GNOME 3: Beauty To the Bone?

To the Bone! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 15:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Developers at Gnome have reduced the entire UI to a single button and they're even trying to get rid of that.

Re:To the Bone! by TheGoodNamesWereGone · 2012-02-13 15:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

It sure isn't usability to the bone...
Re:To the Bone! by Arancaytar · 2012-02-13 15:33 · Score: 4, Funny

It is, in the sense of cutting.
Re:To the Bone! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 16:09 · Score: 2, Funny

I've reduced my user interface to a single toggle switch.
101011101101101111001...
Re:To the Bone! by TheGoodNamesWereGone · 2012-02-13 18:02 · Score: 5, Funny

To the person who scored my comment as a troll: Don't you think that Gnome 3 can piss people off all by itself without any help from me?
Re:To the Bone! by Darinbob · 2012-02-13 18:26 · Score: 2

"And we push it before it leaves the factory."
Re:To the Bone! by mwvdlee · 2012-02-13 18:34 · Score: 2

Developers at Gnome have reduced the entire UI to a single button and they're even trying to get rid of that.
They'll remove the button layout and make the entire screen into a single button.
Next step will be a completely new system wherein clicking on different areas in the "One Click Interface" will cause different actions.

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Re:To the Bone! by rastos1 · 2012-02-13 18:54 · Score: 4, Funny

reduced the entire UI to a single button

Why is that modded "+5 Funny"? Every office printer these days has only one button. You press it briefly to do make a copy, you press it 5 seconds to clean the cache, you press it 10 seconds to print a test page .... There is also only one LED to helpfully indicate various error codes such as paper jam, out of toner, no paper in tray. Clearly it must be the most ergonomic interface ever, because every printer vendor does this. I don't see why this would not work for desktop UI?
Re:To the Bone! by synthesizerpatel · 2012-02-13 19:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

Sarcasm aside, drawing the distinction between why one would do this on a printer vs. why one wouldn't want to do it on a desktop UI.
The reason printers have less and less buttons (when possible) can more accurately be attributed to a cost-cutting feature (less buttons == less hardware to manufacture, less moving parts to replace when they break in the field, less warranty problems, etc). If you don't get bothered by having to hold buttons down to get them to exercise new behaviors - this is all fine and good.
If I had to click and hold anything for 10 seconds in a UI I'd find a new UI. While pixels are finite on a desktop, they're still free.
Re:To the Bone! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 20:46 · Score: 3, Informative

I am going to be horrendously pedantic here and may be accused of trolling and being a grammar nazi, for which I apologise. But this is really annoying!!!
Use LESS when you are talking about stuff that you CANNOT COUNT. Like water, sand or hardware.
Use FEWER for things that you CAN COUNT. Like buttons, moving parts, warranty problems.
Apart from that, spot on.
Re:To the Bone! by rrohbeck · 2012-02-13 20:56 · Score: 2

Sounds like a 1x1 display would be the ergonomic optimum.

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Re:To the Bone! by ras · 2012-02-13 22:03 · Score: 2

Developers at Gnome have reduced the entire UI to a single button and they're even trying to get rid of that.
Yes, they are. But since they haven't achieved that yet, they took an interim step: to eliminate all confusion about where to press the button, all buttons are now full screen.
Re:To the Bone! by Dusty101 · 2012-02-14 01:34 · Score: 3, Funny

And it can use the single LED to flash out "PC Load Letter" in Morse code.
Re:To the Bone! by hairyfeet · 2012-02-14 03:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

You joke Mr AC but this kind of crazy is a prime example of why itch scratching and ignoring the users makes Linux a giant fail on the desktop.
I'm sure i'll get hate for not drinking the koolaid and joining the perception bubble but fuck it, I'm a frustrated retailer and this needs to be said. For the first time in history you are being given not one, not two, but THREE incredible gifts, its like the field has been cleared and you are being given a 200 yard head start on a 300 yard race and what do you do? promptly shoot yourselves in the foot and then plop down in the middle of the field to tweet about the latest idea you have for REALLY pissing the users off!
I mean you have your traditional nemesis run by the most incompetent CEO since Apple had the Pepsi and not only that but he's about to shoot his own company right in the face because he is so desperate to get into cell phones and tablets he's gonna force WinPhone on the desktop, which i predict will be the biggest failwhale since MSFT Bob, that's one, two you have the great XP dieoff giving you all these incredibly powerful machines that MSFT has priced themselves out of the running with, we are talking late P4s to early mid dual core desktops and laptops with 1gb+ of RAM and 40Gb+ of HDDs which is more than enough for Linux, and finally you have a population that NEVER BEFORE IN HISTORY does damned near everything online, the one place where Linux has always been strong!
So what do you do? do you give all those businesses and consumers a distro with 10 years of updates so they can be confident they can just slap that OS on and it'll just work? Do you tell Linus to STFU and develop an ABI so the drivers won't break if they DO upgrade? Do you focus on stability and bug fixes and QA to make Linux so damned rock solid frankly no body has to do forum hunts of CLI fixes? NOPE, you throw out BOTH major DEs when they are FINALLY becoming really stable for a blingapaloza that sends you back a good 7 years on the stability front and just to add to the fail replace the sound which again was finally starting to get stable with Pulseaudio which is barely at MSFT first release quality, which is to say it sucks! Oh and if all that weren't bad enough Canonical the ones that were SUPPOSED to be the ones making the noob friendly distro for the masses says "Hey slapping a cell phone UI on the desktop is a GREAT idea, lets do that!" and makes their distro even more of a failwhale than Win 8, which is quite an accomplishment!
I swear the current OS situation reminds me of that old Monty Python skit where the upper class twits couldn't even shoot themselves correctly because they were too fricking stupid and I'm not alone in feeling this way. hell even Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols who is the biggest linTroll and the flipside to the Thurott Wintroll hates the new UIs and for HIM to say anything nasty about Linux is unheard of!
C'mon Linux community, you are better than this I know you are. its obvious the Linux devs are gonna ignore you unless you have a royal screaming shitfit so speak up already! We ALL know what's happening here, its as plain as the nose on your face, Apple released the iPhone and iPad and all the devs done lost their damned minds and are tripping all over themselves trying to come up with the "next iPad" and destroying their core strengths in the process. As someone who has been selling to consumers since before there even was a Windows i can tell you a few things about consumers and the desktop/laptop, 1.-Most of them have NO clue about all the bling bling crap you guys slap in there, and the few bits they know about they don't like. hell they were willing to put up with the Fisher price UI of XP right? all you need is to not make it fugly, maybe a nice metalli

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BLECK! by WolphFang · 2012-02-13 15:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Awful desktop design. I *need* multiple windows displayed, *NOT* maximised to a single task view.... *LAMERZ*

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Re:BLECK! by icebike · 2012-02-13 15:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Ah, too busy to RTFA?

Displaying multiple windows at the same time means that screen space isn’t used efficiently, and it means that you don’t get a focused view of what it is that you are interested in. Windows that aren’t maximised also create additional tasks for people. Often you need to adjust their size, or you have to move them around.
They are clearly on track to eliminate that in favor of maximized windows. These people spend their lives studying Microsoft Window users, where a ridiculously high percentage of users have to close their browser to read their email, because nobody ever explained to them that you can do more than one thing at a time.
Had Gnome not gone out of their way to kill off (or at least bury) the historical multiple desktop that 'Nixes have had for decades they would not now find themselves chasing after the most incompetent of users, and trying to dumb down the interface to the point where productive people are just as helpless as your grandmother.
Not content with that, they are now aiming at a full screen environment, where even the simplest tasks require all the real estate you have.
Yes, you can run multiple non-maximized windows, and yes you can have more than one desktop. These are not the norm any more for Gnome. And reading the design documents at the posted link makes it clear what they think of your intelligence level, and makes it clear they would just as soon hide that capability even deeper than they buried it in past releases.

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Re:BLECK! by Curunir_wolf · 2012-02-13 15:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

What are you talking about? GNOME 3 supports display of multiple non-maximised windows. Have you even used it?
Sort of. But it doesn't really seem to like that. Go to the Dash or Application menu to open a new terminal window, and instead Gnome says - "oh - Terminal! Here's your terminal window right HERE", and just maximizes the one already open. So I have to get Terminal to open a new one for me. Every application works like that. "You don't want ANOTHER application window - use THIS OPEN ONE INSTEAD!"
So Gnome does what it wants, not what I want it to do. And it takes me more mouse click and keystrokes to do anything than it did in Gnome 2. Why?!?

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Re:BLECK! by cgenman · 2012-02-13 15:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

I use Windows, OSX, Linux, iOS, and Android. I have to say, I find that I generally want either one window maximized, 2 windows halved to move data between them, or 3 - 4 windows halved over 2 screens to move data between 2 windows while looking at reference materials. Virtual Desktops are fine, but in practice provide a functionality similar to minimized windows but with an annoying degree of toucheyness.
Of course, for Linux, I pretty much just want a command line and a phone with a browser. So I'm probably not the target market. But I can still understand the goal of moving to just maximized windows, and jumping between them. OS UI got stagnant for about 10 years in there, so I'm happy that they're experimenting with things... even if that means they'll occasionally Ubuntu it.

