10 ms·

People who are using GNOME 3: how is the experience for you? I personally switched to Xfce from GNOME 2 when GNOME 3 came out and I don't think I am going back,

by thex86 13y ago

People who are using GNOME 3: how is the experience for you? I personally switched to Xfce from GNOME 2 when GNOME 3 came out and I don't think I am going back, but it will be good to see how the experience has been, given the negativity that surrounds it.

adrianlmm 13y ago
Depends of what you want, I use GNOME 3.8 on Fedora 19, is is smooth and fast.
- thex86 13y ago
  I was not looking for the responsive as much as how much it effects your productivity.
  - adrianlmm 13y ago
    I'm very productive with it, mainly because GNOME Shell has very good keyboard usability, fron launching an applications typing the win-key plus the first two letters, from switching from the same applications Windows with alt-(key above tab) etc. I almost don't use the mouse.
SEJeff 13y ago
This might be heresy being that I'm a GNOME foundation member, but at first I did not much like GNOME 3 at all. After about 3.4 it started having the polish I expected. Now, I actually really enjoy using it. The extensions are super nice and having an interactive javascript console to extend / hack on your window manager is super nifty (if you know javascript of course). All in all, I think it is quite solid. Currently I use Fedora 18 for most of my workstations, but just updated my home desktop to Fedora 19 and notice they have the "GNOME Classic" option, which is essentially a beefed up version of the fallback mode. If you prefer GNOME 2.x, take a shot at installing Fedora 19 or 20 if you like to live on the edge. Login to the GNOME Classic session (click the sessions button in the login screen) and try it out. I think you might actually like it. As an eternal sceptic of new things tech who really didn't much care for GNOME 3.x at first, I've actually fallen in love with it. Can't say I have any issues at all other than it doesn't do amazing with 9 monitors, but how many OSS devs have setups like that ;D
- therealunreal 13y ago
  Two slightly OT questions, if you don't mind: a) How did you manage 9 monitors? b) Any good solution to moving windows to the next/previous/up/down monitor?
  - Nux 13y ago
    For "b" I use a combination of xdotool & wmctrl to move stuff between the monitors without the use of mouse.
    - ronjouch 13y ago
      Interesting; would you share these scripts?
      - Nux 13y ago
        Sure, this is what I use now: http://dl.nux.ro/utils/movewin.sh http://dl.nux.ro/utils/movewin.sh
  - SEJeff 13y ago
    Expensive and modern video cards and a company that lets me test exotic hardware desktop setups. My standard desktop I'm typing from now has 6 monitors for instance. We can get as many as we want if they help us do our job. I work for a finance company, thats about all I'll detail :) For moving the windows, I drag them. It isn't that difficult.
- Nux 13y ago
  Gnome 3 sucks without good graphics drivers, it's very laggy and feels heavy. On my laptop with Radeon HD 3200 using the open source drivers (from Fedora 19) it's hardly usable and spins the hell out of the fans. Thanks god for MATE.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    Running it on an Atom with Intel graphics here (netbook driving decent monitor). Works well as long as I don't have three open Gmail tabs. The Radeon drivers must be terrible.
virtualwhys 13y ago
Great, I have Gnome 3 hidden behind i3 WM ;-) Gnome GUI still creeps through of course, and generally does the trick, although lack of drag & drop system wide is the single biggest fail whale design decision of the Gnome 2 to 3 transition, IMO (if anyone has drag & drop in Gnome 3 without a WM wrapper, chime in, will happily retract the claim if this is i3 specific). I'd like to go with a Gnome-less stack when I upgrade to Fedora 19, but you know, Gnome, despite its warts does come with a ton of built-in convenience out of the box, so unless I find myself unemployed in the near future (i.e. with time on my hands), Gnome + i3 it will be (i3, BTW, is pretty much a wonder joy of awesome, no pun on that other WM intended).
- yason 13y ago
  Does that imply you can actually use any custom window manager with Gnome 3 these days?
  - virtualwhys 13y ago
    In my experience, yes, have both i3 WM and Awesome WM setup in my fedora 18 + Gnome 3 install. Assume the same for other WMs
