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Tom's Hardware Tests and Reviews Fedora 16 and Gnome 3
New submitter LordDCLXVI writes with a review at Tom's Hardware that starts out with some loaded questions about GNOME 3, as included in the newest version of Red Hat's Fedora: "While most other distros are passing up or postponing GNOME Shell, Fedora is full steam ahead. Does Red Hat know something the rest of us don't? Or is GNOME 3 really as bad as everyone says?" Writes LordDCLVXI: "This massive article amounts to a full-blown guide to Fedora 16 'Verne' and complete dissection of GNOME Shell. It begins with an installation guide, with instructions for enabling third-party repos, proprietary graphics drivers, Wi-Fi, Flash, Java, multimedia codecs, and 32-bit libs. Next up is a GNOME Shell tear-down, including customization options and methods to 'fix' the Shell or mimic GNOME 2. Finally, Fedora is benchmarked against Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7. [While the author] adds to the voices criticizing GNOME Shell, he also points out that the extensions can empower distributors to create unique, yet compatible layouts. One of the most fair and constructive critiques of GNOME 3 — definitely worth the read, and even makes GNOME 3 worth a second look."
Since the Ubuntu version of Gnome3 didn't work right because of my AMD/ATI graphics card, I went with the XFCE4 Spin when I installed Fedora. Runs like a champ!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I see it still sucks, then.
I've honestly never understood why Red Hat would believe that pushing a tablet interface on an OS that's primarily used for servers and corporate desktops makes the slightest amount of sense.
Original submission says "One of the most fair and constructive critiques of GNOME 3" -- ... Then the Slashdot interpretation files it under "from the love-it-or-hate-it dept."
*sigh* =/
AKA lubuntu. The most lightweight version of Ubuntu, and it still looks like a standard menu-based OS (start menu, tabs, etc). Plus I needed something small for my Pentium 3/256 megabyte laptop.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
After a while of using it, I got used to it. I still find myself trying to launch and switch tasks the old way, but the new way is not bad. Nowhere near as extreme as Windows 8. Still have trouble using that, and we have been testing it since November.
Deep down, I'm still longing for the days where everything was simple and in 2D (everything going through OpenGL has some performance implications) and the default Gnome 3 desktop irks me in many ways, but I've got a couple extensions installed that make it sort of work for me. I'm still not really happy with it, but I feel like there's hope with some of the awesome modifications people are making (still plan on trying Cinnamon). The performance has improved a lot and it's not as bad as it used to be with things like Compiz, but I still miss some of the snappiness I had before, and honestly, it feels slower (especially bad with heavy graphics applications like Inkscape, GIMP, etc) than my Gnome 2 desktop did 5 years ago, which makes me sad.
Note to bash, but the install summary kind of reminds that MS Windows XP for the longest time could not really deal with mass storage devices, such a hard disks, cameras, video recorders, without a special device driver. Even now MS Windows wants a device driver for each flash drive.
Not to say that one thing is good because another is worse, but the issues with the *nix GUIs is they are developed with different viewpoint than say MS or Apple uses. Because they are not what people expect or are used to, and because each iteration might be more radical, users think they are bad. Just like people are hating on Metro without even seeing how it works in the real world over time. Of course it could be clippy.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GNOME/GNOME3_Stable
In other words, its not stable enough on Gentoo
Can someone please explain to me the whole GNOME Shell/Unity is a tablet interface meme? I understand how people may not like the interface, but I don't understand calling it a mobile one.
Even though it's barely out of the gates, I tried out Cinnamon, a fork of Gnome3 by the folks that brought us Mint Linux. MUCH better than the base Gnome3.
To keep things short, one could say the biggest point of contention with Gnome3 was how radically different it was from Gnome2, moving from a task-centric way of managing the shell to an application centric method. While great for a novice, this tended to frustrate a lot of power users. Cinnamon allows more flexibility in the shell's method of focus on tasks and applications, essentially letting the user pick whatever point on the scale they prefer. It's a good approach - perhaps the best approach.
I don't know if it's offered for Fedora or Red Hat based Linux's in package form, but you could build it from source if need be.
This review, like most others, makes a big deal of there being no dock for multitasking. The complaint being that to switch applications you have to mouse to the corner to open the activities screen and then click on the destination. Is it really that hard to use the keyboard instead? Or just press the banner key to get to activities and click on the destination. To me this looks like a big improvement over hunting for the destination on a cluttered desktop. Do you really hate using the keyboard so much that key+click is a totally unacceptable change from move+click?
Use gnome-panel and metacity with effects turned off. Everything is instant!
