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> The modern Linux desktop is every bit as good as Windows (and Mac OS), IMHO The politest thing that I can say about that is "there's no accounting for taste"

by rodgerd 10y ago

> The modern Linux desktop is every bit as good as Windows (and Mac OS), IMHO The politest thing that I can say about that is "there's no accounting for taste".

SwellJoe 10y ago
I'm curious if you've used a recent Gnome 3 desktop? I used Fedora 23 on my previous laptop and will be installing 24 on this new one. It's a truly excellent desktop experience, in my opinion. I think it's everything I want from a desktop environment: Reliable, gets out of the way, looks gorgeous and consistent across all of the apps I use (I mention consistency because my terminal in Windows, a variant of ConEmu, looks ridiculously out of place and has a clunky and crowded UI, to boot), and has the right amount of configurability (with options for getting at stuff that isn't visible). I can't think of anything that Windows 10 or Mac OS have that I miss in Linux. The fact that it has my preferred shell environment natively and the most sensible (to me) filesystem paths, and provides a near enough to identical environment as what my CentOS 7 servers run, is just icing on the cake. In short: What don't you like about Gnome 3 that you do like about the Windows or Mac OS desktop experience?
- rodgerd 10y ago
  > I'm curious if you've used a recent Gnome 3 desktop? Yes. I have such unreasonable demands as thinking that, say, minimising windows might work the way I'd expect on every other OS, or that the extension API might remain stable across ostensibly minor releases, or that features don't disappear on a whim. I would like my desktop to feel like a desktop, and not like a tablet.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    "I would like my desktop to feel like a desktop, and not like a tablet." So, you don't like Windows 10, either, I guess? I find it to be even more insistently tablet-like than Gnome (which I agree has some elements I previously only associated with Android, and I was slow to adapt, but I've come to be very comfortable with it). My new laptop has a touchscreen, which is a thing I didn't want...but it was the only way to get a 4k screen, so I have it, and I've even come to like it. My habits are evolving slowly, and it'll probably be a year or two before I even remember to touch the screen more than a few times a day, but I think the evolution is a positive one. That said, in the "cons" of having a tablet-like interface, Windows 10 has a "feature" that makes your start menu different every time you open it, which I find very difficult to use (I have to start typing to find anything always). That's just awful. But, I think I would hate it on a tablet, too. For the other stuff, I kinda like the minimize behavior (but never use minimize...I use virtual desktops to determine what's in and out of view), I think the extensions API has been stabilized for a year or two now. Gnome 3 shipped in some distros when it was not ready (even though they were calling it stable, it wasn't), but it's firmed up a lot. Now, they're mostly doing incremental improvements. Each time I upgrade now (and I've been using Gnome 3 since it first shipped with Fedora) the surprises are small and pleasant (of the form "Oh, that looks nice!"). In short, I agree with some of your criticisms...but, only when applied to Gnome 3 of a year or two or three ago.

by rodgerd 10y ago

> The modern Linux desktop is every bit as good as Windows (and Mac OS), IMHO The politest thing that I can say about that is "there's no accounting for taste".

SwellJoe 10y ago

I'm curious if you've used a recent Gnome 3 desktop? I used Fedora 23 on my previous laptop and will be installing 24 on this new one. It's a truly excellent desktop experience, in my opinion. I think it's everything I want from a desktop environment: Reliable, gets out of the way, looks gorgeous and consistent across all of the apps I use (I mention consistency because my terminal in Windows, a variant of ConEmu, looks ridiculously out of place and has a clunky and crowded UI, to boot), and has the right amount of configurability (with options for getting at stuff that isn't visible). I can't think of anything that Windows 10 or Mac OS have that I miss in Linux. The fact that it has my preferred shell environment natively and the most sensible (to me) filesystem paths, and provides a near enough to identical environment as what my CentOS 7 servers run, is just icing on the cake. In short: What don't you like about Gnome 3 that you do like about the Windows or Mac OS desktop experience?

rodgerd 10y ago
> I'm curious if you've used a recent Gnome 3 desktop? Yes. I have such unreasonable demands as thinking that, say, minimising windows might work the way I'd expect on every other OS, or that the extension API might remain stable across ostensibly minor releases, or that features don't disappear on a whim. I would like my desktop to feel like a desktop, and not like a tablet.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  "I would like my desktop to feel like a desktop, and not like a tablet." So, you don't like Windows 10, either, I guess? I find it to be even more insistently tablet-like than Gnome (which I agree has some elements I previously only associated with Android, and I was slow to adapt, but I've come to be very comfortable with it). My new laptop has a touchscreen, which is a thing I didn't want...but it was the only way to get a 4k screen, so I have it, and I've even come to like it. My habits are evolving slowly, and it'll probably be a year or two before I even remember to touch the screen more than a few times a day, but I think the evolution is a positive one. That said, in the "cons" of having a tablet-like interface, Windows 10 has a "feature" that makes your start menu different every time you open it, which I find very difficult to use (I have to start typing to find anything always). That's just awful. But, I think I would hate it on a tablet, too. For the other stuff, I kinda like the minimize behavior (but never use minimize...I use virtual desktops to determine what's in and out of view), I think the extensions API has been stabilized for a year or two now. Gnome 3 shipped in some distros when it was not ready (even though they were calling it stable, it wasn't), but it's firmed up a lot. Now, they're mostly doing incremental improvements. Each time I upgrade now (and I've been using Gnome 3 since it first shipped with Fedora) the surprises are small and pleasant (of the form "Oh, that looks nice!"). In short, I agree with some of your criticisms...but, only when applied to Gnome 3 of a year or two or three ago.