
The GNOME developers removed it. - CrazedGeek
http://askubuntu.com/a/286438
======
buster
So 2 years after the appearance of Gnome Shell someone still doesn't get that
Gnome tries to simplify the whole interface and that Gnome has been trying to
create a simple interface for the majority of people for many many years. Big
news.

Good thing is you have alternatives from MATE to KDE, Xfce, E17, etc. etc.
It's not like you're forced to use Nautilus either.

Personally i never understood the hatred towards change. In the beginning of
Gnome 3 it was really extreme and now it's slowly getting better (with the
complaints) because people become accustomed to it. It's GOOD that Gnome tries
to make it simple, because we all wish for a Linux computer our parents could
use. That's just not going to happen with the options-and-complex-information
everywhere approach.

After all Gnome Shell isn't that bad and i'm sure a guy posting on HN who uses
Linux on his Desktop has the skills to check his available diskspace without
the status bar ;)

~~~
mynegation
What _I_ don't get is how removal of type-ahead find, compact view and
backspace to parent is making it simpler for users. I consider these the most
basic features of any sane file manager. One more confirmation that switching
to XFCE was the right thing to do.

~~~
dylan-m
I worry that you're still using Nautilus 3.6, which was definitely an interim
version of Nautilus. If you check out 3.8, you'll see that type-ahead search
is very much there, and better than ever — especially if you happen to have
Tracker installed :)

The key difference is it's effectively a file search that is easy to back out
of, so it only shows files that match your input. Personally, I find that
makes it a lot easier to flip between a bunch of files with similar names, and
it's making me really like search — which I had never really used before.
It'll search recursively, but the files from the current folder are listed
first, so it's harder to get lost among them than it sounds. (And I think
there might be something on the roadmap to list files from the current folder
and from elsewhere under a separate heading, but I could be mixing that up
with something else).

------
shitlord
As a non-artist, I can never even hope to understand the complex design
choices that the GNOME developers make. <http://i.imgur.com/VXwiUdU.png>

~~~
keithpeter
That appears to be the Unity desktop in Ubuntu. The full Gnome 3 experience is
different and does not have the duplication from the global menu.

~~~
tlitd
His point was to show the Nautilus toolbar

------
EdiX
Just a few more features to discard and Nautilus will finally reach feature
parity with dfm.

------
thex86
<http://xfce.org/>

It's never too late...

~~~
thepicard
I think you mean <http://mate-desktop.org/>

~~~
D9u
No, you're both adding too much bloat:

<http://dwm.suckless.org/>

~~~
gee_totes
Actually, I've been using Xmonad+Gnome for almost a year now and am super
happy with it.

If you're willing to leave the false abstraction of stackable "windows" behind
in the quest for maximum productivity, I suggest you give it a shot.

------
pervycreeper
Genuine question:

Why is the GNOME project still dominant, when they consistently make arbitrary
changes and refuse to listen to their users?

~~~
notatoad
because contrary to the opinion of all the linux bloggers, most of the gnome
team's design decisions are actually pretty good. they've been progressing
towards a stripped down simple UI that fades into the background and lets you
focus on your application and your work for a while now.

if gnome were a new project to make linux pretty, everybody would be talking
about how awesome it is. it's only a problem because they're taking the old
gnome that people were used to and changing it. and people are afraid of
change.

~~~
samastur
I don't dispute Gnome's decisions since I don't use it. What bothers me though
is this idea that people complain only or mainly because they are afraid of
change.

Sure, sometimes it's just this, but often times such removal actually break
person's workflow or ability to (easily) do something. Just because it may be
better for majority does not mean it can't actually suck for some.

I am sorry to pick your post. It just happened to be the one where I finally
felt the need to respond to this view.

~~~
notatoad
No, definitely. Some of the changes that gnome is making really do suck for
some people. but those are only a few people, and you can't make a well-
designed piece of software that caters to everybody's workflow. that just
isn't possible.

and none of the critics ever say "this broke my workflow, but i can see how
it's a niche feature", the complaint is always "the gnome devs removed this
obscure feature that only me and three other people use, because they're
fucking idiots and are trying to make the software useless". if you're
complaining about a change that is better for the majority, it means you're
being selfish. and nobody ever seems to acknowledge that. all the armchair
critics of UI changes always insist that they are complaining on behalf of
_everybody_.

------
guard-of-terra
You can always go KDE. In file management however, Dolphin is still an awkward
kid compared to Konqueror, but hey, it's still there.

~~~
adamors
> Dolphin is still an awkward kid compared to Konqueror

Are you kidding? Dolphin is probably the best graphical file manager in
existence. It's streets ahead of anything on Linux, OS X or Windows.

The only thing I miss on OS X is actually Dolphin.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Well, it has no menu and I have trouble typing KIO urls into it. Maybe I'm old
school?

~~~
anonymous
1\. Every kde application has a menu and if it's hidden you can show it with
ctrl-m (alright, not the most discoverable shortcut, but it is there)

2\. Press the "control" button on the toolbar for a menu when hidden.

3\. You're right about KIO urls.

Dolphin is also very fast. Even if you have enabled thumbnails for files and
open a folder containing thousands of images it shows all files instantly and
loads up the thumbnails in the background. I can't remember Nautilus ever
doing it like that, though in fairness I stopped using Gnome when 2.2 took
away the "launch terminal" option from the desktop's context menu.

