6 ms·

I really want to like GNOME, but GNOME's developers have almost as much arrogance and contempt for their users as Microsoft. As an example, the power button ca

I really want to like GNOME, but GNOME's developers have almost as much arrogance and contempt for their users as Microsoft. As an example, the power button can no longer be configured to power off the machine, because this is "too destructive". I'm not talking about defaults -- they removed the ability for me to make this choice for myself. Not even Microsoft has done that. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755953 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755953 On my machine, the power button is recessed and requires quite a bit of force to press. It is impossible to press accidentally, but the GNOME developers apparently know best.

BarryMilo 2y ago
As much as I'm a diehard Linux defender, Gnome can get bent. XFCE does everything I want, which is to say, almost nothing.
- frainfreeze 2y ago
  XFCE is wonderful. I wish it got more dev time
  - dingdingdang 1y ago
    XFCE is the Win 2000 UI of the Linux ecosystem, perfectly functional and fine; tweaks are possible if needed.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      So is https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ While it may seem overblown, it's absolutely RIDICULOUS how fast it flies on contemporary systems, and even older ones. One can also omit most of their other apps, with the exception of KWIN, drawing the desktop and its window decorations, and konqueror, the filemanager, and the things managing the menu(bar(s)), applauncher. Using modern apps for the rest, like anywhere else. And have them styled, themed however you like. With a few mouseclicks.
- cess11 1y ago
  It does a lot of things, though many are somewhat subtle, like screen locking timeout and stuff with networking and a bunch of utility programs and so on. I like to start off Xfce Debian and plaster i3wm over it, it's the best 'power user' setup I've come across. I wouldn't hesitate to put a 'regular' computer user in front of Xfce, it strikes a nice combination of simple and discoverable with very few annoyances. It's also where I go when I want to use some many-windowed application that doesn't fit into tiling.
_kidlike 2y ago
Gnome sucks... KDE is awesome :)
amiga-workbench 2y ago
I don't think that's the case any more. I'm running the latest Fedora release. https://pics.mos6581.com/misc/gnome-power.png https://pics.mos6581.com/misc/gnome-power.png
- bigfatkitten 1y ago
  Interesting! Hopefully this is part of a broader change in their attitude.
throw828338 2y ago
[flagged]
- varelse 1y ago
  [dead]
- troad 1y ago
  Of all the reasons to be upset with Gnome, that's the silliest. I could not care less about their political opinions. It's their opinions on how a computer should look and work that are the problem.
nottorp 1y ago
> the power button can no longer be configured to power off the machine Seriously? Are they removing ways to access the terminal or you can still at least do shutdown -h now?
- bigfatkitten 1y ago
  Don't give them any ideas!
sgarland 1y ago
From your link: >> gsd > gnome-settings-daemon. >> no-longer > Don't think that's in the OED >> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf > I don't like the tone in this sentence. I am dumbstruck that someone can be so utterly full of themselves that they can smugly correct someone’s grammar, and an obvious acronym, only to turn around and clutch their pearls that their victim said mean things in the nicest way possible about their software. I knew there was a reason I haven’t liked GNOME for years. XFCE is the way.
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  That exchange is what happens when CADT and therapy language collide head first.
  - sgarland 1y ago
    Not familiar with CADT, and Google wasn't any help for anything that seemed relevant.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      https://web.archive.org/web/20250429170348/https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250429170348/https://www.jwz.o...
ohgr 1y ago
