14 ms·

GNOME 3: The Future of the Desktop

63 points by obsaysditto 16y ago

Goosey 16y ago
Anyone else find this article really useless without being able to see the screen shots in higher resolution? I am interested in the UI improvements, but I won't be told about them. SHOW me.
- buro9 16y ago
  What's ludicrous is that those thumbnails ARE the full images. Just open the images in a new window: http://www.linux.com/images/stories/desktop.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/desktop.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/activities.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/activities.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/applications.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/applications.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/workspaces2.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/workspaces2.png
  - zavulon 16y ago
    In a way, this exemplifies what's wrong with the approach Linux desktop/application developers have been taking for years: create something amazing, but forget one small detail, rendering the whole thing completely useless, and causing 99% of the population to dismiss them and go back to Windows/Mac.
SandB0x 16y ago
To see an image in full size, right click and choose "View Image" in Firefox or "Open Image in New Tab" in Chrome.
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  Kind of like how you add an application to the Gnome Start Menu.
sad 16y ago
I am a big fan of gnome-shell. I'll be an even bigger fan when it plays nicely with VirtualBox. Or is it VirtualBox that has to play nicely with gnome-shell?
jimbokun 16y ago
Kudos for moving past the "let's just try to look like XP" design stage to thinking about how to improve usability.
- pavs 16y ago
  Gnome never looked anything like XP or MS Windows for that matter. I think you are confusing it with KDE. If anything, Gnome has some similarities with OSX.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    > If anything, Gnome has some similarities with OSX. beyond both having rounded corners? Apart from both having completely crummy file explorers?
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  I like what I see and have a real soft spot for Gnome, but it seems fairly conservative, yet. More at http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.30/#rnlookingforward http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.30/#rnlookingf...
snitko 16y ago
I don't see anything revolutionary or extremely interesting and useful here. (a + b) is the same as (b + a). Anyone remembers this link when someone made a prototype of a desktop interface that you could manipulate by all of your 10 fingers? That was truly awesome.
- dkersten 16y ago
  You mean Clayton Millers 10gui concept[1]? Sadly, it seems that this won't become reality for another while yet. Lack of funding and expertise mainly, it seems. A real pity. [1] http://10gui.com/ http://10gui.com/ and HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=877535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=877535
jlcgull 16y ago
But can it tile windows yet? :-) I know, I should use a "real" window manager if I need my windows to be tiled, but I feel that tiling is a real feature with a legitimate need that should be built into Gnome.
- andybak 16y ago
  Ah! My pet rant too. Overlapping windows. What a pain they are...
  - mkelly 16y ago
    I also thought the same thing. I don't mind fully overlapping windows (a la tabs), but leaving a bunch of useless space, occupied by nothing more than a pretty picture, on my power-huntry monitor is what's inconceivable to me. I think I've irrevocably put myself on the fringe by switching to a tiling window manager, though. Oh well. There's a little more elbow room out here.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  I've dabbled with Awesome and Xmonad, but am not an expert. However I've found that Compiz Grid + Guake on Gnome gives me mouse-less window management too: http://guake.org/ http://guake.org/ (in most repo's) Grid: sudo apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra CompizConfig -> Window Management -> Enable Grid Desktop controls: * Position and tile a window: Ctrl-Alt-[Numpad] * Show/Hide console: F12 * Open multiple console tabs: Shift-Ctrl-T * Change workspace: Super-[leftarrow], Super-[righarrow] * Start any program, open any file: Alt-F2 or Super-Space (for Gnome-Do)
ThomPete 16y ago
I really don't hope that is the future of the desktop. I mean really? Is that what we have to look forward to? In my world there can be no talk about the future of the desktop unless: The desktop metaphor and the current filesystem disappears. My machine starts to monitor what I do and actually use this (The Ghost Protocol) The machine starts to connect everything I do and build contextual maps automatically. For instance, I receive a picture in my mail and throw it into photoshop. When I then want to retrieve it I can not only look for name.psd but also for the context (Phil send it to me by mail) Then we can talk about a the future of the desktop.
- logic 16y ago
  Your point about the system watching what you do and doing something useful with that information reminded me of some work a few years back by Nat Friedman on "Dashboard" that had me pretty excited at the time: http://nat.org/dashboard/ http://nat.org/dashboard/ It was a shame to not actually see that go anywhere other than the prototype stage.
  - ThomPete 16y ago
    That sure is a shame as it seems like it would be pretty useful. There need to be more thinking going into non-interaction. Actually having to interact with the computer as much as we do about the things we do, surely can't be the goal in itself. I want my machine to make plenty of choices for me and present me with information not have me do it manually. I think that is what pisses me off the most right now. There is something wrong and primitive about normal human beings still having to interact with their machines to get proper information.
    - dkersten 16y ago
      This idea is something I've talked about many times with various people. Even posted about it on stackoverflow and blogged about it once. Computers are better at boring and mundane maintenance tasks than we are - so they should do them. Users shouldn't have to think about such low level concepts as filesystems, directory structures, saving files and so on. It should be managed behind the scenes.
