
Gnome is still the best Linux desktop environment - thmslee
https://opensource.com/article/17/8/reasons-i-come-back-gnome
======
starsinspace
I tried Gnome 3 a few years ago, when it had already matured somewhat and was
curious how it turned out to be. First impression was good, looked pretty and
seemed well-polished. However, I found the default font size too large for my
taste. No problem, I thought, just head to the preferences and make them
smaller. So I opened the prefs and searched and searched... and couldn't find
it.

At some point I thought I must be stupid for overlooking it and turned to
google. Among the very first hits, google showed me a posting on google+,
written by Linus Torvalds himself. In there he was ranting about exactly my
problem: not being able to change the font size in Gnome 3. That was kind of a
relief: at least I wasn't being too stupid to find it.

In the end I found out that Gnome 3 indeed doesn't have that setting! To
change it, you had to install a thing called Gnome Tweak Tool (IIRC). By
default, this was seemingly deemed a too advanced feature for normal users.

I then quickly decided that Gnome 3 wasn't for me. (Admittedly, I don't know
if this has changed since then in newer version.)

I'm all for usability and not providing a million settings (hello KDE), but
changing the system font seems so very basic to me... I still can't fathom why
they'd remove it.

~~~
askz
I personally find that KDE has too many settings and it's a pain. BUT, I use
KDE Neon for 6 months now and I like (maybe too much) the new look of it. Also
they refined a lot the bottom status bar with NetworkManager etc, very simple,
clean.

I still use Gnome on my personal laptop, but at work I find KDE more usable.

~~~
wvh
I don't think KDE has too many settings, but I do agree that the need to adapt
to different form factors has made a lot of UI a lot cleaner and more concise.
Mobile and tablet interfaces seem to have had a positive impact on cleaning up
the desktop, while still providing means to change commonly needed settings.

------
vkrm
This is pretty subjective, but I've switched away from Gnome since Gnome 3. I
find it slow and unintuitive even on modern hardware. I could use at least 4
out of the 6 points the author makes in this article to describe any modern
linux desktop environment.

Disclosure: I use Openbox and Xfce. There are a few rough edges, but nothing
that's a a deal breaker for me.

~~~
pavanky
GNOME 3 was released 6 years ago. It has gone through several iterations since
then.

~~~
lottin
But the basic design principles remain.

~~~
sheldor
But it's not slow and unintuitive anymore

~~~
keganunderwood
How is meta (windows?) + ` intuitive? It is only intuitive if you come from
Mac os.

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Zardoz84
The main big problem with Gnome 3 is that if you not like the decisions that
the developers take of how your desktop must be, you only can fuck yourself.

At least with KDE you have freedom to change things at your discretion.

Also, Gnome 3 more stable ?? WTF ? I saw more broken desktops and WTFs with
Gnome that with KDE. Even I saw KDE working with a buggy X11 driver when Gnome
simply fails on a miserable way.

~~~
boyce
I feel like if someone thinks they'll try Linux and they pick a Gnome 3 distro
to test, they won't stick around or won't appreciate Linux for the reasons
many of us do. Gnome 3 is basically everything I don't like about Windows or
OSX but for Linux.

~~~
bittermang
I feel this way a lot about Gnome, and even Ubuntu's attempt at "Unity".

It wants to be Mac. It wants to be Windows. In the end it's like all of the
worst parts of both, made in to a mutant of dis-congeniality. They want the
familiarity and user experience of both, and in the end capture neither.

~~~
digi_owl
I think it is more about the underlying "paternalism" than any specific UI/UX
design.

Damn it, i have seen a comment from a prominent Gnome developer basically
stating that users are idiots. This based on some usability testing that was
done back in the day, apparently.

So expect more and more out of Gnome, and by extension Freedesktop, to be
about putting users in padded cells...

------
SmellyGeekBoy
Yet another "holy war" in which we're expected to pick sides and defend our
decisions to the death. The reason there are so many different DEs for Linux
is because people have such different preferences. The choice is a _good_
thing. Why try to turn it into yet another excuse to start an argument?

~~~
bittermang
Because KDE is the Holy Grail, and all non-believers must perish at the end of
that sword.

But in all honesty, I use KDE Plasma with a healthy mix of Gnome apps, because
I can't stand Kmail and others.

~~~
keganunderwood
I like KDE neon because it comes without too much baggage. If you have 8GB+
RAM, you should give it a try on a live USB. You can install software using
apt, use it, and discard it by just rebooting.

Edit: try the dev stable.

