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Mobile plans?Mobile plans?Posted Mar 28, 2013 15:03 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)In reply to: Mobile plans? by hadrons123 Parent article: GNOME 3.8 released
I rarely see a gnome-shell fan. There are plenty of satisfied users out there. We just have much less of a tendency to get involved in lengthy flame wars about its merits than the people who are extremely dissatisfied. It's a mistake to confuse the volume of comments on each side of a topic with the number of supporters of each side, much less with the validity of their position. On the specifics of GNOME 3 and gnome-shell, I would classify myself as a reasonably satisfied user, not a fan. Many of the features that I expected to hate- using the whole screen for opening a new program instead of a task menu, for example- turned out to work fine in practice. In many cases they were actually improvements, just as the developers claimed. Most of my remaining complaints have been addressed by available extensions. I would have been happy had the designers stuck with GNOME 2 for a few more years, but I'm used to the GNOME 3 way of doing things now and wouldn't go back if it were an available option. There's still room for improvement, but that's true of anything. Above all else, I think it's a piece of software intended for getting work done and not worth the level of heat that's been devoted to it.
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Mobile plans? Posted Mar 28, 2013 22:09 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Most of my remaining complaints have been addressed by available extensions.
Lucky you. Have you seen the state of extensions in recent days? There is so much junk in there, just like many of us predicted. People get all enthusiastic and write something useful, then if falls by the wayside and becomes incompatible with shell of the day (example: pidgin integration).
It has been pointed out so many times that it is not funny any more. Extensions are no substitute for customisability.
PS. Another trivial example of both breakage and stupidity. I recently installed gnome-shell-extension-remove-accessibility-icon RPM from Fedora repository (F-18). Not only did it not remove the icon (broken), but installing software to do something like that is truly stupid. Every single GUI environment (apart form Gnome 3) can do such things in a trivial manner (including my Android phone).
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 28, 2013 22:27 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Couple of things:
In the next version, extension will get the ability to update on demand similar to Firefox
https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointNine/Features/ExtensionU...
That should solve majority of the issues. Also, the accessibility icon hiding extension is obsolete as of release as this is the default behavior.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 28, 2013 23:59 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
And it will not solve the main issue here: complete lack of the most basic customisation. That is how and why the extension mess was created in the first place.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 0:14 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Ok, we get it. You don't like GNOME 3 but I am not trying to convince you as much as informing others.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 0:41 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Yeah, make it appear subjective. It is not about what I like.
That one cannot move/remove icons on Gnome 3 panel is a fact. That there is no central configuration where positions of items are kept is another. Both of these are, of course, regressions in the UI.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 2:05 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
It is of course subjective. I don't care about those UI elements and don't consider them regressions. I only use the word "regressions" for actual obvious bugs anyway.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 3:04 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
I knew you would say something like this. Go and check the most popular extension. Then tell me that not being able to do simple drag and drop or remove is not a regression. But, maybe Gnome was specifically designed for you and a handful of others. In fact, that seems like the most plausible explanation to me.
It is also quite ridiculous that a modern desktop system cannot do such trivial things.
Only in imaginary world of Gnome are things that cannot be done (when there is a clear need by users), as compared to the previous version of the system, not regressions.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 3:29 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
The most popular extension was the one to hide accessibility icon and that has been made redundant in this release. I get that you don't like some of the things or perhaps most of the things in GNOME 3 release and I don't believe it is perfect either and some things really do bug me but I don't buy into the echo chamber narration about how everybody hates it and that is the reason I am speaking up now so that we can dispel that notion once and for all.
If you have a clear need for GNOME 2 like UI, it is not like MATE is not available, so I don't get the incentive to spend your energy and time on this.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:07 UTC (Fri) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
It's funny how that accessibility icon bugs me as well. The way I see it, all the other things in the panel are something I want and use, but that thing alone is completely useless. I'm glad there's a way to get rid of it now.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 3:53 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I'm curious why it took so long. Which people were against this improvement and why?
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 15:33 UTC (Thu) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]
> I'm curious why it took so long. Which people were against this improvement and why?