  - Symmetry 13y ago
    Installing xmonad on Ubuntu actually gives you a display manager option for a combined session automatically, which is what I use these days. EDIT: Still requires editing your xmonad.hs to have it play nicely with GNOME, though.
    - e12e 13y ago
      Any benefits over "just" xmonad + xmobar?
      - Symmetry 13y ago
        All the normal gnome widgets and launchers on the bar (I have one at the bottom of the screen) for stuff I don't do enough to have keybindings for, mostly.
VMG 13y ago
I've been using it since the initial release and really like it. It's important however to keep an open mind and don't resist change at all costs. Also keep an eye out on the extensions.
VMG 13y ago
I've been using it since the initial release and really like it. It's important however to keep an open mind and don't resist change at all costs. Also keep an eye out on the extensions.
VMG 13y ago
I've been using it since the initial release and really like it. It's important however to keep an open mind and don't resist change at all costs. Also keep an eye out on the extensions.
sandGorgon 13y ago
The killer feature is extensions.gnome.org After you spent some time customizing it, I cant use any other WM that does not bring in this ease of customization. After that, the WM gets out of your way.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  What sort of extensions do you get the most mileage out of? Browsing through them, I see a few that look neat (like the 'Drop Down Terminal' one), but many seem to be extensions that correct problems that GNOME introduces anyway (Workspace Indicator, Remove Accessibility, etc).
  - sandGorgon 13y ago
    well, good point - but then again, every default is a problem for someone. I'm also OK with the Gnome maintainers removing the middle click behavior IFF they give me an extension to bring it back. the power is "how" and not "what". If they can fix the theme manager of Gnome (I'm still stuck on Gnome 3.4 on 12.04, so I dont know), it will be great. I'm imagining "Recipe Packs" in the future - one click sharing of your customized desktops. Who cares if the default is blue or red.
  - sixbrx 13y ago
    I'm not who you were asking, but I like Maximus and "Hide Top Bar". Maximum screen real estate for working.
- cli_shall 13y ago
  Sounds like I'm going to have to give it a try, then. I usually go minimalist with WMs because, as you said in your last sentence, it "gets out of your way." That's the best thing an interface can do. Felt like distro hopping again anyway, might as well try out the new Gnome while I'm at it.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Sawfish?
CraigJPerry 13y ago
I'm on 3.8 in Fedora 19 and my overall impression is it's pretty fast & clean. Haven't had much luck getting gnome-shell-extensions running well. I got the weather one going by taking the one from the gnome site rather than the rpmforge package but system monitor, pomodoro timer and a couple of others aren't playing ball for me currently. I have had to google how to do a bunch of different things since switching to it. I still don't know any commands except restart for the snazzy alt+f2 command overlay. I'd most like it to add a apple key+space style search from the mac world. Most interesting new app there is "boxes", a virtual machine / remote machine viewer / manager mashup thing. Looks quite promising to me.
- btgeekboy 13y ago
  When you say you want to search like Spotlight from the keyboard, what do you want to search that it doesn't already? Just press WinKey/Meta/Super and start typing when the overlay comes up. I added a calculator extension in there, as well as one to search Firefox bookmarks, and it's pretty much got me covered.
- Keyframe 13y ago
  I have Fedora 19 with 3.8 on one of my machines as well. Can you, or anyone, tell me what's the deal with crappy font? I'm comparing it to what is in CentOS 6.4 and in RHEL 6.4. Does anyone know where this can be changed to look, er, better?
  - mayhew 13y ago
    Yeah, the stock fonts on Fedora look absolutely terrible (especially on the web). To get usable fonts: 1. Install freetype-freeworld from RPM Fusion 2. Get the Microsoft fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana 3. Edit your ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf to contain the same XML under the section "Subpixel-hinting and Font-smoothing" here: https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts
