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GNOME 3.12 Released

New submitter Sri Ramkrishna writes: "Like clockwork, the next version of GNOME has been released with updated applications, bugfixes, and so forth. People can look forward to faster loading times and a little better performance than before. A video has been created to highlight the release! Check it out!" The release features "... app folders, enhanced system status and high-resolution display support. This release also includes new and redesigned applications for video, software, editing, sound recording and internet relay chat. Under the hood, support for using Wayland instead of X has progressed significantly." There are a bunch of new features for programmers too.

134 comments

  1. Re: Meet the new boss: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    GNOME shell has really improved. I've been using 3.10 for a while now and it's really comfortable. Can't wait for 3.12 to hit the Arch repos.

    (Posted as a reply because I'm on mobile and can't find a way to start a new thread)

  2. Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The KDE and Gnome people have decided that they are going to cater for the most unsophisticated users alone. Thus, they have come up with desktop environments with lots of eye candy that take up a nontrivial amount of resources, that make it difficult to work in ways that are not exactly those that these people espouse, and that make anything but the most perfunctory use of the computer well nigh impossible.

    As far as I am concerned both KDE and Gnome can rot in hell. Thank goodness, under Linux we have other desktop choices that don't treat the end user as a moron.

    1. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 1

      I dunno maybe I am moron but I can't understand the new desktop paradigm... An unsophisticated I bet couldn't figure our the new gnome shell but my grandmother could navigate gnome 2 just fine.

    2. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by enter+to+exit · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're right about GNOME. Those guys won't be happy until they've reduced the Desktop to a single close button and a window.

      I think you're being too harsh on KDE though. The usual KDE criticism is that they have too many advanced options. On my machine, KDE (and all it's related processes) are consuming about 90MB of RAM (even with some bling turned on), to compare Chromium is consuming about 400MB.

      KDE4 has a unfair reputation for being wasteful. I think the stigma is mainly caused by Anakondi's initial one-time file indexing processes being heavy. People tend to switch to something else before it finishes and leave with bad impressions.

    3. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by enter+to+exit · · Score: 1

      oops, meant "Nepomuk & Akonadi"...so many strange names ;)

    4. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by efitton · · Score: 1

      Kasbar back? I'm mad at KDE because it LACKS the features I found useful back in KDE 3. I don't mind if people also fault it for Anakondi and Nepomuk. Semantic desktop crap.

    5. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Those guys won't be happy until they've reduced the Desktop to a single close button and a window."

      But that may be an improvement over windows with two Close buttons. (One in it and one on the title bar.) Or how about a Close button, a Cancel button, and a title bar Close button?

    6. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've said it before and I'll say it again, KDE looks like a widget factory exploded on your desktop. Of course, GNOME looks like they're experiencing a widget shortage, perhaps due to a widget factory somewhere being out of production due to an explosion.

      I'm all in favor of many complex options, but there's no need to present all of them at once.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't really mind GNOME removing things. It is extremely bloated. I just wish that they would remove the bloat when they remove the features.

    8. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I've said it before and I'll say it again, KDE looks like a widget factory exploded on your desktop.

      Well, that just shows how old-fashioned KDE is. If they were up to speed with modern framework design, it would like a widget factory factory factory exploded over your desktop. I assume that might probably involve quite a lot of XML.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    9. Re: Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you talking about? GNOME maybe, but KDE is still far and away the most customizable desktop around.

    10. Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) by castrox · · Score: 1

      I've fled KDE before when they launched the public alpha as a major release. Since back then it's improved hugely in terms of performance and usability. I used to be a Gnome fan, but the new UI, while usable on the TV, is unusable on the dev box.

      About the bling and widgets/plasmoids I just don't use them so they're not a problem. It's a way of attracting a certain user group.

      castrox

      --
      Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
  3. New and redesigned.... by irwiss · · Score: 2

    ... related to gnome already sounds negative

  4. Re:Meet the new boss: by erice · · Score: 5, Informative

    Meet the new boss: same as the old boss.

    You mean: "Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss". Gnome keeps removing features. Session saving for gnome-terminal was removed several versions ago supposedly because they have a new way of doing this. Only they didn't actually implement the new way. They just took out the old and left it.

  5. Re: Meet the new boss: by iggymanz · · Score: 5, Funny

    even if you were at home on a desktop, GNOME would be making your screen into a big goddamn single-task-at-once cell phone anyway

  6. Unity-ish UI by trainman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And I see they're still jumping on this Unity-ish sidebar UI bandwagon... ugh, I guess I'll be using xfce for a while longer so I can actually have a normal top and bottom panels. Running apps and workspace picker along the bottom, Application (etc) menus along the top with various system controls... its worked well for over a decade, yes some people might like the newer Vista/OSXy way to set things up, and fine that can be the (annoying) default, but at least give us the *option* to set up our workspace as we like. Saying "we don't support user customization anymore" is simply arrogant and not an option for open source software which was supposed to be all about the user having control.

    It looks nice, and I commend them for all the hard work, I'm sure a lot of hours went in to it, but I won't be in any rush to upgrade if I still can't even do something simple like move my panels around.

    1. Re:Unity-ish UI by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Why not use http://extensions.gnome.org/ and then you can probably add the stuff you need to make it more what you are used to. There is also a classic mode which tries to mimic GNOME 2. Of course, there is always Mate. :)

    2. Re:Unity-ish UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeh awesome that it now takes 25+ extensions written by random peeps, who may or may not have any clue, to get back functionality thats been removed.

