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After losing faith in Unity (the workflow sucks) I reluctantly switched to Gnome Shell. Originally I thought I would have been back to Xfce or Openbox or Window

by kunai 14y ago

After losing faith in Unity (the workflow sucks) I reluctantly switched to Gnome Shell. Originally I thought I would have been back to Xfce or Openbox or WindowMaker in an instant. I was wrong. Gnome Shell has turned out to be quite the bit of kit. It's polished, fast, smooth, and now really stable. The workflow is also incredibly productive and fast. The only thing I miss is a minimize button, but because the workspace system is so great in Gnome Shell, I don't find myself wanting it all too often, and when I do, I just add another workspace or switch focus. It's amazing how much thought seems to have been put into this interface. It's equally amazing how many are so quick to shun it.

mixmastamyk 14y ago
For me the problem isn't so much the new stuff, but what is continually lost. For example, I was a heavy user of emblems and a frequent user of spatial mode, but they are now gone without replacement. I now stumble through hundreds of folders that all look the same. Want to change the colors they've chosen? No can do... but you know what could do that? Windows 3.1 (and basically every other OS since ~1990) could. :/ That gigantic new clocks app is less useful than the elegant Calendar/Locations dropdown from Gnome2. It's still around in classic-mode but it no longer stays open by default (dunno why). Five+ years ago I remember there were also helpful apps, like a "service control manager" gui, similar to the Windows MMC that actually worked. Oh, and Ubuntu removed sessions too. My experience is that the Linux desktop loses as much as it gains every year. Almost twenty years of work and it still feels like a 0.5 alpha. The SGI I worked on 20 years ago could save my session automatically for x-sake, and the GUI was about as good.
- krakensden 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure those were the RedHat system-* apps, and I think RedHat and Fedora still ship those.
  - mixmastamyk 14y ago
    Sounds right, but I've used Ubuntu on the desktop for the last several years (after switching from Gentoo in the mid 2000's)... have not used RH/f much outside of VMs. Maybe I'll give fedora/rhel7 another hard look and/or a rev or two of gnome.
- anonymous 14y ago
  Have you tried the latest KDE? It's very customisable and hasn't crashed or required manual restart for me once in the last 3 years, even when I leave it running for days. Edit: It also has session-saving support.
  - mixmastamyk 14y ago
    I did try it again (after many years) just last month, unfortunately I find it hideous and cluttered, even after an hour or two of tweaking. You're right it should be the answer, but I felt deeply unhappy using it. (My problem I know).
u2328 14y ago
You can re-enable the minimize button using the Gnome Tweak Tool without too much trouble. Admittedly, I think that button should be enabled by default, and it is annoying to have to install a different package, but the option is available.
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  gnome-shell doesn't have a minimize button because it doesn't have an application list for the window to minimize to; minimized windows just disappear. You can only find them in the activities overview or the alt-tab list. Also note that you can still minimize a window by right-clicking on the title bar and choosing "minimize"; you just don't have a button for it.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    > ...minimized windows just disappear. You can only find them in the activities overview or the alt-tab list. ... which is actually really cool. They're still very easily accessible (a single mouse-flip or keyboard sequence away), but completely out of sight when I'm not using them. The windows-style task-bar with 75 bazillion unreadable entries always seemed pretty annoying (and often unusable when any number of apps are open); Gnome 3 does things much more elegantly. That's one of the things I really like about gnome 3 / gnome-shell: it mostly stays in the background out of my way, but is quickly available when I want it.
dvirsky 14y ago
This. I really love Gnome 3, and I really don't get all the bad vibe it's been getting. With a few extensions you can get back pretty much everything you might miss about it, and it's really slick and stable (especially compared to KDE).
old-gregg 14y ago
Are you talking specifically about this version? If so, how hard/possible is it to install Gnome 3.8 on top of an existing X, say under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS? Thanks!
- kunai 14y ago
  I'm on 3.6 right now; so I can't comment. I don't think it would be too difficult, though. ./configure make make install
- voltagex_ 14y ago
  For 13, there's also https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3 https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3 You may be able to use the source packages to build 3.8 for your current version.
Yaa101 14y ago
If you install gnome tweak tool then you can set all buttons to the title bar of your windows, except for the menu button on the left side. As extension developer I agree with your sentiment, all the missing parts are slowly returning, Gnome 3 shell is not bad, it was just put out to the world way too early. I was very critical when I saw the first versions of gnome shell but things are really going well for it. It has many development languages to choose from like Python, C, C++, Vala and even Javascript. It uses CSS as styling. Several backends to output to X, Wayland coming, HTML (which is impressive and good use when owncloud is integrated). Soon you can use your desktop everywhere not like VNC but realtime.
dbaupp 14y ago
It's not that stable: I'm running 3.2 and it is full of memory leaks, to the point that I have to restart it every so often when it's using upward of 700MB of ram. Other than that, I agree. It can be hid away nicely so that u can work in full screen bliss, and the extension ecosystem looks like it could rival Firefox interms of variety. (Edit: maybe the leaks are caused by the extensions I'm running, and hopefully it gets better in later versions.)
- sciurus 14y ago
  FWIW, there have been several releases that may have addressed this. 3.0 April 2011 3.2 September 2011 3.4 March 2012 3.6 September 2012 3.8 March 2013
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- donniezazen 14y ago
  Gnome has improved much since 3.2.
snogglethorpe 14y ago
> The only thing I miss is a minimize button, You can easily add a minimize button to gnome 3 — somewhere in the various configuration settings, there's a "title bar layout" parameter which lets you set specify which buttons to use, and where to put them (roughly). [...rummages around...] Ah, try the following in a shell to get the classic Apple Mac button layout; other variations should be obvious: gsettings set org.gnome.shell.overrides button-layout close:minimize,maximize [The equivalent GUI app is "dconf-editor"]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

