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I think it's time for me to look back at Linux. (Looks at Gnome.) Hm, they're getting worse faster than Apple does. Never mind.

I think it's time for me to look back at Linux. (*Looks at Gnome.*) Hm, they're getting worse faster than Apple does. Never mind.

lyu07282 1y ago
The damage Gnome does to the reputation of Linux is surreal
- rollcat 1y ago
  True. They're stuck in between badly aping Apple, trying too hard to do their own thing, and being toxic to the rest of the developer community. They're not a trillion dollar company. Sure, many projects would do well with more decisive decision-making, but the strength of free software comes from community and collaboration.
  - wirybeige 1y ago
    I've found GNOME developers to be pleasant to work with & I enjoy the experience I have with the DE.
    - rollcat 1y ago
      <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217> TL;DR: if you want window decorations, link with libadwaita. SDL ended up linking with libdecor. You know how when you use a Qt app in Gnome, it looks out of place? Now even the window decorations look inconsistent from one another.
      - wirybeige 1y ago
        I'm well aware of this issue. I don't expect windows to look the same to each other. I like that the title bar can have other content in it other than just the app name and the close button. For that reason alone I avoid Qt apps, as almost none draw their own title bar. Qt apps aren't even consistent among themselves in theming/style, for example the only apps that look in place on KDE are specifically made with KDE in mind. I don't understand where the "consistency" obsession comes from, all these apps use different tool kits and will look different regardless.
        rollcat 1y ago
        > I don't understand where the "consistency" obsession comes from [...]. Mental overhead. Sometimes Preferences is Ctrl-P, sometimes Ctrl-[,]; sometimes Copy is Ctrl-C, sometimes Ctrl-Shift-C. Sometimes the menu is a hamburger, sometimes a bar. macOS has none of these problems.
- eddythompson80 1y ago
  And there are no alternatives. I learned to love KDE, but I understand why people don't default to it. All other alternatives are dead and it makes sense. The scope of something like KDE or GNOME isn't really reasonable these days. I learned to install the most minimal version of KDE. The (maybe) rising solution is "build-your-own-desktop" options like: - Hyprland (for Window management and other random tasks like wallpapers and lockscreen) - Waybar (for task bar/menu bar) - Rofi/Wofi (for Spotlight/Search&Launch) Then you a la carte your File Manager, photo editor, browser, and whatever apps you like. While I find that somewhat appealing, and those solution are flexible enough to pretty much build whatever you like your DE to be like, they are also extremely complex. For most things there is no "defaults". You don't get to do anything "by default" other than boot into a GUI environment. You configure a shortcut to launch your terminal or apps, a task bar that also has an empty default. Things that have defaults are gonna be extremely "basic" (think html no css). Just the data dump, and it expects you to style it. They are entirely configured (and styled) through a series of conf/css/ini/yaml/json files. These apps/environment pretty much dominate all the Linux desktop discussion these days. (At least discussion I can find on here or reddit or Twitter when I used to check it) It's really hard to tell if anyone is actually using those things or not. They are extremely tedious and a giant pain in the ass for daily use. Maybe it's early days. It's been about 8-6 years now since all the talk has become about new Wayland compositors. There were dozens of them, but Hyprland seems to have the most mindshare? maybe? hard to tell. It's the youngest, but it would take many years to reach KDE or GNOME maturity