      Even more awesome when plugins you found rather important to workflow become incompatible with the latest version and become 'outdated'* and not possible anymore. It's like every time I find a happy workflow they fuckin remove more shit.

      Why, thats a whole lot of awesome.

      * such as:
      - hide activities button ( I don't fuckin want the fuckin thing i have a damn 'windows key' not to mention the hot corner BS )
      - move-free message tray ( the message tray is a braindead way of hiding notifications in the first place, the fact it fuckin scales everything else is idiotic... )
      - overlay follow focus ( Why the fuck is this not possible? Maybe it makes too much sense )
      - status area horizontal spacing ( 720p screen and forcing an entire icon worth of space between each icon, fuck that )
      - window options ( All i fuckin get is quit if i click on the top title bar? wtf )

    3. Re:Unity-ish UI by vux984 · · Score: 1

      its worked well for over a decade,

      Over a decade ago, I had a single 17" CRT and yes "it worked well". Today I have a pair of 24" wide screen monitors.

      It doesn't "work well" anymore.

      The left side panel works better especailly on modern wide screens, where the limitation is usually vertical, and for most applications you have extra horizontal space.

      But still flawed on large multimonitor desktops.

      Of course, I agree with you that providing the option to change it from the defaults is generally a good thing, especially with linux.

    4. Re:Unity-ish UI by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      A decade ago a lot of people had already had dual screens of unusual sizes for a decade.

    5. Re:Unity-ish UI by hodet · · Score: 1

      This right here. I have settled on XFCE. Some people may find the UI dated but to me it just stays out of my way and just works. When I need to do something then it facilitates that with no hassles. Thank god for choice.

    6. Re:Unity-ish UI by vux984 · · Score: 1

      And even today "a lot of people use a single 4:3 screen"

      But the balance has certainly shifted wouldn't you agree?

    7. Re:Unity-ish UI by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      The "balance" doesn't mean squat. When I came to slashdot over 15 years ago, it was normal for people to have multiple screens, of various sizes, and the open source technology already supported it. The main difference now is that we don't have to calculate (or look up) modelines and hand configure a bunch of crap. But the windowing systems already had good support for it, and the X Window System surely doesn't care how many screens you want to configure.

      The newer desktop paradigms seem to be driven by devices with very small screens, so it seems that more traditional desktop environments might actually have better support than the newer ones.

    8. Re:Unity-ish UI by sjames · · Score: 1

      For many, it works well. For those who don't think so, let them configure a left side panel. Even make it a default that can easily be changed.

    9. Re:Unity-ish UI by vux984 · · Score: 1

      "Windowing systems already had good support for it [multiple screens of different sizes]"

      The windowing system physically supported it yes. But menu bar along the top, task bar along the bottom isn't a terribly good paradigm on widescreens or multiple widescreens.

      The newer desktop paradigms seem to be driven by devices with very small screens, so it seems that more traditional desktop environments might actually have better support than the newer ones.

      No. Devices with very small screens operated by touch work abysmally with 'traditional desktop environments'. That's why Windows CE phones never took off.

    10. Re:Unity-ish UI by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      The newer desktop paradigms seem to be driven by devices with very small screens, so it seems that more traditional desktop environments might actually have better support than the newer ones.

      No. Devices with very small screens operated by touch work abysmally with 'traditional desktop environments'. That's why Windows CE phones never took off.

      You said "no" but then you went on to paint a picture that supports what I said.

    11. Re:Unity-ish UI by vux984 · · Score: 1

      You said "no" but then you went on to paint a picture that supports what I said.

      What?

      You argue that more "traditional desktops environments might have better support than the new ones"

      I said, new small screen devices are abysmal with "traditional desktop environments".

      How does "abysmal" translate to "better"?

    12. Re:Unity-ish UI by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Devices with very small screens operated by touch work abysmally with 'traditional desktop environments'.

      Touchscreens work abysmally with any imaginable operating system, since they're the single-button Mac mouse all over again. Except this time the keyboard is an on-screen only version, too.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    13. Re:Unity-ish UI by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      By thinking about the context. ;)
      The newer paradigms are designed for small devices because of the claimed problems with traditional paradigms on those devices.
      You're claiming that the newer paradigms are better for large screens, but to support that you're actually agreeing that the new paradigms are designed to overcome problems on SMALL screens. So you're supporting my case, by attacking what I said in the wrong direction. ;)

    14. Re:Unity-ish UI by vux984 · · Score: 1

      You're claiming that the newer paradigms are better for large screens, but to support that you're actually agreeing that the new paradigms are designed to overcome problems on SMALL screens

      The shift of the taskbar to the left is due to *wide* screens not *small* screens.

    15. Re: Unity-ish UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm, you mean Unity is Gnome-shellish. Gnome shell does it first and the best.

    16. Re:Unity-ish UI by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      The traditional unix desktop has a movable taskbar that is just an application. Moving it left or right can be done without forcing any "innovation" on people.

      This is exactly the sort of idiocy that has caused a large percent (~60%) to abandon the 2 projects that used to combine for over 90% user share.

    17. Re:Unity-ish UI by vux984 · · Score: 1

      The point is that I agree with moving it to the left by default.

      However, I agree with you entirely that it should be as easy as it ever was to put it back at the bottom. I agree with you entirely that the changes FORCED by unity are terrible.

      I am ONLY arguing changing them changing default layout is sensible. And that implementing touch friendly stuff is sensible.

      But forcing it? 100% Idiotic.

