GNOME 3.22 Desktop Environment Officially Released (softpedia.com)

Reader prisoninmate writes: Today, September 21, is a big day for Linux users, especially those who love the GNOME desktop environment, as the next major release is now officially available. Yes, that's right, we're talking about GNOME 3.22, dubbed Karlsruhe after the German host city of the annual GUADEC (GNOME Users And Developers European Conference) event, which took place last month between August 12-14, 2016. Prominent features of the GNOME 3.22 desktop environment include batch rename functionality and support for integration of compressed files built directly into the Nautilus file manager, a new Week View, support for alarms, and the ability to drag and drop events to the GNOME Calendar, as well as an updated GNOME Music app that supports handling of music libraries with thousands of tracks. There are lots of improvements for the GNOME Games app as well, as it now offers support for numerous retro gaming consoles. Among other improvements, we can mention Flatpak integration, photo sharing, revamped GNOME Software app with support for firmware updates, redesigned keyboard settings and a brand new GNOME Control Center panel, and a redesigned dconf Editor. A video overview of the new features of GNOME 3.22 is available on the official website.

Comments

Nautilus

[flyingfsck]

Wot? They added features to Nautilus? That is unpossible.

Re:Nautilus

[kat_skan]

They had to. They were running out of things to remove.

Re:Nautilus

[dmbasso]

If only they could restore the type-ahead functionality they removed in 3.6, I would be satisfied. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubu...

Re:Nautilus

[Anonymous Coward]

The developers who added features should be sacked! Don't they know that's not how Gnome rolls?

Re:Nautilus

[afranke]

It's been replaced by search and after a few rough releases it got to a fast and working state. Have you tried GNOME 3.20 or later? If you still have things you used to be able to do that you can't anymore, please report them to developers instead of a rant on a random website such as slashdot.

Re:Nautilus

[afranke]

Don't worry, we're hunting them down. This will not stand.

Re:Nautilus

[paulatz]

The problem is, they don't know who's the culprit! They dropped version control years ago, because it was confusing, and now they all just work on the same source three in a shared folder.

Re:Nautilus

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still unusable slow on network mounts, where typeahead is really fast.

And that is in the bugreports.

Re:Nautilus

[Anonymous Coward]

These search-while-you-type tools are the bane of my existence.

A computer should never, EVER interrupt me while I'm typing, or fail to keep up with my keystrokes!

I can type about 90 words a minute, which means my keystrokes are separated by at least 100ms, which is a VAST amount of time to a CPU that runs billions of instructions per second. It's a disgrace that my modern PC can't keep up with my typing as well as a 486 clone from 1995 (or a Mac from 1984!).

Maybe if they just added a delay to let me finish typing before starting to search, that would be enough.

Re:Nautilus

[dmbasso]

I wanted to upgrade my system* before I replied to you... I was using 3.18, now I've upgraded to 3.22: search still sucks. Before 3.6 it worked perfectly like I wanted, it emulated my terminal use case - I know there is a a folder named "stuff", so I type "cd s[tab][enter]" and there it, in less than half a second I'm there. With older nautilus I just typed "s[enter]" and there I was, same speed. But not anymore.

And I *did* report to the developers, like the hundreds of others who were sufficiently annoyed to voice their dissatisfaction. We were ignored. Now I rant on random websites, where people make a lot of assumptions about what others did or didn't.

* And now I'm back to fix all the gnome-shell extensions that stopped working, oh joy.

Re:Nautilus

[dmbasso]

Update: I couldn't fix the shell extensions, so I gave up on Gnome (the alt+tab behavior was a deal-breaker) . I tried Cinnamon for the first time, and I was able to configure it just the way I need it. And Nemo has my beloved type-ahead, it is perfect! I guess I have to thank you, I was not planning on upgrading Gnome before your suggestion. :D

Re:Nautilus

[afranke]

Happy that you find something to suits your needs!

People still use Gnome?

[SumDog]

When I first saw Gnome 3 I thought it was a great time to try tiling window managers. Four years later, I'm still using i3.

I've slowly watched the GTK3 toolkit get more and more horrible.

Who's funding Gnome today anyway?

Re:People still use Gnome?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first saw Gnome 3 I thought it was a great time to try tiling window managers. Four years later, I'm still using i3.

I've slowly watched the GTK3 toolkit get more and more horrible.

Who's funding Gnome today anyway?

The whole thing requires systemd so I don't care about Gnome. I don't use PulseAudio either. KDE with desktop search disabled and much of the 3D effects turned off works for me. I'm satisfied with OpenRC and I won't put up with the hassle of switching my init system (+ associated tools) and the risk that something won't go smoothly just for the privilege of running a desktop environment which has no unique, "must-have" features.

Maybe the Gnome people find that trade-off worthwhile but I don't like being forced to run something in this manner. The example of ... just about every other window manager and DE proves that one can build a fine WM/DE without caring about the init system. It's an arbitrary decision the designers made. If you're already using systemd because its merits appeal to you, or it came with your distro and you don't care, then it's different for you, though you are still supporting the mentality that makes these kinds of decisions.