    - Keyframe 13y ago
      Hey, thanks a lot! I'll try this when I get back to my Fedora machine. Thanks again.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Buzaga 13y ago
I really like it, I never got the rage about it... I think it's beautiful and good for productivity.
therealunreal 13y ago
I switched to Gnome 3 (and Gnome Shell) the moment it was released. The biggest problems IMO were the broken/dropped features and the graphics driver glitches. The shell, which is what I suppose defines the experience, was great from day 1. I consider it a major leap forward and, for the most part, it just feels natural and does what you want it to. A lot has improved since the first release, removed features came back, bugs were fixed, UI was tweaked. There are still some (stupidly) rough edges here and there that piss me off but you get used to them, wait for a fix, or use a shell extension. Verdict: Buy (unless you want a tiling window manager)
zidar 13y ago
I use Gnome 3.8 with my archlinux, and I've tried it because it was giving me the least problems, now I can't touch anything else because it just seems slow and not as intuitive. It gets under your skin in a good way. The best thing about it is also when it gets "a bit funky" it's as easy as "alt+f2 r" to fix it and have it running as good as new.
reidrac 13y ago
I tried hard until 3.4.2, then I stopped trying and started running the "fallback mode". Now I'm happy. Now I understand that trying to use it when it forces you to change your workflow is a terrible idea. I needed months to get used to the new desktop and a week to completely forget it. So I guess I'm a Gnome 3 user without really using Gnome 3, if that makes any sense. Edit: formatting
jackyb 13y ago
My experience has been positive for Gnome 3.10 (I'm running Fedora 20 nightly). I don't feel to be more productive using other DEs though I can certainly switch between them easily (I do coding, graphic design, and 3d modeling). The majority of the changes listed on that page just made it look and function a lot better overall. I think they're headed in the right direction.
nona 13y ago
I'm on Debian with Gnome 3.8 and been quite happy overall. I was recently working on a Gnome 2.x machine and couldn't believe how terrible and difficult to use it all seemed – even though I used 2.x for many years. I'm not sure where all the Gnome 3 negativity came from. But I understand that a small detail can be enough to derail your experience with it. In my case, that would be the "Launch new instance" behaviour: clicking on the launcher focused on the existing instance, instead of creating a new one. But with a tiny gnome shell extension it was resolved. I have other extensions installed, but that's really the only one I want to keep. I think the flak and hate they received was disproportionate… But then, pretty much the same happened with KDE3->KDE4, Win2k->WinXP, WinXP->Vista, Win7->Win8, and more recently with iOS6->iOS7. About the only time where a major UI change was introduced without too much trouble, was the MacOS9->MacOSX Public Beta transition; but I suspect there was just as much grumbling from the people on OS9, it just may have been that their voices got drowned out by the excitation of the new users attracted by the new "lickable" interface.
- riquito 13y ago
  > I'm not sure where all the Gnome 3 negativity came from Gnome 3.0 "stable" was like an alpha product and it's hard to have the (ex) users forget a negative experience. Disclosure: I'm sympathetic with today's Gnome but the Gnome 3.0 mess made me an happy XMonad user
  - Jasper_ 13y ago
    Yeah, sorry about that. We really should have handled that differently.
    - riquito 13y ago
      I wish the Gnome Team all the best
vl 13y ago
Well, I tried to use GNOME 3 and Unity, both had really annoying quirks, so I switched to GNOME Classic, which is essentially like GNOME 2.
thristian 13y ago