I suspect that the extension's existence drives the priority of having it in core way down.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 15:56 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Not merely existence but the high popularity of it. GNOME developers seem to keep an eye on that. They also enable accessibility by default in recent versions and included hot keys to toggle accessibility features and that make the accessibility icon pretty redundant
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:22 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> I don't buy into the echo chamber narration about how everybody hates it
My views are my own and are not aligned with anyone (unless coincidentally). I'm basing those views on analysing the system that is in front of me, used in real world scenarios. I actually tried all those things that I mentioned and the results speak for themselves.
Generally speaking, I'm just trying to point out that a rigid "suit some people" system is not a very good desktop. It is not flexible. It doesn't cover a lot of ground. I cannot be used for more then a few things. Many design decisions have clearly not been thought through, otherwise they would have never made it in (prime example: overview). Many are based on some kind of "philosophy" or preconceived notions of what is supposedly good for users (e.g. that avoiding distraction is what everyone wants, that everyone enjoys constant and generally useless animations etc.), instead of offering users the flexibility to create work flows that suit them.
> If you have a clear need for GNOME 2 like UI, it is not like MATE is not available, so I don't get the incentive to spend your energy and time on this.
I don't have a need for Gnome 2 UI. I have a need for an UI that doesn't waste my resources. That shows me where my stuff is, so I don't have to remember. That lets me put things where I want them. That doesn't display expose when I want to start an app. That uses GUI metaphors sensibly. That works just fine on a remote system, over a real world link, not some imaginary 1 GBs pipe between two continents. Etc.
On the point of running obsolete software, what would you say if I told you to go run Red Hat Linux 5.0? Surely, you'd say that you don't want to run software that's pretty much end of line, dead in the water. Same here.
Gnome 3 should be able to satisfy a bit broader set of users, not just people that are either willing to put up with it or are clearly fans.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:29 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Every desktop only suits some people because people have different tastes but I am not the one insisting that my opinions have more weight than others and somehow aren't subjective. If you broadly prefer a desktop environment but prefer some things to be changed, that would be fine but if you want to change the entire design to suit you preferences, that is unlikely to fly and yet you seem to be breaking your head against the wall doing just that. Doesn't seem very effective but YMMV.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:39 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Where some in case of Windows, Mac, Android and IOS is north of 90%. Gnome 3 cannot even cover their old, entirely insignificant in numbers, user base. Yeah, great success.
And on the point of designing things "my way" - absolute crap. You clearly did not understand my point.
Your suggestion to me appears to be: when faced with opposition, give up. Yeah, no thanks.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:54 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
You are claiming that OS market share which is based on a number of varied factors is dependent on the UI but I don't think GNOME UI is responsible for Linux low market share on the desktop. If that was the case, other desktop environments would have been successful. There seems to be no clarity of thought here.
What I am suggesting is that your UI preferences does not match the design trajectory of the desktop environment and you cannot change it by your approach.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 7:21 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
What I'm saying is that Windows (with version 8 still being a bit of an unknown), OSX, Android and IOS quite obviously suit most people. I don't see folks jumping up and down about Jelly Bean UI, IOS 6 UI, Windows 7 UI or whatever is the current version of OS X UI. And, generally speaking, people pick up on the opposition UI without much fuss.
But, Gnome managed to alienate a good proportion of their already tiny (and most likely dedicated, like myself) user base, which would suggest that things are not all that flexible.
Once again, you bring up UI preferences, trying to imply that I'm appealing to what I want. I will explain it to you this way. If Gnome had the capability of moving/removing things on the panel, for instance, that would suit both you and me. You would not touch anything, I probably would. As it stands, it only works for you. So, objectively, what I'm suggesting is more flexible, because more people can use it.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 9:00 UTC (Fri) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]
I do not like MacOSX but I still use it quite a lot.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 16:08 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Most Windows users aren't even aware that are alternatives and just because they use it, I wouldn't assume they are happy with it. I would suggest you ask users if they are actually happy to get the answer.
