[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/iCzpV.gif[/IMG]
Ok, so Gnome 3 stable released roughly 20 days ago, which in the DE world is a blink of an eye.
With the release of Gnome 3, the GNOME project have turned their DE in a completely different direction from anything they have done before putting them in the same boat as Ubuntu's custom built DE "Unity".
The Gnome Project have always been big proponents of Simplicity and minimlism, sometimes too much, they are notorious for just stripping things away from their programs that a sizable number of people find useful with no way of turning them back on in a sort of [i]"Gnome Knows Best"[/i] attitude. Is this a step to far? [b]Gnome Panel is dead. Long live Gnome Shell[/b]. Gnome 3 completely does away with files on the desktop, as well as a task bar. It tries to coerce the user to defining things by application as opposed to by window. It is also pushing the concept of multiple desktops much heavier by [b]completely doing away with min/maximizing buttons[/b].
[media]http://i.imgur.com/bwOm2.png[/media]
[b]There's no expanding tree based "start" menu[/b] either. They've taken a very tablet/ netbook approach to their application setup.
Clicking the button in the corner, hitting the hot trigger in the same area or hitting the super/windows button will bring up an overlay with a small list of all the desktops you have to hand, a quick dock of your favourite applications and a searchable/categorisable table of all your programs.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fhsgZbgKk[/media]
There has been a REAL push for making GNOME 3 easier for new and less experienced users, still determined that Linux will be mainstream by late next week they have pushed a lot of the "power user" tools into dark corners lest the obviously millions of none nerds who are using linux find them and break everything. Alacarte, the menu editor is only accessible by terminal, a lot of the customisation has been removed and requires the installation of an additional little program gnome-tweaks.
I only had the balls to make the jump a dayor so ago and as of yet I am undecided. It is certainly very different, but I have a feeling that once I get into the rhythm of how this DE works it could be a real boost to my work flow, but is it [i]too much[/i] change? I have vowed to stick it out for at least 2 weeks.
MY THOUGHTS SO FAR:
1. Mandatory Pulseaudio. WTF.
2. I was completely unbothered by the lack of min/max buttons and this surprised me. I also always had desktop drawing turned off in Gnome 2 anyway, so this was no loss to me.
3. I am frustrated by the amount of customisation that has gone. It's worth noting that most of it hasn't been removed, but if you want to change it, I hope you enjoy rifling through config files.
4. I an undecided about the new application system, it's something that will come about over the next few days, but I never really used multiple desktops in Gnome 2 whereas here, they really are my bread and butter.
Has anyone else dived into the new Gnome? Any thoughts? Complaints?
I don't like it.
I think you missed the thread here:
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1076570-GNOME-3-is-Officially-Released[/url]!
Yes, but the OP of that thread was perma'd and there was some misinformation swirling around in it.
I was on the positive side of ambivalent about Gnome 3 until I got into the [url=http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Extensions]extensions[/url]. I found the user themes (plus [url=http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/themeselector-gnome-shell-extension-to.html]ThemeSelector[/url]) nice and the dock useful, except I don't use the dock because it takes up too much screen real-estate on my netbook. I can use it about as quickly as any other DE or WM I've used.
[QUOTE=esalaka;29055893]I just installed GNOME-3. Here's a screenshot. [img_thumb]http://gyazo.com/3e7a9004e4fd28acdc5921a60633b01d.png[/img_thumb] (With Gyazo since the screenshot tool GNOME ships with doesn't work)
So thus far:
[list]
[*]GNOME 3 failed to start (I have up-to-date drivers!)
[*]My theme is slightly messed up
[*]Theme, font settings are nowhere to be found (I hate this mouse cursoooor)
[*]Panels are [B]immovable[/B]. Yeah, that's right, fuck the fact I'd like to use AWN. I can't. It's above the frigging panel that has all my apps.
[*]Fonts are messed up (AASDSFASAF)
[/list]
[editline]8th April 2011[/editline]
I seriously honestly feel like crying about this shit[/QUOTE]
This was my opinion in the last thread, and it'll stay that way for now. I might try again if I ever get a netbook, but I preferred GNOME 2.