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Re:BLECK! by Shark · 2012-02-13 16:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm so with you on that one... May I add screen space being used for my work, not giant blank areas that serve no purpose, like 10 pixel padding around every single item or giant icons that a Parkingson's disease patient on speed could never miss. I could also do without the nagging sensation that I'm using a 24" smartphone that even Jobs would have labeled too dumbed down for the masses.
There used to be a time when a larger monitor meant more information in front of you. I guess it's still true, only the information now is just blank spaces between inane UI elements. Were I still a kid, I'd feel like my parents took away my Lego Technic set to hand me a bucket of Duplo.

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Re:BLECK! by houstonbofh · 2012-02-13 16:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

I am all for experimentation and choice. Gnome wants to remove that choice. They think everything should be maximised and have said so. Soon they won't just hide the ability, but actively remove it. (Like they did with ctl-alt-bksp) That is my problem with this crap. Try anything you want. Make a UI entirely out of giant penises if you want. But don't take my preference away.
Re:BLECK! by houstonbofh · 2012-02-13 16:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

So Gnome does what it wants, not what I want it to do. And it takes me more mouse click and keystrokes to do anything than it did in Gnome 2. Why?!?
Because YOU ARE WRONG! At least that is the message I seem to be getting from Gnome and Ubuntu lately. "We are all about choice as long as you make the right one." Respectfully, gentleman, shove it!
Re:BLECK! by VortexCortex · 2012-02-13 16:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

I stopped using modal interfaces for computing when Windows 98 came out, removing my "boot to command prompt, and type 'win' if I need windows" option. This was the year I learned about Linux, GNU, and in particular GNU Screen which allowed me to fill my massive high-res monitors with many terminals, and thus become more effective than closing one to open another... It amazed me that this software had been around for 13 years at that time. It was like getting out of an abusive relationship. I had been using two separate machines and a KVM switch -- I gained another order of magnitude in efficiency that day.
It's strange to see Gnome returning to the "one activity at a time" methodology that we had with simple DOS programs, or even the Apple IIe. At this rate programming an interface with Gnome4 will require wielding wire cutters and a soldering iron, Gnome5 will simply be several strings of beads, and Gnome6 is only a single stick -- What's more simple and user friendly than a beach full of sand? Gnome7: It's just a zen-like feeling of serene clarity you hold in your mind -- the ultimate free software, no hardware even required -- Wow, its NOTHING!
After the scales had fallen from my eyes, I promised myself that I would never stand for such abuse again.
Go ahead and write code without the API docs open on an adjacent screen or window -- or write a school report without your sources visible. Hell, enter spreadsheet data without another page visible. Look at papers? What papers? Some of us are paperless now! Who are these 'users' they're targeting? Surely no one that actually USES a computer. If it's only fit to be used as a media consumption device I believe they should call their desktop design methodology, Consumer Friendly, not User Friendly.
Re:BLECK! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 17:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

Try KDE. It is perfectly usable and is making perfectly sensible decisions, while the same cannot be said for trinity:
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/02/having-a-look-at-the-oldnew-desktop-environments/
Re:BLECK! by fnj · 2012-02-13 17:07 · Score: 2

Exactly. My choice is to give the finger to the Gnome team and not use Gnome3.

Because YOU ARE WRONG! At least that is the message I seem to be getting from Gnome and Ubuntu lately. "We are all about choice as long as you make the right one." Respectfully, gentleman, shove it!
Re:BLECK! by Brannoncyll · 2012-02-13 17:31 · Score: 3, Informative

The only difference to Gnome 2 I've found is that it's now easy to maximize by pulling the window to the top, or left/right edges for maximizing or half-maximizing respectively. Maybe everything will be forced full screen in the future, but Gnome 3 is fine.
Ugh, aside from the application menu being separated from the window, the whole pulling the window to the top/sides is the most frustrating aspect of the new paradigm. Its so irritating when you're repositioning multiple windows to have one of them decide to maximise when you get even near the edge of the screen. XFCE ftw.
Re:BLECK! by Lord+of+the+Fries · 2012-02-13 18:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

I've done this thought experiment before, the "how many apps do I need at once" one, and thought the same.
The problem I have with it, is that it doesn't hold up in real life. When I work with a desktop, or a countertop, or a workbench top, or any sort of work surface, I don't allocate a single rectangular area, and then set up my cooking utensils, or books, or tools, or whatever to occupy those perfect proportions that you describe. I shuffle stuff around, I pile stuff on other stuff, I unearth things when I need them again. If I was really obsessive, maybe I could work my tool bench in the garage the way you describe, but reality is, I wouldn't.
I think one of the reasons the desktop metaphor has been so lasting, is that it *is* a metaphor for a real world experience. It may be suboptimal and innefficient compared to what I could accomplish if I'd just organize everything just so. But it is a method of work management that I gravitate to again and again. I seem to be able to work that way instinctively. And because it is so approachable, as disorganized as it might seem, it actually works well for a computer interface because I've optimized in a million subtle ways how to work that way.

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Re:BLECK! by GoingDown · 2012-02-13 18:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

KDE is NOT doing perfectly sensible decisions. I have tried it multiple times and here is things that annoy me most:
1. All toolbars are full of crap by default. Way too much icons and things. I want it clean and nice.
2. There is "Activity Cashew" button in desktop which cannot be removed easily.
3. I tried the new Activities, and so far they are totally useless for me (and yes, I did read long tutorials from net to try to get them). And by default there is no virtual desktops.
4. Nepomuk is useless crap if you are not using those KDE applications like mail/calendar. And it cannot be easily disabled (even I disabled it everywhere, it still started up). Manually deleting executables did help.
There is lots of totally redundant cruft installed by default, at least in Ubuntu 11.10, with KDE 4.8 ppa. Why I would need two file managers for example?
It was way worse experience than default Gnome 3. I did get it workable by doing lots of configuration, but it was not "perfectly sensible" defaults!
Re:BLECK! by arth1 · 2012-02-13 19:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

The side zone is hardly prone to accidents though
Thus speaks someone with a single monitor.
Re:BLECK! by RubberMallet · 2012-02-13 19:44 · Score: 2

1. Toolbars full of crap? Not on my openSUSE12.1 KDE4.8 desktop All I see is what I want there... nothing more
2. Hahaha.. this is one of the silliest excuses I see, and I see it as the main reason why KDE4 is crap.. a tiny button top right. That tiny button... if that's all you can seriously find, you're stretching... and... if you really want to, you can hide it. There are several KDE Look addons that can be used to set the transparency... removing it is like demanding that the KMenu button be removed because it clutters up the lower left corner way too much. :-P
3. So don't use Activities. They do NOT need to be used if you don't want to. And no virtual desktops? Buh? What broken distro are you testing on? Really? If Ubuntu does that, then blame Ubuntu, not KDE4. My KDE4 comes default with several virtual desktops on install, plus a pager in the taskbar.
4. Nepomuk has its issues, there's no denying that, but.. in KDE4.8 you don't notice it (unless you're upgrading from an old release, then it hiccups for about 2 minutes while it re-indexes). On top of that... you can simply disable Nepomuk... it's like.. 2 whole clicks.
Stop using a broken distro and use one that actually works.
Re:BLECK! by vigour · 2012-02-13 19:53 · Score: 3, Informative

What are you talking about? GNOME 3 supports display of multiple non-maximised windows. Have you even used it?
Sort of. But it doesn't really seem to like that. Go to the Dash or Application menu to open a new terminal window, and instead Gnome says - "oh - Terminal! Here's your terminal window right HERE", and just maximizes the one already open. So I have to get Terminal to open a new one for me. Every application works like that. "You don't want ANOTHER application window - use THIS OPEN ONE INSTEAD!"
So Gnome does what it wants, not what I want it to do. And it takes me more mouse click and keystrokes to do anything than it did in Gnome 2. Why?!?
Middle click the terminal button will open a fresh instance, or just use a keyboard shortcut. Vanilla Gnome 3 is terrible, but with Shell Extensions, and Tweak Tools you can have a great DE back. Of course we should not have to install plugins to restore functionality, but I have to say it's a pleasant surprise. I started with FreeBSD in 2001, and tried all the major DEs and WMs (tiling and floating) since then. I'm still waiting for KDE4 to reach the dizzy usabillity heights of KDE3.
Re:BLECK! by arose · 2012-02-13 20:04 · Score: 2

Real world tools are generally single purpose and don't accomplish huge portions of the task at hand, or even the whole task. Where they do you don't have a pile of tools, that's closer to a desktop. But that's not the entire story.
As you said yourself, you don't allocate a rectangular area and keep all your stuff in it. Thing is, with a computer you have no choice but to, it's called a monitor. In the real world you will have tools scattered around the area you actually perform your work in and bring them in when you use them (on the computer this is accomplished via window management). You wouldn't leave your whisk in the bowl while folding, would you? Gnome Shell actually mimics this separation between doing the task and rummaging around for tools outside of the primary work area rather well.

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Re:BLECK! by Jane+Q.+Public · 2012-02-13 20:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

A recent usability test (I'm trying to remember who did it... TechCrunch? Gizmodo? Someone else?) involving both new and experienced users, with Unity, Gnome, and KDE, had a clear winner with both new and experienced users. That winner was KDE.

