GNOME 3.6 Released

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Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @11:05AM from the get-it-while-it's-hot dept.

kthreadd writes "Gnome 3.6 is out. The announcement reads: 'The GNOME Project is proud to present GNOME 3.6, the third update to the 3.x series. This latest version of GNOME 3 includes a number of new features and enhancements, as well as many bug fixes and minor improvements. Together, they represent a significant upgrade to the GNOME 3 user experience.' Andreas Nilsson, President of the GNOME Foundation, said: 'The GNOME Foundation is proud to present this latest GNOME release, and I would like to congratulate the GNOME community on its achievement.' He described the release as 'an important milestone in our mission to bring a free and open computing environment to everyone.' New applications include Clocks and Boxes. Clocks is a world time clock, which allows you to keep an eye on what the local time is around the world. Boxes allows you to connect to other machines, either virtual or remote. For developers there's the new GtkLevelBar widget in GTK+, and GtkEntry can now use Pango attributes."

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Switched to Mate desktop, not going back. by Picass0 · 2012-09-26 11:18 · Score: 4, Informative

Adios Gnome.
mate-desktop.org
Don't waste your time with GNOME 3.6 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 11:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

It still sucks. Stick with MATE.
1. Re:Don't waste your time with GNOME 3.6 by lofoforabr · 2012-09-26 12:28 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I second that.
  I abandoned Ubuntu after it incorporated Unity. My loss of productivity was too big to continue using it. I was used to a functional desktop with Gnome 2. Gnome 3 is bad enough, but Unity? There is no way in hell I'm sticking with that. Hell, it's so bad I even thought about using Windows, and that's really something for someone who's been using Linux for about 17 years.
  I found out Mint, a very nice distro, based on Ubuntu, made by people like me who couldn't stand Ubuntu+Unity. 2 flavores there, one using MATE (a fork of Gnome 2), and another running Cinnamon (a fork of Gnome 3, customized to look and function like Gnome 2).
  I'm really happy after the switch. I'm back to having a functional desktop. I still miss Compiz for some stuff (screen glitches and some things missing), but I can live without it. I'm not going back to Ubuntu, or "upgrading" to Gnome 3.x.
  After being bashed by so many people, I really don't know what Gnome devs got on their minds. We used to have something wonderful, and they stick going in the wrong direction (IMO, of course).
2. Re:Don't waste your time with GNOME 3.6 by jcarr · 2012-09-26 12:37 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  You post should be reworded:
  Attention all linux users: This is the solution you have been looking for!
  I installed it 10 minutes after seeing your post. This is what you have been looking for if you want a linux workstation again. I've been using XFCE4 for a year or so. Mate worked correctly on top of ubuntu 12.04. It has the polish that Andy Hertzfeld put into nautlius. The original look and feel is back. It's really excellent. This is the bar to start from.
3. Re:Don't waste your time with GNOME 3.6 by Tough+Love · 2012-09-26 15:54 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I abandoned Ubuntu after it incorporated Unity. My loss of productivity was too big to continue using it.
  I don't have a problem with Unity. It works well enough to install Kubuntu, which I do immediately, then I can sit back with popcorn and watch the Unity devs continue on their voyage of discovery. I'm even willing to admit that Unity has some cool ideas, provided I'm not forced to use it. From time to time I log into it and play around a bit, then go back to KDE pretty soon. Which does exactly what I want in exactly the way I want to do it.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Happily running KDE by Tough+Love · 2012-09-26 11:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Happily running KDE. Stable, pretty, highly configurable, defaults require minimal tweaking by me, just does the job. Kubuntu introduces some minor blemishes but survivable. Had to run Windows for a few days, was impressed what a poor experience it is compared to KDE. Just one of many annoying Windows habits: likes to wake up from sleep in the middle of the night and nag me about spending money on McAffey and Norton. Likes to shut down without asking instead of sleep if I make the tinyiest miss with the mouse. Like to reboot a lot. Sometimes just acts strange until rebooted. Argh.