Re:People still use Gnome?

[mister_playboy]

Who's funding Gnome today anyway?

RedHat.

Even RedHat, however, doesn't use the default Gnome SHELL in RHEL. They run "Classic Mode" with a top and bottom panel that looks an awful lot like Gnome 2.

Re:People still use Gnome?

[afranke]

The answer to this question is available in the annual report.

Re:People still use Gnome?

[afranke]

The whole thing requires systemd so I don't care about Gnome. I don't use PulseAudio either. KDE with desktop search disabled and much of the 3D effects turned off works for me. I'm satisfied with OpenRC and I won't put up with the hassle of switching my init system (+ associated tools) and the risk that something won't go smoothly just for the privilege of running a desktop environment which has no unique, "must-have" features.

Good for you. It's alright that people choose to use something else than GNOME. The GNOME community won't get mad at you for that.

Maybe the Gnome people find that trade-off worthwhile but I don't like being forced to run something in this manner. The example of ... just about every other window manager and DE proves that one can build a fine WM/DE without caring about the init system. It's an arbitrary decision the designers made. If you're already using systemd because its merits appeal to you, or it came with your distro and you don't care, then it's different for you, though you are still supporting the mentality that makes these kinds of decisions.

It is not arbitrary. systemd provides features that the GNOME developers want to use. It is a conscious and well thought out design decision. It is ok for you to disagree with them, but it is also ok for them to disagree with you.

Re:People still use Gnome?

[Eunuchswear]

It is ok for you to disagree with them, but it is also ok for them to disagree with you.

Are you sure you're posting this to the right place?

Re:People still use Gnome?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same AC here.

Good for you. It's alright that people choose to use something else than GNOME. The GNOME community won't get mad at you for that.

If they do, I don't care. People who get upset over stupid shit beyond their control deserve the reduced quality of life that unnecessary stress causes. Though in fairness, I would not assume such a childish response from people I've never met - that's just plain tacky. In fact I can respect their work and their skills even if I don't like what they've chosen to do with it.

It is not arbitrary. systemd provides features that the GNOME developers want to use. It is a conscious and well thought out design decision. It is ok for you to disagree with them, but it is also ok for them to disagree with you.

That's the very definition of arbitrary. There were multiple approaches available (as implemented in just about every other WM/DE that offer the same basic functions) and they chose this one.

The basis of my disagreement is a bit more than a matter of taste. I run a Unix-like system because I want something that adheres to the Unix design philosophy. It's a sound design that has withstood the test of time, literally for several decades. Systemd does not even pretend to respect this design philosophy. Neither does a desktop environment that actually cares about the init system.

When a system starts enjoying a little popularity and an active user base, and responds to that by showing signs of abandoning the ideas on which it was founded, the ideas that made it great, well it's a sign that it's lost its way. Just like giving government a little more power in the name of security, it may seem like an expedient idea at the time, but over time a series of such decisions becomes a disaster. My decision to use Gentoo years ago (I like to customize), before anyone ever heard of systemd, has proven to be a refuge for me. For now.

Re: People still use Gnome?

[Anonymous Coward]

That shows the funding of the Gnome Foundation which from the small amounts is obvious doesn't pay for any of the development.

Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome, Unity and systemd prove that Windows isn't the only platform that tries to force deeply unpopular things onto its userbase.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

None of the aforementioned were forced on anybody. But actually, bringing them up shows how different the free software ecosystem is compared to Windows'. On Windows, you have to use unsupported software to avoid bad changes, like the spyware in Windows 10. If you preferred GNOME2 to Unity or GNOME3, you can use MATE; all the major distros support it. And if you don't like systemd, some distros still support the other inits, and Slackware and Gentoo still by default don't use it.

Free software is awesome because of the choice and liberty at your disposal.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey there buddy, I was expecting someone to trot out this old 'you can choose on Linux' argument.

Please answer the following questions:'

How many distros use Gnome or one of its mutant strains as the default DE?
How many distros use systemd?
What percentage of the Linux user world gets Gnome or system forced down their throat in the default, out of box loadout?
How many users of those distros change their DE away from Gnome or try to strip out the systemd cancer?

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Declining user base. I'm sure that when the Free user base has no choice, they'll choose gnome, until then redhat will push the ball of crap up hill. Sisyphus had it easy, I wouldn't want to be rolled over repeatedly by gnome.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

Hey there buddy, I was expecting someone to trot out this old 'you can choose on Linux' argument.

Please answer the following questions:'

How many distros use Gnome or one of its mutant strains as the default DE?

I dunno, there's too many distros to count.

How many distros use systemd?

See above.

What percentage of the Linux user world gets Gnome or system forced down their throat in the default, out of box loadout?

Couldn't tell you what percentage of Linux users use a distro with GNOME or systemd as the default, see above. But as to how many of them are being forced, zero. All of them can download Slackware or CRUX or Debian or an older still-supported version of other distros if they want to.

