What's New In GNOME 3.18

prisoninmate writes: In this release, GNOME improves the general user experience for users and new developers alike. GNOME 3.18 adds a feature called "Automatic Brightness," which, when enabled, it will make use of your laptop's light sensor to dim or increase the screen's brightness depending on the surrounding lighting. GNOME 3.18 also improves the touch screen experience, especially when selecting and modifying text, implements a new view in the Nautilus (Files) sidebar, which collects all the remote and internal locations in a single place.

Comments

Re:GNOME 3.x worsens the general user experience

[itamihn]

GNOME 3.x sent me to KDE, even though I eventually settled in Cinnamon.

SystemD

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it still require that awful SystemD OS to be installed in order to run?

Re:SystemD

[Anonymous Coward]

Eunuchswear or Barsteward or whatever your actual name is (Lennart?), GNOME 3's close ties to systemd are a real concern for many users.

It's not, as you incorrectly put it, "trolling" when somebody raises this concern.

Systemd has some fundamental problems with its architecture, such as its use of binary logging and how it has subsumed so much unrelated functionality. It has also caused many problems for many users, including computers that don't boot fully, which is among the worst possible software problems.

We don't need to rehash all of the problems affecting systemd. You're well aware of them, from all of your past attempts at denying that these very real problems exist.

Systemd is not a viable option for a great many Linux users, and all users of other UNIX-like systems (such as the BSDs). Many Linux users can't use it because of reliability concerns, and the others can't use it because systemd's portability is zilch.

So when GNOME 3 depends on systemd, it makes GNOME 3 unusable for a great many people. These aren't just any people, too. They're the most talented, valuable and intelligent users. They're the ones who can contribute the most to GNOME and its community.

The GNOME project only hurts itself by excluding the best possible users, especially when it does so thanks to unnecessary ties to unnecessary and unwanted software like systemd.

Re:Ah, no lessons learned from Windows 8

[theguyfromsaturn]

I use Gnome on a Desktop exclusively. I haven't tried 3.18, but in general, GNOME 3 made my desktop experience more enjoyable. In particular, dynamic virtual desktop allocation, mouse swipe the the corner to reveal the dash etc, are actually very productivity enhancing for me. I don't know how good the interface would be on a tablet, but to me, it is definitely a superior desktop paradigm for the desktop. Gnome shell applets and various settings can be tweaked to improve on the overall experience (like a mounted volume indicator on the task bar etc.). The only issue I have with Gnome, is that Gnome Tweaks should not be an optional additional application to install, but should be integrated in the default settings of Gnome. Personally, I wouldn't go back to the antiquated hierarchical menu, as my apps are much easier to find now (this I think is definitely more oriented towards the desktop, as typing in search terms in a touch screen sucks).