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GNOME 3.20 Officially Released (softpedia.com)
prisoninmate writes: After yet another six months of hard work, the highly anticipated GNOME 3.20 desktop environment for GNU/Linux operating systems has been officially released on March 23, 2016. Release highlights include support for operating system upgrades via GNOME Software, middle-click paste, kinetic scrolling, drag-and-drop support for Wayland, keyboard shortcuts and gestures overlay for most of the core apps, XDG-Apps technology for installing multiple versions of an app, and much more goodies.
Is it as good as Gnome 2 yet?
I wonder, have they discovered in gnome 3.x that real people need to open real applications on the same screen?
I've watched the video that's on the announcement page. I'm glad I did, because in under 2 minutes it convincingly made me think that GNOME 3 is total shit and not worth my time.
Why the fuck does a desktop environment that's typically used on actual desktops and laptops without any touch capabilities, and probably never used on tablets or devices with touch capabilities, have a touch-oriented UI?! It's just plain dumb!
And why the fuck is there so much empty space all over the place?! I bought a 28" monitor so that it could be filled with useful content, not just empty gray areas with nothing in them!
And why the fuck are hamburger menus used all over the place?! They're so fucking disorganized and unintuitive. Yeah, I know Chrome has one, but it's shit, too!
I'm so glad I moved away from Linux. It has clearly gone to hell, even worse than it had when I had left it, and it's not getting any better. If anything, I think it has gotten a fuck of a lot worse!
I see the video @ 0:58 mentions "Keyboard Shortcuts"
https://youtu.be/JU2f_jkPRq4?t...
While Keyboard Shortcuts is making great strides at being more use accessible it still doesn't hold a candle to how WebStorm handles shortcuts. Namely, what makes Webstorm great is that you can *search* ALL of the UI for hotkeys / shortcuts and it shows ALL the menu locations for partial matches.
* https://youtu.be/PNZJox8pkls
* https://www.jetbrains.com/img/...
MATE and Cinnamon
dafuq
I've been happily using ubuntu 10.04 for almost 6 years now, even after the long-term support ran out. I just discovered that mate is now an official ubuntu flavor, and will be switching in a month when 16.04 is officially released. I'm glad that the gnome-3 folks are having so much fun with their toy desktop, but I really hope it dies a quiet death before I need to upgrade again in another 5-10 years.
Wait, you're supposed to pronounce the leading G?
I don't know why I'm surprised. It sounds like something a bunch of FUH-AGGITS would do.
Dafuq ?
Like it or not and all sarcasms aside. Their desktop vision is really coming together. They have a unified vision and they are implementing it. Each release fixes inconcistencies and glitches. With a few extensions, it is now fully usable and comparable to any other Environments. Just compare it to 3.10 and see how much ground they've covered.
No regret. No coming back. Linux is for server-side through SSH only.
This is a fork of Mate, right?
I wonder, have they discovered in gnome 3.x that real people need to open real applications on the same screen?
Or on multiple screens, for that matter.
Or run the desktop environment in a window on a bigger screen (e.g. a VM).
Relying on pointing devices not going past the edge of the screen takes a certain kind of talent.
I wonder, have they discovered in gnome 3.x that real people need to open real applications on the same screen?
Or on multiple screens, for that matter.
Or run the desktop environment in a window on a bigger screen (e.g. a VM).
Relying on pointing devices not going past the edge of the screen takes a certain kind of talent.
You could always press the Super key as an alternative to the hot corner. Or you could install one of the many extensions https://extensions.gnome.org/ that gives you an alternative way to launch applications. Neither of these things would take as much time out of your day as your slightly odd /. post.
Why should the lack of corners on your virtual machine prevent me from having access to useful features?
Aren't those extensions the things they promised would be going away in a later release?
I notice you didn't answer whether more than one window can be running at once, so I'm going to guess that means only if you add some other addons....which are likely not to work with the next release.
FWIW, I was just browsing to see if Gnome was again worth installing. Your post did not encourage me, but maybe some other will.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Aren't those extensions the things they promised would be going away in a later release?
I notice you didn't answer whether more than one window can be running at once, so I'm going to guess that means only if you add some other addons....which are likely not to work with the next release.
FWIW, I was just browsing to see if Gnome was again worth installing. Your post did not encourage me, but maybe some other will.
I really don't understand what you mean. I have multiple windows open all the time. Window management in Gnome is pretty good, IMV.