--
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
1. Re:Happily running KDE by SomeKDEUser · 2012-09-26 11:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Same thing when you are forced on OSX. Seriously, KDE has the best window manager bar none. How no one has gone postal on the MS and apple folks responsible for that part of their respective interfaces s a mystery to me.
2. Re:Happily running KDE by SomeKDEUser · 2012-09-26 12:36 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  kwin is fully scriptable -- how much more power do you need than per-window/window class/app rules?. Also, it only does its job of managing windows, and the rest is taken care of by the desktop. Enlightenment is a wm+launchers+set of apps but refuses to admit it would like to be a DE like XFCE. They can't admit that because OMG BLOAT!
  xmonad is a very interesting experiment, which some people find great. But these are the same people who think that the purpose of X is having more terminal windows open at the same time -- or their spiritual descendants.
Amazing! by David+Gerard · 2012-09-26 11:20 · Score: 5, Funny

Both users are thrilled!
(They are the two remaining developers.)
Do they have even one developer who actually owns a touchscreen device yet?

--
http://rocknerd.co.uk
1. Re:Amazing! by Osgeld · 2012-09-26 11:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  they would not have that problem if they did not release a totally broken chunk of shit in the first place
2. Re:Amazing! by AchilleTalon · 2012-09-26 12:27 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I must admit there is much more innovation in this release of Gnome than in the iPhone5.
  
  --
  Achille Talon
  Hop!
3. Re:Amazing! by afgam28 · 2012-09-26 12:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I'm pretty sure that Gnome Shell isn't designed to work on a touchscreen. Hot corners are useless on a touchscreen, but Gnome Shell makes use of hot corners, so it's pretty obvious that it was designed first and foremost as a mouse-based UI.
  They have done a few things to ensure that touchscreens aren't broken (e.g. the big icons), but the keyboard and mouse are obviously the primary input devices.
  The whole "Gnome sucks because it is a desktop environment but was designed for a touchscreen" thing is a complete strawman argument.
4. Re:Amazing! by quippe · 2012-09-26 21:25 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Modal dialogs are indeed "forced on people"; anytime an eclipse modal dialog pops up (popped as I am on lxde now), I couldn't move it away to see what I needed to see on the main window, it was "glued", cut&paste out of question. I could fix the missing focus-on-hover installing a tweak plugin; but to fix this one, it was not enough you need to launch gconftool, which obviously is something I could cope with, but it's out of question for the average user. It's indeed one of most broken design decisions I have ever seen in my life.
5. Re:Amazing! by HiThere · 2012-09-27 04:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The thing is, there's broken by bugs, and then there's broken by design. Gnome3 is so broken by design that I've never even noticed any bugs. And the designers don't appear to have noticed that it's broken by design, so there's no way they'll fix the bugs.
  Yes, the same thing happened with the KDE3->KDE4 upgrade, which is why I even *care* about the fate of Gnome. And KDE4 is still broken by design. Not as badly broken as Gnome3, but it "broken by design" bugs don't tend to get fixed, because the implementers can't see the problems. I see no indication that the Gnome crew is any different. They've even promised to remove the capability of making the changes that various people have implemented to make the system usable. ("Tweaks", etc.)
  I sometimes suspect that both the KDE and the Gnome designers are in the pay of Microsoft, but I *trust* that's mere paranoia. It's too much like normal human behavior to need that kind of an explanation.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:After years by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 11:21 · Score: 3, Informative

Because having an easy way to manage wireless network roaming, Bluetooth, fast-user switching, audio and system power (battery/AC) and removable media without writing scripts or integrating it all yourself is desirable.
obligatory comments by binarstu · 2012-09-26 11:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'll just get these out of the way for anyone who feels compelled to post them.

