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I have been using GNOME as my primary desktop environment since version 38. To be honest, it got bad when Libadwaita/GTK4 released. I did a forum post on the E

I have been using GNOME as my primary desktop environment since version 38. To be honest, it got bad when Libadwaita/GTK4 released. I did a forum post on the EndeavourOS Linux forum talking about this, back in late 2023 and i reposted it on GNOME's forums, without any success. From what i know they didn't work on the feedback i gave. https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/constructive-gnome-a-bit-of-gtk-criticism/48330 https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/constructive-gnome-a-bit-of-... GNOME on GTK3 was a lot more stable and quite faster, specially for the desktop effects and the design of the overview was a lot easier on mouse users (now you have to scroll all around the screen to just do things). The focus of this is GTK but i want to quickly mention that GNOME is hostile to developers making extensions. Recently they updated something in the Javascript they use for developing extensions, breaking all of them, and providing a porting guide very close to the deadline of the next GNOME release, barely giving developers working on their free time, time to port things, or they would get a storm of users complaining to port the program (don't believe me? browse GNOME's extension store for 5 minutes). The first and most damaging thing i faced as a user was a very nasty bug in GTK4 that made scrolling impossible (the bug is still alive today when using touchpads) https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2971 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2971 . The most crazy thing is that this critical bug for UX was detected in mid 2020, yet 4 years later it's still present on GTK. GNOME decided to break people's computers by shipping this critical bug. To me this is enough reason to not use it as a UI library. Imagine not having working scrolling... Oh wait, it's still going! But the bugs don't stop there! GTK4 has had trouble with drag and drop support, since Nautilus' (the file manager) port to GTK4, it completely broke DnD support of File Roller (the archive manager). Now that File Roller got updated to GTK4 the problem surely got fixed, right? NO! In fact, now File Roller broke DnD for every program! You really have to be bad to ship very broken features to an increasingly bigger user base. Even KDE's recent port to QT6 had less bugs! Another thing that annoys me is the lack of customization. Back in GTK3 days all you needed was a GTK theme, even GNOME's Libhandy could get themed without problems. It got to a point where developers did a nothingburger note on customization https://stopthemingmy.app/ https://stopthemingmy.app/ . That didn't stop anyone. Now you need to know what themes support GTK4 and what theming hack to run on it, and don't get me started on theming Flatpak... GTK4 never got proper support for theming, making the unreliable hacking methods the only way to theme it, without modifying the program's source. Now it ships in production with Ubuntu 24.04 (they did the right call to avoid GTK4 in 22.04 by rolling back some programs). The closest thing to an "official" theming is the Gradience program https://gradienceteam.github.io/ https://gradienceteam.github.io/ It's specially bad and annoying, with barely any good themes that support Libadwaita, it got to the point i developed a small program to simplify theming of Linux, called Iris https://github.com/Raxelgrande/Iris https://github.com/Raxelgrande/Iris . The other and probably most important roadblock for GTK is that it still lacks support for mobile devices, making the big strength of adaptable design it has go to waste. Nobody is going to buy a Linux phone. Overall, GTK and GNOME are very lackluster and im pretty sure that i will avoid that toolkit like the plague. All that Libadwaita does is to lock people into GNOME's design, even if you don't like it. Good luck running programs as good as Bottles and having it look integrated in your desktop. All because they just can't be bothered to at least add a theming API so everyone stops using hacky, problem ridden approaches.