  - encom 1y ago
    I find that KDE just works like most people expect a computer to work, and it doesn't get in my way, or try to impose a way of doing things. The defaults are reasonable, but you can tweak nearly anything to your liking. My "favorite" Gnome-ism was something that happened a year or two ago. At work there's a machine in the workshop we use to reference technical drawings, charts and so on. So I wanted to set the display to never turn off, because I got annoyed with having to drop what I was holding (and sometimes walk down a ladder) and wiggle the mouse to wake up the machine. That is impossible on Gnome. You get a dropdown of a few fixed values, none greater than 60 minutes, and you better like what choices the Gnome devs have granted you. The workaround requires some brain surgery in the terminal. On KDE I can set the timeout to any integer I want.
pseudalopex 1y ago
Did you look at KDE?
- Taniwha 1y ago
  .... and I'm pretty sure KDE did the glass everywhere theme maybe 20 years ago
christophilus 1y ago
I use Niri, but I like Gnome. How are they getting worse?
gr_norm 1y ago
I like Gnome. I prefer my desktop to be designed around one unifying philosophy instead of a hodgepodge of customizations which don't work well together. The Gnome team has done pretty well at avoiding the classic Linux issues with the latter, though it doesn't win them any favors from people who would've been using KDE or some tiling WM anyway.
- colonial 1y ago
  Seconded. GNOME is simple and cohesive. Sure, some of the apps are a bit feature light, but I do most of my heavy lifting in the terminal anyways - I really don't need my "core" GUI tools like the file explorer to do a whole lot.
- rollcat 1y ago
  > I prefer my desktop to be designed around one unifying philosophy instead of a hodgepodge of customizations which don't work well together. I agree. It's why I prefer Gnome over KDE, and macOS over Windows. My main point is: Gnome can't tell simple from simplistic. Terminal cursor blinking. Removing every command until everything fits in one menu and/or title bar. It's so crammed with buttons, I can't tell what is what. But ironically, there's no desktop icons, despite "Desktop" folder being pinned in Nautilus. Everything is so spaced out. Top bar has three interactive elements, but it takes four clicks to log out. There's a dock, but you can't move it to the left/right side, so it takes up even more vertical space. You can fix some of that with extensions, but half of them get disabled on every upgrade. This is in stark contrast with macOS. If you can't find something in the menu bar, there's a search field in the help menu. If you use some menu bar option often, you can bind it to a custom key. Both of these are provided through standard system APIs, so every application uses them by default. Title bars have buttons, but are spacious enough so that there's always an obvious place to click-to-drag. (Gnome had to solve it by making ordinary widgets draggable... How do you know if you're selecting text in a URL bar, or moving the window?) I could keep going, but macOS has always been more intuitive and more friendly to power users.

