LWN: Comments on "GNOME 3.36 released"

GNOME 3.36 released

jezuch — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 12:56:28 +0000

> The problem with adapting to the system, is that we cannot rewire ourselves.

Of course we can. Learning anything is *literally* rewiring your brain. With enough time you can learn and adapt to any system (even the bad ones) even if at the beginning it seems hard. But the process needs to start somewhere.

GNOME 3.36 released

zlynx — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 23:21:07 +0000

I think that a lot of people run their display too bright, also. I find that about 20% is the sweet spot for brightness.

Glare affects this too because if there's a bright reflection off your screen, you tend to run the brightness up to compensate.

GNOME 3.36 released

mpr22 — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 18:34:50 +0000

Even in bright environments I find, say, IntelliJ more pleasant in nightmode than darkmode.

Staring at big white emitted-light rectangles sucks.

GNOME 3.36 released

rgmoore — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:07:07 +0000

One of the things I've heard that makes a lot of sense is that the ease of reading argument has to do with glare. If there's a large difference in the brightness of the screen and the area around it, that creates glare, which fatigues the eyes. People who work in dark environments will have less glare and fatigue if they use light text on a dark background, while people who work in bright environments will have less glare and fatigue with dark text on a light background. As long as people work in different environments, there won't be any agreement on the optimum text style.

GNOME 3.36 released

karkhaz — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 02:30:55 +0000

>> AFAICT research has consistently shown that white text on a black background is less *readable*,
>Was this on *paper* (or other reflective surfaces) or on *screen* (ie emissive surfaces)?

Paper. I haven't found enough conclusive, reliable research about screens, though I don't know exactly what I'm looking for in the literature and web-searching turns up the usual noise. But again, readability is only one aspect of an enjoyable user experience (usually readability specifically means 'reading speed'). The most consistent conclusion I've seen (in studies about printed text) is that the most important factor for readability is having high contrast, and that specific color combinations don't matter much as long as they contrast well (and that includes accounting for the fact that different colors appear to have differing luminosity). But "high contrast" in a printed context is still much less contrast than what you get on-screen, which leads to the different background preferences for paper and screens that you mentioned. On a reasonably-lit screen, the Solarized background color (#002b36) doesn't look much less luminous than a sheet of paper to me.

I do wonder whether electronic displays and rendering software are purposely optimized for light backgrounds. For example, I've noticed that non-bitmapped fonts look significantly fuzzier on a standard-DPI screen when displayed light-on-dark, and I wonder whether anti-aliasing techniques and font rendering techniques in general are optimized for the common (dark-on-light) case. But it's entirely possible that I'm imagining things, or it's specific to my vision, so I'd love to learn about empirical data (or a reasoned explanation). I sidestep the issue by using a bitmap font (proggy), which is perfectly crisp and clear on any background.

I switched to Arch Linux from Mac OS 10.6, after having used Apple computers since Mac OS 8. Classic Mac OS had a variety of excellent bitmap proportional fonts (which is an unusual combination!); one of them, Chicago, was even the user interface font (used for menus and window titles, etc). You can see some of these here [1]; they were created by Susan Kare, the designer of the Classic Mac OS icons, and have the same attention to pixel detail. I want to port these to a modern bitmap format so that I can use them to read LWN, one day when I get a spare moment.

So to bring this discussion back on topic: I'm glad the GNOME developers are trying new things :-) While the Mac OS 7-9 desktop was widely regarded as being the very epitome of usability, I think modern users would find it very cumbersome. Mac OS X's interface (Aqua) was very polarizing, and I still think it's ugly compared to its predecessor Platinum, but it's no doubt more usable. I doubt that I'd ever use GNOME (I've been using i3 for 10 years), but am quite saddened by the shitposting and complaining on here---if you use a Linux distro and don't like GNOME, you're in a vastly more flexible situation than an Aqua-hating Mac user ;)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Original_Mac_fonts.png

GNOME 3.36 released

flussence — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 22:32:48 +0000

I'd put more application in the top bar's area. It was a useful widget in Ubuntu with the dbus-menu protocol, but now that everything uses hamburger menus that advantage is gone and it's just a rectangle of dead pixels. Redesign it to be more like a phone “notch” and reclaim the space.

GNOME 3.36 released

corbet — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 22:14:38 +0000

Responding to somebody who had gone quiet for a week is unlikely to bring about the result you claim to hope for. No more feeding activity here, please.

GNOME 3.36 released

flussence — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 22:09:01 +0000

> I don't want to make Linux desktop systems better, for there exist several offerings within the Linux world that already meet my needs and requirements.

Ah! A eugenicist and parasite. It's rare to find one so lacking in deserved shame and self-awareness.

Go back to the circa-2000 kuro5hin/slashdot/somethingawful time capsule you leaked out of, please.

