Linus ditches Gnome for Xfce

rafter22 · August 5, 2011, 3:02pm

Seems he isn’t happy with Gnome 3 or KDE 4, so he switched to Xfce.

I’m using Xfce. I think it’s a step down from gnome2, but it’s a huge step up from gnome3. Really.

RichardET · August 5, 2011, 3:16pm

Call me a simpleton, but GNOME2 is adequate for most jobs I do.

polycarp · August 5, 2011, 6:30pm

I like Gnome 3 alright. It needs some work, but the overall workflow isn’t too bad. I run it alongside kde4 in opensuse, and it works pretty well, though I usually log in to KDE.

JoergJaeger · August 5, 2011, 9:08pm

On 08/05/2011 06:06 AM, rafter22 wrote:
>
> Seems he isn’t happy with Gnome 3 or KDE 4, so he switched to Xfce.
>
>> I’m using Xfce. I think it’s a step down from gnome2, but it’s a huge
>> step up from gnome3. Really.
>
> 'Linus Torvalds Ditches GNOME For Xfce
>
> ’ (http://tinyurl.com/4y8a5m3)
>
>

Is Linus a guidance?
I run right now LXDE which is fine. Lighter.
Gnome 3 is nice too, altough there are some issues. But we have to keep
in mind, that Gnome 3 is just new. It may look different down the road.
The main issue, as i see it, is that people are not happy in how they
get limited in how to adjust the desktop or can interact.
But i am also a strong believer that the desktop will change to
something different and in that regard Gnome 3 and Unity may be on the
right track.
Linus uses also Pine (i think) which i don’t use.

–
Euer Komputerfriek Joerg
using LXDE on 11.4 x64 and happy with a cup of really hot coffee…

john_hudson · August 5, 2011, 9:48pm

The main point is that he has a choice! With what other OS would be have a choice?

chief_sealth · August 5, 2011, 10:58pm

Good point, but given that he considers it a “step down,” it isn’t an ideal choice, more of a necessity.

please_try_again · August 5, 2011, 11:54pm

Gnome3 looks like a smartphone. As long as it doesn’t ring and noone appears on the display telling nonsenses, I will agree to set it up (I already do on Fedora and Archlinux). I dont’ like xfce, it’s cheaper than Gnome but it’s not better. … I bet Linus will switch to LXDE or icewm some day … if not twm or xterm + screen. lol!

please_try_again · August 6, 2011, 12:14am

FreeBSD, NetBSD, openBSD, DragonFly BSD. And actually, he told once that if the BSD sources had been free in 1991, he wouldn’t have started to write the Linux kernel.

JoergJaeger · August 6, 2011, 12:29am

On 08/05/2011 12:56 PM, john hudson wrote:
>
> The main point is that he has a choice! With what other OS would be have
> a choice?
>
>

That wasn’t the point.
Its not like that he said, hey i switch to xcfe because i can. He was
making the statement that Gnome3 is g****** and he rather switches to
another desktop.

–
Euer Komputerfriek Joerg
using LXDE on 11.4 x64 and happy with a cup of really hot coffee…

glistwan · August 7, 2011, 12:33am

I liked Linus advice on desktops when he was cheering for KDE. Now I don’t like it

Anyway this thread IMO is pointless. Use whatever works best for yourself and don’t listen to anyone telling You that some other desktop it’s better if You tried that already and You know it’s not.

Best regards,
Greg

nrickert · August 7, 2011, 12:56am

I agree with Linus, in that I see XFCE as a step up from gnome 3.

However, I also see XFCE as a step up from gnome 2, so there I disagree with Linus. And, disagreeing even more, I saw KDE4 as a bigger step up from gnome 2. That’s why I switched from gnome to KDE4 about 1 year ago.

Riddlah · August 7, 2011, 5:32pm

The interest is understandable - and the story is noteworthy - only because he’s the founding father of Linux.

But would this carry any weight in someone’s personal preference? The guy is a software engineer. Everyone has different uses for their computers. In a random sample of Windows/Mac users you could find an infinite combination of OS versions, shortcuts, customizations, etc.

P.S. - I effing hate Gnome 3. But not because you have to Ctrl+N for a new terminal window.

nrickert · August 7, 2011, 6:42pm

The criticism of Gnome 3 is that its design has ignored the needs of the software engineer and the systems administrator (admin of a network of computers). Gnome 3 might be great for many users, but it ignores the needs of a significant group.