No Linux desktop delivers what the user wants, needs or expect. Only what the developers think they need and find interesting to fix. It's more fun reinventing wheels badly than fixing shit generally. Some people are lucky this aligns with their needs, but for most it doesn't. It's jarring and unproductive. It needs corporate (or government!) drive behind it or that won't change. I'm not talking about Redhat either who appears to just be a holding pen for the above.
- bigfatkitten 1y ago
  Some of the more influential developers are Red Hat employees, and Red Hat has retasked them with other work in recent years. That might be enough to prompt a change in direction, I guess time will tell.
bowsamic 1y ago
Jeez that Bastien Nocera guy's reply > no-longer "Don't think that's in the OED" > This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf "I don't like the tone in this sentence." What a genuinely horrible person
swayvil 1y ago
I like Mate. I recommend it.
- jortr0n 1y ago
  agree
anothernewdude 1y ago
The best UI is one that stays consistent and doesn't change.
- Narishma 1y ago
  XFCE in other words.
LtWorf 1y ago
Try plasma.
- procaryote 1y ago
  +1 plasma is pretty nice and also lets you reconfigure things if you like. The rate of "we broke this and you were stupid for ever wanting it" is much lower than for gnome
- rafaelmn 1y ago
  Plasma was super unstable and janky, and the whole KDE desktop environment feels like developer art.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    You last tried it 25 years ago right?
  - robotnikman 1y ago
    That's what I thought for a long time, until I tried it on the Steam deck since they use it for its desktop mode. I now use it as my daily driver desktop environment
  - const_cast 1y ago
    Early days of Plasma 5 definitely can be described this way. Although I think we all forget just how fucking ugly early gnome 3 was. But since mid Plasma 5 and on, it's incredibly stable and consistent in design. At this point, more consistent than gnome.
    - rafaelmn 1y ago
      I was using Plasma 6 to get fractional scaling working (wrote the wrong version in original post)
EdwardDiego 1y ago
Oh wow, that Nocera is great, correcting spellings to be passive-aggressive. > Review of attachment 312719 [details] [review]: >> gsd > gnome-settings-daemon. >> no-longer > Don't think that's in the OED >> gsd no-longer facilitates users overriding power key actions > And include references about when this happened. >> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf > I don't like the tone in this sentence. So helpful.
- prox 1y ago
  I really dislike these turf sitting devs. They try to just defend their throne rather than looking at the merits.
MSFT_Edging 1y ago
I've never been big on the Windows UI patterns but I recently started using KDE on one of my machines and it feels more polished than the Windows desktop. It has a few quirks but it's one of the most satisfying out-of-the-box desktops I've used, and I primarily use a niche dynamic tiling wm on all my other machines.
- troad 1y ago
  KDE is great. It gets slept on because of its bad rap circa 2004, but it has low-key become the best DE by far. Sane defaults, nothing tries to fight you, everything is configurable. If you don't have the time or inclination to tinker with things like tiling WMs - and more power to you if you do, but I don't - KDE is the best there is.
  - Zambyte 1y ago
    Tiling WMs have more up front cost, but they don't require continuous tinkering if you don't want to tinker. I have been using the same SwayWM config for like 5 years now.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    I've been using KDE for a good decade or so, and what a lot of people don't know is that not only is the desktop great, the applications are, too. Everyone knows Dolphin is by far the best file manager, but not a lot of people know that Kate is fantastic. Konsole is really good too. The new System Monitor basically replaces a ton of programs. Spectacle is a great and snappy screenshot utility. Filelight is so useful. There's definitely a few misses, though. kmail in particular. But, overtime the applications actually improve, both in performance and features. This seems to be in contrast in gnome, where apps like Nautilus have been getting worse for a long time. And in contrast to Windows.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      > The new System Monitor basically replaces a ton of programs. Like what? Running htop or btop++ in Konsole(or whichever terminal emulator you prefer), as I do?¹ :) Just opened that thing right now, and it gives nothing to me. Shrug? ¹ On one of 9 virtual desktops, arranged 3x3, usually upper left. https://postimg.cc/K35Qv6Pg https://postimg.cc/K35Qv6Pg < btop++ https://postimg.cc/0zGttJMC https://postimg.cc/0zGttJMC < htop https://postimg.cc/pyTLRfPp https://postimg.cc/pyTLRfPp < Itsatrap!
