Questions for deployments of GNOME [LWN.net]

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 11, 2006 22:18 UTC (Sun) by tjc (guest, #137)
Parent article: Questions for deployments of GNOME

There's nothing like a good old-fashioned KDE/Gnome flamewar to get one through a slow weekend. Sudden flashback to 1998.

We all know (deep down inside) that Gnome sucks, whether we're willing to admit it or not. I'd explain further, but the sun just came out. ;-)

to post comments

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 0:58 UTC (Mon) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] (35 responses)

LOL... yes indeed... I started with gnome, had no choice, but it always bugged me. And found myself back on gnome, still had no choice, still bugged me. KDE was too heavy for the test box. That's not a problem any longer, so KDE is it for me.

I think the reason kde users post in threads like this is.. well, I'll speak for myself only: I like the idea behind gnome, I like the attempt to simplify, but I don't like how they do it, and I don't like the way options are removed at the whim of the developers, who have a decidely odd way of seeing the 'average user'. And I especially don't like the idea of removing all advanced configuration options totally. Or making you use command line tweaks or something to do something utterly simple, that should be easily done. Plus, I'd guess that KDE users actually care about their desktops, whereas Gnome users just sort of are ok with theirs, gnome doesn't waken much passion, it's just sort of ok, good enough.

But when I hear about Gnome doing more 'useability' stuff, I have to wonder, whatever or whoever is doing that currently, I don't know, I don't feel it makes it more useable, I think there is an IDEA of useability, but it's not a realworld implementation, although some of it is working now.

But most of all, when I look at the latest and greatest gnome desktop, I see something that is trying as hard as it can to please its corporate market. Why this is considered a good thing is absolutely beyond me. It's good for the corporate IT guys, but that doesn't mean it's a good desktop.

I don't see something made for me, that's where kde comes in, or any other interesting windows manager out there except gnome. I understand why people like different desktops, but I'm always disappointed when I check out the latest gnome, I know one day they will start to make a desktop without the current flaws, it has to happen. I think it's more the hype than anything else, I hear about 2. whatever, I check it out, and each time, it's like: is that it?

Re KDE: all the stuff people say, it's true, configurations, complicated. Settings changing I think has improved. Like other posters said, there's no point in me using gnome because I'd just end up installing all the kde apps anyway, especially konqueror, multipane view, once you've used it, like dual monitors, you can't go back.

But here's hoping that the Gnome team gets some good feedback, and, far more important, that they actually try to fix some of their issues that feedback is bound to point out. I know Gnome will be good one day, and I won't stop trying it once in a while.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 1:09 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (34 responses)

"""I think the reason kde users post in threads like this is.. well, I'll speak for myself only: I like the idea behind gnome, I like the attempt to simplify, but I don't like how they do it, and I don't like the way options are removed at the whim of the developers, who have a decidely odd way of seeing the 'average user'. And I especially don't like the idea of removing all advanced configuration options totally. Or making you use command line tweaks or something to do something utterly simple, that should be easily done. Plus, I'd guess that KDE users actually care about their desktops, whereas Gnome users just sort of are ok with theirs, gnome doesn't waken much passion, it's just sort of ok, good enough."""

I think the reason lots of KDE users post every time somebody mentions gnome is that they don't understand that other people don't have the same tastes or requirements as they do.

Personally I CAN'T STAND KDE AT ALL. If Gnome was more like KDE then I wouldn't use it. Plain and simple.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 1:21 UTC (Mon) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] (33 responses)

nope, not quite, the reason I post is that I continuously marvel at how similar Mac and Gnome fans are in terms of being completely unable to hear criticisms of gnome or mac. I understand the concept behind Gnome, it's easy to see. And I like the concept. I just don't think it's that well implemented. As a very rough working draft it's OK, but it's not there yet, too many poor choices made. The flaws are so easy to see, and they will be fixed, despite Gnome fans, because the Gnome market will demand that they be fixed.

That's why I'm hopeful that the gnome developer community actually tries to hear what the feedback says, even if it doesn't agree with their decisions and biases.