Riddlah · August 7, 2011, 7:41pm

Hell, I’m not even sure if it’s great for many users yet. It will either become so or it will die.

As for sysadmins, thus far they’re able to use just about any DE they want in Linux or create new ones.

martin_helm · August 7, 2011, 8:26pm

Riddlah wrote:
> As for sysadmins, thus far they’re able to use just about any DE they
> want in Linux or create new ones.
>
Honestly I do not know that many admins who use a DE for maintaining their
systems - more precisly I do not know a single one who uses a DE for
administration.

martin_helm · August 7, 2011, 8:36pm

To be back on the topic, I have to say that I could not care less what Linus
thinks a good DE should look like. His opinion has just the same weight as
that of anybody else who uses some DE or refuses to use it. All this is a
bit like reading what the Queen had for breakfast in her palace and it does
not in any way affect me to eat the same.
That does not not mean that I suddenly started to like Gnome 3, it seems
just not to be made for me. Does that mean the makers of Gnome 3 did
something wrong? Not really it just means they took the freedom to decide
that they want to make a DE which is not for everybody and for every
possible use case but focused on a certain subset of users. This is a valid
choice, if I like that or not and maybe we will see more such things in the
future. Special DEs for special user groups instead of the one size fits all
approach where every DE has to fit all possible needs for all use cases and
all types of users you can even imagine.

Riddlah · August 8, 2011, 12:06am

Exactly!

As for Gnome 3, it remains to be seen if people will come around. If not, then it’ll just be something we look back and laugh about in a few years like ME, Vista…

Kinzie · August 9, 2011, 9:47am

Completely agree. I don’t know why some people find his word is gospel, or somehow more important than anyone else’s. If you’re going to say “Gnome is a mess” you might as well say “Linux is a mess”. Neither statement is true, but from a certain point of view they could be argued. I hate this whole “Linus is just saying what we’re all thinking”. No, he isn’t.

Like you I couldn’t give a monkeys what Linus thinks of Gnome 3 (or indeed what he had for breakfast!), as I am a very happy Gnome 3 user. OK, I’m just an end user not a programmer, but I’ve been using Gnome 3 for about three months or so on openSUSE and have had no problems at all moving to it. In fact it’s been a total joy to use. I haven’t found anything especially limiting in the way Linus describes, I’ve not had any broken Nvidia problems or whatever, and have only had to apply some very simple tweaks, much the way I would have done with Gnome 2 and Compiz. In fact it’s been CONSIDERABLY less painful to deal with than old Gnome 2 and Compiz, which seldom performed consistently across different distros and graphics drivers.

It’s very early days yet for Gnome 3. I imagine that when Gnome 2 came out there were a lot of complaints. Heaven knows there was for KDE4, and they were really justified too. It was a real solid unusable mess for quite some time. I genuinely thought KDE was dead. But look at it now.

please_try_again · August 9, 2011, 10:21am

Because some people are simply more important than anyone else… or did I miss something in the story and in history?

My guess is that he doesn’t care what you are thinking (I might be wrong though.)

An so don’t worry!

oldcpu · August 9, 2011, 10:55am

A good thing about GNU/Linux is we have a choice of desktops, and fortunately in openSUSE most of the popular desktops (KDE, Gnome, Xfce, LXDE) are available on the Installation DVD, and other desktop variants (or versions) available via custom repositories. Independant of what ever some of the well known GNU/Linux personalities may be using at any given moment, its very good for us as regular users to have this choice available.

Still, my first thought upon reading the news about Linus switching to Xfce was ‘good for Xfce’ as it should give that desktop some well deserved publicity.

On our older PC at home (and older Linux User Group) laptop we have LXDE installed, but one thing that is really good about both LXDE and Xfce is the developers AND packagers for both share notes and where they can they help each other out. Typically one does not see LXDE vs Xfce flame wars, like one unfortunately see’s in Gnome vs KDE.

I really like seeing that LXDE/Xfce cooperation !

While on the subject of Xfce, for some reason during this openSUSE-11.4 release cycle, the community produced liveCD for Xfce has been very slow in coming. Typically one will see the Xfce liveCD noted in this webpage Derivatives - openSUSE and contained in this repository:


http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/xfce/images/iso/

… but it has yet to be moved there (if it exists).

I do recall some threads about users creating their own Xfce live CD successfully, but none of that effort has made it into the liveCD wiki.