Nicholas Petreley Slams Gnome 818
FreeLinux writes "Mainstream computer rag ComputerWorld, has posted a review of Gnome 2.6 by Nicholas Petreley. This opinion piece review, titled Living Down to a Low Standard, positively lambastes Gnome 2.6 over the new spatial Nautilus and Gnome's design choices. The review is quite the opposite to a previously reported review from PCWorld, last month. While this latest review is bound to be a polarizing and heavily debated issue (read flamebait), it is important in that this review will be seen by so many mainstream readers and corporate types who may have been considering Gnome."
Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, the article brings up some very good points, albeit in a very inflammatory way.
The most damaging part of the "review" is that it says nothing aboout Gnome as a whole. It's just a rant about this user's opinion about how Nautilus was designed ( changed) to work in 2.6.
This sort of rant, if done constructively could certainly help the developers make better choices, but to put it directly to mass media as a review just sucks.
Well, as a Pointy Haired type myself, I can assure you, these mags hit the coffee table in the lobby - and very few people actually read the articles... However, if this review makes the front page, Gnome is toast.
I like Gnome. (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple Solution. (Score:3, Interesting)
The only way to change the default behavior of Nautilus is to set an obscure registry key via the command line or the registry editor. Not even that abomination of operating systems, Windows 95, made users retreat to the registry editor to use a single window to navigate folders. I can only assume that the GNOME developers decided to make Nautilus a worse Windows than Windows. I toast their rousing success.
Also, he says
It was deliberately designed to protect users who are invariably too incompetent to pick their own colors but are smart enough to memorize shift-clicks and keystrokes or edit the registry to get Nautilus to work the way they like.
And Lastly, he says
But it turns out there is no preference setting that tells Nautilus to use a single window to browse folders.
All this is actually kind of funny... because couldn't all of his arguments be fix by simply... adding the option to browse in a single window as a menu option???
Seems like a trivial complaint to bash GNOME as a whole... and one that can be fixed easily.
GNOME Armageddon (Score:1, Interesting)
First of all I want to clarify that this text was meant to be a source of information otherwise i wouldn't have spent so much time into writing it.
Belive me it took me a couple of days writing this text in a foreign language.
Even if you don't care at all for GNOME, you may find some interesting information within this text that you like to read. please try to understand my points even if it's hard sometimes, otherwise you wake up one day and feel the need to switch to a different operating system.
On the following lines i'm trying to give you a little insight of the GNOME [gnome.org] community. the things that are going on in the back, the information that could be worth talking and thinking about.
Many of us like the GNOME desktop and some of us were following it since the beginning. GNOME is a promising project because it's mostly written in C, easy to use, configurable and therefore fits perfectly into the philosophy of *NIX, only to name some of its advantages.
Unfortunately these advantages changed with the recently new released version of GNOME. The core development team somehow got the idea of targeting GNOME to a complete different direction of users, the so called corporate desktop user.
In other words they're targeting people that aren't familiar or experienced with desktop environments. usually business oriented people who are willing to pay money for getting GNOME on their computers.
Having this new target in mind, the core development team mostly under contract by companies like RedHat [redhat.com],Ximian [ximian.com] and Sun [sun.com] decided to simplify the desktop as much as even possible by removing all its flexibility in favor of an easy clean simple interface to not confuse their new possible customers. So far the idea of a clean easy to use desktop is honourable.
Some of the new ideas, features and implementations such asgconf [gnome.org], an evil Windows Registry-like system, new ordering of buttons and dialogs, the removal of 90%-95% of all visible preferences from the control center and applications, the new direction that GNOME leads and the attitude of the core development team made a lot of users really unhappy. These are only a couple of examples and the list can easily be expanded but for now this is enough. Now let me try to get deeper into these aspects.
You may imagine that users got really frustrated [osnews.com] because their beloved GNOME desktop matured into something they didn't want. During the time, the frustration of a not less amount of people increased. more [gnome.org], more [gnome.org] and more [gnome.org] emails arrived on the GNOME mailinglists where users tried to explain their concerns, frustrations and the leading target of GNOME.