  7. New submitter by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 5, Funny

    Jezus, I've been on this site since Malda was still using it as a tab on his website. It took them this long to actually accept a submission of mine.

    1. Re:New submitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you like some cheese with that whine?

    2. Re:New submitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you kindly fuck off with that meme?

    3. Re:New submitter by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

      Wow, that's patience... I've been reading since 1997, first submission in 1999 IIRC. Karma will be good to you I bet.

      --
      C|N>K
    4. Re:New submitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you like some cheese with that whine?

      I do like a bit of Wensley Dale

    5. Re:New submitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do like a bit of Gorgonzola!

    6. Re:New submitter by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      I don't really care, it was more of a bemused comment. :)

    7. Re:New submitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      http://slashdot.org/~Sri+Ramkrishna/submissions

      Submission Summary: 0 pending, 2 declined, 1 accepted (3 total, 33.33% accepted)

      Not sure what you're complaining about.
      You make it seem as if you've submitted dozens of stories during a period of many years.

    8. Re:New submitter by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      You make it seem as if you've submitted dozens of stories during a period of many years.

      Most of my submissions aren't shown in the interface. It only shows submissions which occurred after some psuedoarbitrary date.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:New submitter by maestroX · · Score: 1

      Jezus, I've been on this site since Malda was still using it as a tab on his website. It took them this long to actually accept a submission of mine.

      No kidding! They stole my UID merely to promote a Gnome 3 announcement!

  8. Gnome = good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After a few missteps, Gnome is now a pleasure on the desktop. The window management is intuitive and functional - the first desktop since the late 1980s that isn't a morass of windows. The applications menu is well laid out instead of a wobbly tree of menus. Overall it's quick and stable.

    I do miss the dual pane in Nautilus, but I just installed the alternate file browser from the Mate/Cinnamon project. After all this is Linux, we have choice. Here's hoping that they put those features back, as they have done with the other features they "took away" in app rewrites.

    I tried KDE for a few weeks, it claims to be ultimately configurable. But you can't even do simple stuff like assign the meta key as a shortcut, or have a menu to the left of screen that works well. KDE is too much like the familiar but difficult Windows desktop paradigm.

    1. Re:Gnome = good by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 0

      Thanks!

    2. Re:Gnome = good by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      They took out the the duel pain feature?!?!?! WTF.
      I keep hearing people say "oh its nice but,..." and they list a feature that the gnome team broke or just removed. Guess I will be sticking with mate for now.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    3. Re:Gnome = good by lennier · · Score: 4, Funny

      They took out the the duel pain feature?!?!?! WTF.

      Yeah, I hate it too when I score a counter-riposte to my opponent's flying parry and there's just a beep on the referee's scoreboard and no blood.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    4. Re:Gnome = good by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2

      I tried KDE for a few weeks, it claims to be ultimately configurable. But you can't even do simple stuff like assign the meta key as a shortcut, or have a menu to the left of screen that works well. KDE is too much like the familiar but difficult Windows desktop paradigm.

      Super/Meta is a modifier key. You wouldn't assign a shortcut directly to Ctrl or Alt, would you? If you truly want to use Super/Meta as a single-key shortcut, ksuperkey does what you want.

      I've been using my main panel on the left ever since I got my 2560x1440 monitor. I assume that's what you meant by "menu to the left of screen". It works perfectly fine, BTW. Just drag the panel there and resize it a bit.

      --
      Eat the rich.
  9. Re: Meet the new boss: by fizzer06 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I much prefer xfce.

  10. Re:Meet the new boss: by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 2, Informative

    Session saving is a hard problem and it requires apps to participate. Since it was never working correctly, it was removed so a better way could be done. But sometimes those things take awhile.

  11. yahoo? by mexsudo · · Score: 0

    âoeGNOME is the desktop environment of choice for many Yahoo developers..." so That is the reason Yahoo went to hell! When Gnome2 was abandoned the "team" showed its true colors, a big Fail

  12. Re: Meet the new boss: by mexsudo · · Score: 0

    Mate

  13. File, Edit, View.... gone! by jabberw0k · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wonderful, the unusable interface of 'evince' (Print is hidden under a sun icon or a gear, or something -- with no known way to open the menu from the keyboard) now comes to gedit. Now editing a file becomes impossible too! Please, folks, follow CUA , the Common User Access protocols, with named menus we can access with Alt+keystroke or F10. Arrrrrgh! Stupid! Make it stop! Give us back our File, Edit, View menus and all the rest!

    1. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      Print is hidden under a sun icon or a gear, or something -- with no known way to open the menu from the keyboard

      Besides the fact that Print is accessible, like everywhere else, through Ctrl-P, the "gear" menu can be opened with the keyboard by hitting Tab until the focus goes to the toolbar, then using the arrow-keys to move focus to the gear icon, then hitting Return. I am not a big fan of Gnome and am deeply unhappy with many of their changes, but getting where you need to go with the keyboard remains fairly easy to figure out in most applications.

    2. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      [...] the "gear" menu can be opened with the keyboard by hitting Tab until the focus goes to the toolbar, then using the arrow-keys to move focus to the gear icon, then hitting Return.

      Let me guess: GNOME developers use Emacs?

    3. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      Nice try, but Emacs users wouldnâ(TM)t advocate use of arrow-keys.

    4. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So you have to keep hitting Tab and watch carefully for a little bit of highlighting to determine what GUI widget is selected (which might not be in a logical order depending on how the GUI was built). How is that any better or faster or easier than hitting Alt (which would traditionally automatically highlight the menu) then pressing the arrow keys to select your menu option of choice?