Really, I don't understand why you're so vehement about these two particular projects. I don't see you complaining about how the Linux kernel and the GNU coreutils and vi and X.org are tyrannical defaults and they're forced on you. They're even more prevalent than GNOME and systemd are. I guess the difference is there's no herd of sheep to follow in neverending complaints for those others like GNOME and systemd have.

How many users of those distros change their DE away from Gnome or try to strip out the systemd cancer?

See the above.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

How many distros use Gnome or one of its mutant strains as the default DE?
How many distros use systemd?
What percentage of the Linux user world gets Gnome or system forced down their throat in the default, out of box loadout?
How many users of those distros change their DE away from Gnome or try to strip out the systemd cancer?

Gentoo user here. One answer for all those questions: Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

People are complaining about Gnome and systemd because they suck and cause major frustration.

I guess you're just part of the never-ending herd of sheep that are brainwashed by Redhat into insulting people who have a beef with systemd.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[unixisc]

Most distros offer you a choice of DEs, which you can select during installation itself: if you choose an advanced installation, you can select which DEs you don't wanna install, and that includes Gnome. I would think most, if not all, Linux users had to install Linux over an existing Windows partition, and had that choice. If someone just went w/ the default and the default happened to be Gnome, one can't claim that it was forced on him. Myself a PC-BSD user, but when I first installed PC-BSD, I did it w/ KDE and LXDE; next time I install it, it would be w/ Lumina if it is TrueOS, and Razor-qt/LXQT if it is a Linux distro

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Think it's pretty obvious at this point that LichtSpektren works for Redhat. As well as the other consistent SystemD defenders on here.

Captcha: blinded

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

I don't care if you like or don't like GNOME or systemd. There's things I like about them and things I don't as well. If you want to boycott them, power to you. Do whatever it takes for you to get your work done.

What I take issue with are the people who smear free software by saying that anything was "forced" on them despite the fact that alternatives exist. What's the point of using free software if you're going to crawl into a fetal position and weep yourself to sleep whenever something you don't like is the default?

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

Firstly, if I'm shilling for anybody it's Ubuntu. Go through my posting history, whenever somebody asks for a Linux recommendation I've always said Ubuntu MATE.

But I'm not a shill for anybody. Just a promoter of free software. I don't care what DE or init you use. Just don't spread insane lies about FOSS while you're at it.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[SumDog]

I'm a Gentoo user too, but I do gave a damn. I can use Gentoo on my home desktop and my work laptop. It's great. But what about servers?

For a distro I want to use in a production environment, I don't have any real non-systemd choices. My best bet is to package everything in docker containers, so it's easy to redeploy them on anything.

Systemd does solve the full process management problem. That is a real problem. But it also does a bijallion other things it doesn't need to and a GUI/desktop layer certainly shouldn't depend on it.

So far Gentoo and Slackware are the only two major distros without it (Gentoo it's optional, as it should be in all Linux distros!).

It might not affect me or you, but it affects our decisions on what to use to deploy stuff on severs.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

Slackware's the most stable Linux distro I've ever used. Why don't you deploy that for your servers?

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he doesn't hate himself enough to use a distro with no real package manager ? Its 2016, bro. I don't want to deal with dependencies like its 1996. Slackware is for people with way too much time on their hands. Holy god, I cant even fathom having to edit all those text files in VI just to get Slack to recognize my printer like its 1985 or something.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

Slackware has a package manager: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what is your answer? No defaults anywhere? Arch and Gentoo for everyone? ( Haven't used Gentoo, but I love Arch).

I hate using KDE, doesn't make it bad, I just don't like it. How many distros "force" it on me?

If I am not "forced" to use systemd, wouldn't the alternative be to force me to use something else?

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

slapt-get does not resolve dependencies. It is not a true package manager in that respect. Dependency checking in Slackware is why no one uses Slackware.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Grishnakh]

Free software is awesome because of the choice and liberty at your disposal.

The problem is that people don't want choice and liberty, then want to spend $$$ on stuff from one of two giant, dominating corporations, and then bitch and complain when it's broken and doesn't work to their liking.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Camel Pilot]

But actually, bringing them up shows how different the free software ecosystem is compared to Windows'. On Windows, you have to use unsupported software to avoid bad changes, like the spyware in Windows 10. If you preferred GNOME2 to Unity or GNOME3, you can use MATE; all the major distros support it. And if you don't like systemd, some distros still support the other inits, and Slackware and Gentoo still by default don't use it.

Free software is awesome because of the choice and liberty at your disposal.

Yeah but there is something about consistency. Sure if you do your work on one computer and have the time to tweak and spin until you get it right OK. But if work on a multitude of computers and support even more it is a pain. I really wish Gnome stuck with the Gnome2 theme and polished it to shine. They missed a window of opportunity when MS released the bastardize Win8 Metro interface... unfortunately they both seem to coordinate GUI screwups.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Slashdot: a crock of shit for a decade, at least.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

It doesn't have automatic dependency resolution, but it does tell you what a package depends on and if you already have it installed, so it's just adding one additional step for the user.

