Gnome devs have a clear vision of what Gnome is supposed to be:
simplistic, designed for touchpad and keyboard, not mousy-clicky, and staying out of your way.People install it, miss stuff they are used to from traditional desktops like Windows or Plasma, and bolt that back on using extensions from third parties.
They install those extensions from a different source than Gnome itself (Gnome from their distro repos, extensions from the website).And then they complain when those third party add-ons from a different source aren’t perfectly integrated or in sync after an update.
And blame the Gnome devs.
I don’t blame GNOME devs, I blame the straight up lies from GNOME enthusiasts that GNOME is customizable, because it is not.
Conclusion: the clear vision that Gnome devs have is obviously wrong.
I think their vision is solid. I just think there are gaps in following their vision. Wheres the “create new empty file”? Where’s the “open folder in terminal”? Why do I need to install bunch of bloatware to change more than 2 options?
I think their vision is solid. I just think there are gaps in following their vision. Wheres the “create new empty file”? Where’s the “open folder in terminal”? Why do I need to install bunch of bloatware to change more than 2 options?
On my Gnome Files, there is option to “Open in terminal” and create new files (from templates, which were set up by default on my distro). All by default without any extensions or anything.
Gnome is about deliberate lack of features. Blank windows with the few existing UI elements crammed into the top bar and a hamburger menu with nothing in it because Gnome and its associated software are not intended to be used for anything.
It’s a non-profit, open source project.
If you don’t like it, just ignore it.
It’s not a commercial project where market share is important.The only defense of Gnome: It’s not mandatory.
Except they also do GTK, which still manages to leak outside their 9 foot thick steel and concrete containment vessel.
i cant think of any valid reason gnome doesnt have official system tray icons
Gnome’s official stance on that matter:
https://blogs.gnome.org/aday/2017/08/31/status-icons-and-gnome/tl/dr:
They’re an old spec from 2002
They’re too small to click for people with increased accessibility needs
They serve the needs of app publishers (making their app visible at all times), not those of the user
-> There are too many of them
-> They look badOk but how do programs under Gnome display state? (temperature and stuff like that)
They don’t.
Programs only show themselves when you take an action (hit a key) or when it’s urgent (in a notification).
Otherwise they’re supposed to stay invisible.So in Gnome philosophy, your sensor would notify you when the temp goes critical and otherwise you’d have to open it manually.
thank you for this it is interesting to know their rationale. but i still disagree with it, i think it makes life using the computer more comfortable, it is a good way of managing apps that usually operate unattended and everyone is used to it and expects or relies on this functionality.
everyone is used to it
Counterpoint: The main criticism of Gnome seems to be that it doesn’t match the design philosophy of Windows 95, which users are used to.
But at this point, an entire human generation later, and 14 years after the release of Gnome 3, I don’t think that’s a valid criticism anymore.
They’re an old spec from 2002
They’re useful, “old” is no excuse. Mobile OS have something similiar. No, don’t create a new spec, you’re bad at that kind of thing.
They’re too small to click for people with increased accessibility needs
Make them bigger? I can do that on XFCE.
They serve the needs of app publishers (making their app visible at all times), not those of the user
There are too many of them
Again, they are useful to the user. Just give the user a way to control which to display or not.
They look bad
Your design team sucks
And that’s why i don’t like Gnome (and Gtk for that matter); they prioritize their skewed visions over everything else, including usability.
They’re useful, “old” is no excuse.
the above tl;dr forgot something massive: all current protocols are unsafe (e.g. need exporting the entirety of org.kde.* in dbus) and/or only work on X11
Insecure? It is run by the user, communicates only with things run by the user.
So things like sandboxing or even not running everything as root should exist.
Gnome devs have a clear vision of what Gnome is supposed to be: simplistic, designed for touchpad and keyboard, not mousy-clicky, and staying out of your way.
Nobody questioned this.
People install it, miss stuff they are used to from traditional desktops like Windows or Plasma, and bolt that back on using extensions from third parties.
Like the Extension feature intends it.
They install those extensions from a different source than Gnome itself (Gnome from their distro repos, extensions from the website).