I've loved GNOME 3 for as long as I've used it, but I've had (apparently) non-typical usage habits since before GNOME 1.x came out. For example, I know a lot of people hated the fact that GNOME 3 did away with the Win95-style taskbar at the bottom of the screen, but even under GNOME 2 I used to ditch it as quickly as possible. For my purposes, GNOME 3 lets me easily dedicate workspaces to different tasks, it lets me easily open as many terminals and Vim windows as I like, and it lets me easily open two windows side-by-side (an editor with code and a terminal for running tests, or an editor with HTML and a browser for previewing, etc.) so I'm pretty pleased with it. I'm a little worried about some of the changes GNOME 3 has gone through; as it migrates from traditional in-window menu-bars to a single button in the global bar at the top of the screen, that's probably going to put a crimp in my sloppy-mouse-focus habits. This new "header bars" concept probably isn't going to play very nicely with my custom title-bar-button-order setup (I prefer the traditional Mac close-at-top-left, zoom-at-top-right configuration). Still, I'll probably get used to it over time.
chatman 13y ago
Initially I was skeptical, but it soon turned into joy. Now I can't live without it. Try it for 1-2 months, there's no looking up.
acegopher 13y ago
In the past three years I've seriously used Gnome 2, awesome, xmonad, XFCE, Openbox, KDE, and Gnome 3. For window managers without Desktop Environments I generally rolled my own, but used GNOME DE under xmonad. What got me started on all those was that early Gnome 3 had major problems with multi-monitor, and in general lack of finish/configurability. I am using Gnome 3.8 on Fedora 19 now, and it is great. I'm very productive in it, and in my opinion it's the most polished UI. I run a three-monitor setup and program mostly. That said, I would have chucked it without gnome-tweak-tool. GNOME 3 has brought back some of the configurability it lacked originally. Personally I use it to set Sloppy window focus, turn off dynamic workspaces and set 4 static, and make keyboard shortcuts for just about everything. As for command-line configurability, I run 'gsettings list-recursively | sort > gs-before.txt' before running gnome-tweak-tool and then after to compare to see what the settings names are. I then use that to create a 'post-install' config file so my changes are documented and if I reinstall I don't have to manually flip buttons. For example, to set sloppy window focus mode: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences focus-mode 'sloppy' Anyway, so far so good with GNOME 3.8, and am looking forward to Fedora 20 and GNOME 3.10.
kmm 13y ago
There's a lot of things I like about it, but with regard to productivity, I was lost until I coded an extension to provide a bottom panel with a task list.
rbanffy 13y ago
My Ubuntu boxes run Unity, but my Fedora laptop runs Gnome and I'm quite happy with it. Unity is a better fit for small screens, but Gnome is just fine. It's true some fine tuning is no longer easy to do and that the Gnome team makes some decisions I disagree with, but, all things considered, it works and stays out of the way.
martindale 13y ago
I too have switched from GNOME 2 to Xfce, since it suits _my_ needs better than GNOME 3 does. I'm not sure if the hypothesis is correct, but it seems that GNOME 3 is targeting the desktop market that Apple has so well-cornered and optimized. There are things that do not logically make sense, to me, within Mac OS X and subsequently GNOME 3, but just the same they are included in the desktop GNU/Linux initiative. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the path forward.
vacri 13y ago
I just can't use Gnome 3 - it feels like you're straight-jacketed into only changing the approved settings by some dev who's 'decided for you'. I haven't used 3.8, but whenever I start a new system I try gnome 3 for a bit... and it quickly drives me away. Things like deciding for me that I can't place items on the desktop. It's my desktop - if I want to put things there and 'clutter' it, then I should be able to. Things like having a file manager that requires modifier keys to send things to the trash. Not delete them outright, just send them to the trash. If I fat-fingered something, then I still have the safety net of being able to pull it out of trash - it's the whole point of trash. Then there's trying to get a Windows user to shift to linux with Gnome. "How do I..." You can't. "Oh, then how do I..." You're not permitted to. Yes, I know I said linux gives you much more control, but... ...and so we have one less linux user as she returns to an OS she can personalise beyond a background colour. Gnome3 is too much about form and not enough about function, and makes the rather insulting assumption that the average user is pretty dumb. Is gnome 3.10 nicer than previous gnome 3's? Sure. Is it nicer than a traditional desktop? Not in my experience.