Both Gnome and Unity have been throwing out decades of tried-and-true, very solid engineering in order to try their "new" ideas. They seem to forget -- or perhaps never knew? -- that many of those ideas have been tried already, and discarded... for good reasons.

My money is on KDE. It is based on solid human interface engineering, it was around before Ubuntu, and I think it will be around for a long time to come. Even if Ubuntu were to go away.
Re:BLECK! by Daniel+Phillips · 2012-02-13 20:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's strange to see Gnome returning to the "one activity at a time" methodology that we had with simple DOS programs...
Strange... yes... but it's all just part of Miguel's grand plan to make Linux suck more than Windows.

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Re:BLECK! by FireFury03 · 2012-02-13 20:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Displaying multiple windows at the same time means that screen space isn’t used efficiently, and it means that you don’t get a focused view of what it is that you are interested in. Windows that aren’t maximised also create additional tasks for people. Often you need to adjust their size, or you have to move them around.
They are clearly on track to eliminate that in favor of maximized windows.
I do wonder what the Gnome developers are smoking sometimes... I actually quite like Gnome 3, so I'm hoping someone forks it before the Gnome devs make it completely unusable. I can only think of 3 real problems I have with Gnome 3:
1. The crazy modal application launcher buttons. These change what they do depending on whether the application is running. For example, if I don't have a terminal running, clicking on the terminal icon will open a new terminal window; conversely if I have 10 terminal windows open, clicking the terminal icon will bring them all to the foreground - this is something I never want to do; the only reason I'm going to click the launcher icons is to open a new window so why not allow me to make that the default?
2. No support for extra mouse buttons. I want my 4th and 5th mouse buttons to raise/lower windows... Gnome 3 won't let me assign these buttons to any thing.
3. Lack of configurability. This is something Gnome has suffered from for a long time - for some reason the Gnome developers thing that making people hack away at gconf/dconf to configure common things is more user friendly than giving them a user interface to do it. I can understand the need to reduce the complexity of configuration interfaces, and reducing the number of knobs to twiddle does this, but there are some functions that they seem to have removed for no reason. For example, in the power management preferences, Gnome 3 lets you configure how long until it turns your monitor off when the machine is idle. It has a drop-down listing times liek "5 minutes", "30 minutes", "1 hour", etc. There is no "Never" option - why not? Would it have made the UI any more complicated? It's obvious what "Never" would do, it would be in the place you expect to find it, I just can't see why this functionality was removed.
If they do take to maximising everything then I may as well be runing Android on my desktop - it would make the machine useless for what I use it for. I can't think of a time when I would ever want to maximise a window on my 24" screen. My work involves me having many windows open at once - this is the reason for having a large screen and if I were restricted to a single window at once I may as well replace it with a 14" monitor.
They say that using unmaximised windows is an inefficient use of screen space, and cite this picture as an example of efficient use of space through maximising all windows: http://afaikblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/music-album-playback.png - am I the only one who can see that about 50% of the screen area is wasted because the window is way bigger than the content?
They also say that it is an inefficient use of the user's time if they have to resize and position windows, but this is a trade off - it *is* an inefficient use of my time to organise my windows, but through spending a few seconds being "inefficient", I gain vast efficiencies in the following hours by being able to see and work on all the content I need. It would certainly be far less efficient and far more frustrating if I were constantly having to switch between maximised windows rather than having everything on screen at once. This isn't even limited to switching to windows I need to work on, it's as simple as switching to a window every few seconds to see if the contents have changed - I quite often have a terminal window open tailing a log file and, as it's on the screen all the time, my peripheral vision will pick up that something h

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Re:BLECK! by David+Gerard · 2012-02-13 21:09 · Score: 2

Everyone should read that post and its comments. It demonstrates wonderfully why KDE 4 will never have a non-negligible userbase.

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Re:BLECK! by KugelKurt · 2012-02-13 21:32 · Score: 2

1. All toolbars are full of crap by default. Way too much icons and things. I want it clean and nice.
You are replying to someone who suggested stock KDE against Trinity. You make it sound as if Trinity was "clean and nice" which is simply untrue.
SC 4.x is much cleaner by default than KDE 3.x on which Trinity is based.
That said, defaults are for the distributor to decide. KDE software has the flexibility for many settings. It's for the distributor to decide which defaults to set.

3. I tried the new Activities, and so far they are totally useless for me (and yes, I did read long tutorials from net to try to get them).
They are useless for me as well which is why I simply don't use them.
Under GNOME Shell you have to use Activities. Under Plasma Desktop they are completely optional.

And by default there is no virtual desktops.
Which are as useless as Activities.
As with all default settings: They are for the distributor to decide.

4. Nepomuk is useless crap if you are not using those KDE applications like mail/calendar. And it cannot be easily disabled (even I disabled it everywhere, it still started up). Manually deleting executables did help.
There is lots of totally redundant cruft installed by default, at least in Ubuntu 11.10, with KDE 4.8 ppa. Why I would need two file managers for example?
How is it KDE's fault that Ubuntu's KDE packages are crap?
Nepomuk is completely optional. Plasma Desktop can be compiled without it. If Ubuntu does not support KDE packages without Nepomuk, it's an Ubuntu bug. Report it there and hope for a fix or use Gentoo.
The amount of file managers installed by default is also for the distributor to decide. If Ubuntu installs two, it's an Ubuntu bug. Report it there.
Re:BLECK! by Mystra_x64 · 2012-02-13 23:05 · Score: 2

Were you bitten by checkboxes in your childhood?

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Re:BLECK! by RubberMallet · 2012-02-13 23:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

My toolbar has.. KMenu, Firefox, Chrome, Dolphin, and Pager.. on the far right I have a systray and it has a clock and a few key icons I want.. the rest are hidden. The default isn't much different (I added Chrome and removed the Activities pager)
Clean desktop... easy again... the default has nothing but the Desktop view widget... On click removes it if you don't want it there, or switch Desktop modes to something more suitable for you.
The default KDE4.8 from openSUSE has 2 virtual desktops defined and the virtual desktop pager as default on the toolbar. If Ubuntu devs remove/don't add it... well... what can I say? Yes Activities are promoted because.. they are actually VERY useful... if you use Virtual Desktops.. well.. they are basically the same but with a LOT more control and functionality.
Nepomuk is a core part of the desktop. You can disable it... at a cost. you actually lose out on a lot.. meta data, search, and a few other key desktop features that you would find quite useful if you tried them - it is especially key with KDEPIM. IF Ubuntu's KDE isn't allowing you to disable Nepomuk... then it's broken. I can and do disable Nepomuk on my netbook running KDE4.8 form openSUSE. I don't need that functionality there... so click and it's off.. and I never see it again.
Gnome has no way to modify things.. KDE has too many ways. You choose Gnome and get a desktop that is the way others think it shoudl be.. most Gnopme users just use the default.. and never change it... KDE on the other hand is all abotu tweaking and configuring.. if you don't like it.. change it.
I STILL don't understand the almost universal hatred for the cashew.. seriously.. I know people that almost go off the deep end over that... they've got 27 inch monitors, and the cashew is covered by apps 99.9999% of the time, yet it infuriates them... a LOT. The cashew is actually a core part of the desktop and about as fundamental as KMenu... no one freaks and hides the KMenu button... yet all they can do is soapbox about a tiny button in the top right corner... one you actually could just drag elsewhere... heck, you can even "hide" it under the taskbar/panel. I suspect it's a case of people can't find significant niggles to they pick on the insignificant and easily changed and bark about it - not saying you are.. just a general observation. On my system, the cashew is covered by another widget I've got stuffed in the top right corner... no one even notices it's there anymore
In the end.. I'd say your issues were... Ubuntu's rendition of KDE... I've tried that one over and over and over and had nothing but problems with it... openSUSE is NOT perfect by any means, but I've got to say that the KDE I pull from there (I use the "Upstream" KDE4.8 openSUSE repository, not the default KDE 4.7.2 you get from an install off the latest 12.1. DVD ISO) is rock solid, and works exactly as it should.
The reality is.. use the window manager that works for you. KDE is not the be-all-end-all and it is not right for everyone.. heck it' snot right for even half the users.. the beauty is you've got choices.. Cinnamon, Trinity, E17, KDE4, Gnome3, and on and on....
Re:BLECK! by GoingDown · 2012-02-14 01:35 · Score: 2

If I try to remove nepomuk, it wants to remove all kde as well. On my Ubuntu machine I actually did just that you suggested, which then meant goodbye to my KDE installation. Do you have better option?
Just to test this, I did install Opensuse 12.1 to my virtual machine. Within default installation, nepomuk cannot be disabled (it still runs even after disable + reboot). In Opensuse, nepomuk is part of kdebase package, so removing this would remove KDE altogether too.
Re:BLECK! by Narishma · 2012-02-14 02:56 · Score: 4, Informative

It was TechRadar.

--
Mada mada dane.
Re:BLECK! by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-02-14 08:02 · Score: 2

The problem with MATE is that it's based on Gtk 2.x, which is now effectively a legacy branch. Gtk 3 is good, the problem is that Gnome 3 which uses it screwed up elsewhere.
Long term, I'd rather make a stake on Cinnamon, which is a fork of Gnome 3 that keeps the tech improvements under the hood, but changes UI to be more sane.

found a GNOME replacement by poppopret · 2012-02-13 15:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

It takes just a minute to make XFCE look and act pretty much like GNOME 1.

