Live data from Hacker News

Lobotomizing Gnome

eklitzke.org

161–170 of 224 posts

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#161
post #3

I recently switched to Linux (from Windows 10 - forced upgrade took 45' in the middle of an extremely important moment) Debian netinstall + Mate desktop (Gnome 2/3 extension?) I expected to switch back within a week. Surprisingly, I love it. After a few tweaks and Nvidia drivers installed, it's way better than I expected. Super fast, minimal, and no annoyances. Linux desktop really has improved in the last 20 years,…

I used MATE for about a year and then switched to Cinnamon because of some issues I've had with MATE. I find Cinnamon the best DE for Linux. It has the best UI, shortcuts and the best file manager.

As for GNOME, it's way too dumbed-down. You have to find and install dozens of extensions to have a decent desktop.

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#162
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use XMonad but used to have lots of Gnome based services running in the background, in order to have sensible "modern" plug-and-play and easy configurability (e.g. printers, monitor layout, network, etc.) Sadly, as they move more and more things to the Shell, this is becoming a harder task. gnome-control-center which used to be very useful even in my custom setup, is now useless if you don't run a full gnome-sessio…

Similarly I run StumpWM as my main WM. I just run a full gnome session on a separate x server and when I want to setup a printer or whatever I just switch to gnome with ctrl-alt-F2.

I don't know why this never occurred to me. Thanks for the idea. I've always exited i3 when I have the rare need for something from gnome I don't know how to do without the UI.

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#164
post #142

The author wants to remove JavaScript from their desktop and does this by disabling all extensions in the hope that it will also disable Gnomes JavaScript engine. What the author does not appear to understand is that extensions are written in JavaScript because Gnome shell is written in JavaScript. Gnome works very well for my workflow, and I find much of the "bloat" to be quite useful in day to day usage, but can un…

Wow. Gnome Shell is written in javascript? How much of it is javascript? I find this a really odd decision.

It's not so different from writing a Qt app in python. The C code does all the heavy lifting with JS doing the UI bits. That setup is way faster than the DOM because the JS is manipulating native widgets. While that's not as efficient as writing everything in C, it is much faster to write and bugfix and results in more stable and secure code.

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#165

This mentality "lets add a daemon to run in background 24/7" to provide some service thats sits mostly unused is unacceptable. Its not only gnome developers, its widespread in open-source. The competitive edge of Linux is reduced quite a bit when there is enough bloatware running around by default.

If such a daemon does not use cycles unless called out to, then the only problem is that it's one more attack vector. Oh wait.

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#166
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs That's how Unity (Ubuntu's default DE) worked, until they transitioned to GNOME.

Gnome also works like that

Yes but it has to replace your desktop with a checkerboard of launchers, which might be a thing whose effect ranges from unnecessary but harmless to annoying and confusing, especially when it lags.

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#167
post #30
post #3

I recently switched to Linux (from Windows 10 - forced upgrade took 45' in the middle of an extremely important moment) Debian netinstall + Mate desktop (Gnome 2/3 extension?) I expected to switch back within a week. Surprisingly, I love it. After a few tweaks and Nvidia drivers installed, it's way better than I expected. Super fast, minimal, and no annoyances. Linux desktop really has improved in the last 20 years,…

I had more or less the same situation with my last remaining Windows machine (mainly for games). I thought Windows reboots were supposed to get less over the years but it has only gotten worse and I've got less autonomy over them with Windows 10. Go away from your computer for a little while and come back to a reboot (a little hyperbole). Now my gaming PC run Void Linux and with native Steam and Wine (PlayOnLinux, Lu…

> Now my gaming PC run Void Linux and with native Steam and Wine (PlayOnLinux, Lutris) I've got access to most of my game library. It's easier to just ignore the few games that do not work on Linux nowadays.

Do you have this setup online somewhere, like a blog post or a git repo?

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#168
post #164
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Gnome Shell is written in javascript? How much of it is javascript? I find this a really odd decision.

It's not so different from writing a Qt app in python. The C code does all the heavy lifting with JS doing the UI bits. That setup is way faster than the DOM because the JS is manipulating native widgets. While that's not as efficient as writing everything in C, it is much faster to write and bugfix and results in more stable and secure code.

I've no problem with javascript being available for desktop development. More power to javascript devs! What I find mind-boggling is that a mostly unstructured, dynamically typed and unsafe language is pushed as the MAIN language for desktop development.

Has the world gone bonkers?

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#169
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but forced updates have already come to linux: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for... Even applications you'd expect to be native (apt packages) like `gnome-system-monitor` are included as snaps by default in the desktop version of ubuntu 18.04. All it takes is a someone with sufficient authority to make disabling snaps very difficult.[1] Unfortunately, th…

Has come to Ubuntu flavors of Linux* and it seems, especially, just GNOME? I don't have this problem with Arch and pacman -Syu at my leisure. I refuse to use autoupdating software out of principle and am saddened so many people choose convenience over security.

Not only, but Debian wouldn't do this ever too. It's just as easy to run a Debian desktop spin, and it does not have any of the scandals or idiotic decisions Ubuntu has.

This is what's nice with the distro ecosystem. Someone messes their thing up and gives you the middle finger? Say bye and switch to a saner thing. Your apps will work on almost all of the Linux distros (GNU/ or not) and *BSD w/o any effort, and getting them to work otherwise is not only possible, but usually easy.

Re: Lobotomizing Gnome

#170
post #38
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but it's never going to force you to reboot to install some shovelware that you don't want and can't opt out of.

Migration of many distros to systemd forced many people to do exactly that ;)

Yeah, but at least you can remove it if you want.
Post reply on HN