by thex86 13y ago

adrianlmm 13y ago

Depends of what you want, I use GNOME 3.8 on Fedora 19, is is smooth and fast.

thex86 13y ago
I was not looking for the responsive as much as how much it effects your productivity.
- adrianlmm 13y ago
  I'm very productive with it, mainly because GNOME Shell has very good keyboard usability, fron launching an applications typing the win-key plus the first two letters, from switching from the same applications Windows with alt-(key above tab) etc. I almost don't use the mouse.

SEJeff 13y ago

This might be heresy being that I'm a GNOME foundation member, but at first I did not much like GNOME 3 at all. After about 3.4 it started having the polish I expected. Now, I actually really enjoy using it. The extensions are super nice and having an interactive javascript console to extend / hack on your window manager is super nifty (if you know javascript of course). All in all, I think it is quite solid. Currently I use Fedora 18 for most of my workstations, but just updated my home desktop to Fedora 19 and notice they have the "GNOME Classic" option, which is essentially a beefed up version of the fallback mode. If you prefer GNOME 2.x, take a shot at installing Fedora 19 or 20 if you like to live on the edge. Login to the GNOME Classic session (click the sessions button in the login screen) and try it out. I think you might actually like it. As an eternal sceptic of new things tech who really didn't much care for GNOME 3.x at first, I've actually fallen in love with it. Can't say I have any issues at all other than it doesn't do amazing with 9 monitors, but how many OSS devs have setups like that ;D

therealunreal 13y ago
Two slightly OT questions, if you don't mind: a) How did you manage 9 monitors? b) Any good solution to moving windows to the next/previous/up/down monitor?
- Nux 13y ago
  For "b" I use a combination of xdotool & wmctrl to move stuff between the monitors without the use of mouse.
  - ronjouch 13y ago
    Interesting; would you share these scripts?
    - Nux 13y ago
      Sure, this is what I use now: http://dl.nux.ro/utils/movewin.sh http://dl.nux.ro/utils/movewin.sh
- SEJeff 13y ago
  Expensive and modern video cards and a company that lets me test exotic hardware desktop setups. My standard desktop I'm typing from now has 6 monitors for instance. We can get as many as we want if they help us do our job. I work for a finance company, thats about all I'll detail :) For moving the windows, I drag them. It isn't that difficult.
Nux 13y ago
Gnome 3 sucks without good graphics drivers, it's very laggy and feels heavy. On my laptop with Radeon HD 3200 using the open source drivers (from Fedora 19) it's hardly usable and spins the hell out of the fans. Thanks god for MATE.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  Running it on an Atom with Intel graphics here (netbook driving decent monitor). Works well as long as I don't have three open Gmail tabs. The Radeon drivers must be terrible.

virtualwhys 13y ago

Great, I have Gnome 3 hidden behind i3 WM ;-) Gnome GUI still creeps through of course, and generally does the trick, although lack of drag & drop system wide is the single biggest fail whale design decision of the Gnome 2 to 3 transition, IMO (if anyone has drag & drop in Gnome 3 without a WM wrapper, chime in, will happily retract the claim if this is i3 specific). I'd like to go with a Gnome-less stack when I upgrade to Fedora 19, but you know, Gnome, despite its warts does come with a ton of built-in convenience out of the box, so unless I find myself unemployed in the near future (i.e. with time on my hands), Gnome + i3 it will be (i3, BTW, is pretty much a wonder joy of awesome, no pun on that other WM intended).

yason 13y ago
Does that imply you can actually use any custom window manager with Gnome 3 these days?
- virtualwhys 13y ago
  In my experience, yes, have both i3 WM and Awesome WM setup in my fedora 18 + Gnome 3 install. Assume the same for other WMs
- Symmetry 13y ago
  Installing xmonad on Ubuntu actually gives you a display manager option for a combined session automatically, which is what I use these days. EDIT: Still requires editing your xmonad.hs to have it play nicely with GNOME, though.
  - e12e 13y ago
    Any benefits over "just" xmonad + xmobar?
    - Symmetry 13y ago
      All the normal gnome widgets and launchers on the bar (I have one at the bottom of the screen) for stuff I don't do enough to have keybindings for, mostly.

