GNOME 3.8 Released Featuring New "Classic" Mode 267
Hot on the heels of the Gtk+ 3.8 release comes GNOME 3.8. There are a few general UI improvements, but the highlight for many is the new Classic mode that replaces fallback. Instead of using code based on the old GNOME panel, Classic emulates the feel of GNOME 2 through Shell extensions (just like Linux Mint's Cinnamon interface). From the release notes: "Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these features can be used individually or in combination with other GNOME extensions."
idle curiosity (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I wonder if there are any use metrics for Gnome3's default mode, vs running on fallback/classic.
Personally, I can't stand either Unity or Gnome3-standard modes. One of the first things I do with Ubuntu boxes is nuke LightDM and Unity from orbit, and replace them with something less resembling a botched ST:NG computer interface. I actually happen to LIKE menus. That Gnome has listened to the sound of angry feet stampeding to XCFE and KDE over the issue makes me happier, but still displeased over the "No, we don't do it that way anymore, nanaananananannaa" mantra they were using for so long previously.
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I tried 3.8 on Arch today. It was horrible until I started downloading extensions. Then is was tolerable. I still won't use it for the simple lack of minimize and maximize buttons. Back to KDE I guess. The Linux desktop is in serious need of an enema.
Re:idle curiosity (Score:4, Informative)
You can turn min and max back on with tweak-tool. You can also disable dynamic workspaces. Handy!
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It is true. The Ubuntu Tweak tool, and Gnome 3, along with whatever extension a user feels they need (like adding a restart button), works very well. Gnome 3 is an affordable, modern OS IMHO and I like it a lot. I have Ubuntu 12.04/Gnome 3 on all my PCs, from large double-monitor rigs to a 10" netbook display. And I am thrilled I don't have to reconfigure anything until October 2017 according to this chart:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS [ubuntu.com]
Also, the low-tech folks with no budget who 'just needed a (recycled) compu
Old Version was just Better for PCs (Score:2)
It is so frustrating to fire up a new install of "linux" and have all the important parts of the OS hidden away from access, requiring more than a couple of clicks to get to or even requiring you to open a Search Dialog and search for the app that you want.
UI designers should really take notice of the reception things like Windows 8 and Gnome 3 and Unity have been getting lately. Remember that most business is still done with a mouse and keyboard at least.
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Hyperbole or what?
Since when it become necessary to express "remove" by saying "nuke from orbit"?
This kind of attention seeking exaggeration is much too common and the noise tends to mask less exciting but more rational opinions and observations, like mine for instance (he he he)
Anyway who installs a full Unity Ubuntu with the intention of immediately removing Unity? There are all those *buntu "dude I made this kewl theme" versions masquerading as distributions, anyone can use one of those instead. Do peo
Re:idle curiosity (Score:5, Interesting)
While definately hyperbole, I think it aptly sums up the "level" of dissatisfaction I have for Unity and Gnome3, and similar "oh look! Great big icons, and obfuscated indicators of what's actually installed, forcing you to grasp blindly with a search dialog!" UIs.
In other words, I have tried both, actually, earnestly, honestly tried them, and my passionate hatred of the paradigm they uphold only intensified the more I tried.
Not all UIs are for everyone. Insisting that I don't like it "because you haven't tried it yet", or "because it's different, and if you just used it you would come to like it" are strawmen. I have tried them, for a 2 month trial window. I hate them. End of story. I LIKE menus. I LIKE having the option of turning them on, because I find them useful. I LIKE not being ridiculed for doing so. It is NOT hard to understand.
As for why one would use a standard distro package and not a repacked themed hackjob? Really, do I actually need to answer that? Really? Ok, how about, "because the main distro has been vetted by more eyeballs, and has better user support by being more commonly used." Hmm? Maybe trying to get updated packages down the road is less of a headache with the main distribution pack? Naw.. that clearly isn't a good enough reason, I must totaly be an idiot instead.