Even those you can install from some distro repos can cause your whole Gnome DE to crash. However this isn’t even the main problem; the point is that it’s able to crash your DE at all. If they did it correctly only the bad extension would crash. If that doesn’t work for some reason, the whole extension layer/API may crashes without taking the DE with it. If something phenomenally bad happens your DE should crash but, as the absolute minimum, your open applications should still keep working so you can save things and restart things gracefully. What you just did is blame the extension devs again.
And then they complain when those third party add-ons from a different source aren’t perfectly integrated or in sync after an update.
It’s about your computer (well, everything graphically) crashing, not some small problems. Get your facts straight.
xfce rules
I went from GNOME on Ubuntu, to KDE on Manjaro, to XFCE on Manjaro, and finally i3 on Arch.
GNOME was sluggish and not customisable.
KDE had graphical glitches everywhere that made navigating interfaces annoying sometimesOn XFCE, I actually didn’t find that many issues. I just stopped using Manjaro and switched to i3 when doing so.
i also tried i3 at some point, it was pretty cool, but i prefer more “standard”/“no tweaking” approach, so xfce wins on that one. i did install KDE ob my second (framework) laptop, but i kinda hate it lol. Never tried “Gnome”
Where is TempleOS when you need it, huh?
I’ve found GNOME a pleasure to use. From my experience many folks that use Linux like to tinker with their computers. Even those new to Linux see a world of possibilities. GNOME doesn’t really embrace this tinkerer philosophy. They have an opinion on what at desktop manager should be and they’re constantly working towards that vision.
When I introduce GNOME to new people I explain to them some the project goals, design elements and how it’s intended to be used. Then I tell them that GNOME is opinionated on how things should behave and look, and if you try to force GNOME to be something it’s not you’ll probably end up using poorly documented or unsupported third-party extensions that break things. Generally the advice is, GNOME is great, but not for everyone, take the time to learn the GNOME way of doing things and if you don’t like it you’re better off switching to another desktop environment than trying to change GNOME.
I ran gnome for about a decade. I really didn’t like how a lot of bits and pieces of it worked so I went and found all of the plugins and religiously installed and updated them. Updates what happened, crab would break, I’d just have to deal.
At some point I tried KDE. And it literally did everything that I was doing to gnome through plugins out of the box.
I’m all about configurability but I’m also a pretty big fan of not having to fuck with it because it already does what I want out of the box.
If it’s not for everyone it should not be the default for many distributions, and other DEs should be recommended for beginners then.
I think the design philosophy of “you have to adapt to the software” is harmful. Software should adapt to you and disappear out of your way for common tasks. Something Gnome leadership fails to understand.I’ve been teaching Linux to a lot of high-school age kids this year. I picked Fedora Workstation for us to experiment with. It of course, uses GNOME. Like I mentioned in the above post I talked to them for 5-10 minutes about GNOME design and how it’s supposed to be used. One thing that surprised me is how much the younger generation found GNOME intuitive as soon as they learned to use the Super key. Many have spent more time on iOS than they have Windows. So some of the common pain points for us older folks, like not having a task bar, preferring each “App” to be full a screen and switching between them felt very natural for the kids. Very iOS like.
You can of course have your different opinion on if this is good or bad or if GNOME shouldn’t be the default on most distro.
Perhaps GNOME is a good default for distro because it’s similar to the interfaces young people are growing up with.
I have no problem with using Gnome. It stays out of my way and Things Just Work for the most part as 99% of what I do is in a browser or a terminal anyway.
I like gome but it needs extensions for basic runctionality and you need to use terminal for basic functionality. I have it visually basically unmodified, no dock to dash or desktop but damn i need to go extra mile to add right click new file and functional window tiling.
I think you would be better off on a different desktop. The desktop works in a very specific way.
I like gnome but i will be replacing it with kde. But mostly cause gnome breaks ftp and vscode for some reason, not for the painful setup of gnome
You know that sounds an awful lot like how windows GUI behaves. I only recently started daily driving and the amount of gui elements you can change is mind blowing.
