McGovern: Handing over [LWN.net]

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 20:47 UTC (Tue) by eharris (guest, #144549)
Parent article: McGovern: Handing over

Yup...credit to the departing for their efforts!
Pity that (in my opinion) GNOME3 is an abortion!
Once upon a time GNOME2 was pretty and useful.
So...in 2022, the popular UI here at Linux Mansions is.....XFCE!!!

to post comments

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 20:54 UTC (Tue) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] (3 responses)

Well this discussion is going downhill fast. Getting things back on track, I've used GNOME for nearly twenty years. With tweaks and add-ons, it suits me quite well. I'm thankful for GNOME, and for the other desktop environments.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 21:43 UTC (Tue) by bartoc (guest, #124262) [Link]

Yeah, I've started to really grow used to gnome, and prefer it strongly to windows or mac nowadays. Even without any addons (my workflow tends to revolve around using search to launch apps, I don't need an applications menu or anything).

I have small gripes, like the on screen keyboard not being that good, or the lack of pen input support (this is actually really hard to do well, so I don't blame them, Windows is _wayyyyyy_ ahead here because of efforts with early convertible pen-tablets). Also in vertical orientations the icons in the activity menu become rather too small imo.

I've found Gtk3 and 4 to be pleasant development environments too (and gnome-builder is really sweet)

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 2:42 UTC (Wed) by jebba (guest, #4439) [Link]

By default I set up XFCE for desktop users as it is lightest and most straightforward. The most requested desktop I get is for Gnome, followed by a few KDE requests. So from my real-world experience, most users choose Gnome, fwiw. So they've done a good job there. I use Openbox on my own workstations.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 17, 2022 2:47 UTC (Thu) by timrichardson (subscriber, #72836) [Link]

Me too. In the last three years, it seems to me that the gnome project has become less insular. The dogmatic approach and cold welcome for external and community contributions has changed a lot. Ubuntu's move was a vote of confidence, and Fedora is starting to see itself as a gnome flagship which should have appeal to more mainstream users; it's really hard to imagine that if Gnome didn't enable it. These are I think cultural changes before they are technical changes, and without knowing for sure, Neil McGovern must have something to do with it.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 21:54 UTC (Tue) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

GNOME's a much-loved and useful desktop environment with a long pedigree of satisfaction rooted in conservative simplicity and configurability. It's just that it hasn't been called GNOME for many years and what inherited the name largely rejected what made GNOME much-loved.

MATE, you are a welcome friend from the start to the close of my computing day.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 4:20 UTC (Wed) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link] (2 responses)

GNOME2 lives in the form of ... Mate. So there is really nothing to complain.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 18, 2022 1:51 UTC (Fri) by bartoc (guest, #124262) [Link] (1 responses)

how well is Mate actually maintained? I always got the feeling "lived" was possibly starting to go a bit far.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Mar 27, 2022 5:35 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

Activity seems to be fine for something that is mostly just being maintained… https://github.com/orgs/mate-desktop/repositories

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 4:58 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

GNOME3 is not to my taste but McGovern did a good job leading a project which provides one of many alternatives that is in fact to the taste of many people.

Not at all like the embrace, extend, and extinguish zealots.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 12:04 UTC (Wed) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]

The thing about Linux GUIs is that you can swap GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment or any of the others (I used to love OpenLook) so that the system worked the way you thought and the way you liked. You were never forced to change to suit the system, the system changed to suit you.

GNOME3, like all the other options, had strengths and weaknesses. Which is a Good Thing, because the only way to have a codebase do everything well is to have a codebase that is the superset of all possible features. Which would be big. Because GNOME3 differed so much from GNOME2, it was best to treat it as a different option rather than an upgrade to an existing one. That's fine, GNOME2 was forked so continued, and the ecosystem grew more diverse and the greater for it.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 17, 2022 13:54 UTC (Thu) by neilm (guest, #28422) [Link]

I'm glad you've found something to use that you're comfortable with.