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The Gnome desktop churn was a bit of a headache. Gnome 3 took this weird tablet approach like Windows 8 did and it felt like they were playing "keeping up with

The Gnome desktop churn was a bit of a headache. Gnome 3 took this weird tablet approach like Windows 8 did and it felt like they were playing "keeping up with the Jones's" instead of making a solid user experience. I remember around that time trying to record video from my Thinkpad's webcam using Cheese which was a buggy mess. That made me really mad as the Gnome team clearly focused on rearranging the furniture instead of focusing on improving the components that make up the entire desktop experience. I used to like Mate and moved to Cinnamon but lately I just use XFCE and call it a day.

DrewADesign 1y ago
I appreciate all open source work, but the gnome 3 UI definitely hit like an attempt to chase trends rather than improve usability. A lot of times, designers get pushed by team leadership to chase trendy paradigms and techniques because the leaders don’t want to feel like they’re out of date, but just like architectural changes in code, impetuous revamps cause problems that take time and testing to ferret out and address. Some of the design choices in Linux desktops over the years, however, just felt like ham-fisted amateur design. Who ever thought it was a good idea to have no visual feedback on a gui login screen while entering your password? Not even a password box, or anything saying “enter your password?” Something like that reeks of a cocky wannabe designer hearing a talk about reducing cognitive load by reducing unnecessary visual elements on a screen, probably figured “well the password doesn’t show up on the command line login, and if the password isn’t showing up, then why is a password box necessary” or something like that. Doing it right is harder than it looks.
- edg5000 1y ago
  I don't get that argument. GNOME 3 with the Canonical app launcher (default on Ubuntu, it provides an alternative to the stock fullscreen app launcher with its awkwardly huge icons) really has great UI design. At least the statusbar controls, settings, file management, and basic apps like calculator. Not sure which parts you think are bad? (apart from the garbage stock app launcher, haha)
  - creesch 1y ago
    > GNOME 3 with the Canonical app launcher You are the second person I see adding this qualifier. In other words, it isn't all that great until modified. I get that you are also referencing other overall design paradigm. But the fact that such a, to so many people, essential piece is missing after so many years is just a bit odd to me. Granted, Gnome has improved over the years but there was a lot more missing that took a long time to get fixed and there is still a bunch of stuff that I think is user hostile. It is one thing to be opinionated about UI and UX, it is a whole other thing to look like you are actively fighting large parts of your user base. If we are talking about historical examples (since then mostly "fixed"): - No Minimize or Maximize Buttons out of the box. Early Gnome 3 versions only had a close button. To get the minimize and maximize buttons back, you had to use the third party Gnome tweak tool. Apparantly we all needed to get on the tiling or workspaces train. - No option for a visible taskbar of any kind. Not even a clear dock with running applications, you had to actively enter the activies overview to switch windows. - No ability to place icons on the desktop, at all. No files, no shortcuts. It was just there to have a pretty background. - Dropping support for any sort of system tray (notifications area) leaving no place for background apps like messaging clients, sync tools, etc. - The "where heck is my power off button?!" enigma, the system menu didn't have a power off button unless you knew to old the alt key. Then if we are talking about stuff that I think is still broken: - The hate for visible menus where every gnome app has a hamburger menu that is impossible to turn off in the native Gnome apps and as far as I know also doesn't really have a work around. - While great for customizing things, the fact that extensions are seen as essential is also problematic to me. Extensions can, and will, break with newer Gnome versions. This in turn leads to a less stable experience. - Nautilus is just a poor mans file manager as far as I am concerned. If I could help it I wouldn't use Gnome. But I can't escape it entirely due to work related shenigans.
    - freedomben 1y ago
