Gnome 3 Future?

English Soapbox
#1

So, where do you think gnome 3 is heading? Will it be here for years to come?

It does have a special place in my heart, as it was my first DE on Linux, and the switch to Gnome 3 made me think ‘wow, now that’s futuristic!’, so i liked it always.
What worries me /from gnome’s perspective) is seeing more and more apps, clients etc. being ported to qt instead of gtk. Does that mean gnome will soon be no more and that it’s irrelevant?

Please, do post your opinions.

Regards,

#2

On Wed 16 Jul 2014 11:16:01 AM CDT, holden87 wrote:

So, where do you think gnome 3 is heading? Will it be here for years to
come?

It does have a special place in my heart, as it was my first DE on
Linux, and the switch to Gnome 3 made me think ‘wow, now that’s
futuristic!’, so i liked it always.
What worries me /from gnome’s perspective) is seeing more and more apps,
clients etc. being ported to qt instead of gtk. Does that mean gnome
will soon be no more and that it’s irrelevant?

Please, do post your opinions.

Regards,

Hi
When the gtk2 apps stop working they will get ported to gtk3, since qt
seems to be moving along I would guess it’s a priority thing? No
different thatn things like bluetooth and gstreamer…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-17-desktop
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#3

At least applications written in qt doesn’t mean they won’t work in Gnome.

I read some blog post about somebody giving Gnome shell a shot to really try it out, instead of the cursory install, click around and make an opinion. I am trying to do something similar somewhat; trying to use Gnome as it was intended by the project.

So far it woks alright from a workflow standpoint, though it takes a little bit to get used to.

#4

On 2014-07-16 13:16, holden87 wrote:
>
> So, where do you think gnome 3 is heading? Will it be here for years to
> come?
>
> It does have a special place in my heart, as it was my first DE on
> Linux, and the switch to Gnome 3 made me think ‘wow, now that’s
> futuristic!’, so i liked it always.

Well, I liked Gnome for “decades”, it was my desktop of choice. Till
they invented “Gnome 3” and I got out, or was pushed out… Eventually,
chances are you will go out, too; on version 4 or 5.

Till then, enjoy :slight_smile:

> What worries me /from gnome’s perspective) is seeing more and more apps,
> clients etc. being ported to qt instead of gtk. Does that mean gnome
> will soon be no more and that it’s irrelevant?

I really don’t care for what desktop an application was designed for. I
use any application I like, which of course, often means having both
toolsets loaded.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#5

An insane asylum is gnomes future, as for me I think Gnome developers are quite mad and have lost touch with how a desktop interface should be.
A lot of Gnome ever since 3 came about change for the sake of change with little to no thought on what that means for the end user.
No wonder why things like Cinnamon or KDE or XFCE are popular.
Heck even with the new plasma 5 KDE still seems the more sane one in comparison, sure KDE5 lacks a lot right now but it is still miles ahead when it comes to general design.
Yes I called the gnome developers crazy, but that is the least insulting thing I can say about how deep gnome has gone in terms of making things good.
They seem to be thinking from a padded room rather then something people can use, heck the only thing worse then gnome is Metro on windows 8.

#6

They seem to think of themselves as artists, rather than as engineers. They seem to be designing so as to astound the senses, rather than to provide functionality.

#7

On 2014-08-06 14:56, nrickert wrote:
>
> MadmanRB;2657910 Wrote:
>> An insane asylum is gnomes future, as for me I think Gnome developers
>> are quite mad and have lost touch with how a desktop interface should
>> be.
>
> They seem to think of themselves as artists, rather than as engineers.
> They seem to be designing so as to astound the senses, rather than to
> provide functionality.

I tend to agree.

Gnome had, for many years, been something that was very simple to use.
Limited configuration, simple and intuitive interface. It was the
preferred interface in many workplaces: you do not want the employees to
waste time configuring it, nor learning to use it; just work and produce
money.

This, IMO, is no longer true.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#8

Then my question is, why is Gnome the default DE for SLE’s next version? (Or did i mix up something?).