Gnome 3, once you start hitting the os-button you will never go back. The shell is awsome :)
Well, I keep my distance from RH distros due to dependency issues w/ both rpm and yumm, so that rules out not just Fedora, but better Linuxes before it, such as Mandriva. And I never liked any of the Gnomes either. There is one distro called Comice Linux that made Gnome3 look like OS-X, but aside from that, I see no reason for anyone to prefer Gnome. I'd prefer any Debian based distro or PC-BSD along w/ KDE or GNUSTEP. (Would like to see how PBI compares to apt-get, ports and other packaging methods of other OSs)
"It begins with an installation guide, with instructions for enabling third-party repos, proprietary graphics drivers, Wi-Fi, Flash, Java, multimedia codecs, and 32-bit libs."
just use fx64 linux instead and save yourself the trouble!
real users use fvwm2
Why is the default download type a "live" CD? Choosing "Applications -> Install to hard drive" doesn't seem at all intuitive. Granted, I installed on a virtual machine which kicked Fedora into "fallback mode" (no display drivers yet) on first boot so maybe that prevented a dialog from displaying.
Just reminding all KDE developers reading this - all you have to do to win is not screw up. Learn from Gnome 3 and Unity. Provide us with a good desktop environment, and you'll win. Gnome 3 and Unity will be footnotes in the history of computing soon, and KDE will be going stong.
I refuse to click "Next Page" to read anything.
The more people do likewise, the less of this shit we will have to put up with.
They even do it on pages talking about good and bad UIs - well it's a bad farking UI that requires one to click "Netx Page" 30+ times to read an article, wankers.
I wouldn't trust what they say about hardware, let alone Linuxy stuff.
I've been using Unity (or whatever it was called back then) on my 10.1" netbook since it was available and I never liked it for the desktop.
But I've gown to like Gnome 3 and, in particular, it's task switching.
While Gnome 2 style task switching works well, it becomes a bit painful when you have a more than a few windows in the same desktop.
If I have more than a few, names in the task list buttons will become truncated, which tends to require extra effort to figure out which button I want.
If I have a lot (and I sometimes do), then the task list button will group windows, requiring me to navigate through the groups.
Gnome 3's requirement of the mouse to the upper left corner or pressing the "Windows key" is a hassle, but a very small one in imho.
The Windows key is well at hand, and I don't really move the mouse to the upper left corner: I just throw it there.
And in return, I get a visual overview of all windows. Of course, your mileage may vary but for me it's a boon.
I also like being being able to navigate windows when I keep "Alt+tab" down.
Although I'd prefer if the new scheme was activated just with "Alt+~" and "Alt+tab" operated in a more traditional manner.
it is a 28 page bashing of gnome 3.. nothing we haven't already seen here on /.
This is a no-brainer. The demographic for the the lack of built-in configuration options and the slashing of functionality is the enterprise desktop that fedora is the development vehicle for; it is designed for IT admin, not the Linux user.
I cannot stand the childish and immature desktop environments that are being forced upon end-users. Unity/Gnome Shell are both awkward, clunky, unusable and feel like a shameless ripoff of Mac OS X in feel. I sure as hell don't want a desktop environment that restricts what I can do and offers me no customization - that sucks. For these reasons I've chosen Xfce4 on all of my Debian installs as it's the only SANE desktop environment left for power users and those with common sense.
I have been using gnome 3 for a few months now. I have applied enough customisations that it is tolerable - not great, but good enough to get real work done.
The three things I would like to see are:
Named Workspaces In addition to the dynamic workspaces, which I quite like as a concept, I want a fixed set of named workspaces for my routine tasks.
Task Display I want to be able to see, at a glance, what is running on a workspace. I do not want to have to switch to the workspace view just to see if something has slipped under another window.
Task Launching The idea that I would want to reuse a terminal session on another workspace is daft. I can see that for some apps it might be OK, but for others its just wrong. This needs to be something that can be set on a per application basis.
Fedora 16 is also good for core i5. Opensuse 12.1 kernel crashed all the time.
It is the firt time I find the multi-virtual-desktop thing usable : it becomes very practical to setup multiple virtual desktops for so many different tasks, and it is nice.
I had to customise it a little though, with the folowing extensions, right out from the https://extensions.gnome.org/ website :
- Coverflow Alt-Tab : Replacement of Alt-Tab, iterates through windows in a cover-flow manner.
- Dash Click Fix : Fix the dash's behavior when you click on an already running icon. The default behaviour is to switch to it, this extension changes that to lanch a new instance instead
- Places Status Indicator : Add a systems status menu for quickly navigating places in the system
- Power Options : Show Suspend, Hibernate (if available) and Power Off options in user menu.
- Remove Accesibility : Remove the accesibility button from the top panel.
- System Monitor : Add a system monitor to the left side of the message tray.
Hardware / software base : Debian "Wheezy" (testing) on a high end full HD laptop with an external monitor attached to it sometimes.
