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Mobile plans?Mobile plans?Posted Mar 29, 2013 5:22 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)In reply to: Mobile plans? by rahulsundaram Parent article: GNOME 3.8 released
> 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.
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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.
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