Okay I admit I do like making topics like this from time to time but I am opinionated and rather you like that or not at least I am honest.
Now the subject of how I feel about Gnome shell after all these years now and why I feel everything has gone so horribly wrong with it.
Before I go into the actual subject I want to express my own feelings on certain Linux desktops and how I feel each one improved ever since I started using linux 10 years ago.
First I will talk about is the linux desktop that got me into linux, KDE.
KDE3 was my first UI and as someone who transitioned from windows XP to linux overall KDE3 was familiar enough so that I could navigate it and use it just like XP.
To this day KDE is my favorite linux desktop and is the main reason why I like openSUSE as it runs KDE swimmingly compared to some others.
But I cannot talk about KDE without talking about its own blunder, the dreaded KDE4 in its early versions.
KDE4 was a major mess, hardly any features and when openSUSE first got it it made the distro suffer greatly (one of my harshest criticisms of both Fedora, Debian and openSUSE is the blind jump into two very awful desktops and while KDE has caught up again gnome shell still faces issues. Heck hate to say it but Unity is the only sudden jump in tech I liked, sure unity lacked the grace of Gnome2 but at least it wasnt gnome shell.)
Now KDE has progressed and is actually more usable then its ever been but gnome shell?
Well KDE seems to gain better features with each version, gnome shell looses them every term.
And unlike KDE where most of the apps for it seem to transition into newer versions gnome shell looses everything with each new version.
Plus GTK3 is a major mess in itself, you can tell you did wrong when LXDE is going to use QT and long term Gnome backend Ubuntu will also go QT.
Everything in the gnome ecosystem has just become in the lack of a better word insane and I am willing to take a blow for saying this rules wise i think the gnome developers have done too much crystal meth or something seeing this insane path of removing features in favor of broken versions of things that once worked fine.
Nautilus, GDM, the control center, the menu all broken nasty hollow shells of what they used to be.
Heck I argue thats the reason why its called gnome shell as by the time we reach gnome 4 all we will have is a terminal shell and a button to open it with.
Currently the only real thing to compare gnome shell with is Windows 8’s metro on how not only do they totally abandon a traditional desktop interface they can drive you insane in under six seconds if you were not already insane.
But crazy breeds crazy I guess, very soon KDE, XFCE and Cinnamon may be the only real saving graces for linux because otherwise its gnome shell or Ubuntus own bucket of crazy called Mir.
Everyone these days seems crazy about creating an iphone interface for desktops, well newsflash gnome and microsoft my desktop is not a phone.
That seems to discredit what you say about Gnome. Just about everything I don’t like about Gnome is also a reason that I don’t like Unity.
Yes but unlike gnome shell to be honest I find unity to be usable and even more important:
Consistent
The issue with Gnome shell is with each version there is some crazed change somewhere, Unity however is far more subtle.
Ever since Ubuntu 11.10 Unity has remained the same basic UI with only minor changes that are manageable.
Gnome shell has kept on removing features, while unity for better or worse seems to gain something.
On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 04:36:01 +0000, MadmanRB wrote:
> Gnome shell has kept on removing features, while unity for better or
> worse seems to gain something.
Well, then it’s simple - don’t use GNOME shell, use Unity.
There are plenty of people who like GNOME (I happen to be one of them -
inasmuch as I use it on all of my machines pretty consistently - but I’m
more interested in getting work done with the applications I’ve got
installed rather than the whiz-bang of whatever DE is installed).
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. We have options in the Linux world.
If you want to do something constructive about fixing what you see as the
deficiencies in GNOME, by all means, get involved in the project in some
way. Earn a place in the project (after all, OSS is generally a
meritocracy, so you have to work your way up in the project to work on
strategy, generally).
Just complaining about it? That’s not really helping anything, nor is it
an effective way to affect change.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Often, I really like your answers.
As in this case.
Whoa, take it easy MadmanRB, I don’t really like GNOME much myself, but calling it “Linux’s worst desktop” is taking it up quite a few notches.
I am going to talk as an absolute n00b so if you find something inaccurate or just plain stupid please don’t be too harsh and correct me.
In the beginning there was CDE, the Common Desktop Environment. It ran on many Unices, but there was a problem: it wasn’t open. So linuxers started gathering and created KDE, which was all and good but was based on Qt, which wasn’t completely open. So the more idealistic, more open-source-conscious people created GNOME basing it on GTK. Such people included Miguel de Icaza, o how the times have changed!
But along came Nokia and opened Qt, so now KDE was completely open. And could do more things than GNOME. There were the disasters implementing GNOME 3 and KDE 4, but right now KDE 4 SC is a great DE and set of applications. GNOME I still find it lacking, and Unity is not my cup of tea. I want my PC to feel like a PC, my phone to feels like a phone and my tablet… well I don’t own one.
