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GNOME 3 Winning Back Users
Mcusanelli writes: GNOME 3, the open source desktop environment for Linux systems that once earned a lot of ire, is receiving newfound praise for the maturity of GNOME Shell and other improvements. The recent release of version 3.14 capped off a series of updates that have gone a long way toward resolving users' problems and addressing complaints. One of the big pieces was the addition of "Classic mode" in 3.8, which got it into RHEL 7, and Debian is switching back as well.
Personally I still like KDE's way of thinking about things, that you are far better off creating multiple workspaces all based on a common desktop environment that suit different types of hardware (Desktop, Netbook and future touch interfaces) rather than creating a monolithic interface that tries to bridge across all types of hardware it might be used on.
In any case anything is better than Unity and they both beat the rubbish Windows 8 interface.
Gnome's reduction of customizability began in the early millennium when it partnered with some large companies who had carried out formal UI studies and found that for the vast majority of users, options only confuse them. Yes, power users like being able to tweak everything, but there are already a number of *nix graphical interfaces for nerds, and why shouldn't ordinary people get a desktop for them too? Furthermore, a niche that GNOME was chasing was the corporate desktop, where system administrators would decide how everything would work, not end users (this goal also led to the use of gconf to hold settings and allow one to roll them out en masse).
There really is no need to use Gnome (or KDE) on Debian. I have used it with fvwm for more than a decade now, no problems. This is not Windows, you know, where you are tied to whatever broken Window-Manager the manufacturer forces you to use.
As to Debian, itself, I fear this might just be more bad strategic technical decisions that follow from the systemd disaster.The current Debian technical committee has its head up its backside. No, I do not think they have been bought, but I do think they have been successfully manipulated from the outside. Fortunately, my Linux desktop will look&feel just the same on Gentoo, when systemd-free Debian eventually will run out of support.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
In this age of widescreen LCDs, the vertical space is limited. Yet, Gnome seems to be wasting it with not just one, but two horizontal panels. Wouldn't it make more sense to make them vertical?
And due to this myopia, I will never subject myself to Gnome's abuse again. "But I love you, baby! I'd never hurt you!" says the Gnome dev team. They'll never learn.