Thus, when GNOME 3 entered the stable Arch repos, I switched to LXDE + CDM.
[QUOTE=esalaka;29611668]This was my opinion in the last thread, and it'll stay that way for now. I might try again if I ever get a netbook, but I preferred GNOME 2.
Thus, when GNOME 3 entered the stable Arch repos, I switched to LXDE + CDM.[/QUOTE]
You know, gnome3 still has a fallback to a gnome 2 panel style.
As for my experience, I find myself really starting to get used to it. I always kept my desktop as clear as possible anyway so the transition wasn't as huge for me. I've been using it for a few days, it's really starting to grow on me.
[QUOTE=Cluckyx;29629860]You know, gnome3 still has a fallback to a gnome 2 panel style.
As for my experience, I find myself really starting to get used to it. I always kept my desktop as clear as possible anyway so the transition wasn't as huge for me. I've been using it for a few days, it's really starting to grow on me.[/QUOTE]
That's the experience I have with Unity on Ubuntu. At first I thought to myself, that I'd never like something like that. Then I tried it on my netbook, and it worked really well. Installed on my Desktop, and I'm just amazed.
[QUOTE=T3hGamerDK;29630511]That's the experience I have with Unity on Ubuntu. At first I thought to myself, that I'd never like something like that. Then I tried it on my netbook, and it worked really well. Installed on my Desktop, and I'm just amazed.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure it's the same for unity, but Gnome3 still definitely has a LOT of growing to do, and they really need to get off their "simplicity" high horse and at least OFFER the settings to those who know enough to want to change them. But it looks like there may be some real promise in these new DEs.
[QUOTE=Cluckyx;29650320]I'm sure it's the same for unity, but Gnome3 still definitely has a LOT of growing to do, and they really need to get off their "simplicity" high horse and at least OFFER the settings to those who know enough to want to change them. But it looks like there may be some real promise in these new DEs.[/QUOTE]
That I totally agree with. I still can't figure out how to configure anything about Unity. It's a dick.
I like the whole simplicity idea, and it really does look good and work well. But don't make it so simple that there's not even a way to configure it :(
A week later, I have recently purchased a laptop. I am going fucking nuts that this isn't Gnome3 God damn.
[QUOTE=Cluckyx;29830149]A week later, I have recently purchased a laptop. I am going fucking nuts that this isn't Gnome3 God damn.[/QUOTE]
I know what you mean; I kept flicking my mouse to the top-left in Windows after I used Gnome 3.
[QUOTE=ASmellyOgre;29879030]I know what you mean; I kept flicking my mouse to the top-left in Windows after I used Gnome 3.[/QUOTE]
Yeah... This lappy is now running Gnome 3
I thought the new Ubuntu user interface was bad.
Well thats Unity, not Gnome3, although I can't really comment as, I'll admit, I don't know shit about Unity.
I'd really like to try out both Gnome 3 and Unity, but my x300m lacks decent drivers that give me enough performance.
I tried out GNOME 3 in Fedora 15 yesterday, and overall I like the new UI. (In particular, it's much better than Unity.)
I was surprised by the lack of control panels, though. For example, there's no place to choose a screensaver, or to change font sizes.
The lack of configurability could be due to
[list]
[*]GNOME developers don't think people need to change these things, or
[*]GNOME developers didn't have time to port all the control applets to the new framework in time for the 3.0 release, or
[*]GNOME provides them but Fedora omitted them for some reason.
[/list]
People who like to bash GNOME will probably say it's the first of those three, but I find that hard to believe. I'm curious which it actually is.
I was also surprised that there's no easily-accessible "help" option. There's a help application in the applications list, but one has to know how to [i]find[/i] the applications list in order to run it, and in the new UI, it's not immediately obvious how to do that. I was able to figure things out with a little experimentation, but I was surprised by the omission. If they're aiming for an "average Joe" audience, they should've at least put the help icon on the dash by default.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;30054356]
[list]
[*]GNOME developers didn't have time to port all the control applets to the new framework in time for the 3.0 release, or
[/list][/QUOTE]
Probably this one. Smells to me like it's accidentally repeating what happened to KDE 4.