      We're going backwards and people seem not to know any better.

    5. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could not agree more. Evince was a useful replacement for Acrobat reader for a while, until they decided to jump into user experience bandwagon and made their application to the fantasy users, who have not used any computer application before. Btw, why does one need to start reading a pdf by re-selecting the preferred page layout? Is there somewhere a hidden button, by which one can store the reader settings?

    6. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does Tab not insert a \t in gedit anymore?

    7. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      I'm using XFCE and I can just type "evince" in xterm. I still use a lot of gtk and gnome-based apps, but they only way to escape innovation is to abandon projects that innovate.

    8. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Gedit is so slow that its startup time has been used as a strawman by Wayland folks to push their view that X is too slow to use. There are plenty of other editors better than that cobbled together MS Notepad lookalike.

    9. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 0

      Why not use Okular?

    10. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      You could type "atril" if you wish so, it's Mate's version and will spare you having to use some GTK3 gunk to read documents.

    11. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Besides the fact that Print is accessible, like everywhere else, through Ctrl-P, the "gear" menu can be opened with the keyboard by hitting Tab until the focus goes to the toolbar, then using the arrow-keys to move focus to the gear icon, then hitting Return.

      Oh yes, tab arrow key return. How obvious. I mean, sure it's obvious to you and I, but even KDE has menus which are obvious to anyone who's used a computer before. I don't think most people who haven't will even know what a gear is, or why it would make sense for it to be used for settings. Woops, that's not even what they're using it for, is it? Fail, fail.

      GNOME should stop trying to invent the new thing in the mainline. They're not very good at it. That's okay, most people/projects aren't, but most people/projects accept that.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    12. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The first bit of the video was a bit hard to follow because of the lightning speed of Gnome (I think Ms Sandler had had too much coffee) but when she breezily announced "an overhauled user interface" for gedit, all I thought was, oh no, where have you put the menu. Has it gone to the top of the screen? Why did you put the menus up there?

      I use Gnome on a desktop monitor and even when the design is OK it's often lacking basic features - I just had a look at the Updates available (this is what prompted me to reply), clicked on OS Updates to be presented with a list of package names and versions in some random order, no sort or search available. Click on an update once you've found it to be greeted by a few lines of description if you're lucky, maybe a bug ref. Can you copy or drag the text? No.

      I shouldn't have to use gsettings to turn encryption off for Desktop Sharing (ie, [t]rusty old VNC).

      Sometimes the design isn't OK: users don't want a status bar in the file manager (minimalism, you know) so we'll pop one up when something's selected and hide the last item in the list. There's an open bug for this with no response.

      Surely it's possible for Gnome to present different UI elements and options depending on what size and type of screen you have, rather than giving everyone the simplest version possible? If the designers are aiming for Windows 8 Metro-land then they'll lose a lot of users. I think it's time for me to install KDE.

      IIRC, Windows 3.1 had a Sound Recorder. It's not that impressive in 2014.

    13. Re:File, Edit, View.... gone! by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      You seem pretty confused about how traditional *nix desktops work. Why would I get stuck using some gtk3 "gunk?" Oh, I wouldn't. Air ball!

  14. Re: Meet the new boss: by TigerTime · · Score: 1

    I can't decide which to go on LinuxMint: MATE or Cinnamon? I feel like Cinnamon has come along enough that it might be better at this point, but not sure.

  15. Re: Meet the new boss: by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1

    I use it on two big monitors, and it works fine. It's just windows and a status bar, and two bars which get out of your way. I like it. It's not as clunky as KDE/XFCE, and more polished.

    --
    NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
  16. Why not extensions by efitton · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Because:
    • -They are Beta software
    • -They are not typically upgraded when Gnome upgrades, if at all
    • -They are an attack vector
    • -They can and do conflict causing stability and speed problems
    • -Only can be installed when online

    But mostly because just about every extension is really something that should be a preference and is every way inferior to a checkbox.

    1. Re:Why not extensions by efitton · · Score: 2

      Also forgot the "wack-a-mole" effect. 46 pages of extensions, many that do the same thing. Have fun finding and picking the right extension. Again, clearly inferior to system settings and checkboxes.

    2. Re:Why not extensions by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 4, Informative
      Anything added to the web site is code reviewed for attack vectors. Most of the extensions are fairly simple and easy to write. The extension I wrote to put a lockscreen on the topbar was all of 20 lines. Yes, only online because of attack vectors as you said earlier. We should see some improvements, some of the breakages come from the fact that gnome-shell is in active development and so some times extemsopms break because the code is getting refactored. In the past, we were not able to put out an image for extension writers to test. Now we have both a continuous integration build that extension writers can literally test everyday for breakage and also a QA team is spinning up so that we can at least check the popular extensions and bug extension writers to port. Once gnome-shell becomes more stable extension breakage will happen less.

      Putting in prefs and checkboxes also increase code complexity as that is just more than you have to test and secondly the behaviour should be correct the first time without having to modify the behaviour. Basically it should do the right thing 99% of the time. If there are cases that it doesn't work that way then agree a preference should be put or if there something that a user does need a choice due to hardware or some behaviour.

      The irony is that if created a bunch of preferences, a number of you will abandon the platform because it is bloated and move to i3 or awesome or something perceivably "light" like XFCE.

    3. Re:Why not extensions by efitton · · Score: 2

      http://www.ioccc.org/

      But yes, the attack vector is the least of my worries. You write: "Putting in prefs and checkboxes also increases code complexity." True, having the extension increases the code complexity by at least the same amount. But no testing, no planning, no updates, no review. Just an unorganized mess of hundreds upon hundreds of extensions that conflict.