The Slackware devs prefer it that way since they want to keep track of what they're installing.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation for the non-brainwashed -- a few masochists prefer having to scroll through a screen full of dependencies, and typing in god only knows how many commands to resolve them just to install one piece of software, hopefully without breaking a string of other dependencies related to another piece of software because Slackware is old school enough to let you manually break dependencies like its no big thing. And yeah, it will present you with a generally cryptic warning screen before you do but have fun with that. You have to hate life to deal with that nonsense today. It wasn't even fun back in 1995.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

I even wonder what % of modern Linux users today know anything about "dependencies" in Linux. If you got into Linux in the Ubuntu era its a fair bet you have no idea what it means to resolves dependencies and certainly not manually the old school way. Most Linux users today have certainly never compiled a package from source since most are definitely NOT Linux developers. You need to be seriously old school to remember the 90s when this stuff was an issue in daily use.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

You're doing Unix wrong. When slapt tells you what dependencies you need, pipe it into your next command, don't manually type everything in.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when, you know, the dependencies have dependencies and this doesn't work....

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Gentoo on my servers.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[snarfies]

Oh please, what's our alternative for systemd(icks)? We can switch to BSD, I guess, or Gentoo. That's about it at this point.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Hognoxious]

Go through my posting history

What, all four days of it?

You are Lennart Poetterring AICMFP.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Hylandr]

Those too could be solved. And yes, it was loverly when package management became robust.

Every Linux user should know how to install a Linux Kernel.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

The alternative is doing the work that you want to see. Gentoo, Devuan and Slackware are all commendable for responsibility over doing the work that needs to be done. You on the otherhand are bitching as an entitled software user.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

So much this. Software freedom is about people's freedom to step up, work and share, not just sit back, whine, boss others with selfish demands.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[grumbel5969]

None of the aforementioned were forced on anybody.

They were very definitely forced on people. When Ubuntu 11.10 came out they removed Gnome2 and replaced it with the completely different and incompatible Gnome3. MATE didn't exist yet. There was no simple way to downgrade again either. You were stuck with a system that got completely broken duo to the upgrade and it took years before MATE made it into Ubuntu.

As fucked up as the Windows10 upgrade was, at least that one I could roll back with a few clicks. Linux package manager on the other side aren't quite clever enough to allow a system wide downgrade. Windows also has the advantage of having really good backward/forward compatibility, so it's much easier to run an outdated Windows than it is to run an outdated Linux. And before somebody says "Use LTS", those have a whole heap of problems of their own and the lack of support for third-party apps in Linux means you are stuck with two year old software or a lot of manual fiddling.

As much as I like Free Software, that Ubuntu 11.10 upgrade was easily the worst upgrade experience I ever had on any OS and Free Software is extremely lacking when it comes to software longlifety.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

Slackware, Gentoo, Devuan, CRUX, the oldstable of CentOS or Debian (both still supported), Linux From Scratch, any of the minor or more obscure distros that are based on the aforementioned, etc.

I also point out that SysVinit-core is still supported on a lot of distros that use systemd by default, such as Debian.

Really, you haven't lost any choice. In actuality, now you have more choice and diversity! Before there was just SysVinit and BSD init, now there's those two plus systemd, upstart, and OpenRC. Plus somebody could port over launchd and smf in the future.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Eunuchswear]

People are complaining about Gnome and systemd because they suck and cause major frustration.

So use something else then?

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Eunuchswear]

Oh please, what's our alternative for systemd?

$ apt-cache show init
Package: init
Source: init-system-helpers
Version: 1.22
Essential: yes
Installed-Size: 29
Maintainer: pkg-systemd-maintainers <pkg-systemd-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Pre-Depends: systemd-sysv | sysvinit-core | upstart
Description-en: System-V-like init utilities - metapackage
  This package is an essential metapackage which allows you to select from
  three available init systems in Debian (systemd, sysvinit, upstart) while
  ensuring that one of these is available on the system at all times.

It says what the alternatives are right there:

systemd-sysv | sysvinit-core | upstart

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

When Ubuntu 11.10 came out they removed Gnome2 ... MATE didn't exist yet.

MATE was release in August 2011, before Ubuntu 11.10

As fucked up as the Windows10 upgrade was, at least that one I could roll back with a few clicks.
Two simple rollbacks for Linux:
Root partition backup/restore (takes a bit of time to rollback)
or
Dual root partitions, one with old release, one with new. Separate /home partition. (virtually instant rollback and forward simply by rebooting)

Both dead easy to do. Both guaranteed to work barring hardware failure (unlike the Win10 rollback which had a number of issues for a significant number of people where it left them with an unbootable system).

and Free Software is extremely lacking when it comes to software longlifety.

Ubuntu LTS now 5 years

RHEL/Centos 10 years.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Gentoo on my servers.

For me, Gentoo Hardened was my best choice for my Internet-facing server. The only other system I would consider for such a use case is OpenBSD.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[LichtSpektren]

They were very definitely forced on people. When Ubuntu 11.10 came out they removed Gnome2 and replaced it with the completely different and incompatible Gnome3. MATE didn't exist yet. There was no simple way to downgrade again either. You were stuck with a system that got completely broken duo to the upgrade and it took years before MATE made it into Ubuntu.

