Gnome 3 - This is the end, it seems

The future of the desktop, or not. Here's a long review and discussion about Gnome 3, the upcoming release of the Gnome desktop environment, analyzing its usability, productivity, purpose, and appeal from the perspecitve of casual and advanced users, with reference to competition, market trends, hypes, and more. Are you excited? Concerned? Frightened? Confused? You should be. Read on.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Im glad im not the only one who doesnt like unity and gnome3.
I dont understand what is wrong with the standard desktop layout on a desktop and laptop.

kde 4 and windows have the standard layout and it works well why the hell change it?

unity and gnome3 reminds me of OSX. any option which gives the user choice is hidden.
no right click menus (unless you hold down some special keyboard combination its designed for emergences only)
making the current application full screen without any choice to change it.
At least unity and gnome3 doesn't hold your photos hostage in a container and if the container breaks you have to rescue them.
same for music as well I believe.

im just glad there is quite a few different desktop environments for opensource operating systems.

i just wonder how many users ubuntu will have left once unity is forced on them.

 

I have read your informative review, Mrk, and depression has set in, especially after having made a clean break with Windows 2 years ago after having dual booted for nearly 3 years.
What to do ? I can only hope that the Mint as well as the Scientific Linux and CentOS developers will modify accordingly. Surely the CERN staff i.e. those that use SL for their projects can't possibly want a bling-toy designed for facebook type addicts ?
Time will tell. In the meantime i better get familiar with SL !

 

Don't despair just yet. There's a lot of time before the tough decision.
Mrk

 

Yeah, it looks too much like a paint-by-number concept. At least I'm liking kde 4.6 a lot in openSUSE.

 

strange linux is changing too quick

grub 2 (pain in @$$)

then unity (pain in @$$ 2nd time)

gnome 3 (pain in @$$ 3rd time)

what they need is stabilty instead making it Jolicloud one day mac another and unity or gnome shell next................

feels like a new linux for every day of week

thanks fedora distro stick with old gnome we have options like SL linux debian and kde 4.6 in not bad either but in kde no too much drastic changes basic things like menu panels min/max......simple things please dont make linux funny stuff

 

Why the chuck would they not have a shutdown button??

Windows can be resized right?

 

Oddly enough Meego doesn't not have a shutdown button nor does Android. The idea is if the computer is connected 24/7, no one shuts it down and in the rare case this is needed, you'd shut down the computer with the physical off button just like people turn off their mobile phones.

This is what the desktop of the future is going to look like. But for people set in their ways, they can keep using the older version of GNOME, or there's KDE, XFCE and LXDE which offer more familiar desktop environments.

There's hope!

 

I started out as a KDE user back in the 90's but moved to Gnome later because of it's evolution. If I have to go back to KDE because they have strayed from the path of elegance and productivity there.. will.. be.. hell to pay!

It seems that not even Linux is immune to the dumming down of interfaces for the sake of idiots who want Fisher Price (tm) operating systems. Why should we slide down instead of bringing them up..

Ugh.. maybe we need to go back to the console to scare off the mouth breathing Windows users

 

This is what the SMARTPHONE, TABLET OR AT MOST NETBOOK of the future is going to look like. This is not what a power computer is going to look like. Meego and Android have different purposes and I agree with those. But not when you have to use Matlab, LaTeX, VNC, Eclipse, or similar.

As to 24/7, I guess that broadband in Somalia is really kicking ass. Oh wait, they don't really count, do they? My desktop computers are connected all the time, but I also pay a handsome bill for having them on, a bill that many people would find inacceptable and even outrageous in many parts of the world.

There's no problem with being connected all the time - there's problem with the dumbing down of interface and usage model to that of a typical modern day oligophren.

Mrk

 

I've ignored the Unity/Gnome-Shell progress so far as I know how much things can change, but Unity is soon to be finalised (in terms of features/API) for Ubuntu 11.04, so I suppose its time to show interest.

A few people have mentioned productivity issues, but is that speculation or have you tried Unity/Gnome-Shell to find out if that's the fact ?

I would be interested in seeing studies for Unity/Gnome-shell as to their usability decisions.

Another thing is, the desktop should be aimed at the average-user not a power-user, because a power-user knows how to tweak things, where-as my experience is average-users tend not to know/care how to tweak things, they only care about getting to their email and office apps (sic) in least hassle.
I've worked with Microsoft and other UI experts who have contributed to projects I have worked on and for average-users simpler is better, present ONLY what is needed to get the job done, too many UI elements confuses, reduces ability to quickly learn. Its the 80-20 rule, people spend 80% of time using 20% of features.

I hope that the ability to tweak and add power-user features is not stripped away.
Maybe the current Gnome UI paradigm will be maintained for power-users ?

I don't think cloning Windows UI is the way to go either - there are some good ideas, but over-all legacy support and lack of consistency (did you know that most of MS own apps do not adhere to Windows UI design guidelines ?) means that Windows should not be modelled against, this is something Gnome and Mac have got right.