      Gnome has the reputation, and for very good reason, of not acknowledging when users need a choice of behavior. Look at your own plus.google post about the negative feedback on Nautilus. Users want those options, you and I both know it. The response: 1) We don't acknowledge that people don't like the changes. 2) People who don't like the change are elitist. 3) Yes, it is worse but it works better for touch.

      Think about leaving the laptop on when the lid closes. No one has argued that that should be the default. Many gave reasons why it should be a preference. Users were not given an option but you can easily read the snarky comments from developers: "you can run this line of code and keep both halves if your system breaks" on blog posts. And self congratulation for doing the tough work while users fume or leave. Same story with power off as the only option under the name. I read that bug report with my mouth hanging open. I honestly claim that 50% of users would want the other option and Gnome developers would not give their users the check box. Moreover, there is a good chance most would come across as arrogant asses while discussing it. You and Emily do a fantastic job, but I read what others write and I don't want to even give Gnome a fair shot; not that it much matters.

    4. Re:Why not extensions by willoughby · · Score: 1

      You say , "... the behaviour should be correct the first time..." and this is wrong. The behaviour should be *selectable* by the user. That's why folks are asking for checkboxes and configuration dialogs. The behaviour cannot possibly be "correct" because it is a preference and what I prefer may not be what you prefer.

      I realize that the Gnome folks really believe there is only one correct way for the desktop to look and behave, but they are wrong.

    5. Re:Why not extensions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possibility for configuration is the only way to handle things, where there is not a "right way" to do something. Any newschool UI designer does these "this week the window close button must be on the left side of window" decisions, but only a arrogant bastard removes the possibility from user to make a selection that suits himself.

    6. Re:Why not extensions by efitton · · Score: 1

      I've been thinking more about this and have to say, one of your weaker arguments. Your argument seems to be that extensions suck, but might suck less in the future. It sounds like you agree that extensions are inferior to checkboxes for the user when handling preferences but that the trade off for developer ease is worth it. The issue being code complexity and testing. But you then write about how short the extensions are and that they are code reviewed. So there is a trivial amount of complexity, honestly most of the code is already there it is just difficult to set the preference. And your users want the testing. Extensions suck because they aren't tested, they interfere with each other, they break; but then you say we should try them if we don't like stock.

      So as I'm still having my coffee this is less lucid then I would like; but which is it? Is this a tiny bit of code that Gnome developers just can't bother adding or is it truly complex, in which case we can expect extensions to be a mess and make the entire system a tottering mess?

      Please tell me that your last line about users abandoning Gnome if you add preferences was a joke or a throw away line. Specious argument, and while easy to deflate I'd rather not take the time. If you have your "perfect defaults" no one would even have to see that you had preferences anyway. And actually maybe not specious, I don't think it is even remotely plausible, everyone has been screaming for preferences.

    7. Re:Why not extensions by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      I've been thinking more about this and have to say, one of your weaker arguments. Your argument seems to be that extensions suck, but might suck less in the future. It sounds like you agree that extensions are inferior to checkboxes for the user when handling preferences but that the trade off for developer ease is worth it. The issue being code complexity and testing. But you then write about how short the extensions are and that they are code reviewed. So there is a trivial amount of complexity, honestly most of the code is already there it is just difficult to set the preference. And your users want the testing. Extensions suck because they aren't tested, they interfere with each other, they break; but then you say we should try them if we don't like stock. So as I'm still having my coffee this is less lucid then I would like; but which is it? Is this a tiny bit of code that Gnome developers just can't bother adding or is it truly complex, in which case we can expect extensions to be a mess and make the entire system a tottering mess? Please tell me that your last line about users abandoning Gnome if you add preferences was a joke or a throw away line. Specious argument, and while easy to deflate I'd rather not take the time. If you have your "perfect defaults" no one would even have to see that you had preferences anyway. And actually maybe not specious, I don't think it is even remotely plausible, everyone has been screaming for preferences.

      Well extensions just give people the option to extend your desktop. What they write isn't necessary something that is going to be useful to everyone. The code can either be very complex or very simple, it just depends on what you are doing. For instance, you could write an extension that by pressing F3, will open up two nautilus windows side by side so that you can do file copying or something. That might not be very hard to do at all. There might be other things that might be more complex like wobbly windows or something.

      We want testing too. In fact we have gnome-continuous which is a continuous integrated build server that will immediately check if something is broken when checked into git. There is a QA team that has spun up that will use automatic testing to test apps both GUI and otherwise, plus unit tests. Plus some manual tests. Hopefully, we'll be able to apply the manual tests to extensions so that we can make sure that they all work for say the next version.

      There is however now way to test every combination of extensions currently. Certainly, nobody is working on that. But then nobody is doing that for mozilla either, right?

      I don't see a ton of requests for preferences, at least nothing specific. It's more generic "we want more options!" but nothing really specific. Most of the time, you want sane defaults that you don't need to tweak. I don't know if I am a good sample but since I am a hardcore terminal user, I don't really demand a lot from my desktop environment. My workflow works perfectly fine with GNOME, I don't tweak anything. I don't know what kind of options people are talking. If you talk about the options that you find in KDE or somewhere else, it's always an option because a) you can't decide what is the correct behavior so you decide to allow both paths 2) there is a bug that is outside the control of the project and thus you create an option to paper over the problem by fixing it in the desktop 3) there is an honest user tweakable option.

