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SolusOS Forks Gnome 3 Fallback Mode
An anonymous reader writes "Linux distribution SolusOS has forked the GNOME 3 'fallback mode' that the GNOME Project decided to scrap with the upcoming 3.8 GNOME release. According to SolusOS, the fork, named Consort, can 'maintain an experience virtually identical to GNOME 2, but vastly improve it with no need for hardware acceleration such as with GNOME Shell or Cinnamon.' It 'will bring back all the old features, such as right click-interaction on the panel, GNOME 2 applet support, creating desktop launchers, etc' and 'allow Python GNOME 2 applets to run natively on consort-panel.'"
How can they not see the destruction of their ecosystem right in front of them? They worked so damned hard to make GNOME 2 the best damned environment, and it grew like a weed with Ubuntu. And then sometime around 2009 everyone just lost their damned minds and destroyed it all for no good reason at all.
All they've done is make all of the users unhappy, removed and broke functionality. They're too busy cutting off their own limbs to fix actual problems anymore. How do the leaders in GNOME not see this happening? It's a damned shame.
Maybe it's the cynicism growing on me but I don't get the constant bitching and moaning over desktop decorations. Back in the day I used KDE3.x and it was fine. Then I used Gnome 2.x and it was fine. Now I use Unity and it is just fine too. On my low-end tinker-boxes, I use Openbox and Fbpanel. And it's all fine. Alt-f2, Alt-tab, Alt-f4, and Alt-Space work everywhere. Focus on your applications, fellas; that's what's important.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Instead of helping GNOME to modernize fallback mode
GNOME didn't want to modernize it. They abandoned it.
Before Gnome 3 and Unity we had KDE, Gnome 2 and XFCE along with a host of other lightweight desktop environments.
The big three all had the same or similar overall UI elements. A "start" menu, icons on the desktop, windowed applications and a task bar.
Now, we have Unity, KDE, Gnome 3, Gnome 2 forks, XFCE, the same collection of various lightweight window managers and desktop environments. Also, apparently, this.
Personally, I'm glad major players diverged significantly from the GUI elements we've all seemed to carry along from Windows 95. It is, in fact, a brave new world with touch screens and tablets. Sure it's arduous, and not cool for desktop productivity but it's only been 2 or 3 years. Maybe it will get better, or maybe some other options will become more popular. The point is, I'm glad I have something new to play around with.
And besides, it's not like you don't have choices if you liked the old way. I was a die-hard Gnome 2 fan, but now I use XFCE and I can hardly tell the difference.