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Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings
After releasing GNOME 3.9.90, which is the first beta of the 3.9 development branch, Matthias Clasen reflects on what is coming in GNOME 3.10. New features include a combined system status menu, some changes to control-center, the new Maps application, and more use of "header bars". "Our previous approach of hiding titlebars on maximized windows had the problem that there was no obvious way to close maximized windows, and the titlebars were still using up vertical space on non-maximized windows. Header bars address both of these issues, and pave the way to the Wayland future by being rendered on the client side."
(Log in to post comments)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 24, 2013 22:00 UTC (Sat) by heijo (guest, #88363) [Link]
Even the trolling and negative comments about GNOME have stopped.
It's really the end...
What a tragic destiny for the desktop that used to be standard for all distributions.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 1:40 UTC (Sun) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
Oh don't be so glum.
As an avid reader of Byte Magazine from the late 80s until The End, I read many dire predictions of the death of Unix. It was more or less an annual occurrence. Yet somehow it still seems to be around. I expect Gnome will be the same.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 4:14 UTC (Sun) by miekg (subscriber, #4403) [Link]
I... actually started using it. With the right (and the right amount) of extensions, it's not that bad.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 20:28 UTC (Sun) by rbrito (subscriber, #66188) [Link]
For some thought: if an extension proves to be very popular so that a large fraction of the user base installs it, isn't that an indication that it should be part of the upstream releases?
I honestly prefer to have features in stock releases rather than randomly installing plugins... It gives me a sense of vulnerability, like the windows users that happen to install malware or spyware.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 21:02 UTC (Sun) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]
> if an extension proves to be very popular so that a large fraction of the user base installs it, isn't that an indication that it should be part of the upstream releases?
This is how Gnome development works, as far as I can see. Each new release has required less and less extensions to become usable and Gnome 3.8 brought the number down to 0.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 2:28 UTC (Mon) by torquay (guest, #92428) [Link]
I'd wager that this is not the case for most people. It's not possible to satisfy everyone's whim or preference, so extensions are necessary. Furthermore, extensions do correct some of the oversight/bad design currently present in the Gnome 3 UI. As an example, I'm bemused that the longstanding "Power Off / Suspend" issue still hasn't been resolved, without using any extensions. It's currently necessary to press Alt in order for the "Power Off" option to change into "Suspend". This is not discoverable. Even for people who do know about it, it's more effort to use: two hands are required instead of one. This just ends up being annoying, and makes me question the underlying design process that led to the "Power Off / Suspend" issue in the first place. Wouldn't it be simply easier to add an explicit Suspend option, that sits below Power Off, or add Suspend to the list of options in the Power Off window dialog? This isn't exactly rocket science. While this may or may not be as clean looking as only having "Power Off", it is far more practical. The above issue can be corrected to various degrees via extensions. But that's a problem in itself, as the Gnome Shell APIs are unstable, forcing extensions to be rewritten every 6 months. A more permanent solution is to fix the underlying design process, by doing explicit user testing and incorporating UI modifications to address user feedback. I do understand that it's impossible to have a UI that 100% of people agree on, but Gnome 3 still has too many rough edges for many people.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 3:08 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Come on - stop with the common sense. What next? You'll ask for hibernate or something similarly complicated/unachievable? :-)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 15:25 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Hibernate isn't maintained in the kernel and has potential data loss bugs. I wouldn't suggest anyone to use it regardless of the desktop environment.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 22:12 UTC (Mon) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]
Are you confusing with tuxonice? Hibernate can be found in the Power settings in the GNOME Control Center.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 0:31 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
OK, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on data loss (although I don't remember any loud screaming about that in recent days). Personally, I haven't had any trouble on my T510 since i915 related bugs were fixed (nothing to do with hibernation per-se).
But, could you please point out where Rafael decided to drop hibernation from the kernel (in-kernel or userspace)?
The maintainers file says:
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 1:17 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
I don't think anything was "dropped". Just that the code seems unmaintained for a long time. IIRC, Ubuntu doesn't even enable hibernation by default anymore and Fedora was considering doing so the last cycle as well.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 2:10 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]
For what it's worth Fedora 19's 3.10 kernels still support hibernation.
(and it works on all of my hardware, too)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 3:54 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Just that the code seems unmaintained for a long time.
Based on what?
Most problems with hibernation have nothing to do with hibernation code, but the drivers that have bugs.
Ubuntu disabled hibernation by policy (because of the above mentioned problems - i.e. some hardware works, some doesn't), but it can be enabled:
https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/ubuntu-help/power-hibernate...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 6:05 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
Since I always hibernate via the command line I didn't even know it had been disabled for over a year! Hibernate and resume is flawless for me on my five year old Dell Vostro. And resume is reasonably fast.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 8:33 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The problem with hibernate is that it's only flawless on five year old systems. By the time kinks in the hardware support are ironed out laptop is usually so old it does not matter anymore.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 15:34 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
My machine is five years old but hibernation was flawless on day 1. I installed Ubuntu back then and have been dist-upgrading since. My previous machine was a different matter, but based on this data point of 1 I assumed that hibernation now works flawlessly...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 11:06 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Based on discussions with Fedora kernel maintainers (FUDCon Blacksburg FYI) who said upstream doesn't fix reported issues, some of which appeared to be data loss bugs and they were considering disabling it by default.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 22:18 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Which in majority of the cases has nothing to do with hibernation code, as I already said. It is drivers for various hardware that are causing issues most of the time, not supposedly unmaintained hibernation code.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 22:42 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
That isn't what I heard at all but hey, it is a free world. If you trust hibernation to work reliably and not lose data, go right ahead.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 23:50 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Yeah, well, as the creator of compression, threading and suspend to both patches for it, I have to eat my own dog food, don't I? Haven't lost any data yet - and yes - the problems I did have were i915 driver problems, as I already stated.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 20:09 UTC (Wed) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]
I've been using both suspend and hibernate without issues for several years now. The only machine it hasn't worked on is my work laptop, which -- predictably -- has a NVidia graphics...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 23:40 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
What about the hybrid suspend so that if the battery goes out while sleeping, it turns into a hibernate? I think it was the s2both command, but I don't know what the modern equivalent is. Probably a DBus method on either UPower or systemd.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 16:32 UTC (Mon) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link]
> As an example, I'm bemused that the longstanding "Power Off / Suspend" issue still hasn't been resolved
This is the comment page for an article about what's coming in Gnome 3.10, which apparently *does* actually have a redesigned system menu. Do you actually have a genuine criticism of the new power menu[1], or did you just not read the article before commenting?