      Sometimes the GNOME mentality goes a little too far and that it is not always possible to do something correct for most cases and in which case adding a option should be considered. I've had many discussions internally about some of them and try to nudge them in that direction. We're an intractable bunch at times so you need to use subtlety by asking questions.

      The big requests have been about moving tweak tool into the settings which so far we haven't done. There might be a couple things in tweak tool that might be worth putting into settings, but for the most part they should stay in tweak tool.

    8. Re:Why not extensions by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1
      I don't think we're saying there is always only one way. But in a lot of cases, you generally want the correct thing. For instance, when you plug in your monitor in your laptop, you generally expect the correct behavior right? Having options that control at 5pm, you want your desktop extended instead of a dual session screen is kind of silly. But there are a lot of people who revel in these kind of things because there is some kind of technical elitism involved in being able to do that because the other OS's can't. I'm projecting a little, but not by much.

      You cannot have a behavior infinitely selectable by the user. In fact there are a number of reasons for this:

      1) more options, more documentation required to maintain them - plus you need to maintain them in the code base 2) in a corporate setting, you need to train people to understand each of these behavior. 3) Debugging issues where people have gotten themselves in trouble because they have inadvertently added a checkbox to something that completely confused them. This will happen regardless of the competency of the user. 4) more options the more that things can go wrong, the more QA required to make sure things don't break.

      Certainly in cases where data is involved GNOME and like any other operating system will do it's utter best to make sure that no data is lost. That interaction will always be as simple as possible. For instance, we had some support for md-raid in GNOME disks that was removed recently because we could not guarantee a good success. Many people criticized it in knee jerk fashion because they simplified the issue down to "GNOME is removing features". It doesn't even matter what the "feature" is, it fits a story.

      In any case, you have a choice between two poles, one tends to be minimal and then the other moving more towards flexibility and tons in between. Desktop is a big tent and there is room for everyone. What GNOME is doing is interesting and cutting edge IMHO. I enjoy working in GNOME.

    9. Re:Why not extensions by efitton · · Score: 1

      "Intractable" is a word. Two or three successful forks (depending on how you count Unity) and the main employer of most GNOME developers ships their pay OS with classic mode enabled over shell. GNOME limits options (settings kill kittens) to make life easier. Except we have gone from two dominant desktops w/ Gnome 2 and KDE 3, to one dominant desktop with the move to KDE 4 ,to no dominant desktop with GNOME 3. Now to use Linux I have to consider: Unity, Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE, LXDE and E. Two more if you are new to Linux and haven't experienced GNOME and KDE. How many GNOME devs have linked to the tired saw about how "Linux isn't about choice." Apparently it is all about choice now, starting with your DE.

      It is all academic at this point. GNOME could make a 180 reversal but I don't see users coming back. I haven't tried KDE since 4.4 or so; at some point you just permanently lose most of your former users. You could make life easier for your users who do muddle though with extension by adding a couple of dozen options, and it isn't hard to see what those options would be. But even if I could convince you, Day, McCann, Bassi, etc. would never go for it.

      It really is an epic fail. GNOME is suppose to be for inexperienced users but ZDNET today suggests migrating from XP to Cinnamon. http://www.zdnet.com/why-linux... At one point I helped an uncle install KDE 3 on his computer. Now no one in the family runs Linux. Linux wasn't even a fleeting thought a couple of years ago when my grandmothers computer died. Windows 8 was out and we paid extra to put her on Windows 7. Maybe MATE or XFCE could fill the gap, but GNOME would be out of the question for her. I doubt she is alone, is your family running GNOME?

      I guess I just don't get the mentality. I loved KDE 3 because it was easy to customize and had great choices. Kasbar was the killer app (especially combined with configuring panel behavior). I could control the behavior of windows with a quick right click on the appropriate task. I dislike KDE because of the lack of choice. I can't easily remove what I don't want, I don't have the options I do want. When GNOME devs hold up KDE as too customizable I am staggered because in the ways I care about, it isn't customizable enough.

  17. Re:Meet the new boss: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So remove it just in case it doesn't work for someone properly??

  18. Re: Meet the new boss: by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 2

    I have been using MATE on ubuntu 12.04 its pretty stable and usable but lacking polish. Been a couple of years since I looked at Cinnamon.

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  19. Like clockwork? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Because it winds you up?

  20. After watching the video.. by sc0ob5 · · Score: 5, Informative

    After watching the video I find I have been pronouncing Gnome incorrectly for all these years. Ga-nome, I've been saying Nome..

    1. Re:After watching the video.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next you'll be telling us that you didn't know that the K in KDE was silent.

    2. Re:After watching the video.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It was called GNU+Noam, but Richard Stalinman had Chomsky's contributions to free software purged from history, so it was changed to Gah-nome.

    3. Re:After watching the video.. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Yes I found that funny the first time I heard it too - just file it with SQL versus "sequel" and say whatever you like.

    4. Re:After watching the video.. by hodet · · Score: 1

      I thought it was common to interpret your own names for months and years before being corrected. Started for me with Linux being pronounced L"y"nex. I also called gnome noam for a while. There are many other packages that I did this with but none are coming to mind right now. I always thought it was funny how oss folks name their products, would make marketing people run for the hills.

    5. Re:After watching the video.. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      After watching the video I find I have been pronouncing Gnome incorrectly for all these years. Ga-nome, I've been saying Nome..