bardak 1y ago
My favorite GNOME developer's hill to die on is their refusal to implement a system tray or work with the rest of the Linux desktop community to create an alternative to the system tray. Don't get me wrong there has been a abuse of the system tray but the refusal to acknowledge that there is a use case for persistent notifications or status indicators is ridiculous. there suggestion is that notifications are the solution is so inadequate. It's pretty telling that their arguments aren't sound when they have chosen to implement traditional system tray items such as a battery indicator and volume indicator as built in items on the task bar but they dismiss the idea that a chat app status indicator would be useful.
- amiga-workbench 1y ago
  I am personally so glad Gnome does not have a system tray, on every other DE its a disgusting mess of differently scaled and styled icons.
  - Saris 1y ago
    That sounds like an issue that could be solved by forcing icons and sizes for the tray.
    - alyandon 1y ago
      Just give users the ability to pin the icons they care about and hide the others in a pop-out panel like Windows does.
      - Saris 1y ago
        That too, very basic feature that should be in every DE.
  - rendaw 1y ago
    So rather than disable the system tray, or use other applications that don't have inconsistent scaled and styled icons, you'd prefer that nobody who uses Gnome is able to have a system tray?
chuckadams 1y ago
At some point, the GNOME folks are going to have to hire people to go door-to-door and take hardware away from people, because they won't have any software left to remove features from.
- alyandon 1y ago
  I've always joked about the eventual evolution of the GNOME desktop converging to a single login screen followed by a full screen button labeled LOGOFF because they will claim anything else is too confusing for their users.
  - chuckadams 1y ago
    And clicks the button for you, à la https://youtu.be/7OwgyrTnTRM?si=etU_Wk9sUJ-xPx3h https://youtu.be/7OwgyrTnTRM?si=etU_Wk9sUJ-xPx3h
tremon 1y ago
That's because you're not the target audience: both Windows and GNOME primarily target the computer illiterate. If you know what you're doing and understand how the computer works, these desktops at best are a nuisance and more than likely to get in your way. My go-to comparison is power tools: there's a consumer line that's underpowered but pretty easy to use by anyone, and then there's the professional tools for people that know how to handle these tools properly: more power, versatile, and user serviceable. Smartphones take this to the extreme: on both Android and iOS every user is illiterate, because the OS is deliberately opaque to the user.
- abrouwers 1y ago
  I'm not a huge fan of this statement - just because some users prefer simplicity, doesn't make them "illiterate." I'm happy to be a pretty tech-savvy gnome user - everyone uses a computing device for different purposes (as a tool, not a hobby). For example, it's great that KDE offers 2 or 3 kick-off menus, multiple clock plasmoids, etc, but just because a user is fine with a single, well-refined option, doesn't mean they are less "computer literate."
luckys 1y ago
Weird, I'm using the latest stock fedora with gnome and the option is there to use the power button as "power off" command.
_fat_santa 1y ago
I currently use Gnome on my machine (plain vanilla Ubuntu with no mods). It's such a love hate relationship. On the one hand everything you said and everything the child comments mention are totally valid and very annoying. But on the other hand (at least in my experience), Gnome has been the only solid DE that is "consistent", the only other one that got close was XFCE. I might eventually switch back to XFCE but for now I just need a DE that works and gets out of my way so I can write code, and for all it's faults Gnome still gets the job done.