GNOME 3.36 released

ebassi — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 14:14:32 +0000

Don't forget, the G in GTK does *not* stand for Gnome

The "G" in GTK doesn't stand for anything, and hasn't for the best part of 15 years.

They hijacked it from its original developer, Gimp (it stood for Gimp ToolKit).

"They" who? You mean the same people that wrote GIMP? Because they were the ones that split it out from the original code base.

Last I heard Gimp doesn't even use it anymore ... :-) (not quite sure how true that really is).

It's not true. GIMP stayed on the previous stable API (GTK2) because they were focusing on fixing the internals and porting them to a whole new library (GEGL); the main development branch has been moved to the current stable API (GTK3) now that the internals have moved over. The GIMP developers have been tracking GTK development for a long time; theres has been a GTK3 branch of GIMP since before the GTK 3.0 release.

GNOME 3.36 released

nix — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:29:09 +0000

> Sadly, he hasn't told us what desktop he uses, which would allow me to blacklist that desktop on my machines (I would very much prefer to avoid a desktop that has users as toxic as he is).

That's risky! All software has toxic users, but as (I believe) Rusty Russell noted in the past, if you eschewed software written by toxic people, your machine would no longer boot.

GNOME 3.36 released

nix — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:25:56 +0000

"I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram." :)

GNOME 3.36 released

Cyberax — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 16:43:30 +0000

Open-plan offices are basically a way to save money. There's nothing ergonomic in them.

As for dark mode, its purpose is to make it easy on the eyes, even if it affects the reading speed.

GNOME 3.36 released

Wol — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 15:02:55 +0000

And demanding employees who can multi-task - again despite masses of research that shows interuptions are the biggest productivity-killer ever ...

Cheers,
Wol

GNOME 3.36 released

pizza — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 13:56:36 +0000

> AFAICT research has consistently shown that white text on a black background is less *readable*,

Was this on *paper* (or other reflective surfaces) or on *screen* (ie emissive surfaces)?

> I personally program on six monitors. I tried using light-coloured terminals for one day and my retinas felt like the surface of Mercury.

Ditto; on reflective surfaces, I find dark text on light backgrounds to be more readable, but the opposite for monitors and other things that transmit light. I guess it has to do with the overall light intensity reaching my retinas..

GNOME 3.36 released

karkhaz — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 13:29:20 +0000

"Objective" is a rather strong word to use in the context of human perception. AFAICT research has consistently shown that white text on a black background is less *readable*, which is not the same as saying that it's bad. You can easily fix readability by using a larger font or one that looks better on a dark background, if there are other ergonomic considerations that make dark mode better for a particular user.

I personally program on six monitors. I tried using light-coloured terminals for one day and my retinas felt like the surface of Mercury.

GNOME 3.36 released

roc — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 10:17:48 +0000

I'm not saying people don't make mistakes.

Heck, the entire industry has latched onto dark mode and open-plan offices despite plenty of research showing they're objectively bad.

GNOME 3.36 released

halla — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 07:51:40 +0000

"GNOME 3 notably GNOME Shell is around the era of KDE4 circa 2009 for your information."

It's a bit wider apart. GNOME Shell was released in 2011, according to Wikipedia, while KDE4 was released in 2008.

GNOME 3.36 released

luya — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:18:08 +0000

>Do you know YOUR distro, IN DEPTH, including ALL THE NEW SOFTWARE?

We are talking about one of major desktop environments i.e. GNOME (the main focus of the article) used on one of popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora.

>Your typical linux user probably doesn't have a clue about the MAJORITY of software on their system. And I include myself in that, despite the fact I run gentoo, which means I have a hell of a lot more control over my system than most.
On a personal note and with all due respects, I wished that post did not come with such attitude because that reflects about the commenter. We are on Linux Weekly News for a reminder where readers are well informed while willing to learn more and the article is about GNOME 3.36 release. Just to dispel your assumption, I am one of Fedora contributors who happened to use Windows 10 and MacOS.

>That was the original complaint - Gnome3 was new and the OP did NOT know that much about it. Why should he - it was NEW! And it crapped all over his system - he probably learnt way more about it than he wanted because he had to clean up the mess!

GNOME 3 notably GNOME Shell is around the era of KDE4 circa 2009 for your information. Note that I asked what distribution was run when the original poster got the issue to pin point the problem as a normal procedure. The reason is GNOME 3 desktop though GNOME Shell experience on say Ubuntu may differ from Fedora due to implementation.

GNOME 3.36 released

Wol — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 01:12:01 +0000

I think you're unusual :-)

At most I have two columns usually. Unfortunately, my screens aren't that hi-res, so the document I'm referring to on the left and the one I'm working on on the right doesn't work that well for me :-(

But you're indulging in the classic pastime of those for whom things work well - you arrange your screen to suit you, the OP wants to arrange his screen to work well for him and he can't.