The reason I keep trying gnome is that I want it to achieve its goals, I just don't think it has yet. Only listening to people who like a product isn't going to provide much room to improve it, not a good strategy. I know many of the flaws of kde, and it's interesting to watch them get fixed over time, but I don't pretend that they aren't there. It's that self-imposed blindness that is annoying, not Gnome per se.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 4:10 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (7 responses)

Bullshit.

So your telling me that Gnome people aren't working on improving Gnome,
that they don't believe that Gnome has problems?

That KDE has some advantage of self introspection that Gnome developers
lack?

I think that's a load of BS personally. I know that Gnome has problems,
but guess what Gnome is BETTER then KDE for what I want and what I want to
do. It's the default choice of MANY MANY Linux users and developers, many
of which were first using KDE with Knoppix or Suse and such but ended up
choosing something else. There is nothing you say that can change this
fact.

Anyways.

Since KDE is so configurable what is the easiest way to change it so that
I don't have to use ~/Desktop as the default folder. I want my desktop to
display the contents of ~/, how do I do that?

I've been clicking around in this and that for a good 20 minutes now and I
can't seem to find this elusive configuration item.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 5:10 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

> I've been clicking around in this and that for a good 20 minutes now and I
can't seem to find this elusive configuration item.

Keep clicking. It's there somewhere. I don't give up until after about an hour. If I haven't found it by then, I usually submit a bug report asking for another menu option to be added and they almost always say "yes".

It's done wonders for my productivity. My PHB seems to disagree. Can't understand why. Go KDE!

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 6:38 UTC (Mon) by warmcat1 (guest, #31975) [Link]

- Run "Control Center"
- select "System Administration" on the left pane
- select the child page "Paths"
- set your "Desktop" path

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 9:52 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (4 responses)

Of course you can't... In KDE it's impossible to find the useful features and options, because they're hiding in a forrest of useless ones...

How anyone can say that enhanced their productivity is beyond me, I've never seen so much clutter in my life.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 17:03 UTC (Mon) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (2 responses)

How anyone can say that enhanced their productivity is beyond me, I've never seen so much clutter in my life.

From a productivity standpoint, complex configuration is costly up front, but free thereafter.

A simpler system may minimize the initial configuration cost, but you pay for it with the decreased productivity that comes from using a duller, less suitable tool for the task at hand. In fact, the longer you use it, the more expensive it gets, since the cost accumulates. And the wider the adaptation that such a system achives, the more costly it gets, since there are now more users suffering accumulating productivity losses.

For example, I use the Gimp a lot for 3 or 4 days a month. I tend to keep the main window in the upper-right corner of the workspace. My window manager allows me to maximize windows along the y-axis, which allows me to create a new image, which opens a new window, which I can quickly maximize along the y-axis, move flush with the main window by relying on edge resistance (another feature that my window manager supports), and dragging the left border to the edge of the screen. This is complex to describe, but the combination of verticle maximization, edge resistance, and central window placement makes it easy to quickly maximize my use of available space, which is important if I am going to do this a couple hundred times a day.

Occasionally I am forced to work on a system that has only metacity installed, the operation described above becomes awkward -- and after just a few iterations -- irritating. Even if I am going to be working on said system for just one day, I usually find it more productive to download sawfish and configure it before I start. Even if I only break even from a time standpoint, it's worth it just to avoid the aggrevation.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 22:14 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (1 responses)

Huh? I use Compiz at the moment, but as far as I can remember, resizing along an axis is just Ctrl-click or Alt-Clicking maximize.

Besides, no one is forcing you to use Metacity for GNOME, it's just the default.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 13, 2006 2:14 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

Besides, no one is forcing you to use Metacity for GNOME, it's just the default.

I'm using sawfish in fact, as I mentioned. It's been in a state of semi-maintance for years now, but I still find it better than the alternatives.