crashdancer 2y ago
The reason you aren't getting any feedback from GNOME developers is because this is a huge long rant without any real new information in it. The developers are already aware of what bugs are present and what features are missing. If it was easy to fix all the bugs and replace the extension system, they would have done it already. If you don't like GNOME's design then just don't use it, it's not possible to change the entire design of the whole system every time one person has a problem with it. There won't be any official theming where they support changing application themes to whatever you want. That is and will always be a nasty hack -- the entire idea is flawed and conflicts with the idea of GNOME, which is to have a complete platform with a consistent look and behavior. It's impossible to have that and also have full theming capability at the same time, those two ideas are the opposite. IMO you should give up on that or you will be more disappointed in the future. At one time I too used to think it was possible but I gave it up when I realized it just isn't technically feasible.
- Raxelgrande 2y ago
  Thank you, i will completely ditch GNOME and warn everyone who uses or is interested in Linux about it. Feedback to developers is useful, even if it's on a ranty way, with good reason, those bugs are nasty. They should use the accessibility funds to fix them as some can be considered accessibility problems (the scrolling one). It's also easy for the developers and contributors to answer well, or at least give some kind of answer (what happened in my GNOME forums post, im just a bit sad it didn't get better). Every time i have a question regarding the upcoming COSMIC or something Pop!_OS related, someone at System76 answers and it feels very welcoming. Regarding theming, every big OS has AT LEAST accent color selection, all but GNOME. Edit: I did provide information, you can find sources for nearly everything i talked about. My post on EndeavourOS' forums has more information.
  - crashdancer 2y ago
    >warn everyone who uses or is interested in Linux about it See, I think now you are being too overly dramatic. It's not that bad, I haven't encountered the scrolling bug in a long time. And let's not pretend that Cosmic or KDE or XFCE (or anything else) has no bugs or missing features. >Feedback to developers is useful, even if it's on a ranty way, No it really isn't. You can rant to your friends but please don't rant at developers, it's never wanted. Would you like it if someone came into your workplace and ranted at you while you're trying to work? >It's also easy for the developers and contributors to answer well, or at least give some kind of answer Not if your first interaction with them is to post a several page long essay full of rants and demands. For any open source project (not just GNOME) I recommend to be nice and talk about one issue at a time. Start with simple and short bug reports or questions. At the end always ask "is there anything I can do to help?" If there is already a bug report then be patient and don't nag them asking when it's going to be done. Do everything you can to make it easy and enjoyable for them to respond to your question. Do not blame anyone for being slow. Doing all these things greatly increases the chances of getting a response. If there is still no response, see this page for what to do: https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ >Regarding theming, every big OS has AT LEAST accent color selection Currently that's being worked on. >I did provide information, you can find sources for nearly everything i talked about. My post on EndeavourOS' forums has more information. I looked, it's all old information for the developers. They know all those things already. These bugs have already been discussed many times, they know users are unhappy with them.

crashdancer 2y ago

The reason you aren't getting any feedback from GNOME developers is because this is a huge long rant without any real new information in it. The developers are already aware of what bugs are present and what features are missing. If it was easy to fix all the bugs and replace the extension system, they would have done it already. If you don't like GNOME's design then just don't use it, it's not possible to change the entire design of the whole system every time one person has a problem with it. There won't be any official theming where they support changing application themes to whatever you want. That is and will always be a nasty hack -- the entire idea is flawed and conflicts with the idea of GNOME, which is to have a complete platform with a consistent look and behavior. It's impossible to have that and also have full theming capability at the same time, those two ideas are the opposite. IMO you should give up on that or you will be more disappointed in the future. At one time I too used to think it was possible but I gave it up when I realized it just isn't technically feasible.

Raxelgrande 2y ago
Thank you, i will completely ditch GNOME and warn everyone who uses or is interested in Linux about it. Feedback to developers is useful, even if it's on a ranty way, with good reason, those bugs are nasty. They should use the accessibility funds to fix them as some can be considered accessibility problems (the scrolling one). It's also easy for the developers and contributors to answer well, or at least give some kind of answer (what happened in my GNOME forums post, im just a bit sad it didn't get better). Every time i have a question regarding the upcoming COSMIC or something Pop!_OS related, someone at System76 answers and it feels very welcoming. Regarding theming, every big OS has AT LEAST accent color selection, all but GNOME. Edit: I did provide information, you can find sources for nearly everything i talked about. My post on EndeavourOS' forums has more information.
- crashdancer 2y ago
  >warn everyone who uses or is interested in Linux about it See, I think now you are being too overly dramatic. It's not that bad, I haven't encountered the scrolling bug in a long time. And let's not pretend that Cosmic or KDE or XFCE (or anything else) has no bugs or missing features. >Feedback to developers is useful, even if it's on a ranty way, No it really isn't. You can rant to your friends but please don't rant at developers, it's never wanted. Would you like it if someone came into your workplace and ranted at you while you're trying to work? >It's also easy for the developers and contributors to answer well, or at least give some kind of answer Not if your first interaction with them is to post a several page long essay full of rants and demands. For any open source project (not just GNOME) I recommend to be nice and talk about one issue at a time. Start with simple and short bug reports or questions. At the end always ask "is there anything I can do to help?" If there is already a bug report then be patient and don't nag them asking when it's going to be done. Do everything you can to make it easy and enjoyable for them to respond to your question. Do not blame anyone for being slow. Doing all these things greatly increases the chances of getting a response. If there is still no response, see this page for what to do: https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ >Regarding theming, every big OS has AT LEAST accent color selection Currently that's being worked on. >I did provide information, you can find sources for nearly everything i talked about. My post on EndeavourOS' forums has more information. I looked, it's all old information for the developers. They know all those things already. These bugs have already been discussed many times, they know users are unhappy with them.