You *chose* to update away from the LTS, so claiming that it was *forced* on you is total insanity. It's like saying that french fries were forced on me because they came with the burger that I got for free at a charity event.

As fucked up as the Windows10 upgrade was, at least that one I could roll back with a few clicks.

Many peoples' computers got bricked in the process, and not all of them had prepared a recovery disk/drive.

And before somebody says "Use LTS", those have a whole heap of problems of their own and the lack of support for third-party apps in Linux means you are stuck with two year old software or a lot of manual fiddling.

Literally every third party program I've ever seen either supported ONLY the Ubuntu LTS, or every supported Ubuntu version. Also, two-year old software! Lord have mercy! If you need the bleeding edge software the second it comes out, maybe you'd be happier with Arch Linux than Ubuntu.

Your claims are completely ridiculous, honestly. I'm sorry you regretted your OS update, but smearing the people who did all of the work and gave it to you for free is not the right answer.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[lsatenstein]

I don't care if you like or don't like GNOME or systemd. There's things I like about them and things I don't as well. If you want to boycott them, power to you. Do whatever it takes for you to get your work done.

What I take issue with are the people who smear free software by saying that anything was "forced" on them despite the fact that alternatives exist. What's the point of using free software if you're going to crawl into a fetal position and weep yourself to sleep whenever something you don't like is the default?

I found some Gnome extensions (tweaks) to be the ice-cream on the apple pie. With the tweaks, I have tailored some of Gnome to my liking.
One that is outstanding is Taskbar by Zpydr. Its a true winner. Don't believe me, then try it for yourself.

Re:Keeping up with the Nadellas

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget PClinuxOS

Imagine

[phantomfive]

Imagine if they'd spent the last decade making Gnome better, refining it, finding the annoying details, instead of spinning in circles. It would be the best desktop out there right now.

Re:Imagine

[DNS-and-BIND]

That doesn't scratch the developer's itch, though. That sounds an awful lot like commercial software development. When open source developers do something, it's to scratch an itch that they're having. Force them to attend to the user's needs and they will desert your project immediately. Then you'll have no developers at all.

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

Hard to say. There are definitely open source projects that do that kind of thing (openBSD, for example, or git for another example). I'm inclined to think that it's more due to the quality of the developers doing the work, not something innate to open source.

Also, Gnome is commercial software development, it's funded by RedHat......that's why they have an open bug list a mile long.

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

not only the annoying details but the annoying bugs that have existed for decades (yes, even across major versions) that nobody seems to care about

Re:Imagine

[Thelasko]

Imagine if they'd spent the last decade making Gnome better, refining it, finding the annoying details, instead of spinning in circles. It would be the best desktop out there right now.

It would be the best desktop out there because they all spent the last decade spinning in circles. GNOME wasn't the only one.

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

Hey, hey.....Windowmaker has stayed the path, solid and true.

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, you might want to explain that to some commercial software companies (I'm looking at you, Autodesk).

Re:Imagine

[SEE]

As long as we're imagining, let's imagine if they'd spent the last two decades following through the original GNU plan to build a desktop on top of GNUStep, so our long-refined desktop environment sits on top of an API and object model source-compatible with macOS.

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside the BSD world most oss devs act like they have adhd

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

Yeah, that would have been great.

Re:Imagine

[afranke]

Yes, imagine. Imagine if people actually did some research before posting clueless comments about the bugs being fixed. Imagine if people looked at the global stats on the GNOME bugzilla instead of just ranting that their pet bug has been open for ten years. Imagine if people actually tried GNOME for a bit instead of just dismissing it because obviously it sucks. Imagine if slashdot didn't rate +5 Insightful comment that show no insight whatsoever. That would be good indeed.

Re:Imagine

[sad_]

If you want that, you can use MATE.

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

Look for yourself, there's a link Over a thousand bugs in Natilus alone, including a blocker that's been open since 2014. Crappy, corporate-like dev team that can't manage their way out of a paper box. Keeping a bug tracker like that. They should commit seppuku from shame.

Re:Imagine

[afranke]

Did you bother reading what I wrote? Follow the link you posted. You'll find a "Find all bugs marked as fixed since" box, enter something like "-365d". There are open bugs, but there are closed bugs too, and quite a lot of them. Your argument about not spending time making GNOME better and refining it is clueless.

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

There are open bugs,

Yeap. First sign of a crappy product is a bug list of open bugs that never end.
Of course they fix some bugs, like you mentioned. Even the worst devs in the world do that.

Re:Imagine

[afranke]

Ha ha ah. Okay.

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

I'll just assume you know a developer who disagrees with that statement, who thinks, "every project has a bug list that grows and grows."

Here are some resources to help your friend:
Jim Shore talks about how to manage the process aspects.
Kate Thompson talks about changes developers can make to get no bugs
And if you prefer blogs, there are blogs

Your friend needs to get his dev skills up to date.