[1] https://raw.github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/ma...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 6:34 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
What's the purpose of this "Install Updates & Restart" button? Updates are installed in the background and if a reboot is necessary I get notified anyway. So why have a second Restart option?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 9:58 UTC (Tue) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
For offline updates. It boots into a minimal environment and apply the updates there. The advantage of that is that it does not collide with running apps / services.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 15:42 UTC (Sun) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Quite an original troll. Not. Go play at slashdot or something.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 0:33 UTC (Mon) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
+1 insightful :)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 7:29 UTC (Mon) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link]
I used to complain loudly, but stopped because ... they fixed most of the things I complained about. And it works fine for me now (All I really need is gvim, terminal, eclipse, g++, python, gnu toolchain ..) Once those started working, I stop bitchin' and got back to workin'.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 8:40 UTC (Tue) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]
Personally I have very little to complain about with the latest incarnations of GNOME 3. There are plugins to fix the most glaring oversights (proper 2-dimensional static workspaces and the lack of weather info on the toolbar).
The only thing that really disturb me is the inexplicable crippling of Nautilus (removing the split-window feature made nautilus pretty much useless for my use cases, which mostly involve sorting photos, music, etc. -- no, don't come dragging with suggestions to use tagging instead of sorting by directory).
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 15:13 UTC (Wed) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]
> Personally I have very little to complain about with the latest incarnations of GNOME 3. There are plugins to fix the most glaring oversights (proper 2-dimensional static workspaces and the lack of weather info on the toolbar).
It's telling that you identify these things as "the most glaring oversights". I too have a few things that I find glaring and are covered by extensions I think of as essential -- but those aren't even close to my list.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 5:17 UTC (Sun) by hadrons123 (guest, #72126) [Link]
People became so tired of bashing Gnome-shell and the old time gnome 2 guys somehow managed to adapt to a different DE and still some remaining people accepted Gnome 3. Doesn't mean the "majority" accepted and started using Gnome3. Fedora is shoving Gnome-shell on users throats unlike other distros.
I am still expecting some people from Red hat/fedora/Gnome-dev say how everyone is loving Gnome 3 here.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 7:41 UTC (Sun) by AlexHudson (subscriber, #41828) [Link]
At this point Gnome 3 has been out so long, it's clear for everyone it's not going away. The Gnome 2 behaviour extensions keep improving, but I get the impression people who don't like Gnome 3 have already gone elsewhere.
So to speak of a "majority" one way or another is to hark back to a battle fought and lost years ago now. I really doubt there are many unhappy Gnome 3 users at this point, and those of us using it happily are excited to see it continue to develop.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 7:43 UTC (Mon) by Rehdon (guest, #45440) [Link]
"I really doubt there are many unhappy Gnome 3 users at this point, and those of us using it happily are excited to see it continue to develop."
And surely all of the current Unity users are enthusiasts of it, and ElementaryOS users swear by it, and so do KDE users, and so on and so forth. Each of these projects has carved out a niche of loyal users at the expense of the total irrelevance of Linux on the desktop. Which might not be a totally bad thing per se, at least until they'll have the energies to carry out development of their "vision" (which, for GNOME 3, also means being useful for other projects like Cinnamon ... the only reason why I still read GNOME related news).
What I'm afraid is that the current fragmentation will also cause a further reduction of the number of users of Linux desktops, and a slow death (or at least stagnation) of all those projects. At that point we will be back at the starting point, FVWM and Midnight Commander, and the last 15 years spent trying to build an alternative to the Windows desktop will go down the drain. Someone turn off the lights when you leave, thank you.
Rehdon
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 9:25 UTC (Mon) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
Fact of the matter seems to be that even if Linux had been really good at unifying behind a single front, and that front would have been optimal in regards to allowing Linux adoption, it probably still wouldn't have made much headway into Windows market share because the network effects keeping Windows in place are so strong. It takes a voluntary suicide by Microsoft to kill Windows, or expansion into some virginal technology frontier to (eventually) displace it.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 12:52 UTC (Mon) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] It takes a voluntary suicide by Microsoft to kill Windows,They seem to be working on it (Windows 8). Jokes aside, the N almost but not quite entirely unlike Linux desktops has meant that energy that might have been expended at making one a stable platform that could have gathered some network effects of its own, just went into general wheel reinvention...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 13:00 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Yes, but the problem with getting rid of the wheel re-invention is that every single one of the desktop projects believes with great fervour that they're the only ones able to invent a wheel that actually works.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 21:46 UTC (Mon) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
> They seem to be working on it (Windows 8).