I tried Gnome 3 on my MacBook about 6 months ago. I instantly loved it and it's now my preferred desktop.
Wait..."Guh-Nome"? Is that how it's really pronounced??
I've always pronounced it "gnome", as in "garden gnome", or like "Nome, Alaska".
Is it really supposed to be pronounced "guh-nome"??
And Gnome has keyboard shortcuts for "some" of the apps? Will these miraculous wonders never cease?
With groundbreaking innovation like this it's like living in 1998 all over again. I mean, keyboard shortcuts, wow. MIND BLOWN!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Being a former KDE user - abandoned after they went to the Windows 10 look alike - POS! I looked at gnome, Mate and Cinnamon. I went with Cinnamon - I like it - it's light weight and works really nice - and NOT a Windows 10 look alike!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
...i've grown to kinda like Gnome 3.
It is far from perfect, sure - the configuration settings are still dumbed down beyond belief and some default UI choices (like the automatic window snapping on screen edges) are hard to justify. But it is a good looking, very easy to use DM which also happens to be consistent when used on touchscreen devices, something the rest of the Linux world somehow still struggles with.
I try other DMs from time to time and always end up coming back. The only real contender Gnome 3 has is XFCE, which is what Gnome 2 should've always been in the first place.
One thing I've always wanted is the ability to open a context menu, select an item, and keep the bloody menu open.
Does any OS/WM do this? RISC OS used to (with the right mouse button) but I've never seen it anywhere else.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So how is this different from middle-click paste that has been working under X for decades?
I really don't understand what you mean. I have multiple windows open all the time.
Say you want three different gnome-terminals. Not one parent and two children, but three separate ones, so if one dies, it doesn't take the others with it.
Or say you want to open a single document in two windows, so you can scroll to separate parts and compare them, or make different changes to the two copies before saving them separately.
Gnome 3 makes stuff like this really hard to achieve.
if you want to use last decade's desktop. Why not put everything behind Plasma? If you want to attract computer users then you will need a modern desktop. If you go for the Linux desktop, you will only attract Linux users. It's all about where you want your OS to go.
I do actually use GNOME3 (with a dozen extensions to make it usable) and it seems like every update includes some sort of baffling UI regression. Last time they decided to hide the file copy progress dialogue, I wonder what they did this time.
Also, have they fixed the impossibility of running Gnome Desktop on multiple machines with an NFS-mounted home directory? Last time I tried that, all preferences (the gconf database) got hopelessly scrambled if you changed anything.
Look at all that unused space.. That window could be 1/3rd the size and still communicate effectively and aesthetically.
I really don't understand what you mean. I have multiple windows open all the time.
Say you want three different gnome-terminals. Not one parent and two children, but three separate ones, so if one dies, it doesn't take the others with it.
Or say you want to open a single document in two windows, so you can scroll to separate parts and compare them, or make different changes to the two copies before saving them separately.
Gnome 3 makes stuff like this really hard to achieve.
I'm still really confused. I've never noticed the problem you described before, so I flipped open my Gnome 3 laptop to check. I found four separate ways to open a new (different) terminal window within a few seconds. I have multiple terminal windows neatly tiled across my desktop in the way you describe. To be fair, though, I have never known Gnome Terminal to crash, so I have no way of testing whether one window failing would bring the others to an ignominious end.
Only one of those four ways needed more than two mouse clicks. How was that really hard to achieve?
Bugger.
What does that jetbrains image have anything to do with the rest of your post? (For those of use who don't want to go to youtu.)
KDE already has that feature for ages now.
Just go to "system settings" > "shortcut and gestures" > "standard keyboard shortcuts"
I still use X over ssh with gnome 3.18 daily without issue, as I have been with every previous version of gnome shell. What issues are you having?
Try doing an xkill and click one window. Unless things have changed, boom, all of them go. Not good.
Or you use one of the terminals to log in to a remote system, which needs CTRL-H for backspace instead of DEL for backspace. So you change that, and lo and behold, it changes it for all windows, unless you create a whole new profile first (and delete it afterwards if you don't need it).
Similar for color schemes and much else.
There are security implications too (connecting from multiple gnome-terminals to multiple servers give each destination a venue to attack not just the client machine but the other servers).
Or try entering "gedit .bashrc" from two different terminals (or run prompts). Where's the second window?
