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It's always interesting for me to see that I'm so alone in loving Gnome 3. As a keyboard heavy user, it has always matched my workflow. I never appreciated a st

It's always interesting for me to see that I'm so alone in loving Gnome 3. As a keyboard heavy user, it has always matched my workflow. I never appreciated a start menu. It leaves essentially the full screen for my program. The settings drop-downs are intuitive. Granted I use the Material Shell tiling extension now, but vanilla gnome 3 will always have a place in my heart.

uneekname 4y ago
I love it too. It works so well on my machines. I hope it sticks around
JoshTriplett 4y ago
> It's always interesting for me to see that I'm so alone in loving Gnome 3. You're not alone. Complaints always get projected louder and wider than happiness. GNOME 2 was the same way. So many users treating it as the end of the world, and it took a few versions to improve and fix initial issues, but after those first couple of versions it was a great upgrade. GNOME 3 likewise took a couple of versions to find its feet, and then it was a great upgrade.
- psalminen 4y ago
  Interesting, I never saw (or knew) that Gnome 2 received the same treatment. It's heyday was before my time though.
  - JoshTriplett 4y ago
    Massive blowback for "removing configuration options". GNOME 1 had an absurd about of configuration, including many of what the GNOME 2 designers described as "unbreak me" options: options where only one answer could possibly make sense ("make X work"), and worse, some of them were off by default. GNOME 2 removed those, in favor of better autodetection, better defaults, and similar. However, in doing so, they ended up removing some that were actually important to people, for use cases that weren't as well known. Some of those were added back, or better replacements provided, in the first few versions; as a result, GNOME 2.4 or so was much better than 2.0.
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      True, I do remember this, like we had to wait a while to get options for nautilus back. It really wasn't as bad as GNOME 3 though. There was a huge difference in the number of options (or % of options if you will) taken away in 2 and 3. The original GNOME 3 was originally a barren straight-jacket, where not even gnome-tweak-tool existed yet (or at least most people didn't know about it.) Remember, extensions didn't come until later and mostly didn't even work until yet later.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        The Gnome3 developers publicly said that they didn't want anyone changing anything on it, and didn't believe that there should be any configuration options.
grey_earthling 4y ago
Yeah, GNOME's great. It's coherent (doesn't feel like a kit of parts cobbled together) and gets out of the way. It makes it easier to focus.
joao_lopes 4y ago
Gnome 40+ is basically perfect for me after adding the "AppIndicators", "Bluetooth Quick Connect" and "Sound Input and Output" extensions. I absolutely love being able to click a single key and being able to easily: - see all windows open across monitors - drag windows to different desktops / monitors - close any window and re-organize the whole thing (something I can't do on macOS) Default apps are also pretty good and the whole DE is super stable and snappy. My only complaints are the GTK file picker being useless and the title bars taking too much space on non-gnome apps (which don't have window decorations).
- zbobet2012 4y ago
  Gnome 40+ is so excellent I can't switch back to other OS's for regular use now.
p1necone 4y ago
I feel the same way. Gnome 3 feels great as a keyboard first power user, it feels great with a laptop touchpad and using single, double, triple finger swipes for different things. Presumably it works pretty well on touchscreen devices too. It actually still matches my Windows workflow pretty closely because all I ever do is hit winkey and type the name of the app I want to launch there too. The only place it really falls apart is if you're using it with Keyboard + Mouse and aren't the sort of person that likes to just learn keyboard shortcuts and gestures for everything without looking at the UI much. The other problem I have with it is the opinionated stance on window border/title sizes. The defaults are way too big and you're not really supposed to change them. Other than that I quite like Gnome 3.
nu11ptr 4y ago
Not alone. I love it. I want my DE to "just work" and I don't want to customize it or hunt for programs in a "start menu". Give me my hot corner and a short list of apps any day so I can get to work. Happy to type in to launch less commonly used ones the few times a month I actually need them. As a bonus, Gnome 3 is incredibly easy on the eyes (subjective of course). I think probably a close competitor to macOS in looks category.
tcmart14 4y ago
I would be curious to know when you started using Linux and GNOME. I always thought GNOME 3 was interesting and had some good ideas. But at least up until, I feel like 2016 time, most people just felt bitten by how GNOME 3 was rolled out. GNOME 3's initial roll out was essentially a burning dumpster full of issues. It did eventually get better, but it took a long time. With that being said, I do think GNOME was way off track. Based on everyone I know who swore off GNOME after the 3 release but are using it now, GNOME is back on a great track with GNOME 40+.
- psalminen 4y ago
  I toyed with Linux growing up (2005-2012) then fully committed in 2014 with fedora. Gnome definitely had some issues at that time but I still sound it very productive to use.
prmoustache 4y ago
You are not alone. I love it being easy to use keyboard driven. I like that the virtual desktop are dynamic I love that on my Lenovo Yoga I can use it as easily as a regular desktop or like a tablet (you haven't appreciated reading the hacker news comment until you start doing it on your couch with a screen in portrait mode). My only gripe is I wish I could dial the titlebar height depending on the context.

