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I really recommend trying out the Ubuntu Gnome flavor [1] - I really like it as being more usable than Unity. Plus https://extensions.gnome.org/ https://extens

I really recommend trying out the Ubuntu Gnome flavor [1] - I really like it as being more usable than Unity. Plus https://extensions.gnome.org/ https://extensions.gnome.org/ is incredible. P.S. - [2] this is my personal optimization script for a lean and developer friendly Gnome Ubuntu 14.04 install. YMMV. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/GetUbuntuGNOME https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/GetUbuntuGNOME [2] https://gist.github.com/sandys/6030823#file-lean_install_ubuntu_14_04-sh https://gist.github.com/sandys/6030823#file-lean_install_ubu...

leaveyou 13y ago
I'm a Unity & Xface (short time) user and honestly I find the latest Unity version to be well suited for my needs&habits but your recommendation made me curios but not curios enough to wipe out my current (fresh) Unity install in order to try out Gnome. I think I checked Gnome some time in the past and it didn't convince me to stay with it. If you would like to enumerate some of the (newer?) differences and strong points of Gnome over Unity it will be appreciated. Thanks.
- CSDude 13y ago
  I don't like Unity animations and I want to change it. The only way to do that is to change compiz plugins. However, they always break. Gnome extensions are way easier to install, and even you can code them because it is JS/CSS, for that reason there are so many extensions in extensions.gnome.org .
  - leaveyou 13y ago
    For me the Unity animations are the perfect balance between the elegance I notice and appreciate when I'm in "relax" mode and the usability and snappiness I need when I'm in "work" mode shifting between many windows and workspaces. 14.04 snappiness improved noticeably and that's great !
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  it's mostly the UX - I really like the way Gnome gets out of your way and still is very, very slick. Plus, if you dont like certain things - you can customize it within seconds using extensions.gnome.org (for example - https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/ ) I think all the design decision by Unity are a bit jarring for me - including all the left-window-close-maximize things. BTW, if you follow my script, Unity is not really wiped out, but certain heavy applications (like Nautilus/Gedit) are replaced by lightweight alternatives (like Nemo/Geany). P.S. were you not surprised by the weird way Nautilus groups icons now ?
  - girvo 13y ago
    I'm totally with you on most of your post... But how is Gedit "heavy"?
    - johnchristopher 13y ago
      On my atom n280 geany is really snappy while gedit is slow when moving around and bringing out menus.
    - sandGorgon 13y ago
      I'm not sure what was happening, but I used to have many gedit processes running in the background. Geany is much, much lighter for me. Same with Nautilus.
  - leaveyou 13y ago
    I noticed Nautilus moved a menu I rarely used from toolbar into the main menu but that does not bother me much (actually "Show hidden files" is more accessible now) and they added back "backspace = up directory" feature which for me is great. I think we are lucky to have so many GUI alternatives while still being able to reuse the best tools GNU/Linux can offer. And what's great is they are evolving even if slowly and backtracking (like backspace in Nautilus :)).
  - systematical 13y ago
    Agreed. It gets out of your way and looks good.
- onli 13y ago
  You don't need to wipe anything. Just install ubuntu-gnome-desktop and select gnome 3 on login.
  - leaveyou 13y ago
    I tried that some time ago with 13.10 & xface-desktop and I ended up with some weird mix of the two (randomly some parts from unity and some fonts and menus + shutdwon splash screen definitely from xface). And I was not able to totally remove the xface packages from unity again. So I'm quite reluctant now :).
    - onli 13y ago
      Granted, that concern is valid. Just let me note that it is normally not that difficult to reconfigure unity to use its own designs everywhere, but I think as well that it is not particularly nice that this is necessary.
andrey-p 13y ago
I've been a staunch Xubuntu user for the past couple of years and I'm completely pleased with my setup, but I'm interested in giving Gnome a try. The main thing that's holding me back is that my machines aren't massively powerful - do you know if Gnome is as resource-hungry as Unity?
- broodbucket 13y ago
  Both have gotten much better in this department than they used to be. I would say they're about equivalent.
- kijin 13y ago
  Nowadays, GNOME and Xfce consume about the same amount of resources by default. The only difference is that GNOME makes more serious use of your graphics card. KDE with lots of effects >> Unity ~= KDE with fewer effects > GNOME ~= Xfce >> LXDE