logic 16y ago
As an FYI: Gnome 3 is on the feature list[1] for Fedora 14, scheduled for release near the end of October[2]. [1]: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList [2]: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14
- dkarl 16y ago
  Isn't it rather like Microsoft used to be, when they can assume that their sweeping changes will be unquestioningly accepted by everybody, no matter what the final result is like? I thought open source freed us from that. Of course, I'm grumpy that Kubuntu moved to KDE4 by default. I know KDE3 is still available, but c'mon, how could the Kubuntu guys look at KDE3 and KDE4 and decide to ship KDE4 as the default? When I installed Lucid (to give KDE4 yet another try) notifications were sized and stacked illegibly, and I kept losing notifications I didn't want to dismiss. Do a fresh install with default settings, and basically the first movement you see on the screen reveals a major usability problem! Well, it's obvious how that happens -- months before the final product is even scheduled to be finished, distros have already decided when to unleash it on their users.
  - DrJokepu 16y ago
    Fedora is typically very liberal distribution when it comes to package versions and they usually try to ship the latest reasonably stable version of every package with each release. People who choose Fedora (like me) accept that or even like that. The reason Red Hat sponsors Fedora is because it acts as a test bed for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. If you need a more conservative distribution, you can try RHEL or Debian, or Ubuntu which is a bit more conservative than Fedora but a lot less conservative than, say, Debian. Linux distributions are about choice, really.
    - dkarl 16y ago
      It's not a matter of distro priorities being conservative vs. cutting edge. It's about distros ignoring their priorities and marching ahead with whatever the GNOME and KDE projects say should be next. Ubuntu is supposed to be about usability, which isn't served by taking a big jump down in polish and completeness. Fedora is supposed to be up-to-date, but it isn't supposed to install incomplete or buggy software by default. Who knows what GNOME3 will be like in October? Not Fedora. They have no way of knowing whether GNOME3 will be in an acceptable state. Let's face it; distros jumped to KDE4 because they want it to be great someday and they're delivering users to support that dream. GNOME3 looks like more of the same. They're supposed to be delivering software to users, not the other way around.
bitwize 16y ago
The OLPC's Activity metaphor is basically taking over and, having always loathed desktops and never understood why my computer must simulate a desktop (with all the clutter that implies), I like it. It's not just GNOME: iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are at their heart the same as activities (the Android API even uses com.android.Activity as the base class for Android apps).
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  Yes, it struck me that this looks like a desktop version of Android...obviously tweaked to take advantage of the extremely larger screen and available resources.
rfrey 16y ago
"This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop." I don't want to be a hater, and especially I don't want to disrespect the developers and designers who have put heart and soul in this and probably created some awesome stuff. But hyperbole like this example, and sprinkled elsewhere in the article, really gets my hackles up. I start looking at the pictures skeptically and my inner troll starts growling.
- pkulak 16y ago
  The old desktop metaphor? Gone. Except for the 50 times I refer to it here.
  - pyre 16y ago
    It's kind of engrained at this point. How are you going to refer to a piece of information other than a 'file' or 'document'? If you don't call it a 'desktop' when trying to explain it to people, will they really understand what you're talking about? You have to draw parallels to what people already know.
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
  The writer of the article is definitely not doing the devs any favors with his over-glowing purple prose. No desktop can live up to that level of hyperbole. Even worse than the bad writing is that there's no way to enlarge those darn screenshots so you can actually see something! Arghh!
  - imurray 16y ago
    there's no way to enlarge those darn screenshots so you can actually see something! Actually there is because they are full-resolution images displayed at less than their true resolution (one of my pet peeves): Firefox: right-click -> "View Image" Chrome: right-click -> "Open Image in New Tab" Edit: I now see this comment made multiple times below before the parent comment.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
d0m 16y ago
I sure will give it a try. The author is right when he said people stopped to find gnome innovating.. and this is a genius move from the gnome team. I hope there will be an easy shell command to use the activity "find". For instance, activity firefox would start it and activity test.py could show me the activity view with all my files named test.py, etc.
Yaa101 16y ago
I am a Gnome user and I am not at all impressed, I liked Gnome because there was 1 way to do a certain task, now they gone the windows way of being able to do the task at many places, that is confusing and complicated. Gnome was simple but complete, but I guess fashion is more important than satisfied users, just like windows and OSX. I am not looking forward to the next fad. Anybody knows a simple and consistant and complete desktop that I can use when Gnome got screwed? B.T.W. I expect negative mod points for being viewed as nagger, but it is how I feel about this Gnome route.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Try xfce. It's based on GNOME technologies but is leaner and more minimal. It's often used for low spec machines but is great if you just want a super fast desktop environment that's not too alien/weird.
  - makmanalp 16y ago
    Even though the simplicity was gnome's mantra, I think xfce did a better job of it ironically.
  - dkarl 16y ago
