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You should give modern Gnome a good honest try. I felt like you before, but ended up using it at work since it was what IT supported. After using it for a mont

You should give modern Gnome a good honest try. I felt like you before, but ended up using it at work since it was what IT supported. After using it for a month, I switched all my personal machines over. For me, modern Gnome is the most usable, consistent, and smooth desktop experience I've used. And this is from someone who has used KDE, Windows, MacOS, and custom desktop environments with i3 and bspwm.

Nursie 3y ago
Can I rearrange visual elements so my desktop is similar to how it has been in gnome 2, mate and xfce for the last 20 years? Can non-blessed apps get into the systray/notification-area/whatever? Genuine questions, I've not tried Gnome since the early days of gnome 3 when they broke everything and more or less made out you were a luddite and unwanted loser if you weren't up for a massive change in workflow.
- pmontra 3y ago
  There are enough extensions to do whatever you want. My Gnome desktop has no top bar. Activities are totally hidden: I don't have any mouse or keyboard event that shows them. I use 5 virtual desktops and switch between them with hotkeys. I have a bottom bar with status icons, task bar, application menu, a menu of bookmarked directories, a menu of the last notifications, a menu of recent files. Notifications popup from the bottom. I alt tab between windows on the current desktop. Possibly other stuff but that's the most I can remember. If I remember well I stayed with Gnome Fallback until there were enough of those extensions to rebuild my desktop with Gnome shell. That was about at the time of Ubuntu 20.04.
  - grunfelder 3y ago
    In my experience, with every update, half the extensions stop working. And then it's unclear if they will ever come back, how supported they actually are, and now and then the whole thing crashes and I don't know if it's because of a rogue extension or something else..
    - pmontra 3y ago
      I had no problems with Ubuntu's updates but I'm staying on LTSes.
- dizhn 3y ago
  KDE Plasma is just what you would think of as KDE. Not a different thing.
- darkwater 3y ago
  > Can I rearrange visual elements so my desktop is similar to how it has been in gnome 2, mate and xfce for the last 20 years? Gnome 3 has been out for over 10 years (12, to be exact). At this point if they change the UI there would be people like you saying "can I get back how it has been for 10 years?". I don't really understand how we can have a so strong resistance to UI changes among IT professionals. Personally I started using Gnome 1, then moved to KDE3 when Gnome 2 was released, then moved to Unity with Ubuntu and now Gnome 3/40, Ubuntu flavor as well. I also used XFCE for a year or so at some point. I just need a month or so to get used and configure it a way I feel natural, and that's it.
  - jabl 3y ago
    This. I can obviously only speak for myself, but over the years I've tried a lot of different desktop environments and window managers (http://www.xwinman.org/ http://www.xwinman.org/ was a favorite when I was getting started with Linux back in the mid 90'ies). Nowadays I use a pretty out of the box gnome (well, with whatever bastardizations Ubuntu has done to vanilla Gnome, with the unity-like sidebar etc.). I just want something that works, not a million papercuts that bleed me dry (e.g. I have a networkmanager applet to configure my VPN, works out of the box, no need to fuzz around with making various scripts or manual editing of config files. Screw that, I have actual work to do as well.), and it seems gnome & ubuntu have been pretty good at delivering. I don't care that my current desktop works differently than my old favorites fvwm or olvwm. I save more time by having my muscle memory get used to current keybindings and my eyes get used to the current look, than desperately trying to make gnome in 2023 look and behave like fvwm in 1995 (or whatever arbitrary snapshot in time one takes as the bestest ever and anything which is different is crap).
    - Nursie 3y ago
      > I just want something that works, not a million papercuts that bleed me dry This is precisely why I install Xfce and just get on with my life.
    - bebop 3y ago
      I would suggest looking into fedora workstation. I switched from Ubuntu around fedora 35 and have not looked back. Stock gnome, integrates into flathub easily. Dnf and apt are similar enough.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  XFCE didn't look like today's XFCE 20years ago. It looked more like CDE which it was trying to replicate back then. So I think your memory is a bit broken. I would argue that the gnome2 and mate arrangement with top and bottom panels made sense when screens were in 4:3 form factor but is kind of stupid in 16:9 and 16:10 modern screens as it waste a lot of vertical screen estate. On my Fedora laptop I still have a "Gnome Classic" option at login but I don't know what it does. Last but not least, extensions allows a lot of flexibility. Sometimes they do get broken upon new release and it takes the maintainer months to update (especially if they are debian users) so key is not running a distro that ship the latest Gnome version. For example on Fedora there are always 2 stable versions maintained at the same time, new one and old one, currently 37 and 38. 37 will be retired and out of support when 39 will be released and you can expect at that time that most extensions have been updated to Gnome 44 and you can switch to 38 easily without hiccups.
