
Switch default desktop to Gnome - dfc
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/tasksel/tasksel.git/commit/?id=dce99f5f8d84e4c885e6beb4cc1bb5bb1d9ee6d7
======
adambatkin
I really don't understand how any serious developer can use Gnome 3. I have
tried for the past couple of months to use the out-of-the-box Gnome setup
under Fedora (with the Adwaita theme) and the whole experience was maddening.
I've finally switched back to KDE (which I haven't used for almost 5 years)
and if this doesn't work out I'll go back to XFCE (which is what I used in-
between).

Some problems include:

* Focused and unfocused windows look almost identical

* Expected features like tray icons, virtual desktops, alt+drag to move/resize windows, even alt+tab don't work out-of-the-box

* Window focus seems completely broken

* Eclipse looks terrible (and I spend much of my time there) - I'm told "no, that's an SWT issue", but it looks great under KDE

* IntelliJ's menus don't track the moue properly - again, probably a Java issue, but still works great under KDE

* Having to "drag" the screensaver thing away is annoying

* gkrellm seems to make all of my window focus issues even worse

I know most of the issues can be blamed on application/third-party framework
bugs, but the fact is that I just want to get my work done and KDE/XFCE both
work great.

Go look at some of the Gnome source code comments and Bugzillas and you will
see the very opinionated "do it my way" thinking that the Gnome developers
have. In some cases, it's almost hostile.

If I wanted a desktop that valued form over function, I'd use a Mac.

~~~
jmhain
I'd consider myself a serious developer and I love GNOME 3.

> Focused and unfocused windows look almost identical

I have never had a problem distinguishing.

> Expected features like tray icons, virtual desktops, alt+drag to move/resize
> windows, even alt+tab don't work out-of-the-box

All of the above work perfectly fine. I genuinely have no idea what you are
talking about.

> Window focus seems completely broken

You'll have to be more specific here; works fine for me.

> IntelliJ's menus don't track the moue properly - again, probably a Java
> issue, but still works great under KDE

I had issues with IntelliJ until I switched from OpenJDK to the Oracle JDK.
Now it works fine (though a bit ugly).

> Having to "drag" the screensaver thing away is annoying

You're doing it wrong. Just start typing your password and it goes away.

Some of the developers definitely do have a bad attitude, but many are
actually quite awesome. Besides, more often than not, their way has turned out
pretty good.

~~~
sjolsen
> tray icons

Some end up being minuscule (I'm looking at a ~1px-wide ownCloud icon right
now) and the location is definitely non-obvious. I didn't even know Gnome 3
_had_ a system tray for about a month, until I accidentally pulled it up.

> alt+drag to move/resize windows

This is not enabled by default, and there's no way to enable it in the default
settings manager. I think gnome-tweak-tool has added support, but I had to dig
around in dconf to enable it not too long ago.

> even alt+tab don't work out-of-the-box

Alt-Tabbing in Gnome 3 is fscked. You're expected to use Alt-~ to switch
between windows of the same "application," while Alt-Tab only switches between
application-group-things. You can fix it with a plugin, but you have to fix it
with a _plugin_. That's ridiculous.

> Window focus seems completely broken

New windows are sometimes raised above other windows. Sometimes they're raised
below. Sometimes they have focus. Sometimes they don't. I've experienced this
issue with other window systems too, though, so I don't know if Gnome is to
blame for it.

> more often than not, their way has turned out pretty good

It's something of an 80/20 scenario: yes, most of "their way" is perfectly
fine, but a good chunk of it just sucks. Worse, _which_ chunk of it sucks is
different for different people and for different reasons. For example, I can't
stand workspaces, but I know people who swear by them. Conversely, a lot of
people prefer the old program menus, but I like the incremental search Gnome
uses.

