

Linux Mint Developer Forks Gnome 3 - macco
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/12/21/2223251/linux-mint-developer-forks-gnome-3?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2FslashdotLinux+%28Slashdot%3A+Linux%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

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thristian
I remember reading a computer-magazine columnist back in the mid-90s talking
about how Windows 95's interface was too revolutionary and different, and that
we should expect Microsoft to have a parallel "Windows Classic" release with
the same superior technical underpinnings as Windows 95, but with the
traditional Windows interface that their millions of users were familiar with.

Obviously that didn't happen, and I doubt that this "GNOME 3 with a GNOME 2
interface" will get very far either. GNOME 3 is pretty great for most people's
workflow, and if you're particularly attached to some feature that's not
present, you could try the GNOME 3 2D fallback mode (which looks pretty much
just like GNOME 2), or XFCE, or LXDE. If those aren't conservative enough for
you, there's still the various *box window managers, WindowMaker, pekwm, and
dozens of others.

~~~
acabal
I'd definitely disagree with that. While I'm sure there are some people who do
like it, I think Gnome Shell is objectively flawed usability-wise. Just to
list a couple obvious examples:

-The top bar is almost entirely wasted space; -Having the bar at the top violates Fitt's law access to a window's close buttons; -Again for Fitt's law, the top-right corner is wasted because that menu is rarely accessed by most, and there's nothing in the bottom-left corner; -The messaging notifier thing frequently fails to let me know there are new messages, the accordion effect makes it hard to click individual notifications, and the popup notifications take an obscene amount of space at the bottom of the screen and often overlap with something I'm reading; -There's no way for me to tell at a glance what programs I'm running, so I often forget that I already have a window with work open and my workspaces end up even more cluttered and disorganized.

I could go on but that's just off the top of my head. All of those are
objectively bad design decisions when you approach G-S from a desktop use
case. Clearly they're trying to shoehorn a touch UI into a desktop UI, but
they're different use cases and when an unskilled design team tries to smash
them together, you get the worst of both worlds.

I don't think people dislike G-S because it's revolutionary; I think people
dislike it because it's genuinely--and perhaps irreversibly given the silly
politics Gnome plays--flawed.

The Mint guys seem smart, so if they feel that a fork is necessary then it's
probably the only way to do what they want given the constraints. They've
shown a good track record of putting quality solutions out, so if they release
Cinnamon at some point I'm sure it'll continue to be developed.

Edit: I also find it a bit funny that G-S was developed at all, because with a
little customization you can get extremely similar functionality in Gnome
Panel. Just install AWN, enable the Scale plugin in Compiz with a hot corner
at the upper-left, move your panel to the top, and set a gconf setting to
remove minimize and close buttons. There--you've just re-created 80% of G-S
functionality and without having to spend years in development.

~~~
ajross
Interesting. I've never seen Fitt's law invoked to cover _close_ buttons
before. Note that serious users (who are the ones complaining the hardest
about gnome-shell) never touch the close button: closing a window is a
keyboard shortcut (generally Ctrl-w, though sometimes Alt-F4 if the app
doesn't handle that) in my world. For a while I was running a custom metacity
theme with no window controls or title bar at all, actually.

And I don't follow the "no at a glance view" of your work space argument. Hit
the windows button and Ctrl-Alt-Up/Down and you can actually _see_ all your
windows, with no overlap. That's something that was never possible before, and
I love it.

Obviously there's a lot of taste at work. Gnome 3 is a big change, and big
changes break workflows and piss off experienced users. But I honestly think a
lot of your "objectively flawed" argumentation is just nonsense. Smart people
can like gnome-shell and use it very effectively. You just don't like it.

~~~
acabal
The point is that those corners are some of the most important screen real
estate, taken advantage by other DEs. Take Windows, for example. Upper-
right=close, upper-left=context menu, bottom-left=start menu, bottom-
right=show desktop.

Compare to Gnome Shell: Upper-right=settings/account menu (rarely used IMHO),
upper-left=activities, bottom-right=missed notifications, bottom-left=nothing.

Where Windows puts something useful in all 4 corners, G-S only has something
useful in 2. Obviously one can argue about what is and what isn't useful, but
from a purely objective viewpoint, one can definitely say that Gnome-Shell
doesn't take full advantage of those extremely important corners.

As for my other points, for example the top bar: how can you deny that it's
mostly wasted space? It's 80% unclickable black bar. That's not "nonsense",
that's just how it is. Other DE's put something there: the window menu bar, an
activities list, etc.

True that I can get an activities list by pressing super. But that's not "at a
glance." That's "at a keypress, then a visual scan, then a click to go back to
what I was doing." Most other DE's provide some sort of window overview at an
immediate glance, ie., an always-visible taskbar.

I think my other points also stand. I don't doubt that some people do use G-S
effectively, but that doesn't mean it isn't deeply flawed. If it weren't, then
more people would like it.

~~~
bkor
Seems you missed all the design documents made for GNOME 3. Top bar is
simplistic at this moment on purpose. There are more ideas behind it. However,
just because you can put stuff somewhere, doesn't mean it is a good idea to do
so.

The idea is to minimize distractions. Not to optimize for mouse clicks, hot
corners, etc.