KDE 4 initially [b]sucked[/b], but as the versions went on it started not-sucking. We're at 4.6 now and I'm a loyal KDE fanboy again.
That happened with GNOME 2.0 (vs 1.x) too. I can already think of a few improvements for gnome-shell, like grouping the icons in the application list into categories (the way search results are grouped).
I found the [url=http://live.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/Screen]reason for the missing screensaver controls[/url]:
[quote]For the 3.0 release we dropped screensaver selection due to the rather complicated (ui-wise) time relation to locking and turning screen off.[/quote]
Seems silly to remove a feature because you can't figure out how its control panel should look, when it already has a working control panel in the previous version.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;30071994]Seems silly to remove a feature because you can't figure out how its control panel should look, when it already has a working control panel in the previous version.[/QUOTE]
ehh just switch it to xscreensaver
One other surprise, though this is probably as much a Fedora thing as a GNOME thing: there seems to be no notification icon to indicate that updates are available. If I open the "System Info" control panel, there's a button in the lower-right corner that says "Updates Available", but that's something that requires the user to manually check.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;30074694]One other surprise, though this is probably as much a Fedora thing as a GNOME thing: there seems to be no notification icon to indicate that updates are available. If I open the "System Info" control panel, there's a button in the lower-right corner that says "Updates Available", but that's something that requires the user to manually check.[/QUOTE]
GNOME probably still just takes whatever tray icons it gets fed to it. So it's more of a Fedora problem. Which is weird because my netbook gets the "Updates Available" icon still and it's running Fedora 14...check if `yum check-update` works
I know that Yum update checking works becase the "Updates Available" button appears in the System Info window. I'm not saying that Fedora lacks update notification in general.
GNOME 3 doesn't really have the "tray" anymore, though it has the new notification area at the bottom of the screen. That'd be a natural place for package update notifications, so I'm guessing it's a new and different API and Fedora didn't port its tray applet for some reason.
Speaking of updates, I installed them and my system crashed shortly thereafter. It turns out GNOME 3 has a friendly crash screen, reminiscent of the old [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_startup#Sad_Mac]Sad Mac[/url]. Black screen, an icon of a computer with a sad face on the screen, and below it, the text:
[quote]
[b]On no! Something has gone wrong.[/b]
A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please log out and try again.
[/quote]
with a logout button below.
Unfortunately, my system is now in a broken state: I type my password to log in and the login screen disappears, but the shell never appears. Yay.
One further (unrelated) observation from before the crash: switching tabs using the mouse wheel no longer works. Not exactly an essential feature, but I found it useful. Hopefully it'll be added back in a later version.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;30090783]GNOME 3 doesn't really have the "tray" anymore, though it has the new notification area at the bottom of the screen. That'd be a natural place for package update notifications, so I'm guessing it's a new and different API and Fedora didn't port its tray applet for some reason.[/QUOTE]
It should still be compatible with what would go in the tray in GNOME 2 or KDE. :colbert:
The notification area (aka the "tray", borrowing the Windows term) "[url=http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray/Compatibility]deprecated in GNOME 3 and shouldn't be used.[/url]" Instead there's a new [url=http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray]Message Tray[/url] that seems to have a different interaction model. It's not clear whether legacy notification icons are placed in the message tray for compatibility.
Well, that can fuck right off. It looks bloated and weird.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;30094093]It's not clear whether legacy notification icons are placed in the message tray for compatibility.[/QUOTE]
It better be done for compatibility :colbert:
I don't give a damn if they changed the way things talk to it's new thingy, as most UI libs will update their TrayIcon function to handle that. But if applications that were just updated last month can't handle it, they crippled their own desktop.
At least they didn't move the close button to the left corner...
I like Gnome 2 a lot more.
I like it more than Unity, but I'm still not sure why I shouldn't just stick with XFCE or GNOME 2
I re installed Arch last week, and decided to try out gnome 3. Gnome Shell it better than I expected it to be, and it still has some nasty bugs. Still debating on whether I should keep using it or not
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