    It's built on GTK+ but doesn't depend on GNOME. Xfce is where I am now thanks to KDE4. If KDE4 and GNOME3 are big boosts to Xfce, I hope Linux desktop developers take the right lesson from that. If they want to keep "revolutionizing" things, they had better give us a good reason to put up with the learning curve and the sudden nosedive in usability and polish.
    - pyre 16y ago
      > It's built on GTK+ but doesn't depend on GNOME. IIRC, it still uses gnome-screensaver, gnome-power-manager, etc. Lots of the GNOME background processes are in use, unless they've recently weaned themselves...
- alexkay 16y ago
  gnome-shell is just a window manager which replaces metacity. You can continue using GNOME with another window manager. I personally use xmonad with GNOME and won't trade it for anything else.
atiw 16y ago
So, I kinda got a little too excited when I heard a new desktop. But then, I have already seen all these concepts pretty much, haven't I? From what I got form the article, it seems like we will only get a couple of new "shortcuts". I REALLY am hoping his headline is true, and we do get a new desktop experience at least, when this releases...and I would LOVE it if GNOME surprises me when it comes out and is more than what I think it is.
imsky 16y ago
So they implement Spotlight search/Windows key search, show tiled desktops like countless other apps for Windows/OSX, and call it the "future of desktop?" The GNOME people should pay more attention to design, like using better fonts and not drenching the entire screen with dark gray. The next version is just as ugly as the previous ones.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- knarf_navillus 16y ago
  I think that most of it just boils down to terrible typesetting. Even Windows does a better job. I've always felt that this is the #1 contributor to that Linux 'cheap' feel. Everything else looks wonderful, but the fonts look ugly, even the necessary font packages are installed.
jksmith 16y ago
If the "Future of the Desktop" still means having to do installs and updates, then I look forward to living in the past. I've even gotten sick of being harangued by Android updates. After having written code for 20 years, I want zero responsibility for somebody else's code, and that includes doing updates.
- goof 16y ago
  I agree that constantly being nagged about updating sucks. What's worse though: update nagging or occasionally having an app or service you depend on breaking temporarily due to a bad update? If regressions are somewhat rare then I think I prefer automatic updates, even with the risks.
  - macrael 16y ago
    This is the norm with all web applications. The frequency of regressions will depend on a lot of factors. One of the reasons I think this works well for web apps is that the deployment environment is exceptionally consistent and stable when compared to the world of desktop os's. It would be awful if your text editor broke while you were in the middle of using it, but that is the situation I am in right now with my email. How much trust do you give the developers?
    - jksmith 16y ago
      yes. Whether it's desktop apps, local os, iphone apps, android apps, any interest in this stuff in the future will be just some kind of steampunk sentimentality. The only desktop app that should be developed and upgraded is the browser. Web dev is a superior expression of division of labor, and regression management. Software dev is so increasingly worthless, the only viable platform for it is web, embedded specialties withstanding.
joubert 16y ago
is it touch-device optimized/aware?
SwellJoe 16y ago
Workspaces are such an obviously great idea that it astounds me that Windows and Mac OS X still don't have them (I guess Mac OS X has a functional equivalent as of Leopard or Snow Leopard, if you squint right, but I find it less intuitive and I use it less even after months of having it available on my hackintosh). Given that they've been a part of X Windows window managers for a couple of decades, it's just astonishing that they've never made an appearance as a standard feature of other windowing systems. This, of course, isn't a new feature in GNOME 3, and so I guess it's not really relevant, but I just felt like ranting about the one thing that I think the Linux desktop has always had such a clear lead on, and that until you've used it you don't even know how much it sucks to not have it.
- ssp 16y ago
  It's not obvious that they are a good idea in general. One pretty bad issue is that if you don't know about work spaces, then hitting Ctrl-Arrow will have the effect that everything vanishes with no obvious way to get it back. It's also not clear to me that they actually make people more productive even if they are aware of them and understand them. Of course many nerds feel they are being more productive, but that only indicates that if you wish to sell to nerds, you should include them at least as an option.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    I know it's anecdotal, but workspaces make me _much_ more productive. I use awesomewm and it's very fast to be able to keep everything up and active and just switch over to a screen dedicated to web, email, IM, or the rest of my screens which usually have different clients' projects up for easy and quick access, and makes switching tasks much easier. It doesn't clutter anything to have all this up at once; no task bar clutter, no window clutter. If someone knows how to use workspaces and has cause for more than one or two windows over the course of their computer usage, I don't see how they could _not_ make someone more productive.
  - SwellJoe 16y ago
    I'm certain I'm more productive when I'm running Linux, after having spent enough time in Mac OS X and Windows to have confidence in that result (my 3G modem doesn't work in Linux, and until I got a router for it, I had to boot into Windows or Mac OS X to work online, so I spent a couple of months on the other side). But, workspaces are definitely not the only factor. The biggest is actually having a really good shell (bash with the bash_completion package) that is comfortably integrated into the OS and has tabs. I'm horribly unproductive in the Windows shell, and the Mac OS X shell is just weird, though better than Windows. I'm not even sure why the Mac OS X terminal is so uncomfortable to me...it's bash, but it feels really clunky compared to the Gnome Terminal. Anyway, workspaces are definitely something I really, really, miss when I use Windows. I regularly have a couple dozen windows open, often several of the same app but in use for different tasks, and it's kind of a nightmare to keep up with what's where.