You mean like vtwm, which got it right more than 20 years and still works beautifully?
(oops - my answer is correct, but my quote isn't. For which I blame Gnome's crappy copy/paste that sometimes disregards what is marked and pastes older stuff from the copy buffer instead.)
They managed to get GNOME to be just as great as the Windows 10 UI! I'm sure everyone loves the 7" tablet look&feel on their large desktop monitors!
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
They actually have an issue with that? Once upon a time all my systems mounted the same /home/armanox from a central location, so that everything was the same on all desktops in the house.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Never heard of gnome-shell extensions going away; is it possible you are confusing with Firefox addons, that will be replaced with chrome-like extensions? Breaking when a new gs version is out, quite common, as soon as 3.20 hits arch linux stable I'll probably start issuing pull requests to my favourites extensions as usual. But going away, I seriously hope not.
Oh, You mean the exact way that Emacs have been doing this for the past one billion years?
I am 39 years old now and I've tried multiple different distributions. I feel I'm still not old enough to not learn new ways of working, mastering vim was 100 times harder than any distro change. Many of the users on Youtube trying to review Gnome 3 seem to compare it to their current ways of working (Microsoft Windows and its UI clones). Many of the reviewers try to modify Gnome 3 with extensions because they like the mouse-only experience so much.
I've tried hard to find something bad to say about Gnome 3. It has been bad: memory leaks, slow rendering, driver bugs etc. Now it seems polished and offers all the features a power user needs. I have multiple "instances" of the same application open at the same time: having the real expo shows instantly the correct applications I need to switch to (particularly terminals). Gnome 3 has some keyboard shortcuts many are not aware of (including alt+esc) and works best in combination with keyboard and mouse (and particularly with keyboard only).
Each distribution has its own problems. Mate is very bad at the rendering side: the fonts look ugly on big screen and the terminal has some vertical gaps (Ubuntu Mate 15.10) (the "pipe" characters are not vertically connected, look horrible with tmux). I've tried Mate with Nvidia and AMD drivers and can get either sync working or random terminal cursor blinking to work, not both. The rendering seems to be somewhat "glitchy", unlike Gnome 3 (always works correctly).
Mint/Cinnamon is not an option for me as my HW doesn't work with old kernels (and no, I'm not going to run strange kernels). After Gnome/Mint/Mate there are not that many distributions for me and I've not seen a valid reason to switch from Gnome 3 to something else.
I still use X over ssh with gnome 3.18 daily without issue, as I have been with every previous version of gnome shell. What issues are you having?
Try doing an xkill and click one window. Unless things have changed, boom, all of them go. Not good.
Or you use one of the terminals to log in to a remote system, which needs CTRL-H for backspace instead of DEL for backspace. So you change that, and lo and behold, it changes it for all windows, unless you create a whole new profile first (and delete it afterwards if you don't need it).
Similar for color schemes and much else.
There are security implications too (connecting from multiple gnome-terminals to multiple servers give each destination a venue to attack not just the client machine but the other servers).
Or try entering "gedit .bashrc" from two different terminals (or run prompts). Where's the second window?
None of what you say is remotely relevant to me. I suspect it's also completely irrelevant to 99.9% of other computer users.
However, minorities are important. That's why you have alternatives in Linux. If Gnome 3 doesn't work for you, don't use it. But there's no need to bad-mouth it for the vast majority who have no need for your specialist use cases. Suggesting that something is bad because it doesn't work for you has a horrible way of making you look a little self-centred.
> here's no need to bad-mouth it for the vast majority who have no need for your specialist use cases.
Those are hardly specialist use cases.
> If Gnome 3 doesn't work for you, don't use it.
Fair enough, although many of us have been Gnome users since the 1990's and had come to rely on it as our primary desktop.
I think there is still value in us trying to point out to the Gnome developers that they once had (by far imho) the best desktop system available for Linux, but that its current incarnation verges on being unusable for the vast majority of what was their user base.
I was a Gnome user for probably about 15 years, but I now just use a lightweight WM + dock. Not out of spite for the Gnome project, or due to having an irrational hissy-hit over the situation. It's simply because I grew weary of fighting the GUI at every turn, and installing a ton of flakey plugins just to get the functional desktop I once had.
Highly anticipated by all two remaining GNOME developers
Right.
In total, the release incorporates 28933 changes, made by approximately 837 contributors.
(from the release notes).