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Just want to point out that "fallback" does not exist anymore as a separate mode. Clutter (the window manager) will simply use the 2D LLVM pipe if 3D graphics are not available.
"GNOME Classic" is a "mode," meaning a pre-configured template for a desktop session. You can also create your own modes according to your tastes.
Libre as in We don't care what you think (Score:5, Funny)
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still more annoying than just having the button there. The justification for removing it was far weaker than the one for keeping it, especially considering it's a standard convention.
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I think the idea was that minimize buttons were not logical and intuitive, and thus had to be removed.
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There you have it. The ULTIMATE illustration of the bizarre, fringe mentality behind Gnome 3. In a nutshell.
Nutters. Absolute nutters.
2013??? (Score:3, Informative)
Two Reviews Worth Reading (Score:3, Informative)
Over at datamation.com they have two reviews worth reading. One general review on GNOME 3.8 [datamation.com] and a separate review on the all new GNOME Classic [datamation.com].
Re:Two Reviews Worth Reading (Score:5, Informative)
"In many fundamental features, GNOME Classic actually fails to match GNOME 2's standards. On closer examination, the panel proves to be unmovable and un-resizable. Nor has GNOME Classic followed Mate's lead and restored the ecosystem of applets, the small utilities that could do so much to customize a GNOME 2 desktop." -- datamation.com
So i'll be sticking with MATE (on fedora) and GNOME2 (gentoo stable) for atleast the next 6 months then :-)
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Re:Two Reviews Worth Reading (Score:4, Interesting)
They may not be "innovative" enough but they are a hell of a lot more useful than all of the abortive attempts to ape MacOS.
"Innovative" != useful.
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To each his own.
I run fluxbox and I always have a dock on the right side of my screen where I run dock apps. http://dockapps.windowmaker.org/ [windowmaker.org]. On a wide aspect display I don't miss the 68 to 72 pixels they take up. At a glance I can see if anyone has IMed me and what time it was (wmmsg), switch keyboard layouts and see which one is active (wmkeys), So what me volume levels are and change/mute them (wmix), have my favorite net streaming radio stations available (pywmradio), have full control over audacious (
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i dont care if implemented as an applet, extenstion, built into the panel or writen into the frame buffer a kernel module. I just want a system monitor that is always visable at the top of my screen. the gnome2 system monitor is the best implemented one i have ever used (i can set it to a slow update rate, i can choose colors, and i can make iowait visable).
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Thanks. I think the Gnome developers should get together for a group picture. They'd sell a million dartboards. I'm just gonna stick with MATE.
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Elementary OS... (Score:2)
...no need for Gnome 3.8 now that Elementary OS is coming along so nicely. It tends to be forgotten around here as an alternative, so I thought I'd mention it.
Keyboard layout switching still broken (Score:5, Interesting)
They keep breaking keyboard switching every release. Here's the story in 3.6:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681685 [gnome.org]
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=684210 [gnome.org]
(If you read the comments, you'll see the usual attitude of Gnome devs - bilingual users who actually use this functionality are telling them that it's been broken, while devs who don't really use it but own it reply by coming up with invented reasons as to why the new behavior is the right thing, and everyone else should just shut up and learn it.)
You'd think they would pay more attention to this area in the new release, but apparently they have emasculated [gnome.org] (the official press release calls it "simplified", in the usual Gnome bullshit-speak) it even further in 3.8, and there are bugs reported about erratic behavior of the new switcher. All that because XKB is, apparently, not good enough anymore.
With this kind of attitude towards their users (of which the above is but a single example), how come they still have any?
Gnome founder says desktop linux is dead (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/08/gnome-founder-says-desktop-linux-is-dead
I guess this guy could be considered an expert on the subject!
