GNOME 3 Released

http://gnome3.org/

by sciurus • 15 years ago

178 98 15 years ago

gnome3.org

sciurus2• 15 years ago

The press release is at http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/2011-04-gnome-3.0-releas...

bdhe• 15 years ago

The link is broken. This is the working link: http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better...

sciurus2• 15 years ago

Thanks for catching that! It looks like they launched a new design for http://www.gnome.org/ in conjunction with the release. That must have altered the URL for the press release they had published earlier in the day.

mishmash• 15 years ago

gnome3.org is down for me, but http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/ works.

edit: and the torrent to the openSUSE with "optional" GNOME3 is: http://software.opensuse.org/114/en

dermatthias• 15 years ago

gnome3.org seems to be unaccessible right now. Any news on a official (as in official from the GNOME people, not Canonical) repo / .deb for Ubuntu 10.10?

I'm using Awesome WM since a about a year and I'm really happy with it, but it looks kinda good and I want to give it a shot.

jasonlotito• 15 years ago

The URL is fine for me. Maybe it's just an issue from your location.

augustl• 15 years ago

Seems like gettimg started is easy too, at least on Arch Linux.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME_3

lallysingh• 15 years ago

They really should concatenate some of those videos together. Each one individually is a little underwhelming.

antidaily2• 15 years ago

at the very least, get rid of the personal intros and "one of the hundreds" bit.

kleiba• 15 years ago

Why?

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

Did anyone else find putting these two features next to each other unfortunate:

* Messaging built-in

Communication is an important part of the modern desktop, but it's a hassle when you have to switch windows to reply to a message.

* GNOME 3 is designed to reduce distraction and interruption and to put you in control.

Our new notifications system subtly presents messages and will save them until you are ready for them,...

Kudos• 15 years ago

Their new site is gorgeous

demetris• 15 years ago

The webfont used (Cantarell) does not look good in Windows. The texts are almost unreadable: http://op111.net/u/misc/20110407-win7-fx4-gnome.org.png — (It looks fine on Linux.)

Cantarell, by the way, is also the UI font of Gnome Shell. Not a bad UI font, I think, but it has a narrow glyph range (about 400) and only includes Latin.

Moving to the larger picture, my impression from the Gnome Shell desktop up to now is that it is an interesting experiment, trying to rethink as it does a lot of stuff that we have grown to take for granted in desktop environments. But it is not necessarily a good desktop experience. Up to now (I have used it for about 40 hours in total) I find it tiring and distracting, rather than distraction-free. Switching between app windows, e.g., is not a pleasant experience for me, with all the action I see on the screen and that I have to take myself each time I want to switch. (Alt-tabbing avoids all that, but I don’t always switch windows with Alt+Tab.) Another thing that does not help me, and that I find strange as an design decision, is the position of the clock right in the middle of the topbar. It causes me stress; I feel like time is hunting me.

In general, Gnome Shell seems to me to offer an experience more tuned to small rather than large screens. In a 2560*1600 screen, say, and if you prefer using the mouse rather than the keyboard, the distances you have to travel are ridiculous.

I expect the whole thing to improve in the next couple of years or so, but I am curious to see how much it can improve given its basic design principles.

jrockway• 15 years ago

UIs like this are not for power users. They use xmonad or awesome or dwm or ratpoison or ...

This is for someone who turns on their computer, does some work, and then stops using their computer. They do not want to bother themselves with a lot of learning. Simple actions that can be easily learned and improve speed (like keyboard shortcuts) are in reach. But more "confusing" concepts like virtual desktops without visual cues are not what they go for, even though pressing M-1 is much faster than moving your mouse to some picture of window.

The idea is "how can we make computing accessible to the average person", not "how can we make demetris not feel stress on his 2560x1600 screen". Once you reach a certain level of interest in optimizing everything, you have to use tools to build your own desktop environment, because you are a unique flower, and only you can decide what you want. You've reached this point, so GNOME is not for you.

decode• 15 years ago

I consider myself a power user and I've been happily using Gnome for several years now. It's got just enough room for customization that I can configure it to be a very efficient workspace, but it doesn't require me to spend days or weeks configuring it and learning a new way to use my computer.

But it looks like this release might be enough to drive me away. The app-based window management paradigm just doesn't work if you regularly have 8 console windows and 4 browser windows open on a single virtual desktop. My working style used to be well supported by Gnome, but now it's been completely dropped.

hollerith2• 15 years ago

>This is for someone who turns on their computer, does some work, and then stops using their computer. They do not want to bother themselves with a lot of learning.

>Once you reach a certain level of interest in optimizing everything, you have to use tools to build your own desktop environment, because you are a unique flower

Or the power user can switch to OS X, which requires less 'optimizing' to get it into a comfortable state than any of the Linux environments (e.g., Gnome 2, dwm and ratpoison) I have tried do.