As far as vertical/horizontal maximization: yes, I think you can configure a keybinding for it, if you happen to find that convenient. I prefer to use the mouse (alone) for that sort of thing. I even wrote a patch for this feature back in 2002, but I was informed that it was "crack." I eventually got tired of patching my own version of metacity, so I reverted to sawfish. It seems to be faster anyway.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:48 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

> I've never seen so much clutter in my life.

I have it's called gnome (should be gone) . :-)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 10:15 UTC (Mon) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link] (24 responses)

> I continuously marvel at how similar Mac and Gnome fans are in terms of
> being completely unable to hear criticisms of gnome or mac.

I would agree with that assessment if you include KDE fans. As an outsider who normally uses none of the three, I find it highly ironic that you left out KDE fans from your list. In my experience, they are generally worse than GNOME fans, though certainly not as bad as Mac fans. As an example, I need merely point to this very article, which is full of KDE fans who are obviously ignorant of how GNOME works (and in many cases, apparently barely literate), and yet who still feel the need to rant and curse at those who do not share their ignorance.

I also agree that GNOME's implementation falls short of the conception. And, like you, I like their conception. I don't like KDE's conception, for the most part (though there are a few areas that are very well-done). In general, I find KDE ugly, cluttered, ad-hoc, awkward, and counterproductive, and I see no signs that they plan to go in any other direction anytime soon.

I'll keep checking both GNOME and KDE as they release new versions, but I have begun to strongly doubt that KDE will ever become a system I would want to use, while GNOME at least has that good potential. In the mean time, fortunately, there is no shortage of alternatives. :)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 11:29 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (14 responses)

Not all of us are ranting and cursing. Some of us are honestly curious about what draws people to one environment over the other.

I mean, it's obvious that both have userbases, and that those userbases don't intersect much: the question is why, and to what extent each environment can be rendered attractive for the other without ruining it for its existing userbase.

GNOME probably has a lot of detractors because it swung from a featureful GNOME 1.4 to a GNOME 2 with all the features removed. I at least stuck with GNOME 1.4 for *ages*, then made the big leap to KDE. There's a certain sense that the GNOME devs have decided they don't give a damn about a large part of their userbase, and some of the devs' own comments have tended to reinforce that. It's a pretty natural human thing to dislike being told that you will be ignored. (Even though of course the GNOME devs had no requirement to pay any attention, I at least consider it a point of honour when supporting software I wrote to try to keep *all* my users happy inasmuch as they don't have conflicting requirements, and not ignoring them is part of that.)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 12:57 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (9 responses)

"I at least consider it a point of honour when supporting software I wrote to try to keep *all* my users happy inasmuch as they don't have conflicting requirements, and not ignoring them is part of that."
The problem with keeping *all* the users happy is that then you'll need to support a million features, a lot of which is useful to a few percent, and just an annoyance to everybody else. Perfect way to get to clutterhell.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 13:28 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (8 responses)

A search facility to search the config dialogs seems like a good idea.

(IIRC KDE has just that, but I'm not in X right now and I can't remember.)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 14:30 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (7 responses)

You really see this as a good thing? Clutter from featuritis, solved with more clutter?

There really is a problem when you need to SEARCH for the dialogs...

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 17:12 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (2 responses)

Question: which is better, me cursing the system daily because I can't work out how to make it behave in an intuitive fashion, or the clutter caused by featuritis?

As an example, I grew up with systems where Ctrl-U was delete line, and Ctrl-W was delete word. I expect these shortcuts to work, and made the effort to configure the KDE desktop I use day-in, day-out to match my way of thinking. On GNOME, I can't find a way to make Ctrl-W anything other than Close Window; this may be a case of not enough looking, but I'm not prepared to unlearn the habits of 15 years learning, just because someone, somewhere feels that I shouldn't have them.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:24 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (1 responses)

Use emacs keybindings, no problem.

(Yes, some applications have Ctrl-w hardwired to "Close window", that's a bug, but hardly GNOME's fault).

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 22:47 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Even applications like, oh, gnumeric (a flagship GNOME application).