And I think the programmers have made the classic mistake of accounting for the variations that suit them - imho it's actually both better and more efficient to calculate the state table, and then allow all reasonable states. Here you should be able to dock the task bar or whatever it was against any edge of the screen - top, bottom, left, right, who cares ...

Cheers,
Wol

GNOME 3.36 released

Wol — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 01:05:51 +0000

Do you know YOUR distro, IN DEPTH, including ALL THE NEW SOFTWARE?

Your typical linux user probably doesn't have a clue about the MAJORITY of software on their system. And I include myself in that, despite the fact I run gentoo, which means I have a hell of a lot more control over my system than most.

For various reasons I have yet to upgrade to Plasma/KDE5, and I'm dreading all the new things I'll have to learn. That was the original complaint - Gnome3 was new and the OP did NOT know that much about it. Why should he - it was NEW! And it crapped all over his system - he probably learnt way more about it than he wanted because he had to clean up the mess!

Cheers,
Wol

Who defines "better"?

Wol — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 21:03:54 +0000

The other reason I hated Word - as I used to put it "Word is designed for people who don't type - the managers. So they take away WordPerfect - aimed at professional typists - and give them Word instead".

The managers giving carpenters hammers to drive screws ... :-(

Unfortunately, that's pretty much par for the course.

Cheers,
Wol

GNOME 3.36 released

wa — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 20:37:50 +0000

Same here. I really like how it just gets out of the way, until you need something. I also have come to like the dash a lot. Good stuff. Extensions have fixed most of the things I missed after the switch.

GNOME 3.36 released

madscientist — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 14:13:30 +0000

I don't think that really addresses my interest. I'm not interested in these monitors because of applications consuming all CPU or memory. Put another way: I can't remember the last time that I noticed unusual activity, investigated, and discovered that something had suddenly run amok and had to be killed.

All the times I investigate I conclude that whatever is happening is perfectly within that thing's normal parameters, I just didn't remember / didn't realize / whatever that something was running or how many resources it would use. I just want to know when my system is busy, so I can find out why.

Now, it HAS happened that I've investigated and found something operating completely within (what I expect are) its normal parameters, but decided I don't want to waste my system time on that thing and disabled or uninstalled it.

I simply don't think it will ever be possible to encompass the entirety of everyone's preferences in this area into a popup that only appears when something is "not what you expect". That's simply not quantifiable.

What WOULD be cool is if there were simpler ways to determine what applications were running and what they were doing, maybe even including historical usages. Android, for example, has the ability to track what applications are running and how many resources of different types they use. Being able to bring up a display that shows disk/cpu/network/memory usage for applications over the last hour/day/week/month, tied to DEB packages and with an "uninstall" button next to them, now THAT would be useful and cool.

Ideally clicking on my panel system monitor, which I still want, could be made to display such a window :p :)

GNOME 3.36 released

oldtomas — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 10:32:07 +0000

I don't like GNOME myself either. I had some love affair back then in the late 1990s with GNOME 1; things cooled down significantly during the GNOME 2 period -- since GNOME 3, I lost it.

Know what?

I just use something different. GNOME is still free software, I'm still happy that there are people working at it, and that there are people using *and enjoying* it. So congrats, GNOME.

Your position seems arrogant and silly. Perhaps even petty? I don't know.

Since you're using something different (and since it's probably something fringe), better make sure you contribute to *that* instead of trolling around.

I don't know whether something "ought to burn in hell" or not. But I do know that it's not on you to decide.

Furrfu.

Who defines "better"?

CChittleborough — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 04:16:55 +0000

Good points.

Furthermore, "better for someone whose previous experience was on Android phones and tablets" is likely to be different from "better for an experienced Windows-10 user", whereas "better for someone who really liked Windows XP but hated its successors" is another story again.

For myself, I prefer KDE, but would recommend Gnome to many people. So: massive thanks to the Gnome team for their hard work.

GNOME 3.36 released

pizza — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 02:03:22 +0000

GIMP uses upstream GTK, with a lot of custom widgets built on top.

...and plenty of technical baggage of the sorts that any 22-year-old application tends to accumulate -- although in this case, that baggage includes ancient pre-GTK GTK-isms in its internals that are still being excised...)

GNOME 3.36 released

rgmoore — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:23:33 +0000

Who defines "better"? :-)

This is really the bottom line question. Obviously, each user uses the software a bit differently and has a different experience base, so their use will be different from anyone else's. From the standpoint of a developer, though, the question of whether something is better needs to look at a broad set of users who have had a chance to become acquainted with the system. They obviously need to consider everyone who uses- or might potentially use- their software rather than just themselves. Equally important, they need to consider people after they've had a chance to get acquainted with the system. If they consider only people who have used the old setup and have never touched the new one, they'll always decide it's better to leave it alone, since even a system that's considerably better for a trained user will be harder to use than whatever the users are already used to, even if the new system would be substantially better with more experience.