~~~
jcelerier
> If you have 8GB+ RAM,

or even if you have 4 or 2. Plasma itself uses roughly 300 megabytes of RAM.

~~~
bittermang
200 currently. But I have 16gb. And I like how it looks and works. Jiggily
windows when I move them. A centering crosshair when moving windows. The way
they'll shuffle behind and in front of each other with a cute and quick
animation when changing focus. All plugins you can choose to use or not, and
even tweak.

And to "SmellyGeekBoy"s point: that's the thing that makes Linux so Linux-y. I
can choose that. Or not. Or a raw command line only. Or have Plasma, Neon,
Gnome, Cinnamon, LXDE, Lubuntu Next, and XFCE all installed AT THE SAME TIME.
It's what you want. It's what you like. It's YOUR machine. Your desktop
environment. You choose and tweak the one that suits you. No one should be
able to hate or discriminate against that, it's not their desktop. So fuck'em.

~~~
hd4
Did you need to make any changes to get it to 200mb? If I can get it to that
point, I would switch from Ubuntu. (Ubuntu takes about 750mb~ starting)

Every time I've tried KDE recently, the starting RAM usage is closer to
800-900mb and it anecdotally felt laggier than Unity. (I tried KDE Neon)

~~~
bittermang
Not that I'm aware of. I'll typically start with Ubuntu Server and add a DE to
it, but this time I did a clean Kubuntu install. I'm looking at my resource
monitor right now and it's been sitting around 200 all day for Plasma. Perhaps
if you add up all the rest of the KDE background services like KDE Connect,
klauncher, etc, you'll have a grand total above 300. But I have the hardware,
so I don't mind.

------
makecheck
LXDE and Window Maker do minimalist/stable/customizable quite well, I'd put
them first.

~~~
Numberwang
LXDE is the one that keeps my netbook running. The others will freeze or crash
repeatedly. Don't know anything about Window Maker. Is it any good?

~~~
jcelerier
> Don't know anything about Window Maker. Is it any good?

it's a clone of NeXT's UI in the 1990's.

------
drinchev
Side topic.

I can't believe the list of top GTK3 Themes [1] are so much influenced by
macOS ( second "greatest" one basically replicates even the icons ).

macOS is beautiful, indeed, but as Ralph Waldo Emerson's quoted :

"... Imitation is Suicide."

I bet if the effort is put towards themes that can distinguish GTK from
anything else, there will be another reason of Gnome being the best LDE.

1 :
[https://www.opendesktop.org/s/Gnome/browse/cat/135/ord/top/](https://www.opendesktop.org/s/Gnome/browse/cat/135/ord/top/)

~~~
ac29
A quote widely attributed to Steve Jobs: "good artists copy, great artists
steal." Turns out he wasn't really the first to say that or express that
sentiment [0], but it'd be hard to argue that Mac OS (at least back in the
80s) didn't heavily rely on copied or stolen features.

[0] [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-
steal/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/)

------
aneutron
This is so subjective even a rookie like me can tell he's biased. Each desktop
environment has its key ideas behind it. You can compare individual
components, which would be at least subjective enough, but you have to admit
that both are huge code landscapes that offer ranges of exclusives
functionalities and features. So saying one is "the best" is not an option I'm
afraid.

------
chuckdries
What do y'all have against tiling window managers

~~~
jgtrosh
I think this is remnants of the Windows/MacOS holy wars that keep people
focused on the wrong things, while making the interesting approaches seem
scary.

Talking about the differences between “traditional” desktop environments seems
mindless to me, while introducing newcomers to tiling WMs is refreshing and
fun.

~~~
digi_owl
Funny thing is that the original Xerox UI would tile by default (but the
windows were floating). Similarly Windows 1.0 were all tiles.

And to some degree Windows 10 has gone back to tiling.

You can drag windows top corners and the left and right edges to have the take
up a fixed part of the screen. Sadly only when using the left/right split will
Windows try to auto-resize the opposite window in response to you actions.

------
sunseb
Gnome looks beautiful, but the workflow seems weird.

~~~
lottin
To me it looks rather ugly. Too many UI elements look out of proportion or
misplaced. The whole thing feels contrived and lacking harmony.

------
kennydude
Much prefer XFCE. Strong and stable.

~~~
digi_owl
I just wonder what Gnome-isms it will have to adopt as it transitions to
GTK3...

------
dvirsky
I love Gnome, I'm now using Mac OS for my day to day desktop, but I would
argue (subjectively, though) that Gnome is the best desktop environment,
period, including Windows and Mac.

I totally agree with all the points in the post - the only problem Gnome has
is the extension ecosystem. The idea of extensions is nice and few are awesome
- but in practice most of them are low quality.

I really miss Gnome, and still use it for my secondary laptop, which I don't
get to use that often.

------
BerislavLopac
I keep being undecided between Cinnamon and XFCE... :-/

------
jrimbault
Gnome 3 is the default DE I'll install. But I very much dislike the default
setup: the combination of the top bar and the title bar and the menu bar
inside the applications themselves. 3 horizontal bars which are quite ugly.

