Cross-posted from “It’s that time again” by @Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com in !linux_memes@programming.dev
I’ve only ever used DEs that aren’t gnome. And that wasn’t really by choice - it was a workplace. But after hearing about how gnome treats their users… fuck that. I went so far recently as to try to make a nix system that was 100% free of gnome shit and I have actually hard a really difficult time because it has wormed its way into other dependencies.
The other week had a GNOME dev reply to a thread of mine on mastodon stating that the users desire to select a default terminal emulator was an “edge case” and it was beneath GNOME. then all the GNOME fanboys came out to his defense.
It’s an insufferable DE and community.
As insufferable as KDE users always shitting on gnome?
I’ve generally found gnome users just use it. New KDE releases don’t have gnome fanboys bashing it, etc.
But new GNOME releases? Directly the opposite.
Really wish people would just chill.
As insufferable as KDE users always shitting on gnome?
This 100%
I’ve generally found gnome users just use it
lol
I checked your Mastodon timeline but I don’t see the post, only the one where you relate the story.
I deleted it because the GNOME users were getting annoying.
I don’t use gnome because I don’t think a desktop use interface should be designed for iPads
I’ve got Gnome installed on a tablet PC. It’s not good there, either.
When I first used Linux I loved Gnome for the intuitiveness and simplicity but I did not like the same thing you were saying. I guess it makes a good desktop for tablets lol.
The thing is in theory I love gnome for that. In practice keep that shit away from me
It really is a shame that they force you to update to the new version. If only there was some way to continue using the existing Gnome version until the extensions have been updated by their authors.
If you want to update your software broadly, it’s a pain in the ass if you need to try to hold gnome and only gnome back.
And many of those extensions get abandoned after the authors get tired of the treadmill of having to redo stuff they already did.
Yes the volunteer software authors should work to the beat of the drum of the baying and braying users who insist on using cutting edge software before its wider ecosystem has adapted to its novelties. A very good point.
Shouldn’t that only apply if the other software depends on the new functionality in the updated gnome?
I think Gnome is the most beautyful Desktop out there. But it’s UX drives me crazy. I tried it a few times but never could get used to it. I always needed extensions to customize it to my needs. But that’s also what I want to avoid because extensions might break in the future. Therefore, Gnome is simply not the right Desktop for me.
But I’m happy for everyone who likes to use Gnome. The great thing about Linux: We have a choice!
Just use KDE Plasma
This is what I concluded in the end…
I do at home, can’t choose at work (but we keep pushing the people in charge)
I heard of imposing operating systems (which I’m also against*), but never specific distros or DEs.
* at least for technical people who know what they’re doing and wont spam the IT support
If it is a larger company that defintly would make maintenance easier.
What distro do you use with it? So far I liked mint with cinnamon but looking to switch my main PC to Linux and ditch windows on October 23rd.
I use Arch, but you can’t go wrong with Plasma + Debian. Ubuntu has weird bugs which keeps me from recommending it. I wish Mint still had a Plasma edition. endeavouros is Arch with a user-friendly installer, so that’s an option as well. CachyOS is great too. Mint is good but Cinnamon doesn’t support HDR which keeps me from recommending it to anyone using an HDR display. Debian is probably best seeing as you are used to Mint.
I’ve been enjoying CachyOS myself lately.
I’m tempted to try it since I’d like to move away from fedora (kde), would you recommend it?
Does it require too much tinkering?
Does it breaks often with updates?
With KDE, you can go with Fedora if you like something “closer” to mint experience. I use it with Endeavor OS and I’m very happy
Debian primarily, though I also have arch running on another box. But I basically only run Debian across the board. Almost all stable, with some Trixie and Sid for testing. I also won’t touch Gnome unless I’m forced to, so keep in mind I’m opinionated and hold grudges when you see my recommendations.
EndeavourOS
☺️such a joy
cinnamint is great. i think you may have already found what to put on the ‘main pc’.
if you’re at all interested in ‘atomic’ variants, kinoite is what is running a couple of kde desktops here.
I use SpiralLinux (basically Debian with some tweaks). I like it a lot! If you want to stay in the Debian/*buntu lineage, consider it.
Tried it. You supposedly can customize it any way you want, but after struggling for like an hour trying to make it look clean, I wondered why I was trying to force that. The UI in KDE is not clean. It’s messy and has exposed many options I would never use. People love to hate on GNOME but I think they’re only doing that because they know it’s so popular. And it’s popular for a reason.
People love to hate on GNOME but I think they’re only doing that because they know it’s so popular
You sound like Honey Boo Boo.
My take is GNOME is Mac-inspired, and KDE is Windows-inspired. I never liked MacOS. Therefore, GNOME does not appeal to me. KDE feels familiar, so naturally I used it after switching from Windows.
I don’t hate on gnome because people can use what they want but coming from windows the UX was so unintuitive i had to switch to a different session without a DE to get rid of gnome. I’m sure it’s learnable and then depending on your preferences pretty great.
I also don’t think plasma is messy though. To me there’s nothing worse than a system hiding options out of the assumption that I don’t need them (see also: windows over time, which is a big part of why I made the switch to linux in the first place).
There’s a huge difference in hiding options and putting them into a menu that looks nice. KDE UI strikes me as busy and ugly. Crazy re: windows. It’s the busiest UI of all.
I have a seemingly yearly tradition where I manage to convince myself to try out KDE then am usually back on GNOME after a week. I genuinely don’t get the hate for GNOME. It looks clean, has great defaults (especially the keybinds) and mostly stays out of the way. I don’t hate KDE, it’s just not for me and that is okay.