smallblacksun 16y ago
The activities window sounds a lot like the Start menu in windows Vista/7.
commandar 16y ago
Interesting that, after years of being accused of ripping off the Mac, the new Activities interface looks a lot more like Windows 7 than anything OS X. I've always said that the Gnome team is more interested in adopting good UI paradigms; this seems to pan that out.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Pretty much anytime someone changes something about a DE interface someone else claims that they're "ripping off OS X", and most of the time it makes no sense whatsoever. I would ignore these people.
niels_olson 16y ago
key question: does it work with compiz, or somehow support 3D?
- jdub 16y ago
  Excuse the jargon, but... gnome-shell is a plugin for mutter, which is a fork of metacity, built on top of Clutter (thus "mutter") for awesome 3D scene/animation support. In fewer words: Yes, it has some 3Ds in it. ;-)
- shekmalhen 16y ago
  It uses mutter as its window manager, which is based on metacity and uses the clutter toolkit (hardware accelerated UI). It replaces compiz but seems to have much less eye candy. Remember, metacity is the WM for the grown up! So gnome-shell will require a GPU (should work on the Intel GMA), but have the side effect of not working in virtual machines.
jamesgeck0 16y ago
There are two features I'm excited about for Gnome 3 which were not mentioned. Both exist as ideas. Ideas are fragile, delicate things. Attack people, not ideas. The first is the "task pooper." http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/task-pooper-could-revolutionize-gnome-desktop.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/task-pooper-... The general idea is that things that pop up in your face are distracting, but notifications are good. Hence, the task pooper. It's a bar of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. You drop files and such into time slots on it, and they pop up again at the end (to either disappear into a filing system after a few seconds or be bumped back a few hours). I vaguely remember hearing something about being able to shove application notifications in it. Additionally, it can boil an egg at thirty paces. The second is Quicksilver/Launchy/Gnome-Do type functionality integrated at the GTK 3 level. http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2009/01/31/do-ifying-gtk-30/ http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2009/01/31/do-ifying-gtk-30/ This will never happen, but it would be amazing. No more hunting for arcane menu items in The GIMP; just type "enable indexed color" or whatever. Alas, a strong argument against is would be that it would just encourages sloppy ui design, so I doubt we'll see it any time soon.
tung 16y ago
> There are actually three ways to open the Activities Window: > 3. Click the Super key (often referred to as the "Windows" key). Well, there goes my free unused keyboard shortcut modifier.
- pyre 16y ago
  Since when does one 'click' a keyboard button?
Groxx 16y ago
That looks... like everything I've seen before. Useful? An improvement? Oh heck yes, I like it like that. But this is no future, this is the present, and they're just slightly re-organizing. Hyperbolic prose, indeed.
st3fan 16y ago
Sounds good. But it really is 'The future of the Linux Desktop'.
ahk 16y ago
What a sad mix of windows and OSX. That Activities button is pure ugliness.
billmcneale 16y ago
TLDR: 2010 will most definitely be the year of Linux on the desktop.
- pyre 16y ago
  More like, "See? See? Linux desktops can be innovative and not just copy what MacOS and Windows do!"
pyre 16y ago
The real question is: Does it have a feature to exclude certain files from the 'recently accessed files' list? There are many examples where you wouldn't want someone to see some of the files that you recently opened/worked with (i.e. top secret work, porn, whistleblower, etc).
code_duck 16y ago
Well, looks a bit more slick than Gnome 2, but not revolutionary. Kind of a step towards KDE 4, which was really a step towards MacOS. If they can make it less buggy and more performant than KDE 4 (and... one would hope) then I'm sure I'll enjoy using it. ps. Seriously, whomever put together this article for Linux.com is inepxerienced enough to embed 1920x1080 images directly into the page, rather than thumbnails?
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  How is KDE 4 a step toward Mac OS? I don't see that at all. KDE 4 also wanted to revolutionize the desktop, but I think we have accepted at this point that it isn't going to happen. KDE 4 is much more like Windows and KDE 3 than OS X.
  - code_duck 16y ago
    Of course KDE4 is like KDE4, but I don't see it as more similar to Windows than the Mac desktop. Mac OS doesn't revolutionize the desktop, either. For KDE4, Lime Snow Leopard 1> You have a 'widget dashboard' 2> The preferences panel is very similar 3> KDE4 has a features identical to Expose Probably more, too. All of the other features and ideas have been kicking around KDE/Gnome for years. Having a separate menu bar at the top, for instance - Gnome is set like that by default, which is more similar to Mac OS than the KDE style. Desktop 'Spaces' has been available on Linux for ages, too, while some people see that as feature unique to MacOS (though it's been added to Windows in various ways recently) There is not really such a huge difference between Mac OS and Windows, even. It adds up to a lot, but as someone who has used scores of DEs and Window managers, they all share features, concepts and traits. They all use the same basic ideas - launcher icons, a desktop, a window tasklist, windows with menu bars, buttons and titles, etc. I'd been using KDE4 for 6-9 months when I got my first Mac and all I'm saying is, well, I see where inspiration for certain features and design came from. KDE and Gnome do have great ideas of their own, no doubt. They don't have $300 million worth of support to make KDE as polished as MacOS, though. I wish they did - the design of these DEs is just as good or better than the mainstream systems.
    - 16y ago
c00p3r 16y ago
They life in a day-dreams. ^_^ Browser is the desktop. Even mobile browser.
BonoboBoner 16y ago
Why does an article about a supossedly revolutionary Desktop UI include such tiny pictures only?

