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Can someone please explain to me why everyone says that Gnome went off the rails? Gnome 3 to me was, except for leaving behind a lot of legacy systems, an extre

Can someone please explain to me why everyone says that Gnome went off the rails? Gnome 3 to me was, except for leaving behind a lot of legacy systems, an extremely usable and downright pretty UI. Menu, search, windows, and virtual desktops all available from one keypress or one hotspot. I thought that was a stroke of genius myself.

ue_ 10y ago
I think the general reason is that it's a lot 'more' with not many benefits. Things seem to be blown up and large, almost garishly so. The window title areas are large, and on systems with bad or no graphics acceleration it will complain and make you use Gnome Shell, which is ironically, in the opinion of many, nicer than Gnome 3 default UI. I think more than anything it's good old nostalgia. The applications menu is no more, instead it's a grid where you have to search for what you want or whatever. There's a massive screen overlay instead of a nice little dropdown. Multiple desktops was a good feature that's come with Gnome 3, though. If I recall, perhaps some indication of the intentions of Gnome 3 can be seen by the fact that you are prompted to drag up (really?! on a desktop?!) in order to unlock after you've entered screensaver or something. So there could be some of the same reasons why people initially disliked the Win 8 view. But mostly, Gnome 2 was just so simple and familiar, though I don't know if that's my hindsight or whatever. Point and click to what you want to run, put things on your desktop, do whatever. No BS.
- jon-wood 10y ago
  I think part of the issue with GNOME 3 is that the instructions on screen for how to use the UI hide the most efficient ways to do so. The application launcher for me is universally used by hitting super, typing what I want, and hitting enter. I never actually click on anything. Same with swiping up on the login screen, you can do that on a touch screen, but you can also just start typing your password.
herbst 10y ago
I too am totally in love with gnome shell. Guess people just hate on new workflows because szre it takes a few hours to adapt
- khedoros1 10y ago
  I used it for a few months when it came out, then switched to Mate. My biggest problem was that for a lot of things that I wanted to change or configure, the official how-to was (paraphrased) "Actually, you don't want to configure that. We designed the system not to work that way." I decided to "vote with my feet".
int_19h 10y ago
My biggest problem with Gnome isn't even the UI, it's their constant attempts to break well-established APIs. Here's one well known instance: https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685 https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685 Note the wording of the bug - they aren't just asking the app to adapt to a GNOME 3 change, they're asking it to do so by removing a feature that remains fully supported on other DEs. And if you read the comments, the justification is, "I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an XFCE app unfortunately". It was that incident that made me conclude that GNOME is a destructive force in the Linux (and, broadly, Unix-like) ecosystem these days, at least if you don't like monocultures.
flukus 10y ago
I agree. In the past I was always a kde guy but I've been running gnome for the last few weeks with a few tweaks and the dark theme on and I find it really beautiful and simple, especially the fonts. I'm a programmer who normally wouldn't notice if I was using a serif font or not, but whatever gnome uses by default is very pretty.
khedoros1 10y ago
It was a big change in workflow, and the developers gave off a paternalistic vibe (that I guess had been there in Gnome development for years, but Gnome 3 was the first time that I felt like it really impacted me). I used Gnome 2 because it did what I wanted. Gnome 3 felt like style over substance (I'll agree wholeheartedly on "downright pretty UI"), and it couldn't be configured to act in a way I liked. I felt like I wasn't the kind of user they were targeting, so I switched to Mate when it came out. Depending on who you ask, Gnome 3 was either a long-overdue redesign with great results or a dependable tool ditching its legacy to chase after some UX designer's dream. It's been enough time. Might be time for me to look at it again. My patterns have shifted some, and it's possible that it would be a better fit for me now than it was then.

ue_ 10y ago

I think the general reason is that it's a lot 'more' with not many benefits. Things seem to be blown up and large, almost garishly so. The window title areas are large, and on systems with bad or no graphics acceleration it will complain and make you use Gnome Shell, which is ironically, in the opinion of many, nicer than Gnome 3 default UI. I think more than anything it's good old nostalgia. The applications menu is no more, instead it's a grid where you have to search for what you want or whatever. There's a massive screen overlay instead of a nice little dropdown. Multiple desktops was a good feature that's come with Gnome 3, though. If I recall, perhaps some indication of the intentions of Gnome 3 can be seen by the fact that you are prompted to drag up (really?! on a desktop?!) in order to unlock after you've entered screensaver or something. So there could be some of the same reasons why people initially disliked the Win 8 view. But mostly, Gnome 2 was just so simple and familiar, though I don't know if that's my hindsight or whatever. Point and click to what you want to run, put things on your desktop, do whatever. No BS.

jon-wood 10y ago
I think part of the issue with GNOME 3 is that the instructions on screen for how to use the UI hide the most efficient ways to do so. The application launcher for me is universally used by hitting super, typing what I want, and hitting enter. I never actually click on anything. Same with swiping up on the login screen, you can do that on a touch screen, but you can also just start typing your password.

herbst 10y ago

I too am totally in love with gnome shell. Guess people just hate on new workflows because szre it takes a few hours to adapt

khedoros1 10y ago
I used it for a few months when it came out, then switched to Mate. My biggest problem was that for a lot of things that I wanted to change or configure, the official how-to was (paraphrased) "Actually, you don't want to configure that. We designed the system not to work that way." I decided to "vote with my feet".

int_19h 10y ago

My biggest problem with Gnome isn't even the UI, it's their constant attempts to break well-established APIs. Here's one well known instance: https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685 https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685 Note the wording of the bug - they aren't just asking the app to adapt to a GNOME 3 change, they're asking it to do so by removing a feature that remains fully supported on other DEs. And if you read the comments, the justification is, "I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an XFCE app unfortunately". It was that incident that made me conclude that GNOME is a destructive force in the Linux (and, broadly, Unix-like) ecosystem these days, at least if you don't like monocultures.

flukus 10y ago

I agree. In the past I was always a kde guy but I've been running gnome for the last few weeks with a few tweaks and the dark theme on and I find it really beautiful and simple, especially the fonts. I'm a programmer who normally wouldn't notice if I was using a serif font or not, but whatever gnome uses by default is very pretty.

khedoros1 10y ago

It was a big change in workflow, and the developers gave off a paternalistic vibe (that I guess had been there in Gnome development for years, but Gnome 3 was the first time that I felt like it really impacted me). I used Gnome 2 because it did what I wanted. Gnome 3 felt like style over substance (I'll agree wholeheartedly on "downright pretty UI"), and it couldn't be configured to act in a way I liked. I felt like I wasn't the kind of user they were targeting, so I switched to Mate when it came out. Depending on who you ask, Gnome 3 was either a long-overdue redesign with great results or a dependable tool ditching its legacy to chase after some UX designer's dream. It's been enough time. Might be time for me to look at it again. My patterns have shifted some, and it's possible that it would be a better fit for me now than it was then.