5 ms·

Why do we still put up with GNOME? I've spent the last 10 years off and on from Linux. Had I used something other than GNOME, I believe my experience would hav

Why do we still put up with GNOME? I've spent the last 10 years off and on from Linux. Had I used something other than GNOME, I believe my experience would have been better. I've been on KDE for the last 3-4 years and things work so well I could never imagine going back to GNOME.

XorNot 5mo ago
Because Cinnamon exists and has a delightful commitment to functional minimalism.
SkiFire13 5mo ago
> Why do we still put up with GNOME? Because maybe not all people have the same preferences as you?
- dijit 5mo ago
  Preferences don't form in a vacuum though. There's a perception that GNOME is the "good environment" which means its decisions get treated as more important than other DEs' when things change: and that's somewhat self-reinforcing. Distro: "The most used DE needs first class support, we should probably bend to it" → Distro: "We should probably make this DE the default since it's so widely used and supported" → User: "I choose the default" → Distro: "The most used DE…" So yes, people have different preferences; but if your preference is GNOME today, it might not be GNOME tomorrow, and "I picked the default" isn't quite the neutral signal it looks like.
  - tuna74 5mo ago
    A desktop/workstation/whatever should have a graphical user interface. If you want another GUI you can choose another distro (like Kubuntu etc).
    - dijit 5mo ago
      where exactly did I say anything contrary to what you said. Are you implying that GNOME is the only thing that should be considered graphical? That everything else has to be an alternative? That GNOME, by virtue of existing has infinite reprieve to change the definition of user interfaces at their leisure; even if it means breaking muscle memory hundreds of thousands of times over decades. I don’t follow the point of what you said.
      - tuna74 5mo ago
        Ubuntu can have one GUI and Kubuntu can have another. Every distro can't be everything for every person.
        dijit 5mo ago
        Lets put KDE as the default for Ubuntu and have GNOME available on Gnubuntu instead. :)
        tuna74 5mo ago
        If you run Ubuntu you are free to do what you want with it.
  - SkiFire13 5mo ago
    I'm not sure about this. In general I see more criticism of GNOME than praise, so if anything the perception would be that GNOME is not a good DE.
- pizza234 5mo ago
  There's much more to the story. GNOME is a sort of authoritarian organization known for their antisocial behavior: https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotti... (and there's much, much more). Since GNOME is the default Ubuntu DE, they have a certain responsibily to listen to the users/devs and leave the system open (to an extent). But their direction is the opposite: https://web.archive.org/web/20210901171117/https://twitter.com/jeremy_soller/status/1433088460655452162 https://web.archive.org/web/20210901171117/https://twitter.c... They've been doing massive reduction in functionalities, really insane like limiting copy/past of terminals just to the current screen (which hurts any sysadmin), generally without any way to enable them back. I haven't heard of any other OSS organization trying so hard to limit freedom of their users/devs, and this is an explicit goal - they don't want to weaken their brand. GNOME is nothing short of the Oracle of open source.
  - amadeuspagel 5mo ago
    A distro making your project the default doesn't give you any responsibility.
    - jamiejquinn 5mo ago
      I fundamentally agree with you. I don't think responsibility is quite the right word. But if they don't seem to care about a massive portion of their users, why are they building gnome at all?
      - dandellion 5mo ago
        I agree that responsibility is the wrong word, but I've also noticed there's certainly some form of expectation, social responsibility, or care that other projects have and gnome has always lacked. When I started using Linux it was the desktop I liked the most, but some of the choices seem almost hostile or intentionally designed to drive current users away, and unlike most other projects I've used, I've never seen them listen or make improvements based on any feedback from users.
jhoechtl 5mo ago
I find it hilarious how much religion is put into Gnome vs. KDE in this case. I did use both. I honestly have no strong favourite. After that many years of Linux desktop environment DE hopping I came to the conslusion that the DE should get out of your way and allow you to focus on your work. Both Gnome and KDE support that. Actually Gnome a tad better as it gives you less knobs to turn an waste your time. Accept the defaults and if defaults are bad move somewhere else.