Which, one might note, is about as dissimilar from GNOME3 as the Win9x-Win7 desktop was from GNOME2. :)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 15:44 UTC (Sun) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I also hate how Fedora does not ship KDE and that you're forced to use GNOME on Fedora. Whoops, real life is actually not like you said it is. Like the other person, maybe slashdot is a better place for your kind of arguments, bye!
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 22:48 UTC (Sun) by xtifr (subscriber, #143) [Link] Well, speaking as a Debian user, I really don't care what the Fedora folks do, but I'm becoming quite happy with Gnome3. It helps that gtkmm embraces a much more modern style of C++ than Qt, and is, in my opinion, much more pleasant to work with, but that's only part of the story. (And no, I'm not a gnome-dev guy either.)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 7:30 UTC (Sun) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]
Am I the only one who finds it awkward to read the window title on the header bar when the icon overlaps the first few letters?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 10:30 UTC (Sun) by TRS-80 (subscriber, #1804) [Link] Nope, I find it a bit strange too. Although it does make the settings panel look like it's called Xsettings ;)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 22:03 UTC (Tue) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link] I filed a bug.I wish GNOME 3 would have an alternative UI for multiple- and large-monitor systems. The whole concept of having the menu on the top of the primary monitor is more and more suboptimal the bigger the screen is. (I suspect that monitor size is a major distinguishing factor between GNOME-likers and GNOME-haters. I don't mind GNOME 3 on my (small) laptop, but it still annoys me a lot on systems with two monitors or one large monitor.)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 23:31 UTC (Tue) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]
I use GNOME 3 on a 27" 2560x1440 monitor, and I've had no issues. The side-by-side half-maximize feature helps greatly with organizing windows.
I suspect preferences for using maximized windows make a bigger difference. I always run with either a single maximized window or with two windows maximized side-by-side; either way, the title bar(s) and the gnome-shell bar are right next to each other. Similarly, I don't use workspaces at all, because when all your windows are maximized, switching between windows (via alt-tab or the overview) is the equivalent of switching between workspaces.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 0:37 UTC (Wed) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]
I bet it will get worse for you as more programs move their menus into the global app menu. You'll feel like you're in Mac OS where you have to focus a program before you can get to its menu.
(Yes, I understand Mac OS's original justification that the top of the screen is an easier target, but I'd argue that the right fix is to shove the app menu into the titlebar and get rid of the top bar entirely. Oh, well.)
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 1:42 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Yeah, Apple keep insisting on that nonsense and Gnome appear to be (somewhat) following with the application menu up the top.
They do no realise that the problem is not hitting the menu - the problem is getting back to your work in the original window. Once you hit that top edge, you have to go all the way back - sometimes quite far - to get back to where you were. Menu that is attached to the window means two small moves. Menu up the top means two big moves, one of which you'll struggle with.
It is just a stupid throwback to the 9" 80's screens on that Seinfeld Mac.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 3:01 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link] The worst on OSX is those applications that get closed but have their top menu somehow active, acting as zombies! use CMD+Tab and you end up in a no-mans land. If caption could convey something about the actual content, this would not happen.It becomes more horrible when plotting in matplotlib, it names all figures just Python, that together with the Python kernel(s) become a really interesting mess. It is not only non-OSX applications with this problem, having multiple XCode instances open is something confusing but commonplace. The main reason Expose non-sense is useful is that otherwise OSX users forget how many applications are open since last restart, a complete mess that only resembles teenagers rooms with dirty socks all over. Now it seems that is the role model for all Windows 8 and other modern UI designers.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 4:06 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> a complete mess that only resembles teenagers rooms with dirty socks all over
THE best description of new UIs I have read thus far. Thanks!
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 31, 2013 14:50 UTC (Sat) by Otus (guest, #67685) [Link]
> > a complete mess that only resembles teenagers rooms with dirty socks all over
> > THE best description of new UIs I have read thus far. Thanks!
It applies to all UIs of any complexity, IMHO.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 3:03 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
I actually like Mac OS X's global menu. It's always there and I don't need to hunt for it. It also saves precious vertical space. I used to run Ubuntu Netbook Remix which did that.
Moving title to the same bar as the menu bar is an interesting idea, but there's not enough space for it.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 3:38 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]
GNOME seems to be going the reverse direction, with the same effect on maximized windows: moving the title into the gnome-shell bar along with the application menu.
The issue you mentioned only applies when you don't maximize windows. Sure, you can only see the menu of a focused application, but on my system, unfocused applications generally aren't visible at all, because they're behind a maximized focused application. On top of that, most of the time I don't actually care about menus at all; I like the trend of applications that simply don't need menus.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 12:32 UTC (Wed) by wlach (subscriber, #23397) [Link]
From what I've been able to gather, the design principle behind the menu is that only application-global state (e.g. "About" or "Settings") state should need to be accessed from there, so in theory you shouldn't need to hit it very often.
Certain applications break this rule, with annoying results: for example in Empathy (the default chat program) much of the key functionality is only accessible from that app menu. So all of a sudden when I want to add a contact I need to use this menu that I would almost never touch otherwise, which is awkward and annoying.
I think much of the complaining about Gnome Shell is just grousing, but I have to agree that the global menu stuff seems pretty poorly thought out. It's completely different from what everyone else does, yet it's not well documented or obvious how it's supposed to work (I only found out about its rationale after being curious about what they were thinking and running a few searches through Google).
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 16:31 UTC (Sun) by ermo (subscriber, #86690) [Link]
When I tried GNOME 3.8 on Fedora 19, the 'no obvious way to unmaximize windows' issue was a real annoyance to me when I first encountered it. For a UX which is supposed to be intuitive, that one stuck out like sore thumb.