But the core development team of GNOME don't give a damn about what their users are thinking or wanting and most of the time they come up with their standard purl. The reply they give is mostly the same -- users should either go and 'file a bug' at BugZilla [gnome.org] or the user mails are being turned so far that at the end they sound like being trolls or the user feedback is simply not wanted. whatever happens the answers aren't really satisfying for the user. even constructive feedback [gnome.org] isn't appreciated.
If you gonna think about this for a minute then things gonna harden that they are directing into the commercial area. The core development team actually don't care for the complainin
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Seeing as a reference to his column has been posted on /., he seems to have gotten his point across. He must have gotten tired of ranting about SCO and blasting Microsoft.
And he has a good point. Why, when Windows users typically change that default behavior for explorer, would the Gnome folks break Nautilas, then obfuscate the setting to change it? It was a dumb move, as he says.
Is it really that bad? (Score:1, Interesting)
Im not keen on Gnome anyway but if the above is really true i wouldnt touch it with a fucking bargepole.
nick
Other problems, the insanity continues (Score:2, Interesting)
and the 2.6 nautilus advocate responds "use your middle mouse button"
So I have to DOUBLE, click with a scrollwheel (not a nice experience) and to top it all off.... the cascading STILL happens, so as you dig in to your navigation the window (or constantly closing and opening widows) move across the screen.
In addition, there is no location bar where you can "jump" to a place you want, nor do you get a sense of where you are in the file system. And good luck even if you do have a sense of where you are because there are no forward back or up buttons in sight to allow you to get anywhere (I know there is a hidden menu, but it's hidden, it may aswell be a keyboard shortcut for how easy it is to use from a GUI perspective).
All of this reeks of hijacking of the OS by some disgruntled designer, aka a former BeOS dude or whatever. I don't mind you making a BeOS style file browser dudes, but seriously.... make a fork of gnome.... don't just hijack gnome (at a 2.6 release, not some early design stage, a mature 2.6) to your own ends.
I have seen a few pundits say they like it, but as far as I am concerned it is change for the sake of change and it isn't backed up by any research. Apple spends more than anyone on UI research and they have abandoned spacial..... are we to believe some hacker, former BeOS lover, is somehow more skilled than Apples UI teams?????? NO.
NO NO NO. I can't take it anymore, how stupid is this design decision. At best the pundits has been able to say that "in theory" coupled with a filesystem that "doesn't exist yet" it wil l be "simpler to use" for some anonymous person who have NEVER used another UI before and gnome is their virgin cherry poping experience.
This is the same as saying we need "spacial web-browing" remove the back and forward buttons. Remove all buttons, the address bar EVERYTHING. And people can just navigate by "surfing the links" because it is more "natural".
Scratch what I said ealier, this isn't poorly implimented, it is a vicous and insane hijacking by disgruntled elitist designers who think they can make rash decisions at a 2.6 design release without backing them up with either TECHNOLOGY (the filesystem) or RESEARCH. The status quo is in my favour, they need to justify their design and they haven't. I hope they burn in the flamewars of hell.
(yeah it's a troll, but it's deliberately embellished for dramatic effect, I don't hate them... I am just having a dig at an insane, undemocratic design decision.)
Typical UNIX/Linux problem - configuration sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're involved in configuration, go take a look at Susan Kare's original Macintosh control panel. [kare.com] Now think really, really hard about how to get to something that intutive.
Re:The guy has a point... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
I must vehemently disagree.
They are competing for resources--users and product developers. Developing a commercial desktop application for Linux is almost impossible because of the crazy-quilt of user interfaces.
Saying choice is good is like saying it's a bad thing we all standardized on TCP/IP.
The majority of my work is embedded Linux done on a Linux box. But I bought a Mac because Linux-desktop is all over the map and has been for years. Before that I did all my work ssh'd into a Linux box from Windows.
