Gnome 3 - This is the end, it seems

Looks like the next few linux releases that use gnome are in for a bumpy ride if this blog is anything to go by. Sounds like kde4 all over again. I am frankly a little surprised by desktop developers that do not think things through carefully from the enduser point of view as opposed to the software "bling" viewpoint. I have been testing out the Unity interface and it is slick but from a basic functionality viewpoint it is no advance over "classic" gnome and in some respects it is a regression. I use gnome for what it can do not for the slick effects. Other desktops such as XFCE used to not be able to do as much. Looks like that is set to change and I will be carefully investigating gnome alternatives. Hope some developers are paying attention.

Hope some developers are paying attention.

Unfortunately, I don't think they are. They have too much time invested in the direction they are traveling and users be damned....

But that's not a departure from Gnome Developer behavior...

And unless Unity does some of the simple stuff like allow us to easily change the icons on the left of the screen, there will be major complaints on that front as well. I am not encouraged.

Bling should be an after-thought, not a goal.

Albeit having an ax to grind, this blogger makes some very good points; especially the one about the rather glaring omission of a way to shut down the computer. Though I think the author overstates it when he says:

"Gnome 3 does not have a shutdown button inside the desktop session. You can only suspend your useless porn and microblogging, you cannot turn it off. You are also Available, in case you need to be raped by an invading army."

If he's suspending useless porn, he's not doing it right :-) At least that's what I'm told . . . .

Yep, they're killing the emergency switch...the minimize and close buttons....or so I would guess that's the emergency switch, not that I'd know.

Don't get me wrong it loos nice and I'm sure it's usable but it's not what appears to be what folks are comfortable with. If we all wanted something snazzy & elegant we could enlightenment! But, we choose gnome which is stable and comfortable for majority usage and comfortness.

xfce & lxde are pretty good projects and will fit the bill while gnome goes on and does it's own thing and in time it will be adopted, and that is why easing the transition would have been easier rather then just doing what it is they appear to be doing.

Looks a whole lot like what ubuntu is trying to accomplish many ways.. Makes me wonder why all the fuss between the projects or maybe it's just smoke and mirrors...

What is causing all consternation here is Gnome Shell. That does not prevent one from installing Gnome3 for its tools and such and then bringing up another desktop environment to invoke those tools. That means using KDE or LxDE to use the parts of Gnome3 you want to use. This is what I did when I took a look at Gnome shell on Fedora 15 Alpha. It looked like a cellphone interface; totally useless for the work we do in my shop. What we have running now is a test partition running Fedora 14 with Gnome, KDE, and LxDE installed. We are using the LxDE desktop to run the Gnome and KDE tools along with everything else. It works just fine and this is probably the way we will go if the Gnome developers persist with their cellphone interface nonsense.

This is eerily similar in a number of ways to the initial and occasional ongoing articles for another DE. I particularly noted the facts that the writer seems to suggest that Gnome 3 will require "alterations" in order to get an environment that allows serious work and that "the simplified interface and the extra cosmetics are actually detrimental to........ productivity". Been there, done that. Of course, as is is noted: "everything could and can change". I don't use Gnome, but I will watch with interest.

In spite of the impression given by every blogger searching for page views.

Otherwise the Linux Mint folks would not be able to release a GNOME 3 desktop that looks and functions like the familiar GNOME 2 desktop, and doesn't use GNOME Shell.

Agreed, but since I'm not familiar with this blogger (writer of the article) it would seem a regular end-user or power-user as they refer to themselves as or hint at cannot change gnome3 to behave like gnome2. So while mint might be able to do this it would appear end user's cannot and therein lies the problem.

I keep wanting to give gnome3 the benefit of the doubt but it's becoming clear that there is really no reason to. I'll try it out eventually, and test to see how easily things can be reverted, but if the process is difficult for an end-user I'll be more then happy to try and influence distro's by whatever means to use xfce, lxde or similar desktops rather then shipping with gnome3-standard.

Whatever happened to: If it's not broke -- don't fix it ?

Doesn't Gnome 3 plan to scrap the Gnome Panel though? If so that will make a Gnome 2 like experience impossible to provide any longer. I've been using the Enlightenment desktop for couple years now and people that barely give it a chance have always complained that it is "too different" even though you can configure it to look like, well - anything. And now that Gnome 3 and Unity are jumping to something that is totally different and doesn't appear to be able to be configured too much... Well I don't think I'm the only one betting piles of people are going to be looking into KDE/XFCE/LXDE/E17 in the coming months. Gnome could see as quickly a decline as it saw a rise.

~Jeff Hoogland

It is my impression that Gnome 3 will indeed have panels available - I believe they're calling it GnomeClassic3 or something like that.

Whether they will continue any kind of actual development on it, or if they will scrap it down the line I don't know, but I think they're wise to just keep building it for the new stack. It wouldn't seem to be too difficult, and would prevent a mass exodus of old-school Gnomers like me.

I agree with the article that this notion that both Gnome Shell and Unity are espousing - that what's good for a smart phone or tablet is good for a desktop - is absurd.

call it what it is, Knome. All the blistering idiocy from the KDE rehab and learned exactly zero lessons. Way to reinvent the $(four_letter_word)-up.

Quoting:All the blistering idiocy from the KDE

I believe what I see and lay aside what I hear. Elegance is what I see.

Time for a car analogy:

If KDE4 were a car, it would be a Cadillac with a three-cylinder engine and a manual transmission.

It doesn't matter how good it looks, if it's difficult to use. That's why "Vist@" is a swear word, when it comes after "Wind0ws".

Quoting:Time for a car analogy:

Some analogies are for the birds. This one is wacky.

Quoting:It doesn't matter how good it looks, if it's difficult to use.

With elegance I wasn't referring to beauty, but rather to Functional Elegance. All things are relative and on the outside, there isn't much new to learn if one doesn't use the new features. One just have to get acquainted with it to appreciate the experience.