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GNOME 3 Released

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Re: GNOME 3 Released

#31

Post by TillE »

rwmj wrote: post #23

It seems no one here has actually tried using GNOME 3 for any period of time. I gave it a couple of days and switched over to XFCE. I found it incredibly annoying as a developer desktop (perhaps a minority user these days?). It's very hard to switch between applications, virtual desktops are basically broken, you can't have shortcuts for launching apps/programs, no focus-follows-mouse, and the GNOME developers don't…

If developers are a minority of Linux users, surely it's still a large minority. Sadly, KDE3 was the last desktop I actually enjoyed using. KDE4 is still (still!) broken and useless and ugly.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#32

Post by CoffeeDregs »

rwmj wrote: post #23

It seems no one here has actually tried using GNOME 3 for any period of time. I gave it a couple of days and switched over to XFCE. I found it incredibly annoying as a developer desktop (perhaps a minority user these days?). It's very hard to switch between applications, virtual desktops are basically broken, you can't have shortcuts for launching apps/programs, no focus-follows-mouse, and the GNOME developers don't…

A few days ago, I added experimental to my Debian apt list and apt-getted for about an hour until gnome-shell was working. Very unstable, partially configured, not really revolutionary, etc. Headed back to Gnome 2 only to find out that GTK 2 and GTK 3 have a hard time co-existing. Twas very difficult to get my system back to normal. I'm an idiot; don't be like me.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#33

Post by decode »

jrockway wrote: post #16
demetris wrote: post #14

The webfont used (Cantarell) does not look good in Windows. The texts are almost unreadable: http://op111.net/u/misc/20110407-win7-fx4-gnome.org.png — (It looks fine on Linux.) Cantarell, by the way, is also the UI font of Gnome Shell. Not a bad UI font, I think, but it has a narrow glyph range (about 400) and only includes Latin. Moving to the larger picture, my impression from the Gnome Shell desktop up to now is t…

UIs like this are not for power users. They use xmonad or awesome or dwm or ratpoison or ... This is for someone who turns on their computer, does some work, and then stops using their computer. They do not want to bother themselves with a lot of learning. Simple actions that can be easily learned and improve speed (like keyboard shortcuts) are in reach. But more "confusing" concepts like virtual desktops without vis…

I consider myself a power user and I've been happily using Gnome for several years now. It's got just enough room for customization that I can configure it to be a very efficient workspace, but it doesn't require me to spend days or weeks configuring it and learning a new way to use my computer.

But it looks like this release might be enough to drive me away. The app-based window management paradigm just doesn't work if you regularly have 8 console windows and 4 browser windows open on a single virtual desktop. My working style used to be well supported by Gnome, but now it's been completely dropped.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#34

Post by squidsoup »

hartror wrote: post #30
riffraff wrote: post #19

I really like gnome3, but I'ts kind of sad to realize the main video on the frontpage (for a wonderful new desktop experience) shows only two desktop applications: gedit editing an html file, and firefox with firebug to fix that same code. And a fake IM session with a loremipsum in it. I understand the gnome desktop may not have many shiny artisty apps as OSX, but this feels a tad too nerdy.

You do realise where you are posting right?

We're not representative of the linux userbase anymore - increasingly it is used by students, home users and office workers that aren't necessarily technical. That's the demographic they should be appealing to and they're more interested in social and media related apps.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#36

Post by hollerith »

jrockway wrote: post #16
demetris wrote: post #14

The webfont used (Cantarell) does not look good in Windows. The texts are almost unreadable: http://op111.net/u/misc/20110407-win7-fx4-gnome.org.png — (It looks fine on Linux.) Cantarell, by the way, is also the UI font of Gnome Shell. Not a bad UI font, I think, but it has a narrow glyph range (about 400) and only includes Latin. Moving to the larger picture, my impression from the Gnome Shell desktop up to now is t…

UIs like this are not for power users. They use xmonad or awesome or dwm or ratpoison or ... This is for someone who turns on their computer, does some work, and then stops using their computer. They do not want to bother themselves with a lot of learning. Simple actions that can be easily learned and improve speed (like keyboard shortcuts) are in reach. But more "confusing" concepts like virtual desktops without vis…

>This is for someone who turns on their computer, does some work, and then stops using their computer. They do not want to bother themselves with a lot of learning.

>Once you reach a certain level of interest in optimizing everything, you have to use tools to build your own desktop environment, because you are a unique flower

Or the power user can switch to OS X, which requires less 'optimizing' to get it into a comfortable state than any of the Linux environments (e.g., Gnome 2, dwm and ratpoison) I have tried do.

I do not want a set of tools with which I can build my own desktop. I want a desktop that is usable without major customization or tinkering although I do realize that any desktop warrants some customization and administration if it will be heavily used.

ADDED. I ran Linux for 13 years, and command-line Gnu tools and Emacs on proprietary Unix for 5 years before that, and I would like to continue supporting free software if I can do so without undue sacrifice.

Maybe I am just more sensitive to matters of design and aesthetics than most Linux users are, but I started using OS X last year. It's not perfect, but I like it better than I like the Gnome 2 on Linux I used before that even though I have put less effort (but still much effort, maybe more that is rational) into tweaking and customizing OS X than I have Gnome 2.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#37

Post by threepointone »

squidsoup wrote: post #34
hartror wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realise where you are posting right?

We're not representative of the linux userbase anymore - increasingly it is used by students, home users and office workers that aren't necessarily technical. That's the demographic they should be appealing to and they're more interested in social and media related apps.

>We're not representative of the linux userbase anymore.

> increasingly it is used by students, home users and office workers that aren't necessarily technical.

citations, please. it's one thing where the developers of gnome/linux WANT it to be used by this demographic, it's another to claim that it's happening (and to claim that HN users don't use it anymore).

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#38

Post by dman »

_frog wrote: post #29
iamcalledrob wrote: post #26

Gnome really needs help with their typography (and design in general). Gradients, docks and shiny icons do not make a well designed product. It's clear to see it suffers from the curse of open source software – design by committee, and the featuritis that results from that. There's often "flashy" chrome in OSS, but no solid interactions behind to back it up. It's equally important what you choose to leave out from yo…

I think the reason that open source software is so often poorly designed is this committee approach where no one person can lead the design team. Strong leadership is extremely important when designing a good UI and I feel a lot of open source projects forget this. Also this leader needs to be thick skinned and self confident enough to take criticism from others on the project but also assert their own subjective vie…

Leadership is one issue. Another one is that the big Linux companies (Novell and Redhat) make most of their money from the enterprise market. So there isnt significant desktop design expenditure because the revenue slice from the Linux desktop market is vanishingly small. Canonical is trying to change this.

As an aside - www.enlightenment.org is one project which has had pretty strong leadership (Raster is a great programmer and also has good aesthetic sensibilities). I hope enlightenment comes back and the big two (KDE and Gnome) becomes the big four (kde, gnome, ubuntus take on gnome and enlightenment).

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#39

Post by deadcyclo »

I don't use GNOME because I find it way to heavy and bloated (I run X and the stumpwm manually). It would however be very interesting to know how early adapters find GNOME 3 compared to previous GNOME versions in terms of bloat and speed.

I also understand that GNOME 3 can be used very keyboard driven. AAAnybodywo swears to the keyboard like me have any opinions?

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#40

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