Taking GNOME to the Next Level

http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/taking-gnome-3-to-the-next-level/

by Xyzodiac • 14 years ago

57 59 14 years ago

afaikblog.wordpress.com

ezesolares• 14 years ago

tired of gnome PR.. gnome is dead, let it RIP

rbanffy2• 14 years ago

On what planet is it dead?

Gnome is still the default GUI on a lot of operating systems. In fact, I'm quite fond of Gnome Shell on one of my laptops.

What bothers m most is what I perceive as a need to follow Microsoft. I fear things like the lock screen thing will prove confusing for many users.

gizmo686• 14 years ago

What was impressive for me in gnome3 and unity was the huge move away from Windows happening in mainstream distribution defaults. It looks to me like we are still in good place of trying out other peoples ideas without copying their products.

jlgreco3• 14 years ago

As fair as I am concerned GNOME is dead and rotting but the major distros, seemingly blind to this, have left it sitting at the head of the table.

Among the linux users I know, there are two categories. Those who change their DE, and those who complain endlessly about it.

batista• 14 years ago

>Gnome is still the default GUI on a lot of operating systems

The one statement does not contradict the other. For one, any operating system that uses Gnome as its GUI besides Linux has an insignificant user population (FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc).

snogglethorpe3• 14 years ago

Yeah, totally agree. Gnome is far from perfect, but I use it, and it's lot better than all the whining would suggest.

I think Miguel's obsession with all-things-MS, however, is both counter-productive (e.g. the huge diversion of resources into the utter dead end of Mono), and, frankly, kind of bizarre...

denisinla• 14 years ago

Gnome is still alive and kicking, not to mention talks are in place for GnomeOS at the moment.

krakensden3• 14 years ago

Check out the OSTree page on the gnome wiki, and the mailing list. It's actually... quite cool.

sciurus3• 14 years ago

LWN wrote a good article on GNOME OS at https://lwn.net/Articles/512783/

Submitted to HN at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455028

Xyzodiac• 14 years ago

Gnome is very much alive, the blog entry from a month or so ago was concerning but it's still very much a lively project.

PommeDeTerre• 14 years ago

It's "alive" in the sense that there's still some activity going on, but it's shedding users, and it's becoming irrelevant.

I liken it to XFree86. While it may have been very popular and widely-used at one point, it didn't take long at all for users and developers to flee once things started looking bad.

People just haven't been happy with GNOME 3. That's a fact. And with no improvements visible on the horizon, more and more people are moving to MATE (and a few to Cinnamon).

GNOME can't survive in its current form if people and developers continue to leave it in favor of better desktop environments.

buster3• 14 years ago

Using Gnome all day, nope not dead. Gnome Shell is quite a good environment. I think many people just complain because it's a change. People don't like change.

viseztrance• 14 years ago

Actually people complain because they need to install an extension to remove the accessibility icon from the top panel.

klrr2• 14 years ago

Totally agree with you, people who don't like what happening can just leave and start using MATE or XFCE instead. GNOME's directions isen't even targeted at the previous userbase anyway. I'm too young to have got into GNOME2 as much as it seems some people have done, but seriously it's just silly to complain and whine. I know some also includes very contructive critism in their complains but most people don't, and that is those I dislike.

sliverstorm2• 14 years ago

I don't use Gnome anymore, but 9/10 Linux users I know use it (well, Gnome or KDE). That's not very dead.

jpkeisala• 14 years ago

so, what do you use then?

vacri4• 14 years ago

Gnome3, or forks of Gnome2 like Mate?

wangweij• 14 years ago

Taking GNOME to the Previous Level?

rogerbinns3• 14 years ago

What I want is to be able to use the Gnome Shell at the same time as a panel. Currently you can only pick one. Gnome Shell (and Unity) suck at managing multiple instances of apps or their windows which covers most of what I run due to a dual screen setup. So I need the panel for that, but then can't use the Shell.

I did have both working in an earlier release, but the panel was from a third party and they break on every gnome release.

emilsedgh2• 14 years ago

KDE could be easily configured to behave like that.

disclaimer: KDE contributor.

rogerbinns3• 14 years ago

It has been a while since I last tried KDE so I tried again - using Kubuntu. All I got was a bottom panel and never found any way of getting an equivalent to the Gnome Shell.

But it also reminded me why I have never liked KDE - it just feels too busy with too much going on. I prefer things simpler visually as well as functionally. Yes, I'm one of those people who are quite happy when Gnome go around removing configurability (right up till the point it is an option I use). I try to use defaults as much as possible and find it important that they are appealing and well thought out.

krakensden3• 14 years ago

> The way that the tray is triggered has also been changed. The hot corner – which many people had problems with – has been replaced. Instead, the whole of the bottom screen edge now acts as a trigger area; letting the mouse rest there for a short period will cause the tray to appear. We plan to improve this behaviour in subsequent releases, so that a certain about of pressure against the screen edge is required to open the tray (we need to wait for changes down the stack before we can achieve this).

Honestly, this makes me nervous. The Gnome team often seems far too willing to ship a bad experience because it will help "drain the swamp".

ealexhudson• 14 years ago

I'm looking forward to it - at worst, it means they've just increased the area in which that bar can be activated.

I have a dual-screen setup with the primary on the left; that bottom-right corner is often (but not always, weirdly enough) quite hard to hit if there isn't a notification there. This will be a boon to users like me, and I don't see a downside - it seems strictly an improvement, even if they want to improve it further later on...

krakensden3• 14 years ago

dfc: you've been hellbanned.

"Draining the swamp" is a reference to a 2.0 era initiative on the part of the Gnome team to stop hacking their way around platform deficiencies, and instead fix them directly. That is a big part of the reason there are lots of Gnome-affiliated hackers involved in the lower levels of the desktop Linux stack.

jim_kaiser• 14 years ago

What I find amazingly idiotic is that when I try to access the url from India, I get this message

"The URL you requested has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom(CHNN). URL = afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/taking-gnome-3-to-the-next-level/"

Now, why the department of telecommunications is taking down articles on Gnome, one can only speculate. But, I think that they think Gnome is a bittorrent client. It's the only reasonable explanation. :)

sandGorgon• 14 years ago

I'm not getting any such errors on Airtel. FYI - the blocking of torrent sites by ISPs got them penalised for it (http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article3738269.ece)

goombastic• 14 years ago

Sigh. India, where bureaucracy and logic are at war with each other.

luriel• 14 years ago

Bureaucracy and logic (and common sense) have been in perpetual war everywhere since the invention of the concept of government.

biomechanica• 14 years ago

Gnome may not be dead and it's nice to see them work hard to achieve a suitable user experience. However, I personally don't like the look of it. To me it seems the windows don't fit the rest of the U.I. The borders are too big, in my opinion and the buttons don't "feel" right or look right.

Usability wise, it's still lacking, I think. I'm a grumpy sob, I guess. I hope they succeed but I have to be honest, I don't think they will.

/end grump

nuclear_eclipse3• 14 years ago

Thankfully, for those of us who prefer our desktops to work well rather than look good, there are always third party options for themes. I personally combine the "Holo" Gnome Shell theme with the "Adwaita Dark" Gtk theme, and I think the result is a vast improvement.

Taking GNOME to the Next Level

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