This is a universal problem, and it's easily solved: give the user options. No
matter how well you design an interface, it's going to be wrong in some way
for someone. By all means, yes, ship sane defaults, but give your users the
ability to control _their workflows_ on _their computer_ s.

~~~
jmhain
> This is not enabled by default, and there's no way to enable it in the
> default settings manager. I think gnome-tweak-tool has added support, but I
> had to dig around in dconf to enable it not too long ago.

Try super+drag. If I remember correctly, they're trying to change window
manager interactions to use super to free up alt for applications.

> It's something of an 80/20 scenario: yes, most of "their way" is perfectly
> fine, but a good chunk of it just sucks. Worse, which chunk of it sucks is
> different for different people and for different reasons. For example, I
> can't stand workspaces, but I know people who swear by them. Conversely, a
> lot of people prefer the old program menus, but I like the incremental
> search Gnome uses.

While it admittedly could be better, you can customize GNOME Shell
significantly with extensions. The GNOME Classic session is implemented
entirely with extensions in fact IIRC.

~~~
cryo
wahh cool super + drag works just great. thx, made my day

------
samuell
That's interesting. I have been planning switch to Debian/XFCE on next
computer / upgrade, from Xubuntu, so I do hope that XFCE will at least keep in
good shape on Debian.

But as default, I can not tell what would be best, other than that Gnome 3
indeed seems to have improved lots lately. Tried the Gnome "classic desktop"
version of it recently, and found that I could definitely stand it, although
XFCE feels a little better to me.

One upside over XFCE is that Gnome 3 looks a lot better by default than XFCE.
XFCE is easier to configure, and so can be made to look even better, but
default looks has some significance too, as it means less modifications needed
for those who just want to install and get stuff done.

~~~
macco
I tried Gnome 3 too lately, and I am kind of thrilled by the experience.

The whole desktop is very thoughfully crafted. The creators really care about
the user experience.

~~~
alex_duf
Yes, they managed to keep it dead simple (which is a very hard task). Some
people don't like it, but I personally love the lack of noise.

------
sciurus
XFCE's next release is 18 months overdue, and afaict it won't be ready anytime
soon. In contrast, GNOME has a regular 6-month release cadence and their next
one should be out tomorrow.

[https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/4.12/roadmap](https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/4.12/roadmap)

[https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointThirteen](https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointThirteen)

~~~
bsg75
Does Gnome get more backing from companies like RedHat, where XFCE is all /
mostly volunteer?

~~~
sciurus
I think that's the case. From [http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2010/07/28/gnome-
census/](http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2010/07/28/gnome-census/) -

"While over 70% of GNOME developers identify themselves as volunteers, over
70% of the commits to the GNOME releases are made by paid contributors

Red Hat are the biggest contributor to the GNOME project and its core
dependencies. Red Hat employees have made almost 17% of all commits we
measured, and 11 of the top 20 GNOME committers of all time are current or
past Red Hat employees. Novell and Collabora are also on the podium."

------
Touche
I think this is the right choice if only because Gnome is the only choice that
handles HiDPI well.

~~~
philsnow
hidpi support doesn't matter so much if you don't have any window chrome or
widgets to speak of. minimalism has always served me well in window manager
choice.

I hope with systemd it doesn't / didn't become harder to use a "brand X"
window manager.

~~~
fmoralesc
What does systemd have to do with wms? (desktop managers, yes, but wms, no)
There will be more issues with the move towards wayland. Just yesterday I read
openbox development had stalled, so it is doubtful it will survive unless
someone takes over. OTOH, there are not many tiling window managers with
wayland support yet.

~~~
philsnow
I recall having to run gnome-settings-daemon even if I wasnt running the rest
of gnome to fix some absurd issue or other. I can see systemd easily "leaking"
dependencies up the stack, making my life as a "fringe"/non-gnome user harder.

The people working on it don't seem to have any aversion at all to scope
creep. In fact, the politics of it all make it seem like a "land grab" and
they'd in fact be happy if systemd takes over more and more responsibilities.

~~~
fmoralesc
> I recall having to run gnome-settings-daemon even if I wasnt running the
> rest of gnome to fix some absurd issue or other.

Sure, that is the typical cost of using a patched up desktop environment
instead of a full DE. A wm is just a wm.

------
scythe
Luckily enough, I just installed Debian with Xfce on my laptop next night... I
suppose you might call this a close call. However, their Xfce support is,
good, but lacking polish. The panel tools are comprehensive but the selector
is hard to use; you just wish the automatic setup made sense. The default
programs include such gems as quodlibet and xterm. Apparently Xfce isn't
portable enough for Debian? Nonetheless, it's fast, tearing is minimal,
wallpaper changing mostly just works (IceWeasel can't xdg-wallpaper or
whatever), and it's nice to have a working Firefo-err, IceWeasel. The blue-
grey default theme is still one of the most depressing default desktop looks
I've ever seen and it hasn't changed in five years. So, like, 7/10.