Windows 11 copied some KDE and Gnome features but they did a half ass job so the desktop is just broken.
Gnome extensions are nice since they can do lots of useful things. They can cause issues but if you need extensions to use gnome you probably should move to something like Cinnamon.
If you can get used to the workflow it is very nice.
I hate Gnome because it doesn’t give you taskbar boxes to show all the open windows. There is a extension for this but it’s almost always out of date. How the fuck is anyone expected to get any work done like that? Pressing the “windows” key to show that tile view is a thing but I want to see what all is open without pressing a button first. It’s fine for watching youtube or playing games. And the ui looks really cool if you’re high off your ass, but that’s it.
Eh, Gnome is fine. I like KDE, but I’d rather use my PC for the stuff I want to use it for rather than obsessively change some stuff so it looks better only to change it the next time I boot it again.
I also rsther use my pc for the stuff I want to use it for, with Plasma you dont need to theme and rice it for the sake of it, you can just use it as is, which is what i do, and i find Plasma to be more usable out of the box than Gnome I hate when people think you must theme Plasma and customize it, you can use it as is
You can, but for me there’s just too much to fiddle, and I can’t help tinkering with stuff.
Maybe I’m biased because gnome is stock fedora but it runs so smoothly and I love how the windows button and search feature works out of the box. I know that can be setup in KDE though. I love how it feels unique unlike KDE and most other DE that just feel like bad windows. I love that it doesn’t have dumbass names like KDE adding k to everything. Also feel it just works.
Every time I’ve added KDE there’s also a bunch of stupid minor things that just down make sense. Why do so many applications lose the ability to use the right click menu like in jdownloader? Why do windowed games get pushed so vertical low? Why does search recommend things I clearly didn’t ask for? Moving windows with the arrow keys is icky and not smooth. Blowing them up with windows W like gnome’s windows key just looks bad. I want to love it but it just feels like a FOSS windows.
Same here. I really tried using KDE as Fedora and Nobara were pushing for it with HDR, fractional scaling and variable refresh rates available. But there are so many useless options that seem to over-complicate everything.
I always go back to Gnome especially now that the missing technologies were added with 47 and 48. I just need my 2 extensions (DashtoDock, Just Perfection) setup via Nix and Home-manager.
also: Libadwaita > QT in terms of looks and usability.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll have to check those out. Have you ever tried Hyperland?
You forgot to add that unlike GNOME, KDE does not depend on SystemD
That’s good?
Yes
Yes
It’s wild what an impact organizational politics can have on a codebase
Not wild to me. Code is written by people, people who engage in organizational politics. No “base” created by people, digital or otherwise, will be free of such influences.
If you don’t know:
I install Fedora Workstation and change nothing. I’m pretty happy with GNOME in that case. KDE has been too fiddley for me the last few times I tried it. It’s there a distro that has a default KDE setup that feels minimal and out of the way?
arch probably
Not Arch, it’s 100% bog standard on Arch.
Which is great and what most people want, but the parent poster wants something pre-configured to be minimalist.
I have both versions of the workstation and KDE one is less broken, more functional and less annoying to use daily. I patiently await when the projects that require my current software packages end so I can wipe my home and go manjaro or something.
ive had and heard of many bad experiences with manjaro, though they do a couple of cool things. i really wish you all the best on your manjaro endeavours, but would recommend (not from experience but rather what i have gathered) to use endeavourOS over manjaro. also that would fit your name nicely
Ah thanks for the reccomendation. I’ll give endOS a go first as iirc that was not fedora based.
Strong recommendation of EndeavourOS over Manjaro.
endOS is like manjaro based on Arch. they feel closely related, hence the recommendation. i probably wouldn’t install it because i don’t want to deal with Arch’s quick update cycle, but that’s just my personal preference and no statement about the quality of arch and its derivatives.
endOS and Manjaro are both that keep being reccomended a lot and I really want to check them out, but I keep forgetting. My big wishlist is working vr, working hotas, not having to mess around with nvidia drivers every kernel update. Thanks for help!