I think you can clone GNOME 2 as well, but I always configured that to be like GNOME 1 so quickly that I barely saw it. :-) Why you'd want bars at top AND bottom of the screen is a mystery to me, but XFCE does support it. The same goes for desktop icons: you can have it if you want it.

I have my menu, my task switcher, my desktop switcher, my clock, and my xterm launcher. Life is good with XFCE.

Re:found a GNOME replacement by lennier1 · 2012-02-13 18:23 · Score: 2

It's actually not that much effort to add the features Gnome 2 had over Xfce and I certainly like the additional speed boost.
My only problem so far is that I had to make Nautilus my default file manager again, because Thunar's support for browsing a network isnowhere near as comfortable as Nautilus and even after years Thunar still has sporadic problems with encrypted home directories.

As long as it isn't the travesty that is 'unity' by Teunis · 2012-02-13 15:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

I wait with baited breath for a hopefully usable system, unlike the current gnome shell, and most especially unlike unity. I want applications that remember their states and can be saved and restored (gconsole, I'm looking at you in particular) and otherwise the ability to organize my working day properly on desktop and laptop.
Support tablet all you want, but don't remove support for desktop and laptop - like unity did.

Gnome 3 on Fedora & Ubuntu: by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 15:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Things I like:

- Look seems updated & clean (simple top menu bar)
- Hidden dock (containing my favorite apps)
- Hot corner (shows all running apps)
- Instant app / file search

Things I hate:

- No minimize buttons
- Hidden desktop icons
- The bottom notification area
- Needs better UI consistency behind the scenes (ex. System Settings looks unorganized and messy, etc...)
- Consider putting any common app menu items in the top menu bar

I do prefer it over Ubuntu's default UI and KDE so far...
Just my two cents :)

- stoops

Re:Gnome 3 on Fedora & Ubuntu: by erroneus · 2012-02-13 15:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

Let's not forget how badly incomplete it is even now. Perhaps there are better implementations under other OSes, but under Fedora, it's just missing SO MUCH. Screensavers? I can't change the window controls colors at all?! What the hell?
The instant app search? C'mon. Just give me some menus. They really ARE faster. And seriously? Change the entire display over and over again to launch a single program?
And the top menu bar is a horrible abonimation. I want to be able to change it with mouse clicks, not addon scriptlets which fight with other scriptlets.
I'm on the second Fedora with Gnome3 and it hasn't improved a great deal. When I finally get around to upgrading my main laptop from F14, it's going to CentOS6. I might continue to play with Gnome3/F16 on my smaller, travel machine, but I just can't imagine my mind changing with regards to Gnome3. They just need to say "we're sorry... we'll put it back."
So yeah.... even Linux can have a "WindowsME/Vista" thing happen... and here it is.
Re:Gnome 3 on Fedora & Ubuntu: by testdummy · 2012-02-13 16:01 · Score: 2

You should get the gnome-tweak-tool. This will allow you to add the desktop icons and minimize buttons.

Sure, we believe you. by poppopret · 2012-02-13 15:29 · Score: 5, Funny

I see that the GNOME 3 developers have resorted to posting anonymously.

Dev by sakdoctor · 2012-02-13 15:35 · Score: 5, Funny

But that's what the usability studies indicate that users want this.
The ONLY reason you don't love it yet, is because you haven't learned the new paradigm, or you're too stupid to do so.

Ok, no more negative feed back please, La la la la la la la I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

Re:Dev by Grishnakh · 2012-02-13 18:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

There's a big difference between Apple and GNOME. Apple has a bunch of drooling fans happy to buy their crap. The Gnome devs think that by copying Apple stuff (badly), or perhaps by "being different" or "thinking outside the box" or whatever, they'll also gain legions of drooling fans. Except that it hasn't worked out that way at all; most Linux users just think they're full of shit, and the people who might actually want a UI like what the Gnome devs have put together don't use Linux.
Re:Dev by rrohbeck · 2012-02-13 20:55 · Score: 4, Informative

Let them do what they want. There's always XFCE.

--
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Re:Dev by Grishnakh · 2012-02-13 21:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

They can certainly do what they want, but I think concerned members of the Linux community also have a responsibility to speak out about their crap, and make it known that we don't consider their junk DE to be the standard-bearer for Linux. The problem with Gnome is that, for quite some time now, it has been considered the standard or default, as the most popular distros have pre-selected it to be so: Ubuntu (until recently, and Unity still uses Gnome3's backend), Fedora, even OpenSUSE tried to switch to it at one point as the default. For those who'd like Linux to gain a little more following on the desktop, new users, coming from Win/Mac (esp. Win) might try out one of the popular distros thinking "I keep hearing about this Linux thing, maybe I'll give it a try", and of course use its default DE, and then run away screaming after seeing what a POS it is. Gnome3 simply isn't going to gain Linux any converts, and instead will IMO drive away users.
Re:Dev by pmontra · 2012-02-13 23:01 · Score: 3, Interesting
That mindset is called "cargo cult". I'm not sure they very so deluded but there are hints they are starting to listen. Quoting from one of the linked posts:

Judging by the comments it would seem that there is a bit of confusion about what is meant by maximising windows by default, so let me try and clarify:
- 1. Not all applications will use this behaviour – only those that have been designed to do so. If an app won’t work being maximised, it won’t be.
  1. Although these applications will maximise by default, it will still be possible to unmaximise them. If you want to be able to view more than one window at once you will still be able to do so.
  1. There will be mechanisms put in place that will adjust the behaviour to compensate for large screens. We are currently investigating a number of options here, including not automatically maximising windows on these large screens or adjusting their layout to make best use of the extra space. Everyone involved is well aware of the need to work well with large screens!
Maybe we'll get a Gnome 4 that works for us in some five years from now.
I believe that this new wave in the GUI design is due to the reductions of screen heights we experienced (suffered?) in the last years. On small screens maximizing windows and reducing the space for menus and toolbars is good design but probably the 4", 13" and 24" form factors need three different interfaces.
Re:Dev by Korin43 · 2012-02-14 03:28 · Score: 2

Yes, it's very important that you complain loudly about a product you don't use. Otherwise people might get confused and think you're not entirely self-centered.

what about cinnamon? by lord3nd3r · 2012-02-13 15:36 · Score: 5, Informative

I for one, love cinnamon. http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ :D

--
g0t b33r?

I didn't think it was possible by erroneus · 2012-02-13 15:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

Just when I thought I could maybe settle in with Gnome3 on my Fedora 16 running, 11" laptop, I read this and was reminded why I hated Gnome3.

They go on about the efficiencies of maximized windows? REALLY? I'm not one of those users. I prefer overlapping windows so I can see movement in them when something changes. Yes, I know I can still do that, but tweaks are necessary.

Another thing that's getting to me is the wild mouse movements required to navigate around. Go to one corner to change to the window changing mode, then go to the opposite corner to do something with the windows like move it to another virtual display or something. Did they consider what a pain that actually is for people with touchpads or those stupid keyboard joysticks? Worse, what does it mean for the disabled?

It's not just different. It's different without a cause or a purpose. It's really stretching things to assert "an old person's user philosophy" where windows should always be maximized over others where people like to be able to easily and more quickly select and work with objects between windows. (Ain't much drag-n-drop with maximized windows is there?)

Linus Torvald's words keep coming back to mind... "unholy abomination" I believe they were.

Re:I didn't think it was possible by lord3nd3r · 2012-02-13 15:43 · Score: 2

amen. Seriously. I would mod you up if I could. Good Job, straight to the damn point. This new gnome-shell, gnome3 crap sucks ass! I like being able to see what my stuff is doing.+1

--
g0t b33r?

Re:Do you really? by WolphFang · 2012-02-13 15:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

Hrmmmm as a *writer* and doing other sorts, such as *programming*, I need multiple windows thank you very much. Just because you are incapable of handling anything beyond a small tablet interface does not mean I am limited to such by ability, unless *forced* upon me... I also use *mouse focus*, not *click focus* as well...

--
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs

These "UI Designers" made me want to hurt people. by FilthCatcher · 2012-02-13 15:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

This particular rant is about Unity but the concept of "design" decision overriding utlity applies.

I really tried using Unity for a week or so but NEEDED to move the launcher / dock thingy to a different screen edge. (reasons below)
First, I tried the obvious click-dragging move - nothing happened
Ok, I told myself. This is open source software! must be a config file somewhere so I googled. Found a post from Shuttleworth himself saying:

I’m afraid the location of the Unity launcher is fixed by design. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button.

Fixed by design? but I want to move it! I'm running ubuntu inside Virtualbox. I NEED both 'dowze and 'nix and the windows host / linux guest config works best for me. I also give that Linux guest a monitor to itself - on the right. Because it's on the right, the left edge of the linux screen jumps the mouse pointer back to the left screen and into the windows host system. So when trying to use the dock with autohide on (i want to use all of my screen when coding) I'd keep touching the edge of the screen and the dock would disappear.
I've got no problem with these design decisions from valuable end-user testing being used to setup defaults but both Gnome and unity seem hell-bent on FORCING you to use their new design paradigms and guess what? It just doesn't suit all use cases.