As far as I can tell, menu shortcut keys take precedence over the (fantastically arcane to set up) gtk-emacs-* bindings in every situation (although I haven't yet checked the Gtk source to verify this).

As such, you have to unbind all clashing keybindings in *every application separately* before things work as you expect.

(Oh, and those vaunted Emacs keybindings? You know how many keys they bind? Fifteen. That's pathetic, just pathetic: even readline beats that by a factor of two or three. Not even paragraph moving is implemented.)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 17:39 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

By this definition, you'd slim down Wikipedia to a dozen pages or so. It's too large and cluttered to find anything in, you know, and search dialogs, well, they're 'clutter'.

I mean, sure, kcontrol is cluttered in the sense that there are an awful lot of settings in there (of course there are: the whole point of it is that *everything* that's configurable in KDE should be configurable from that place if necessary, and thanks to KParts this is done without adding bloat to anything) --- but because there's a search option, that clutter *is not annoying*. You can browse if you want, or jump straight to an option: both are possible.

Computers are good at looking for things. Why not let them?

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:08 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (2 responses)

Ok, comparing an encyclopedia with a desktop is just too far out...

The purpose of Wikipedia is to retrieve information, of course you want to be able to search that information.

The purpose of a control panel is to configure stuff. If a search box is needed for that, then something is wrong, at least in my mind.

Search for:[How to change pixelsize of that bar that I NEED to be 3 pixels wide, find it now, or I will not be able to WORK!]

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 22:49 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Simply searching for `bar' or `pixel' would be a good start.

And since it's an isearch-style search box (well, sort of like isearch mixed with M-x occur), you often don't even need to type in the whole word.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 15, 2006 15:31 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

"Ok, comparing an encyclopedia with a desktop is just too far out..."

Why? Both seek to be comprehensive, target themselves at all users, and are the first point of interface to their respective fields. Seems wholly appropriate to me.

Search isn't just for finding needles in haystacks; it's also for being able to focus on what you want rather than looking through everything, and for being sure you haven't missed an occurrence of what you're looking for. That's useful whether you have ten lines or ten thousand pages to look through.

On a broader point - why should my interactions with my computer be bounded by the limitations of your imagination?

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 15:03 UTC (Mon) by kelvin (guest, #6694) [Link] (3 responses)

GNOME probably has a lot of detractors because it swung from a featureful GNOME 1.4 to a GNOME 2 with all the features removed.

This has been repeated to death by now, but I've yet to hear an explanation of what 1.4-features that are missing. Please, I'd really like to know. Is it the ability to set the tile background on panel launchers? Is it the lack of "viewports" in Metacity (even though "workspaces" (or whatever they're called) have the exact same functionality). For all I know, the removed settings were simply work-arounds for behaviour that was broken in the first place.

The only legitimate regression that I've heard about is that emacs key-bindings are non-functional. This is clearly a bug. Is it a serious bug? No. Do any of the developers use this? Apparently not, or it would have been resolved by now. Have patches been written? I have no idea.

Second of all: GNOME 2.0 was released four years ago... get. over. it.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 17:45 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

The features that annoyed me most that were zapped (concentrating on the panel and other 'GNOME workspace' stuff here: some of the apps, like gnumeric, aren't half bad):

- a myriad tiny options, including 90% of the panel configuration: I hate the standard look of panels, and that was all I now had access to. (In KDE, for instance, I have three differently-sized panels in different locations, two autohidden, with background colours indicating function).

- the ability to remember the location of dragged menus and toolbars vanished (reported as a bug, marked WONTFIX, gee, thanks). Of course you can't do the dragging now without messing around with semi-undocumented options in gconf-editor.

- the session manager moved from being bad at coping with X apps on remote machines to being completely incapable of it. Sure, KDE is little better (I had to read the source to figure out how to do it), but I'd need to rewrite a fairly large chunk of gnome-session before it will work in GNOME, as far as I can tell.

