The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience [LWN.net]

The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Posted Mar 15, 2011 17:13 UTC (Tue) by shemminger (subscriber, #5739)
Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Thanks Jon, I am glad to see someone is willing to poke the sacred cows of GNOME experience. Looks like it is time to learn something else since GNOME seems to be headed out to pasture.

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XFCE

Posted Mar 16, 2011 15:50 UTC (Wed) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203) [Link] (3 responses)

Switch to XFCE. With an hour of effort I had it looking pretty much like GNOME with Metacity. Sure I miss the compiz glitz but in a couple of days have already forgotten about it and got on with using the applications again like they are supposed to work with the panel looking like it always looked and workspaces like they have been for working for years.

GNOME might be useful again in a few years but I seriously doubt it. Their whole focus seems to be hostility to existing users in a never ending dream of bringing about 'the year of the Linux desktop' wherein millions of newbies will suddenly flood in because they removed enough of UNIX philosophy that these newbs will feel at home. They have been proclaiming this gospel for almost a decade now, perhaps we should start to realize they actually mean it and aren't changing their minds.

XFCE

Posted Mar 16, 2011 20:43 UTC (Wed) by GhePeU (subscriber, #56133) [Link] (2 responses)

Shouldn't it be possible to replace xfwm4 with compiz? I was planning to move to xfce in a few months and I'd like to keep the few effects I'm using (real transparency, expo, wall, scale).

XFCE

Posted Mar 17, 2011 14:44 UTC (Thu) by colo (guest, #45564) [Link]

I tried that with xfce 4.6, but its panel turned out to have serious rendering problem with compiz enabled. I switched to LXDE, an even lighter desktop environment, which did not share the problem with xfce, and have been a rather happy user ever since. Do note that the xfce panel was rewritten for 4.8, so the problem might have disappeared meanwhile. I do not intend to leave LXDE any time soon, though.

I use a compositing WM due to the flicker-free UI it can provide, mostly - it's not any kind of (borderline) useless bling I miss.

XFCE

Posted Mar 18, 2011 5:15 UTC (Fri) by Tara_Li (guest, #26706) [Link]

A lot of people do seem to be mistaking Gnome the Desktop Environment and whatever Nautilus is called when it's handling the icons and stuff for the main window for the window manager (apparently defaulting to Metacity). Currently on Ubuntu 10.10, I have Nautilus doing the background and icons (I think), Enlightenment DR16 for window management (and what a wonderful thing *THAT* is!) and the Gnome Panels (one at top, one at bottom). People, this ain't Windows with One Layer To Rule Them All.

The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Posted Mar 16, 2011 22:49 UTC (Wed) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link] (4 responses)

These "time to learn something else" comments puzzle me.

GNOME 3 has a "fallback mode" that allows you to maintain essentially the same desktop you have now as a GNOME 2 user. They are explicitly allowing you to opt out of their great user experience experiment.

Also there are an increasing number of "in camp" alternatives. Unity is a different user experience but it is still going to be GNOME 3 really. All the libraries and all the applications will be the same. The Elementary folks are releasing their own desktop soon (this month?) as well. Their "panel and dock" metaphor may be less jarring than GNOME Shell for some. Again, they will really just be a GNOME 3 desktop though.

Even some of the "other" Desktop Environments are pretty GNOMEish. How different are XFCE or LXDE really? They can be easily configured so that you can hardly tell the difference and again they are using many of the same libraries and many of the same freedesktop.org standards. Certainly GTK+ unites them all.

It just seems an exaggeration to imply that users are being pushed off to Windows, Haiku, or even KDE. You can skip the GNOME Shell and still be using all the same libraries and running all the same apps. This is not at all like KDE4 was.

So, just keep using "fallback mode" if you like GNOME 2. Either GNOME Shell will improve to the point where "fallback mode" loses it's attraction or GNOME Shell will wither on the vine. Free Software tends to be a bit Darwinian.

If "fallback mode" is not enough, I do not see why you are not switching to something else already. I mean, you cannot like GNOME too much if "fallback" is so unattractive.

The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Posted Mar 17, 2011 4:57 UTC (Thu) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (3 responses)

They can be easily configured so that you can hardly tell the difference and again they are using many of the same libraries and many of the same freedesktop.org standards. Certainly GTK+ unites them all.

That's the kicker: easily configured which seems to be the thing that gnome wants to avoid. It tries very hard to be no way in hell do I want users to do anything different than what I tell them to. I spent a full day trying to get rid of metacity and replace it with sawfish (later to switch it to xfwm4). I just didn't want to waste time learning xfce totally, so I kept gnome and used a different window manager.

I don't know why gnome makes it so hard to change things. To me, it seems the gnome developers are lazy, and do not want to be bothered by supporting such options.

The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Posted Mar 17, 2011 16:19 UTC (Thu) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link] (2 responses)

I really should stop this. But be polite and nice to others.

PS: They are not lazy, they release a product every 6 month. Try contributing instead of calling out others as lazy.

The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Posted Mar 17, 2011 16:30 UTC (Thu) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, I didn't say they were lazy, but it just "seems" that they are. One could interpret that as being the same as just calling them lazy. But that may also not be too bad of a thing to say. As Larry Wall once said: "Lazy programmers are the best programmers". :)

I know when I support products, the more options it has, the more work it takes to support the product. IIRC, during the 1->2 switch, that was one of the reasons they took out some of the features. It was too much work to support them. I think the moving to another workspace by pushing the mouse to the side of the window was one of the things that was dropped for this reason.

That feature is a major part of my work flow and I took it personally. That's also the #1 reason when ever I install a new desktop, the first thing I do is to replace metacity. Which is also the most time consuming part of installing a new desktop, as gnome makes it very hard to replace it.

The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

Posted Mar 18, 2011 1:04 UTC (Fri) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link]

Did you ask if was possible as a separate party process/extension?
The workspace part seems simple, tracking the mouse pointer, not easy, but i'd guess it's doable.

http://library.gnome.org/devel/libwnck/stable/WnckWorkspa...