This being open source, it didn't take long for a whole bunch of options, wokarounds and custom docks to appear but for fuck's sake stop telling me how to use MY computer.
Am currently reasonably happy with KDE - Don't think I'll be going anywhere near Unity or Gnome for a very long time.

Re:"GNOME 3 will represent a new approach to GNOME by Nursie · 2012-02-13 15:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you like Mint then you might want to check out Cinnamon, that clem is making.

I can't wait for it to be available for debian (may end up building it myself) but it looks like the start of a sane desktop based on GTK3 and GNOME 3, but without the steaming pile that is GNOME Shell.

I really dont give a shit how pretty it is by Osgeld · 2012-02-13 15:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

If it breaks my way of operating a computer. Yes gnome3 is pretty, yes gnome3 does have some interesting idea's, yes gnome3 is a fucking pain in the ass and gets in the way all the damn time.

I lasted a whole 3 months with it, then rolled back to gnome2, sure its ugly, sure it has its problems as well, but wow its like using a modern computer, not mac OS6, I can put shortcuts on my desktop without switching DM's, I can right click options that in gnome3 require 3rd party shit and editing a text file, I can make a pile of virtual desktops and not play mind games to get them to show up (like maximize 1 app so desktop2 shows then right click and move bullshit), and if my mouse happens to hit the corner of the screen the whole fucking thing doesnt insta break, zoom out, and require me to select something before I can get back to what I was doing (even windows7 got that right)

Re:Do you really? by rubycodez · 2012-02-13 15:52 · Score: 3, Funny

oh boy oh boy, so the 1980s were the "bees knees" of UI for you. you must be a gnome3 developer.

For you, maybe. by khasim · 2012-02-13 15:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

Seems to me multiple windows is more of a bug than a feature.

For you, maybe. Not for everyone.

I prefer multiple monitors with multiple windows on each monitor. And none of them maximized.

And not to sound like an old fart, but let's not forget that up until the mid 80's most computers barely had any multi-tasking at all, let alone multiple windows.

Yeah. It's 2012 now.

I don't agree with those design changes. I don't see the advantage of trying to copy a single interface from the most limited systems to all systems. Particularly ones without the limitations of the systems that drove those restrictions in the first place.

Re:For you, maybe. by tthomas48 · 2012-02-13 16:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

I use gnome 3 on 2 monitors with unmaximized windows every day and I love the new task switcher. The Linux community is ridiculously conservative.
Re:For you, maybe. by 0123456 · 2012-02-13 16:56 · Score: 3, Informative

The Linux community is ridiculously conservative.
Probably because many of us use Linux for real work, rather than Facebook and Youtube.
Re:For you, maybe. by arth1 · 2012-02-13 17:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

I use gnome 3 on 2 monitors with unmaximized windows every day and I love the new task switcher. The Linux community is ridiculously conservative.
I'm ridiculously conservative in that I want my car to have four wheels too. Not five, not three, but four. Because it works
With multiple windows, focus-follows-mouse and no click-to-raise, I can mark/paste between them without the layout of my display changing at all. I know where things are, because they're the same place as ten minutes ago. And I can have a window open to a dozen servers at the same time, without running out of screen real estate.
This is known as X-mouse, and was the standard for a long time because it works. It wasn't displaced by something better, but displaced because of a new generation of users who never had a chance to use it,, and grew up with click-to-focus and click-to-raise because that's what Microsoft Windows had.
Then the new genration of Windows users started using Linux, and started transforming Linux into what they knew. I bet you these new Gnome developers haven't even tried X-mouse. Gnome 2 had already made it hard enough to do, and with Gnome 3 it's next to impossible.
Another real killer is dropping DPI support. I can no longer have the same size fonts on my 146 DPI display as on my 90 DPI display. Because some idiot thought it more important that fonts are a certain number of pixels in size to better match graphics. Fuck writers and typographers, who perhaps want a 10 pt font to be around 10 pt, not 20 on one display and 6 on another.
Yes, it's a new generation of programmers. And they are clueless because they are history-less. They don't know why things were done certain ways, and they don't give a damn as long as they can continue their circlejerking.
I wonder how long it's going to take them to realize that their userbase is going, going, gone.
Re:For you, maybe. by DamageLabs · 2012-02-13 20:32 · Score: 2

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Somehow, the last few years of this industry,
seem to me like we re taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.
Never before did I have to adapt to the computer, it always adapted to my way of thinking. Lately, in order to use the new gadgets, i have to forget that multitasking even exists.
Amazing this progress is...
Re:For you, maybe. by Jane+Q.+Public · 2012-02-13 20:45 · Score: 2

"Yes, it's a new generation of programmers. And they are clueless because they are history-less. They don't know why things were done certain ways..."
You said it. But something that really amazes me is how many of them know no history simply because they simply never bothered to learn it. It's not like they didn't have the opportunity. But they don't understand that many of the things they're trying to do today were already done 30 years ago, and discarded because they just don't work worth a damn.

What really bothers me is that the generations before them at least made an effort to learn from the engineers who came before them. But this new generation is just going to repeat all their mistakes, because they don't seem to have made that effort. Or seem to even have a desire to.
Re:For you, maybe. by GameboyRMH · 2012-02-14 02:30 · Score: 2

That's funny, I always saw Linux as the serious work OS and Windows as the OS for running games. I do more "serious work" at home than I do at work.
I'm looking at switching to Cinnamon desktop as I see it has the excellent Win7-like searchable menu, the big GUI improvement I've been missing on Linux. Now if only Windows Explorer could be more like Nautilus...

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel

Don't tell me how to work by whoever57 · 2012-02-13 15:57 · Score: 2

Displaying multiple windows at the same time means that screen space isnâ(TM)t used efficiently, and it means that you donâ(TM)t get a focused view of what it is that you are interested in. Windows that arenâ(TM)t maximised also create additional tasks for people. Often you need to adjust their size, or you have to move them around.

My work requires me to frequently copy and paste from one window to another, or to compare the contents of one window to another, or I switch to another task while I keep an eye on window waiting for a task to finish. A single maximized window would be horribly inefficient for me, not to mention a stupid waste of space (I have a 2 monitor setup -- there is only so much usable width in a broswer window).

It's one thing to set the default to be optimized for maximized windows, but make it impossible for me to reconfigure it to work well with multiple windows and your window manager becomes useless for me.

--
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!

Horrible. by Alex+Belits · 2012-02-13 15:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is absolutely horrible, and whoever came up with this thing, should resign from GNOME and go work for Google on Android-without-Java, because this is where it belongs.

--
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.

GNOME is dead. by gumpish · 2012-02-13 15:58 · Score: 2

Long live MATE.

Re:Do you really? by bell.colin · 2012-02-13 16:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

WHAT THE FUCK?

This is not a Tablet-OS, It is a "Desktop-OS". If I Wanted a FUCKING Phone or Tablet, I would buy a FUCKING Phone or Tablet! and there are already better interfaces than the Shit that is Gnome3 and Unity for them (iOS and Adroid 3.x)

STOP SHOVING SHITTY MOBILE PHONE TOUCH-SCREEN INTERFACES DOWN OUR THROATS FOR DESKTOPS!

Re:"GNOME 3 will represent a new approach to GNOME by grimmjeeper · 2012-02-13 16:02 · Score: 2

I tried Mint 12 and went back to 11 because I did not like GNOME 3. Why are they saying "will" like it hasn't come out yet?

I'm using the MATE UI (GNOME 2 fork) on Mint 12 and it's great.

Re:Top & Bottom by poppopret · 2012-02-13 16:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

there is a menu at the top and a dock at the bottom. In the early days Gnome and KDE were cloning Windows-like paradigms, but increasingly they clone Mac paradigms, which is why they opted for a dock I'm sure. Honestly, unless you are stuck on a small monitor

In case you really mean a Mac-style app menu disconnected from the app window, you have the monitor sizes backwards. A top-menu GUI makes sense on the original 512x342 display, since you have to maximize most stuff anyway and your mouse can't possibly have far to travel.

A modern iMac is painful to use. Your choice: place every app in the upper-left corner of the screen, or move the mouse over a thousand pixels each way.

The OSX dock is unusable too. The fact that an app is running is indicated by a tiny dot under the icon. The fact that a second instance is running (rather difficult to do BTW) is indicated by a second icon located nowhere near the normal dock icon. You don't get a second dot. Seriously, WTF?

Mock Up How A Kernel Dev Works by schwep · 2012-02-13 16:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hey, GNOME team - I really want to like & use your stuff. It looks neat. But - I earn my living with this 'user interface' each and every day. I don't spend the day playing music and splashing paint on brick walls wondering what bark is made of...

I write code. Lots of code. I have 10-15 editor windows open on 2 or 3 desktops. I deal with 200 emails a day, while on conference calls with customers, while trying to 2 other things (usually poorly, but that's not the point). My computer life isn't as simple as opening 1 program.

I need the ability to be productive all the time. Please, write up user-stories based on what your kernel developer friends needs. Look at what people like Linus need. Please help us!

Re:Do you really? by grahamwest · 2012-02-13 16:05 · Score: 4, Informative

At work I have a maximised IDE on my left monitor (with the editor split vertically so I can see a .c and .h file side by side).
On my right monitor I have my IM client up against the right hand side, email against the left, browser in the middle and taller than the email, music player in the top left. I put IM windows to the right, so they touch the left-hand edge of the IM contact list.