Does the fallback pager include little previews? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the things in Gnome 2 that I rely on every day is the fact that in the pager applet, I can see the outlines of the windows on that desktop, and if the app is big enough, it's icon. This is invaluable feedback to me. I can tell at a glance where things are if I should forget. I typically never alter my desktops use, but it's nice to be able to see this. Cinnamon fails completely in this regard. It's pager is nothing but a dark square to identify which desktop I'm on. It gives no feed back other than this and may as well be just a number, which the screen shot of the new classic mode appears to do.
If either Gnome classic or Cinnamon could do this one small thing, I'm ready to switch. Until then, It's still Mate for me. That and I really like the way I have compiz set up with Mate.
Re:Does the fallback pager include little previews (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should he have to go hunt for something that was a standard feature since about 1995?
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Actually I use Linux specifically because there is very few things I have to go out and download and modify to get it to do the things I want. Unlike the Windows and Mac environments where the "Just works" motto is limited to it's very narrow view of things included with the OS. You still have to spend the next week downloading crap to fill all the normal use items.
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I still use fvwm and it still has a great pager. :-)
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What an idea! Of course I have already done that and didn't find anything. The search function didn't return anything, and I wasn't going to go through 37 pages manually. So I gave up. You talk as if you have some knowledge that I don't; perhaps you could enlighten me.
Will Debian Wheezy be upgraded to Gnome 3.8 ? (Score:2)
The chance seem to be very small, but without that Wheezy will look like a old duck with his Gnome 3.4 when it will be released.
I hope that the Debian team will be cleaver enough to understand the advantage of providing a good classic desktop experience for people that will upgrade from Squeeze to Wheezy (I have tried Gnome 3.x and Unity and found them unproductive).
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Probably won't happen since Wheezy has been in the fridge for almost nine months now.
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Yes, long release cycle is not adapted to the today's fast moving projects. Stability is still a valuable goal, but there is not point in fixing too old revisions that users will not use and that upstream will nor car of anymore.
Aside of that, I found Debian still a very important project because it bring to the community a lot of very good and clean technologies. In this regard the multiarch will certainly be the beginning of a new area, especially now that a lot of different arch are coming to the mass in
Modal popup dialog windows pinned to app window (Score:4, Interesting)
If Gnome 3.8 still has application popup windows that are "pinned" below the app's window bar, then it still reeks.
This started at Gnome 3.0, and [as far as I can tell from a quick perusal of the source code] they removed the code [from metacity, mutter, gnome-whatever] that corresponded to the config option to allow these windows to float.
For an example, play gnomines. When you complete a game, the popup comes up and obscures the top part of the board. You can't see your time [or a portion of the board]. This can't be overridden.
As a far worse example, do an "open file" [ctrl-O] in Firefox. See how much information is obscured (tabs, toolbar, url, etc.).
To remove working code that provided a useful option to force "A Brave New Paradigm" is just asinine.
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Sadly, the KDE experience had a SEVERE problem when they "upgraded" Kmail. The import was severely broken and for several days I was simply unable to get email at all until I have up on kmail (having used it since KDE 1.x days!) and switched to Thunderbird. It's not bad, but I sorely wish I could go back to Kmail on KDE 3.
Yes, I like now mostly like KDE4 and it's finally stabilized to something I don't mind much, but they've lost me for years when it comes to trusting my data.
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's terrible with multi-monitor, relative to windows anyway.
add an external monitor to my left, It's automatically the primary, my plasma desktop and panels resize and move to it to my left. Ok, fine, I add a new panel (i actually like one on each monitor), but when I remove the monitor, my panels stack on top of each other on the laptop (right). Now when I re add the external monitor I have 2 panels on the left, on top of each other.
also, I've lost windows off screen and couldnt get them back on an unplug. It makes me miss windows.
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> It's terrible with multi-monitor, relative to windows anyway.
Yeah, was a deal breaker for me. I threw my toys out of the pram and installed Scientific Linux (Redhat Enterprise clone).
Now my workstation is gnome2 with realtime kernel 3.2, nice nvidia multi-monitor setup where I can get work done no fuss. It's occasionally a pain but I'm happy that I'm not burning through my SSD with updates every week.
