Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

One Week With GNOME 3 Classic

Posted by timothy on from the we-think-we-can-save-the-foot dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Gallagher, Security Software Engineer at Red Hat, has completed his week-long experiment running GNOME 3 Classic. Stephen writes: 'While I was never as much in love with GNOME 2 as I was with KDE 3, I found it to be a good fit for my workflow. It was clean and largely uncluttered and generally got out of my way. Now that Fedora 19 is in beta and GNOME Classic mode is basically ready, I decided that it was my duty to the open-source community to explore this new variant, give it a complete investigation and document my experiences each day.' I'll leave Stephen's opinion on the new Classic Mode to the Slashdot reader to discover, but I will say that it does touch on the much debated GNOME Shell Activities Overview, and the gnome-2-like Classic mode's Windows List on the taskbar."

24 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. tl;dr by Laebshade · · Score: 2

    tl;dr: With a few adjustments, he likes Gnome Classic.

    1. Re:tl;dr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      tl;dr: With a few adjustments, he likes Gnome Classic.

      Nope.

      He started with KDE 3, didn't like KDE 4, switched to GNOME for a few years, and then he discovered how good KDE 4 had become. He switched back to KDE 4, and he how prefers it and recommends it.

  2. GNOME Should Copy MS Metro! by anthony_greer · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is obviously what the people want!

    1. Re:GNOME Should Copy MS Metro! by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      I was actually pretty delighted to find that if you push gnome3 over xrdp it basically murders that bizare full screen menu thing and replaces it with the good old trusty drop down menu of old. Twas rather pleasing actually.

      But yeah, add to that mix of new interfaces everyone hates, the launchpad on OSX mountain lion. Oh hey lets create the IOS launchpad for a device with no touchscreen! However apple was smart enough to make it entirely optional, just trash it off the taskbar and replace it with the old application folder popup and its like nothing ever changed. I hope they are getting useage stats on that before pulling a microsoft and really stuffing things up.

      (Actually now I think about it , the bizare backwards scroll bars can be added to the "WTF" design category, again optional fortunately)

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  3. I'm looking forward to reading it by magic+maverick+ · · Score: 2

    I'm still using Gnome 3.4.2 (what comes with Ubuntu 12.04, via the Gnome Team I believe). I still miss a lot of Gnome 2 features (like getting rid of the top bar, and moving it to the bottom). But, overall, I appreciate many of the changes (I've grown to like the activities tab, and searching for programs, though I would like to pin the order so that LibreOffice Calc, and the Calculator don't keep switching around).

    However, I think I would like to try Gnome Classic, and I think I might work out how to force it into Ubuntu 12.04...

    --
    HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
  4. MATE or Cinnamon by MetricT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Both GNOME 3 and Unity simply aren't very useful for power users. Cinnamon and MATE are both useful substitutes until Gnome/Canonical start listening to their customer base again.

    1. Re:MATE or Cinnamon by doti · · Score: 2

      Gnome2 is a no-nonsense system that just works.

      I'm very happy with MATE, and don't see the need for anything else.

      --
      factor 966971: 966971
    2. Re:MATE or Cinnamon by loufoque · · Score: 2

      I was forced to move to Cinnamon when the latest regressions to nautilus landed.
      It's impressive how they were able to fuck up such a good application, and how nemo is largely superior to nautilus from GNOME 3.6 and 3.8 in every way.

    3. Re:MATE or Cinnamon by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      Ditto. I was using XFCE on Ubuntu for a while, but eventually gave in and install Mint and MATE. It's a much better interface all round.

  5. If you want to see *all* of the posts about it by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

    http://sgallagh.wordpress.com/category/fedora/

    That will give you all the posts for the week, not just the first one.

  6. Re:Miguel de Icaza, the founder, abandoned GNOME by binarylarry · · Score: 2

    He quit because the Gnome team wouldn't clone the Metro interface into Gnome.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  7. People who liked GNOME 2 and want... by Nutria · · Score: 4, Informative

    something polished instead of raw should try XFCE. With a little tweaking, I have xubuntu 13.04 looking a whole lot like GNOME 2.32 from Ubuntu 10.10.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:People who liked GNOME 2 and want... by Aguazul2 · · Score: 2

      something polished instead of raw should try XFCE.

      I agree. The point of a desktop for me is to do its job and to get out of my way. XFCE succeeds in this. I haven't had a single crash or weirdness (unlike KDE on Debian 'stable', which had several issues of crashes and a major memory leak, which I raised a Debian bug for). For me, the only downsides of XFCE 4.8 (shipped with Debian 'stable') is that xfdesktop doesn't show thumbnails (although the file manager does), and I had to hack the XKB files to make CapsLock into Control (it kept resetting my temporary changes with xmodmap). Having set up a few keyboard shortcuts, I can now get on with my life and forget about my desktop once again!

      GNOME 3: maybe they've patched it up and made it usable, who knows? Will I waste any more time on it now I have a working desktop again? I don't think so.

    2. Re:People who liked GNOME 2 and want... by rubycodez · · Score: 2

      xfce is a very good desktop and also works well on 1GB RAM machines; but I find MATE more Gnome-2 like (need more RAM)

  8. As Linus Said...... by segedunum · · Score: 2

    It took a couple months, but I was finally able to adapt my workflow to more-or-less work with the “GNOME Way”

    This is most certainly not the way software should work.

