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> A JavaScript desktop? Seriously? Yeah, it was cool for screenshots but it was slow and barely usable. GNOME is at least usable now due to a mix of performanc

> A JavaScript desktop? Seriously? Yeah, it was cool for screenshots but it was slow and barely usable. GNOME is at least usable now due to a mix of performance improvements over the years and faster hardware, but it still eats RAM (my current session is running at 3.4GB RSS with just the AppIndicators extension). But, I wonder had GNOME not gone this direction whether the Linux desktop wouldn't be so fragmented as it is now.

p_l 1y ago
GNOME started moving in that direction back in 2.4 release - GNOME 3 was where, for better or worse (my personal opinion for worse) they decided to experiment even further away from the beaten path. But the seeds of what became GNOME 3 were sown in first 3 releases of GNOME 2, not in widely discussed but unrelated to actual decisions talks about patents.
rebeccaskinner 1y ago
I remember back in the gnome2 days there was still a lot of fragmentation. Gnome, KDE, WindowMaker, AfterStep, Enlightenment, ratpoison. Linux has always appealed to tinkerers and that was always going to lead to some amount of fragmentation. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily. For all of the complaints about it, systemd has unified a lot of things that used to be handled through desktop environments and made things less fragmented as a whole.
- ChocolateGod 1y ago
  No the fragmentation is worse now, GNOME wasn't even going to support the same DRM-leasing protocol (needed for VR) that all the other Wayland compositors agreed on until Valve told them it was adamant it wasn't going to support their custom protocol.
- 77pt77 1y ago
  > ratpoison That's a really fringe window manager. Not a desktop environment like the others.
  - spauldo 1y ago
    Afterstep and Windowmaker were also just window managers (you can kinda argue Windowmaker with the whole GNUSTEP thing, but that never really took off). I believe ratpoison is the granddaddy of today's tiling desktops, which have a decent following.
    - 77pt77 1y ago
      > I believe ratpoison is the granddaddy of today's tiling desktops I know. I'm using i3 as I write, bit no desktop environment.
      - spauldo 1y ago
        I was arguing against the "really fringe" part. I agree it's not a DE. But I suppose it could go either way - ratpoison itself didn't have a very large user base, but it spawned a decent one if you count its successors.
        77pt77 1y ago
        > ratpoison itself didn't have a very large user base, but it spawned a decent one if you count its successors. Agree. Ratpoison itself was barely usable.
bee_rider 1y ago
The fragmented Linux desktop is not really a problem IMO. People want to customize their desktops. One way that could happen is through having some sort of grand super-flexible window manager than can do anything, and then customize their behavior in some configuration language. Another way is for interested folks to write their window managers in C or whatever language they want. The latter is usually more performant, and has less social coordination overhead, so it was the way things worked out. I mean, we have Windows and Apple, with all the programmer-hours spent on their window managers, and they aren’t anywhere near as flexible as the open source ecosystem.

p_l 1y ago

GNOME started moving in that direction back in 2.4 release - GNOME 3 was where, for better or worse (my personal opinion for worse) they decided to experiment even further away from the beaten path. But the seeds of what became GNOME 3 were sown in first 3 releases of GNOME 2, not in widely discussed but unrelated to actual decisions talks about patents.

rebeccaskinner 1y ago

I remember back in the gnome2 days there was still a lot of fragmentation. Gnome, KDE, WindowMaker, AfterStep, Enlightenment, ratpoison. Linux has always appealed to tinkerers and that was always going to lead to some amount of fragmentation. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily. For all of the complaints about it, systemd has unified a lot of things that used to be handled through desktop environments and made things less fragmented as a whole.

ChocolateGod 1y ago
No the fragmentation is worse now, GNOME wasn't even going to support the same DRM-leasing protocol (needed for VR) that all the other Wayland compositors agreed on until Valve told them it was adamant it wasn't going to support their custom protocol.
77pt77 1y ago
> ratpoison That's a really fringe window manager. Not a desktop environment like the others.
- spauldo 1y ago
  Afterstep and Windowmaker were also just window managers (you can kinda argue Windowmaker with the whole GNUSTEP thing, but that never really took off). I believe ratpoison is the granddaddy of today's tiling desktops, which have a decent following.
  - 77pt77 1y ago
    > I believe ratpoison is the granddaddy of today's tiling desktops I know. I'm using i3 as I write, bit no desktop environment.
    - spauldo 1y ago
      I was arguing against the "really fringe" part. I agree it's not a DE. But I suppose it could go either way - ratpoison itself didn't have a very large user base, but it spawned a decent one if you count its successors.
      - 77pt77 1y ago
        > ratpoison itself didn't have a very large user base, but it spawned a decent one if you count its successors. Agree. Ratpoison itself was barely usable.

bee_rider 1y ago

The fragmented Linux desktop is not really a problem IMO. People want to customize their desktops. One way that could happen is through having some sort of grand super-flexible window manager than can do anything, and then customize their behavior in some configuration language. Another way is for interested folks to write their window managers in C or whatever language they want. The latter is usually more performant, and has less social coordination overhead, so it was the way things worked out. I mean, we have Windows and Apple, with all the programmer-hours spent on their window managers, and they aren’t anywhere near as flexible as the open source ecosystem.