uneekname 4y ago

I love it too. It works so well on my machines. I hope it sticks around

JoshTriplett 4y ago

> It's always interesting for me to see that I'm so alone in loving Gnome 3. You're not alone. Complaints always get projected louder and wider than happiness. GNOME 2 was the same way. So many users treating it as the end of the world, and it took a few versions to improve and fix initial issues, but after those first couple of versions it was a great upgrade. GNOME 3 likewise took a couple of versions to find its feet, and then it was a great upgrade.

psalminen 4y ago
Interesting, I never saw (or knew) that Gnome 2 received the same treatment. It's heyday was before my time though.
- JoshTriplett 4y ago
  Massive blowback for "removing configuration options". GNOME 1 had an absurd about of configuration, including many of what the GNOME 2 designers described as "unbreak me" options: options where only one answer could possibly make sense ("make X work"), and worse, some of them were off by default. GNOME 2 removed those, in favor of better autodetection, better defaults, and similar. However, in doing so, they ended up removing some that were actually important to people, for use cases that weren't as well known. Some of those were added back, or better replacements provided, in the first few versions; as a result, GNOME 2.4 or so was much better than 2.0.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    True, I do remember this, like we had to wait a while to get options for nautilus back. It really wasn't as bad as GNOME 3 though. There was a huge difference in the number of options (or % of options if you will) taken away in 2 and 3. The original GNOME 3 was originally a barren straight-jacket, where not even gnome-tweak-tool existed yet (or at least most people didn't know about it.) Remember, extensions didn't come until later and mostly didn't even work until yet later.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      The Gnome3 developers publicly said that they didn't want anyone changing anything on it, and didn't believe that there should be any configuration options.

grey_earthling 4y ago

Yeah, GNOME's great. It's coherent (doesn't feel like a kit of parts cobbled together) and gets out of the way. It makes it easier to focus.

joao_lopes 4y ago

Gnome 40+ is basically perfect for me after adding the "AppIndicators", "Bluetooth Quick Connect" and "Sound Input and Output" extensions. I absolutely love being able to click a single key and being able to easily: - see all windows open across monitors - drag windows to different desktops / monitors - close any window and re-organize the whole thing (something I can't do on macOS) Default apps are also pretty good and the whole DE is super stable and snappy. My only complaints are the GTK file picker being useless and the title bars taking too much space on non-gnome apps (which don't have window decorations).

zbobet2012 4y ago
Gnome 40+ is so excellent I can't switch back to other OS's for regular use now.

p1necone 4y ago

I feel the same way. Gnome 3 feels great as a keyboard first power user, it feels great with a laptop touchpad and using single, double, triple finger swipes for different things. Presumably it works pretty well on touchscreen devices too. It actually still matches my Windows workflow pretty closely because all I ever do is hit winkey and type the name of the app I want to launch there too. The only place it really falls apart is if you're using it with Keyboard + Mouse and aren't the sort of person that likes to just learn keyboard shortcuts and gestures for everything without looking at the UI much. The other problem I have with it is the opinionated stance on window border/title sizes. The defaults are way too big and you're not really supposed to change them. Other than that I quite like Gnome 3.

nu11ptr 4y ago

Not alone. I love it. I want my DE to "just work" and I don't want to customize it or hunt for programs in a "start menu". Give me my hot corner and a short list of apps any day so I can get to work. Happy to type in to launch less commonly used ones the few times a month I actually need them. As a bonus, Gnome 3 is incredibly easy on the eyes (subjective of course). I think probably a close competitor to macOS in looks category.

tcmart14 4y ago

I would be curious to know when you started using Linux and GNOME. I always thought GNOME 3 was interesting and had some good ideas. But at least up until, I feel like 2016 time, most people just felt bitten by how GNOME 3 was rolled out. GNOME 3's initial roll out was essentially a burning dumpster full of issues. It did eventually get better, but it took a long time. With that being said, I do think GNOME was way off track. Based on everyone I know who swore off GNOME after the 3 release but are using it now, GNOME is back on a great track with GNOME 40+.

psalminen 4y ago
I toyed with Linux growing up (2005-2012) then fully committed in 2014 with fedora. Gnome definitely had some issues at that time but I still sound it very productive to use.

prmoustache 4y ago

You are not alone. I love it being easy to use keyboard driven. I like that the virtual desktop are dynamic I love that on my Lenovo Yoga I can use it as easily as a regular desktop or like a tablet (you haven't appreciated reading the hacker news comment until you start doing it on your couch with a screen in portrait mode). My only gripe is I wish I could dial the titlebar height depending on the context.