While I genuinely appreciate the GNOME integration work and services, I just can't seem to gel with the GNOME 3 UX -- and it's not because I haven't tried.
As an aside, the classic desktop experience seems somewhat half-hearted to me, to the point where I'd rather use Xfce 4.10 w/the classic MS Windows UX. Is the classic MS Windows UX the best UX in the world? Hardly. But at least I'm used to it, and that counts too, doesn't it?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 18:13 UTC (Sun) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] But at least I'm used to it, and that counts too, doesn't it? +1 to that. I think any desktop UI designer should be forced to consider why the QWERTY keyboard is ubiquitous even though (supposedly) it's not the most efficient layout. Tradition and cultural history count for a lot in human-computer interaction and those who ignore that do so at their peril.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 20:33 UTC (Sun) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
This button less phones tell a different story. Also back in the days people where used to not having a GUI at all.
Keep stuff as is "just because it always has been like that" is the best way to kill any attempt at innovation and progress.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 20:59 UTC (Sun) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Keep stuff as is "just because it always has been like that" is the best way to kill any attempt at innovation and progress. Did I suggest that? Not at all. Innovation and progress is fine. Even wild and crazy experimentation should be done because after all, you never know what will turn out to be a great idea. However, those who subject desktop audiences to experimentation (I'm looking at you, GNOME 3, KDE 4 and Microsoft Windows 8) are likely to suffer a lot of complaints. IMO, stable desktop software is not the place for experimentation --- at least certainly not without giving people a simple way to turn off the experimental stuff. During my company's next round of upgrades, we will most likely abandon GNOME in favor of XFCE for non-technical people. I just don't have the resources to deal with the huge initial productivity hit and tons of questions from non-technical users.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 3:09 UTC (Mon) by wlach (subscriber, #23397) [Link]
Have you tried Gnome's classic mode (new in 3.8)? Sounds like more or less exactly what you're looking for. It's described in more detail in the last set of release notes:
https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.8/
To be honest I really don't get all the fuss about this stuff. I pretty much just want something that lets me fire up Emacs, Firefox, and a few terminals and then switch between them easily. Just about every alternative out there lets me do that just fine. There's a certain elegance/minimalism to GNOME Shell that I appreciate, but if I were forced to use KDE, Unity or XFCE it wouldn't be the end of the world. I really can't imagine the situation being that different for non-technical users.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 16:24 UTC (Mon) by ermo (subscriber, #86690) [Link]
In my experience, Gnome's classic mode is a bit of a frankenstein of the GNOME 3 UX and the classic GNOME 2 UX. Actually, it might actually be *worse* than both classic GNOME 2 and pure GNOME 3 because it commits to neither.
The way I see it, Cinnamon is much closer to being an instantly familiar classic experience than GNOME's classic mode in its present state. And to most users, I'd argue that Cinnamon is potentially the better solution if the goal is minimal retraining and associated loss of productivity. Heck, I'd be on Cinnamon myself if not for the fact that Xfce works well enough and is faster in daily use on the somewhat long-in-the-tooth systems where I have tried both.
On the flip side, GNOME 3 probably yields a better UX for e.g. detachable tablet/net-top hybrids, to the point where it comfortably beats, say, Windows 8. It'll be interesting to see to which extent Windows 8.1 changes that.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 19:09 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Have you tried Gnome's classic mode (new in 3.8)? No, because I quit using Gnome ages ago. I did upgrade my home system from squeeze to wheezy and my kids were extremely unhappy with the changes to Gnome. I managed to get it more-or-less usable for them again, but they still prefer the old way. I pretty much just want something that lets me fire up Emacs, Firefox, and a few terminals and then switch between them easily. As do I, and I don't think we're the target audience for Gnome 3.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 5:40 UTC (Mon) by luya (subscriber, #50741) [Link]
So you encourage the inertia rather than improving and advance to the next level? Have you forgotten that life is a dynamic constant change?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 19:12 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] So you encourage the inertia rather than improving and advance to the next level? Have you forgotten that life is a dynamic constant change? There's a word for this type of argument: Straw man. There's a place for dynamic constant change and a place for stability. I am arguing that forcing most Linux desktop users into a place for dynamic change is not going to be received well. You may quibble that no-one's "forcing" anything on anyone, but the reality is that it's beyond the skills of most non-technical Linux users to switch to any desktop not provided by default with the Linux distro.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 20:01 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Gnome should of allowed installing Gnome 2 and Gnome 3 side by side. That would of avoided most of the problems and gave people a lot softer migration path.
Note that this sort of thing is going to happen every single time some mature piece of software under goes a significant change. And since it's end-user facing software the problem is amplified much more significantly then, say, Apache. It took years to get to were Gnome 2 ended up at, and it's going to take Gnome 3 years to get that same place.
No way to avoid it except to avoid big changes.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 20:32 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Gnome should of [sic] allowed installing Gnome 2 and Gnome 3 side by side. Yes, that would have been an ideal solution.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 15:08 UTC (Mon) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link]
Have you considered Cinnamon? It is the good old desktop on steroids, charming and yet productive.