Defining your own criteria as the reason to call it deeply flawed it a bit
easy IMO.

~~~
acabal
I'm judging it as it stands now, not as some document somewhere says it might
be one day, maybe, if the developers get around to it. If they don't want
people judging it, they shouldn't have released it until they felt it was
ready to be judged.

I'm also judging it by criteria used by many UI experts. How DEs approach
Fitt's Law is an important metric. The law exists for a reason, because UI
experts found it came up again and again in real-life testing.

Defining your own criteria by saying "works for me, wontfix" is also a bit
easy.

------
ch0wn
Why don't just link to the original source instead? I don't see how Slashdot
adds anything to the article.

[http://www.webupd8.org/2011/12/cinnamon-gnome-shell-fork-
wit...](http://www.webupd8.org/2011/12/cinnamon-gnome-shell-fork-with-
gnome2.html)

~~~
jdkramar
I was going to say the same thing. Seems silly to link to ./ instead of the
article.

------
edu
He's not forking the whole Gnome 3, just the shell so it looks more like Gnome
2. Keeping the backend untouched should keep the compatibility issues to a
minimum and guarantee that libraries are up to date and no work is
unnecessarily duplicated.

------
nyellin
This (Cinnamon) is different than MATE, another GNOME fork that Mint was
involved in. As far as I can tell, MATE extends GNOME 2 and Cinammon plans to
build an alternative GNOME 3 shell.

[http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=205&t=89411](http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=205&t=89411)

<https://github.com/Perberos/Mate-Desktop-Environment>

------
onosendai
Just to clarify, what the Mint developers are forking is actually just the
Gnome Shell, not the entire GNOME 3 platform. In this regard it's no different
than Ubuntu's Unity.

~~~
dimmuborgir
_"In this regard it's no different than Ubuntu's Unity."_

Unity isn't a fork of Gnome Shell. Unity-3D is a Compiz plugin and Unity-2D is
written in Qt.

~~~
onosendai
I meant that Ubuntu is still built on top of GNOME 3, using a different
graphical shell called Unity, much as Mint will also be built on top of GNOME
3 using Cinnamon as the graphical shell. I wasn't implying that Unity was a
fork of Gnome Shell.

------
davidw
Speaking of which, anyone know what the state of Focus Follows Mouse is on all
these various platforms? I could not live without it.

~~~
bkor
Broken in GNOME 3.0, workable in 3.2. Hopefully better in 3.4.

------
tvon
Reminds me of GoneME (<http://www.akcaagac.com/index_goneme.html>), though I
suspect this will be more successful.

------
hasmoo
How does he support compatibility with extensions for the main line if he
changes the code base?

~~~
nknight
You're assuming that extension compatibility is a priority for him. I didn't
see any evidence of that in the story.

------
Tomek_
So we have Gnome3, Gnome2, KDE, Xfce, LXDE, Unity, this + gazillions more I
don't even remember about.

Anyone still believes Linux has any chance on a desktop market?

~~~
darklajid
Gnome2 is dead.

Sure, it's still installed all over the place (just like Windows 98 and XP
might be), but it is by all means a dead project.

Unity (and this fork, as I understand it) are based on Gnome (3!) and just
replace the shell. So your list becomes

\- Gnome (Gnome-Shell, Unity, this fork)

\- KDE

\- (list of minorities)

For me - while being a Gnome guy and preferring the gnome-shell option from
that list - the choice doesn't really matter. It's as moot as arguments during
the times of Windows XP were, about whether you should enable the classic mode
or use the Luna theme.

~~~
Tomek_
1) think the differences between those shells are much bigger than between
Luna and classic in XP

2) that it's a different shell, not a fully different desktop environment
isn't really that important, for a normal user it will already cause confusion
(maybe even more as it requires additional explanation what's the difference
between the two).

Don't get me wrong: the thing that you have a choice is one of the virtues of
Linux, but at the same time what it causes is that:

a) Linux is doomed to fail on a mainstream desktop market

b) none of the available choices is and probably will never be as polished as
commercial competitors (and fragmentation is one of the reasons of that)

~~~
darklajid
1) ~Maybe~. In absolutes, I agree. I don't think it matters much though.

2) Sticking with Windows comparisons: Moving from 98 to XP was different in
quite some ways, to Vista and beyond was another change in lots of things.

We agree that choice is good. We disagree about whether there's too much
choice right now. I see only two technical choices, KDE or Gnome, with the
Gnome-Shell/Unity variants for the latter. No idea if this fork will prevail
and be part of the list in the future.

The average user, the "grandma" that often comes up during these discussions,
doesn't care. My gut feeling says that she'll end up with Ubuntu or Kubuntu
installed (Maybe Mint. Maybe Fedora) and use what is available.

And quite frankly, what _is_ available is ready for every casual/average home
user, in my opinion.

~~~
keithpeter
Agreed. If "grandma" were to choose Ubuntu, she would have a good quality 140
page manual ready to download and dip into. See the Ubuntu-Manual project on
launchpad for the Unity version (currently at alpha).

<https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntu-manual/msg02859.html>

Is there a comparable tome ready for Gnome Shell based workflows? I'd really
like to find one.

~~~
bkor
<http://library.gnome.org/>, also included in GNOME 3.

~~~
keithpeter
Looks good, somewhere between

<https://help.ubuntu.com/11.10/ubuntu-help/index.html>

and the paper manual. I especially like the keyboard hints embedded as they go
along.