- danford 13y ago
  GNOME seems to be a little snappier than Unity to me, But I have not yet installed the latest Unity.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    FWIW: Gnome on wheezy is way snappier than unity (12.04 with or without unity-2d and 13.10 14.04 with unity) on my old and trusty eee-pc (n280+gma950).
wolf550e 13y ago
You should install http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/localepurge http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/localepurge for a leaner install.
- bluedino 13y ago
  How much does that really save? A base install of Ubuntu is only around 6-7GB anyway. Very surprised to see it didn't even take up half of the 16GB on an Acer C720 Chromebook.
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  my recipe for leaner is more about CPU and RAM and less about diskstorage. One of the first things I recommend is aptitude over apt-get and that manages your stale packages much better. (for e.g. aptitude will offer to remove unused packages each time you remove an installed package, whereas apt-get will only do that if explicitly asked to with apt-get autoremove.)
old-gregg 13y ago
As a data point for a bystander: I much prefer Unity over Gnome 3. Here's the quick list of things that prevent me from taking Gnome 3 seriously: Alt+Tab is completely broken: it gathers windows from all virtual desktops, ruining the very purpose of virtual desktops. There are plug-ins that help, but they keep breaking after version updates and they don't function as sleek as Unity's built-in default window switcher. Gnome's "workspaces" are not as powerful as traditional virtual desktops. The biggest problem is that they're dynamic: for example Gnome won't let you have an empty workspace - it will kill it and re-arrange apps from adjacent workspaces to fill the space. Last, but not least, Gnome's way of launching apps gives me nausea: it insists on animating every pixel on my 30" desktop every time I want to launch an application. Finally, Unity is much more responsive and less buggy, at least on my (modest) hardware: 2 year old i5 with Intel graphics.
- danford 13y ago
  >Alt+Tab is completely broken This is kind of an opinion. There is no rule book that says it needs to behave a certain way. I prefer this. >ruining the very purpose of virtual desktops I use virtual desktops to separate windows in overview mode so when they're presented for picking they aren't really small. And also for organization. >Gnome's "workspaces" are not as powerful as traditional virtual desktops. The biggest problem is that they're dynamic: for example Gnome won't let you have an empty workspace - it will kill it and re-arrange apps from adjacent workspaces to fill the space. Why would you need an empty workspace (except at the end, which gnome provides)? Seems to make since to me. It doesn't really "re-arrange apps" it just moves the work spaces to fill in the empty gap. >Last, but not least, Gnome's way of launching apps gives me nausea: it insists on animating every pixel on my 30" desktop every time I want to launch an application. Eh.. Animations aren't for everyone. They have not bothered me though, and I think for most users it provides a better experience than just having things "happen". >Finally, Unity is much more responsive and less buggy I'm running gnome 3.11 on an i5 with intel graphics also, and it seems pretty snappy, after all, it's just javascript. I have not experienced any bugs outside of experimental software I installed. To be honest, I have never experienced a snappier desktop than gnome 3.
  - 13y ago
tcfunk 13y ago
Giving it a try now, but I have to say the amount of space wasted by the header bar of each window really bothers me. Example: http://i.imgur.com/bKGyEo3.png http://i.imgur.com/bKGyEo3.png
- danford 13y ago
  This is a great resource: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME#Reduce_title_bar_height https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME#Reduce_title_bar_... But the tweak tool lets you change the font size which was enough for me. I also installed htitle to firefox to hide the title bar when full screen.
  - tcfunk 13y ago
    Thank you! I will give it a go.
    - danford 13y ago
      Keep in mind a few of the commands only relate to arch linux, but I think if you're comfortable using the terminal you should be able to figure things out.
- mycookie 13y ago
  The header bars finally see more use in 3.12; for Firefox, I'd recommend something like HTile, which removes the header when it's maximized.
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  there you go - https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/354/maximus/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/354/maximus/ FTFY

