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I don't understand these posts. More, I dislike them a lot. Gnome 3 rants are boring. Yes, people don't like the way the project moves. Some of those are very

I don't understand these posts. More, I dislike them a lot. Gnome 3 rants are boring. Yes, people don't like the way the project moves. Some of those are very vocal and outspoken. Some rant on a blog. The thing is: Either the author cares about the Gnome project, in which case this is _no_ constructive way to put it (Hey, why don't you work on a better legacy mode? Propose a Gnome Shell extension API?). No, the 'But I tried it before, over and over, and they don't listen' argument is no excuse. Or the author just does't like the project and wants to bash it. In that case posts like this one might make some weird kind of sense, but I yawn skimming them, hit flag on news aggregators like this and wish the author good luck with a Gnome 2 fork or a different DE of his choosing. Hi, my name is Ben and I'm a happy Gnome 3 user. I'm sure there are others out there like me. Maybe we need to shout more? That would certainly remove stupid 'Google suggestions' arguments or 'of all the people that took this weird poll, x % hate Gnome 3' pseudo-statistics from future rants.

dkhenry 13y ago
As a fellow happy Gnome 3 user I think the problem is no one complains about what works for them. It took a bit to get used to, but now I find all other environments lacking.
- jamesgeck0 13y ago
  Similar thing here. I wanted a taskbar for a while, until I installed an extension that put it back and realized how clunky it felt. I love the combined launcher/virtual-desktop/expose screen. The vanilla experience is pretty great. I love how much the environment gets out of your way and doesn't bother you. The instant message notification that can be ignored, or answered briefly and ignored. The lack of noise. It feels like an alternate history version of the Mac OS X Finder; my workflow transitioned with very few changes when I started using OS X at work.
  - runeks 13y ago
    Interesting. One question: does it feel "fast"/responsive? That's one of the things I value the most in a DE. Unity doesn't live up to my standards regarding this.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    Now you're making me want to try it.
- blacksmith_tb 13y ago
  I am surprised by the polarization, really - I have been using Gnome 3 on two machines for the last few months, and it works fine, though that doesn't mean I don't have a few complaints. But I don't expect it to be magically perfect - no other OS / wm I use regularly is either. I don't find Unity unusable, or Cinnamon or Mate, I just haven't liked any of them so much I'd switch (partly there's inertia at work here, I am sure I if I had to use any of them exclusively I'd have a better grasp of their strengths and weaknesses).
  - darklajid 13y ago
    You're a voice of reason. In another part of this discussion I compare the choice of your DE preference with the holy wars of VI vs. emacs. Obviously, of course, no DE is perfect. Gnome 3 is no exception. The polarization is, in parts at least, caused by the vocal group of complainers. I certainly reflect and understand enough to know that I might widen the gap here, but I have had enough of these 'Gnome 3 is stupid' (or for that matter: 'Windows 8 is a joke') posts with little (constructive, usable, meaningful) content. Again: Look at the article: If you don't argue against it, the 'Everyone hates Gnome 3' and 'Even Google suggests that everyone considers Gnome 3 a failure' arguments will strive. That's insane, stupid and needs to end. So - polarization is necessary. The loud 'Gnome 3 sucks' (minority?) group wins by default, otherwise.
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
I've used Gnome since version 0.9 - or whatever they called that first hackish alpha release. A few weeks ago I've switched to KDE (Kubuntu). Gnome was just unbearable. The reasons are described in the article.
- darklajid 13y ago
  That's cool. Move on. Use what is best for you. I could ask you if you use vi or emacs or which Linux distribution you fancy, but really? I don't care. It's important for you to find things that work for you. People online will disagree, argue, try to convince you that you're mistaken and wrong. It's your setup alone. Open source projects hopefully fullfil most of your needs, one way or another. But you have to pick from these free offerings according to your own preferences and taste. You did the right thing: Gnome 3 was unbearable for you and you moved on, found a better solution. Please, just don't sling mud at a project for failing to align with your goals. It was a relationship that didn't work out. Move on, remember the good times and .. never write blog posts like the OP?
  - felipec 13y ago
    > That's cool. Move on. Use what is best for you. You didn't understand the point of the article. Breaking user-experience is the absolute worst thing any software project could do. It goes against the "Linux way".
    - darklajid 13y ago
      Actually there is no point - imo. The people that "broke" (hey, see the quotes?) the user experience you expected and liked are the people that steer the project. They are free to do that, just like any company is free to (drastically? I don't quite think that's the case here, but let's go with it) change their product. You have some benefits, though: - You didn't pay a dime. Sure, you might've invested time learning to use Gnome 2 to your utmost satisfaction. You might've spent a good amount of hours to configure it to your liking. The product though? You got it for free and without any contract stating that your personal workflow would work in every future version, that your preferences are important to the project goals. - You got the source. People complain just the same about WIndows 8 and they are stuck. Unless they find a way to jump to a totally different OS or stay in the past forever, they'll have to swallow the (imo not thaaat bad) changes. Maybe they can install some workarounds. You? You can enjoy a multitude of alternatives. You don't need to move away from your favorite applications. You can even, in fact, install one of the Gnome 2 forks (think Mint etc.) and imagine that Gnome 3 never happened. You're not without options. Posting stuff like this rant on your blog? That's not helpful. You cannot seriously believe that this will change a thing. People that don't agree with you are going to sadly shake their heads. Gnome (3) developers are not even going to _read_ your blog, based on your way to communicate. You reach only the people that already agreed with you in the first place. I'm sure you guys could have a good time in a bar, sharing complaints about ways Gnome 3 broke the user experience for you. But .. don't even start to believe that you represent all of the Gnome user base, much less the majority. Putting everything that obviously divides us beside: Can you explain in 2-3 sentences what you'd hope to archive with that post of yours, the way you present your arguments? Is there any serious agenda, or is that just a way to blow off steam?
campbellmorgan 13y ago
I totally agree with you. Gnome 3 is a brave departure from xp-style desktops and that's inevitably going to irk die-hard fans of the previous versions or people who love to tweak ad infinitum, but I find it a far more pleasurable experience than Unity and much more fluid than other menu-oriented desktops. Non-linux users I have shown Gnome 3 too are not only generally impressed, but also pick it up very very quickly.In my opinion, that's a real achievement.