<sarcasm>
GNOME 3 is the worst desktop ever!
Actually, Unity is even worse!
This is why Linux on the desktop will never succeed!
GNOME 2 was the only decent Linux desktop!
I haven't seriously used Linux for 10 years, but I know that my Mac is 1000x better in all possible ways!
</sarcasm>

Personally, I'm looking forward to checking out the new GNOME.
1. Re:obligatory comments by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 11:28 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Personally, I'm looking forward to checking out the new GNOME.
  Looks like the GNOME userbase just grew 50%!
2. Re:obligatory comments by Osgeld · 2012-09-26 11:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Personally, I'm looking forward to checking out the new GNOME."
  I seriously have better things to do tonight than install a slightly less broken DM with better accessibility features touted as one of its two bragging points.
3. Re:obligatory comments by MrLizardo · 2012-09-26 13:09 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Yup. I'm going to wait a bit for the themes and extensions I use to get updated for 3.6, but it's looking good so far. At this point it feels like pretty much all the functionality and options removed during the GNOME 2 -> 3 transition has been made available as an extension or exposed as an option via gnome-tweak-tool. Any favorite extensions that you can't live without? My favorites are:
  - Axe menu extension (to put a nice "traditional" GNOME menu back in the top left)
  - Maximus (to remove the titlebar on maximized windows) and Window Options (to make the window menu available from the panel)
  - Tracker extension (to add file results to the type-ahead find search) and Journal extension (to add recent files to dock icon's right click menu)
  - Calculator extension (to make the type-ahead find search perform calculations)
  My current favorite theme is MediterraneanNight
  
  --
  ^I'm with stupid.^
Re:After years by SomeKDEUser · 2012-09-26 11:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

And good network-transparent file managers (and file dialogs). And a wallet to remember your passports. And desktop search, and integrated utilities. And app launchers more clever than xterm, and the magic that is alt-F2 with launchers. Seriously, under KDE, you can do "Alt-F2 ; =1V*1A" and it answers 1W. How cool is that ?
Re:After years by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 11:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

Oh, sorry. I didn't realise you enjoy wasting time manually configuring such basic system services.
Re:In 2014.... by geekymachoman · 2012-09-26 11:50 · Score: 4, Funny

Creatures that steal underpants... for profit.
Personal experience with both Gnome3 and KDE by rr0 · 2012-09-26 13:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

I use both on a dual head box, and appreciate them for entirely different reasons. On any given week I'll switch between the environments a few times, usually at the start of a new task. I find that the context switch is refreshing and helps productivity.
Many of us are aware of KDE's strengths.. for me, configurability, familiarity, visual appeal, stability and speed. One can make the interface visually dense and informative. Scrolling cpu/memory/network stats, rotating yawp weather reports, and various application status indicators are on my desktop.
Gnome3 removes me from this. I love the way it dynamically manages the virtual desktops, and the clean 'distraction-free' environment. I feel like I can reach 'flow' easier here. Simply hitting the 'windows' key or snapping the mouse to the top-left corner to visually see the desktops and their running applications, dragging my emacs or xterm sessions around as needed. It gives me a different and visual way to logically organize and partition the tasks at hand. Yes, KDE and Unity both support these features, too, but in my experience they're not quite as clean. Also, Gnome3's notifications system is brilliant, and I'm looking forward to the enhancements found in 3.6.
While many of the complaints of Gnome3 are valid, I do appreciate that Gnome has had the courage to try something different and controversial. It works for me.
Re:After years by GigaBurglar · 2012-09-26 14:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because sometimes people cannot be bothered, wasting so much time and energy, tweaking and fiddling with things they would rather 'just worked' . I know Linux pretty well but I actually can't be bothered with trivial desktop shit - I'd rather that stuff just worked out of the box. It's not that I can't - I just can't be bothered..
Re:So much hatred for it... by KiloByte · 2012-09-26 18:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

Have you looked at the direction Gnome kept after 3.0? As TFA speaks about 3.6, Nautilus changes are a prime example. They break four things for one being fixed.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.