By virtue of their pig-headed approach to the desktop, the Gnome people (and the Unity and KDE guys, to a somewhat lesser extent) all but guarantee that Linux on the desktop will remain a nonentity in the global scale for the foreseeable future. And that's good, at least for me - I can do everything that I want or need under Linux in the desktop with other environments (XFCE, in my case) and I am reassured by the fact that bad guys won't try and exploit weaknesses in my particular desktop environment, focusing instead on the much bigger field of Windows, and even Mac. Thank you, Gnome. And Unity and KDE; keep up the good work by churning out desktop environments practically unusable in a desktop PC.
None of what you say is remotely relevant to me. I suspect it's also completely irrelevant to 99.9% of other computer users.
However, minorities are important. That's why you have alternatives in Linux. If Gnome 3 doesn't work for you, don't use it. But there's no need to bad-mouth it for the vast majority who have no need for your specialist use cases. Suggesting that something is bad because it doesn't work for you has a horrible way of making you look a little self-centred.
99.9% of flies eat shit.
You know nothing about what other users do or don't, which is why you had to ask. Don't presume to know that 99.9% of us don't do what you do.
This isn't new functionality I'm requesting; it's what used to be standard functionality that has been ripped out because of a new generation of developers who just don't give a levitating copulation about anything they themselves don't use, no matter how prevalent it may be among others. They grew up with the limitations of Windows, and don't see why others may want, use and rely on functionality that wasn't a Windows default, including (but not limited to) process separation, user-controlled z-order, non-local home directories, non-static home directories, app docks, mounts that won't give errors if a superuser tries to access them (gvfs breaking backups, anyone?), multiple monitors, multiple displays, remote fonts, different graphics capabilities when accessed remotely than locally, low bandwidth X, and a whole lot more.
When a previous version offered functionality, you have to be pretty darn certain that it's not being used by others who do not use the desktop like you do. Assuming something is not used because you don't know enough about it is foolish.
Then you are not relevant to me. Because all of what he said is highly relevant to me. And I can't even imagine anyone thinking it is not relevant to them. But that is my problem. More power to you. I won't belittle independent thought if you don't.
None of what you say is remotely relevant to me. I suspect it's also completely irrelevant to 99.9% of other computer users.
No it isn't.
However, minorities are important. That's why you have alternatives in Linux. If Gnome 3 doesn't work for you, don't use it.
I dumped a few years ago because it dumped all of the things that makes it useful to someone who needs to drive their productivity to a UI that is malleable. Not Windows, not MAC, a native, high performance Linux UI with all of the configurability a long time Linux user is used to.
I wondered if was time to re-visit Gnome 3 and I can see from your post that it isn't. Thank you for saving me the effort.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It turns out I was simply wrong but rather than admit it, "nobody actually needs this feature."
Class act, bro.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
We had a code base that was not flexible, what you are seeing albeit in slow motion is a code base evolving so that we can add more flexibility and more design and thought. So yes, we had to remove features and then we added them later. If we are guilty of anything it is probably that we don't communicate as well as we should.
In the end, we are proud of the body of work we have produced. A desktop with a distinct and unique character that isn't a derivative of somebody elses's desktop but something that stands on its own.
Try doing an xkill and click one window. Unless things have changed, boom, all of them go. Not good.
Right-click launcher, select "New Window."
New Terminal does what you describe while New Window gives you a separate process.
Or try entering "gedit .bashrc" from two different terminals (or run prompts). Where's the second window?
Same with gedit. To do it from the command line use gedit --new-window or gedit -s.
There are security implications too (connecting from multiple gnome-terminals to multiple servers give each destination a venue to attack not just the client machine but the other servers).
I have no idea what you mean by this.
OK, so we can disregard everything you say.
Woooooooooosh
Hahahaha hahahahhaha I hope you were joking? Pleaseeeeee tell me I missed the whoooosh. This is super comical.
aw, the remaining fanboi is butthurt.
You're so cute. :)
I would much prefer a derivative desktop that I enjoyed using than a desktop that stands on its own but I find frustrating.
Furthermore, in my opinion it isn't the lack of communication; it is putting a few "designers" preferences over what looks good over the function and workflow of users and former users. At this point I don't trust the GNOME leadership enough to even use classic. Thankfully I am enjoying Cinnamon and am finally back on Linux.