Yeah, I’ve tried KDE a couple of times. If it was the only option I may be able to get used to it, but knowing there is a much cleaner option makes me dislike it actually. I also don’t get the GNOME hate, I agree with what you said about it.
I never had too many issues with GNOME but didn’t install loads of extensions. Looking forward to seeing Cosmic grow and develop further, took a while but finally in beta
I like how GNOME looks and functions for the most part, but I really wish the world provide more options instead of whatever design philosophy they think needs enforced.
I installed Debian + gnome today for the first time in years, I hate it even more now then I did back then.
If it had a taskbar it’d be a 10/10 for new users though
Obligatory mention that Linux Mint’s dev team have forked some GNOME apps into their own XApps* project. Part of the reason is so that those apps retain the user’s window manager’s look and feel rather than GNOME’s enforced interface design. That might even be the main reason, but they also throw in their own improvements to the apps where they feel they’re necessary.
They’ve not yet forked all GNOME-looking applications in Mint, and I’m not even sure they intend to, but it’s a noble effort.
* Yes, it really is called that. Like I’ve said before, they probably could have chosen a better name, but they chose it before Wayland was a real threat and before Twitter got lobotomised.
X referred to a display server since long before Twitter was born.
There are so many things the Linux kernel project does just right. One of them is “never break user space”.
Unfortunately most projects completely fail to get why this is important.
I think one of the worst examples is the enormous setback it caused when Python was “upgraded” from 2 to 3, which meant breakage of huge amounts of libraries, that were never fixed, and was extremely detrimental to Python.The kernel respects user-space, but actual user front ends do not!?!?!
KDE generally does the same when they upgrade to new versions of QT.python 2 to 3 is actually an enormous change
The kernel equivalent of shell extensions would be kernel modules. Out of tree modules break all the time. There’s no stable in-kernel ABI, just like there’s no guarantee that shell internals never change.
I’m having a great time on GNOME, even without any extensions at all!
That is sort of the thing with Gnome. If you like it it’s great, but if you don’t there is nothing you can do to really change it. Like I think it’s okay, but there are things I don’t like and it is just too much effort to try to adapt it to my preferences.
there is nothing you can do to really change it
So far from true
See: the above meme
You’re right. The several extensions I have used for years don’t exist because: meme. The many settings you can easily change in 2 minutes also fake. Meme.
I’m sure that’s what they meant. That you literally cannot change a single setting in Gnome. What a good-faith interpretation.
Ah yes, the real good faith argument here is saying you can do nothing to customize GNOME because sometimes extensions break. Great point.
Good for you. I broke my GNOME Pop OS build, I assume because of extensions and pop not updating anything for 2 years. GNOME goes against the Linux philosophy of user customisation.
They don’t develop GNOME for you, they develop GNOME for them
They don’t earn more with more users
If it’s only for them then they shouldn’t mind getting their Wayland protocol veto privilege taken away 🤷
I used it for a while, because KDE was so buggy. Gnome gives you no functionality and it’s still buggy, though.
Once KDE improved I switched to it, though
So you’re not on Wayland you say?
I’ve been running native Wayland exclusively for ages. I disabled XWayland by running gnome-shell with the
--no-x11flag.What makes you think I wasn’t?
There are bugs in Gnome 49 using xwayland like caps lock and other keys not working. But if you don’t use x11 at all (and therefore applications relying on it) you won’t encounter them.
I use Gnome with extensions and are quite happy. But it’s true. the worst part is when they break after a new version comes out.
Fun Fact: You can just add the new version number to some file (can’t remember which) for each extension and many of them work just fine. It’s from a list of version numbers where they decide whether an extension can be run on a given Gnome Version. And new versions are not automatically added to that list.
Metadata.
confOr just wait a while before updating, increasing the chance of extentions being updated
Edit .json
I just had a look and I think I edited “metadata.json” for every extension in “$HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/”. I got it from this tutorial.
Yeah I once waited but I think it took multiple months for each maintainer to update. I don’t blame them tho. They update their projects when they can. I just wish it would not necessarily break since it apparently doesn’t really need to be broken.
It depends. Sometimes there are major changes, which would need changes. But most of the time, yes, it’s not necessary.
I use a script for paprwm-like behaviour, and is signcantly hamstrung as well - cannot work with multiple screens. Karousel: https://store.kde.org/p/2045724
This is what got me to drop Gnome from my laptop. Karousel is excellent.
I will use niri wm primarily on most machines, but kde&karousel have some advantages on a notebook.
Try mediawiki for a change. You’ll soon be happy about the few update troubles you had with gnome.
Running 14 extensions on Gnome, literally never have had an issue, even through major version upgrades with Fedora. KDE and Qt are gutter garbage trash, fight me
I am pretty much in the same boat. I think I have had one or two extensions break, but they weren’t ones I depended on and they didn’t seem that well maintained to begin with.
Same experience here. Running 9 extensions without issues. On NixOS BTW.
It’s that time again… Pile more and more dependencies on top of a desktop environment, get shocked when it breaks, and take out your rage on people explaining that it’s free dev work and you’re welcome to contribute.
Nah. As far as I am aware of, Gnome went “this is it by default, want more customisability - here is API, install or write your own extensions”. Which is fine with me. Then they break API without announcement in advance, and their response to community is along the lines of “fuck you, deal with it”. Which is not fine with me, and I am not using Gnome ever since discovering it
GNOME is great. Things break sometimes which is a Linux and a software thing. It’s free dev work to begin with.