  - Nursie 3y ago
    It’s not my claim that Xfce was around 20 years ago, but that it lets me continue to use my desktop the same sort of way I have for the last 20 years. As someone with two 32inch 4k screens, having a top and bottom bar with a height of my choosing on one of the screens is barely noticeable. But each to their own, this is my preference and that’s kinda my point, people have preferences! It sounds like things are still unstable a decade or so on :/
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      > It sounds like things are still unstable a decade or so on :/ They are not. Extensions aren't part of the main DE. The main DE is solid. And most people live happily without extensions.
      - ilyt 3y ago
        Other people experiences are really irrelevant here. People use windows after all
liotier 3y ago
> You should give modern Gnome a good honest try This long time Debian user does not understand why he would choose Gnome over the incredibly satisfying out of the box experience of KDE Plasma combined with its easy customizability. I suspect that I am not Gnome's target segment... What sort of user is Gnome targeting ?
- qup 3y ago
  > KDE Plasma Is this what Zorin uses? They look very similar.
  - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
    Last I checked out Zorin in a distrohop phase, Zorin used a heavily customized version of GNOME 3.38. While they may have updated their GNOME version since, I don't suspect they've changed to KDE.
- teekert 3y ago
  To me Gnome feels more tablet like, but still nice with Mouse and Keyboard. I feel that it makes effective use of my screen, it's just full screen, or super-key left/right for a split. Hit Super, start an app, what's not to like? And then there is the menu with things like bleutooth/wifi etc. It's all very minimal, but to me it feels like they made exactly the right choices. What would you change to a default Gnome desktop?
- johnny22 3y ago
  the fokls who do not want to customize :). We just want the UI to mostly stay out of the way. Last I checked, even Linus uses it.
- nablaone 3y ago
  "ease customizability" means no sane defaults. It means more work after the installation.
- zambal 3y ago
  > What sort of user is Gnome targeting ? I guess that would be me. I mostly work in the terminal and I just don't care that much about the window manager. As long as it's simple, works consistent and looks somewhat nice and clean, I'm fine. Gnome fills that role for me.
iforgotpassword 3y ago
Modern gnome is a joke. For two years now, scrolling doesn't work in folders with many files. I can't find the issue in their bug tracker right now, but they're just like "well yeah it's not easy to fix". Like, how can you break something that fundamental in a way that makes it too hard to fix? And this isn't just some minor cosmetic issue, it literally is a showstopper if you frequently navigate large directories. Holy crap, but at least it looks pretty! (found at least a Reddit post from three months ago that seems to be the same bug: https://old.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1129jro/nautilus_scrollbar_jumps_to_bottom_when_scrolling/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1129jro/nautilus_scr...)
- prmoustache 3y ago
  How is a reddit link relevant? FWIW I may not have large enough directories but on the ones I just tested I didn't had this bug. I am not negating such a bug may have existed but a link to the actual gnome bug tracker would be more relevant, it may have already been fixed for all I know. Also, are you implying that KDE or any other DE do not suffer any bug? Last but not least, you are not forced to use Nautilus in Gnome. If Nautilus is not your preferred file manager you can perfectly live with a Gnome desktop while using Thunar (from XFCE), Nemo (from Cinnamon), PCManFM or even Dolphin if you don't mind the toolkit difference. I am personnaly using Gnome for most of my laptops but use Kitty as default terminal emulator instead of Gnome Terminal.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > And this isn't just some minor cosmetic issue, it literally is a showstopper if you frequently navigate large directories. > are you implying that KDE or any other DE do not suffer any bug? ...
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - grt_thr 3y ago
pjmlp 3y ago
Back in my daily GNU/Linux days, I even wrote magazine articles about Gtkmm. Nowadays, I rather not use a desktop that requires extensions for basic stuff (written in JavaScript!), no longer supports window shading, and hates files on the desktop.