      I think it's like GIF, piss on the 'official' pronunciation, do what makes sense. It's spelled 'nome', say 'nome'.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:After watching the video.. by BlueLightning · · Score: 1

      I work with a number of GNOME developers, and most of them pronounce it the normal way (the same way the English word "gnome" is pronounced), so I guess just choose whichever one you prefer.

    7. Re:After watching the video.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I work with a number of GNOME developers

      Please give each and every one of them a smack in the face with a shovel. Then after that a damned good thrashing with the clue stick.

      Thank you.

    8. Re:After watching the video.. by Colonel+Fahlt · · Score: 1

      The woman narrating the video isn't even consistent with her pronunciation. The last two times she says it, she first goes with the normal "nome" pronunciation, and then she seems to catch herself wanting to do it again, and gets out a half-G sound. I take this as a sign that "guh-nome" isn't the natural or comfortable choice for most native English speakers. (Given the negative response of so many people to the software, this seems somehow apt...)

  21. Slightly more user friendly than Windows 8 by lophophore · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gnome 3.12: **slighltly** more user friendly than Windows 8, which is like saying it is slightly more user friendly than a rabid zombie wolverine in a kindergarten playground.

    I watched the video. Gnome 3.12 still sucks. It is an embarrassment to Linux; it is one of the reasons why after 10 years we still don't have "the year of the Linux Desktop". This is a continuing example of the developers deciding how the users should work, not thinning about how the users are used to doing things. Yecch.

    Thank goodness for XFCE. XFCE's developers seem to actually have the user experience in mind.

    --
    there are 3 kinds of people:
    * those who can count
    * those who can't
    1. Re:Slightly more user friendly than Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >xfeces
      It's good to like depreciated bug-ridden screen tearing desktop environments.

    2. Re:Slightly more user friendly than Windows 8 by dbIII · · Score: 3, Informative

      Some people like it (there's one in my worplace - others look at his screens in horror), but the thing I hate the most is you can't use the old gnome and the new gimp at the same time unless you run one or the other remotely from another machine. Some utter bastards in the gnome team deliberately created name conflicts to prevent old gnome applications working at the same time as new ones. That's something like bringing DLL hell to *nix for the first time, but with required background applications instead of libraries.

    3. Re:Slightly more user friendly than Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some people consider "annoys idiots too stupid to set up compton" a feature.

  22. Re: Meet the new boss: by javajeff · · Score: 1

    Cinnamon is very good, and much more dependable than earlier versions. If you have not tried it in a while, it is recommended.

  23. Now with 30% fewer options! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    ...

  24. Re:Meet the new boss: by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 2

    It doesn't work for anyone properly, that was the point. If you have a featuer that is unreliable, it's not really much of a feature.

  25. Re: Meet the new boss: by mexsudo · · Score: 1

    the Mint version of Mate has the missing polish

  26. Re: Meet the new boss: by mexsudo · · Score: 0

    the Mint version of Mate has the missing polish.

  27. Gnome 3 is sluggish and slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sorry to say that but with every new version of Gnome 3 the Desktop is getting sluggisher and sluggisher.

    I compre here my experience of Fedora 18 vs Fedora 20.

    I know all these tasks in the background like tracker, pulseaudio, journald, packagekit make the system crawl but gnome-shell still feels slow.

    I also don't understand why the entire desktop gets grayed out and modal once I get a dialog where I only need to click cancel or ok. I't not possible to reach other features and other applications (time critic ones) once put into background. Stupid idea!

  28. Re: Meet the new boss: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cinnamon is indeed great, unfortunately GNOME has found a way to ruin the Cinnamon option by changing the GTK3 based apps into an unusable mess (yes, they changed the UI on the apps as well as the desktop).

  29. Re:Meet the new boss: by erice · · Score: 2

    Session Saving in gnome-terminal was as reliable as anything else in Gnome and highly useful. Where session saving was not reliable is that it didn't work for all apps. But removing the code from gnome-terminal doesn't help that cause. Gnome-shell still supports session-saving which means you it still saves state for Firefox and Thunderbird. (window location and size, mostly. Firefox has it's own session saving ability)

  30. Re: Meet the new boss: by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    I started with MATE but it had a lot of rough edges, and unfortunately the devs kept talking about "innovation" which I don't want on my desktop... so I switched to XFCE. Cinnamon may o r may not be better.

  31. Excessive Hard Drive searches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does this release include the "search my hard drive every time I try to open an app" feature? I'm sure the people with SSD drives think it's great but it sucks on magnetic drives whenever you want to open a program you have to click on a search bar and the machine slows to a crawl while it searches the hard drive while you type in the program name

  32. i know ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    beta or not:
    gnome 3 is like portal 2 on steroids but without the white portal panels : }

  33. Re:Meet the new boss: by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yes, so basically we need to figure out from teh toolkit level how to make this happen and drive a standard so that any app that uses a toolkit will automatically figure out how to save all that so then session saving then works for all apps except maybe those old apps from the 90s.

  34. Are We That Resistant to Change? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At first I had major issues with Gnome 3, but I kept an open mind. After a little while, I became more productive with it than with a traditional desktop UI. My favorite thing is that I don't have to point and click anywhere near as much as I did before. I can do almost anything with my keyboard.

    1. Re:Are We That Resistant to Change? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you could do that in a traditional desktop as well, you were just never forced to learn that ability

      for instance I can operate windows 7 without a mouse even attached to a computer just as easily as using a mouse, instead of a bunch of clicks its a bunch of clicks on a keyboard.

      so thanks for your input, please come back when you know how to operate a computer.