BarryMilo 2y ago

As much as I'm a diehard Linux defender, Gnome can get bent. XFCE does everything I want, which is to say, almost nothing.

frainfreeze 2y ago
XFCE is wonderful. I wish it got more dev time
- dingdingdang 1y ago
  XFCE is the Win 2000 UI of the Linux ecosystem, perfectly functional and fine; tweaks are possible if needed.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    So is https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ While it may seem overblown, it's absolutely RIDICULOUS how fast it flies on contemporary systems, and even older ones. One can also omit most of their other apps, with the exception of KWIN, drawing the desktop and its window decorations, and konqueror, the filemanager, and the things managing the menu(bar(s)), applauncher. Using modern apps for the rest, like anywhere else. And have them styled, themed however you like. With a few mouseclicks.
cess11 1y ago
It does a lot of things, though many are somewhat subtle, like screen locking timeout and stuff with networking and a bunch of utility programs and so on. I like to start off Xfce Debian and plaster i3wm over it, it's the best 'power user' setup I've come across. I wouldn't hesitate to put a 'regular' computer user in front of Xfce, it strikes a nice combination of simple and discoverable with very few annoyances. It's also where I go when I want to use some many-windowed application that doesn't fit into tiling.

_kidlike 2y ago

Gnome sucks... KDE is awesome :)

amiga-workbench 2y ago

I don't think that's the case any more. I'm running the latest Fedora release. https://pics.mos6581.com/misc/gnome-power.png https://pics.mos6581.com/misc/gnome-power.png

bigfatkitten 1y ago
Interesting! Hopefully this is part of a broader change in their attitude.

throw828338 2y ago

[flagged]

varelse 1y ago
[dead]
troad 1y ago
Of all the reasons to be upset with Gnome, that's the silliest. I could not care less about their political opinions. It's their opinions on how a computer should look and work that are the problem.

nottorp 1y ago

> the power button can no longer be configured to power off the machine Seriously? Are they removing ways to access the terminal or you can still at least do shutdown -h now?

bigfatkitten 1y ago
Don't give them any ideas!

sgarland 1y ago

From your link: >> gsd > gnome-settings-daemon. >> no-longer > Don't think that's in the OED >> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf > I don't like the tone in this sentence. I am dumbstruck that someone can be so utterly full of themselves that they can smugly correct someone’s grammar, and an obvious acronym, only to turn around and clutch their pearls that their victim said mean things in the nicest way possible about their software. I knew there was a reason I haven’t liked GNOME for years. XFCE is the way.

DrillShopper 1y ago
That exchange is what happens when CADT and therapy language collide head first.
- sgarland 1y ago
  Not familiar with CADT, and Google wasn't any help for anything that seemed relevant.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20250429170348/https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250429170348/https://www.jwz.o...

ohgr 1y ago

No Linux desktop delivers what the user wants, needs or expect. Only what the developers think they need and find interesting to fix. It's more fun reinventing wheels badly than fixing shit generally. Some people are lucky this aligns with their needs, but for most it doesn't. It's jarring and unproductive. It needs corporate (or government!) drive behind it or that won't change. I'm not talking about Redhat either who appears to just be a holding pen for the above.

bigfatkitten 1y ago
Some of the more influential developers are Red Hat employees, and Red Hat has retasked them with other work in recent years. That might be enough to prompt a change in direction, I guess time will tell.

bowsamic 1y ago

Jeez that Bastien Nocera guy's reply > no-longer "Don't think that's in the OED" > This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf "I don't like the tone in this sentence." What a genuinely horrible person

swayvil 1y ago

I like Mate. I recommend it.

jortr0n 1y ago
agree

anothernewdude 1y ago

The best UI is one that stays consistent and doesn't change.

Narishma 1y ago
XFCE in other words.

LtWorf 1y ago

Try plasma.

procaryote 1y ago
+1 plasma is pretty nice and also lets you reconfigure things if you like. The rate of "we broke this and you were stupid for ever wanting it" is much lower than for gnome
rafaelmn 1y ago
Plasma was super unstable and janky, and the whole KDE desktop environment feels like developer art.
- LtWorf 1y ago
  You last tried it 25 years ago right?
- robotnikman 1y ago
  That's what I thought for a long time, until I tried it on the Steam deck since they use it for its desktop mode. I now use it as my daily driver desktop environment
- const_cast 1y ago
  Early days of Plasma 5 definitely can be described this way. Although I think we all forget just how fucking ugly early gnome 3 was. But since mid Plasma 5 and on, it's incredibly stable and consistent in design. At this point, more consistent than gnome.
  - rafaelmn 1y ago
    I was using Plasma 6 to get fractional scaling working (wrote the wrong version in original post)

EdwardDiego 1y ago

Oh wow, that Nocera is great, correcting spellings to be passive-aggressive. > Review of attachment 312719 [details] [review]: >> gsd > gnome-settings-daemon. >> no-longer > Don't think that's in the OED >> gsd no-longer facilitates users overriding power key actions > And include references about when this happened. >> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf > I don't like the tone in this sentence. So helpful.

prox 1y ago
I really dislike these turf sitting devs. They try to just defend their throne rather than looking at the merits.

MSFT_Edging 1y ago

I've never been big on the Windows UI patterns but I recently started using KDE on one of my machines and it feels more polished than the Windows desktop. It has a few quirks but it's one of the most satisfying out-of-the-box desktops I've used, and I primarily use a niche dynamic tiling wm on all my other machines.

