4 ms·

Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were pretty good. Then both shells lost their way. Why do they try to be a bad clone of macOS rather than keep being a Win98 on steriods (KDE

by frik 10y ago

Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were pretty good. Then both shells lost their way. Why do they try to be a bad clone of macOS rather than keep being a Win98 on steriods (KDE 3) or a more simple shell for normal users (Gnome 2).

DCKing 10y ago
I dislike that people speak in such absolutes on this. You're expressing a personal opinion. In my opinion, Gnome 3 is amongst the best desktop shells I've ever used. It's focus on simplicity in the base, while including extensibility using, well, extensions is unparalleled. I like that I can choose my own complexity and features without resorting to editing config files or hacky black magic. It's only marred by a subjective lack of quality, quantity and consistency in applications, as is the entire Linux/Unix desktop. So to each their own. I also think KDE 4/5 are much nicer than KDE3.
- Spivak 10y ago
  You don't think the dconf database is more or less the same amount of black magic as editing config files?
  - DCKing 10y ago
    I get that this is meant as some sort of snarky reply, but you honestly made have to look up what dconf is. Vaguely recall using it a few years ago. No, I don't consider it more or less the same as editing config files as I don't need it to configure things.
- Twirrim 10y ago
  For the most part I've become comfortable with the UI in Gnome 3, but I mostly avoid it. They've done a lot to fix the initial problems that the interface had, and I think they've got to a good place for the most part. Try and switch to Gnome 2 / MATE for a little bit and see the drastic improvements in responsiveness, though. That's what kills gnome 3 for me. Even on a nice high spec machine I still end up conscious of the UI latency, and that's really not a good position to be in. The UI needs to get out of the way, and a key part of that is being fast.
  - DCKing 10y ago
    I agree, that's why I use the Impatience extension [1]! I don't use anything GTK2 based any more as the lack of smooth scrolling support is really jarring for me, despite the fact that I still like Gnome2's basic design. [1]: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/277/impatience/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/277/impatience/
    - Twirrim 10y ago
      Nice. I'll give that a shot.
    - pcr0 10y ago
      I'm not sure what you were referring to with GTK2, but MATE uses GTK3 and preserves the Gnome 2 look.
      - DCKing 10y ago
        Didn't know they migrated already, good on them!
  - bwat49 10y ago
    Yeah, the UI latency/smoothness is my one main issue with gnome 3. If it wasn't for that I'd be the biggest gnome 3 fanboy around. I think the shell being written in javascript was a double-edged sword. The extensibility is really cool, but the performance is borderline unacceptable.
jeremyjh 10y ago
I think KDE Plasma 5 is really quite good. I switched to it from Unity when I switched to Arch last year. I don't ask for much from a desktop system, but I like how easy it is to customize KDE. I don't think it tries to be OS X at all - seems like a slightly more tasteful Win 7 to me; though I see that in Gnome.
- madprops 10y ago
  Yeah, to be honest I think Ubuntu should've picked KDE. It's a more direct competitor to Windows 10 which is in my view the best desktop OS. Gnome 3 is nice, just had it installed a couple of days ago. But some things are unpolished, some don't make sense. GTK open dialogs don't even have proper image previews which has been a feature requests for a lot of years (something KDE does have).
  - leppr 10y ago
    Coming from a heavy KDE user (on 3 different laptops, a Dell Latitude, a Thinkpad X220 and an MSI): the number of little bugs and glitches in that DE is wayy too high for it to be adopted by the leading desktop distribution. It makes much more sense for them take a better base to start with, and then rally developer effort to make it more customizable/productive, than take a project with a huge featureset but very fragile and unstable.
    - bwat49 10y ago
      Yeah, I think KDE would need a 10,000 papercuts project before it would be ready as a default desktop that OEMs etc... would be comfortable shipping.
  - jeremyjh 10y ago
    Ubuntu has always been focused on the GNOME platform - they started with the GNOME environment and Unity itself is an alternate shell for GNOME desktop. GNOME is going to be much more familiar to their developers and users - users will use the exact same applications they'd use in Unity and they will look good and make sense. KDE is really an alternate universe, and one I enjoy and prefer for now but I don't thing this would make sense for Ubuntu. If you want a KDE-focused distribution based on Ubuntu, KDE Neon looks awesome.
kristianp 10y ago
> Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were pretty good. Then both shells lost their way. Why do they try to be a bad clone of macOS rather than keep being a Win98 on steriods (KDE 3) or a more simple shell for normal users (Gnome 2). I completely agree with this. Back in the Gnome 2 days I was very happy using Ubuntu. As someone who has used MS Windows for a couple of decades, the way the Gnome 3 desktop switched to Mac-style interface, without any option to change back really irritated me. I don't think I'm alone, I think there are a lot of people who have used Windows who were alienated by the gnome changes and gnome devs preference for creating shiny new things over having things that worked and had few bugs. I have tried to customise gnome in the past and it didn't have sufficient customisibility to have a windows-style bar at the bottom with apps, start menu and clock and also menus on the apps instead of on a common bar. I did try Mate but the distro wasn't up to the quality of what it was trying to replace. This was probably 3 years ago now though. Making the file manager like the Mac finder was pretty annoying too (I think that was KDE 4 though). So much functionality went away when they did that.

by frik 10y ago

DCKing 10y ago

I dislike that people speak in such absolutes on this. You're expressing a personal opinion. In my opinion, Gnome 3 is amongst the best desktop shells I've ever used. It's focus on simplicity in the base, while including extensibility using, well, extensions is unparalleled. I like that I can choose my own complexity and features without resorting to editing config files or hacky black magic. It's only marred by a subjective lack of quality, quantity and consistency in applications, as is the entire Linux/Unix desktop. So to each their own. I also think KDE 4/5 are much nicer than KDE3.