GNOME 3.36 released

luya — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 21:36:14 +0000

The end user in question is very knowledgeable about the operating system they installed themselves.

GNOME 3.36 released

Wol — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 20:50:52 +0000

> we keep iterating and making it better

Who defines "better"? :-)

What's "better" for you may not be better for me. And in my personal life "Change is a pain in the ass". I've just recently managed to wean my wife off XP and MS Office 2013. She's chronically ill, has memory issues, and teaching/retraining her to use new software is an extremely painful experience.

Plus my WP comment above - to me WordPerfect really is intuitive. To a lot of younger people who've never used a real typewriter it was an opaque mess ...

Cheers,
Wol

GNOME 3.36 released

Wol — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 20:42:59 +0000

> ...and before GTK3 there was GTK2, and before that there was GTK1, which is what Xfce used for their 3.0 release, replacing their use of the non-Free XForms UI toolkit.

Don't forget, the G in GTK does *not* stand for Gnome. They hijacked it from its original developer, Gimp (it stood for Gimp ToolKit). Last I heard Gimp doesn't even use it anymore ... :-) (not quite sure how true that really is).

Cheers,
Wol

GNOME 3.36 released

sramkrishna — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 20:02:53 +0000

All software will suck, we keep iterating and making it better. :-)

GNOME 3.36 released

sramkrishna — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:58:22 +0000

I thank you as do the rest of the GNOME family.

GNOME 3.36 released

sramkrishna — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:54:17 +0000

One great thing that is happening is that we've moved to gitlab which now allows for a better QA experience through CI pipelines, we've also developed a way to build images constantly so it is easy to download an image and test the design. We move slowly as a project, but we do move and it definitely takes us longer to get somewhere than say windows and apple with their army of engineers.

Sorting through the myriad of feedback both relevant and noise can be emotionally draining. Just on this discussion you have some with vitriol, but we sift through thousands of such comments in our gitlab issues. Some might be actions of our own making others are just that technologists are an opinionated and passionate bunch - but more we are very attached to our workflows and perceived changes can create very emotional responses.

GNOME 3.36 released

sramkrishna — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:48:06 +0000

Great feedback, thanks!

BTW, with us doing more work with cgroups - there should be less chance of an application going off the rails and consuming all the cpu/memory. So hopefully monitoring the system at all times (which yes, is old school and I've been guilty of it back in the day. :-) becomes less necessary as we build in failsafes. I would much rather get a notification saying - something is off if I am actively working in front of the computer.

GNOME 3.36 released

sramkrishna — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:44:41 +0000

Because a bar is not part of the design - the idea is to not have distracting things on your desktop. You go to the overview for the kind of things you would interact with a panel.

That said, there are plenty of gnome extensions that would do what you would describe. Dash to dock - https://micheleg.github.io/dash-to-dock/ is one example of doing all that another one is - https://github.com/home-sweet-gnome/dash-to-panel.

As for the rest, you're welcome to file bugs and make your case. Like the kernel and any other project - you can file something and make your argument. I don't know what you mean by thumbnails, the size of the application windows are fairly large to me.

GNOME 3.36 released

zdzichu — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:12:57 +0000

End user doesn't know, doesn't care. Bad taste in mouth stays.

GNOME 3.36 released

luya — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 17:24:12 +0000

Maybe the issue is Ubuntu specific then.

GNOME 3.36 released

luya — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 17:01:38 +0000

GNOME 3 got some inspirations from the old Xerox GlobalView2.1 notably the window interface and head bar on GTK3. GNOME Shell is very usable with an unscientific example of letting casual users navigating themselves.

GNOME 3.36 released

madscientist — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 14:14:03 +0000

Well, sorry to say but that's a great example of poor decision-making.

If you want to show off the advantages of snaps you should choose an application that is difficult to manage without them, where you get a lot of advantages to using them (say you want to run newer versions on older systems), and especially where their obvious downsides (startup time being the primary one: it's simply not possible to get snaps to start as fast as native applications since by definition they will have to load a lot more content at startup) are not as noticeable.

Choosing a simple desktop-native application like gnome-calculator, where the use-case is start it, do a few minutes of work, stop it, then repeat a day or two later when it's definitely been flushed from cache, is just about the _worst_ possible usage model for a snap you could imagine.

As a result you have a whole group of people whose main introduction to snaps is that they're slow and frustrating.

GNOME 3.36 released

rahulsundaram — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 13:21:38 +0000

> I really don't understand the advantage to putting a utility like this into a snap... very odd decision.

Seems like an effort to get wider deployment of snap via a default utility that is small and easy to convert