Linux-desktop is in trouble until there is a STANDARD. Like networking has standards, like hardware has standards.
Re:Other problems, the insanity continues (Score:5, Interesting)
There's still a lot of UI wisdom from the pre-OSX days, and to simply dismiss it is foolish.
Spatial webbrowsing is impractical because of the nature of HTML and the infinite space and chaotic organization of the network. In addition, you don't manipulate the web, you view it and interact with it. Spatial concepts become very useful when interacting with files (i.e. drag it to the trash to delete it) but isn't so necessary when all you're doing is looking at data. File browsing has a very different set of requirements and constraints.
Ultimately, what's interesting about the above is that a spatial metaphor encourages the user to interact with their data, where the portal viewing method that Windows and OSX uses is meant more for viewing, like on the web. Perhaps the reason why Apple switched to the portal viewer metaphor for OSX is that there's so much in UNIX that you're not supposed to manipulate, where in the old MacOS you could manipulate anything really.
And one thing that's very much in favor of spatial organization is that it's actually much faster to move files around than the porthole metaphor, at least if you know what you're doing. With the porthole method, you open up windows explorer (which by default is a totally separate icon/interface than starting from My Computer or whatever) and navigate to your file. Then you have to navigate to where you want to move it to on the sidebar. That's the most efficient way to do it, and you still have to bring up the sidebar, which may not expand far enough over to easily see as deep in the file tree as you need.
In contrast, with the one-window per file method, you open up each folder, holding down the shift key on each open so that the previous one is closed, and where the file tree branches off from the current file location and where it's going, you leave that window open, and keep drilling down the file tree. Then, once you get to your file, you go back to that branch point you left open and drill down the other half of the tree. This is much quicker because you rarely have to navigate two full trees, and you don't have to deal with a sidebar that's too small due to the fact that you have all this extra data hanging around. Who needs to see the whole damn file tree at a time on the sidebar? Once again, this sort of thing has no bearing when all you're doing is browsing the file tree and seeing what's there, but when actually manipulating it, it's of huge benefit.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
I've already foregone my mod points for this topic, so I might as well get out the battle gear. The way Gnome works now is what made me switch to it from KDE. I fully enjoy all of KDE's eye candy and wonderful flexibility, but when it comes down to using it to do real work, doing basic tasks like dragging files around, it gets all flaky (albeit no more flaky than Windows). I feel like Konq is thin, fragile, and unpolished as a file manager. Gnome to me has that Macintosh System 7 goodness. The file manager feels nice and solid, and the spatial-ness is very welcome.
Just because the Gnome developers went in a direction you dislike doesn't make it "backward" in any way. Some things about WIMP interfaces were done correctly 20 years ago, and doing them that way again is just fine.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:4, Interesting)
And after that I tried spatial Nautilus.
What now? I love it. First File manager that got better than OS9 Finder (I was considering this one as the best approach so far).
There's one only thing that I miss, some gconf key to swap middle and left click for my notebook. I don't have middle button and clicking both is a bit painfull. But then again there's still Close parents shortcut.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of ways of solving the problem. Unfortunately, GNOME took the approach that if the users don't like it, they better learn vi.
He's pretty much right (Score:3, Interesting)
With 2.6, I felt, as Mr. Petreley did, that I had gone backwards in time. I am back in 2.4 now, and I'm much happier for it. My biggest fear is that I may not be able to upgrade to Slackware 10 because it will surely contain 2.6. I'd love to be able to run 2.4 on Slackware 10, but not if it means installing it without GNOME and then attempting to download and install 2.4, assuming that it would even be possible.
Basically, thanks to GNOME's design decisions, my next GNU/Linux OS desktop will be either KDE (horrors!), XFCE (not bad), or Fluxbox (fast but too minimal).
