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Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?
(ludditus.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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"I’m not saying gnome is bad here"... but it lacks basic DE features, pushed useless crap like the activity view to people and slow animations that can't be completely turned off. To top things they try to reinvent the desktop experience every 2 or 3 years and end up making things worse (like when they decided to remove the desktop icons).
All for a "design and usability view" that doesn't amount to anything productive.
You left off the part about this being just your opinion and a lot of people like gnome.
Also, what kind of monster has desktop icons or files in 2023?
Most people.
No wonder you guys say you don't like Gnome. You like clutter and lack organizational skills. It's ok though. We all have our burdens to bear.
Do not misunderstand me. I don't generally use a lot of desktop icons. For the most part, the fewer icons are on my desktop the better, but I do have a few.
But back when Ubuntu briefly got rid of them, it sucked because occasionally I do want some icons on my desktop.
In short: if you don't wanna use any, you don't have to; just gimme the damn option.
Also, I never said I dislike Gnome.
That's what they did initially. Unfortunately, keeping around an antiquated optional feature that no developer wants to work on isn't free. It ends up being a hurdle for improving other stuff and at the same time it doesn't work as well as the user would expect. There is more context here if you're interested.
Antiquated? Hardly. Lots of people still use desktop icons.
(Unless you're referring to Gnome users; maybe it's different with that subset. I'm more referring to computer users in general.)
Also, that is interesting! I'll read it sometime! Thanks!
Clarification: In my previous comment I meant that the implementation was antiquated, which is why it was causing many problems.
Although I do think that desktop icons in general are outdated because they're designed around a desktop metaphor that is itself outdated. Our use of computers has changed vastly over time and the original metaphors are irrelevant to today's newcomers. Yet most desktop environments are still replicating the same 30 year old ideas. It's because we're used to them (which I understand is a valid reason), not because they are necessarily the most pleasant or the most efficient.
That's fair. Like I said, I mostly don't use them. But if I really need to remember something in the short term, I'll put it on the desktop. Or if I don't really have any other place to put it I'll put it there.
My point is that it's useful to have when you need it, even if you don't normally use it. Although I suppose it wouldn't be difficult necessarily to find a new workflow. Still, to most everyday people I imagine desktop icons are kind of a non-issue.
I have opened in a tab that article you sent me. If keeping such an otherwise minor feature available is such a problem for future development for developers, I will have to read that. Because it otherwise seems almost inconsequentially small a detail when compared to the OS / file system experience as a whole.
Oh I know I'm just being purposefully jerky. That's the best part about Linux; options!
Do you know why there's KDE, XFCE and others? Because there's also a lot of people who dislike GNOME.
I don't dislike GNOME, I just know for a fact that most of what they do is trying to "reinvent the wheel" every three years.
Umm well akshually 🤓👆: KDE doesn’t exist because people don’t like GNOME lol. GNOME was made because KDE uses QT, which used to be proprietary.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#History
Yeah I remember those early days. KDE had a 1.0 version out in the late 90s, which was perfectly usable as a standalone desktop environment, while at the same time Gnome was little more than a panel with a foot. Early Gnome was an unholy mess and remained so until the late 2.x versions in the mid 2000s. Like how many window managers and file managers did they go through? I believe they even had Enlightenment as the default window manager for a while, and then there was that weird Ximian desktop phase.
Hold your horses, when I said "exist because" I was implying any particular time frame, I was just saying that if GNOME was really that superior everything else would've already died out without users / developers.
If we are getting pedantic here, the above quote is clearly implying that alternatives exist and are actively developed because people dislike GNOME. Your statement does not take in to account the possibility that people just like the other alternatives, and may still like GNOME as well, or feel indifference towards it.
No one is claiming that GNOME has the superior desktop experience. Rather, GNOME has a more opinionated experience, that suits some people, and not others. For some people, it will be superior. For others, they will prefer KDE, XFCE etc.
No, they don't exist because of Gnome lol.
Source on it reinventing the wheel every 2-3 years?
Gnome 3 was well over a decade ago. It's worked the same way ever since.
GNOME 3 was released 12 years ago, and hasn't changed that much (unless you consider horizontal virtual workspaces are a major paradigm shift somehow).
Just use something else if you don't like it; no one's "pushing" anything on to you. Clearly, other people do like it.
Yes. I also consider the removal of desktop icons, the default change to going into the activity view and whatnot important shifts and attempts at reinventing things.
Well, then I'd highly suggest you just use Xfce and not worry about GNOME so much. Xfce hasn't changed much in years.
Gnome is extremely productive, the workflow is amazing, much better than the Win95 workflow that everyone else uses, IMO.
Don't really see how it's changing every 2-3 years. Gnome 3 was well over a decade ago and not much has changed since. I don't see why you felt the need to lie about that?
Yes because constant flashy animations that get between you and the task is the definition of "extremely productive". The same goes for themes made with CSS and other web technologies and their absolute top notch performance. "Extremely productivity" is clicking a button and getting the window/panel/icon or whatever in front of you before your brain can even register the event, not a 2 second fade in followed by another equally excruciating fade-out animation.
What are these extremely flashy animations you speak of? I think you're just making stuff up. I've never seen any of these long animations. I click on an app icon and it opens immediately. I click close and it closes immediately.
Gnome is extremely productive. It's a big part of why most Linux workstations use it. It's stable, keyboard-focused, gets out of my way, and has the best workspaces/virtual desktop implementation I've come across. I use it for my work. Getting my work done the Windows way is so cumbersome in comparison.
You gonna provide a source on your "completely reinventing the wheel every 2-3 years" claim, or will your next comment contain another new lie?
Use XFCE for a day and then come back here and talk about performance. Not that I like XFCE's crude approach to thing but it is indeed fast and BS free.
Everything opens up immediately. My PCs perform well. I dunno where you got the weird animations lie from.
I've used XFCE plenty. XFCE would hinder my productivity massively, so nah I'm going to pass on that.
Still nothing on the "gnome massively reinvents the wheel every 2-3 years" thing? Not surprised, considering it was BS.
Removing desktop icons, forcing the activities view as default at some point etc. do you need more examples?
So your proof of Gnome "reinventing the wheel every 2-3 years" is them removing desktop icons (good riddance btw), idk, 7 years ago or something? And activities view (amazing for productivity and I wish others would catch up to Gnome here) well over a decade ago?
Yes. I will need examples. Because those aren't examples of what you said - show me how using Gnome is night and day different to 2-3 years ago, and show me how using it then was night and day different to 4-6 years ago.
This is easily the best part of GNOME. I wish macOS implemented mission control as well as GNOME has implemented Activity Overview, because using macOS feels like typing with one hand tied behind my back.
Go to GNOME Control Centre > Accessibility > Seeing > Reduce Animation. It also sets it globally so websites can choose to respect this setting. What animations remain?
They removed it because nobody wanted to maintain the code, which was generally agreed to be subpar, and it was blocking development elsewhere in Nautilus. They acknowledge it was a dumb idea to implement this functionality inside of Nautilus in the first place when they should have done it in the shell. They realized they were leaving users in the lurch here, so offered a few solutions like installing Nemo Desktop. They even developed a GNOME shell extension prototype before removing it that users could move straight to.
It wasn't part of some grand design decision that precluded desktop icons. They just made a bad technical decision 20 years ago that ended up accumulating a lot of technical debt.
Now, if you wanted to complain about something, shell extensions are certainly a horse worth beating. Or only letting you set shortcuts for the first four workspaces and forcing you to use Dconf for more. This is really dumb design.