------
JacobEdelman
I am happy to see this as since Gnome 3 came out distros only seem to have
been leaving Gnome.

------
derengel
I'm not a KDE user, but from reading on the internetz I have this feeling that
KDE in general is evaded by users, users don't see it as much of a option or
as the last option, this commit also doesn't mention KDE.

Some say the problem with KDE is that you have to drink the whole koolaid, but
not sure if that is really the reason.

~~~
xiaomai
KDE doesn't do a ton of stuff that many (most?) people care about like handle
add/removing displays frequently. Accessibility is pretty good in GNOME (but
not in KDE) which makes it a better default option too. Also most of the
desktop plumbing (freedesktop.org stuff) seems to start in GNOME and works
better there.

~~~
andmarios
Definitely not true. It handles add/removing displays, applying different
color profiles to each monitor, etc. Freedesktop is DE agnostic and many
technologies there come or are inspired from KDE.

~~~
simoncion
What software are you using for color management?

Last I checked, colord had been broken for at least six months, and the only
mostly functional alternative [0] was some project called Oyranos that's
signed with expired GPG keys and distributed from some OpenSuse server.

[0] It applies color profiles just fine, but fails to also color-correct full
screen programs.

~~~
andmarios
I use oyranos and kolor-manager (depends on oyranos). For color profile auto-
loading you will also need xcalib. These work automatically. I only have to
generate and install profiles with dispcalGUI.

Color correction works fine for full screen programs with two exceptions: [1]
If you have set hardware accelerated (opengl) color correction then it doesn't
work on full screen opengl apps. Normal color correction works there too. [2]
Color correction never works on VDPAU. Today's CPUs though can decode anything
with minimal effort (so no fans spinning uncontrollably), so no need for
VDPAU.

------
ealexhudson
"(I will not be answering media enquiries related to this commit.)" \- take
note, Sam Varghese

It's a shame that such a commit is so obviously political (in terms of how it
will be taken, not why it was done). I think this is technically the right
call, but I doubt much of the argument will be on technicals.

------
linguafranca
Am I the only one who is frustrated by the plethora of desktop environments
available for Linux? Why not just have just a single, highly extensible
desktop environment instead? Is there any sane reason for having so many[1]
mainstream DEs?

[1]: Gnome, KDE, XFDE, LXDE, are the ones I know off the top of my head

~~~
nisa
> Why not just have just a single, highly extensible desktop environment
> instead?

I'll likely get flak for this but that's what KDE is (or could be). KParts¹ is
great. Just press F4 in Dolphin. Drag And Drop works quite well. It's the only
DE where i managed to get a unified look between GTK2/3 and QT.

It's sane² and build on Qt/C++. No crazy gobject or GTK3 problems.

The only problem is that Plasma/Oxygen is just terrible and scares users
away². Once you configure it away KDE is great². Also they did not a favour to
themselves by including Akonadi and that semantic desktop stuff in a way that
will hog memory and kill latency when using a disk³. You can scare away the
friendliest Linux user when you start an MySQL instance in userspace on logon
and feed that with a invasive disk-indexer.

Maybe I'm just a disgruntled KDE user.. it could really be a fine default
desktop system.

1:
[https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Architecture/KDE4/KPart...](https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Architecture/KDE4/KParts)

2: YMMV

3: Hi there! I'm nepomuk/bamboo! I'm doing millions of seeks on your disk and
crash randomly on the documents I've found. Don't worry. I'm not slow! Must be
your fault! It's still slow? Really? (...)

------
jwildeboer
Cue "Red Hat conspiracy!" And "Lennart kills Linux and my kittens"

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Debian has preferred GNOME for a long time, so this is nothing surprising.

Cue straw man is what I'd say.

~~~
Karunamon
Depending on what forums you follow, yeah, this is the sentiment. GNOME has a
reputation (deserved or not is up for debate) for the same kind of "we'll do
it our way and go fork it if you don't like it" attitude that people
(including Linus) take systemd to task for.

Example:
[https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=695371](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=695371)