I just found gnome3 too frustrating. I tried XFCE which wasn't bad but some little quirks annoyed me en
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Funny)
It looks plasticky and cheap
Don't use the 'Plastick' theme, then.
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...and did something about it that didn't ruin their code base. Kudos Gnome Team. I kinda like the KDE they forced me to try with their second-to-latest abortion, but I'll give Gnome 3.8 a try.
I still don't understand what all the hullaballoo is about, I like the new Gnome 3 interface. I can use the search tool to locate and/or launch practically anything I need which means that I am blessedly rid of that horrid Winodows-esque Applications button with it's sub-menus and endless click paths. Now I just hit the search button with my thumb, type app name, hit return and my app launches. Since I got a keyboard with an integrated trackpad I could also dump that useless bloody mouse so now I hardly eve
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Informative)
How do you launch something when you don't know its name? Sit a newbie down in front of gnome panel and they'll never find all of the "hidden" programs.
The type to search applications feature searches more than just application names -- it searches a number of fields in the .desktop files, including application descriptions. Thus a search for "spreadsheet" will bring up LibreOffice Calc for example. Type what you want to do, and you'll find what you want ... that's the theory.
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Insightful)
So we're back to playing "guess the verb"? Is it called a "console", a "command prompt", a "shell", or a "terminal"?
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Willful ignorance? The point of Coryoth's post is that you don't have to know exactly the right verb to get the thing right... or even a verb at all.
For example, webcam application is named Cheese. Type "cam" or "webcam" because that's what you want to use, and Cheese shows up (or type "cheese" and it shows up). Gnome's implementation seems leagues better than Microsoft's to me, but I only rarely use Win7 so I might be wrong about how MS has done this. And no idea about OSX or other WM's.
But this is a LONG
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Type what you want to do, and you'll find what you want ... that's the theory.
Sure. That was the theory for Zork [wikipedia.org] too.
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You can type any part of the description as well, you don't need to know the app name.
There's also the traditional category view. Press the win key to get the overview, click on the "Applications" button and you get a big grid of icons showing all the installed programs in alphabetical order. A set of filters down the right let you reduce the list to just "Sound & Video" (for example), or "System Tools".
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By the same token, sit a newbie down in front of Windows and how will they guess where things are?
It took me about 20 minutes to work out how to get into the network settings, and I'm reasonably familiar with computers (but still quite new to using Windows).
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Well give up now, before its too late.
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Every distro I've used allows you to do the same after hitting ALT+F2, regardless of window manager/desktop environment.
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch. the whole point is to see what you're looking for in a graphically intuitive way. Adding search boxes is just admitting the design sucks.
2. Hotkeys easily make window/menu based search boxes redundant, but if you want a keyboard only experience, just dump your gui entirely and run applications from the shell, using xinit when you need a gui application. bash and its brothers are a lot more powerful than some idiotic 'semantic' search box.
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1. having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch. the whole point is to see what you're looking for in a graphically intuitive way. Adding search boxes is just admitting the design sucks.
No, it isn't. How do you meaningfully represent the thousands of different things? As it is, the Gnome and Unity app menus with masses of identical little boxes is confusing enough.
You don't walk into a shop and point at stuff behind the counter and say "that" "that" "that" to get it, you ask the person for what you want.
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:4, Funny)
Ask the assistant. You have obviously never been to Walmart! Hint: the most successful store in the USA.
What you do is go down an aisle of relevant stuff, till you get to the section which has that kind of thing, and then look up and down. This is like having a menu bar with drop-downs with slide outs.
Your mileage may suck!
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Why exactly they needed Linus Torvalds to say something before they added a couple of basic configuration options confuses the shit out of me though.