While the ability to move panels might make it more flexible, that flexibility comes at a price. For instance, the first deployment of GNOME 2 I did, a lot of users removed panels or window switcher and called up support because they couldn't figure out what happened. This was solved by making it more harder to do it by default in subsequent versions but I was amazed at how much trouble it did cause in the first place. When we wrote internal help documentation, if someone else moved the panel around, other users get confused because what they see in the help doesn't match reality. Now with GNOME 3, I can be reasonably sure what the UI would look like and if I were still doing some desktop administration, that is a big advantage.
Now GNOME 3 could still offer the flexibility if they had the ability to lockdown the UI for large deployments but this requires a lot of careful planning and development and isn't as simple a choice as you make it out to be.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 21:43 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Yeah, "careful planning and development" being the key words. Totally agree with that part.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:35 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
The reason people talk about GNOME 3 and not about, say, Enlightenment or LXDE, is that (1) GNOME has been promoted as the "official" desktop for Linux and GNU (the G stands for GNU), (2) Red Hat, which is seen as the single biggest pusher of Linux development, is solidly behind GNOME. I'm old enough to remember when both of these were resented: KDE was clearly far ahead, but had genuine licensing issues. Those issues were resolved, and for a while GNOME 2 and KDE 3 were more-or-less equally "standard" desktops. Then KDE4 came and cost KDE a lot of users, to the point that it is now more a hobbyist alternative for those who don't like GNOME. GNOME 2 became the standard, the desktop that nearly all new Linux users were introduced to.
And now you're forcing all those users to change. "If you don't like GNOME 3, use MATE" doesn't really work the same way as "If you don't like Enlightenment 17, use Enlightenment 16". The latter is a choice made by informed users, the former is a default imposed on uninformed users. Steve Jobs could get away with dictating choices and saying "users don't know what they want". But most others who try that kind of arrogance regret it.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:40 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
ps - the result is a new fragmentation of desktops. Ubuntu dropped GNOME 3 for Unity. Linux Mint went with Cinnamon. KDE4 made GNOME2 the standard, and now GNOME3 is making the field open again. I'm not complaining, just saying :)
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 6:02 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Red Hat doesn't have much of a focus or market share on Linux on the consumer desktop. There are other distros that are more targeted on that such as Ubuntu and they are pushing Unity very heavily and you, yourself acknowledge that by admitting that there are many choices and the field is more open than ever. So users can and do chose whatever they like and that is very much evident. It is absurd to suggest that there is somehow some imposition on you or anyone else to use GNOME.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 7:41 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
If that is true, why on earth are they paying people to work on Gnome 3?
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 9:01 UTC (Fri) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]
Probably because RedHat wants to sell a really good desktop product/service in the future.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 13:13 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
Ah, your position seems to be there are so alternatives, why the fuss? You don't realise that most people who use Linux at work don't get a choice of desktop. And, till recently, what they got -- on Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu and others -- was GNOME 2 (you could use another environment on all these systems if you wanted, but not if you weren't the sysadmin -- at least, not easily). One could say that the market is working because people are moving to alternatives, and people should just quit whining about GNOME 3 and use the alternatives. Fair enough. But you should also see where the dissatisfaction is coming from. It's not just RHEL customers.
Mobile plans? Posted Mar 29, 2013 15:56 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
In most organizations that deploy Linux that I am aware of (which isn't the majority of Linux usage at all), if you are willing to manage your systems on your own, you get to chose what you install (unless you are a sales person or customer facing role) and besides, most distros have different choices for default already and RHEL customers can and do install KDE by default on their systems roughly 1/2 of the time. So yeah, no need to fuss.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 3:58 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Unless you were happy with Gnome 2 of course. People who grew accustomed to Gnome 2 have good reason to complain.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 4:26 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Not really. GNOME 2 UI is preserved reasonably well in classic mode or the MATE project.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 11:38 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] People don't want "reasonably well". They want "perfectly" - and they're not being unreasonable by wanting that.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 15:21 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
MATE reflects GNOME 2 UI perfectly because it *is* GNOME 2. You are grasping at straws so badly.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 6, 2013 1:11 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
MATE is *not* GNOME 2. The code is forked from GNOME 2, but the user experience is quite different, because:
a) You have to recreate all your settings (they had to rename the gconf keys)
b) You have to relearn what application names correspond to what applications, because they had to change all of them.