This lets me work on code and watch for incoming emails while referencing a document off the wiki, see when someone comes back from lunch or gets out of a meeting (their IM status) and if someone messages me I can click straight to the window to reply. Similarly, I can click the music player to the front and immediately get at the volume or track list or whatever, without having to alt-tab or go down to the taskbar.

If all that stuff was maximised or tiled it would be a big pain in the ass for me. I don't log out or turn off the computer for weeks at a time, so once the windows are positioned I'm good - and most of them remember where they were last time anyway.

--
Graham

Ah, What Might Have Been (And Might Still Be?) by smpoole7 · 2012-02-13 16:07 · Score: 2

Seems like a million years ago now that I left Windows 98 for Mandrake Linux running KDE 2. I was amazed at how good it was and how easily it installed. I still kept Windows around so that I could play games and deal with multimedia, but most of my work was done in Linux.

Then came KDE 3. I liked it. Then came KDE 4. I hated it. I tried Gnome 2, got used to it and decided I liked it. Then Gnome 3 came along and I almost gave up.

Instead of all of this "me, too!" stuff, and trying to emulate Android on the desktop, why not something really revolutionary? Here's just one example: most of us have lots of resolution and nice big monitors now. Why not a USEFUL 3D desktop? For example, opened windows can be scrolled into the background with the mouse wheel; just hover the wheel over it and a pop up reminds you what that particular window is, and if you want to bring it back to the foreground, scroll the mouse wheel the other way. Make it a true 3D desktop that lets me navigate through everything just like I'm strolling through a neighborhood.

No, instead, we get windows that fade in and out (when they don't hang my system -- I had to turn Plasma off) and other *extremely* useful innovations.

I've never understood. There are no rules, so why not just try something completely different? After all, one of the killer apps that made the original PC indispensable was a little program called Lotus 1 2 3 (showing my age now; for you kids, it was around LONG before Excel even existed).

Linux has a very, very, VERY good kernel. It's about time that it had a really, really revolutionary desktop, one that doesn't copy anything else, or try to be anything else, but one that simply revolutionizes how we work on these bloomin' little thingies called "pee cees."

--
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.

Why I left Gnome 3. by bejiitas_wrath · 2012-02-13 16:12 · Score: 3

This is why I uninstalled the Gnome 3 desktop on my Ubuntu 12.04 system and I managed to get the MATE desktop installed instead. I do not want a glorified tablet interface on a desktop machine. Even the Afterstep and Enlightenment E16 interfaces are better than Gnome 3. Afterstep at least is based on a NextStep interface and has some sort of heritage. Gnome 3 is just stupid. Sure I am running a alpha release of Ubuntu, but this is Linux and I expect my software to work and not copy the tablet interface just because it is the trendy thing right now.

The Gnome 1.0 interface http://www.blogger.am/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/gnome-1.gif was a simple interface, the Red Hat desktop kept this style of desktop for a while with the single panel on the bottom of the screen just like Windows `95, then they moved to the two panels, but you could still change it to look like Gnome 1.0. Nowadays the whole interface is crap.

--
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.

Maximized windows by default? by caseih · 2012-02-13 16:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have a 24" screen. Why would I ever maximize a window other than, say a game or Google Earth? I have a "windowing" system for a reason. Fixed-width layouts on the web are common as well and on a large, high res screen you're going to have either a very large window with a lot of blank space, or a window with very zoomed-in text. Maybe they are catering to the ADHT-type people, but I run a Window Manager for a reason. I can kind of see where they are going (and apps aren't forced to be maximized), but I have some serious doubts.

Re:Maximized windows by default? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 18:34 · Score: 2, Funny

I have a 24" screen
Yeah, if you're hitting these same issues on such a small monitor, consider what people who use big ones are going through, too! ;-)

Re:Do you really? by houstonbofh · 2012-02-13 16:23 · Score: 2

As for the last objection, "dragging and dropping an object causes an unpredictable IPC interaction," WTF? How the fuck does drag-and-drop cause problems in 2012, the year of jet-packs and flying cars?

Because we now have more stupid people using computers. I mean really... Drag and drop is even consistent between Windows and most flavours of Linux. (clt-drag to copy and shift-drag to move) Wow...

Re:I like it, whats everybody complaining about by houstonbofh · 2012-02-13 16:28 · Score: 2

OK. You like it. I don't. It interferes with my workflow. It makes everything take longer. It makes me curse more. The only difference is that you can still have what you want, while everyone tells me I am wrong and is removing support from what I want.

Re:Top & Bottom by xombo · 2012-02-13 16:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

The rationale is that the bar being at the top of the screen provides an infinite targeting area. You just have to push your mouse up until the pointer will no longer move then go left or right until you've gotten to the right menu. I find myself spending a lot of time and concentration trying to target menus in Windows because they're so slight compared to the rest of the interface. I imagine that's one of the things the ribbon is trying to solve in light of high-resolution displays, a rather garish way to increase the targeting area.

Re:Gnome has gone off the deep end. by smash · 2012-02-13 16:43 · Score: 2

They're attempting to copy Apple and steal ideas from iOS. Except, they're stealing the wrong fucking ideas.

--
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.

Virtual Desktops by jbov · 2012-02-13 16:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

Virtual desktops are great for organization of your open windows. Having everything on one desktop, gives you no logical grouping of applications. Indeed, the keyboard shortcuts for switching between open applications are different if those applications are on separate desktops.

For example, one may have the following:
Desktop1: console
Desktop2: todo list, notes, and time tracking for billing
Desktop3: Gimp and all of its toolbars, file browsers
Desktop4: Gvim or editor of choice
Desktop5: Web browser(s)
Desktop6: Music player

Once you become consistent, you know that you can use a keyboard shortcut to switch to any of these windows, without having to Alt+Tab cycle through them. This is a great reason to keep Gimp on it's own virtual desktop, since there is an application window created for the main program, each open file, and each toolbar. The same can be said for browsers and their developer plugins. Applications which are related, logically, and that you switch between often can be on the same desktop. YMMV.

Re:Virtual Desktops by TheLink · 2012-02-13 20:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Once you become consistent, you know that you can use a keyboard shortcut to switch to any of these windows, without having to Alt+Tab cycle through them
If that's mostly what you want, if you ever use windows you can use a utility I wrote: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/
Or you could try Windows 7 with their winkey+number shortcut - with that you can switch to a particular app (LinkKey is to a particular window).
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Re:Virtual Desktops by Sigg3.net · 2012-02-13 21:26 · Score: 2

I took it even further and piped each of Gimp's menus and toolbars through X out to their own Kompiz enhanced virtual desktop, using synergy to move between them.
Atm, I'm being productive editing pics of my dog across 6 x 24" LCDs in a row across my CAT 6A lan.

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Defining Statistics and Social Research
Re:Virtual Desktops by The_Noid · 2012-02-13 21:49 · Score: 2

Exactly, each task gets its own virtual desktop.
I think many desktop environment designers have lost track of what a task is. Multi tasking does not refer to a computer doing multiple things, but to a human doing multiple things. This means it is very important to group windows belonging to the same task, not windows belonging to the same program.
Each task uses multiple windows. One program can have windows in more than one task, but windows are generally not shared between tasks. Many of my tasks involve a terminal window and a browser window, but each task gets its own browser window(s) and its own terminal window on its own desktop.
That means that it is easy to switch between windows in the same task with alt-tab, because there are only a few windows on the desktop for that task. It also means it is easy to switch between tasks, since that is just a switch to a different desktop.
In a situation with multiple monitors, each monitor gets its own panel and window-list. That makes it easy to switch to "the browser window on the right monitor".

I proclaim GNOME3 the Comic Sans of desktop UIs. by Alex+Belits · 2012-02-13 16:51 · Score: 4, Funny

Seriously, same stupid reason for development (Comic Sans was made for MS Bob, if anyone forgot), same attempt to achieve the look of a different and hard to imitate medium (comic book font on a 800x600 bitmap, phone UI on a multi-monitor desktop), same failure, same amount of suffering inflicted on the unsuspecting users.

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Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.

Fucking up a perfectly good hammer by fnj · 2012-02-13 16:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Where you see stagnancy, those with actual perception see maturity, competence, and highly optimized design. If it ain't BUSTED, don't FIX it. If it's not only not busted, but in fact is pretty optimal, don't even THINK about fixing it from the ground up. Gnome3 is like trying to turn a perfectly good hammer into some shitty linear monstrosity that you have to punch nails with straight ahead, instead of economically swinging the hammer at it.

Caveat. I do actual work with desktops and notebooks. I have absolutely no use whatsoever for teeny tiny touchscreens, but for those who do, I recognize those need a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT UI with a different paradigm. But there is absolutely no call to DESTROY the oven when you are designing a microwave.

OS UI got stagnant for about 10 years in there, so I'm happy that they're experimenting with things

Re:Fucking up a perfectly good hammer by Anne+Thwacks · 2012-02-13 19:57 · Score: 2

If it aint busted, you have not got a Ubuntu developer in the house.

