they're simple enough to be intuitive. even if this can be turned back on, it's something that should be there by default.
2. can I do it without typing a buttload of javascript? ..or using someone else's?
3. can you answer the question without being a pedantic asshole?
4. referencing a window while switching to another is a common scenario.
5-6. windows 95 (along with the others) for all its faults, got the core interface right. being able to see the output of more than one window at a time during a focus switch was considered a good thing. it still is. the single tasking tablet/phone trendhopping idiots behind gnome 3 don't get this I guess. there is such a thing as drawing too many borders around a picture.
7. ..missing the point entirely.
8. so your answers were apparently only a thinly veiled troll or astroturf. oh well.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[lister king of smeg]

in this particular case yes the slashdot opinion is important. because it is us not the general public that use desktop linux bsd or other non-fruity unix. the problem is gnome thinks by making a more "intuitive" tablet / web bastardization that the masses will flock away from there proprietary shackles of mac and windows and fly to their gnuniverse. but lets be honest the average person just wants to be able to stick a cd in the drive or click the .exe and have their program run, most people are afraid of even installing the os, it is only people like us who install *nix and thus only us who use this product they are making, but gnome has shown that they want to chase people who hate and fear the idea of them instead of listening to their user base and making a functional desktop . desktops are not tablet they are not smart phones. the idea that people will want one gui to rule them all is flawed it was tried b4 by pushing the desktop onto the mobile devices that failed apple saw it first and they built new products with a new interface that would not work on a desktop. now everyone thinks that because it works on mobile it will work on the desktop and it will fail to. when it comes to different devices the need different interface because they do a different job

servers work best with a cli
desktops work with toolbars icons or the traditional desktop,
tv's tablets and phones work best with widgets and thumbnails

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[khipu]

It wasn't FSF FUD: Qt really had serious licensing problems. Those have been resolved. But Qt is still a C++ toolkit, with the usual bloat and design compromises that that implies. And it isn't even standard C++, they had to invent their own build system and non-standard language extensions.

I don't like either Gnome 3 or Unity. So, I gave KDE a serious try again and absolutely hated it: it is full of NIH apps, not-quite-right-graphics, and unnecessary complexity and gimmicks.

I ended up using XFCE4. It's a little rough around the edges, but on the whole, it's a simple, unobtrusive desktop interface that I can live with. I hope Gnome 4 will go that direction again.

Re:There will be no GNOME 4.

[allo]

seriously, you do not want to use a programming language without object orientation for GUI programming.

int button = gtk_make_some_button_method();
do_something_with_the_Button(button, parameter, parameter);
do_something_else_with_the_Button(button, parameter, parameter);

instead of button->do_something(...);

Flame wars

[Anonymous Coward]

i was gona say "let the flam wars begin. but the person above me started the hate.
Oh and I LOVE GNOME3 and GNOME SHELL!

What other window managers were tested?

[Sipper]

Okay, so they picked Gnome3, but what were the other window managers they looked at to make that decision? The Fine Article doesn't seem to say.

GNOME 3 Wins Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Award

[omar.sahal]

I have a mixed views of gnome, one criticism I have with it the old one of it has been simplified to the point of being un-intuitive. When people accused gnome of this in the past I dismissed it! Now I have noted that to minimize the open application I have to point to the upper left corner, no buttons for this. File, Edit etc are not part of Gnome apps they are in the bar at the very top of the screen. Much of this change is change for changes sake, its unfamiliar (no other desktop works this way). Its a shame because the general concept is good. One area (top left corner) gives you access to all applications and parts of the system.

This sounds familiar...

[OliWarner]

Oh that's right, there's somebody like you calling deathwatch on every new thing ever released. You talk about people moving to KDE - a few years ago when KDE 4 was released, you, or one of your many clones was saying exactly the same thing about KDE.

Gnome Shell will prevail. It might not look like it does in a few years but it's flexible enough and most importantly, hackable in a simple language that doesn't need compiling. Power users will latch onto that and we'll start seeing some really awesome things and then Gnome becomes desirable. And that's already starting to happen.

Anyway, thank you for yet another very incorrect prediction. You're bound to get it right one day.

Linux Journal Readers Choice?? that settles that

[smoothnorman]

Can there be a more experienced and deeply wise plebiscite? of course not! The matter is therefore once and for all time resolved - erledigt. Gnome tre has won the Linux Journal Readers' Choice award! which awards exactly what you ask? hah! if you must ask that then you know nothing *nothing*. Gnome III thereby takes it over all comers in all categories for all time, better than OS/X Lion, better than Meryl Streep, better than sliced bread -- selah. now we can get on with our sad little lives concerning ourselves over lesser matters.

Don't compare firefox with gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox is still the developers browser.
Chrome lacks the range of developer extensions, and while Opera is very standards compliant, it's actually full of nasty bugs that only developers would encounter.

Firefox doesn't come close to the arrogance of GNOME, since all the funky mods can be switched off.
After my knee jerk reaction against browser.urlbar.trimURLs, I actually switched this one back on.

Posted anon since I'm not pulling the /. party-line of hating on FF and evangelizing chrome.

Re:How to boil a frog

[Anonymous Coward]

Another important thing for desktop developers to take note of is this. When they force a paradigm shift upon their users, make sure the new paradigm is better than the old one.