- NGRhodes 5mo ago
  I pick the software best for my uses and then look at which desktop supports that software and workflows around them the best. Not always clear/clean selections possible in my situation - I've a jumble of GUI designs and frameworks used, so I favour a more agnostic desktop.
- pizza234 5mo ago
  > I came to the conslusion that the DE should get out of your way and allow you to focus on your work. This is the exact problem of GNOME; they routinely drop a lot of useful functionality, often irreversibly. So [for power users] GNOME absolutely gets in the way of the user.
rawoke083600 5mo ago
Been a long time i3 user. Usually works well if you put in the initial time. But of late been very happy with Xubuntu (xfce)
- phyalow 5mo ago
  I use XFCE too, simple and doesn’t get in the way.
- arcanemachiner 5mo ago
  Why not both? XFCE + i3 make a great pair.
- ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
  I had to migrate away from Xubuntu (xfce) due to the poor HiDPI support. Kubuntu (KDE/Plasma) is now my current desktop of choice.
reacweb 5mo ago
I think power users are not the main target of Ubuntu. I have put my parents on Ubuntu (gnome) in 2013 to replace windows XP. My mother is 88 now. I think it is the perfect fit for her (dad is dead years ago). I use ubuntu gnome because tweaking my computer is not where I want to spend my time. YOLO. Using a "mainstream" desktop that can be explained to "non specialist" has its benefits. I accept to suffer some annoyances and there is always a way to fix the most annoying ones by sacrificing time.
- wao0uuno 5mo ago
  >I think power users are not the main target of Ubuntu. Then who is? Normies buy iPads and casuals stay on Windows. Is this why Linux can't gain any market share?
  - reacweb 5mo ago
    IMHO, Ubuntu is trying to gain market share by targeting non-experts — making Linux simple enough for normies and casual users. Casual users are generally less likely to mess things up on Ubuntu than on Windows.
    - lproven 5mo ago
      Yup. And this is no bad thing.
    - ndiddy 5mo ago
      Every time I run Ubuntu on a computer it always ends up in a state where it does not boot after a few months. This has happened on multiple computers, none with nVidia GPUs, over a period of a bit over 15 years. I don't do anything funny with my computers. No custom kernel, no weird kernel modules, no trying to shoehorn in 3rd party repos intended for Debian, etc. The last time I tried was last year, when I got a new job and my work laptop came with Ubuntu 24.04. Sure enough, after a few months an update made it unable to boot. I have not had this problem with any other distro. I switched the laptop to Fedora and it's worked perfectly fine. This makes me question the logic of trying to give Ubuntu to novice computer users.
_blk 5mo ago
Glad you like yours. I like (Vanilla) Gnome + PaperWM. But seriously why would they disabled the middle mouse copy paste buffer by default? Anyways, gnome tweaks to the rescue I guess
SadTrombone 5mo ago
Who is "we"? I find GNOME great. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of people disparaging free open source software that they've never contributed anything to, either money or code.
reddalo 5mo ago
I agree. GNOME used to be perfect, now it looks and feels like it's been designed by someone who's never used a computer. I wish Ubuntu would just give up with GNOME and switch to something more sensible.
- tuna74 5mo ago
  You can use something else. Kubuntu might be nice for you.
  - reddalo 5mo ago
    Yes, I've migrated to Kubuntu first and now I'm enjoying Linux Mint. The Cinnamon environment gives me old-school GNOME vibes. And Mint doesn't have Snap, which is also a big plus.
globalnode 5mo ago
UI designers got it right with a taskbar on the bottom and widgets to let you know what you have open at a glance without having to move the mouse across the screen or press buttons. For a multi-application PC desktop thats the right model. Not for phones ofc, they need a different model. Trying to force the phone model on the desktop PC model just doesnt make sense, not now, not then, not ever. edit: grammar, also Cinnamon fixes these issues thankfully.
pixxel 5mo ago
[dead]
tracker1 5mo ago
Part of why I've been pretty happy with COSMIC, even if a bit experimental in ways. The File Manager is probably the most quirky part for me... mostly it works fine though. Most of my other issues seem to be more about the wayland switch than anything specific to COSMIC.
tuna74 5mo ago
You don't have to "put up" with Gnome. Use whatever you want.