dkhenry 13y ago

As a fellow happy Gnome 3 user I think the problem is no one complains about what works for them. It took a bit to get used to, but now I find all other environments lacking.

jamesgeck0 13y ago
Similar thing here. I wanted a taskbar for a while, until I installed an extension that put it back and realized how clunky it felt. I love the combined launcher/virtual-desktop/expose screen. The vanilla experience is pretty great. I love how much the environment gets out of your way and doesn't bother you. The instant message notification that can be ignored, or answered briefly and ignored. The lack of noise. It feels like an alternate history version of the Mac OS X Finder; my workflow transitioned with very few changes when I started using OS X at work.
- runeks 13y ago
  Interesting. One question: does it feel "fast"/responsive? That's one of the things I value the most in a DE. Unity doesn't live up to my standards regarding this.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  Now you're making me want to try it.
blacksmith_tb 13y ago
I am surprised by the polarization, really - I have been using Gnome 3 on two machines for the last few months, and it works fine, though that doesn't mean I don't have a few complaints. But I don't expect it to be magically perfect - no other OS / wm I use regularly is either. I don't find Unity unusable, or Cinnamon or Mate, I just haven't liked any of them so much I'd switch (partly there's inertia at work here, I am sure I if I had to use any of them exclusively I'd have a better grasp of their strengths and weaknesses).
- darklajid 13y ago
  You're a voice of reason. In another part of this discussion I compare the choice of your DE preference with the holy wars of VI vs. emacs. Obviously, of course, no DE is perfect. Gnome 3 is no exception. The polarization is, in parts at least, caused by the vocal group of complainers. I certainly reflect and understand enough to know that I might widen the gap here, but I have had enough of these 'Gnome 3 is stupid' (or for that matter: 'Windows 8 is a joke') posts with little (constructive, usable, meaningful) content. Again: Look at the article: If you don't argue against it, the 'Everyone hates Gnome 3' and 'Even Google suggests that everyone considers Gnome 3 a failure' arguments will strive. That's insane, stupid and needs to end. So - polarization is necessary. The loud 'Gnome 3 sucks' (minority?) group wins by default, otherwise.

Florin_Andrei 13y ago

I've used Gnome since version 0.9 - or whatever they called that first hackish alpha release. A few weeks ago I've switched to KDE (Kubuntu). Gnome was just unbearable. The reasons are described in the article.

darklajid 13y ago
That's cool. Move on. Use what is best for you. I could ask you if you use vi or emacs or which Linux distribution you fancy, but really? I don't care. It's important for you to find things that work for you. People online will disagree, argue, try to convince you that you're mistaken and wrong. It's your setup alone. Open source projects hopefully fullfil most of your needs, one way or another. But you have to pick from these free offerings according to your own preferences and taste. You did the right thing: Gnome 3 was unbearable for you and you moved on, found a better solution. Please, just don't sling mud at a project for failing to align with your goals. It was a relationship that didn't work out. Move on, remember the good times and .. never write blog posts like the OP?
- felipec 13y ago
  > That's cool. Move on. Use what is best for you. You didn't understand the point of the article. Breaking user-experience is the absolute worst thing any software project could do. It goes against the "Linux way".
  - darklajid 13y ago
    Actually there is no point - imo. The people that "broke" (hey, see the quotes?) the user experience you expected and liked are the people that steer the project. They are free to do that, just like any company is free to (drastically? I don't quite think that's the case here, but let's go with it) change their product. You have some benefits, though: - You didn't pay a dime. Sure, you might've invested time learning to use Gnome 2 to your utmost satisfaction. You might've spent a good amount of hours to configure it to your liking. The product though? You got it for free and without any contract stating that your personal workflow would work in every future version, that your preferences are important to the project goals. - You got the source. People complain just the same about WIndows 8 and they are stuck. Unless they find a way to jump to a totally different OS or stay in the past forever, they'll have to swallow the (imo not thaaat bad) changes. Maybe they can install some workarounds. You? You can enjoy a multitude of alternatives. You don't need to move away from your favorite applications. You can even, in fact, install one of the Gnome 2 forks (think Mint etc.) and imagine that Gnome 3 never happened. You're not without options. Posting stuff like this rant on your blog? That's not helpful. You cannot seriously believe that this will change a thing. People that don't agree with you are going to sadly shake their heads. Gnome (3) developers are not even going to _read_ your blog, based on your way to communicate. You reach only the people that already agreed with you in the first place. I'm sure you guys could have a good time in a bar, sharing complaints about ways Gnome 3 broke the user experience for you. But .. don't even start to believe that you represent all of the Gnome user base, much less the majority. Putting everything that obviously divides us beside: Can you explain in 2-3 sentences what you'd hope to archive with that post of yours, the way you present your arguments? Is there any serious agenda, or is that just a way to blow off steam?

campbellmorgan 13y ago

I totally agree with you. Gnome 3 is a brave departure from xp-style desktops and that's inevitably going to irk die-hard fans of the previous versions or people who love to tweak ad infinitum, but I find it a far more pleasurable experience than Unity and much more fluid than other menu-oriented desktops. Non-linux users I have shown Gnome 3 too are not only generally impressed, but also pick it up very very quickly.In my opinion, that's a real achievement.