Garuda KDE-lite is what I’ve been using my and it’s great
Gnome was the main obstacle in Wayland adoption, by not implementing “server-side decorations”.
Tue problem was not gnome at all. The problem was that Wayland was missing a ton of basic functionality until recently.
The main obstacle in Wayland adoption was Wayland not being usable for years.
KDE has almost perfect fractional scaling, that was the real chadfeature for me.
I just realized that this desktop environment debate has slowed down a lot these last few years. I reckon it’s about time we heat it back up. I’ll get the popcorn!
Sounds like something a goddamn GNOME user would say 😠
We’ll have to see if System 76’s Cosmic DE can stir up some tribalism again!
I know the hyprland Dev had some stuff to say that caused a mild shit storm. Nothing lasting though.
Are they still people giving a thing about that guys opinion? Hey is hating everything and evwrybody by no good reasons but pure gas lighting hatred
Honestly as a newvomer to linux using both, they’re both fine. Both have their annoyances and stupidity but both are better than windows.
I have never understood how there was any competition.
KDE has always been a better DE than anything on any platform, while gnome has been one of the worst and it just keeps going downhill.
KDE gathered a lot of initial hate because the Qt widget library it relied on used to not be proper Free Software. (That was fixed about two decades ago, though.)
Unfortunately, GTK is much prettier than QT.
I disagree completely, GTK looks like they took windows 3.11 and covered all the widgets in dried shit.
This can sometimes come at the cost of intuitiveness however. As an example that just happened to me the other day, I was using Pinta which uses libadwaita and had opened an image to make some modifications to it.
All was going well until I wanted to save a new copy of it (and not override the original). The toolbar has all of these functions on it, open, save, undo/redo, etc… but not Save As.
Apparently there’s a tiny little overflow button on the far right side, click it and you get a whole bunch of functions - one of them being the holy “Save As” option I was looking for. I almost went down the route of making a copy of the image outside Pinta and then just overwriting the original.
Apparently the idea of making a copy of an image is blasphemy. Even Microsoft Word when they had first moved to the Ribbon UI made the save button have a little dropdown right under the save option to reveal Save As.
Don’t get me wrong, I love how some libadwaita apps look. Mission Center for example? Chef’s Kiss - but it’s a very simple application that all I need to do is open it to have a quick look at the very pretty looking graphs. Although the latest update seems to have gotten rid of being able to have the sidebar open persistently (now taking an extra click to change between performance graphs)… But I still need to double check to see if that’s intended vs being a bug before I judge that too harshly.
Ummm but gtk is pretty bad in ux for me. It has some weird way of contents in title bar. And you can’t click close button by clicking at top right corner of screen for fullscreen apps because its floating or rounded
It doesn’t matter if it’s prettier, when I need to spend twice the time to do some basic stuff because I need to move my mouse cursor half way through the fucking screen, at least in GNOME apps.
How is that toleratable is beyond me.
Plasma’s growing on my and I think it definitely works better on a laptop but I just wish it looked like a modern operating system. It feels like something from the 00s at best.
It looks very similar to Windows 10. You think Windows 10 looks like something from 00’s?
The reverse actually, Windows 10+ looks like Plasma. They were “inspired” by it (copied it).
OP, if you don’t like the looks, Plasma has extensive theming support.
I know about the themes but most of them look dated as well. I know I’m complaining about free software but it should look better out of the box. I know some people love customising but it shouldn’t be a requirement.
How does it look like Windows 10? It looks like Windows 2000.
Then I don’t know what are you smoking. From the taskbar, window decorations to system settings - it’s very similar to how Windows 10 is designed, although with much less padding (by default, but it’s a good thing).
There are also some settings for the taskbar to behave more like a Windows 11 one, if that’s what you want.
Also as for icons they look much more modern than what’s on Windows, at least for me.
UX wise, GNOME is oversimplified and Plasma is overcomplicated.
Can you give an instance of plasma being overcomplicated?