troad 1y ago
KDE is great. It gets slept on because of its bad rap circa 2004, but it has low-key become the best DE by far. Sane defaults, nothing tries to fight you, everything is configurable. If you don't have the time or inclination to tinker with things like tiling WMs - and more power to you if you do, but I don't - KDE is the best there is.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  Tiling WMs have more up front cost, but they don't require continuous tinkering if you don't want to tinker. I have been using the same SwayWM config for like 5 years now.
- const_cast 1y ago
  I've been using KDE for a good decade or so, and what a lot of people don't know is that not only is the desktop great, the applications are, too. Everyone knows Dolphin is by far the best file manager, but not a lot of people know that Kate is fantastic. Konsole is really good too. The new System Monitor basically replaces a ton of programs. Spectacle is a great and snappy screenshot utility. Filelight is so useful. There's definitely a few misses, though. kmail in particular. But, overtime the applications actually improve, both in performance and features. This seems to be in contrast in gnome, where apps like Nautilus have been getting worse for a long time. And in contrast to Windows.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    > The new System Monitor basically replaces a ton of programs. Like what? Running htop or btop++ in Konsole(or whichever terminal emulator you prefer), as I do?¹ :) Just opened that thing right now, and it gives nothing to me. Shrug? ¹ On one of 9 virtual desktops, arranged 3x3, usually upper left. https://postimg.cc/K35Qv6Pg https://postimg.cc/K35Qv6Pg < btop++ https://postimg.cc/0zGttJMC https://postimg.cc/0zGttJMC < htop https://postimg.cc/pyTLRfPp https://postimg.cc/pyTLRfPp < Itsatrap!

bardak 1y ago

My favorite GNOME developer's hill to die on is their refusal to implement a system tray or work with the rest of the Linux desktop community to create an alternative to the system tray. Don't get me wrong there has been a abuse of the system tray but the refusal to acknowledge that there is a use case for persistent notifications or status indicators is ridiculous. there suggestion is that notifications are the solution is so inadequate. It's pretty telling that their arguments aren't sound when they have chosen to implement traditional system tray items such as a battery indicator and volume indicator as built in items on the task bar but they dismiss the idea that a chat app status indicator would be useful.

amiga-workbench 1y ago
I am personally so glad Gnome does not have a system tray, on every other DE its a disgusting mess of differently scaled and styled icons.
- Saris 1y ago
  That sounds like an issue that could be solved by forcing icons and sizes for the tray.
  - alyandon 1y ago
    Just give users the ability to pin the icons they care about and hide the others in a pop-out panel like Windows does.
    - Saris 1y ago
      That too, very basic feature that should be in every DE.
- rendaw 1y ago
  So rather than disable the system tray, or use other applications that don't have inconsistent scaled and styled icons, you'd prefer that nobody who uses Gnome is able to have a system tray?

chuckadams 1y ago

At some point, the GNOME folks are going to have to hire people to go door-to-door and take hardware away from people, because they won't have any software left to remove features from.

alyandon 1y ago
I've always joked about the eventual evolution of the GNOME desktop converging to a single login screen followed by a full screen button labeled LOGOFF because they will claim anything else is too confusing for their users.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  And clicks the button for you, à la https://youtu.be/7OwgyrTnTRM?si=etU_Wk9sUJ-xPx3h https://youtu.be/7OwgyrTnTRM?si=etU_Wk9sUJ-xPx3h

tremon 1y ago

That's because you're not the target audience: both Windows and GNOME primarily target the computer illiterate. If you know what you're doing and understand how the computer works, these desktops at best are a nuisance and more than likely to get in your way. My go-to comparison is power tools: there's a consumer line that's underpowered but pretty easy to use by anyone, and then there's the professional tools for people that know how to handle these tools properly: more power, versatile, and user serviceable. Smartphones take this to the extreme: on both Android and iOS every user is illiterate, because the OS is deliberately opaque to the user.

abrouwers 1y ago
I'm not a huge fan of this statement - just because some users prefer simplicity, doesn't make them "illiterate." I'm happy to be a pretty tech-savvy gnome user - everyone uses a computing device for different purposes (as a tool, not a hobby). For example, it's great that KDE offers 2 or 3 kick-off menus, multiple clock plasmoids, etc, but just because a user is fine with a single, well-refined option, doesn't mean they are less "computer literate."

luckys 1y ago

Weird, I'm using the latest stock fedora with gnome and the option is there to use the power button as "power off" command.

_fat_santa 1y ago

I currently use Gnome on my machine (plain vanilla Ubuntu with no mods). It's such a love hate relationship. On the one hand everything you said and everything the child comments mention are totally valid and very annoying. But on the other hand (at least in my experience), Gnome has been the only solid DE that is "consistent", the only other one that got close was XFCE. I might eventually switch back to XFCE but for now I just need a DE that works and gets out of my way so I can write code, and for all it's faults Gnome still gets the job done.