      I'm a big fan of Gnome 3 and have been since (almost) the beginning (Gnome 3.4), and I think this is an extremely fair criticism/analysis. I agree with all of your criticisms (except we might quibble a bit on Nautilus, which I generally find pretty good but definitely not as feature-rich as some alternatives, so your point stands), although none of those have been deal-breakers for me personally. Despite my love for Gnome (and preference for over all others), there have definitely been frustrations over the years at design decisions and developer attitudes (lots of "I know better" and "you're using it wrong" which sometimes has it's place and within reason can be healthy, but in many cases I think was uncalled for). Still though, I think what the Gnome team has built is incredible
coldpie 1y ago
> The Gnome desktop churn was a bit of a headache ... lately I just use XFCE and call it a day Yeah, the desktop roller coaster is fun for a year or two, but eventually you get tired of constantly being jerked around for no reason so you switch to XFCE and everything just works and stays the same for decades. The PC desktop is a solved problem, and XFCE is the solution.
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  Yep. I did the same thing. Went through the usual dance of trying out gnome, hit the extension breakage(there's been many of them over the years I can't even tell you which one it was) and I moved to KDE. They changed a whole bunch of crap in one of the releases and everything moved around... Oh and latte dock broke. A bunch of other crap broke every now and then as well. Mind you this was all before they both moved to wayland. I moved to XFCE soon after and it's great. I found a random plugin with last commit 7 years ago and it works Just Fine today. I set up my desktop 3y ago and it works the exact same way today. I know all the screens I use by heart. It's great. Although I must say, I'm a sucker for animations and background blur and wobbly windows especially. Loved KDE for that. I wish I could have XFCE's stability + animations. Ah well.
- SequoiaHope 1y ago
  I stayed on the gnome train and it’s always interesting how it changes and sometimes makes no sense and sometimes it gets worse in ways that matter or are just annoying but mostly I like it. It works for me and I don’t have any interest in other window managers. It’s cute!
zozbot234 1y ago
GNOME's "tablet" approach actually works great on well-supported x86 hardware (either actual tablets or touchscreen laptops that can flip the screen for tablet use). It was truly state-of-the-art until quite recently, only surpassed by the new iPadOS 26 release.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Have a starlite tablet and can say no, not a single gnome video player works well with tablets. We lost so much functionality in the gnome 3 transition, and they didn’t even succeed at touch. Browser based video players work well with touch so the hardware is fine.
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    A funny part of this is several of these video players look like they are built for touch… lots of round corners and buttons. But when you try to use them most functionality is only available by keyboard.
- MisterTea 1y ago
  Thing is, I'm not a tablet user so those features dont mean anything to me. I also dont have a tablet save for a Surface Go I rarely use. My newest laptop is an old Lenovo x270 from 2012 or so.
freedomben 1y ago
> Gnome 3 took this weird tablet approach like Windows 8 did and it felt like they were playing "keeping up with the Jones's" instead of making a solid user experience. It definitely did feel like they were getting ready for mobile/tablets when they designed and released Gnome 3, but I felt they did (and do) a great job at making a fantastic desktop and mobile interface. I was a vocal advocate at the time basically saying, "Yes let's consider how it will work on mobile, but we can't compromise the desktop experience in pursuit of it." I do think they went a little too far on minimalism (for example, the lack of system tray to this day still irks me, and although I don't like to install extensions, that one is a must), but they did make a beautiful desktop that functioned very well for desktop/laptop use. The keyboard-driven nature makes it a joy for me, and the toolbar and hot corner make it very usable for a mouse-driven user. Even plain Gnome 3 is plenty usable, and among non-technical family members who I've installed Linux for, they generally love it and it's simplicity. For more power users, extensions are a thing (though I would agree the dev landscape for them is awful and it's in part because of the Gnome team's decisions). I would love to see them build in a system tray, and try to make the APIs more stable from release to release so extensions aren't on a constant treadmill of breakage.
- zerocrates 1y ago
  Really everything to do with the "Mac-envy" top bar is a miss: the removal of any other status icons without an extension, the now-aborted attempt to make applications define a single menu and render it up there, the vast oceans of space you're not allowed to use for anything.