Nautilus needs to integrate with file chooser! (Score:3, Interesting)
When one edits bookmarks in Nautilus, the gnome file chooser should come up. The directories "added" using the new file chooser should be the directories that make up Nautilus's "bookmarks". This solution removes redundancy. Think about it. People "choose" files from directories their applications use, which incidently happen to be the same files that people tend to manage.
There should be an "open" option under the file menu that invokes the Gnome file chooser. People still want and need to browse the file system. This solution allows that.
In summary, the new gnome file chooser and Nautilus should be inseparable bed buddies. File choosing *is* file management in a practical sense, so why doesn't Nautilus take advantage of the new Gnome file chooser?
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Cancel - Ok buttons (Score:1, Interesting)
A human would ask "Are you really sure you want me to do that? Yes or No?" Your top-to-bottom silliness would be equivalent to the person asking "No? Are you sure you want me to do this? Yes?"
The Gnome HIG is wrong. Just plain wrong. For English, at least.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:2, Interesting)
I have to agree with you. After using Gnome 2.4 and being rather happy with it, it came as quite a grave dissapointment of how a simple flaw in one of programs included could mess up the whole desktop environment -- changing the default behaviour in Nautilus is not unforgiveable in any way, but not giving an easy way to revert to the way it used to work is ignorant and arrogant from the developers. It is not as if having the very familiar 2.4ish file system browsing would be some sort of very obscure need that only a few people would want.
It is such a shame, as I use many of the Gnome 2.6 programs very frequently and like the idea and feel of the simple, clear and usable design in almost all of the programs that are included -- and still have to choose to use KDE as the desktop.
mz2Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you, but who? (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you for being informative, and if you are really whom you claim to be, may I be the first to invite you to join the discussion in other ways. Heck, maybe you could coax Nick to join the discussion.
I'm quite happy to hear that this will be a mid-pages article, especially as - well you've read by now - the narrow target of the article has got some folks a bit up-in-arms.
The reason why I am so vocale, is that I know how I read the tech magazines I'm sent (over 8 per week), and I honestly don't have time to read all the articles. But if a tag strikes my interest on the front page, them I'm likely to open to that article. At that point, I've never once gone to seek additional information from other sources.
Re:Vicious (Score:5, Interesting)
Petreley is a long time KDE fanboy. It's not surprising he gave GNOME a bad review. It would be a surprise that he DIDN'T give it a bad review.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
I did try to get Gnome to do what I wanted it to do. I don't like metacity, so I changed it to WindowMaker. Except Gnome-Session won't launch window maker when you set it as the windowmanager in that GConf registry, so I had to fiddle with the session settings. Well now Gnome takes 4 min to actually load, WindowMaker, gkrellm and rxvt load almost instantly, but Gnome-Session sits taking 100 CPU on both processors till it decides to actually do something.
Happier now? I gave you a little more then what stuck in my mind? Would you like me to spend a week with it and give you a list of everything that just doesn't work quite right? How about the bugs in the build that have existed since 2.0? Or that gnome-modem-lights and libgtop wont build on 2.6 kernels. Perhaps you'd like to hear how the packages that were released as 2.6 were exactly the same as 2.5 and as 2.4 with exactly the same bugs and yet are somehow passed off as a stable release?
And yes the comment about monkeys was because of Ximian.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
And that is because people coming from Windows don't have a high-enough resolution radar to tell the kernel apart from the UI and the producer of the distro. They look at the whole package, see the UI and call it Linux - because this is what they did with Windows all the time! Heck, even average OSX users don't single out the interface from the rest of the system!
One can only hope they'll go far enough with Linux to be able to look at the UI and call it by its proper name, be that Gnome, KDE or anything else.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Any publicity is good publicity, after all.
I hear this chesnut thrown around quite a bit. The truth, however - and I say this as someone who has spent a good bit of time as both a reporter and PR flack - is that saying is total crap. Unless all you are interested in is notoriety (not the same thing as fame), there is such a thing as bad publicity.