#9

On Wed 06 Aug 2014 05:56:01 PM CDT, holden87 wrote:

Then my question is, why is Gnome the default DE for SLE’s next version?
(Or did i mix up something?).

Because that’s all that is being deployed… well aside from the twm
and icewm…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-17-desktop
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

#10

No, no, I meant, if Gnome is that bad, then why is it being used as default in both of the top 2 enterprise distros? (If i’m not mistaken, RH also uses it?) Why not KDE?

#11

Because they have a hand in it’s development. Personally I am quite happy with KDE.

#12

Yes, RH, but what about SLE? (though i’ve just checked out cnetos live, and it seems it’s gnome classic?)

#13

Some years ago I was looking on SLED 10 for a project and I even got a fresh notebook delivered with it from HP Compaq (model 6730b). No I didn’t like the gnome interface. Even less the new 3.x.

The notebook stills perform but haven’t seen anything else but openSUSE and KDE since that. Oh if people want to use Gnome its OK for me. I wouldn’t dream to argue with them and their choice;).

regards

#14

Gnome 2 was nice because you had options you could set to your taste

  1. number of panels (1,2,4,5+…)
  2. location of panels (left edge, right edge, top, bottom or floating)
  3. width, height background color and transparency of panel(s)
  4. add (whatever they are called… apps? widgets? ) to any of the panels
  5. have a brand icon on the panel (minor feature, but nice to have anyway)

Now it seems you have to create a THEME, or an EXTENSION in order to manipulate the system. The problem of this is that not everybody is able to or wants to have to go to such lengths just to make a few small tweaks!

I have been using Gnome 3 for a little while now, and really trying to get used to it. I am actually starting to enjoy it but the lack of customization is annoying.

I also have a low-powered netbook with Xfce and a desktop with Unity (12.04 version) and I am actually preferring Gnome’s interface. I would probably put Gnome on the netbook too except the system cannot handle it very well (artifacts, losing parts of windows, general crashest… just isn’t a pretty situation).

I’ve also used, and like, KDE. I haven’t tried it with the latest Plasma yet, though.

#15

On Wed, 06 Aug 2014 12:56:01 GMT, nrickert
<nrickert@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>MadmanRB;2657910 Wrote:
>> An insane asylum is gnomes future, as for me I think Gnome developers
>> are quite mad and have lost touch with how a desktop interface should
>> be.
>
>They seem to think of themselves as artists, rather than as engineers.
>They seem to be designing so as to astound the senses, rather than to
>provide functionality.

Gee, i had the same complaint about KDE4. Using KDE3 still.

?-)

#16

I have Fedora 20 with Gnome, but sincerely I rarely use it, since I prefer KDE over Gnome 3 …

#17

I recently isntalled and stared using the Gnome Classic Desktop, which is Gnome still 3 but it includes old-style menus and task managers reminiscent of Gnome 2(.x). The Activity overlay is still present if you move your cursor to the top-right corner, or hit the Windows key but otherwise there are traditional menus for running apps.

Funny thing is I didn’t realize how often I use the search function for finding the application launcher and these menus don’t have that option. It is there if I open the Activity overlay, though.

I have found it a little more stable (seeing the background services doesn’t crash the system) and a little more responsive (subjective, I know).

Part of me thinks that this is a step backwards, in that it is trying to mimic the older styled Gnome (2.x), but part of me also cannot help but admit that it seems to handle resources better and is slightly more responsive.

#18

You get an extra panel at the bottom, which wastes display real estate.

With Gnome 2, there was one panel and I could set it to auto-hide. With Gnome 3 classic, there are two panels and I cannot set either to auto-hide (or at least I have not found out how). That part of why I am using KDE.

#19

Oh, I know it still isn’t as customizable as Gnome 2 was (or Xfce is), but it feels better on my system (stability and responsiveness) than vanilla Gnome shell is what I was talking about.

I still do not like how Gnome almost requires extensions and themes to make a lot of the changes, rather than being able to just add plugins (to panels), adjust individual components (panel background or transparency, system colors, panel location, etc.).