63 points by obsaysditto 16y ago

Anyone else find this article really useless without being able to see the screen shots in higher resolution? I am interested in the UI improvements, but I won't be told about them. SHOW me.

buro9 16y ago
What's ludicrous is that those thumbnails ARE the full images. Just open the images in a new window: http://www.linux.com/images/stories/desktop.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/desktop.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/activities.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/activities.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/applications.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/applications.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/workspaces2.png http://www.linux.com/images/stories/workspaces2.png
- zavulon 16y ago
  In a way, this exemplifies what's wrong with the approach Linux desktop/application developers have been taking for years: create something amazing, but forget one small detail, rendering the whole thing completely useless, and causing 99% of the population to dismiss them and go back to Windows/Mac.

SandB0x 16y ago

To see an image in full size, right click and choose "View Image" in Firefox or "Open Image in New Tab" in Chrome.

thought_alarm 16y ago
Kind of like how you add an application to the Gnome Start Menu.

sad 16y ago

I am a big fan of gnome-shell. I'll be an even bigger fan when it plays nicely with VirtualBox. Or is it VirtualBox that has to play nicely with gnome-shell?

jimbokun 16y ago

Kudos for moving past the "let's just try to look like XP" design stage to thinking about how to improve usability.

pavs 16y ago
Gnome never looked anything like XP or MS Windows for that matter. I think you are confusing it with KDE. If anything, Gnome has some similarities with OSX.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > If anything, Gnome has some similarities with OSX. beyond both having rounded corners? Apart from both having completely crummy file explorers?
anigbrowl 16y ago
I like what I see and have a real soft spot for Gnome, but it seems fairly conservative, yet. More at http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.30/#rnlookingforward http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.30/#rnlookingf...

snitko 16y ago

I don't see anything revolutionary or extremely interesting and useful here. (a + b) is the same as (b + a). Anyone remembers this link when someone made a prototype of a desktop interface that you could manipulate by all of your 10 fingers? That was truly awesome.

dkersten 16y ago
You mean Clayton Millers 10gui concept[1]? Sadly, it seems that this won't become reality for another while yet. Lack of funding and expertise mainly, it seems. A real pity. [1] http://10gui.com/ http://10gui.com/ and HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=877535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=877535

jlcgull 16y ago

But can it tile windows yet? :-) I know, I should use a "real" window manager if I need my windows to be tiled, but I feel that tiling is a real feature with a legitimate need that should be built into Gnome.

andybak 16y ago
Ah! My pet rant too. Overlapping windows. What a pain they are...
- mkelly 16y ago
  I also thought the same thing. I don't mind fully overlapping windows (a la tabs), but leaving a bunch of useless space, occupied by nothing more than a pretty picture, on my power-huntry monitor is what's inconceivable to me. I think I've irrevocably put myself on the fringe by switching to a tiling window manager, though. Oh well. There's a little more elbow room out here.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
I've dabbled with Awesome and Xmonad, but am not an expert. However I've found that Compiz Grid + Guake on Gnome gives me mouse-less window management too: http://guake.org/ http://guake.org/ (in most repo's) Grid: sudo apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra CompizConfig -> Window Management -> Enable Grid Desktop controls: * Position and tile a window: Ctrl-Alt-[Numpad] * Show/Hide console: F12 * Open multiple console tabs: Shift-Ctrl-T * Change workspace: Super-[leftarrow], Super-[righarrow] * Start any program, open any file: Alt-F2 or Super-Space (for Gnome-Do)

ThomPete 16y ago

I really don't hope that is the future of the desktop. I mean really? Is that what we have to look forward to? In my world there can be no talk about the future of the desktop unless: The desktop metaphor and the current filesystem disappears. My machine starts to monitor what I do and actually use this (The Ghost Protocol) The machine starts to connect everything I do and build contextual maps automatically. For instance, I receive a picture in my mail and throw it into photoshop. When I then want to retrieve it I can not only look for name.psd but also for the context (Phil send it to me by mail) Then we can talk about a the future of the desktop.

logic 16y ago
Your point about the system watching what you do and doing something useful with that information reminded me of some work a few years back by Nat Friedman on "Dashboard" that had me pretty excited at the time: http://nat.org/dashboard/ http://nat.org/dashboard/ It was a shame to not actually see that go anywhere other than the prototype stage.
- ThomPete 16y ago
  That sure is a shame as it seems like it would be pretty useful. There need to be more thinking going into non-interaction. Actually having to interact with the computer as much as we do about the things we do, surely can't be the goal in itself. I want my machine to make plenty of choices for me and present me with information not have me do it manually. I think that is what pisses me off the most right now. There is something wrong and primitive about normal human beings still having to interact with their machines to get proper information.
  - dkersten 16y ago
    This idea is something I've talked about many times with various people. Even posted about it on stackoverflow and blogged about it once. Computers are better at boring and mundane maintenance tasks than we are - so they should do them. Users shouldn't have to think about such low level concepts as filesystems, directory structures, saving files and so on. It should be managed behind the scenes.