BTW, comparing Windows8 with anything but itself is unfair, it is the epitome of bad design. I think, the only way to justify it is if Microsoft thinks desktop is dying and wanted a tribute only as long as it could increase their WP8 by some hypothetical margin.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 23:26 UTC (Tue) by droundy (subscriber, #4559) [Link]
Indeed. I recently upgraded my computer systems (small research group, a dozen or so workstations of various ages) to Debian Wheezy, and ended up simply uninstalling gnome from most of the workstations because it was too unpleasant, and so slow that it was very hard to log out after mistakenly logging in. Presumably the issue is a combination of older hardware, no accelerated graphics (it went into gnome classic mode) and home directories over NFS. But it just wasn't worth trying to debug.
To be fair, KDE was pretty bad, too, but much less so.
It's just sad when free software gets monotonically worse (on the same hardware). And it doesn't seem to be getting better on new hardware, either. What happened to the days when you could save money by running linux (with gnome!) on an older computer?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 21:04 UTC (Sun) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link]
I think GNOME's onscreen keyboard has an ongoing effort to redesign the keyboard layout to fit better with mouse or touch input.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 19:14 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> QWERTY keyboard is ubiquitous even though (supposedly) it's not the most efficient layout.
This old chestnut needs to be laid to rest.
The QWERTY concept was patented and it's documented why they did it.
The layout was created to make mechanical typewriters faster, not to make typists slower. If you ever used a real physical type writer you should be familiar with the fact that if you try to mash the keyboard the strikers will collide into one another and get stuck. The keyboard layout was designed so that the letters that are commonly used together (like T and H) were placed so that they were spaced apart internally in the machine to prevent jamming and allows for faster typing. They used letter frequency and pattern studies to do this.
Now the original reason for QWERTY is certainly gone. But it remains because 'good enough' really is factually 'good enough' and there isn't any significant need to get a way from it.
At least not if you prefer VI key bindings...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 19:55 UTC (Mon) by kreijack (guest, #43513) [Link]
> The keyboard layout was designed so that the letters that are commonly
> used together (like T and H) were placed so that they were spaced apart > internally in the machine to prevent jamming and allows for faster > typing.
This could be true in some language, but not in all; however the QWERTY layout is quite common in different language: for example the Italian layout is QWERTY too; the French layout is very similar: IIRC only z and w are swapped.
> Now the original reason for QWERTY is certainly gone. But it remains
I am not so sure that these layouts are good enough in the phone-cases.
I hope that the "swype"-like keyboards in the phone suggest to use different layout. For example in Italian the last letter of a word changes depending if the word is singular or plural. So the last letter may change from 'o' to 'i' depending by the context. But in the QWERTY layout these letters are nears, so very often the software was not able to detect the right word because the gesture ends in the middle between o and i. Because this is a very common problem I hope that the next generation of keyboard software for the phone will introduce different layout depending by the language. However I hope that for the *old* people (like me), the QWERTY layout will still be available :-)
At least not if you prefer VI key bindings...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 20:20 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> This could be true in some language, but not in all; however the QWERTY layout is quite common in different language: for example the Italian layout is QWERTY too; the French layout is very similar: IIRC only z and w are swapped.
Qwerty was created for the English language. I am sure that if this keyboard stuff originated in a Russian language country then it would of been different.
> I am not so sure that these layouts are good enough in the phone-cases.
Works for me. As I've used Android over the years and seen the various different qwerty-style variations I am surprised on subtle the differences are that end up making a huge improvement in the keyboard effectiveness.
The best thing I can see Gnome doing is blatantly copying the Android or iOS behavior (and spend a huge amount of effort making sure the behavior is copied exactly) since those keyboards are going to have many more years of experiencing backing those then anything Gnome can come up with.
It would be lovely if Gnome and friends can come up with a standardized mechanism for a plugable keyboard. It's really needed if you want to support a wide range of mobile devices and languages.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 8:46 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I am sure that if this keyboard stuff originated in a Russian language country then it would of been different. Why? When! Here is photo of old Russian keyboard. Just like any today's keyboard it carries both Latin alphabet and Russian alphabet (this was and is needed because Latim alphabet was used on all Russian computer systems for math), but Latin layour is JCUKEN not QWERTY.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 17:43 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Well that kinda proves my point then. It's Russian so it's not qwerty. Qwerty was developed based on patterns in English language.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 20:01 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Sure, but it's poor development at best. QWERTY was just a slight modification of Latin alphabet. Take a look on the second row: A…D…FGH…JKL. Few letters were moved out to slightly optimize layout, but it's obvious that they started from alphabet and changed a few things. Punctuation is on the side thus you need to type it using your little finger. And so on. Yes, QWERTY was optimized for English language, but it was rush job. Many different layouts are doing much better. JCUKEN is significantly better in this regard: most common letters are in the center, you type both “.” and “,” were typed using forefinger, etc. But it's hard to change standard once it's established - thus standard stays. There also another thing related to JCUKEN: actually standard was changed (broken) in last 20 (or so) years. This optimized and quite usable layout was replaced by abomination you can see in English wikipedia. How? Monopoly power. Some #^@&#%@^##!$E! guy in Microsoft added QWERTY problems to JCUKEN and made it default (Apple uses better layout which is closer to original BTW). This shows both that And it really looks that GNOME guys are trying to do exactly that - only their customers are not as tied to GNOME as Microsoft's customers are tied to Windows thus many GNOME users (me included) have defected.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 0:04 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I don't think it's some guy at Microsoft's fault that the Russians lacked the ability to make affordable computers in the 1980's and had to bastardize already available western designs.