Usage : web / email / some games / office work / platform prototyping with virtual machines, modelling.
The external display behaves like a charm (with really minor glitches : le login screen will somtimes not appear properly if the monitor gets plugged off before one unlocks the screen, but it still work).
I miss the cube. I miss a screensaver, I miss the capacity to change windows themes and colours and the "control pannel" lacks several usefull features, but overall, it is very usable and properly translated in French.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
What a lot of words to say that Gnome3 is not the same as Gnome2, so I don't like it
What a lot of words to say that he doesn't like Gnome3 because it is not the same as Gnome2.....
I have had windows users with no linux experince ask me to intall Gnome 3 on their computers. That has never happened for me in the past with any desktop.
I've had a very similar experience as a GNOME3 user since June. The transition to Gnome 3 is jarring for someone used to any other "Traditional" desktop environment. However my first experience with it went much MUCH better than my first kick at the can with unity. Unity was such a turnoff for me that I stuck with Lucid and eventually ditched Ubuntu for Debian for my new computer. I can't be alone in that respect--the initial releases of Unity were an unmitgated disaster, though it has improved somewhat. Gnome 3 on the other hand has been by far the most well recieved desktop when I've presented it to computer novices. To a slashdot-like audience "tablet-like on a PC" is an insult--it makes no sense, but to my young niece or my father in his 70s who make the same observation they say it as a complement. Computers are "hard"--iPads and iphones and droids are "easy", or at least "easier". The differences in form factor mean there should be some differences in the user interface obviously, but for "regular folk" incorporating some more appliance-like design makes the computer much less intimidating.
I found that although the initial release of GNOME 3 was quite un-polished there was certainly a sense of where the project is trying to go. Though I don't totally agreee with some of the Tom's Hardware editorialising, I was impressed with the throroughness of its review and that they did at least "get it" at some level. Gnome 3 is striving to cater to the "uninitiated" linux user--indeed to users unaccustomed to computers of any platform. When presented with the Gnome 3 desktop and told to figure out how to do a given task with no assistance, what would a novice user do? That seems to be the approach the designers have taken.
To put yourself in a newbie's shoes: If you want to do anything you'd thing "activities--that must be where I go". There are more efficient ways to bring up the launcher/switcher screen--notably the super/"windows" key but that is something you can learn. It brings to mind a humourous youtube video where an IT blogger/journalist shows his dad the Windows 8 "public preview" and tells him to perform a simple task, ends up getting out of the "metro tile" screen onto an empty desktop, then has no idea how to get back without prompting. Gnome 3 may have its growing pains, but it seems Win 8 will have more than its share of issues with novices and opwer users alike.
So if you aren't a regular computer user what do you do when you are done using a gadget? Well, you turn it off. how do you accomplish this in Gnome 3? They are going to press the power button, and in Gnome 3 when you do that the shutdown dialogue pops up and counts down from 60, just like a Mac. So if you can do that, why bother with a superfluous shutdown icon or menu item on the screen?
As an experienced user with a definitely established set of habits I can certainly say I encounter frustrations with Gnome 3 from time to time, but I find I'm really growing into Gnome 3 quite well. The learning curve is NOT as steep as Tom's might have you believe--admittedly it does present some obsacles if you are trying to "2-ify" the shell to make it conform to your habits. However one thing Tom's very effectively demonstrates is that however flawed you might find the Gnome 3 shell out of the box, as a platform is has fantastic potential, certainly moreso than Unity could ever offer and enough flexibility to hold its own against KDE. The Gnome Shell Extensions are still in their infancy but it makes the new Gnome Shell into a very versatile platform.
I think the jury is still out on whether the strategy of simplification and stepping out of the traditional "desktop box" more than any other GUI is a mistake. I can understand how seasoned Linux users could take offense to the "dumbing down" but perhaps it was the right t
And its 12.04.. waited an entire year...
If i could came to see a GNOME3/UNITY developer.. I'll buy (imagination) him/hur a car with touch screen gear SHIfT INTERFACE mounted on the topmost ceiling (not detachable, it is hard copper wired software! soldered..!! way under to some BGAs). And force to drive that wonderful -latest-version- thing for a while and wud tell.. enjoy.. there is no going back. And, wait for the next big version (4) with touch screen steering control... ass well.
AWKWARD.
obuntoo.. you became the distro queen.. and bitch-distructing it all..? Whohhh... please... no more F-fleatures please. Since 11.04... freeze the F-upgradato routine... and feeds the downloaded ISOs to /dev/null, INSTEAD, all the alpha, beta and gamma versions, desperately.
Don't swallow that 'normal' interface, that i were avid using for so many years. It is so difficult to switch the interface to some nice crap. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29
M$ paid.. drama? (suspicion)