Launch System preferences, go to Internet and WiFi. Then you’ll get a UI divided into three panels. The first one lists WiFi and networks, Firewall, Proxy and Other preferences; the second panel will list your connections, including Ethernet, WiFi 2.4 GHz, WiFi 5 GHz, WiFi 6GHz, Bluetooth, VPN and Loopback, your current connection will be auto selected; from the current selected connection you’ll see in the third panel SSID, Mode, BSSID, Restrict devices, Cloned MAC, MTU and Visibility, and this is only one in 5 tabs of options.
I’m sure I skipped some other components in the same windows, but you see my point?
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I don’t agree that this is overcomplicated, how would you improve it? The simple settings are in the middle and the advanced settings are also easily accessible
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if you wanted something simple and not the advanced network settings wouldn’t you just use the panel applet anyway?
We don’t agree, but I still think it is. I just described the first window that found overcomplicated, of course there may be options of UX which may have different arrangements. In any case, in my opinion, even the system applet is overcomplicated (for a system applet).
In this window, for example, what’s the use of the first panel if you wanted to edit something in some WiFi connection? I’d replace the whole first panel with a “back” button and let the window breathe.
If you want it simple you can resize the window, make it smaller horizontally.
Exactly. Overcomplicated.
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Gnome: We lock down everything since youre too wtupid to handle womputers Also gnome: “oh you want right click-create file? We can’t think of a more streamlined solution than navigating to the folder you already have open in nautilus using terminal, making an empty file with a terminal text editor and googling the command to save and exit empty file. Intuitive is our MO”
I love gnome workflow and simplicity but it is too locked down in nonsensical ways and it is too broken too often.
Gnome has always been like this. They started on this trend at the very beginning.
I dropped it when they released 1.0 or 1.1 as they had released another of idiotic changes that were half because “we know better” and because “fuck you, user peons”. Never looked back as it’s been managed the same way ever since.You can just put a blank file in the Templates directory then it shows up in the right click menu. At least it does that on PopOS
Or, and now hear me out, you could add a New > File/Directory to the context menu.
Yes that is what you have to do. It is ridiculous that this is what you have to do.
I was searching for this a few days ago and was stunned that you aren’t able to just create an empty file in the gnome file manager.
In the terminal you can use
touch file.txtto create an empty file, but it should be possible to do this in the file manager.Oh i know i can painstakingly navigate to the correct folder with ls and cd, then google what that one command I never use is and then use man to stop the whole process and read how to use it.
It’s nice to have that option for those who want to have fun with it, but it is a joke this is the intended option in gnome of all places.
Why asking for up arrow in Nautilus when you can always press alt+f8
What’s the point in being able to create an empty file from the file manager? You pretty much never want to actually have an empty file.
Open whatever program that can edit the document type you want (you would have it open later anyway to edit the document), make a new document, put something in it and save it. You have to do that anyway with any document type where an empty file isn’t valid data.
- making a readme
- making notes
- making task lists
- prewriting messeges for proof reading
- writing down passwords, keys or hashes and hiding them
- writing down links -archiving general information -not writing anything in the file and using the filename to make notes or organize -making todos -making text files you intend to fill out later as you get more info
All done conveniently by right click and double click in the folder you’re in already. No need to open another program, rummage through the menus to find “save as” or “export as” then navigate to the same location you are already in AGAIN.
Ive used txt files in windows constantly and I do not program. My archidect gf uses them constantly as well. It is very useful in a myriad of ways. Its a post it note since the other solutions for making notes, task in specific folders do not exist or suck.
For all of those you need to open an editor anyway.
Open your editor, start typing, press ctrl+s, drag the folder from the file manager to the save dialog to navigate there.
If anything, there should be a “Create new document with…” menu entry with a submenu that lets you select an editor, and when you save, the save dialog has the correct folder open. Anything, but have the editor create the document because it knows best what data to write when you do save.
A menu entry to create new empty file is a bad solution to this. It’s not general enough, and people don’t actually want an empty file as you just demonstrated with your list.
None of those are solutions and make a widely used feature more annoying to use.
Well duh, I just came up with it on the fly instead of actually spending time thinking about what the right design would be for this. I don’t know why you expect otherwise.
I expect right click-new file.