You should just go back to using Gnome anyways. It's rather nice and this way you don't have to get all excited when Gnome related articles show up in LWN. :P
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 0:43 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
There are multiple better ways to place the comma. For example, the right brace key (']') in Russian produces a "hard sign" symbol ('ъ') which is rarely used - it would have made sense to make it produce comma in lower register.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 9:36 UTC (Thu) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
> better ways to place the comma
On the PC keyboard, not all the key are identical - i.e. some keys cannot be used with Control or Alt (do not produce a keycode or produce the same keycode as another combination), so you are not totally free to place what you want where you want - I do not know if it is the source of this problem.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 11:14 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] The only keys on a 104-key PS/2 keyboard in "Set 2" mode (the usual default) that are supposed to be "weird" are Pause (generates a special sequence on keydown, but no event on keyup) and Print Screen (generates a two-keydown sequence on keydown and a two-keyup sequence on keyup). In USB land, it's a lot stranger - and of course crappy keyboards may get things wrong in entertaining ways regardless of the above.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 13:02 UTC (Thu) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
> "Set 2" mode (the usual default)
(my) BIOS did not use "Set 2" mode, so the problem I had was probably application specific (boot-loader running under BIOS)...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Sep 9, 2013 14:38 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
> Qwerty was created for the English language. I am sure that if this keyboard stuff originated in a Russian language country then it would of been different.
And that leads us back to the initial assertion that you failed to disprove: that the QUERTY layout is not ideal, and still stuck. There are valuable lessons there to be learned if you're not stupid enough to be blind by the design paradigm du jour.
One is that "easy" is a function of expectation and previous knowledge. Another is that humans are the flexible part in every human-machine interaction. And there are more.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Sep 9, 2013 15:18 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> And that leads us back to the initial assertion that you failed to disprove: that the QUERTY layout is not ideal, and still stuck.
that is also an assertion that you have failed to prove.
I know that urban lore says that the Dvorak layout is far better and points to a WWII era study to 'prove' this, but if you go and look at that study, you will find that it was not a good study, they took people who didn't type well at all and gave them extensive training with the Dvorak layout and then used the resulting improvement to show how good the layout was.
They didn't have a control group that got equivalent training with QWERTY to compare against.
There are some theoretical advantages of Dvorak, but it is far from clear that they make any difference in reality.
“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” ― Albert Einstein
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Sep 9, 2013 15:33 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
and by the way, whichever keyboard layout is 'better' is also not relevant for the simple fact that the vast majority of users never bother to learn how to touch-type, let alone how to touch-type rapidly.
As a result, any advantage or disadvantage to a particular layout is swamped by the vast lack of training.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 20:56 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
> At least not if you prefer VI key bindings...
There's some double negatives floating around here, so piecing the intent with the literal reading I see isn't clear. Anyways, given that vi is more mnemonic than layout-based, switching layouts isn't too bad (provided that you don't have bad habits like I do with hitting one of "hjkl" repeatedly instead of using the f, t, and other similar commands). I've tried Colemak before and hjkl end up in a nice layout:
> j l
Vim does break some of the mnemonic patterns, but that's just because there are only so many keys to work with.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 20:30 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Now the original reason for QWERTY is certainly gone. But it remains because 'good enough' really is factually 'good enough' and there isn't any significant need to get a way from it. I believe that was my point... the old Gnome 2 / XFCE / KDE 3 / MS Windows WIMP interfaces (which are all very similar) were "good enough" and there is no significant need to get away from them on desktop systems.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 21:11 UTC (Mon) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] and the rest of the world disagrees with you, to the tune of millions of dollars spent every year in research and development.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 22:22 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] and the rest of the world disagrees with you, I don't think so. The "millions spent" on R&D for user interfaces is mostly for non-desktop devices. Furthermore, money spent on something doesn't automatically mean it's worthwhile. Google "boondoggle".
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 11:41 UTC (Tue) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] I don't think so. The "millions spent" on R&D for user interfaces is mostly for non-desktop devices. are you serious? do you really think that all the money that goes in UX design R&D at Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. is all for mobile devices? please, just because for you the pinnacle of desktop user experience is Windows 95, don't assume that everyone agrees with you. you'll actually find yourself in a very small minority.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 12:51 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] do you really think that all the money that goes in UX design R&D at Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. is all for mobile devices? I'd say most of it, yes. And take Apple, for example. It's desktop UI is pretty similar to how it was 20 years ago. It looks a bit different and is quite a bit snazzier, but the basic concepts are the same. Apple has made evolutionary changes, not revolutionary ones. you'll actually find yourself in a very small minority. Since neither of us has the numbers to back that up... meh.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 19:59 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
I largely agree, I think we are in the third generation of GUI design, the first being Xerox, Apple Mac and Windows and other ancillary systems, the second being Win9x culminating in the WinXP/7 UI and NeXT culminating in OSX 10.4. Now the research is largely focused on the third generation mobile touch screen devices and UI widgets and concepts are being back-ported to traditional desktop systems, like what you see in OSX 10.7/8 which bring the iOS launcher and other iOS widgets, or Win8 which brings the mobile UI wholesale as the primary desktop UI.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 18:19 UTC (Sun) by seanvk (subscriber, #80501) [Link]
Nice to see folks still working on it. But I would prefer to see Fedora become less Gnome centric, wishful thinking I know... but I just no longer wish to use Gnome 3+ as a DE. Perhaps the LXDE + RazorQt merger holds some promise coupled with Wayland. Now I would like that.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 25, 2013 23:28 UTC (Sun) by HelloWorld (subscriber, #56129) [Link]
How is Fedora Gnome centric? I've never even had it installed, KDE Plasma runs just fine...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 8:02 UTC (Mon) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]
Oh well ... reading is SO difficult ... http://fedoraproject.org/cs/get-fedora-options
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 9:47 UTC (Mon) by hadrons123 (guest, #72126) [Link]
If I wanted MATE i have to reach here https://spins.fedoraproject.org/
Which is clearly not in the home page of fedora. But that's not the case with Debian,OpenSUSE, where I don't have to visit another website.