I do not want a set of tools with which I can build my own desktop. I want a desktop that is usable without major customization or tinkering although I do realize that any desktop warrants some customization and administration if it will be heavily used.

ADDED. I ran Linux for 13 years, and command-line Gnu tools and Emacs on proprietary Unix for 5 years before that, and I would like to continue supporting free software if I can do so without undue sacrifice.

Maybe I am just more sensitive to matters of design and aesthetics than most Linux users are, but I started using OS X last year. It's not perfect, but I like it better than I like the Gnome 2 on Linux I used before that even though I have put less effort (but still much effort, maybe more that is rational) into tweaking and customizing OS X than I have Gnome 2.

Lennie3• 15 years ago

That is kind of strange how they want to make it easy to use for the average user, when I think 'discoverability' (how easy is it to find/discover features) of these kinds of desktop environment isn't all that good.

To me it looks more like they tried to make a desktop which also works for tablet-users (read: touch)

beck5• 15 years ago

Why are the videos on the site so small, make it big and show off what you have made!

You can see them here on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRHAio98n-g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRHAio98n-g&feature=relmf... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip9Bgjaspjs&feature=relmf... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepXx1kDelo&feature=relmf... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSuRy7TRHPc&feature=relmf... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxOQj5eBRCY&feature=relat... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fhsgZbgKk&feature=relat...

_frog3• 15 years ago

Does anyone else find the tagline "Made of Easy" to be a bit silly and poorly thought out?

DrJokepu• 15 years ago

It's playful, it clearly and strongly communicates a single underlying concept. I think it's good.

_frog3• 15 years ago

It's just such a grammatically poor phrase and it gives the impression that the entire project lacks polish and thoughtful design.

RandyHelzerman• 15 years ago

Who cares about gnome? I mean really. To first, second, and third order approximations, nobody will ever use it. The ipad2 sold over 2 million units the first month out. The next billion users of the internet will interact with it over their cell phone. Might as well publish an article about somebody who is making a nice set of switches for the front panel of a pdp-11 using mahogany wood or something.

Gentleman_Ryan• 15 years ago

And you wouldn't love a new set of PDP-11 switches?

Lennie3• 15 years ago

My guess is you are looking for a discussion of ChromeOS ? This isn't that discussion. :-)

ambiguity• 15 years ago

At least a third of the people on Hacker News. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2303726.

riffraff• 15 years ago

I really like gnome3, but I'ts kind of sad to realize the main video on the frontpage (for a wonderful new desktop experience) shows only two desktop applications: gedit editing an html file, and firefox with firebug to fix that same code. And a fake IM session with a loremipsum in it.

I understand the gnome desktop may not have many shiny artisty apps as OSX, but this feels a tad too nerdy.

hartror• 15 years ago

You do realise where you are posting right?

squidsoup• 15 years ago

We're not representative of the linux userbase anymore - increasingly it is used by students, home users and office workers that aren't necessarily technical. That's the demographic they should be appealing to and they're more interested in social and media related apps.

indrora• 15 years ago

Wow. Gnome 3 looks worse than Gnome 2 did. I say that with love and kindness in my heart though, as I'm a hardcore openbox user. openbox+tint2+nitrogen.

(edit: Okay, Gnome3 and E17 are "Almost" looking alike: They're shiney and don't do much more than that.)

rwmj• 15 years ago

It seems no one here has actually tried using GNOME 3 for any period of time. I gave it a couple of days and switched over to XFCE. I found it incredibly annoying as a developer desktop (perhaps a minority user these days?). It's very hard to switch between applications, virtual desktops are basically broken, you can't have shortcuts for launching apps/programs, no focus-follows-mouse, and the GNOME developers don't give a damn.

dman4• 15 years ago

Its just released, so give us sometime to get our pitchforks out.

TillE• 15 years ago

If developers are a minority of Linux users, surely it's still a large minority. Sadly, KDE3 was the last desktop I actually enjoyed using. KDE4 is still (still!) broken and useless and ugly.

sigzero3• 15 years ago

What KDE are you using? The current version is miles away from the initial 4 release. I don't think it is hardly broken, useless and ugly.

CoffeeDregs• 15 years ago

A few days ago, I added experimental to my Debian apt list and apt-getted for about an hour until gnome-shell was working. Very unstable, partially configured, not really revolutionary, etc. Headed back to Gnome 2 only to find out that GTK 2 and GTK 3 have a hard time co-existing. Twas very difficult to get my system back to normal. I'm an idiot; don't be like me.

bkor• 15 years ago

You can change all that. Install GNOME tweak tool. If the setting is not there yet (not sure about shortcuts), either file a bug or look at dconf-editor until that time.

Regarding "don't give a damn" and per http://planet.gnome.org/: I am GNOME :-)

iamcalledrob• 15 years ago

Gnome really needs help with their typography (and design in general).

Gradients, docks and shiny icons do not make a well designed product.