Re:Imagine

[Zontar The Mindless]

Good sign of a product that no-one is using: No bug reports.

(And, yes, "We'll always have Window Maker.")

Re:Imagine

[phantomfive]

Bug reports are different......it's what gets done with the reports that determines the quality of the team. If you let the bugs pile up for years, you suck.

Bad name

[Grishnakh]

dubbed Karlsruhe after the German host city of the annual GUADEC (GNOME Users And Developers European Conference) event

Instead of Karlsruhe, they should name it "Pyongyang", as the GNOME team's mentality towards their users is far more similar to that country.

Re:Bad name

[unixisc]

Speaking of which, I wonder if Gnome is the default DE in Red Star Linux, North Korea's official distro?

Re:Bad name

[LichtSpektren]

It's KDE 3 that's mocked up to look like macOS. See: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

Re:Bad name

[unixisc]

Strange. If they wanted it to look like Mac OS, they should have based it on XFCE

Re:Bad name

[LichtSpektren]

If only the North Korean government's IT department had such an encyclopedic knowledge about Linux DEs, what a world we'd be living in!

Re:Bad name

[unixisc]

If we happened to be North Koreans

Re:Bad name

[Anonymous Coward]

synonyms: gnome3, asinine
antonyms: common sense

Re:Bad name

[Anonymous Coward]

In propaganda videos you mostly see Windows XP running in industrial plants, sometimes on large displays, there's also the great new Sci-Tech People's Palace or whatever it's called where you see a fuckton of seats that display nothing but Firefox, with a dark theme (system-wide?) that applies to the Australis toolbar and tabs.
They sell laptops and cheap all-in-one in stores. Not really of course, these are for the show. They must be at least a year's wage but if you have a lot of black/grey market income or you're a literal high-ranking person and get a permit, you might be able to afford one. I think these run Windows 7 and it can be expected on recent full size desktops.
Red Star desktop? nowhere to be seen. For all we know, Dear Leader might just be running OS X, likely with Firefox.
On live military exercises they bring LCD TVs that show shit blowing up etc., it could be any OS. They like VGA 1080p it seems. In "documentaries", they add the sound effects on post-production anyway. The propaganda is like effectively silent movies, but the loudest ones ever (and yes, still the same narrator you heard in the 90s in Clinton I's days)

Honestly it's not bad

[LichtSpektren]

I was a major GNOME hater when they transitioned to v.3 and I stuck with MATE. I just recently tried the beta for 3.22 though and honestly it's not so bad. The default configuration sucks though, you need to install a bunch of extensions and gnome-tweak-tool for it to be usable. But it looks very nice on a HiDPI screen, and I very much appreciate that the keyboard shortcuts to any GNOME app can be displayed with Ctrl+?. Also I didn't experience any crashes or bugs in my time of using it, so it seems pretty stable.

I just wish it was more lightweight like Xfce and MATE, and the defaults didn't require so much tweaking. But overall it's fairly good right now.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's not bad.. that means it is time for gnome 4 to be released.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[jwymanm]

I agree. I enjoy gnome on all of my desktop (arch/antergos) linux installations at work and at home. I can go weeks/months without needing to reboot and it is very keyboard friendly. Some of the extensions are awesome as well (dash to dock, shellshape, topicons plus, pixelsaver). I do agree it would be close to crappy without them but I do not believe that is really a bad thing since I have to customize other GUIs about the same if not more. I recently added that float youtube across workspace extension - actually pretty neat/useful. Dash to dock and pixelsaver should be default imo!

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[Grishnakh]

I just recently tried the beta for 3.22 though and honestly it's not so bad. The default configuration sucks though, you need to install a bunch of extensions and gnome-tweak-tool for it to be usable.

Exactly!

Similarly, after years of being a hater of Chevrolets, I just bought a new Cruze, and honestly it's not so bad. The default configuration sucks though, so I had to drop in a different engine, put in some new seats (which required some welding), transplant infotainment (nav/radio) system from another car, and to make that work I had to replace the whole dashboard. I also swapped out the ugly-ass wheels and put some new brakes on it while I was at it, and repainted it too because Chevy's available paint schemes were all horrible. But other than those minor modifications, it's not too bad a car!

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[HiThere]

Is that "Gnome tweak" tool the one they were promising to discontinue in a "future version" when they released Gnome3? Or is it a new version that they haven't yet promised that about?

Gnome3 is not yet as good as Gnome2. Kde4 is not yet as good as KDE3. The problem is that the main programs I use are the accessory programs, and they no longer work with the earlier versions.

That said, KDE4 is currently, to my taste, the best choice. It sure isn't Gnome. I sometimes try xfce or LXDE. I'm not sure I've even got Gnome installed, but if I do it's because it came boundled with geany or some such. (Or perhaps it was the original default desktop.)