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Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Re:Fucking up a perfectly good hammer by DrXym · 2012-02-13 21:32 · Score: 3, Informative

GNOME 3 is extensible and there are already extensions that turn it into an experience that resemble GNOME 2 so I really don't get where the hate comes from. Stick with GNOME 2 or add extensions to GNOME 3 to make it resemble GNOME 2. The latter choice still allows you to benefit from the compositing desktop which isn't just for eyecandy.
As for the "if it isn't busted, don't fix it" comment, problem is that GNOME (and KDE) were busted. Both were essentially a cobbled together pastiche of like Windows and OS X circa year 2002 built on top of X11. Fast forward a decade and they're looking increasingly mouldy partly due to technological limitations (X11, drivers) and partly because they ignore usability innovations that have occurred during that time. Furthermore, being pastiches they often imperfectly copied the notes of their inspiration without understanding the tune. At least GNOME appears to be going off and trying to do something its own way and IMO it is succeeding.
Perhaps some people prefer to be technological Amish, drawing a line in the sand circa 2002 and deciding that's the way their desktop should behave and no different. So fine, stick with GNOME 2 / MATE or KDE 3 or Xfce and get that experience. I do not see that as being healthy for Linux going forward though. Personally I believe GNOME 3.x is going the right way. It has a few rough edges but its still at the start of its lifecycle and it will continue to improve with each iteration.
Re:Fucking up a perfectly good hammer by gbjbaanb · 2012-02-13 23:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

GNOME 3 is extensible and there are already extensions that turn it into an experience that resemble GNOME 2
if it ain't broke. fix it, then fix the fix...
Re:Fucking up a perfectly good hammer by DrXym · 2012-02-14 02:56 · Score: 2

It was broke and it did need fixing. GNOME 2 was far more heavily dependent on X11 (not good when dists want to dump it), was largely ignorant of things like compositing and was stuck in time from a user experience perspective. GNOME 3 is modern compositing engine which is far more extensible than GNOME 2, less attached to X11 and is also very usable to boot. The very fact that you can make it resemble GNOME 2 should amply demonstrate the fact that people are whining about nothing.
Re:Fucking up a perfectly good hammer by DrXym · 2012-02-14 22:13 · Score: 2

That can be illustrated with a simple example. Drag one window over the top of another. In the non-compositing world the desktop has to work out which windows have been "damaged" by being over painted and then send them paint events. Then the process which owns the window has to wake up to handle the paint event, repaint the damaged region and go back to sleep again. This impairs the desktop and the user experience.
In the compositing world each window is rendered into a surface held on the graphics card.. When one window is dragged over another there is no damage to the contents of the window so all the desktop need do is recompose the screen. It's much faster and utilises the hardware in the machine more efficiently.
Compositing also makes it easy to do things like thumbnail previews, scaling and so forth that are common features in modern desktops. It also allows windowed apps like video players and games which traditionally attempt to bypass the desktop (e.g. by carving a hole in the screen and hitting the hardware directly) to be handled through the compositor too.
A secondary issue for X11 is that it hasn't the slightest clue what compositing is. It stills thinks in terms of 2D boxes and damage so all that stuff is delegated out to an extensions which manage surfaces and damage and turns it into the compositing equivalent. This is all a bottleneck which causes its own context switches which is why many dists are keen to move to Wayland which would be designed from the ground up to support compositing. Backends for QT and GTK are well advanced so it's only a matter of time really.

Window managers should manage windows by necro351 · 2012-02-13 17:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

Window managers manage windows:

I use GNOME 2 with Compiz and I'm very content. What are the killer features for me? Focus follows mouse, I can press Alt-click and drag windows by clicking anywhere, I can press Alt-middle-click and resize windows by almost clicking anywhere. I made a shortcut where if I press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+I it maximizes my window only vertically (great for terminals). One big killer feature with Compiz is an OS X-like Expose thing that lets me easily select windows, and shows me everything on my screen at once. What do all these awesome things have in common? They are all about managing windows, and nothing else, which is what a good window manager _should_ do. GNOME should keep going this way and not philosophize over what the default ought to be.

How I use my terminal window(s) depends on what I'm doing (developing, debugging, scripting, writing LaTeX, etc...). I don't care if my web browser is maximized once the fonts are readable, it looks pretty, and I can see everything I need. What do all these things have in common? The window size is _not_ the problem, only the application and the user know how the window ought to be, and only the user knows how it ought to be relative to other windows. There is no good default. I used Chrome OS for a couple weeks and hated it. The window manager ought to manage windows and focus on that.

GNOME 3 Gets Search and Beauty, Good:

What GNOME 3 is getting right is bringing back 'Beagle' and extending it to do more stuff. I love Spotlight on OS X, it has made the Dock, the start menu, desktop shortcuts, the Launcher (in Lion), and all the rest of it obsolete. Spotlight is king, bow down to spotlight. GNOME 3 gets this, good. GNOME also gets that the UI needs to be pretty, its just depressing when its not. My Linux machine isn't as pretty as my OS X machine, and that makes me sad, there is no reason that has to be. GNOME gets this, good.

GNOME 3's Direction:

I guess GNOME 3 should keep making stuff prettier, definitely keep focusing on search, and make me a wizard-God when it comes to managing windows. I want to do Expose, I want to effortlessly save window configurations and have GNOME 3 remember them when I open up the same applications. I want to re-size, drag, tile, layer, focus-follow-mouse, and make my windows do back-flips, effortlessly. I want GNOME 3 to not presume to do anything by default, but listen to the application and me.

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--"You are your own God"--

Sounds great by gnu-sucks · 2012-02-13 17:01 · Score: 5, Funny

I can't wait for a system where each application automatically takes up the entire screen!

Just imagine, reading facebook.com on my 30 inch screen, FULLY MAXIMIZED, so that no other applications can distract me. Or, if I decide to code, EACH terminal could span the entire desktop. No longer will I have to struggle with seeing two things at once -- from now on, it's peace of mind with GNOME 3.

Thankfully I can now give gvim the space it has always deserved -- a fully uncluttered 2560 x 1600 space. And when I decide to listen to music, my music app can take up the entire space too! Imagine, seeing nothing but whitespace. Thank goodness someone thought of this. I can finally relax and do what I've always wanted to do: use my computer, one app at a time, in FULL SCREEN!

If you think about it, this is almost as good as DOS. No more annoying window title bars and multi-app desktop usage. No more extra buttons and widgets. Just one thing and one thing only -- what you're going to work on. I can't wait to develop kernel drivers and work on my apps this way. The fact that when I currently work I can actually see (and be distracted by) about three to four windows at a time is just devastating. I have to (currently) *navigate* to each and every window, and precariously drag the window across my entire desktop to achieve this effect, only to remain haunted by menu bars, title bars, and application switchers.

If only they could put a stop to all those pesky background processes and really get it down to just one single process. Then all the processes on my computer wouldn't have to compete for computer resources. Just like DOS, I'm telling you, I can't wait, we're getting back to the single-purpose one-thing-at-a-time operating system!

Obligatory slashdot sayings:
I for one welcome our maximized-app overlords!
In Soviet-Russia, window manager maximizes YOU!
One app to rule them all!
It was as if millions of apps suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, replaced with calming whitespace.

Re:Sounds great by MadMaverick9 · 2012-02-13 18:04 · Score: 4, Informative

I can't wait for a system where each application automatically takes up the entire screen!
use fvwm and put this in your .fvwm2rc:

Style * InitialMapCommand Maximize 100 100

Re:Top & Bottom by Guy+Harris · 2012-02-13 17:09 · Score: 2

The OSX dock is unusable too. The fact that an app is running is indicated by a tiny dot under the icon. The fact that a second instance is running (rather difficult to do BTW) is indicated by a second icon located nowhere near the normal dock icon. You don't get a second dot. Seriously, WTF?

For better or worse, the Mac OS X model is "for a document-based application, one process handles all open documents, and, for non-document-based applications, one process handles everything", so running the same app in more than one process in one session is not expected to be a common case.

the notes you people wont read by ThorGod · 2012-02-13 17:16 · Score: 4, Informative

From the article:

Judging by the comments it would seem that there is a bit of confusion about what is meant by maximising windows by default, so let me try and clarify:

1.) Not all applications will use this behaviour – only those that have been designed to do so. If an app won’t work being maximised, it won’t be.
2.) Although these applications will maximise by default, it will still be possible to unmaximise them. If you want to be able to view more than one window at once you will still be able to do so.
3.) There will be mechanisms put in place that will adjust the behaviour to compensate for large screens. We are currently investigating a number of options here, including not automatically maximising windows on these large screens or adjusting their layout to make best use of the extra space. Everyone involved is well aware of the need to work well with large screens!

i.e. "Yeah, we know this wont work in every case, you ninnies who are going to nit pick at the corner cases like they're the only things that exist."

I, for one, like gnome3. I use it when I reboot this machine and it works great.

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.

how about ubuntu 10? by decora · 2012-02-13 17:21 · Score: 2

i think i will stick with it for 5 years if i have to.

Re:Do you really? by arth1 · 2012-02-13 17:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Or even servers. Where Gnome shell doesn't work at all, because it assumes that you have local access to the graphics card.
So you have to have two completely different user interfaces - one for local users with 3D cards, and one for everyone else. Yes, that makes it so simple and consistent!