I think it's time for me to look back at Linux. (*Looks at Gnome.*) Hm, they're getting worse faster than Apple does. Never mind.

lyu07282 1y ago

The damage Gnome does to the reputation of Linux is surreal

rollcat 1y ago
True. They're stuck in between badly aping Apple, trying too hard to do their own thing, and being toxic to the rest of the developer community. They're not a trillion dollar company. Sure, many projects would do well with more decisive decision-making, but the strength of free software comes from community and collaboration.
- wirybeige 1y ago
  I've found GNOME developers to be pleasant to work with & I enjoy the experience I have with the DE.
  - rollcat 1y ago
    <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217> TL;DR: if you want window decorations, link with libadwaita. SDL ended up linking with libdecor. You know how when you use a Qt app in Gnome, it looks out of place? Now even the window decorations look inconsistent from one another.
    - wirybeige 1y ago
      I'm well aware of this issue. I don't expect windows to look the same to each other. I like that the title bar can have other content in it other than just the app name and the close button. For that reason alone I avoid Qt apps, as almost none draw their own title bar. Qt apps aren't even consistent among themselves in theming/style, for example the only apps that look in place on KDE are specifically made with KDE in mind. I don't understand where the "consistency" obsession comes from, all these apps use different tool kits and will look different regardless.
      - rollcat 1y ago
        > I don't understand where the "consistency" obsession comes from [...]. Mental overhead. Sometimes Preferences is Ctrl-P, sometimes Ctrl-[,]; sometimes Copy is Ctrl-C, sometimes Ctrl-Shift-C. Sometimes the menu is a hamburger, sometimes a bar. macOS has none of these problems.
eddythompson80 1y ago
And there are no alternatives. I learned to love KDE, but I understand why people don't default to it. All other alternatives are dead and it makes sense. The scope of something like KDE or GNOME isn't really reasonable these days. I learned to install the most minimal version of KDE. The (maybe) rising solution is "build-your-own-desktop" options like: - Hyprland (for Window management and other random tasks like wallpapers and lockscreen) - Waybar (for task bar/menu bar) - Rofi/Wofi (for Spotlight/Search&Launch) Then you a la carte your File Manager, photo editor, browser, and whatever apps you like. While I find that somewhat appealing, and those solution are flexible enough to pretty much build whatever you like your DE to be like, they are also extremely complex. For most things there is no "defaults". You don't get to do anything "by default" other than boot into a GUI environment. You configure a shortcut to launch your terminal or apps, a task bar that also has an empty default. Things that have defaults are gonna be extremely "basic" (think html no css). Just the data dump, and it expects you to style it. They are entirely configured (and styled) through a series of conf/css/ini/yaml/json files. These apps/environment pretty much dominate all the Linux desktop discussion these days. (At least discussion I can find on here or reddit or Twitter when I used to check it) It's really hard to tell if anyone is actually using those things or not. They are extremely tedious and a giant pain in the ass for daily use. Maybe it's early days. It's been about 8-6 years now since all the talk has become about new Wayland compositors. There were dozens of them, but Hyprland seems to have the most mindshare? maybe? hard to tell. It's the youngest, but it would take many years to reach KDE or GNOME maturity
- encom 1y ago
  I find that KDE just works like most people expect a computer to work, and it doesn't get in my way, or try to impose a way of doing things. The defaults are reasonable, but you can tweak nearly anything to your liking. My "favorite" Gnome-ism was something that happened a year or two ago. At work there's a machine in the workshop we use to reference technical drawings, charts and so on. So I wanted to set the display to never turn off, because I got annoyed with having to drop what I was holding (and sometimes walk down a ladder) and wiggle the mouse to wake up the machine. That is impossible on Gnome. You get a dropdown of a few fixed values, none greater than 60 minutes, and you better like what choices the Gnome devs have granted you. The workaround requires some brain surgery in the terminal. On KDE I can set the timeout to any integer I want.

pseudalopex 1y ago

Did you look at KDE?

Taniwha 1y ago
.... and I'm pretty sure KDE did the glass everywhere theme maybe 20 years ago

christophilus 1y ago

I use Niri, but I like Gnome. How are they getting worse?

gr_norm 1y ago

I like Gnome. I prefer my desktop to be designed around one unifying philosophy instead of a hodgepodge of customizations which don't work well together. The Gnome team has done pretty well at avoiding the classic Linux issues with the latter, though it doesn't win them any favors from people who would've been using KDE or some tiling WM anyway.

colonial 1y ago
Seconded. GNOME is simple and cohesive. Sure, some of the apps are a bit feature light, but I do most of my heavy lifting in the terminal anyways - I really don't need my "core" GUI tools like the file explorer to do a whole lot.
rollcat 1y ago
> I prefer my desktop to be designed around one unifying philosophy instead of a hodgepodge of customizations which don't work well together. I agree. It's why I prefer Gnome over KDE, and macOS over Windows. My main point is: Gnome can't tell simple from simplistic. Terminal cursor blinking. Removing every command until everything fits in one menu and/or title bar. It's so crammed with buttons, I can't tell what is what. But ironically, there's no desktop icons, despite "Desktop" folder being pinned in Nautilus. Everything is so spaced out. Top bar has three interactive elements, but it takes four clicks to log out. There's a dock, but you can't move it to the left/right side, so it takes up even more vertical space. You can fix some of that with extensions, but half of them get disabled on every upgrade. This is in stark contrast with macOS. If you can't find something in the menu bar, there's a search field in the help menu. If you use some menu bar option often, you can bind it to a custom key. Both of these are provided through standard system APIs, so every application uses them by default. Title bars have buttons, but are spacious enough so that there's always an obvious place to click-to-drag. (Gnome had to solve it by making ordinary widgets draggable... How do you know if you're selecting text in a URL bar, or moving the window?) I could keep going, but macOS has always been more intuitive and more friendly to power users.