leaveyou 13y ago

I'm a Unity & Xface (short time) user and honestly I find the latest Unity version to be well suited for my needs&habits but your recommendation made me curios but not curios enough to wipe out my current (fresh) Unity install in order to try out Gnome. I think I checked Gnome some time in the past and it didn't convince me to stay with it. If you would like to enumerate some of the (newer?) differences and strong points of Gnome over Unity it will be appreciated. Thanks.

CSDude 13y ago
I don't like Unity animations and I want to change it. The only way to do that is to change compiz plugins. However, they always break. Gnome extensions are way easier to install, and even you can code them because it is JS/CSS, for that reason there are so many extensions in extensions.gnome.org .
- leaveyou 13y ago
  For me the Unity animations are the perfect balance between the elegance I notice and appreciate when I'm in "relax" mode and the usability and snappiness I need when I'm in "work" mode shifting between many windows and workspaces. 14.04 snappiness improved noticeably and that's great !
sandGorgon 13y ago
it's mostly the UX - I really like the way Gnome gets out of your way and still is very, very slick. Plus, if you dont like certain things - you can customize it within seconds using extensions.gnome.org (for example - https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/ ) I think all the design decision by Unity are a bit jarring for me - including all the left-window-close-maximize things. BTW, if you follow my script, Unity is not really wiped out, but certain heavy applications (like Nautilus/Gedit) are replaced by lightweight alternatives (like Nemo/Geany). P.S. were you not surprised by the weird way Nautilus groups icons now ?
- girvo 13y ago
  I'm totally with you on most of your post... But how is Gedit "heavy"?
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    On my atom n280 geany is really snappy while gedit is slow when moving around and bringing out menus.
  - sandGorgon 13y ago
    I'm not sure what was happening, but I used to have many gedit processes running in the background. Geany is much, much lighter for me. Same with Nautilus.
- leaveyou 13y ago
  I noticed Nautilus moved a menu I rarely used from toolbar into the main menu but that does not bother me much (actually "Show hidden files" is more accessible now) and they added back "backspace = up directory" feature which for me is great. I think we are lucky to have so many GUI alternatives while still being able to reuse the best tools GNU/Linux can offer. And what's great is they are evolving even if slowly and backtracking (like backspace in Nautilus :)).
- systematical 13y ago
  Agreed. It gets out of your way and looks good.
onli 13y ago
You don't need to wipe anything. Just install ubuntu-gnome-desktop and select gnome 3 on login.
- leaveyou 13y ago
  I tried that some time ago with 13.10 & xface-desktop and I ended up with some weird mix of the two (randomly some parts from unity and some fonts and menus + shutdwon splash screen definitely from xface). And I was not able to totally remove the xface packages from unity again. So I'm quite reluctant now :).
  - onli 13y ago
    Granted, that concern is valid. Just let me note that it is normally not that difficult to reconfigure unity to use its own designs everywhere, but I think as well that it is not particularly nice that this is necessary.

andrey-p 13y ago

I've been a staunch Xubuntu user for the past couple of years and I'm completely pleased with my setup, but I'm interested in giving Gnome a try. The main thing that's holding me back is that my machines aren't massively powerful - do you know if Gnome is as resource-hungry as Unity?

broodbucket 13y ago
Both have gotten much better in this department than they used to be. I would say they're about equivalent.
kijin 13y ago
Nowadays, GNOME and Xfce consume about the same amount of resources by default. The only difference is that GNOME makes more serious use of your graphics card. KDE with lots of effects >> Unity ~= KDE with fewer effects > GNOME ~= Xfce >> LXDE
danford 13y ago
GNOME seems to be a little snappier than Unity to me, But I have not yet installed the latest Unity.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  FWIW: Gnome on wheezy is way snappier than unity (12.04 with or without unity-2d and 13.10 14.04 with unity) on my old and trusty eee-pc (n280+gma950).