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[LichtSpektren]

Yes, I see your point. But I've already accepted that many programs I rely on for my work (Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, KeePassX) need to be extensively configured, so I'd be inconsistent if I damned GNOME for it.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[geek]

I tried plasma 5 and it's just so bug ridden I can't use it as a daily driver. I liked gnome 3.20 on fedora but I started having issues with the system not recognizing my keyboard after waking from sleep. Ultimately I said fuck it, DE's on Linux are a fucking joke right now so I just use a windows 10 box and a bash prompt.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly your analogy is a pile of shit. The 'replacement parts' for Gnome are all free and take a maybe a few minutes to install and configure.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[steveha]

What I liked about GNOME 2.x, and still like about MATE today, is that out-of-the-box it works like I expect. I tweak a few things, but if I boot up from a USB drive with a live image, I'm still comfortable and I still get work done.

With GNOME 3.x all the defaults are alien and uncomfortable for me. Yeah, with enough work I could make it do what I want... there's a project for that and it's called Cinnamon.

I think that the GNOME 3.x developers made a lot of decisions, early on, without usability studies... and those decisions are baked in and hard to change now. If I'm wrong and there are usability studies, and the studies prove that GNOME 3.x tests very well with ordinary users, then I'd like to see those studies and read them for myself.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[lsatenstein]

I just recently tried the beta for 3.22 though and honestly it's not so bad. The default configuration sucks though, you need to install a bunch of extensions and gnome-tweak-tool for it to be usable.

Exactly!

Similarly, after years of being a hater of Chevrolets, I just bought a new Cruze, and honestly it's not so bad. The default configuration sucks though, so I had to drop in a different engine, put in some new seats (which required some welding), transplant infotainment (nav/radio) system from another car, and to make that work I had to replace the whole dashboard. I also swapped out the ugly-ass wheels and put some new brakes on it while I was at it, and repainted it too because Chevy's available paint schemes were all horrible. But other than those minor modifications, it's not too bad a car!

Actually, Gnome 3.22 is to my liking mostly. Like every Gnome 3.22 user, I like leather seats (not standard Chevy stuff), A self parking option, air conditioning etc.
Tweaks are a way to personalize the Gnome 3.22 interface.
And by the way, slowly, very slowly, what was wrenched from Nautilus (Files), is being restored. I give Gnome a plus++.

Re:Honestly it's not bad

[Zontar The Mindless]

There are some who say "free" means "your time has no value".

Movie at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome 3.22: The Appening

technical translation of the description

[nimbius]

Today, September 21, is a foul pox upon mankind in this foul year of our lord 2016 for Linux users, especially those who love seizure-inducing lensflares and widgets lifted straight from the rough draft of Minority Report, as the next iteration of a cautionary tale in software development is now officially available. Yes, that's right, we're talking about GNOME 3.22, dubbed Karlsruhe after the German demon that feasts on the remains of the QC team whom it slaughtered, which took place last month between August 12-14, 2016. Prominent features of the GNOME 3.22 desktop environment include batch rename functionality in the hands of those least qualified, and support for integration of compressed files built directly into a system that will grind to a halt upon their encounter, a new Week View, support for alarms other than segmentation faults, and the ability to drag and drop both your once unbroken pride and self respect to the GNOME Calendar, as well as an updated GNOME Music app that supports handling of music libraries with thousands of tracks until it inexplicably cant, or wont. There are lots of improvements for the GNOME Games app as well, as it now offers support for numerous retro gaming consoles whether you wanted them or not. Among other improvements, we can mention Flatpak integration for chinstrap hipster code camp junkies vaping salvia, photo sharing that youve been doing in the browser for 5 years now, revamped GNOME Software app with support for firmware updates which sounds important but means nothing, infuriatingly redesigned keyboard settings and a marketing-driven reskin of the GNOME Control Center panel, and a redesigned dconf Editor we call windows registry simulator 2003 thats guaranteed to provide your own personal hell from which the only escape you once called linux now lays before you a corrupt degenerate called GNOME. A video overview of the new features of GNOME 3.22 is available on the official website titled "where is your god now."

Re:technical translation of the description

[Anonymous Coward]

An hilarious post.

You could make only the slightest alterations and substitutions of respective technologies, and this post would be accurate for all the major OS/Desktop makers today. They have all lost the plot as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to making things as simple as they need to be and no simpler.

Well, as they say, another word for "crisis" is "opportunity". Unfortunately, since I personally don't have time to write my own OS and desktop environment, I will have to wait for a white-robed savior to come from the sky to clean up the mess and fill the void so to speak.

Good luck to us all.

Re: technical translation of the description

[Anonymous Coward]

"support for alarms other than segmentation faults"

Doubleplusfunny.

"an updated GNOME Music app that supports handling of music libraries with thousands of tracks"

This might have been impressive 20 years ago but now I just think, "Wow there's a music player which can't handle thousands of tracks".

it's your fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if they'd spent the last decade making Gnome better, refining it, finding the annoying details, instead of spinning in circles. It would be the best desktop out there right now.

it's your fault because you failed to rescue gnome, you sat back and let it happen. you are clearly the one who could have done something, and you failed, blame yourself

Changelog

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me if I don't give a fuck that Marius Nestor has reinterpreted the Gnome changelog as a "news story"

Gnome 3.x is non-canon

[Improv]

2.x and then MATE are the real Gnome.

gimme that old time trolldition...