It's clear to see it suffers from the curse of open source software – design by committee, and the featuritis that results from that. There's often "flashy" chrome in OSS, but no solid interactions behind to back it up.

It's equally important what you choose to leave out from your product, as what you include. It seems Gnome has included the kitchen sink.

dman4• 15 years ago

Believe me - in the open source world Gnome is the one that leans towards minimalism.

zyfo• 15 years ago

Minimalism in what sense?

chalst• 15 years ago

I've found Sawfish+twm to be a sufficient window manager for my purposes.

_frog3• 15 years ago

I think the reason that open source software is so often poorly designed is this committee approach where no one person can lead the design team. Strong leadership is extremely important when designing a good UI and I feel a lot of open source projects forget this.

Also this leader needs to be thick skinned and self confident enough to take criticism from others on the project but also assert their own subjective views.

dman4• 15 years ago

Leadership is one issue. Another one is that the big Linux companies (Novell and Redhat) make most of their money from the enterprise market. So there isnt significant desktop design expenditure because the revenue slice from the Linux desktop market is vanishingly small. Canonical is trying to change this.

As an aside - www.enlightenment.org is one project which has had pretty strong leadership (Raster is a great programmer and also has good aesthetic sensibilities). I hope enlightenment comes back and the big two (KDE and Gnome) becomes the big four (kde, gnome, ubuntus take on gnome and enlightenment).

statictype• 15 years ago

Do you have any specific examples?

naner2• 15 years ago

It's equally important what you choose to leave out from your product, as what you include. It seems Gnome has included the kitchen sink.

What does this mean? Gnome 3.0 is rather incomplete. You can't even change themes or fonts yet.

ugh5• 15 years ago

Why should you be able to change themes or fonts? OS X (iOS as well and I think Windows Phone 7, too) doesn't allow you to do that. Those two don't seem like required features to me.

deadcyclo• 15 years ago

I don't use GNOME because I find it way to heavy and bloated (I run X and the stumpwm manually). It would however be very interesting to know how early adapters find GNOME 3 compared to previous GNOME versions in terms of bloat and speed.

I also understand that GNOME 3 can be used very keyboard driven. AAAnybodywo swears to the keyboard like me have any opinions?

TuxPirate• 15 years ago

Does anyone have instructions on how to build this beast?

MatthewPhillips2• 15 years ago

Not to be a smart ass but... ./configure, make, make install.

hendi_3• 15 years ago

We have a tool called "jhbuild" that keeps track of all the dependencies and stuff. In short, just get jhbuild from git.gnome.org, build it and do a "jhbuild bootstreap && jhbuild build".

More complete instruction can be found in the wiki: https://live.gnome.org/Smoketesting

If you want to just check out gnome-shell without the other Gnome 3 stuff, you can find instructions on http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell

lucasr4• 15 years ago

If you want to get started with Jhbuild, you probably want to have a look at the official manual:

  http://developer.gnome.org/jhbuild/stable/

lucasr4• 15 years ago

If you really want to build the whole thing for hacking purposes, yes, Jhbuild is probably what you want.

But if you just want to give GNOME 3 a try, I suggest you to simply run one of our live images here:

  http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/

alanh• 15 years ago

Looks quite heavily OS X inspired, with Windows 7’s window arrangement feature.

In theory, that should make for a great desktop environment.

MatthewPhillips2• 15 years ago

Love it! Can't wait to use it. I wonder what the impact is going to be now that Ubuntu is doing it's own UI thing. That's the vast majority of Linux users; so who becomes the premiere Gnome 3 distribution? I was hoping to get a System76 as my next desktop but now I'm not sure; depends if Gnome3 is included in Ubuntu's repos going forward.

skymt• 15 years ago

Fedora 15 is most likely to be the Gnome 3 showcase. Its release on May 24 is nicely timed to allow them enough time to integrate Gnome Shell. As a desktop distro it's second in popularity only to Ubuntu, which makes it the most popular distro to choose Gnome Shell as its default UI.

But all this shouldn't affect your hardware purchases. A System76 machine should run Fedora just as well as it does Ubuntu.

wazoox• 15 years ago

Gnome Slackbuild 3.0 has been available for slack 64 for a while, and the stable release hit the mirrors recently. See http://gnomeslackbuild.org/

naner2• 15 years ago

Ryan Paul's review on Ars might be more useful:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2011/04/ars-revie...

hendi_3• 15 years ago

I couldn't find an obvious link on the gnome(3).org sites, but there are detailed release notes:

http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.0/

sigzero3• 15 years ago

"Window bars don't offer any minimise/maximise window controls; however, this functionality is still available by right-clicking on a window's top bar. GNOME and GTK+ development veteran Owen Taylor explained the reasons for removing the controls in a comprehensive email. In this email, the developer indicates that workspaces may make it unnecessary to minimise windows."

I don't think I like that one. I minimize all the time even with workspaces. To relegate to a right click is just going to confuse the novice end user.

GNOME 3 Released

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