logic 16y ago

As an FYI: Gnome 3 is on the feature list[1] for Fedora 14, scheduled for release near the end of October[2]. [1]: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList [2]: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14

dkarl 16y ago
Isn't it rather like Microsoft used to be, when they can assume that their sweeping changes will be unquestioningly accepted by everybody, no matter what the final result is like? I thought open source freed us from that. Of course, I'm grumpy that Kubuntu moved to KDE4 by default. I know KDE3 is still available, but c'mon, how could the Kubuntu guys look at KDE3 and KDE4 and decide to ship KDE4 as the default? When I installed Lucid (to give KDE4 yet another try) notifications were sized and stacked illegibly, and I kept losing notifications I didn't want to dismiss. Do a fresh install with default settings, and basically the first movement you see on the screen reveals a major usability problem! Well, it's obvious how that happens -- months before the final product is even scheduled to be finished, distros have already decided when to unleash it on their users.
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  Fedora is typically very liberal distribution when it comes to package versions and they usually try to ship the latest reasonably stable version of every package with each release. People who choose Fedora (like me) accept that or even like that. The reason Red Hat sponsors Fedora is because it acts as a test bed for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. If you need a more conservative distribution, you can try RHEL or Debian, or Ubuntu which is a bit more conservative than Fedora but a lot less conservative than, say, Debian. Linux distributions are about choice, really.
  - dkarl 16y ago
    It's not a matter of distro priorities being conservative vs. cutting edge. It's about distros ignoring their priorities and marching ahead with whatever the GNOME and KDE projects say should be next. Ubuntu is supposed to be about usability, which isn't served by taking a big jump down in polish and completeness. Fedora is supposed to be up-to-date, but it isn't supposed to install incomplete or buggy software by default. Who knows what GNOME3 will be like in October? Not Fedora. They have no way of knowing whether GNOME3 will be in an acceptable state. Let's face it; distros jumped to KDE4 because they want it to be great someday and they're delivering users to support that dream. GNOME3 looks like more of the same. They're supposed to be delivering software to users, not the other way around.

bitwize 16y ago

The OLPC's Activity metaphor is basically taking over and, having always loathed desktops and never understood why my computer must simulate a desktop (with all the clutter that implies), I like it. It's not just GNOME: iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are at their heart the same as activities (the Android API even uses com.android.Activity as the base class for Android apps).

SwellJoe 16y ago
Yes, it struck me that this looks like a desktop version of Android...obviously tweaked to take advantage of the extremely larger screen and available resources.

rfrey 16y ago

"This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop." I don't want to be a hater, and especially I don't want to disrespect the developers and designers who have put heart and soul in this and probably created some awesome stuff. But hyperbole like this example, and sprinkled elsewhere in the article, really gets my hackles up. I start looking at the pictures skeptically and my inner troll starts growling.

pkulak 16y ago
The old desktop metaphor? Gone. Except for the 50 times I refer to it here.
- pyre 16y ago
  It's kind of engrained at this point. How are you going to refer to a piece of information other than a 'file' or 'document'? If you don't call it a 'desktop' when trying to explain it to people, will they really understand what you're talking about? You have to draw parallels to what people already know.
theBobMcCormick 16y ago
The writer of the article is definitely not doing the devs any favors with his over-glowing purple prose. No desktop can live up to that level of hyperbole. Even worse than the bad writing is that there's no way to enlarge those darn screenshots so you can actually see something! Arghh!
- imurray 16y ago
  there's no way to enlarge those darn screenshots so you can actually see something! Actually there is because they are full-resolution images displayed at less than their true resolution (one of my pet peeves): Firefox: right-click -> "View Image" Chrome: right-click -> "Open Image in New Tab" Edit: I now see this comment made multiple times below before the parent comment.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

d0m 16y ago

I sure will give it a try. The author is right when he said people stopped to find gnome innovating.. and this is a genius move from the gnome team. I hope there will be an easy shell command to use the activity "find". For instance, activity firefox would start it and activity test.py could show me the activity view with all my files named test.py, etc.

Yaa101 16y ago

I am a Gnome user and I am not at all impressed, I liked Gnome because there was 1 way to do a certain task, now they gone the windows way of being able to do the task at many places, that is confusing and complicated. Gnome was simple but complete, but I guess fashion is more important than satisfied users, just like windows and OSX. I am not looking forward to the next fad. Anybody knows a simple and consistant and complete desktop that I can use when Gnome got screwed? B.T.W. I expect negative mod points for being viewed as nagger, but it is how I feel about this Gnome route.

petercooper 16y ago
Try xfce. It's based on GNOME technologies but is leaner and more minimal. It's often used for low spec machines but is great if you just want a super fast desktop environment that's not too alien/weird.
- makmanalp 16y ago
  Even though the simplicity was gnome's mantra, I think xfce did a better job of it ironically.
- dkarl 16y ago
  It's built on GTK+ but doesn't depend on GNOME. Xfce is where I am now thanks to KDE4. If KDE4 and GNOME3 are big boosts to Xfce, I hope Linux desktop developers take the right lesson from that. If they want to keep "revolutionizing" things, they had better give us a good reason to put up with the learning curve and the sudden nosedive in usability and polish.
  - pyre 16y ago
    > It's built on GTK+ but doesn't depend on GNOME. IIRC, it still uses gnome-screensaver, gnome-power-manager, etc. Lots of the GNOME background processes are in use, unless they've recently weaned themselves...
alexkay 16y ago
gnome-shell is just a window manager which replaces metacity. You can continue using GNOME with another window manager. I personally use xmonad with GNOME and won't trade it for anything else.