[Anonymous Coward]

you sir, are a champion of the people!
don't despair that your good works go unnoticed.

Recent GUI's

[unkmar]

TL;DR: I don't like the newer GUI styles. So, I don't care.

1. 1: I don't like how everything goes full screen. Unless I am gaming alone, I have other apps open that I need to see and to have easy access.
2. 2: I don't like an exceeding number of sub-categories of categories. Some things belong in more than one of those sub-category. Now I get to guess where you have hidden it.
3. 3: Search engine based app launching? Really? Now I have to type to find most any of the apps that I don't use on a regular basis because I didn't pin it. Or whatever term gnome picks for having common shortcuts.
   PS: I am a typist that uses CLI all the time. Heck, why do I need a GUI if I'm going to launch by typing?
4. 4: I simply find them harder to navigate. I likely would have a few more points on these new GUI's if I could tolerate them long enough to discover and remember the other things I dislike.

Re:Recent GUI's

[doom]

The really important thing though is to remove the menu pad at the top and hide everything under a hamburger icon. You need to add more clicks to every operation so the user gets to feel like they're doing something, see?

Re:Recent GUI's

[afranke]

I like how your "more clicks" conclusion is backed by scientific measurements and facts.

Re:Recent GUI's

[Eunuchswear]

TL;DR: I don't like the newer GUI styles. So, I don't care.

1. 1: I don't like how everything goes full screen. Unless I am gaming alone, I have other apps open that I need to see and to have easy access.

You appear not to be using Gnome3. Maybe you tried Unity by accident?

Broken link

[s1d3track3D]

and just like gnome, the link is broken...

Great

[skaralic]

Make GNOME great again! /ducks

Auto-extracting of archives

[steveha]

I watched the video showing new features, and one of the new features is: you double-click on an archive and it automatically extracts the contents in the same directory as the archive.

I don't want that. I want it to not work that way. In fact I want it to work exactly like it works in my MATE desktop: I can double-click an archive and it opens in an archive manager app, and there is an "Extract" button in that app.

I could see putting a right-click menu option "Extract..." if it's so freaking important to extract an archive with minimal steps. But making the default for double-clicking be to extract in place? No no no.

Re:Auto-extracting of archives

[afranke]

I don't want that. I want it to not work that way. In fact I want it to work exactly like it works in my MATE desktop: I can double-click an archive and it opens in an archive manager app, and there is an "Extract" button in that app.

Then use MATE. Despite what some seem to think, GNOME people are okay with people using other environments. To each their own. User research showed that people actually don't want an other app, they just want to access the content of the archive.

I could see putting a right-click menu option "Extract..." if it's so freaking important to extract an archive with minimal steps. But making the default for double-clicking be to extract in place? No no no.

That's how it worked before (which shows how well you actually know GNOME). That behaviour can be restored by unchecking a box in the preferences (WAT? GNOME letting users change a setting?).

Re:Auto-extracting of archives

[steveha]

User research showed that people actually don't want an other app, they just want to access the content of the archive.

Can you please give me a pointer to where the results of the user research were published? I would like to read up on the research that the GNOME team uses to make their decisions.

Frankly, I didn't think the GNOME team did any research anymore. I read about the reason why the "minimize" button was removed for the GNOME 3.x release and it was one developer making a decision after talking to like two people, no actual usability studies run by usability experts. (In contrast, back in the day, Sun Microsystems ran usability studies on GNOME 2.x and the results were used to improve GNOME.)

If GNOME is having usability research done, and making decisions based on that, then good for them. And I'm not being sarcastic, I do want to look at it.

P.S. I just Googled and I didn't find whatever study you are talking about. I found a couple of cases where someone did a usability study on their own, but nothing about the GNOME project officially doing usability studies.

Re:Auto-extracting of archives

[afranke]

I don't have a direct link to the tests for archive handy. Jim Hall regularly writes about user testing and you can find more results if you google "jim hall user testing". You can also watch this talk by Andreas Nilsson from last GUADEC in Karlsruhe.

moved on to cinnamon

[arunvk]

I gave gnome3 time to prove itself until last month. I never did like gnome 3.. stupid ass interface and even with tweaks its still lacking in functionality.. I finally jumped ship to cinnamon desktop on fedora.. agreed it uses some components from gnome 3 but its way better... cant believe gnome 3 never got better with any of the releases.. Iam still confused with the audience.. do they intend it for touch screen or keyboard.. the entire desktop space is just wasted .. no way to do anything besides a wall paper..

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

macOS Sierra is bettter!

I hate these bullshit religious wars

[RockDoctor]

Just get one fucking interface, stop changing things and let us get on with using it instead of changing things every fucking day. Do you have any idea how harmful this is for adoption.

I don't even know the name of the desktop environment that I'm using, and I care less. I just want to not have to re-learn it at some random time in the future, chosen by someone I've never heard of for reasons I don't care about.