Gnome Shell is Only Meant for Single Tasking Users

Story: Gnome (S)hell - Its underlying principles are an insult to users Total Replies: 4
Author Content
BFM

May 28, 2011
8:51 PM EDT
Gnome Shell is meant for single tasking users on small screen devices. If you are on a smart phone or even on a netbook it makes some some sense. Even if you are on a large format desktop display but only run one application at a time it might be OK. But, if you are multitasking on a high-power large-screen desktop it is useless. One size no longer fits all users. Linux just serves too wide a range of users for one interface to fit all. So the Gnome and Unity developers are going for the lowest common denominator. The rest of us have to look somewhere else.
helios

May 29, 2011
8:48 AM EDT
The fact that they are ending support/use of panels kills the deal for me. What could be easier than putting your most-used apps in the panel for easy access? I have both top and bottom panels and my apps are one click away...not buried in the application menus or dependent upon the use of a search field to bring up the app. More importantly, I don't have to drop to my desktop to get to them.

http://www.heliosinitiative.org/myfiles/panel.png

Functionality beats Gee-whiz-isn't-this-shiny every time. Especially when shiny requires two to three more mouse clicks to perform the same task.

I haven't done much research on it but I am guessing someone will take on the 2.32 gnome project as Trinity did for KDE 3.x. I am further guessing who ever does it will have quite a following. Personally, I would financially support such an effort with quarterly contribution$.

I'm further curious to see if or how Mint will be involved.
DrGeoffrey

May 29, 2011
9:27 AM EDT
Take a look at the size of the Mint team:

http://www.linuxmint.com/teams.php

Given the number of distributions they are currently producing, I don't think they have sufficient people to take on such a massive task... even before one considers the disparate interests of the members.

And do we really want them to dramatically increase the size of their team? Or is part of the reason why they've been so successful their organization (i.e., a tight-knit group)?
Koriel

May 29, 2011
12:56 PM EDT
@DrGeoffrey You may have something there, It seems to me that the smaller tight knit groups are producing better software at the expense of speed and quantity.

XFCE is a prime example, excellent software although a slow pace of development and since they are a small group I get the impression they concentrate their efforts on the important things and not puff & bloat.

Slackware is another example of excellent software from a small team.

I suspect that the XFCE team may soon see an influx of developer refugees from those not enamored with Gnome & Unity development direction. What happens to the excellent software provided by the current XFCE team if their ranks should suddenly grow.

And has anybody noticed how some of the best software is being done by the pseudo dictatorships Slackware & Patrick, Mint & Clement a firm hand at the tiller seems to do the trick.

Just my observations
helios

May 29, 2011
1:46 PM EDT
This is the third high rank exec to abandon ship at Canonical in just the past few weeks.

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Canonical-Chief-De...

Noting that she was in charge of design, I am guessing she either had irreconcilable differences with Shuttleworth or she couldn't stand the hail of fire from hacked-off users responding to Unity.

Again, just guessing here but it substantiates the point made above about smaller software development environments. Although I don't care for it much, Bill Reynolds did/does a pretty good job at the helm of PCLinuxOS.

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