atiw 16y ago

So, I kinda got a little too excited when I heard a new desktop. But then, I have already seen all these concepts pretty much, haven't I? From what I got form the article, it seems like we will only get a couple of new "shortcuts". I REALLY am hoping his headline is true, and we do get a new desktop experience at least, when this releases...and I would LOVE it if GNOME surprises me when it comes out and is more than what I think it is.

imsky 16y ago

So they implement Spotlight search/Windows key search, show tiled desktops like countless other apps for Windows/OSX, and call it the "future of desktop?" The GNOME people should pay more attention to design, like using better fonts and not drenching the entire screen with dark gray. The next version is just as ugly as the previous ones.

deleted 16y ago
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knarf_navillus 16y ago
I think that most of it just boils down to terrible typesetting. Even Windows does a better job. I've always felt that this is the #1 contributor to that Linux 'cheap' feel. Everything else looks wonderful, but the fonts look ugly, even the necessary font packages are installed.

jksmith 16y ago

If the "Future of the Desktop" still means having to do installs and updates, then I look forward to living in the past. I've even gotten sick of being harangued by Android updates. After having written code for 20 years, I want zero responsibility for somebody else's code, and that includes doing updates.

goof 16y ago
I agree that constantly being nagged about updating sucks. What's worse though: update nagging or occasionally having an app or service you depend on breaking temporarily due to a bad update? If regressions are somewhat rare then I think I prefer automatic updates, even with the risks.
- macrael 16y ago
  This is the norm with all web applications. The frequency of regressions will depend on a lot of factors. One of the reasons I think this works well for web apps is that the deployment environment is exceptionally consistent and stable when compared to the world of desktop os's. It would be awful if your text editor broke while you were in the middle of using it, but that is the situation I am in right now with my email. How much trust do you give the developers?
  - jksmith 16y ago
    yes. Whether it's desktop apps, local os, iphone apps, android apps, any interest in this stuff in the future will be just some kind of steampunk sentimentality. The only desktop app that should be developed and upgraded is the browser. Web dev is a superior expression of division of labor, and regression management. Software dev is so increasingly worthless, the only viable platform for it is web, embedded specialties withstanding.

joubert 16y ago

is it touch-device optimized/aware?

SwellJoe 16y ago

Workspaces are such an obviously great idea that it astounds me that Windows and Mac OS X still don't have them (I guess Mac OS X has a functional equivalent as of Leopard or Snow Leopard, if you squint right, but I find it less intuitive and I use it less even after months of having it available on my hackintosh). Given that they've been a part of X Windows window managers for a couple of decades, it's just astonishing that they've never made an appearance as a standard feature of other windowing systems. This, of course, isn't a new feature in GNOME 3, and so I guess it's not really relevant, but I just felt like ranting about the one thing that I think the Linux desktop has always had such a clear lead on, and that until you've used it you don't even know how much it sucks to not have it.

ssp 16y ago
It's not obvious that they are a good idea in general. One pretty bad issue is that if you don't know about work spaces, then hitting Ctrl-Arrow will have the effect that everything vanishes with no obvious way to get it back. It's also not clear to me that they actually make people more productive even if they are aware of them and understand them. Of course many nerds feel they are being more productive, but that only indicates that if you wish to sell to nerds, you should include them at least as an option.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  I know it's anecdotal, but workspaces make me _much_ more productive. I use awesomewm and it's very fast to be able to keep everything up and active and just switch over to a screen dedicated to web, email, IM, or the rest of my screens which usually have different clients' projects up for easy and quick access, and makes switching tasks much easier. It doesn't clutter anything to have all this up at once; no task bar clutter, no window clutter. If someone knows how to use workspaces and has cause for more than one or two windows over the course of their computer usage, I don't see how they could _not_ make someone more productive.
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  I'm certain I'm more productive when I'm running Linux, after having spent enough time in Mac OS X and Windows to have confidence in that result (my 3G modem doesn't work in Linux, and until I got a router for it, I had to boot into Windows or Mac OS X to work online, so I spent a couple of months on the other side). But, workspaces are definitely not the only factor. The biggest is actually having a really good shell (bash with the bash_completion package) that is comfortably integrated into the OS and has tabs. I'm horribly unproductive in the Windows shell, and the Mac OS X shell is just weird, though better than Windows. I'm not even sure why the Mac OS X terminal is so uncomfortable to me...it's bash, but it feels really clunky compared to the Gnome Terminal. Anyway, workspaces are definitely something I really, really, miss when I use Windows. I regularly have a couple dozen windows open, often several of the same app but in use for different tasks, and it's kind of a nightmare to keep up with what's where.

smallblacksun 16y ago

The activities window sounds a lot like the Start menu in windows Vista/7.

commandar 16y ago

Interesting that, after years of being accused of ripping off the Mac, the new Activities interface looks a lot more like Windows 7 than anything OS X. I've always said that the Gnome team is more interested in adopting good UI paradigms; this seems to pan that out.

