The Adwaita Icon Theme no longer follows the FDO icon naming spec breaking KDE applications on Fedora 40 Workstation and Co. See the concrete state of the issue in the linked article.
I really like gnome the software, but I’ve started considering moving away from it after a decade simply because of how toxic and difficult gnome the project can be.
I also really like GNOME the software but I moved away a few months ago because of this.
As is, the current GNOME is unusable to me without extensions because they refuse to implement support for appindicators. You literally cannot use applications that minimize to tray on vanilla GNOME right now. They have been talking about adding their own protocol for years but that is of no use when things are broken right now.
Important features and bug fixes are always stuck in merge request limbo for years. VRR for Wayland got merged recently after 4 years and it’s still experimental. DRM leasing is still missing on Wayland, KDE added it 3 years ago.
The final straw was when KDE announced HDR support last year I switched over because I knew GNOME would probably lag behind by months or even years.
You can check this post post about why gnome has done away with appindicators. Basically everyone has their own and it’s a mess, they’re very much not bringing them back, appindicators are being replaced altogether by the notification system.
I’m aware of their reason for dropping support but it’s not sensible to drop a functioning system and replace it with nothing and then talk about how to do it better for years. That post is from 2017, it’s 2024 now and there is still no replacement in sight.
@imecth @cullmann @ohyran @UnityDevice @domi It wasn’t true when Allan wrote that blog post, and it’s still not true now. If you drop XEmbed and only support SNI (as Plasma did years ago), you have one way to handle it. As it is, Fedora Workstation has an open ticket about adding the appindicator extension because applications are broken without it and Ubuntu maintains and ships it to support a useful user experience.
Currently the ticket is deferred until we resolve updating the SNI spec.
As is, the current GNOME is unusable to me without extensions because they refuse to implement support for appindicators. You literally cannot use applications that minimize to tray on vanilla GNOME right now. They have been talking about adding their own protocol for years but that is of no use when things are broken right now.
So what, just use the extension. Currently no cross-desktop API for systrays that doesn’t suck in one or another way exists, so GNOME doesn’t have support for them. If you care that much about not using an extension, implement it for yourself.
Or, use KDE. Which does it all without any extension, even if the current API sucks.
It’s not acceptable to me to require a third party extension to achieve a basic useable desktop environment.
There literally was an implementation that was dropped, and I think it is clear that a PR for a better one would be dropped too.
Instead, GNOME users can stare at an empty panel, while KDE Plasma saves screen space and still has a panel with apps and all needed infos.
Now I am a KDE fanboy to the bone, a KDE eV member and past contributor to several projects … so I am kinda biased :D so “yes, yes you should” THAT SAID I know a lot of awesome folks in the GNOME project. People who really really are brilliant and fantastic folks the issue is that there is a culture of “be loudest and most self-assured and you’re the best” in certain aspects of the project and combined with the GNOME projects stated focus on just GNOME that creates an air of snobbery among some (sadly some of the people most outwardly visible) and a tendency to demand help from others but refusing to give it when asked. Its a cycle of self-proclaimed victimhood too where they consider any disagreement as either “unprofessional” or just random hostility without reason when it comes from the outside.
Which sucks. Sucks amazingly. Specifically because there are so many great folks in the project doing awesome things for others and the GNOME project who seem doomed to obscurity because of their ability to work with others and not be blustering screaming malcontents due to the projects culture (in certain areas).
EDIT: just to hammer the point home. Amazing project, amazing people but for some reason a handful of people who from the outside look like random asshats have been actively promoted to the top. Perhaps within the project they don’t appear as asshats? I don’t know. I just know that I have a very very short list of people that I avoid and would leave a project if they where in it because I have seen what they do when in power. Three of that less-than-five list are from the GNOME projects leadership.