XorNot 5mo ago

Because Cinnamon exists and has a delightful commitment to functional minimalism.

SkiFire13 5mo ago

> Why do we still put up with GNOME? Because maybe not all people have the same preferences as you?

dijit 5mo ago
Preferences don't form in a vacuum though. There's a perception that GNOME is the "good environment" which means its decisions get treated as more important than other DEs' when things change: and that's somewhat self-reinforcing. Distro: "The most used DE needs first class support, we should probably bend to it" → Distro: "We should probably make this DE the default since it's so widely used and supported" → User: "I choose the default" → Distro: "The most used DE…" So yes, people have different preferences; but if your preference is GNOME today, it might not be GNOME tomorrow, and "I picked the default" isn't quite the neutral signal it looks like.
- tuna74 5mo ago
  A desktop/workstation/whatever should have a graphical user interface. If you want another GUI you can choose another distro (like Kubuntu etc).
  - dijit 5mo ago
    where exactly did I say anything contrary to what you said. Are you implying that GNOME is the only thing that should be considered graphical? That everything else has to be an alternative? That GNOME, by virtue of existing has infinite reprieve to change the definition of user interfaces at their leisure; even if it means breaking muscle memory hundreds of thousands of times over decades. I don’t follow the point of what you said.
    - tuna74 5mo ago
      Ubuntu can have one GUI and Kubuntu can have another. Every distro can't be everything for every person.
      - dijit 5mo ago
        Lets put KDE as the default for Ubuntu and have GNOME available on Gnubuntu instead. :)
        tuna74 5mo ago
        If you run Ubuntu you are free to do what you want with it.
- SkiFire13 5mo ago
  I'm not sure about this. In general I see more criticism of GNOME than praise, so if anything the perception would be that GNOME is not a good DE.
pizza234 5mo ago
There's much more to the story. GNOME is a sort of authoritarian organization known for their antisocial behavior: https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotti... (and there's much, much more). Since GNOME is the default Ubuntu DE, they have a certain responsibily to listen to the users/devs and leave the system open (to an extent). But their direction is the opposite: https://web.archive.org/web/20210901171117/https://twitter.com/jeremy_soller/status/1433088460655452162 https://web.archive.org/web/20210901171117/https://twitter.c... They've been doing massive reduction in functionalities, really insane like limiting copy/past of terminals just to the current screen (which hurts any sysadmin), generally without any way to enable them back. I haven't heard of any other OSS organization trying so hard to limit freedom of their users/devs, and this is an explicit goal - they don't want to weaken their brand. GNOME is nothing short of the Oracle of open source.
- amadeuspagel 5mo ago
  A distro making your project the default doesn't give you any responsibility.
  - jamiejquinn 5mo ago
    I fundamentally agree with you. I don't think responsibility is quite the right word. But if they don't seem to care about a massive portion of their users, why are they building gnome at all?
    - dandellion 5mo ago
      I agree that responsibility is the wrong word, but I've also noticed there's certainly some form of expectation, social responsibility, or care that other projects have and gnome has always lacked. When I started using Linux it was the desktop I liked the most, but some of the choices seem almost hostile or intentionally designed to drive current users away, and unlike most other projects I've used, I've never seen them listen or make improvements based on any feedback from users.

jhoechtl 5mo ago

I find it hilarious how much religion is put into Gnome vs. KDE in this case. I did use both. I honestly have no strong favourite. After that many years of Linux desktop environment DE hopping I came to the conslusion that the DE should get out of your way and allow you to focus on your work. Both Gnome and KDE support that. Actually Gnome a tad better as it gives you less knobs to turn an waste your time. Accept the defaults and if defaults are bad move somewhere else.