Of course it still perfectly possible that Unity and/or Gnome-Shell get it wrong.

Cheers, Nick

 

I agree about average/power users. But this interface is for morons.
I tried working with these and it's just impossible.

Simple is good - would you rate Mac as simple, for instance?
Gnome has always been fairly options-free and worked well.

It's not the Gnome looks that didn't get it propagated, it's the Linux usage model that is problematic, regardless of how the GUI elements look, since pretty much all modern desktops are roughly the same, speaking of Gnome, KDE, Windows, and Mac. Hence, it's not this simplicity we're talking about.

Simple is good when combined with stability. But when you don't have stability, it becomes nonsense. I want my desktop to be supported for ten years first, before we can discuss looks. I'm not in the mood to learn a new interface every six months.

Cheers,
Mrk

 

I think that current gnome and mac strikes a GOOD balance for average and power users.
From what I've read Unity and Gnome shell are more biased towards more average users and by comparison KDE is more power user tuned and Windows somewhere between gnome and KDE.

I've always been a fan of the method of progressive changes Ubuntu has made to enhance Gnome (that is not the specific changes, but the fact they have been gradually introduced). My experience is that this method causes less user issues cumulative than a big bang release on a number of big projects.
I don't even know if its possible to gradually introduce Gnome-Shell of Unity features gradually.
Between Gnome2 (vanilla and customised) UI that will be still be supported, Gnome-Shell and Unity there is risk of instability (user feedback, defective design).


Cheers, Nick

 

I have just tryed the fedora 24/03/2011 test day live cd which uses gnome3.

to shutdown the live cd i had to login to a terminal as root and type the shutdown command.

if you open up the about box in firefox it doesnt even have a close button. you have to right click and click on close.
i think by taking away to much makes it more confusing.
maybe things will improve with eiether gnome 3.0 final or 3.1
gnome has always been not liked for dumbing down interfaces lets hope this isnt the final straw.

 

Mac OSX is intuitive and is Unix based but where it differs from Linux is that it has no centralized repositories.

Installation is done by dragging a disk mounted image to the Applications folder. Few Mac programs come with an installer. Uninstall is accomplished by dragging a program from the Applications folder to the trash bin and then emptying it.

Mac OSX programs live on the dock and are launched from there. Its a fairly simple drop and drag interface, albeit, a proprietary one built by Apple on top of a BSD kernel and a Darwin open source shell.

Its a really well done integration of hardware and software and in an Apple product everything just works from the moment its powered on.

Such seamless integration between hardware and the operating system is a goal that Linux and Windows have yet to match.

 

That's because Apple builds their own hardware. It is impossible to match that while staying compatible with all types of hardware.

 

To be fair, certain computer makers do build Ubuntu specific hardware. Its been demonstrated it can be done with Linux just like Apple did it with its own hardware and Mac OSX.

 

Mac is great no doubt and I also like it a lot n lot.

But if you think the seamless integration by Mac is no magic as they control their hardware 100%. Such a hardware control is non-existent for windows and linux.

If OSX has to be installed on a plethora of hardware components, it might by just as buggy as windows or linux.

 

the main thing not only hardware

MAC follows BSD rule (less software stable software) + it also come out of box which work great for them you dont need to install graphic drivers.........multimedia stuff............controlling hardware make them create less and more stable

now let take example if you get out of box working stable desktop and you are not allowed to install any further just update = rock solid stability no

and those things allowed to installed are pretty expensive and tested well by mac team so they made to work great


linux is rock solid stable but what we do there is we cannot wait for latest software release and use 3rd party repository's and to make it more worst we mix them (ie fuse them with same kinda different repositories )

here for example on fedora 13 working fine for me and i have rock solid till now because i install minimum software what needed for day to day use and only repository i have is rpm fusion

so one linux working great on your system try to stick with it with minimum needful install at least with default linux install dont make it windows (ie itch = non stable system)

 

My wife has a Mac desktop, and although I recognize that Mac does its job very well for people who like it, I can't stand using it.
Ubuntu is trying so hard to appeal to "average" users, it's going to lose a lot of people. And I don't think the "average" user will ever go to Linux as they look for simplicity. They'll go to Mac, IMO.

 

Come one man, please don't be such a purist. Gnome 3 as well as KDE 4 are just fine. No product could be frozen in time, things have to evolve and change. Thus, that is how progress is made.

The linux developpers may not have fine tune everything to your liking; however, give it some time for them to tweak it. And eventually you may surprise even yourself by being fond of Gnome 3. . Well, you never know.

Thanks.

 

FWIW, I installed the gnome-shell package for a spin. The maximize/minimize buttons and the shutdown option were alive, well, and unmolested, at least in openSUSE 11.4.

 

I'm just trying to shed light into something that could prove to be a decisive and critical change in the Linux world. I care, therefore I write.
Mrk

 

with fedora only the close button is active in the proper gnome3. fallback mode has the three buttons.

 

I prefer the side panel at the bottom. Those used to Mac OSX would want it at the top.

Users should be able to customize the shell to their liking.