VMG 13y ago

I've been using it since the initial release and really like it. It's important however to keep an open mind and don't resist change at all costs. Also keep an eye out on the extensions.

VMG 13y ago

I've been using it since the initial release and really like it. It's important however to keep an open mind and don't resist change at all costs. Also keep an eye out on the extensions.

VMG 13y ago

I've been using it since the initial release and really like it. It's important however to keep an open mind and don't resist change at all costs. Also keep an eye out on the extensions.

sandGorgon 13y ago

The killer feature is extensions.gnome.org After you spent some time customizing it, I cant use any other WM that does not bring in this ease of customization. After that, the WM gets out of your way.

jlgreco 13y ago
What sort of extensions do you get the most mileage out of? Browsing through them, I see a few that look neat (like the 'Drop Down Terminal' one), but many seem to be extensions that correct problems that GNOME introduces anyway (Workspace Indicator, Remove Accessibility, etc).
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  well, good point - but then again, every default is a problem for someone. I'm also OK with the Gnome maintainers removing the middle click behavior IFF they give me an extension to bring it back. the power is "how" and not "what". If they can fix the theme manager of Gnome (I'm still stuck on Gnome 3.4 on 12.04, so I dont know), it will be great. I'm imagining "Recipe Packs" in the future - one click sharing of your customized desktops. Who cares if the default is blue or red.
- sixbrx 13y ago
  I'm not who you were asking, but I like Maximus and "Hide Top Bar". Maximum screen real estate for working.
cli_shall 13y ago
Sounds like I'm going to have to give it a try, then. I usually go minimalist with WMs because, as you said in your last sentence, it "gets out of your way." That's the best thing an interface can do. Felt like distro hopping again anyway, might as well try out the new Gnome while I'm at it.
pjmlp 13y ago
Sawfish?

CraigJPerry 13y ago

I'm on 3.8 in Fedora 19 and my overall impression is it's pretty fast & clean. Haven't had much luck getting gnome-shell-extensions running well. I got the weather one going by taking the one from the gnome site rather than the rpmforge package but system monitor, pomodoro timer and a couple of others aren't playing ball for me currently. I have had to google how to do a bunch of different things since switching to it. I still don't know any commands except restart for the snazzy alt+f2 command overlay. I'd most like it to add a apple key+space style search from the mac world. Most interesting new app there is "boxes", a virtual machine / remote machine viewer / manager mashup thing. Looks quite promising to me.

btgeekboy 13y ago
When you say you want to search like Spotlight from the keyboard, what do you want to search that it doesn't already? Just press WinKey/Meta/Super and start typing when the overlay comes up. I added a calculator extension in there, as well as one to search Firefox bookmarks, and it's pretty much got me covered.
Keyframe 13y ago
I have Fedora 19 with 3.8 on one of my machines as well. Can you, or anyone, tell me what's the deal with crappy font? I'm comparing it to what is in CentOS 6.4 and in RHEL 6.4. Does anyone know where this can be changed to look, er, better?
- mayhew 13y ago
  Yeah, the stock fonts on Fedora look absolutely terrible (especially on the web). To get usable fonts: 1. Install freetype-freeworld from RPM Fusion 2. Get the Microsoft fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana 3. Edit your ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf to contain the same XML under the section "Subpixel-hinting and Font-smoothing" here: https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts
  - Keyframe 13y ago
    Hey, thanks a lot! I'll try this when I get back to my Fedora machine. Thanks again.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Buzaga 13y ago