Re:Unity

[hedwards]

Unity is sort of like if Goatse man had a baby with tub girl, nothing but an elaborate effort to troll teh internetz.

All Open Source projects must reject "designers".

[Anonymous Coward]

All Open Source projects must forcefully reject any and all participation from self-labeled "designers". These people are a menace to Open Source software. They will destroy UIs. They will destroy usability. They will kill entire Open Source projects.

Don't even be polite about it. Tell them to fuck right off. If they persist, ignore them on mailing lists or forums. Ensure they don't have commit access. If they submit patches, reject them.

These faux "contributors" need to be marginalized. We need to go back to developers calling all of the shots. Developers care about usability and creating sensible UIs. They don't stand for making things look "pretty" when doing so will make the software unusable. I'd rather use a damn ugly application that works, rather than one that a "designer" has rendered useless.

It's too late for GNOME and Firefox. But it's not too late for other projects. They still have time to put down this threat to their very existence.

Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers

[masternerdguy]

At least those UI designers can't touch the linux kernel!

"Reader's Choice" is not "Best Choice"

[Mozai]

I am disappointed in this year's "Reader's Choice." It mentions "Gmail" as the best Linux app for instant messaging, "Google Docs" as the best Linux(?) app for collaboration, and the "reader's choice" for Linux games have been the same for the past eight years, despite eight years of new developments (Battle for Wesnoth? From 2003? When there's Warzone 2100, OpenTTD, 0 A.D., Heroes of Newerth, Minecraft, Braid, Darwinia, DEFCON, MegaGlest, Amnesia Dark Descent, Aquaria, Tiny & Big, OpenClonk, SpaceChem ... jeez.

I think the "Reader's" part of the "Reader's Choice" may be out-of-touch.

I have been using it for a few weeks now and

[Osgeld]

Gee for a DE that is suposta get out of your way and help you work more efficiently it sure does get in the fucking way a lot

(based on my default install)

why the hell does the top bar only show one thing at a time, its fucking annoying on my 86 mac and its still fucking annoying on my 2011 linux machine. how is me clicking on the taskbar to select a window in "old fashioned" windows style management LESS efficient than clicking on the magic corner and having to squint at reduced windows, and clicking again?

mounting filesystems, If I am in the file explorer and click on my windows partition a stupid ass popup comes up and asks me if I want to open it in the file explorer!?! and of course it does not go away unless I click in its general area.

virtual desktops? as far as I can tell by default they only appear if something is maximized, or you right click on a window and tell it to move, what if I just wanted to click on desktop 2 and open more shit up?

adding launchers to the desktop, why for the fucking love of god are modern DE designers opposed to me putting a shortcut to frequently used applications??? again how is it less efficient to double click on a icon vs clicking on the magic G spot bringing up a menu, THEN clicking on it from favorites if its even on your favorites list (which is tiny, and if its not on your favorites list add 2 more clicks and menus)? Hell before I sat down and read how to do this the only way I could get a fucking shortcut on the desktop was to log out of gnome 3 back into gnome 2, put my shit there, log back out then log back in again ... fucking fail.

Now I know every single bit of this can be customized, which brings me to my final point, why the fuck do I have to install a tweaker tool and mod endless text files to get simple functionality that used to be a GOD DAMED RIGHT CLICK OPTION!

While Gnome3 is not as stupid / broken as KDE4 (which I really hate) its still stupid and broken. A computer interface should be something you really dont have to think about while using it, and ever since installing gnome 3 I have spent more time getting rid of dumb shit poping up out of everywhere impeding what I was doing.

Shit I accidentally bumped that fucking magic spot on the task bar 2 damned times writing this post, shrinking everything down, making me stop everything and select what window I was using. Even the show desktop spot on the windows taskbar goes the fuck away once you move the mouse away.

Oh well guess I will just keep using XFCE
 

Re:OH NO, I CAN'T DEAL WITH CHANGE

[0123456]

Basically, I don't understand the vehement opposition here.

Hint: most normal users want a UI that just works and stays out of their way _WITHOUT_ having to write a load of javascript to make it not be shit.

Could someone tell me....

[Brad1138]

What is wrong with gnome 2? I loved Ubuntu until Unity was crammed down my throat, I switched to Mint. I tried 12 (w/Gnome3) but quickly went back to 11. Can someone please explain why we are "fixing" something that doesn't seem to be broken at all?

Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers

[synthespian]

The problem with Gnome is that it was predicated on the human interface guidelines copied from Mac OS 8.
The updates they've done, IIRC, are not substantial, and very ad hoc. Nothing in Gnome seems to indicate they're knowledgeable in the area of human-computer interfaces. Meanwhile, KDE embraces a state of the art artificial intelligence project in usability (the KDE implementation of NEPOMUK - Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge)...
KDE has cooler graphics too...I (and a lot of people) would argue.
Furthermore, Gnome hasn't conducted any serious usability studies (only ones with sample sizes so small they don't count). For a company that had a millionaire astronaut supporting it (indirectly through Ubuntu) and used to have Red Hat's support, it's too little, too late.

Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers

[mwvdlee]

Or proof that /. moderation is a slow process and you commented way too early.
It's modded "+4 Funny" right now.