To sum up, I think that the main reason of existence for GNOME has ceased to be since the opening up of the Qt framework. But GNOME, as flawed as it may be, has a devoted following and its existence enriches the Linux ecosystem. Although I still prefer KDE on powerful machines and XFCE on more resource-challenged computers.
In the beginning, there was “twm”.
Well, okay, that probably wasn’t the beginning either, but it was earlier than CDE.
Apart from that, your history seems mainly right.
I remember when CDE first came out, it seemed horribly bloated compared to “fvwm” that I used at the time. And KDE looked bloated compared to CDE. Gnome also looked bloated, compared to CDE.
I guess I have learned to live with bloat.
On 2014-04-29 01:56, Fraser Bell wrote:
>> If you don’t like it, don’t use it. We have options in the Linux world.
>>
>> If you want to do something constructive about fixing what you see as the
>> deficiencies in GNOME, by all means, get involved in the project in some
>> way. Earn a place in the project (after all, OSS is generally a
>> meritocracy, so you have to work your way up in the project to work on
>> strategy, generally).
>>
>> Just complaining about it? That’s not really helping anything, nor is it
>> an effective way to affect change.
> Often, I really like your answers.
>
> As in this case.
Well… disregarding complains and requiring people instead to
contribute so that they can “influence”, it’s not a thing I can agree
with. I prefer democracy.
Users should have some say.
What Jim proposes is that we first get a more or less professional
programer training in Linux dev-ing (take years), get deeply involved in
gnome development, hiding our true goals, like moles, then when we get
to the top we remove our cloaks and pervert the project!
ROTFL! :-))
Me, I have been a gnome user and defender for over a decade, till they
changed so drastically that I had to go away.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On Wed 30 Apr 2014 12:06:01 PM CDT, nrickert wrote:
Karmovorotin;2640342 Wrote:
> In the beginning there was CDE, the Common Desktop Environment. It ran
> on many Unices, but there was a problem: it wasn’t open.
In the beginning, there was “twm”.
Well, okay, that probably wasn’t the beginning either, but it was
earlier than CDE.
Apart from that, your history seems mainly right.
I remember when CDE first came out, it seemed horribly bloated compared
to “fvwm” that I used at the time. And KDE looked bloated compared to
CDE. Gnome also looked bloated, compared to CDE.
I guess I have learned to live with bloat.
Hi
CDE was opened up (2012) I think some folks have been working on
an openSUSE version…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I used it all the time on Solaris.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-7-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!
… and Hobbes will be waiting for you to poke your head out the hole!>:)rotfl!
On 2014-04-30 20:06, Fraser Bell wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2640397 Wrote:
>>
>> What Jim proposes is that we first get a more or less professional
>> programmer training in Linux dev-ing (take years), get deeply involved in
>> gnome development, hiding our true goals, like moles, then when we get
>> to the top …
>>
> … and Hobbes will be waiting for you to poke your head out the
> hole!>:)rotfl!
ROTFL! :-))
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
to badly paraphrase Churchill - GNOME may bad, but it’s still better than all the others…
There, I fixed it
Correct, and you did a fine job.lol!
KDE = Kindergarten Domain Encounter.
I thought it stood for “Kludgy Desktop Environment”.
Very good! +1
On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:54:24 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> I prefer democracy.
OSS isn’t a democracy. It’s a meritocracy - and it always has been. If
you want to contribute, you have to earn it.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Whatever the selection process, all projects have a beginning and an end. The end will just arrive earlier if the project leaders adopt a strategy that alienates enough of the project’s stakeholders. The projects depend on contributors, sponsors, hardware producers, and ultimately its users.
On Tue, 06 May 2014 12:46:02 +0000, consused wrote:
> hendersj;2641488 Wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:54:24 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>
>> > I prefer democracy.
>>
>> OSS isn’t a democracy. It’s a meritocracy - and it always has been.
>> If you want to contribute, you have to earn it.
> Whatever the selection process, all projects have a beginning and an
> end. The end will just arrive earlier if the project leaders adopt a
> strategy that alienates enough of the project’s stakeholders. The
> projects depend on contributors, sponsors, hardware producers, and
> ultimately its users.
Absolutely true.
But the way one becomes a project leader in the OSS world isn’t by being
“elected” - it’s by being seen by the community and/or other people in
the project process as being contributors. Look at how people become
kernel developers and contributors - it’s not through an election
process, nor is it through just diving in and starting on heavy, complex
problems. It’s by starting with small problems and having Linus and his
team recognising the merit of the individual’s contributions.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C