Nursie 3y ago

Can I rearrange visual elements so my desktop is similar to how it has been in gnome 2, mate and xfce for the last 20 years? Can non-blessed apps get into the systray/notification-area/whatever? Genuine questions, I've not tried Gnome since the early days of gnome 3 when they broke everything and more or less made out you were a luddite and unwanted loser if you weren't up for a massive change in workflow.

pmontra 3y ago
There are enough extensions to do whatever you want. My Gnome desktop has no top bar. Activities are totally hidden: I don't have any mouse or keyboard event that shows them. I use 5 virtual desktops and switch between them with hotkeys. I have a bottom bar with status icons, task bar, application menu, a menu of bookmarked directories, a menu of the last notifications, a menu of recent files. Notifications popup from the bottom. I alt tab between windows on the current desktop. Possibly other stuff but that's the most I can remember. If I remember well I stayed with Gnome Fallback until there were enough of those extensions to rebuild my desktop with Gnome shell. That was about at the time of Ubuntu 20.04.
- grunfelder 3y ago
  In my experience, with every update, half the extensions stop working. And then it's unclear if they will ever come back, how supported they actually are, and now and then the whole thing crashes and I don't know if it's because of a rogue extension or something else..
  - pmontra 3y ago
    I had no problems with Ubuntu's updates but I'm staying on LTSes.
dizhn 3y ago
KDE Plasma is just what you would think of as KDE. Not a different thing.
darkwater 3y ago
> Can I rearrange visual elements so my desktop is similar to how it has been in gnome 2, mate and xfce for the last 20 years? Gnome 3 has been out for over 10 years (12, to be exact). At this point if they change the UI there would be people like you saying "can I get back how it has been for 10 years?". I don't really understand how we can have a so strong resistance to UI changes among IT professionals. Personally I started using Gnome 1, then moved to KDE3 when Gnome 2 was released, then moved to Unity with Ubuntu and now Gnome 3/40, Ubuntu flavor as well. I also used XFCE for a year or so at some point. I just need a month or so to get used and configure it a way I feel natural, and that's it.
- jabl 3y ago
  This. I can obviously only speak for myself, but over the years I've tried a lot of different desktop environments and window managers (http://www.xwinman.org/ http://www.xwinman.org/ was a favorite when I was getting started with Linux back in the mid 90'ies). Nowadays I use a pretty out of the box gnome (well, with whatever bastardizations Ubuntu has done to vanilla Gnome, with the unity-like sidebar etc.). I just want something that works, not a million papercuts that bleed me dry (e.g. I have a networkmanager applet to configure my VPN, works out of the box, no need to fuzz around with making various scripts or manual editing of config files. Screw that, I have actual work to do as well.), and it seems gnome & ubuntu have been pretty good at delivering. I don't care that my current desktop works differently than my old favorites fvwm or olvwm. I save more time by having my muscle memory get used to current keybindings and my eyes get used to the current look, than desperately trying to make gnome in 2023 look and behave like fvwm in 1995 (or whatever arbitrary snapshot in time one takes as the bestest ever and anything which is different is crap).
  - Nursie 3y ago
    > I just want something that works, not a million papercuts that bleed me dry This is precisely why I install Xfce and just get on with my life.
  - bebop 3y ago
    I would suggest looking into fedora workstation. I switched from Ubuntu around fedora 35 and have not looked back. Stock gnome, integrates into flathub easily. Dnf and apt are similar enough.
prmoustache 3y ago
XFCE didn't look like today's XFCE 20years ago. It looked more like CDE which it was trying to replicate back then. So I think your memory is a bit broken. I would argue that the gnome2 and mate arrangement with top and bottom panels made sense when screens were in 4:3 form factor but is kind of stupid in 16:9 and 16:10 modern screens as it waste a lot of vertical screen estate. On my Fedora laptop I still have a "Gnome Classic" option at login but I don't know what it does. Last but not least, extensions allows a lot of flexibility. Sometimes they do get broken upon new release and it takes the maintainer months to update (especially if they are debian users) so key is not running a distro that ship the latest Gnome version. For example on Fedora there are always 2 stable versions maintained at the same time, new one and old one, currently 37 and 38. 37 will be retired and out of support when 39 will be released and you can expect at that time that most extensions have been updated to Gnome 44 and you can switch to 38 easily without hiccups.
- Nursie 3y ago
  It’s not my claim that Xfce was around 20 years ago, but that it lets me continue to use my desktop the same sort of way I have for the last 20 years. As someone with two 32inch 4k screens, having a top and bottom bar with a height of my choosing on one of the screens is barely noticeable. But each to their own, this is my preference and that’s kinda my point, people have preferences! It sounds like things are still unstable a decade or so on :/
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    > It sounds like things are still unstable a decade or so on :/ They are not. Extensions aren't part of the main DE. The main DE is solid. And most people live happily without extensions.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      Other people experiences are really irrelevant here. People use windows after all