Inside bspwm I use xfce bar with the menu extension and I feel like I don't
waste as much vertical space. (it looks like macOS or Unity, except I don't
have title bars)

------
rwmj
Yawn. Let me know when I can plug a camera into my wife's Fedora / Gnome 3
computer and be able to download the photos. This hasn't worked properly for
years and years.

~~~
squarefoot
Ever tried shotwell?
[https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Shotwell](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Shotwell) I
use it under XFCE, does wonders with my Nikon camera and some old tablets.

~~~
rwmj
Shotwell is unmaintained. There are two other photo applications, but it's not
clear which to use. In any case when you plug a camera or phone into a GNOME
desktop what happens is the file manager application and any camera programs
you have installed all compete to open the camera. In my wife's case the file
manager always appears to "win" and Shotwell gives an error about not being
able to find a camera. IOW basic functionality, broken for years.

~~~
squarefoot
Rats... unmaintained. This is sad, really. About your wife problem, it might
be due to a daemon being instructed by the DM to automatically mount and open
any newly inserted memory card or USB devices appearing as such. I don't know
about Gnome as I use XFCE, anyway on the removable media options there is one
to auto mount removable media and I keep it unchecked. Their icons appear
anyway on the desktop, but until I access them they don't get mounted so they
remain accessible for other software. I'm sure there is such an option on
Gnome too.

------
cosarara97
3 (display switching) and 5 (dynamic workspaces) are the only actual arguments
compared to any other DE, and the second is subjective. Pretty weak article.

~~~
gant
Xfce display switching has yet to let me down.

~~~
kasabali
xfce display switching is horribly unpolished. attach a monitor that is
already set as secondary and watch _all_ windows move to the new display.

------
corn13read
Gnome is too slow and clunky for me to enjoy

------
corn13read
Mate is my go-to interface. Very slick and fast. Any number of workspaces
easily accessible, minimalistic.

------
vitro
Mate to the rescue! I've been using it for some years now and it just works.

~~~
fringey
Seconded for MATE. Used it when it was Gnome 2 - tried Unity, Gnome 3 and XFCE
since. Settled back comfortably on MATE.

------
Hasknewbie
Gnome 3 is a step backward from its predecessor and sacrificed functionality
for mostly aesthetical reasons. I don't have a problem with a 'simplifed' UI,
but the fact that Gnome 3 is now the default DE for most Linux distros is
worrying, and to me is a sign that Linux on the desktop will not get anywhere
anytime soon.

From the article:

1) G3 is stable: "stable" like these weird crash notifications I regularly got
on 3 different laptop models (that did not in fact provide any info on what
app/service actually crashed...) whenever I resumed from sleep, or "stable"
like the Gnome dev indicating they will break GTK3 backward compatibilty
whenever they feel like it? So much stable, we're going to be tired of
stabling.

2) "Stays out of the way": like not even having a minimize button by default?
So when you have your windows lined up, and switch to another one just to
check something, now you just... ho wait you don't get to "just" because there
is no minimize action to get rid of it. I like this example because on one
hand they claim it is not needed[1] even when a most basic example can prove
them wrong, but on the other hand they have published a first-party
plugin/extension to add this and a number of other "fixes". So double the
failure. TFA author also claims G3's chrome takes less space: like having a
damn clock take 80% of the top bar? Seriously. And also, "MATE uses two panels
so it takes more space" ...you mean exactly like G3 once you enable the
taskbar? Plus in other DE you can easily fuse / insert the taskbar into
another panel, not sure you can in G3. In short G3 is ignoring _basic UI rules
we have known to be true since the 1980s_.

3) "Display switching actually works" ...hu, just like in XFCE? Never had a
problem in XFCE. In G3 though I occasionally had it not detect when I
unplugged an external screen, which means I was left with a blank desktop
background where all of my inputs would only take effect on a now 'ghost'
screen.

4) Many extensions: probably. I only know that some of them exist solely to
fix basic shortcomings of the default UI. I also know you have to use a
browser+plugin to download these, and this feels...wrong?

5) Dynamic workspace: this is the only thing that G3 does right, i.e. not just
properly, but also better than the competition. I really wish other DE would
implement something vaguely as intuitive. If they did, for many users G3 would
have no competitive advantage left.

6) Plenty of themes: Huh. OK. I guess.

I also need to add that the G3 Bluetooth devices app/panel is really
aggravating. BT sucks in Linux to begin with, but the G3 UI is really making
it worse. At first I thought it was only a OS-level thing, but then I
discovered XFCE doesn't have this problem.

[1] It always get me when a OS or DE dev claims you "don't need" a basic
feature: you're not building an app, you're building a _platform_ , you _do
not know_ how it's going to be used, that's the point of a platform.