Unfortunately, pride gets in the way of the Gnome devs saying "oops, we goofed on this one". Instead, they will rather see the ship sink, as long as they can blame it on someone else. And sink, it does. There really is one big reason why Mint has floated to the top of Linux distros now, and that's Gnome 3 being unusable. We know it, the Gnome devs know it, they know that we know it, but still they can't lose face by admitting the obvious.

Re:Top & Bottom by poppopret · 2012-02-13 18:13 · Score: 2

the bar being at the top of the screen provides an infinite targeting area. You just have to push your mouse up until the pointer will no longer move

You do that, and you'll need to pick your mouse up off the desk to move it closer to you. Every time you hit that top edge, your mouse's desk-to-screen relation gets all fucked up. No, I'm not going to buy a trackball.

Maximized by default? by fahrbot-bot · 2012-02-13 18:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

Sigh. While I understand that some may like this kind of thing and it may make sense in some circumstances. I have never - ever - run any application maximized in the 25+ years I've been working (or in college). Not on my Xerox 1108 Dandelion, Sun I (through present) workstations, SGI Indy, or any number of Unix graphical workstations or Windows/Linux/Unix PCs. With any sufficiently large display, running maximized is almost retarded. As a system programmer/admin, multiple windows are basically required to be efficient and effective. Just my well-worn $.02.

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It must have been something you assimilated. . . .

GNOME 3 brings out the haters by cfalcon · 2012-02-13 18:39 · Score: 2

Haters like myself. I don't get why GNOME had to go the direction it did, but it's clearly not for the users they have. It's like they are designing for some ludicrous platonic ideal? Or something?

Lemme just throw in with the "GNOME 3 sucks" crew. I hate it lots. It's like, what would come after GNOME 2? Well, apparently instead of adding stuff, they just substracted things, and made them suck, and then turned off all ability to customize without motherfucking recompiling it your fucking self. Such user hatred hasn't been seen in commercial software in a long time, and that hurts to say.

Sinking ship of KDE? by tobiah · 2012-02-13 19:06 · Score: 2

Where's the love, KDE is unsinkable!

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"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -

Re:Top & Bottom by IntlHarvester · 2012-02-13 19:42 · Score: 2

I think you're exactly correct, if Apple cared about "infinite targets" they wouldn't ship machines with such low mouse acceleration profiles. The entire paradigm doesn't work on huge screens or multiple monitors. (Tip: the MS mouse driver comes with a Windows-like acceleration option.)

At this point, IMO the Mac menu bar is more of a visual trademark than something that's confirmed by the laws of UI science. That's why it's kinda funny to see it being copied.

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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.

Re:Do you really? by garyebickford · 2012-02-13 19:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Sorry, I take exception. :) I'm one of those old farts, and I've been using and advocating multiple screens since at least 1978. Some folks are visual thinkers, some are linear. I'm definitely in the visual group. Those others, I think, are in the linear group. And Emacs has supported multiple windows since the beginning, IIRC. So even the text-mode types are not necessarily linear either.

In 1979 I was using three graphics terminals side by side (each of them 640x480 to 1280x1024). I hacked up a custom RS232 switch to direct output from the mainframe output to each one as needed, while input to the mainframe was always from one of them for the keyboard. On one terminal I had the code I was editing, on the second was my command line interaction, and on the third was the 3D graphics output that resulted from running the code.

Today in my normal workspace (a Compiz cube on dual 1680x1050 monitors) I have four virtual 3360x1050 desktops, all visible in the background in my transparent cube (when there aren't working windows in the way). I can spin the cube with one middle click & pan. The first desktop has housekeeping - mail, timeclock, Pidgin, sometimes a web page open, sometimes a terminal as I deal with email and office matters. My second 'working desktop' has one (sometimes two) Terminal, usually with three tabs for three different machines I'm logged into, two GVim windows one of which is broken into from one to several separate subwindows (vertically and horizontally) for different class files and the other of which contains one to three output log files. At any given time there may be diffs of log files or diffs of code files. Then, because I don't have a third screen, I keep three Firefox windows rolled up except when I'm using them, each of which has several tabs. One of the three, visible on all four sides of the virtual desktop, contains database interfaces for two machines (phpMyAdmin), dotProject, Trac, Mercurial, and the development portal. The second contains tabs for various sorts of documentation, the third contains reference material for the project I'm working on - usually web pages that I'm either scraping or reviewing.

If I'm working on more than one project this week, I will have a similar setup open on the third face of the cube, and the fourth usually has some more casual stuff such as a webpage that shows Slashdot, the news, etc.

I'm seriously considering going to a third screen (and 1920x1200 monitors), so I don't have to flip between windows for the Firefox stuff and the logfile views. Why should I have to flip between windows instead of just scanning my eyes over to the right? I want CONTEXT, dammit! :D I guess my workspace is more analogous to the bridge of a ship than a computer terminal. There's a lot going on, and I want access to all of it right now, and a visual indication of everything that's going on while I work on each individual task.

If you have sufficient resolution, the only reason to use a single window full screen is to get the maximum amount of data for one application on there, temporarily. I sometimes do this with an editing file, because I need just 'one more line' of text for context.

I think the ideal progression would be to stop trying to squeeze everything into a single screen, and instead make that screen a true viewport into an unlimited virtual space. As we move to head-up displays, we should be able to hang a window anywhere in space. The real world is a big space that surrounds us - why not our 'desktop' as well? And why can't I read a virtual newspaper the same way I do a real one, with the full spread visible and readable? And other parts of my environment visible around it - the stove, the clock, the coffee pot, my SO, etc.

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Re:This concerns ALL gtk applications. Not just GN by Tapewolf · 2012-02-13 20:11 · Score: 2

From the (bottom) comment(s): " Also, this has nothing to do with GNOME Shell – the maximisation behaviour is specified by individual applications." -Allan

This is what truly worries me.

Hoo boy. I can see that working really well with GIMP.

Why does Linux self-destruct? by mangu · 2012-02-13 22:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

I wonder why there's so much drive in Linux to abandon whatever is in the right track.

I used KDE 3 with Konqueror as my main application. There was everything I could want in a computer UI there. Then someone thought Konqueror isn't good because it combines the functions of a browser with a file manager. Well, that's exactly what I want, a system that integrates well with the web!

Then they came up with this idea of getting rid of KDE altogether. The reason I first started using Linux is that KDE is so good to program in, it has, by far, the best documentation system of any GUI I know, Kdevelop is an excellent development environment, and the API is better than any other.

If any company wished to create a new computer environment, the best bet would be to start with KDE and do some small improvements. With the Koffice suite and the other standard applications of the KDE environment you already have 95% of what either Apple or Microsoft have in their systems, all it needs is a bit of polishing.

Re:Why does Linux self-destruct? by equex · 2012-02-13 23:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

I wonder why there's so much drive in Linux to abandon whatever is in the right track.

Been saying this for ages, my guess is that people deep within the 'community' are getting paid to damage Linux as much as possible, while keeping a smile for the public. It's just not possible to be so mindboggingly stupid. There has to be some cold cash somewhere. Linux almost had it right so many times, just to get 'reinvented' and pooof we have a new set of half assed beta software that is 10 years behind again.

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Can I light a sig ?
Re:Why does Linux self-destruct? by mangu · 2012-02-14 00:01 · Score: 3, Informative

you can easily install KDE on either.
I can also install it on Microsoft Windows as well.

Maybe I'm just an old fart by BrokenHalo · 2012-02-14 01:39 · Score: 4, Informative

Don't you think that Gnome 3 can piss people off all by itself...

Sadly, in my case, yes. I had been a fan of Gnome since the late '90s, and have played with just about every UI available for X11. Gnome's most full-featured "competitor" (as far as the term has any meaning in the OSS world) KDE was for many years kluttered and ugly.

I really did try to learn to like Gnome 3, but I found so many obstacles in the way of getting any work done, I had to put it to one side in favour of a hybrid of KDE and compiz-fusion, which I am quite happy with, now that I have disabled all those mysterious "services" with meaningless and peculiar names.

I'll keep my eye on Gnome, but I suspect the developers are going to have to grow up a bit before I go back.

Re:Maybe I'm just an old fart by geekpowa · 2012-02-14 09:01 · Score: 2

Me too. I tried so hard to love Gnome 3. I modified the way I worked to suit it, I suffered its constant crashing, the way it chewed through laptop battery, and found ways to work around things I previously relied on that now simply no longer worked. I did this for months. On top of this, suffer the implicit contempt from the gnome dev community that I was unable to make their dog perform my tricks.
2 weeks ago changed to KDE4 and my work day improved immediately and I won't be going back.
I really like Gnome 3's visual aesthetic and some of its engineering ideas; but as a work tool it is a significant regression. I still think it has potential. I'll look in again in about a year or 2.

Re:Do you really? by arth1 · 2012-02-14 10:06 · Score: 2

What kind of incompetent fucking retard installs Gnome on a server...

The fucking incompetent retards who think running applications on a server and the display on a client is a good idea. They're often known as system administrators.

It means only installing apps once, and not having to maintain hundreds of desktop Linux installations. It also means being able to run GUI tools that arguably are useful on a server, like gparted and graphical diff tools.

What it doesn't imply is having to use a local X server.

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