I just don’t get the vendetta GNOME has against background processes. GNOME devs just don’t use email clients, cloud sync applications, chat clients…? GNOME treats my Nextcloud sync app (which I NEED to be running at all times) as if it was malware or something.
Context for not-Gnome users? How does a desktop care about anything not desktop?
If you minimize a window, it goes into a list of “Background Apps” in the charms menu where the only option you have is to close it. There’s no native systems tray.
there’s a tray, it’s just in the activities tab. press the super key (or click activities in the top left) to bring up the activities view, then the tray is at the bottom
I wasn’t sure, what that screen looks like these days. Well, it wasn’t terribly helpful to type into image search “gnome activities”. 🙃
That’s an app launcher, not a systems tray
Well, it’s where minimized apps go
Yeah, if you need to install extensions to make GNOME usable, GNOME is not for you. Seriously, there are other options. I can’t stand using GNOME, but they have a vision they are sticking to and I can respect that.
Conversely, after I tried vanilla gnome, I can’t go back. It gets out of my way, is pretty bug free, visually consistent, and the workflow is lightyears ahead of anything else I’ve used.
The Win95 UX paradigm that pretty much everybody uses just seems so clunky to me.
Most distro maintainers disagree as they also ship Gnome with extensions pre loaded. Gnome with some extensions is an awesome DE.
Cinnamon is probably the best DE to give that old GNOME feel. At least in my opinion.
Gnome also has their own GNOME Classic for people yearning for the old GNOME experience. Cinnamon is probably better though.
I’m tired of GNOME messing with it’s API but hopefully this is the last time since they’re switching to a standard system. Besides that, it’s my favorite DE on Linux. I have to give plasma 6 a shot when it comes out but right now GNOME feels just right compared to other desktops.
Gnome doesn’t have an extension API. That is why it is prone to breakage, since the code is injected into the actual shell. The upshot of this is that extensions can do pretty much anything. The downside is there is no stable API.
Personally, I like the current system. I am biased, I am a trusted review on https://extensions.gnome.org
Change scary, my extension I used that is unmaintained won’t work in Gnome 45 and it’s Gnomes fault.
I like Vanilla GNOME. Nothing compares.
Exactly! Just integrate the bloody notification tray /running apps extension.
I get why that thing isn’t implemented because it’s really ugly and most of the icons there serve literally no purpose but they need a proper replacment because some apps simply need it!
They’ve actually been talking about this for ages, but they won’t unless it’s cross-compatible with other DEs, using freedesktop standards. I wish we’d make headway on it soon.
If they didn’t serve a purpose, people wouldn’t constantly ask for them back.
That’s not at all what my comment claims…
I just can’t get used to GNOME. I’ve been using “classic” DEs for too long, so every time I try GNOME I start customizing it and end up withh a worse version of KDE
I struggled with that for ages, eventually someone said I should give a serious go of vanilla Gnome for a while and if it doesn’t work out, get something else because I was trying to force Gnome to be like the Win95 UX paradigm that pretty much everyone else uses, when that’s not what it was made for.
I took their advice. I tried vanilla gnome and was infuriated by it. It made me angry to use my PC. Until after a couple of days, it just clicked all of a sudden and made so much sense.
Now I find the workflow amazing. It just gets out of my way and puts the actual programs I need to use centre-stage. Honestly, lightyears ahead of anything else I’ve used.
I’m glad KDE has added an experimental activities view option, because that’s the main thing I miss when I’m not using Gnome.
I tried to do that as well but I realized, that my main use of my Linux desktop which is gaming and having a second screen for whatever else on the side, so usually two fullscreen applications at all times isn’t that well served. I’m sure if I used my PC for more serious multitasking and had limited screen space I would be avle to appreciate Gnome better.
Is there another desktop with nice macOS style animations other than gnome? I mean, for me, Gnome is clearly for people who would choose macOS if no linux was available to them (me included)
My extensions work fine on fedora
I installed the Gnome 45 beta and everything seems to have already been updated to work.
GNOME bad
Plasma good
XFCE better
Plasma isn’t stable, gnome isn’t flexible and xfce is both stable and flexible, but no Wayland. Yet.
Plasma isn’t stable
How so?
I’ve had several freedesktop issues with dbus, certain black screen crashes on desktops that require deleting .kde and other such annoyances.
Nothing major, just recurring issues.
This is from a 100-150 client environment.
Previous workplace was smaller but used gnome. Had more pebcak than actual issues.