Spivak 10y ago
You don't think the dconf database is more or less the same amount of black magic as editing config files?
- DCKing 10y ago
  I get that this is meant as some sort of snarky reply, but you honestly made have to look up what dconf is. Vaguely recall using it a few years ago. No, I don't consider it more or less the same as editing config files as I don't need it to configure things.
Twirrim 10y ago
For the most part I've become comfortable with the UI in Gnome 3, but I mostly avoid it. They've done a lot to fix the initial problems that the interface had, and I think they've got to a good place for the most part. Try and switch to Gnome 2 / MATE for a little bit and see the drastic improvements in responsiveness, though. That's what kills gnome 3 for me. Even on a nice high spec machine I still end up conscious of the UI latency, and that's really not a good position to be in. The UI needs to get out of the way, and a key part of that is being fast.
- DCKing 10y ago
  I agree, that's why I use the Impatience extension [1]! I don't use anything GTK2 based any more as the lack of smooth scrolling support is really jarring for me, despite the fact that I still like Gnome2's basic design. [1]: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/277/impatience/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/277/impatience/
  - Twirrim 10y ago
    Nice. I'll give that a shot.
  - pcr0 10y ago
    I'm not sure what you were referring to with GTK2, but MATE uses GTK3 and preserves the Gnome 2 look.
    - DCKing 10y ago
      Didn't know they migrated already, good on them!
- bwat49 10y ago
  Yeah, the UI latency/smoothness is my one main issue with gnome 3. If it wasn't for that I'd be the biggest gnome 3 fanboy around. I think the shell being written in javascript was a double-edged sword. The extensibility is really cool, but the performance is borderline unacceptable.

jeremyjh 10y ago

I think KDE Plasma 5 is really quite good. I switched to it from Unity when I switched to Arch last year. I don't ask for much from a desktop system, but I like how easy it is to customize KDE. I don't think it tries to be OS X at all - seems like a slightly more tasteful Win 7 to me; though I see that in Gnome.

madprops 10y ago
Yeah, to be honest I think Ubuntu should've picked KDE. It's a more direct competitor to Windows 10 which is in my view the best desktop OS. Gnome 3 is nice, just had it installed a couple of days ago. But some things are unpolished, some don't make sense. GTK open dialogs don't even have proper image previews which has been a feature requests for a lot of years (something KDE does have).
- leppr 10y ago
  Coming from a heavy KDE user (on 3 different laptops, a Dell Latitude, a Thinkpad X220 and an MSI): the number of little bugs and glitches in that DE is wayy too high for it to be adopted by the leading desktop distribution. It makes much more sense for them take a better base to start with, and then rally developer effort to make it more customizable/productive, than take a project with a huge featureset but very fragile and unstable.
  - bwat49 10y ago
    Yeah, I think KDE would need a 10,000 papercuts project before it would be ready as a default desktop that OEMs etc... would be comfortable shipping.
- jeremyjh 10y ago
  Ubuntu has always been focused on the GNOME platform - they started with the GNOME environment and Unity itself is an alternate shell for GNOME desktop. GNOME is going to be much more familiar to their developers and users - users will use the exact same applications they'd use in Unity and they will look good and make sense. KDE is really an alternate universe, and one I enjoy and prefer for now but I don't thing this would make sense for Ubuntu. If you want a KDE-focused distribution based on Ubuntu, KDE Neon looks awesome.

kristianp 10y ago

> Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were pretty good. Then both shells lost their way. Why do they try to be a bad clone of macOS rather than keep being a Win98 on steriods (KDE 3) or a more simple shell for normal users (Gnome 2). I completely agree with this. Back in the Gnome 2 days I was very happy using Ubuntu. As someone who has used MS Windows for a couple of decades, the way the Gnome 3 desktop switched to Mac-style interface, without any option to change back really irritated me. I don't think I'm alone, I think there are a lot of people who have used Windows who were alienated by the gnome changes and gnome devs preference for creating shiny new things over having things that worked and had few bugs. I have tried to customise gnome in the past and it didn't have sufficient customisibility to have a windows-style bar at the bottom with apps, start menu and clock and also menus on the apps instead of on a common bar. I did try Mate but the distro wasn't up to the quality of what it was trying to replace. This was probably 3 years ago now though. Making the file manager like the Mac finder was pretty annoying too (I think that was KDE 4 though). So much functionality went away when they did that.