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Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Insightful)
Change for change's sake is hardly progress. When I have to search for a damned TERMINAL window, one of the more used things in Linux, it's pretty damned sad. Why must I remember the name of every app I might want to use? Why can I not be given a selection of apps so that I can find that one I use least often who's name escapes me? Why must I be trapped in a Win8 like HELL trying to use my computer?
Sorry, the "new" Gnome sucked ass and I along with MANY others avoid it like the plague. Enough apparently that the Gnome team heard the cries of agony and gave us a way to, in theory, alleviate the damned pain. Should that not be evidence enough that it was a bad damned UI decision?!
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Yes yes, we'll all like it - that's why they're bringing back the older style right? Just like Win8's most popular damned program is a Start button. It's a perfect interface - that's why there were a dozen spinoff distro that dumped it. nothing to see here, it's all just me - and everyone else I know who uses Linux. I'm glad you saw the light and like the interface, I don't, I didn't, and now it seems they've heard us... And I'd equate Unity as being closer to Win8, my mistake, you're right Gnome itself is
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Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that's true - plenty of folks such as myself had the hardware that could run it but barfed when we saw it and hated it. This had little to do with apps, my apps ran on it but finding them or finding apps who's name I couldn't recall was a joke. I hated the experience and I stopped using it - simple as that. In fact of the Linux users I know all of them, in unison, pretty much tell me they HATE Unity and recommend everything from Kbuntu to Mint to other options just to get rid of it. Hell I've still got a box on 10.04 just so I don't have to deal with this mess of a UI.
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Could run it in the sense of the code executed doesn't mean much. Could run it optimally was capacitive touchscreen with applications designed for dual usage. And those mostly don't exist yet.
Unity is different than Gnome 3. That's an additional complication.
LongTie Gnome-KDE (Score:3)
Been using LInux since 97-98, and using Gnome pretty much most of the time (OK, did use WindowMaker and Enlightenment at first).
And now I'm using KDE (Kubuntu), because I just can't stand Unity, and Mint at work.
I just can't stand scrolling through pages of apps trying to find the infrequently used ones. I've given it a fair shot several times, and it's made me a convert.....to KDE.
Can I hear from someone the reason(s) as to why they like Unity better than the old Gnome?
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Unity is not Gnome 3 that's Canonical's code. Try something like Fedora to get a clean Gnome 3.
As to one reason it is better. Integrated notifications.
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What hardware? Tablets? Tablet interfaces are innovations that work great for tablets and tablet workflows. Desktop workflows are different. Compounding the problem by rebuilding applications so they share the same broken interface characteristics makes the situation worse. Forcing adoption by cramming it into places where it doesn't belong for the sake of conformity is never the answer...unless of course the goal is to make tasks more convoluted for people for the sake of ideology.
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Let me ask you your opinion. Do you think those will become popular?
Yes. If I had to guess I think Microsoft will continue to increase the pressure and by say 2015 / 2016 they will be a huge fraction 70+% of all x86 laptops. I think enterprise desktop screens might take another year or two after that.
I have never seen a signle one is actual consumers hands
You are quoting European prices and because of VAT electronics are weird in Europe. But right now, capacitive touchscreen + hinge are doing about 4%
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Insightful)
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They are going after new markets. For example part of Gnome 3's genesis was when Gnome's (GTK really) inability to handle touchscreen meant they lost Maemo and instead MeeGo was based on Qt. They believed, and they were right, that there is a huge market of ARM based systems coming that overwhelm desktops and create room for a Linux GUIs.
Right now we have: Tizen (based on Enlightenment), Android, MeeGo / Sailfish (Qt), Blackberry 10 (QNX sort of Linuxy), iOS (FreeBSD cousin)... They would like to play in
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No. The existing Gnome 2 userbase on existing hardware was not really the intended audience for Gnome 3. It was possible a bad naming decision in taking the product in a direction likely to alienate existing customers rather than release a new product name. It was very likely a bad political decision to get into a fight with Novell, Canonical and their existing user base all at more or less the same. But no it was not a bad UI decision.