It is definitely not a smooth replacement. Particularly not with those users less capable of helping themselves.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 16:53 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I am so utterly uninterested in "preservation".
I am also uninterested in learning all new everything every five years.
A middle ground seems like the ideal target to shoot for, no?
Gotta say, if I were on the Gnome team, I'd be rather embarrassed that the MATE project even exists.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 4, 2013 17:48 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
"Middle ground" sounds good for some people but I think the newer UI in GNOME Shell and Unity etc are definitely worth exploring. I don't see MATE as a problem for GNOME anymore than the existence of GNOME represents a failure for KDE. On the contrary, I think the existence of MATE leaves GNOME 3 out to try something different. If MATE becomes more popular over time, GNOME as a project can and should reevaluate their decisions.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 6, 2013 14:19 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
As long as Gnome is an experimental plaything, it will make a miserable production desktop. If exploration is your goal then that's fine, I just wish the Gnome project would be clear about that. Then I wouldn't have deployed it on my neighbors' computers (way to confirm some of the bad things they've heard about Linux, argh).
MATE is already shockingly popular. If it's not a clear indication that Gnome as a project should reevaluate their decisions, what more will it take?
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 6, 2013 14:37 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
I don't know how productive you are but it works fine for many of us as I have already noted and I would refrain from blanket statements like that if I were you. Exploring a different path doesn't make it an experimental desktop. As far as MATE being "shockingly popular", that lacks any real references. We will have to see the impact of classic mode in 3.8 as well.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 6, 2013 18:09 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I stand behind my statement that exploratory playthings make miserable production desktops. User retraining is not time well spent. If you disagree, I'd love to hear the rationale.
As you know, nobody can quote meaningful Linux desktop install numbers. But check out the # of commits to MATE and the vitality of the forum: http://forums.mate-desktop.org/ . It's motivated quite a number of people. That's got to mean something to you, no?
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 6, 2013 23:14 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
"Exploratory playthings" has nothing to do with what I am talking about. Also # of commits is not indicative of popularity of the desktop environment itself and one cannot claim MATE is shockingly popular without any meaningful way to quantify it.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 8, 2013 16:30 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
You know very well there's no way to meaningfully quantify desktop numbers so I'm not quite sure why you're asking for them.
Since you seem to want me to be pedantic, this is what I meant by "shockingly popular": I thought MATE would stall out after a year or two but I'm shocked that its releases are still coming steadily and rapidly, meaningful commits are landing, the forums are lively, and they've made some real architectural fixes." Overall, qutie impressive. Does that make sense?
So, allow me to ask again... What more will it take for you to notice that MATE is "becoming more popular over time"?
I guess we must agree to disagree on whether Gnome 3 was a pretty experimental release. Was there much user testing that I'm not aware of? If so, I'd love to see the reports.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 8, 2013 17:16 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
I ask for some way to quantify it (not just numbers) to make a point. You cannot claim something is "shockingly popular" based on the fact that you assumed it will die quietly. I see the desktop environments as popular when more distribution ship it by default.
Yes, we clearly disagree and if the only way for you to accept a desktop environment as non experimental is user studies, all modern desktop environments in Linux are experimental.
Mobile plans? Posted Apr 9, 2013 2:06 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Did you miss this? "its releases are still coming steadily and rapidly, meaningful commits are landing, the forums are lively, and they've made some real architectural fixes. Overall, qutie impressive." I'm not quite sure why you only responded to my throwaway lead-in statement.
Guess I'll ask another time: what more would you like to see?
Obviously I'll accept a desktop environment if it continues to work the way it always has (hopefully with good, evolutionary changes). But throwing away existing muscle memory and going a completely new direction? Yes, that sounds pretty experimental, doesn't it?
Unless you did user testing / prereleases+feedback / etc first. Then it would be far less bold of an experiment. Was this the case?
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