Thank you. I don't need to do those things very often, but I need to do them too often to need to change window managers before doing them.
So your answer to me is that for me Gnome3 isn't worth installing.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm assuming that you are a Gnome3 developer.
From my point of view Gnome3 is in every measurable way inferior to Gnome1 (well, the final version of Gnome1). I've got to assume you are using some different metric than anything I do.
OTOH, my opinion of Gnome3 is based on a version over a year old. I was just checking to see if it had improved to the point where I should try it again. Answers that others have given have clearly indicated that the flaws that caused me to remove it have not been addressed, so I'm guessing that you don't consider them flaws. This, however, does not change *my* evaluation of them.
P.S.: There are even features I don't currently use that I consider the absence of to be a flaw. I don't want to need to change my window manager every time I change my hardware setup or work-flow...so lack of flexibility is a flaw, even if flexing in a particular direction is not currently used. I do understand that flexible software is more verbose and often trickier to create. This doesn't, however, directly effect my evaluation of it against competitors, especially when the competitor is an earlier version of the same software. Presumably the newer versions have some desirable features that are just invisible to me. My normal use case is most ideally served by a window manager with features in between those of Gnome2 and KDE3, though I must admit that I've now gotten used to KDE4. And also that a large part of the usability has to do the the interaction of third party software within the environment of the window manager. (An actual re-implementation of KDE3 within the context of current software did not work well.) Still, the basic functionality needs to be present, or the manager is not suitable.
FWIW, I'm rather certain that Gnome1 was acceptable as I run a virtual machine to handle old software that won't work on a Linux 2.4 system, and it runs Gnome1. That's also why I'm certain that it was superior, for my use case, to Gnome3.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There are dozens of GNOME haters - but in reality there are many people who do like the new GNOME.
I've tested several desktop environmens and GNOME 3 is by far my favourite.
The only problem I have with it is that it does not work well over network - x2go and similar have problems with it.
Most of the quirks can be dealt with extensions and tweaks.
No. When Gnome 3 first came out a lot of the features that had been removed were made available as add-ons. It was announced that in a future versions those add-ons would be obsoleted. I don't remember the name used, so I'm assuming without much certainty that the extensions being referred to are the same items.
FWIW, it is my practice to generally avoid such non-standard extensions/add-ons/tool-kits as I usually find that at some point they stop working for some reason. In the case of FireFox the only option I use is an ad-blocker, and that only because it's otherwise such a hassle to manage javascript, and so many sites have decided to depend on it. The ad-blocker gives me a finer grained control over which javascript I will allow. (Flash I avoid by not installing it.)
If a window manager is dependent for external tools to be usable, then it is not suitable. The external tools WILL break. Either because the update cycles become unaligned or because the API breaks them (sometimes by accident, sometimes intentionally).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I wonder, have they discovered in gnome 3.x that real people need to open real applications on the same screen?
Or on multiple screens, for that matter.
Or run the desktop environment in a window on a bigger screen (e.g. a VM).
Relying on pointing devices not going past the edge of the screen takes a certain kind of talent.
You could always press the Super key as an alternative to the hot corner. Or you could install one of the many extensions https://extensions.gnome.org/ that gives you an alternative way to launch applications. Neither of these things would take as much time out of your day as your slightly odd /. post.
Why should the lack of corners on your virtual machine prevent me from having access to useful features?
One of the best extensions is taskBar
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
No, you’re the cute one. :)
Then you are probably referring to gnome 3 classic mode, which was a kind of gnome 2-looking optional start-up mode for those using software rendering. It is indeed gone, and replaced with a set of extensions that simulates its look&feel. As per extensions, they were introduced to stay: gnome shell was launched with like 10 extensions, and now hundreds are there, hosted on extensions.gnome.org. For something temporary they wouldn't have bothered setting up an hosting website to begin with. As per not wanting to rely on extensions because they break, as an extension maintainer I cannot tell you are wrong. They do, and sometimes is a PITA to fix them, but I'm still glad they are there.
The list of key changes:
Improved support for the Wayland display server
Updated core apps, including Photos, Maps and Polari
New ‘Shortcut Windows’ feature
Media control widget available in Clock shade
Software adds support for reading/leaving reviews
Greater control over which apps can access Location data
Default Cantarell font has been refined
New Mouse & Touchpad settings pane
Dconf-editor has been revamped
OSD for keyboard connectivity toggling
Audio device prompt