GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode [LWN.net]

GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

Posted Nov 9, 2012 14:23 UTC (Fri) by paravoid (subscriber, #32869)
Parent article: GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

*Sigh*. I never got used to GNOME 3. I tried, really really tried and even wrote two extensions for it to be able to stand it (along the other 10 written by third-parties that I installed -- how's that for a unified vision?), but then always felt completely crippled on my own computer.

GNOME "fallback" provided a nice familiar environment to me and immediately restored my productivitiy to its initial level.

It's sad to see it go. I really hope someone competent enough steps up and forks gnome-panel/metacity and maintain it. I'm fine with the rest of GNOME technologies and evolution, it's the Shell that I can't stand. IOW, I think MATE is trying too much to keep everything as they were.

Sorry GNOME, I guess it's time to remove the foot sticker from my laptop :)

GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

Posted Nov 9, 2012 17:05 UTC (Fri) by njwhite (guest, #51848) [Link]

> I'm fine with the rest of GNOME technologies and evolution, it's the Shell that I can't stand. IOW, I think MATE is trying too much to keep everything as they were.

Isn't that exactly what Cinnamon addresses?

GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

Posted Nov 10, 2012 1:54 UTC (Sat) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (3 responses)

> I think MATE is trying too much to keep everything as they were.

Xfce is the way to go. They've built something which is, in my opinion at least, better than GNOME2, rather than just trying to hold on to the past. Simple, fast, configurable. The right philosophy.

GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

Posted Nov 10, 2012 6:32 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

I tried using Xfce and use it for remote desktop at work because Debian doesn't have a workable LLVM setup yet.

It's a nightmare to configure compared to Gnome 3. There are a hundred little files and changes you need to make all over the system to get anything done. On multiple occasions I find myself mentally reverse engineering various XFCE features to try to figure out how to get things working properly.

It's not terrible, but it's certainly not simple or easy to setup. I put a huge personal investment in time back in the day to get a custom Linux desktop setup how I like that, but I abandoned that approach long ago when Gnome finally got usable around 2.8 series. I suppose if I stuck with editing rc files and such XFCE would be easy, but right now it seems like a huge step backwards.

GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

Posted Nov 11, 2012 15:35 UTC (Sun) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

There are a hundred little files and changes you need to make all over the system to get anything done.

Could you give examples, please? I use XFCE on a number of machines and have never edited an XFCE configuration file. I've done all the (minimal) configuration I needed through the graphical XFCE settings manager.

GNOME 3.8 to drop fallback mode

Posted Nov 11, 2012 18:30 UTC (Sun) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

Please don't interpret this the wrong way, but I think you may be confusing Xfce with fvwm, twm, or one of those. I actually don't know where Xfce keeps its configuration files, and have never manually edited them. I'm pretty sure they're somewhere in my home directory, because they persisted across multiple distro wipes, but I don't know what they're called, and don't much care.

When I do want to change something, I use the control panel, accessible from the bottom menu bar. You can also right-click on various things to get configuration menus that way. It's basically the same as GNOME2 as far as configuration goes, except GNOME2 had that horrible registry thing, and Xfce just uses files (I think?) But that's just an implementation detail.