NGRhodes 5mo ago
I pick the software best for my uses and then look at which desktop supports that software and workflows around them the best. Not always clear/clean selections possible in my situation - I've a jumble of GUI designs and frameworks used, so I favour a more agnostic desktop.
pizza234 5mo ago
> I came to the conslusion that the DE should get out of your way and allow you to focus on your work. This is the exact problem of GNOME; they routinely drop a lot of useful functionality, often irreversibly. So [for power users] GNOME absolutely gets in the way of the user.

rawoke083600 5mo ago

Been a long time i3 user. Usually works well if you put in the initial time. But of late been very happy with Xubuntu (xfce)

phyalow 5mo ago
I use XFCE too, simple and doesn’t get in the way.
arcanemachiner 5mo ago
Why not both? XFCE + i3 make a great pair.
ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
I had to migrate away from Xubuntu (xfce) due to the poor HiDPI support. Kubuntu (KDE/Plasma) is now my current desktop of choice.

reacweb 5mo ago

I think power users are not the main target of Ubuntu. I have put my parents on Ubuntu (gnome) in 2013 to replace windows XP. My mother is 88 now. I think it is the perfect fit for her (dad is dead years ago). I use ubuntu gnome because tweaking my computer is not where I want to spend my time. YOLO. Using a "mainstream" desktop that can be explained to "non specialist" has its benefits. I accept to suffer some annoyances and there is always a way to fix the most annoying ones by sacrificing time.

wao0uuno 5mo ago
>I think power users are not the main target of Ubuntu. Then who is? Normies buy iPads and casuals stay on Windows. Is this why Linux can't gain any market share?
- reacweb 5mo ago
  IMHO, Ubuntu is trying to gain market share by targeting non-experts — making Linux simple enough for normies and casual users. Casual users are generally less likely to mess things up on Ubuntu than on Windows.
  - lproven 5mo ago
    Yup. And this is no bad thing.
  - ndiddy 5mo ago
    Every time I run Ubuntu on a computer it always ends up in a state where it does not boot after a few months. This has happened on multiple computers, none with nVidia GPUs, over a period of a bit over 15 years. I don't do anything funny with my computers. No custom kernel, no weird kernel modules, no trying to shoehorn in 3rd party repos intended for Debian, etc. The last time I tried was last year, when I got a new job and my work laptop came with Ubuntu 24.04. Sure enough, after a few months an update made it unable to boot. I have not had this problem with any other distro. I switched the laptop to Fedora and it's worked perfectly fine. This makes me question the logic of trying to give Ubuntu to novice computer users.

_blk 5mo ago

Glad you like yours. I like (Vanilla) Gnome + PaperWM. But seriously why would they disabled the middle mouse copy paste buffer by default? Anyways, gnome tweaks to the rescue I guess

SadTrombone 5mo ago

Who is "we"? I find GNOME great. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of people disparaging free open source software that they've never contributed anything to, either money or code.

reddalo 5mo ago

I agree. GNOME used to be perfect, now it looks and feels like it's been designed by someone who's never used a computer. I wish Ubuntu would just give up with GNOME and switch to something more sensible.

tuna74 5mo ago
You can use something else. Kubuntu might be nice for you.
- reddalo 5mo ago
  Yes, I've migrated to Kubuntu first and now I'm enjoying Linux Mint. The Cinnamon environment gives me old-school GNOME vibes. And Mint doesn't have Snap, which is also a big plus.

globalnode 5mo ago

UI designers got it right with a taskbar on the bottom and widgets to let you know what you have open at a glance without having to move the mouse across the screen or press buttons. For a multi-application PC desktop thats the right model. Not for phones ofc, they need a different model. Trying to force the phone model on the desktop PC model just doesnt make sense, not now, not then, not ever. edit: grammar, also Cinnamon fixes these issues thankfully.

pixxel 5mo ago

[dead]

tracker1 5mo ago

Part of why I've been pretty happy with COSMIC, even if a bit experimental in ways. The File Manager is probably the most quirky part for me... mostly it works fine though. Most of my other issues seem to be more about the wayland switch than anything specific to COSMIC.

tuna74 5mo ago

You don't have to "put up" with Gnome. Use whatever you want.