Sounds like Ubuntu underneath your Plasma. I’ve had the exact same experience when using Neon, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu+KDE. I install any non-Ubuntu based distro with KDE (like openSUSE) and whiz bang everything is working again.
The last time I tried it it crashed just from moving the panel around on the desktop. After a reboot it didn’t do it again. Plasma just does odd things like that sometimes.
And if you used Plasma 4 all the way up to around Plasma 5.15/5.16, Plasma was practically unusable due to instability. It’s why Plasma stopped being the default DE of choice and Gnome took over.
Plasma has improved a lot over the past year or two in particular, but it’s not close to as stable as, say, Gnome or Cinnamon.
I have used XFCE, KDE, and GNOME and in my opinion, Gnome provides by far the best the best workflow for me. The UI is very keyboard-driven, which makes navigation very fast and intuitive. Also it doesn’t look like an outdated Windows version (like Plasma or XFCE) and I had way fewer bugs with it than with any other desktop.
I find it interesting how everyone always talks about the „Unix philosophy“ („software should do one thing and do it well“) but at the same time everyone likes Plasma for having hundreds of useless, buggy features.
Gnome has a core featureset and a robust extension-system if you need more. There is no bloatware in Gnome. And please don’t tell me something like „Gnome isn’t usable without a taskbar/dock“. It is, lots of people use it that way, not every desktop needs to be like macOS or Windows.
Of course it’s okay to like another desktop environment more, but I just don’t get why Gnome gets so much hate.
Its mostly the devs and the bad decisions they make around GNOME, for me i use a lot of apps that require Server Side Window Decorations (SSD) to be useful, specifically apps like Foot terminal (default gnome console or gnome terminal is not featureful enough and neither have sixel support, whereas foot terminal does have sixel) and gnome doesnt have any SSD on wayland, and GNOME also lacks customization features and doesnt have a standardized theming API and the GNOME devs consider themes to be “unsupported”. Unlike on KDE Plasma where themes have a standardized API through the toolkit (qt) and are officiall supported. Also GNOME in general lacks basic features that require extensions whereas on other desktops you have things like a systray as a default.
I agree regarding SSD, I do a lot of graphics development and having to deal with decorations on your own is really annoying. However, most windowing libraries support them nowadays. (GLFW has an open MR to include Libdecor)
The lack of customization has been a decision they made in favor of Libadwaita. Libadwaita is a GTK4 library that makes developing apps for Gnome way faster. The Gnome ecosystem has really evolved in the last two years thanks to Libadwaita, there are so many nicely designed and practical apps. This is the trade-off I am willing to make. For me, a uniform and consistent desktop is way more important than theming, especially when apps look amazing by default.
I don’t get what basic features are missing. I have been using Gnome for years now, I never felt the need for an additional feature. A system tray is not a „basic feature“, as I said, not every desktop has to be a Windows clone. I have never felt the need for one, if I need an app, I just launch it. Why do I have to have a bunch of cluttered and ugly icons visible all the time? An app can run in the background without a system tray by the way.
running in the background isnt a system tray. every other desktop on the face of the earth has a system tray. It’s a basic espected feature and i use system tray functionality all the time.
I’ve used GNOME for a year now.
I don’t understand people calling GNOME keyboard-driven, it doesn’t even support keyboard shortcuts for more than 4 workspaces, and it doesn’t support tiling other than left and right.
I also feel like the plugin system is not great. The plugins break on every.single.update and you have to beg the maintainers to update them.
I agree about a dock/taskbar miss me with that :P
What frustrates me about GNOME is that it’s otherwise so well-polished and smooth but just refuses to be easily customizable.
Why are they doing this? Because they want to envolve and don’t be stuck with old things. However, if they did the transition in a good way by giving the developers time to adapt, that I don’t know
Well, most extensions still break on every GNOME major version. Some are actively maintained and will be updated quickly-ish, others not.
IMO if a lot of the small extensions were just integrated into GNOME, some of them could be a single toggle somewhere in the settings. Like a clipboard manager or Launch New Instance, or Wallpaper Switcher.
Laugh in Cinnamon…
I was grow up using windows xp and 7 btw… XDGnome devs: you will take what we make and you’ll like it!
Also gnome devs: Apple did nothing wrong
What is the context for “Apple did nothing wrong”? When did they say that?
It’s ancient history now, but gnome didn’t used to look like poor imitation of Apple’s design. Then the dev decided that macOS UI was superior and you will like it unconditionally.
Use KDE, it’s stuffed with features to begin with