Trust me on this one, I have seen it. You're far better off getting no review of your software than a terrible review when it comes to a business context. And do you think Intel's sales went up because of all the publicity over the F/DIV bug? Now, "controversy" can be fine - it gets you noticed, and it wouldn't be "controversial" unless at least some of the people thought it was great. But again, strictly speaking, bad publicity is, well ... bad.
And this isn't just me ... ask anyone who does this for a living (at least people who are publicizing businesses, not pr0n stars) and they'll tell you that bad publicity is something you don't want. It's a sad thing that most F/OSS groups (because so few have involved anyone with marketing or PR experience) often don't know the truth about this ... it might help their adoption rate it they did.
Re:News Flash (Score:2, Interesting)
The window manager sucks. Not only do I have to use that one little corner no matter how I want to resize the window, but putting the Close button right next to the other window controls was a huge leap backward in GUI usability. Don't even get me started on the color coding.
I can't save my session when I log out.
Right-click support is abysmally sparse.
I have to reboot it every few days, otherwise it will start complaining that it can't talk to my USB printer or it will lose the ability to authenticate a PPP connection with my ISP. I haven't had that sort of problem since Windows-fuckin'-95.
Speaking of rebooting, I have to manually turn Internet Connection Sharing back on every time I do it.
I bought a wireless mouse & keyboard after the cheapie Apple keyboard died. The Apple Installer handily put a configuration icon for them in the Control Panel. Too bad I still can't configure them because the driver can't find some kernel module it needs. So much for "It Just Works".
I suppose I shouldn't complain. After all, history shows us that it takes at least six or seven iterations before Apple manages to make an OS that works well. In the meantime, I suppose I could drool over the "lickable" UI.
Re:Vicious (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Vicious (Score:5, Interesting)
My path was FVWM95->Afterstep->Window Maker->Gnome->KDE3.0.
I liked Gnome better than the other things that were around at the time, and steered away from KDE partly because of the licensing issue with Qt that existed at the time, and partly because KDE prior to 3.0 was just so generally ugly and amateurish-looking that I couldn't stand to look at it. Who designed those icons? Blech!
Then KDE 3.0 came out. I tried it out of curiousity and found that it was *worlds* ahead of Gnome. Gnome up to and including 2.4 was nowhere near catching up. Whatever chance they might have had was buried by KDE 3.2.
I will take a look at Gnome 2.6, just to see how they've done, but I have my doubts. I read some of the ideas that were going into the design for Gnome 2.6 and all I could think was "That sounds really stupid."
So, while his review of Gnome 2.6 (or more accurately, of Nautilus in Gnome 2.6) may be written in rather inflamatory language, it should not be dismissed outright as being crap. Even if it's not as bad as he says, the idea of having every double-click open a new window and be so difficult to override is criminally stupid.
People tend to dis KDE by claiming it works too much like the Windows UI, but you can customize that any way you want, and so I do. It's something I like a lot about KDE.
If it has behaviors that are much like Windows by default, so what? That can help new users make the transition. Is that a bad thing? We also need to keep in mind that Microsoft does know a thing or two about UI design. Unlike most open source projects, MS does have UI specialists. Lots of them.
I have a laundry list of things I hate about Windows, but only two things on that list are UI-related:
1) You can't customize the UI much. It just works the way it works;
2) This is the bigger one: you get only one desktop. On my notebook, I have 8 virtual desktops. On my desktop machine, I have 10. This allows me to organize my work by assigning different types of tasks to different desktops, and I have a set pattern of where I put different types of things. Ctrl-F[1-10] takes me to the desktop I need. I cannot do this with Windows and it's a major PITA.
That's it. Those are the only two points of MS UI design that bother me, and the first one is pretry minor, really. If KDE copies some of their ideas from Windows (but don't forget that KDE has a lot of capabilities that the Windows GUI does not have), it could be that KDE developers just know how to recognize a good decision when they see it.
Re:Don't panic... it's not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
You still can't rename it though.