    2. Re:Are We That Resistant to Change? by InfiniteLoopCounter · · Score: 1

      Wow. I was scrolling down to find a positive comment for the new GNOME release. Well done and hats off to you sir.

      For me I'll be keep using GNOME 2 until something usable replaces it, checking GNOME release thread for signs that the devs might go back to producing a high quality and functional DE.

    3. Re:Are We That Resistant to Change? by Roxoff · · Score: 2

      No. We aren't resistant to change. We're resistant to unusable desktop environments.

      --
      "Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
    4. Re:Are We That Resistant to Change? by Redenlord · · Score: 1

      That is exactly what I think.

      Yes Gnome 3 is different from the good old Windows 95 paradigm. But like tablets and phone, it's just more intuitive. I installed Linux for my parents because they are real computer noobs that have big problems at understanding anything related to computer. And yes gnome changed it all, it's REALLY simpler to use.

      I use it too for myself, yes it's much more fun to use on a laptop because yes it's easier to use with a keyboard only that the old systems.

      I won't say it's perfect, there is a lot of small details that I would change, but I really think that the real problem is that people are resistant to change and never gives a real try. I agree it's hard at first...

    5. RE:Are We That Resistant to Change? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not resistant to change, I changed from Gnome 2 to Cinnamon. I have lost a few things that I liked about Gnome 2. There are some plugins that replace functionality, but I find them to be poor in quality, and often times do not work. I can replace those missing things with command line tools, so whatever. I also feel like the Gnome developers have given us some very polished and first class libraries. I choose to not use Gnome 3 because it is a steaming pile of shit.

  35. Gah-Nome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I watched the video. She says it as "Gah-nome". I always pronounced it Gnome (that is, nome). I had to replay it several times to get past the Gah! There are other reasons why I worry about them breaking the traditional desktop experience, but if the Gnome group don't ruin the desktop for the user, there is always Ubuntu. So long as my USB mouse works after booting up, and I get rid of the 13 and counting error message popups when I first start X, I will be happy.

  36. Re: Meet the new boss: by awshidahak · · Score: 1

    Use Cinnamon with MATE apps like I do. It's a great experience.

  37. Re: Meet the new boss: by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

    Why is MATE in all capitals?

    It's not spelled that way in Uruguayan Spanish. Did they invent a witty backronym?

  38. cheddar plz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i like cheddar :)

  39. new poster here by rewindustry · · Score: 1

    thank you and the horse you rode in on for the most useful news i've had here in a while.

    gnome is driving me nuttier than i thought i could get at the moment, but am sticking with it, is better than nothing.

    which about sums up the alternatives, when they're not trying to be everything.

    -- dear linus, who is git, and to what is he objecting? --

    1. Re:new poster here by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Hopefully, you will like this new release better.

  40. Re: Meet the new boss: by sjames · · Score: 0

    I just tried xfce4 on Debian and it took me about 5 minutes to make it look nearly identical to my old Gnome2 desktop.

    That will work for me :-)

  41. Re:Meet the new boss: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It doesn't work for anyone properly

    Except for KDE, which has been doing it successfully for a very long time now.

  42. Is it usable yet? by Roxoff · · Score: 1

    No? Didn't think so... Here's looking forward to Gnome 4. I'll give this one a miss.

    --
    "Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
    1. Re:Is it usable yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Give it up already. Gnome is a as dead as the dodo. The idiots who code it just haven't realised it yet.

      Actually this is probably a good thing because it keeps them safely penned in "working" on this complete crap instead of having them trying to infect other usable software projects with their "we know best, namby, pamby idiot craptitude".

      Windows 3.1 is an improvement on Gnome.

  43. terrific! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    terrific! That's so wonderful~

  44. Virgin submitter by Unleashed-TMY · · Score: 0

    I too have been here a long time.

    Not as long as you Sri but longer than inode_buddha.

    rgds

  45. Do we really need to keep greenlighting this shit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is it that every single time GNOME has a new version, it gets greenlit on /.? It's certainly not news; there are plenty of other desktop managers, GNOME's not even really the leader anymore, and this seems like it was a relatively minor release anyway. It's definitely not the discussion because the same three posts with minor variations are in every single article about the damn thing (it's a mess, it's not a mess, [thing] sucks more). I guess it might be news for a subset of a subset of nerds, but I don't really think it matters that much. Are we going to start posting stories about every single release of 7zip, too? Or Chrome?

  46. Requires systemd by nctritech · · Score: 0

    It requires systemd, ergo I could care less.

  47. I stopped using Gnome a LONG time ago... by DrStoooopid · · Score: 1

    I tried Cinnamon for a bit, and then finally settled on MATE. Gnome is irrelevant, and KDE I haven't used since 4.0

    --
    There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
  48. Re: Meet the new boss: by aestrivex · · Score: 1

    Cinnamon is fine. There is nothing wrong with cinnamon. It's a good desktop. If you want to use cinnamon you'll find that its a good desktop.

    My preference is MATE because it's the desktop I have been using for the last 10 years. For this reason, within fifteen seconds of seeing MATE I realized I'd never use a different desktop in my life. But if you want to use cinnamon, nothing is stopping you, and its pretty easy to decide to switch later.

  49. Re: Meet the new boss: by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Razor-qt

  50. Re: Meet the new boss: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What?? Gnome Shell is the best UI for task switching easily. Single task phone UI? Ridiculous.

  51. Re: Meet the new boss: by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    no but as alternative to GNOME they capitalize it. so you only need to find out why GNOME is capitalized 8D