Thinking about this, I tend to agree. Had the GNOME team renamed the DE to something else once the original goals of the project - being a network object model environment was dropped - they could have changed to anything, and it wouldn't have mattered. Heck, as long as it was under the GNU umbrella, they could even have changed the license here to GPL3.
I do sometimes, wonder, however, whether the unixes of today (i.e. Linux, BSD, Solaris and other Unixes) have too many DEs for their own good.
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I'd even go a step further here. A huge group of the people that are the most passionate anti-Gnome3 learned Unix from Ubuntu. They have become very conservative, very much like the Windows powerusers who hated Linux in the 90s and early 2000s here on /.
I do sometimes, wonder, however, whether the unixes of today (i.e. Linux, BSD, Solaris and other Unixes) have too many DEs for their own good.
I think there is no question that choice has been a problem on the desktop. What worked well for server and emb
A name is a name is a name is a... (Score:3)
No. The existing Gnome 2 userbase on existing hardware was not really the intended audience for Gnome 3. It was possible a bad naming decision in taking the product in a direction likely to alienate existing customers rather than release a new product name.
You're right there, they should have called it Gnumb. Or something like Gnumb Gnuts would be even more descriptive, and delineate their intended user base fairly precisely.
Re:So, they heard the complaints... (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize justifying change for its own sake based on emotional needs is the current trend, but it's led us to interfaces that are frustrating to use for even the most basic tasks. Things like pointless whitespace, huge, low density text, extra clicking/dragging/touching/searching, and long winded, laggy animations and transitions do little but add stress and time to the process of getting things done. For example, what the hell happened to the basic control panel, with simple, logically named areas and which contained the whole sum of just about anything that 99% of users would want to tweak? The windows 2k/xp control panel was nothing to write home about, but compared with the overdesigned crapola that's in vista/7, it's a godsend. This is not better. It's worse.
Perhaps it's time to demote the 'designers' a bit in development hierarchies as these people obviously care more about appearance and bottom barrel 'accessibility' than capability and efficiency. In fact, many of those up and coming people you mentioned have trouble with the new designs as well. It's just that fewer and fewer of them have relevant experience with the traditional menu-in-a-corner+modeless window desktop to compare the two. It's fine to keep the interface simple for fixed function devices like media players or ATMs, but workstations are different as they're used for complex, user-defined workflows. These cannot really be optimized for. Attempts to do so cause more problems than they solve. The people who do want their interfaces on rails really don't need workstations in the first place.
It's not just gnome that suffers from this. Microsoft, apple, and google are guilty as well. In their race to the bottom, they're not differentiating at the top, where innovation happens.
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Re:Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
You're like an Ubuntu user that shuns Debian.
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That's not quite fair. Cinnamon and Gnome forked off in two different directions with different UI philosophies. It's perfectly valid to praise one over the other, as they are two different projects now.
I'm glad Gnome has wised up and brought 'classic mode' back. I know that there's an expectation that you have to keep changing things in order to have a sense of progress, but there's a problem when you break traditional desktop metaphors that have really stood the test of time at this point. If you want pro
Re:Too late (Score:5, Informative)
Moved on, XFCE and it's at least replaced all uses for what Gnome was doing for me. Instead of creating a rich unified DE for all to use (with small enhancements and extensions), they flushed down all their good will in re-inventing something that many/most? of their community didn't seem to want.
I wish you well, but this is one ship I simply refuse to sail on (In the same likes as Windows 8 and unity alas).
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Hear, hear!
Re:Too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here. Xfce is mature, and everything just works. I don't have time to beta-test in my everyday work.
It's still impossible to do very essential things in GNOME Classic, such as moving the panels around or fully configuring them. So, in many ways GNOME 3 hasn't reached feature parity with GNOME 2 or Xfce.