cookiecaper 16y ago
Pretty much anytime someone changes something about a DE interface someone else claims that they're "ripping off OS X", and most of the time it makes no sense whatsoever. I would ignore these people.

niels_olson 16y ago

key question: does it work with compiz, or somehow support 3D?

jdub 16y ago
Excuse the jargon, but... gnome-shell is a plugin for mutter, which is a fork of metacity, built on top of Clutter (thus "mutter") for awesome 3D scene/animation support. In fewer words: Yes, it has some 3Ds in it. ;-)
shekmalhen 16y ago
It uses mutter as its window manager, which is based on metacity and uses the clutter toolkit (hardware accelerated UI). It replaces compiz but seems to have much less eye candy. Remember, metacity is the WM for the grown up! So gnome-shell will require a GPU (should work on the Intel GMA), but have the side effect of not working in virtual machines.

jamesgeck0 16y ago

There are two features I'm excited about for Gnome 3 which were not mentioned. Both exist as ideas. Ideas are fragile, delicate things. Attack people, not ideas. The first is the "task pooper." http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/task-pooper-could-revolutionize-gnome-desktop.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/02/task-pooper-... The general idea is that things that pop up in your face are distracting, but notifications are good. Hence, the task pooper. It's a bar of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. You drop files and such into time slots on it, and they pop up again at the end (to either disappear into a filing system after a few seconds or be bumped back a few hours). I vaguely remember hearing something about being able to shove application notifications in it. Additionally, it can boil an egg at thirty paces. The second is Quicksilver/Launchy/Gnome-Do type functionality integrated at the GTK 3 level. http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2009/01/31/do-ifying-gtk-30/ http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2009/01/31/do-ifying-gtk-30/ This will never happen, but it would be amazing. No more hunting for arcane menu items in The GIMP; just type "enable indexed color" or whatever. Alas, a strong argument against is would be that it would just encourages sloppy ui design, so I doubt we'll see it any time soon.

tung 16y ago

> There are actually three ways to open the Activities Window: > 3. Click the Super key (often referred to as the "Windows" key). Well, there goes my free unused keyboard shortcut modifier.

pyre 16y ago
Since when does one 'click' a keyboard button?

Groxx 16y ago

That looks... like everything I've seen before. Useful? An improvement? Oh heck yes, I like it like that. But this is no future, this is the present, and they're just slightly re-organizing. Hyperbolic prose, indeed.

st3fan 16y ago

Sounds good. But it really is 'The future of the Linux Desktop'.

ahk 16y ago

What a sad mix of windows and OSX. That Activities button is pure ugliness.

billmcneale 16y ago

TLDR: 2010 will most definitely be the year of Linux on the desktop.

pyre 16y ago
More like, "See? See? Linux desktops can be innovative and not just copy what MacOS and Windows do!"

pyre 16y ago

The real question is: Does it have a feature to exclude certain files from the 'recently accessed files' list? There are many examples where you wouldn't want someone to see some of the files that you recently opened/worked with (i.e. top secret work, porn, whistleblower, etc).

code_duck 16y ago

Well, looks a bit more slick than Gnome 2, but not revolutionary. Kind of a step towards KDE 4, which was really a step towards MacOS. If they can make it less buggy and more performant than KDE 4 (and... one would hope) then I'm sure I'll enjoy using it. ps. Seriously, whomever put together this article for Linux.com is inepxerienced enough to embed 1920x1080 images directly into the page, rather than thumbnails?

cookiecaper 16y ago
How is KDE 4 a step toward Mac OS? I don't see that at all. KDE 4 also wanted to revolutionize the desktop, but I think we have accepted at this point that it isn't going to happen. KDE 4 is much more like Windows and KDE 3 than OS X.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Of course KDE4 is like KDE4, but I don't see it as more similar to Windows than the Mac desktop. Mac OS doesn't revolutionize the desktop, either. For KDE4, Lime Snow Leopard 1> You have a 'widget dashboard' 2> The preferences panel is very similar 3> KDE4 has a features identical to Expose Probably more, too. All of the other features and ideas have been kicking around KDE/Gnome for years. Having a separate menu bar at the top, for instance - Gnome is set like that by default, which is more similar to Mac OS than the KDE style. Desktop 'Spaces' has been available on Linux for ages, too, while some people see that as feature unique to MacOS (though it's been added to Windows in various ways recently) There is not really such a huge difference between Mac OS and Windows, even. It adds up to a lot, but as someone who has used scores of DEs and Window managers, they all share features, concepts and traits. They all use the same basic ideas - launcher icons, a desktop, a window tasklist, windows with menu bars, buttons and titles, etc. I'd been using KDE4 for 6-9 months when I got my first Mac and all I'm saying is, well, I see where inspiration for certain features and design came from. KDE and Gnome do have great ideas of their own, no doubt. They don't have $300 million worth of support to make KDE as polished as MacOS, though. I wish they did - the design of these DEs is just as good or better than the mainstream systems.
  - 16y ago

c00p3r 16y ago

They life in a day-dreams. ^_^ Browser is the desktop. Even mobile browser.

BonoboBoner 16y ago

Why does an article about a supossedly revolutionary Desktop UI include such tiny pictures only?