I really like it, I never got the rage about it... I think it's beautiful and good for productivity.

therealunreal 13y ago

I switched to Gnome 3 (and Gnome Shell) the moment it was released. The biggest problems IMO were the broken/dropped features and the graphics driver glitches. The shell, which is what I suppose defines the experience, was great from day 1. I consider it a major leap forward and, for the most part, it just feels natural and does what you want it to. A lot has improved since the first release, removed features came back, bugs were fixed, UI was tweaked. There are still some (stupidly) rough edges here and there that piss me off but you get used to them, wait for a fix, or use a shell extension. Verdict: Buy (unless you want a tiling window manager)

zidar 13y ago

I use Gnome 3.8 with my archlinux, and I've tried it because it was giving me the least problems, now I can't touch anything else because it just seems slow and not as intuitive. It gets under your skin in a good way. The best thing about it is also when it gets "a bit funky" it's as easy as "alt+f2 r" to fix it and have it running as good as new.

reidrac 13y ago

I tried hard until 3.4.2, then I stopped trying and started running the "fallback mode". Now I'm happy. Now I understand that trying to use it when it forces you to change your workflow is a terrible idea. I needed months to get used to the new desktop and a week to completely forget it. So I guess I'm a Gnome 3 user without really using Gnome 3, if that makes any sense. Edit: formatting

jackyb 13y ago

My experience has been positive for Gnome 3.10 (I'm running Fedora 20 nightly). I don't feel to be more productive using other DEs though I can certainly switch between them easily (I do coding, graphic design, and 3d modeling). The majority of the changes listed on that page just made it look and function a lot better overall. I think they're headed in the right direction.

nona 13y ago

I'm on Debian with Gnome 3.8 and been quite happy overall. I was recently working on a Gnome 2.x machine and couldn't believe how terrible and difficult to use it all seemed – even though I used 2.x for many years. I'm not sure where all the Gnome 3 negativity came from. But I understand that a small detail can be enough to derail your experience with it. In my case, that would be the "Launch new instance" behaviour: clicking on the launcher focused on the existing instance, instead of creating a new one. But with a tiny gnome shell extension it was resolved. I have other extensions installed, but that's really the only one I want to keep. I think the flak and hate they received was disproportionate… But then, pretty much the same happened with KDE3->KDE4, Win2k->WinXP, WinXP->Vista, Win7->Win8, and more recently with iOS6->iOS7. About the only time where a major UI change was introduced without too much trouble, was the MacOS9->MacOSX Public Beta transition; but I suspect there was just as much grumbling from the people on OS9, it just may have been that their voices got drowned out by the excitation of the new users attracted by the new "lickable" interface.

riquito 13y ago
> I'm not sure where all the Gnome 3 negativity came from Gnome 3.0 "stable" was like an alpha product and it's hard to have the (ex) users forget a negative experience. Disclosure: I'm sympathetic with today's Gnome but the Gnome 3.0 mess made me an happy XMonad user
- Jasper_ 13y ago
  Yeah, sorry about that. We really should have handled that differently.
  - riquito 13y ago
    I wish the Gnome Team all the best

vl 13y ago

Well, I tried to use GNOME 3 and Unity, both had really annoying quirks, so I switched to GNOME Classic, which is essentially like GNOME 2.