That said, it's really nice to see GNOME listening to users. An especially important part of GNOME 3.8, in my view, is that more options were added to the settings rather than removing them. This shows that the team really is trying to stabilize the core before adding more features, which is really the right way to go about things. I think in a few years GNOME 3 will be a great desktop, suitable for various work styles.
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XFCE would be enhanced a lot if Compiz would work with it. Ubuntu 10.04 is much nicer looking than Xubuntu 12.04.
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It just works, except that you have to fiddle with text files to turn caps lock into another ctrl, and the keyboard switcher doesn't quite work as well, and there's no obvious way to indicate that you've been working for an hour and need to take a break (OK, in Gnome 3 there isn't either, but the software was easy to find, because it's just a fork of the Gnome 2 software).
All in all, I've tried Xfce, and I keep switching back to Gnome 3. Xfce isn't as good as Gnome 2 was, and isn't as good as Gnome 3 with e
How about some ReVeRsE PsYcHoLoGy...apk (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Cinnamon (Score:5, Informative)
I used Mint 14.1 and I found the alternate but included MATE interface to be far more stable than cinnamon.
Everything Just Works (Score:4, Informative)
I tried Cinnamon on Mint 14.1 and found it to be freezing frequently
Very little I install on my computer does not just work. I don't mind Unity, and prefer it to Gnome shell but Cinnamon has been an incredible project. I am more than happy to provide you with a working video of my desktop :) I suspect your overstating the position. BTW you can install cinnamon on Ubuntu.
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I couldn't get Cinnamon working on my netbook; screen freezes and crashes galore. MATE worked a treat though. Admittedly this was a year or so ago, so maybe the stability has improved since.
Cinnamon's a fantastic project, but it's still young and it doesn't have many resources behind it. There's no shame in admitting that it has a little way to go yet.
Personally, I still recommend XFCE as the best Unity/Gnome alternative. I'm actually not so disgusted by Unity anymore, but when I need something more workman
Re:Cinnamon (Score:5, Interesting)
It "just works" if you have 3d graphics hardware. It's useless on a toughbook. Unity is an epic failure that it requires a 3d acellerated video card.
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Ubuntu has a similar problem but not so pronounced. I'm typing this on a Kubuntu computer and I have no complaints with it. I've tried Unity
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It's going to be hard for them to maintain a critical mass in the long term.
Gnome is no worse off today that KDE was after KDE 4. United Linux with the big pro KDE players was dead, KDE was a disaster or most distributions and even long term supporters like Mandrake were becoming supportive of Gnome. Gnome was the standard and KDE was grouped with XFCE and later LXDE as one of the 2nd string GUIs. They recovered.
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I'd argue they have. They are back to the situation they had prior to Gnome's surge where they are seen as coequal. They aren't equal to the old situation where they were ahead. People think of KDE and Gnome as peers.
Arch now leans KDE. Suse is back to being a KDE distribution that supports Gnome rather than coequal. Many of the BSDs are incidentally dropping Gnome support since Gnome is becoming too Linux dependent.
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Why would I choose Gnote (Score:2)
You know there is 'gnote' which is a non-mono version of Tomboy, right?
I did know about gnote, but its only advantage would be not using Mono, in every other way its a disadvantage. Gnote is not standard; lags being tomboy development...and those things are more important to me than keeping Mono dependencies around. Hell I used to to love banshee before they tried to turn it from a music application to a Multimedia(sic) application, I've moved to Clementine since http://www.clementine-player.org/ [clementine-player.org] its wonderful. The reality is Bijiben(Gnome Notes) looks to have none of the disa
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If people are discussing options, I'll toss out Zim: a nice python GTK+ personal wiki with a simple basic interface and lots of plugins for features.
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look != functionality.
Re: (Score:2)
No file manager worth a crap
Thunar? Or you can use Nemo or PCmanFM or whatever.
nobody's ever figured out a menu editor for it.
It has one...admittedly in Fedora it requires some workarounds to work (it relies on gnomemenu.so which Gnome3 doesn't use, so you have to manually install an old rpm)