liotier 3y ago

> You should give modern Gnome a good honest try This long time Debian user does not understand why he would choose Gnome over the incredibly satisfying out of the box experience of KDE Plasma combined with its easy customizability. I suspect that I am not Gnome's target segment... What sort of user is Gnome targeting ?

qup 3y ago
> KDE Plasma Is this what Zorin uses? They look very similar.
- AndroidKitKat 3y ago
  Last I checked out Zorin in a distrohop phase, Zorin used a heavily customized version of GNOME 3.38. While they may have updated their GNOME version since, I don't suspect they've changed to KDE.
teekert 3y ago
To me Gnome feels more tablet like, but still nice with Mouse and Keyboard. I feel that it makes effective use of my screen, it's just full screen, or super-key left/right for a split. Hit Super, start an app, what's not to like? And then there is the menu with things like bleutooth/wifi etc. It's all very minimal, but to me it feels like they made exactly the right choices. What would you change to a default Gnome desktop?
johnny22 3y ago
the fokls who do not want to customize :). We just want the UI to mostly stay out of the way. Last I checked, even Linus uses it.
nablaone 3y ago
"ease customizability" means no sane defaults. It means more work after the installation.
zambal 3y ago
> What sort of user is Gnome targeting ? I guess that would be me. I mostly work in the terminal and I just don't care that much about the window manager. As long as it's simple, works consistent and looks somewhat nice and clean, I'm fine. Gnome fills that role for me.

iforgotpassword 3y ago

Modern gnome is a joke. For two years now, scrolling doesn't work in folders with many files. I can't find the issue in their bug tracker right now, but they're just like "well yeah it's not easy to fix". Like, how can you break something that fundamental in a way that makes it too hard to fix? And this isn't just some minor cosmetic issue, it literally is a showstopper if you frequently navigate large directories. Holy crap, but at least it looks pretty! (found at least a Reddit post from three months ago that seems to be the same bug: https://old.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1129jro/nautilus_scrollbar_jumps_to_bottom_when_scrolling/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1129jro/nautilus_scr...)

prmoustache 3y ago
How is a reddit link relevant? FWIW I may not have large enough directories but on the ones I just tested I didn't had this bug. I am not negating such a bug may have existed but a link to the actual gnome bug tracker would be more relevant, it may have already been fixed for all I know. Also, are you implying that KDE or any other DE do not suffer any bug? Last but not least, you are not forced to use Nautilus in Gnome. If Nautilus is not your preferred file manager you can perfectly live with a Gnome desktop while using Thunar (from XFCE), Nemo (from Cinnamon), PCManFM or even Dolphin if you don't mind the toolkit difference. I am personnaly using Gnome for most of my laptops but use Kitty as default terminal emulator instead of Gnome Terminal.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > And this isn't just some minor cosmetic issue, it literally is a showstopper if you frequently navigate large directories. > are you implying that KDE or any other DE do not suffer any bug? ...
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - grt_thr 3y ago

pjmlp 3y ago

Back in my daily GNU/Linux days, I even wrote magazine articles about Gtkmm. Nowadays, I rather not use a desktop that requires extensions for basic stuff (written in JavaScript!), no longer supports window shading, and hates files on the desktop.