------
andor
As Nautilus has been horribly slow for a long time, I switched to PCManFM, the
file manager of LXDE. It integrates well with GNOME, and is pretty much full-
featured. There's also a status bar ;-) The only weird thing is that in the
"detailed list view", the sort order cannot be changed by clicking the column
headers.

~~~
vanderZwan
That's odd, I'm on a netbook running Lubuntu right now and I can do that. Have
you tried filing a bug?

~~~
andor
It seems to be a known bug in PCManFM 1.1.0. Ubuntu 12.10 ships with version
1.0.1, which is unaffected.

[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3583229&...](http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3583229&group_id=156956&atid=801864)

~~~
vanderZwan
What about 13.04, which is what I'm running?

------
gluxon
I thought this was interesting and very similar to the situation that's
happening here.

[http://witchofbontemps.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/an-artist-
ha...](http://witchofbontemps.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/an-artist-has-a-right-
to-create-exactly-what-they-want-but-is-that-always-wise/)

------
eagsalazar2
I'd love to see what percentage of linux desktop users actually use gnome
anymore. It would be especially interesting to see a graph of how that has
changed over time.

My intuition is that they went from almost total dominance a few years ago to
total irrelevance now (< 2%).

~~~
return0
Yep, let's find out: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730142>

------
edtechdev
If you are using Ubuntu, here is how to install the Nemo file manager, which
is from Linux Mint and based off of Gnome 3.4 before things were removed:
[http://www.webupd8.org/2012/12/how-to-install-nemo-file-
mana...](http://www.webupd8.org/2012/12/how-to-install-nemo-file-manager-
in.html)

I've been using standard Ubuntu as my sole OS for over 6 years now. I'm most
likely switching to Linux Mint or Xubuntu when I get a chance.

------
viseztrance
In the past I was a rather hardcore kde user, but I've been using gnome shell
for almost two years and I actually like it. Initially I used all sorts of
extensions to make it behave more like a traditional desktop, but over time I
grew fond of the defaults.

And in fairness, they did add something else
<http://i.stack.imgur.com/NiggU.png> (last comment in the parent link).

------
CoryG89
I upgraded my 12.10 Gnome REMIX to 13.04 Ubuntu Gnome when it prompted me
during my regular software updates, it f*cked up everything on my system.
Figured there would be changes, didn't know it would be this bad.

------
jmhain
I never see anybody complaining about removal of features from epiphany (the
gnome web browser). That's probably because everybody knows it's intended to
be a simple, featureless browser for those who don't need something more
powerful. If you need features, you install Chrome or Firefox, and all the
other core apps are no different. If gnome-terminal isn't enough for you,
install terminator. If nautilus isn't enough, install one of the others
mentioned here. If the shell doesn't do something you need it to do, find or
write an extension. I actually think the gnome way of doing things is perfect.

~~~
cyphax
I can see where you're coming from and I agree to a certain point. However, I
think the file manager is such an important tool; oversimplifying it and
making it hard to use is not a good idea. I loved Gnome 2.6; it is probably my
favorite desktop environment. It felt like a great balance of simplicity and
features that make my life easier. So I find that taking that away bit by bit
isn't working for me. I don't really want to have two of every app because
Gnome's default is too awkward or lacks some pretty basic features.

------
mtct
This has become a joke, luckily we have xfce.

------
olgeni
<http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/ROX-Filer>

~~~
D9u
I don't use a file manager, as the command line does what I need without
adding a bunch of stuff I don't need nor want.

------
static_typed
I feel sorry for the Gnome guys - they get crucified if they do or don't
advance the platform, yet look across and see other fruit flavoured platforms
pull worse on their user base yet their fan base not only approves of it, but
they somehow justify in the most Stockholm syndrome walled garden kind of way.

~~~
raverbashing
"see other fruit flavoured platforms pull worse on their user base"

No vague assertions, please be more specific

"yet their fan base not only approves of it, but they somehow justify"

Coincidentally their "fan base" is composed of several people with design and
user experience knowledge (in various degrees) so I believe their acceptance
of things has a basis. (And it _doesn't mean_ they accept everything)

Edit: as an example quoted by the other commenter, inversion of scrolling
direction was a big change. But it is configurable, so you can always go back

The natural scrolling makes sense if you're using a trackpad, but for a scroll
wheel it's _awful_

~~~
demallien
I've said this before here, but Apple have really concentrated on the laptop
experience at the expense of the desktop experience. Which is understandable
if you look at their sales figures. I was using a Mac Mini when I first
upgraded to Mountain Lion, and really wasn't a big fan. Then I got a Macbook
Air, and all of a sudden all of the modifications made sense. Things like the
fact that they have optimised the OS for SSDs - which you find in laptops, not
desktops. But that optimisation makes hard-drive based Macs much much slower
than they were before. Or the fullscreen interface which works really well
when you can do a three finger swipe to swap between screens, but not so well
if you have a mouse.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, agree 100%. Especially with the SSD optimizations (in ML it seems less
pronounced, still)

Yes, the 3-finger swipe can be only done if you have an Apple trackpad, either
the built-in one or you the separate one (I have one of these and it's nice,
having come from a trackball)

Not sure if you can do this with the magic mouse (maybe there's a different
way)

------
nvr219
Real men use fluxbox ;-)