If Fedora is not promoting Gnome compared to other DE, why do you think Red Hat employs so many people into Gnome rather than XFCE or KDE.
I am happy at least they have a Mate spin in their repos and not totally opposed to the idea of having it, in that way I respect them.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 26, 2013 15:21 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
You seem to be confusing Red Hat with Fedora and you seem unaware that Red Hat has a considerably large KDE team as well. Spins.fp.o is a subdomain of fedoraproject.org and not say a different website like kubuntu.com.
Also go to Debian.org and try to download a live image with KDE in the default package set.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 15:06 UTC (Thu) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
Downloading a live KDE image of Debian involves exactly the same steps as a GNOME image except for the last one where you select KDE instead of GNOME.
1. Go http://www.debian.org/
For installation media, the procedure is roughly the same. The only step that changes is the final one, where you select your environment.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 15:23 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Do those live images support installation to hard disk?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 16:42 UTC (Thu) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
I think they do now, but I'm not entirely sure if it works like other distribution's live systems.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 16:43 UTC (Thu) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
I think they do, but I'm not sure whether the live content is copied or whether it just runs the normal installer.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 6:37 UTC (Tue) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
GNOME 3.9.90 = GNOME-ng 0.9.90, girls and boys, it always have more fun to develop pre-1.0 software than to clear long lasting bugs, right?
Some people believed that they had 2.0-some desktop environment, learned ins and outs of it, even developed non-trivial software for it, wrote non-trivial documentations for it, etc. Some day they found that their favorite desktop environment become abandon-ware, their effort became meaningless, so nice.
Yes, MSFT is such a malicious company that always forces people to upgrade. Yet, Windows XP, a 12-year-OS still quite usable.
Yes, Windows 8 can be thought as Windows-ng 1.0. But it does have 1.0 quality already. And Windows-ng has no problem running applications written by Windows 95 API, Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Foxpro, etc. At the end of day, Windows 8 has been a source of GNOME copycatism already. BTW, You can get classic Windows experience on Windows-ng by simply installing [1], welcome back.
Yes, Linux is a good royalty-free runtime for OS-like browser, i.e., Chrome. (You know Native Client and Packaged Apps, right?) Yes, Linux is a good royalty-free runtime for serious games support OpenGL, i.e., games on Steam. But Linux is not a good royalty-free runtime for traditional desktop application. There is no 1.0 quality answer for "What is native Linux desktop application?", sorry.
1. http://www.classicshell.net/
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 8:06 UTC (Tue) by hadrons123 (guest, #72126) [Link]
Even though I am not a fan of Gnome-shell in the recent times, but what you are asserting is something that doesn't make any sense. Windows 8 metro interface is the most disliked interface of all time in the history of desktop computing. Gnome-shell is lot better than windows 8. You clearly have no idea why there is a difference between windows API and Linux APIs and you resolved yourself into believing that having the same API for 30 years is a good idea too.please read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
FYI:
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 9:25 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Please read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html. Have you read that article? It's quite clear, you know: The cornerstone of Microsoft's monopoly power and incredibly profitable Windows and Office franchises, which account for virtually all of Microsoft's income and covers up a huge array of unprofitable or marginally profitable product lines, the Windows API is no longer of much interest to developers. The goose that lays the golden eggs is not quite dead, but it does have a terminal disease, one that nobody noticed yet. And explains why: Inside Microsoft, the MSDN Magazine Camp has won the battle. and when I talked to some friends from Microsoft Consulting Services about this they admitted that Microsoft had lost a whole generation of developers. IOW: this article explains in painstaking details exactly why Microsoft's Lost the API War (it lost it because Sun's Trojan Horse took root and eventually destroyed Windows monopoly - although I'm not sure that's what Scott McNealy had in mind when he started this whole Jave thing… after all Sun died from it's own Trojan Horse, too) and how it become largely irrelevant in today's IT landscape (he has another article which explains it even more graphically). You clearly have no idea why there is a difference between windows API and Linux APIs and you resolved yourself into believing that having the same API for 30 years is a good idea too. Which one? Linux kernel API? Sure, that's smashing success and it reinforces the notion that having the same API for 30 years is a good idea (actually 22 years till now, but, well… close enough). Linux desktop API? That's the same miserable mess today as it was five years ago and, again, reinforces the notion that having the same API for 30 years is a good idea. What exactly are you talking about? All examples you've shown, all articles you've cited contradict your words and support maxiaojun's words. I have mixed relationship with Linux: I like low-level pieces (things like glibc, gcc, etc) which are done by people who think having the same API for 30 years is a good idea (they certainly not perfect and they certainly can be improved and there are even occasional revolutions but their revolutions are mild, [relatively] predictable and easy to live with), but I hate the mess created by CADT-model groups on top of that. Thankfully today we do have one Linux UI which is developed by sane people using sane paradign - but, sadly, it's developers were so fed up with CADT-kids that they thrown away many good parts of Linux plumbing, too (no GLibC, it's own IPC, etc). But perhaps when it'll finally reach desktop (it's moving in this direction, but not quite there yet) I'll be ready to give up on these, too.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 12:25 UTC (Tue) by torquay (guest, #92428) [Link]
I concur with this assessment. Linux has many strengths, but the current traditional approach of doing the desktop is certainly not one of them (ie. endless API churn and reinvention). I'd love to see an Android desktop. However, Google still needs to figure out whether it makes sense for Android to act as a desktop. It doesn't make money from Android directly, perhaps apart from tax on app purchases (which probably amounts to peanuts, in relative terms). Instead, Android is a way of encouraging people to stay within Google's realm of services. This in turn means more eyeballs for advertising. Google is obviously good at delivering ads (and word processors!) via web browsers, so how would an Android desktop help them?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 9:30 UTC (Tue) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
> Windows 8 metro interface is the most disliked interface of all time in the history of desktop computing.