thristian 13y ago

I've loved GNOME 3 for as long as I've used it, but I've had (apparently) non-typical usage habits since before GNOME 1.x came out. For example, I know a lot of people hated the fact that GNOME 3 did away with the Win95-style taskbar at the bottom of the screen, but even under GNOME 2 I used to ditch it as quickly as possible. For my purposes, GNOME 3 lets me easily dedicate workspaces to different tasks, it lets me easily open as many terminals and Vim windows as I like, and it lets me easily open two windows side-by-side (an editor with code and a terminal for running tests, or an editor with HTML and a browser for previewing, etc.) so I'm pretty pleased with it. I'm a little worried about some of the changes GNOME 3 has gone through; as it migrates from traditional in-window menu-bars to a single button in the global bar at the top of the screen, that's probably going to put a crimp in my sloppy-mouse-focus habits. This new "header bars" concept probably isn't going to play very nicely with my custom title-bar-button-order setup (I prefer the traditional Mac close-at-top-left, zoom-at-top-right configuration). Still, I'll probably get used to it over time.

chatman 13y ago

Initially I was skeptical, but it soon turned into joy. Now I can't live without it. Try it for 1-2 months, there's no looking up.

acegopher 13y ago

In the past three years I've seriously used Gnome 2, awesome, xmonad, XFCE, Openbox, KDE, and Gnome 3. For window managers without Desktop Environments I generally rolled my own, but used GNOME DE under xmonad. What got me started on all those was that early Gnome 3 had major problems with multi-monitor, and in general lack of finish/configurability. I am using Gnome 3.8 on Fedora 19 now, and it is great. I'm very productive in it, and in my opinion it's the most polished UI. I run a three-monitor setup and program mostly. That said, I would have chucked it without gnome-tweak-tool. GNOME 3 has brought back some of the configurability it lacked originally. Personally I use it to set Sloppy window focus, turn off dynamic workspaces and set 4 static, and make keyboard shortcuts for just about everything. As for command-line configurability, I run 'gsettings list-recursively | sort > gs-before.txt' before running gnome-tweak-tool and then after to compare to see what the settings names are. I then use that to create a 'post-install' config file so my changes are documented and if I reinstall I don't have to manually flip buttons. For example, to set sloppy window focus mode: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences focus-mode 'sloppy' Anyway, so far so good with GNOME 3.8, and am looking forward to Fedora 20 and GNOME 3.10.

kmm 13y ago

There's a lot of things I like about it, but with regard to productivity, I was lost until I coded an extension to provide a bottom panel with a task list.

rbanffy 13y ago

My Ubuntu boxes run Unity, but my Fedora laptop runs Gnome and I'm quite happy with it. Unity is a better fit for small screens, but Gnome is just fine. It's true some fine tuning is no longer easy to do and that the Gnome team makes some decisions I disagree with, but, all things considered, it works and stays out of the way.

martindale 13y ago

I too have switched from GNOME 2 to Xfce, since it suits _my_ needs better than GNOME 3 does. I'm not sure if the hypothesis is correct, but it seems that GNOME 3 is targeting the desktop market that Apple has so well-cornered and optimized. There are things that do not logically make sense, to me, within Mac OS X and subsequently GNOME 3, but just the same they are included in the desktop GNU/Linux initiative. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the path forward.

vacri 13y ago

I just can't use Gnome 3 - it feels like you're straight-jacketed into only changing the approved settings by some dev who's 'decided for you'. I haven't used 3.8, but whenever I start a new system I try gnome 3 for a bit... and it quickly drives me away. Things like deciding for me that I can't place items on the desktop. It's my desktop - if I want to put things there and 'clutter' it, then I should be able to. Things like having a file manager that requires modifier keys to send things to the trash. Not delete them outright, just send them to the trash. If I fat-fingered something, then I still have the safety net of being able to pull it out of trash - it's the whole point of trash. Then there's trying to get a Windows user to shift to linux with Gnome. "How do I..." You can't. "Oh, then how do I..." You're not permitted to. Yes, I know I said linux gives you much more control, but... ...and so we have one less linux user as she returns to an OS she can personalise beyond a background colour. Gnome3 is too much about form and not enough about function, and makes the rather insulting assumption that the average user is pretty dumb. Is gnome 3.10 nicer than previous gnome 3's? Sure. Is it nicer than a traditional desktop? Not in my experience.