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Giving GNOME 3 a GNOME 2 Look
nanday writes "GNOME Shell Extensions have done more than any other set of features to make GNOME 3 usable. Nearly 270 in number, they provide a degree of customization that was missing in the first GNOME 3 releases. In fact, if you choose, you can use the extensions to go far beyond Classic GNOME and re-create almost exactly the look and feel of GNOME 2 while taking advantage of the latest GNOME 3 code."
Well personally I ran screaming in horror after the first two hours of flailing around trying to regain something approaching my old workflow. To each his own I suppose.
May the Maths Be with you!
I know this will invite a flame or three, but the proper response here is Mate.
I know this will invite a flame or three, but the proper response here is Mate.
Mate http://mate-desktop.org/about/
"MATE is a fork of GNOME 2.
It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop to Linux users using traditional metaphors."
Cinnamon (although same as Gnome 3 with extensions) http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
"Traditional layout, advanced features, easy to use, powerful, flexible."
Can you not see the difference. The real question is why use Mate.
I used to use ubuntu. Took one look at Unity and switched to xubuntu.
Just for fun last week I reinstalled one of the first distros that really got me cooking on Linux: SUSE 8.0, running KDE3.0 and Gnome 1. And you know what, I think Gnome 1 is the version that worked for me - sawfish windowmanager,hugely tweakable, some cool themes, and so on. Yes, the apps were in an earlier and less-useful state, but as a desktop, it was pretty cool.
I had a fun time going down nostalgia lane with apps like Balsa and Spruce and even the early versions of Nautilus file manager (long before they went nuts on the "spatial" metaphor etc.) and even early version of the Pan newsreader.
Maybe it's nostalgia, but that was a pretty good desktop. Gnome 2 never really floated my boat. And Gnome 3 can wither and die, as far as I'm concerned. It makes me so unproductive it drives me to turn off the computer and go read a book or something.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
The hate against GNOME 3 has mixed origins. Some are natural, as "they changed now it sucks" reactions; the fact GNOME 2 was/is great also doesn't help at all. Some are because the software is new and nowhere mature. But some are genuine complaints from the users for GNOME 3 not actually improving their experience, but getting in the way to do common tasks - the devs confused "simple" with "simplistic" and are completely deaf for users' requests (some as simple as putting back in 3.7 a background configuration already present in 3.6.
As for me, I just moved to MATE when the whole thing happened and I'm quite happy with it.
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No, there is nothing you are missing I don't get the upheaval over Gnome 3 either. Some people just can't stand anything changing and there is a certain small subset that group that likes to kill time by searching for crap to get angry over and make a lot of noise about it. The rest of the Gnome 2 traditionalists have simply realised that there is a growing collection of (how many is it now?) Gnome 2 forks out there and they are only a yum/apt-get away. Mate for example is now at version 1.6 and there is a Linux Mint LiveDVD that comes preinstalled with it.
I'm not someone who froths at the mouth and gnaws my desk every time something changes. Even the perpetual shuffle on Windows only annoys me (OK, so what is the Nitwit Neighborhood called in this release?).
But Gnome3 took away critical desktop assets that I used every day and all day. THAT is what the upheaval is about. It didn't change them, it removed them and left nothing comparable in its place. And that is what had me screaming in rage.
I switched to Cinnamon, which replaces some, though not all of what I lost, and I don't mind the fact that it looks like Gnome3 at all.
What about the fact that, by default, widgets are so thick, you can barely see any content? When I tried Gnome 3, Gnome 3 was pretty much all I could see. Nothing else would fit on the screen. In Gnome2 and KDE3, vertical resolution of 768 points was still perfectly usable. Now, unless you have >= 1080, you're suffering.
Do people with gnu/linux not use their computers to consume/create content? I do. I'm not interested in flicking through dynamic workspaces just to prove I don't need to minimise windows.
Therefore, in my opinion - anybody using Gnome 3 and liking it, is insane.
(Yes, my middle name is 'insensitive clod'.)
Some people just can't stand anything changing
Again, for the 100th time, I must patiently explain that it's not the change itself that's the problem.
The problem is when the change takes away features and functionality, or hides them.
For example, Windows underwent a significant amount of UI design change between 3.1 and WinXP, and almost all of it was an improvement.
But we now have a new generation of UI designers who are operating on the theory that if you hide or remove features and functionality, it will make the interface better. We've seen the dismal results of their work: Canonical Unity, GNOME 3, and Windows 8 -- all resoundingly criticized for the hiding and/or removal of features, and for abandoning the crucial principle of discoverability.