Evidence for your claim, please. BTW, if you really have used Windows 8, you will know that sticking with traditional desktop is just a piece of cake.
> You clearly have no idea why there is a difference between windows API and Linux APIs and you resolved yourself into believing that having the same API for 30 years is a good idea too
Yes, you are right, break API, not to mention ABI, every 30 days must be better, have 30 incompatible distributions must be better.
> please read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
Read it before already. Yes, MSFT has already lost in a world that the standard notion of software platforms are Windows, Mac, Mobile and Web. No one claim that state of Windows API is perfect, it's just much more stable in practice; most FOSS have no problem providing ready to use Windows binary.
> Gnome-shell came out years ahead of Windows 8 metro interface.
Seems like you have no idea about how GNOME is designed:
Some additional reading:
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 21:21 UTC (Tue) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link] if you really have used Windows 8, you will know that sticking with traditional desktop is just a piece of cake.I had the misfortune of using it for quite some time (before wiping it and installing Fedora). It was a torture, and lets say gradually I did everything to make it look like XP (7TT, Start Menu, ...). Apps are inconsistent, metro/non-metro transition was pure distraction and counter-productive, simple settings are hidden behind countless clicks like Easter eggs,...
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 1:40 UTC (Wed) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
> It was a torture, and lets say gradually I did everything to make it look like XP (7TT, Start Menu, ...).
Have you made your Fedora looks like GNOME 2.2 [1]? It is released slightly later than Windows XP and looks more functional than that of GNOME Shell.
> Apps are inconsistent, metro/non-metro transition was pure distraction and counter-productive
I had no problem stick with non-metro. BTW, GNOME Shell also created an new paradigm for apps. And inconsistent apps, including those from GNOME project, live in same universe.
> simple settings are hidden behind countless clicks like Easter eggs,...
Maybe you are right here, the settings are designed for touch usage now. I find gnome-tweak-tool an Easter egg also.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 28, 2013 3:44 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link] Have you made your Fedora looks like GNOME 2.2 [1]? It is released slightly later than Windows XP and looks more functional than that of GNOME Shell.No, I am happy with Cinnamon; it is free, easy to install and fully functional (I do not mind bugs, they add to the flavour). I had no problem stick with non-metro Most of the productivity applications, as well as development tools including Eclipse and VisualStudio (a fairly recent one) are non-metro, but then you click on a picture or pdf and it goes full screen on a single screen while keeping the content of the second screen! hit ALT+F4 and it goes to the no-mans land on both screens. Of course I changed default to open those MIMEs with Firefox that has a nice pdf reader, but how much to peel to get to the bare OS kernel. Maybe you are right here, the settings are designed for touch usage now. I find gnome-tweak-tool an Easter egg also.. Nope, I am talking about changing LAN adapter's IP address, or checking if USB dongle shows in device manager sort of Easter egg.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 29, 2013 6:09 UTC (Thu) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
> No, I am happy with Cinnamon; it is free, easy to install and fully functional (I do not mind bugs, they add to the flavour).
Cool. I guess GNOME guys should give up their non-sense and merge with Cinnamon.
> Of course I changed default to open those MIMEs with Firefox that has a nice pdf reader
You do know Adobe Reader if you know Windows XP, right? BTW, I find that Chrome may be a better PDF reader, as PDF.js is way too slow for certain PDF.
There are also plenty of image viewers for Windows, including Picasa, which is discontinued for Linux.
> Nope, I am talking about changing LAN adapter's IP address, or checking if USB dongle shows in device manager sort of Easter egg.
I haven't done these things for quite much time.
I remember that changing IP address in Linux was distribution specific before Network Manager. Early version of NM was pretty annoying. And at the end of day, when NM is not suitable, for example, to bind two IPs to one card, things become really fun.
For device manager, I don't know your problem, but do you prefer "lsusb" actually?
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 31, 2013 15:12 UTC (Sat) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]
There's exactly one windows 8 server I have to occasionally interact with, and it's horrible. The discoverability is terrible, I ended up having to use google to find various settings.
But the real killer was that I was accessing it via a remote desktop and those "hot-corners/edges" are darned hard to hit when the RDP window is smaller than your actual desktop.
It seems mostly like throwing everything around for no actual benefit, so you've just made it hard to use for anyone who used what came before with no actual benefits.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 9:54 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]
> Windows-ng has no problem running applications written by Windows 95 API, Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Foxpro, etc
FYI, this is a major hyperbole. Win8 has lots of issues WRT network and database drivers. It will get there a year or two from now (or the in-house programs will adapt) but each new Win8 machine at a full-of-internal-software-corporation is a huge nuisance ATM.
Clasen: GNOME 3.10 sightings Posted Aug 27, 2013 11:42 UTC (Tue) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
> Win8 has lots of issues WRT network and database drivers.
I don't know whether you mean by "network". Maybe you mean SMB/CIFS?
For "database drivers", you may be right. But again, Windows is not perfect on API issues, it's just better. For example, you may check how awesome Libgda 5.0 release is, WRT API/ABI compatibility: http://www.gnome-db.org/Roadmap
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