    Basically, having read to the end of the article, although it doesn't say it explicitly and I thought the article was about Gnome from the summary, it can be summed up in one of Linus's short phrases: "Use KDE".

    1. Re:As Linus Said...... by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm surprised that KDE doesn't get more love in Slashdot. KDE is probably the most flexible and professional DE that is available for Linux.

    2. Re:As Linus Said...... by Gaygirlie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      KDE is probably the most flexible and professional DE that is available for Linux.

      It may be the most flexible, but I suppose you and I have different view on what's "professional" here: it's too cluttered, there's not only one but several kitchen sinks thrown in almost everywhere, the configuration options are all over the damn place and they're pretty incoherent, I can *still* make Plasma crash if I just play around with the panel and so on. GNOME2 was a lot more "professional" IMHO, and a whole lot more useable.

  9. Problems with Open Source in general by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is one of the problems with Open Source in general: the engineers are expert in coding, and believe that this is all one needs for a great product.

    There are acknowledged experts in usability and presentation (and documentation and testing and installation procedures and marketing) who have spent many years of study and have experience in these things. For some reason, few open source projects have subgroups of these types - the development is always code changes checked into a database.

    A good example is the ribbon interface in XBMC. Some other computer product had a "ribbon" of program icons, so having one made from words was thought to be a good idea. Icons are mostly small and square, while words are generally wide, so the result is that only one or two selections are visible at one time. Compare with Tivo's vertical list and you'll see a marked difference - using XBMC is like reading a newspaper through a straw.

    (Don't bother telling me how to skin XBMC or the obscure option in some hidden menu that makes the presentation sane. It would have been easier to just make a product that isn't frustrating or time-consuming to correct.)

    There's an ocean of expertise in other areas that goes into making a good product. If any coders are bored and wanted to explore a new field of research, usability and presentation skills could be very useful.

    ((Apropos of nothing, there's room for innovation into different ways of presentation and control. I've seen a lot of good suggestions from fiction, such as the AirWolf cockpit altitude display, the gesture-based input from Earth: Final Conflict ship, the cell phones from Earth: Final Conflict, or the medical display in Star Trek: Into Darkness (at the very beginning, the sick girl).))

    1. Re:Problems with Open Source in general by wylf · · Score: 2

      ...the result is that only one or two selections are visible at one time.

      Stop (collaborate and listen!) - I agree the XBMC ribbon isn't the greatest implementation, but don't introduce hyperbole into your argument - the screenshot you reference clearly shows 3.5 selectors, with 4 selectors most likely being accessible at the same time. That's a far cry from "one or two".

      (And does anyone actually use XBMC as a photo gallery? First thing I did was go into the system menu and disable half of the services: I want to watch T.V. and Movies, and access some Apps, maybe some Music worked out ok for me, but obviously YMDV).

  10. Re:Miguel de Icaza, the founder, abandoned GNOME by 21mhz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why would I want to use anything that has been abandoned by the founder?

    You wouldn't, because you let your ignorance get in the way of researching the matter and making a decision on the basis of utility merit.

    Hint: such things happen all the time with open source projects.

    --
    My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  11. Re:Why doesn't Linux use sub-pixel rendering on te by Osgeld · · Score: 2

    I generally dislike "subpixel" rendering, I didnt buy a high res monitor to look at fuzzy text like my Apple II displays

    http://mrob.com/apple2/lin32.jpg

  12. Re:The headline is misleading by gnapster · · Score: 2

    The linked article is the prologue to a series of seven posts chronicling a week spent using Gnome Classic. See the RECENT ENTRIES sidebar at the top of the page.

  13. Re:no dammit by Larryish · · Score: 3, Informative

    The desktop is a place to keep your jumping-off points:

    - links to programs that you really do use constantly

    - symlinked directories (shortcut folders for you wintendo people) to your main work

    - todo lists and possibly some sort of scheduler applet (rainlendar ftw!)

    The inane desktop clutter of links to free smilies and whatever crap Google and Yahoo are pushing these days is... *insert adjective*

    related: http://www.arrangebypenis.com/arrange2.jpg

  14. Re:Well sure, I mean he works for Red Hat by AdamWill · · Score: 3

    Erm, I work for Red Hat too. I know there's this meme that Red Hat cares a lot about GNOME for some reason, but we really really don't.

    RH sponsors GNOME development because it's one of the major F/OSS desktops, and someone has to. We used to be just one out of many companies who did; most of them have now fallen by the wayside and it's mostly us.

    There is no 'implicit pressure' at RH for engineers to use any desktop whatsoever. No-one cares. There are people at RH using GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXDE, MATE, blackbox, fluxbox, openbox, any other box you care to name, Windows, and OS X, and any other desktop or WM I forgot to put in that list. The RH 'standard desktop distro' for use by non-engineering staff uses GNOME (2) because it's basically RHEL 6 and we have to standardize on something. But if you're in engineering you can use whatever the hell you like as long as your job gets done.

    Red Hat pays several people who work on KDE as well as people who work on GNOME, and the Fedora Xfce spin is maintained by a Red Hat employee (Kevin Fenzi). In Fedora, KDE and GNOME have equal support status: both are required to meet the same quality requirements as part of release validation.