wolf550e 13y ago

You should install http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/localepurge http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/localepurge for a leaner install.

bluedino 13y ago
How much does that really save? A base install of Ubuntu is only around 6-7GB anyway. Very surprised to see it didn't even take up half of the 16GB on an Acer C720 Chromebook.
sandGorgon 13y ago
my recipe for leaner is more about CPU and RAM and less about diskstorage. One of the first things I recommend is aptitude over apt-get and that manages your stale packages much better. (for e.g. aptitude will offer to remove unused packages each time you remove an installed package, whereas apt-get will only do that if explicitly asked to with apt-get autoremove.)

old-gregg 13y ago

As a data point for a bystander: I much prefer Unity over Gnome 3. Here's the quick list of things that prevent me from taking Gnome 3 seriously: Alt+Tab is completely broken: it gathers windows from all virtual desktops, ruining the very purpose of virtual desktops. There are plug-ins that help, but they keep breaking after version updates and they don't function as sleek as Unity's built-in default window switcher. Gnome's "workspaces" are not as powerful as traditional virtual desktops. The biggest problem is that they're dynamic: for example Gnome won't let you have an empty workspace - it will kill it and re-arrange apps from adjacent workspaces to fill the space. Last, but not least, Gnome's way of launching apps gives me nausea: it insists on animating every pixel on my 30" desktop every time I want to launch an application. Finally, Unity is much more responsive and less buggy, at least on my (modest) hardware: 2 year old i5 with Intel graphics.

danford 13y ago
>Alt+Tab is completely broken This is kind of an opinion. There is no rule book that says it needs to behave a certain way. I prefer this. >ruining the very purpose of virtual desktops I use virtual desktops to separate windows in overview mode so when they're presented for picking they aren't really small. And also for organization. >Gnome's "workspaces" are not as powerful as traditional virtual desktops. The biggest problem is that they're dynamic: for example Gnome won't let you have an empty workspace - it will kill it and re-arrange apps from adjacent workspaces to fill the space. Why would you need an empty workspace (except at the end, which gnome provides)? Seems to make since to me. It doesn't really "re-arrange apps" it just moves the work spaces to fill in the empty gap. >Last, but not least, Gnome's way of launching apps gives me nausea: it insists on animating every pixel on my 30" desktop every time I want to launch an application. Eh.. Animations aren't for everyone. They have not bothered me though, and I think for most users it provides a better experience than just having things "happen". >Finally, Unity is much more responsive and less buggy I'm running gnome 3.11 on an i5 with intel graphics also, and it seems pretty snappy, after all, it's just javascript. I have not experienced any bugs outside of experimental software I installed. To be honest, I have never experienced a snappier desktop than gnome 3.
- 13y ago

tcfunk 13y ago

Giving it a try now, but I have to say the amount of space wasted by the header bar of each window really bothers me. Example: http://i.imgur.com/bKGyEo3.png http://i.imgur.com/bKGyEo3.png

danford 13y ago
This is a great resource: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME#Reduce_title_bar_height https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME#Reduce_title_bar_... But the tweak tool lets you change the font size which was enough for me. I also installed htitle to firefox to hide the title bar when full screen.
- tcfunk 13y ago
  Thank you! I will give it a go.
  - danford 13y ago
    Keep in mind a few of the commands only relate to arch linux, but I think if you're comfortable using the terminal you should be able to figure things out.
mycookie 13y ago
The header bars finally see more use in 3.12; for Firefox, I'd recommend something like HTile, which removes the header when it's maximized.
sandGorgon 13y ago
there you go - https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/354/maximus/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/354/maximus/ FTFY