DrewADesign 1y ago

I appreciate all open source work, but the gnome 3 UI definitely hit like an attempt to chase trends rather than improve usability. A lot of times, designers get pushed by team leadership to chase trendy paradigms and techniques because the leaders don’t want to feel like they’re out of date, but just like architectural changes in code, impetuous revamps cause problems that take time and testing to ferret out and address. Some of the design choices in Linux desktops over the years, however, just felt like ham-fisted amateur design. Who ever thought it was a good idea to have no visual feedback on a gui login screen while entering your password? Not even a password box, or anything saying “enter your password?” Something like that reeks of a cocky wannabe designer hearing a talk about reducing cognitive load by reducing unnecessary visual elements on a screen, probably figured “well the password doesn’t show up on the command line login, and if the password isn’t showing up, then why is a password box necessary” or something like that. Doing it right is harder than it looks.

edg5000 1y ago
I don't get that argument. GNOME 3 with the Canonical app launcher (default on Ubuntu, it provides an alternative to the stock fullscreen app launcher with its awkwardly huge icons) really has great UI design. At least the statusbar controls, settings, file management, and basic apps like calculator. Not sure which parts you think are bad? (apart from the garbage stock app launcher, haha)
- creesch 1y ago
  > GNOME 3 with the Canonical app launcher You are the second person I see adding this qualifier. In other words, it isn't all that great until modified. I get that you are also referencing other overall design paradigm. But the fact that such a, to so many people, essential piece is missing after so many years is just a bit odd to me. Granted, Gnome has improved over the years but there was a lot more missing that took a long time to get fixed and there is still a bunch of stuff that I think is user hostile. It is one thing to be opinionated about UI and UX, it is a whole other thing to look like you are actively fighting large parts of your user base. If we are talking about historical examples (since then mostly "fixed"): - No Minimize or Maximize Buttons out of the box. Early Gnome 3 versions only had a close button. To get the minimize and maximize buttons back, you had to use the third party Gnome tweak tool. Apparantly we all needed to get on the tiling or workspaces train. - No option for a visible taskbar of any kind. Not even a clear dock with running applications, you had to actively enter the activies overview to switch windows. - No ability to place icons on the desktop, at all. No files, no shortcuts. It was just there to have a pretty background. - Dropping support for any sort of system tray (notifications area) leaving no place for background apps like messaging clients, sync tools, etc. - The "where heck is my power off button?!" enigma, the system menu didn't have a power off button unless you knew to old the alt key. Then if we are talking about stuff that I think is still broken: - The hate for visible menus where every gnome app has a hamburger menu that is impossible to turn off in the native Gnome apps and as far as I know also doesn't really have a work around. - While great for customizing things, the fact that extensions are seen as essential is also problematic to me. Extensions can, and will, break with newer Gnome versions. This in turn leads to a less stable experience. - Nautilus is just a poor mans file manager as far as I am concerned. If I could help it I wouldn't use Gnome. But I can't escape it entirely due to work related shenigans.
  - freedomben 1y ago
    I'm a big fan of Gnome 3 and have been since (almost) the beginning (Gnome 3.4), and I think this is an extremely fair criticism/analysis. I agree with all of your criticisms (except we might quibble a bit on Nautilus, which I generally find pretty good but definitely not as feature-rich as some alternatives, so your point stands), although none of those have been deal-breakers for me personally. Despite my love for Gnome (and preference for over all others), there have definitely been frustrations over the years at design decisions and developer attitudes (lots of "I know better" and "you're using it wrong" which sometimes has it's place and within reason can be healthy, but in many cases I think was uncalled for). Still though, I think what the Gnome team has built is incredible

coldpie 1y ago

> The Gnome desktop churn was a bit of a headache ... lately I just use XFCE and call it a day Yeah, the desktop roller coaster is fun for a year or two, but eventually you get tired of constantly being jerked around for no reason so you switch to XFCE and everything just works and stays the same for decades. The PC desktop is a solved problem, and XFCE is the solution.

porridgeraisin 1y ago
Yep. I did the same thing. Went through the usual dance of trying out gnome, hit the extension breakage(there's been many of them over the years I can't even tell you which one it was) and I moved to KDE. They changed a whole bunch of crap in one of the releases and everything moved around... Oh and latte dock broke. A bunch of other crap broke every now and then as well. Mind you this was all before they both moved to wayland. I moved to XFCE soon after and it's great. I found a random plugin with last commit 7 years ago and it works Just Fine today. I set up my desktop 3y ago and it works the exact same way today. I know all the screens I use by heart. It's great. Although I must say, I'm a sucker for animations and background blur and wobbly windows especially. Loved KDE for that. I wish I could have XFCE's stability + animations. Ah well.
SequoiaHope 1y ago
I stayed on the gnome train and it’s always interesting how it changes and sometimes makes no sense and sometimes it gets worse in ways that matter or are just annoying but mostly I like it. It works for me and I don’t have any interest in other window managers. It’s cute!

zozbot234 1y ago

GNOME's "tablet" approach actually works great on well-supported x86 hardware (either actual tablets or touchscreen laptops that can flip the screen for tablet use). It was truly state-of-the-art until quite recently, only surpassed by the new iPadOS 26 release.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Have a starlite tablet and can say no, not a single gnome video player works well with tablets. We lost so much functionality in the gnome 3 transition, and they didn’t even succeed at touch. Browser based video players work well with touch so the hardware is fine.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  A funny part of this is several of these video players look like they are built for touch… lots of round corners and buttons. But when you try to use them most functionality is only available by keyboard.
MisterTea 1y ago
Thing is, I'm not a tablet user so those features dont mean anything to me. I also dont have a tablet save for a Surface Go I rarely use. My newest laptop is an old Lenovo x270 from 2012 or so.

freedomben 1y ago

> Gnome 3 took this weird tablet approach like Windows 8 did and it felt like they were playing "keeping up with the Jones's" instead of making a solid user experience. It definitely did feel like they were getting ready for mobile/tablets when they designed and released Gnome 3, but I felt they did (and do) a great job at making a fantastic desktop and mobile interface. I was a vocal advocate at the time basically saying, "Yes let's consider how it will work on mobile, but we can't compromise the desktop experience in pursuit of it." I do think they went a little too far on minimalism (for example, the lack of system tray to this day still irks me, and although I don't like to install extensions, that one is a must), but they did make a beautiful desktop that functioned very well for desktop/laptop use. The keyboard-driven nature makes it a joy for me, and the toolbar and hot corner make it very usable for a mouse-driven user. Even plain Gnome 3 is plenty usable, and among non-technical family members who I've installed Linux for, they generally love it and it's simplicity. For more power users, extensions are a thing (though I would agree the dev landscape for them is awful and it's in part because of the Gnome team's decisions). I would love to see them build in a system tray, and try to make the APIs more stable from release to release so extensions aren't on a constant treadmill of breakage.

zerocrates 1y ago
Really everything to do with the "Mac-envy" top bar is a miss: the removal of any other status icons without an extension, the now-aborted attempt to make applications define a single menu and render it up there, the vast oceans of space you're not allowed to use for anything.