- viewports and workspaces are distinct: viewports are views into a larger space, so you can have things positioned half-on-half-off different screens. My working style absolutely relies on such things, and has since the early 90s: why should GNOME force me to change decade-old habits because they can't be bothered to keep features that *fvwm 1* could handle easily?

... and much else I can't recall.

Roger Leigh has had trenchant comments on the API wreck that is glib, gtk, and the GNOME libraries in the past: search uk.comp.os.linux and you'll find them.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 19:55 UTC (Mon) by philips (guest, #937) [Link] (1 responses)

My favourite were shortcuts. 1.4 had a system where I could put a shortcut at any action. 2.x just cut it out. And highly customizable panels.

I spend long time trying to understand what went wrong with my shiny new GNOME 2.4(? - it was RedHat 8). I think I reinstalled at least once and tried to repair gnome installation several time. then tried to compile from sources and of course that failed. then went to forums just to find Havoc with new official line he just got from corporate HQ.

It was then Havoc was claiming that *nobody* want to configure desktop, everybory wants desktop preconfigured with proper settings. He is just from meeting with higher-ups - sorry, that's why the WONTFIXes were applied that late. The higher-ups gave him new results of new selected users poll. And he already knows the one true settings for everybody and all configurability would be eventually cut out since it's not needed anymore.

That's why I'm against giving GNOME any poll results. It's just hard to guess what would happen to GNOME 3.x then. And I think GNOME 2.x users have to be much more concerned of the poll consequence.

At last I have to thanks RedHat and GNOME for forcing me to switch to SUSE and KDE with IceWM. IceWM is just way too cool.

P.S.

"We are the nobodies,
Wanna be somebodies,
We're dead, we know just who we are" (c) Marilyn Manson.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 23:01 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The shortcut behaviour is still available: you say

gtk-can-change-accels=1

in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0.

(This is documented nowhere that Google can find. "true" doesn't work, nor does "1". I found it in the Gtk source tree, in gtkmenu.c. There is, of course, no gnome control-center option to configure it, although gtk-qt provides a KDE control panel applet.

How terribly user-friendly.)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 14:09 UTC (Mon) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (8 responses)

As an outsider who normally uses none of the three, I find it highly ironic that you left out KDE fans from your list. In my experience, they are generally worse than GNOME fans, though certainly not as bad as Mac fans.

But none of them are as bad as Volkswagen fans.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:25 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link] (7 responses)

> But none of them are as bad as Volkswagen fans.

Now that one i have just got to absolutley and totaly agree with , i would also put BMW and Mercedes fans in the same catagory total clutzes. and as for the jerks driving around in there dam bmw's sporting the english flag well that ought to be treasonable ..

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 23:03 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (6 responses)

I am ashamed for my nation.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 23:04 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (5 responses)

(That is, I am ashamed that it can produce someone as apparently incapable of coherent thought as petegn. BMWs, of course, are quite acceptable.)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 13, 2006 7:36 UTC (Tue) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link] (4 responses)

are they hell as like .

Your old man obviousley did not spend the last war fighting the darn germans and running for his life because he believed in his country of origin bieng free from them (germans ) so dont come that one NO GERMAN ENGINEERING IS ACCEPTABLE IN THE UK .

END

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 14, 2006 21:24 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

No, my maternal grandmother's entire family were Austrian Jews: only two survived (by running to the UK in time).

Oddly enough it appears to have escaped your attention that .de and .at are fully-fledged democracies and among the most developed and civilized nations on Earth. The current citizenship of those countries is as blameless as anyone (and their ancestors suffered terribly from the dictatorship they lived under in that period). Repeat after me: *1945 was sixty years ago*. The war is *over*.

(I thought people with opinions like this didn't exist outside of bad parodies.)

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 15, 2006 23:16 UTC (Thu) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

yawnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 15, 2006 15:40 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, it's probably good to know that you're an all-round general purpose ignorant bigot. At least we know it's not isolated to your contributions on the subject of GNOME.

*plonk*

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 16, 2006 23:18 UTC (Fri) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

yawwwnnnnnnnnnnnn

jerkoff