According to the comments here, innovation should not happen because we already have something. It seems everything needs to be a Windows clone with extra settings and worse UI for it to be considered here. Nothing clean or new that could genuinely help the Linux desktop adoption in the mainstream. The FOSS Gatekeeping continues as always.
I think it is kind of sad that so many people are opposed to such innovations as this is truly what we need as an OS if we want it to be mainstream: differentiating features and a distinct experience. Not a clone that makes people think “oh it looks and behaves mostly like Windows, so it must work just like it!” and then run into a brick wall. I think the main reason people who switch to MacOS succeed and stay and even love it is because 1. MacOS is really easy to learn and 2. People go in not expecting to be like Windows, instead they expect to have to learn a whole new workflow.
If Linux could have such an experience I really think it could help sell the idea of Linux as a separate OS experience/product rather than something that looks and feels like a slightly worse Windows with no telemetry and no forced updates.
Yeah, GNOME is fine. I used KDE for years and got tired of the jank, so now I’m back in GNOME. It’s fine, it launches applications, browses files,and tells me the time, which is about all anyone really needs from a desktop environment. It does a lot more too.
I think it’s a great experience. It’s not for everyone, but nothing is. Use what makes you happy and cheer on projects that fit others’ needs, because the more people use Linux with different configurations, the more functionality we’ll all get and the more bugs will be fixed.
This is very well thought out, I’m excited to try this.
I’m not shitting here shitting on GNOME but I haven’t tried it since gnome 3 released.
I got kinda stuck on tiling wms because I hate having to think about laying out windows and so this blog post is exciting! They’re very correct that tiling wms only partially solve the problem because you often have to tweak for proper line length or just deal with random void space in settings apps.
Obviously mosaic isn’t in yet, but if I wanted to dip into GNOME can it do (or are there addons or alternative more efficient things to try) for the following:
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snappy keyboard only application launching e.g. dmenu style.
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a way to activate a tiling wm mode for when you’re doing something like software Dev or at least a way to save and lock particular layouts?
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tell software to always open on a particular monitor?
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manipulate windows without using the mouse + move focus to different screens without using the mouse?
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display a string in the status bar (I assemble my status bar using a custom shell script which outputs a string. I’d like to not reinvent it)
Cause reading this blog I’m kinda keen to see where they take GNOME and get in early so it’s easier to learn.
Like I said, I last used GNOME 2 so it’s been a while and I’m sure in my head it’s unfairly judged.
Gnome to me was like a DE trying really hard to be like Mac, I don’t want that. I didn’t want any of what Gnome 3 was offering and I still don’t.
I have a Debian VM that I jump into to try out latest KDE and Gnome just to see how things are and I honestly do not want what Gnome is still trying to offer.
So I’d happily shit on it and then find that corner of it to hook out the remaining crap from my butt cheeks.
I’m glad you like it, but allow other to have their own opinion without making the assumption that people have simply not used it and that’s why they dislike it so hard.
I’m always cautious when GNOME says they’re reconcepting a process that we’re happy with. I’m curious to see where this goes but unfortunately GNOME already lost me to KDE :(
I worry that the changes will forced.
Automatically do what people probably want, allow adjusting if needed
This is probably the thing that irks me the most about it. Most everything I open remembers where it was last time I opened it and just goes there. So I only have to decide once where and how big I want a window to be, generally. I don’t want that to be contextually different depending on what else is open the vast majority of the time either, so I don’t want to fight with my DE over where and how big a window should be.
I don’t know, to each their own I suppose. Tons of people seems to like Gnome, so I don’t want to hate on it… But it feels like they are making a DE for people that don’t want to learn to use a computer, people that have mostly only used tablets and phones, or people that want the device to make the decisions for them… Which doesn’t sound at all like the people that are switching to or already using Linux. I don’t know, I have to assume I am just missing the magic something that Gnome provides to others.
To give what I hope is an apt analogy: Imagine you have desk where you do all your work. Every other DE handles this desk like a human would just putting stuff everywhere, moving and grabbing as needed.
This proposal and gnome in general take that desk and make it an auto-sorting desk so you can always grab what you need as fast as possible at all times without doing any organization yourself. Oftentimes I use a lot of different apps sporadically so having something that can auto-sort them is a dream come true.
The real magic of gnome is A: how pretty and polished it and the apps are and B (arguably more important): how little you have to fight it to get work done. I spend zero time thinking on gnome, I just hit the super key or three finger swipe and what I want is done. This proposal brings me even more of that. I’m like 2x more productive than my windows coworkers and most of that is due to gnome.
Why is this the sanest thing? There are many people that enjoy using gnome including myself. Don’t you think this is an extreme take for something that just doesn’t align with your views on how the Linux desktop should be?
They have moved their Gnome specific stuff in GTK to a library called libawaita. You can easily use GTK without much Gnome specific stuff.
Why did people downvote this? I’m thinking of switching from KDE to GNOME on my PC, with extensions it’s great for every usecase.
again???