by kunai 14y ago

mixmastamyk 14y ago

For me the problem isn't so much the new stuff, but what is continually lost. For example, I was a heavy user of emblems and a frequent user of spatial mode, but they are now gone without replacement. I now stumble through hundreds of folders that all look the same. Want to change the colors they've chosen? No can do... but you know what could do that? Windows 3.1 (and basically every other OS since ~1990) could. :/ That gigantic new clocks app is less useful than the elegant Calendar/Locations dropdown from Gnome2. It's still around in classic-mode but it no longer stays open by default (dunno why). Five+ years ago I remember there were also helpful apps, like a "service control manager" gui, similar to the Windows MMC that actually worked. Oh, and Ubuntu removed sessions too. My experience is that the Linux desktop loses as much as it gains every year. Almost twenty years of work and it still feels like a 0.5 alpha. The SGI I worked on 20 years ago could save my session automatically for x-sake, and the GUI was about as good.

krakensden 14y ago
I'm pretty sure those were the RedHat system-* apps, and I think RedHat and Fedora still ship those.
- mixmastamyk 14y ago
  Sounds right, but I've used Ubuntu on the desktop for the last several years (after switching from Gentoo in the mid 2000's)... have not used RH/f much outside of VMs. Maybe I'll give fedora/rhel7 another hard look and/or a rev or two of gnome.
anonymous 14y ago
Have you tried the latest KDE? It's very customisable and hasn't crashed or required manual restart for me once in the last 3 years, even when I leave it running for days. Edit: It also has session-saving support.
- mixmastamyk 14y ago
  I did try it again (after many years) just last month, unfortunately I find it hideous and cluttered, even after an hour or two of tweaking. You're right it should be the answer, but I felt deeply unhappy using it. (My problem I know).

u2328 14y ago

You can re-enable the minimize button using the Gnome Tweak Tool without too much trouble. Admittedly, I think that button should be enabled by default, and it is annoying to have to install a different package, but the option is available.

JoshTriplett 14y ago
gnome-shell doesn't have a minimize button because it doesn't have an application list for the window to minimize to; minimized windows just disappear. You can only find them in the activities overview or the alt-tab list. Also note that you can still minimize a window by right-clicking on the title bar and choosing "minimize"; you just don't have a button for it.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  > ...minimized windows just disappear. You can only find them in the activities overview or the alt-tab list. ... which is actually really cool. They're still very easily accessible (a single mouse-flip or keyboard sequence away), but completely out of sight when I'm not using them. The windows-style task-bar with 75 bazillion unreadable entries always seemed pretty annoying (and often unusable when any number of apps are open); Gnome 3 does things much more elegantly. That's one of the things I really like about gnome 3 / gnome-shell: it mostly stays in the background out of my way, but is quickly available when I want it.

dvirsky 14y ago

This. I really love Gnome 3, and I really don't get all the bad vibe it's been getting. With a few extensions you can get back pretty much everything you might miss about it, and it's really slick and stable (especially compared to KDE).

old-gregg 14y ago

Are you talking specifically about this version? If so, how hard/possible is it to install Gnome 3.8 on top of an existing X, say under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS? Thanks!

kunai 14y ago
I'm on 3.6 right now; so I can't comment. I don't think it would be too difficult, though. ./configure make make install
voltagex_ 14y ago
For 13, there's also https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3 https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3 You may be able to use the source packages to build 3.8 for your current version.

Yaa101 14y ago

If you install gnome tweak tool then you can set all buttons to the title bar of your windows, except for the menu button on the left side. As extension developer I agree with your sentiment, all the missing parts are slowly returning, Gnome 3 shell is not bad, it was just put out to the world way too early. I was very critical when I saw the first versions of gnome shell but things are really going well for it. It has many development languages to choose from like Python, C, C++, Vala and even Javascript. It uses CSS as styling. Several backends to output to X, Wayland coming, HTML (which is impressive and good use when owncloud is integrated). Soon you can use your desktop everywhere not like VNC but realtime.

dbaupp 14y ago

It's not that stable: I'm running 3.2 and it is full of memory leaks, to the point that I have to restart it every so often when it's using upward of 700MB of ram. Other than that, I agree. It can be hid away nicely so that u can work in full screen bliss, and the extension ecosystem looks like it could rival Firefox interms of variety. (Edit: maybe the leaks are caused by the extensions I'm running, and hopefully it gets better in later versions.)

sciurus 14y ago
FWIW, there have been several releases that may have addressed this. 3.0 April 2011 3.2 September 2011 3.4 March 2012 3.6 September 2012 3.8 March 2013
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
donniezazen 14y ago
Gnome has improved much since 3.2.

snogglethorpe 14y ago

> The only thing I miss is a minimize button, You can easily add a minimize button to gnome 3 — somewhere in the various configuration settings, there's a "title bar layout" parameter which lets you set specify which buttons to use, and where to put them (roughly). [...rummages around...] Ah, try the following in a shell to get the classic Apple Mac button layout; other variations should be obvious: gsettings set org.gnome.shell.overrides button-layout close:minimize,maximize [The equivalent GUI app is "dconf-editor"]

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]