
Material Shell – A modern desktop interface for GNOME - doesntmeananyth
https://material-shell.com/
======
generalk
Trying this out as it's typed. For background: I really want to love tools
like i3 or awesome, but I always go back to Gnome because it juts gets stuff
done. I liked Gnome 2, I like 3.

So: just like the site says. Top is the taskbar, which also has a left icon
for the current tiling pattern (fullscreen, tiled vertically, etc). The left
side panel starts at the top-left with the search button that does the Gnome
activities overlay, then a globe icon for each workspace, and a button to
create a new workspace. At the bottom of the left panel are the system icons
(normally in the upper right in Gnome) and then the clock, crammed into
bottom-left.

So I don't hate the tiling, and one of the layout options is "floating" so you
can have a workspace full of floating windows. Cool.

My first thought was that the panels are too big -- 48px, which seemed overly
large. Luckily this is easily configurable in the extension settings, and
updates as you change it so there's no guesswork.

If I switch to floating, or a new workspace, I appear to have no wallpaper
behind the windows or the "new workspace" launcher. I liked my wallpaper, and
I miss it.

I was going to complain about the globe icons for the workspaces, but it turns
out it only preselected those icons because I have browsers primarily in each
workspace. It'll pick based on the first open app (I think?) or you can
override the icon by right-clicking, or have it display a group of app icons
for the open apps in that workspace. This is cool! It's not quite the
thumbnail previews of virtual desktops I had in 2004 with Openbox, but It
works well.

I'll keep on this for a little while -- I _really_ like that I can turn the
whole shebang on and off with a single extension toggle.

~~~
andrepd
I use cinnamon, for that very reason. Just works, and works well for my use
case, is very stable, and I've no wish to learn and configure another desktop
paradigm.

~~~
dheera
I've been using cinnamon as well but in 20.04 the new mac-ish taskbar that
conflates the quick launch favorite apps and running apps in one widget turns
me off. Starting to look for alternatives that aren't trying to copy Apple.

Installed apps and running instances of installed apps are different concepts,
damnit, and I don't need a phone-like interface that fakes the idea that all
apps are "always running" when they are not.

~~~
stjohnswarts
KDE? You would be surprised at how small it's footprint has shrunk, it's as
small or smaller than cinnamon now.

~~~
heavyset_go
KDE uses less memory than Xfce does.

~~~
bmn__
> KDE uses less memory than Xfce does.

KDE user here. What you say is false. Xfce is quite primitive in comparison,
it has a miniscule amount of features and hence gets away with using less
memory. Observational data:

    
    
        3570M kwin_x11 (window manager)
        2512M plasmashell (task panel)
        1411M krunner (application launcher)
         895M kded5 (?)
         532M kactivitymanagerd (multiple desktops)
         422M polkit-kde-authentication-agent-1 (?) 
         389M org_kde_powerdevil (energy settings)
         352M kdeconnectd (use mobile phone as remote control)
         220M xembedsniproxy (make tray icons work)
         277M kaccess (accessibility keys?)
         277M ksmserver (?)
         276M plasma-browser-integration-host (Firefox can show desktop notifications)
         276M kwalletd (password manager)
         265M klauncher (?)
         265M kglobalaccel5 (global keyboard combos)
         213M kscreen_backend_launcher (changing screen orientation and resolution?)
         153M kio_http_cache_cleaner (?)
         101M kdeinit5 (?)
         101M file.so [kdeinit5] file local:/run/user/1000/klauncherXHvFxc.1.slave-socket (?)
          69M kdesud (caches sudo password)
           7M xsettingsd (apply colour scheme to Gnome applications)
           2M start_kdeinit (?)
    

On top of that, some applications for comparison:

    
    
        2805M ktorrent (file sharing)
         694M konsole (terminal)
         402M kate (text editor)
    

\----

    
    
         570M xfce4-appfinder
         332M tumblerd (makes thumbnail images)
         331M Thunar (file manager)
         283M xfdesktop 
         266M xfce4-panel
         260M xfce4-session
         251M xfce4-notifyd
         223M xfconfd
         220M xfwm4
         205M xfce4-screensaver
         190M xfsettingsd
         188M wrapper-2.0 /usr/lib64/xfce4/panel/plugins/libactions.so
         186M wrapper-2.0 /usr/lib64/xfce4/panel/plugins/libsystray.so
         179M xfce4-power-manager
         

On top of that, some applications for comparison:

    
    
        411M mousepad (text editor)
        363M xfce4-terminal (terminal)
    

\----

KDE really has become very bloated. First of all, I cannot uninstall any part
of that huge list with the exception of kdeconnectd (don't want/need) or
plasma-browser-integration-host (maybe want/need); AFAICT this problem is
existing, but not at all pronounced in Xfce.

Due to lazy design choices by the responsible programmers, KDE fails to scale
properly down to the user's circumstances or preferences.

• I do not have multiple desktops configured, yet I must spend 532M

• My computer chassis only has a power button that does something in the
desktop environment when triggered, and any power saving settings are off, yet
I must spend 389M for that

• I do not have any of the five accessibility features enabled, yet I must
spend 277M

• I have only one monitor attached, yet I must spend 213M listening for an
additional

Then there are many initialisation processes hanging around after the desktop
environment has already started. Xfce does not have this problem.

A lot of the processes I cannot even identify in the sense of telling what use
they are to me.

Some processes exist only due to their own doing where the responsible
programmers painted themselves into a corner (like with the tray icons
fiasco), or no one competent stepped in and stopped the submission of a
solution that has a simple and superior equivalent.

• Why is there a 153M cache cleaner hanging around resident in memory? This is
a job for periodic timer (cron/systemd). Even if real-time cleaning is needed
for some bizarre reason, then one would attach an inotify listener to the
cache directory, and every time a file is added or changed, a small <1M
process executes that calculates the diskspace in use, and only when we are
over the threshold, then execute the big cleaning process. Exit the process
when done.

• Why is there a daemon for applying the colour scheme? I mean, it's only 7M,
but this used to be a checkbox in the settings dialogue.

~~~
heavyset_go
You're looking at virtual memory and not resident memory. I've never had KDE
take up 3.5GB of memory on a machine with 4GB, 8GB or 32GB of memory. Right
now, kwin_x11 occupies 110MB of resident memory on my machine while claiming
3.4GB of virtual memory. Similarly, konsole occupies 54MB of resident memory
and 928MB of virtual memory on my machine.

Virtual memory[1] is not at all the same thing as resident memory[2].

I've experienced similar amounts of memory usage to the stats in this article
when it comes to KDE vs Xfce memory usage[3].

[1] [https://linuxconfig.org/ps-output-difference-between-vsz-
vs-...](https://linuxconfig.org/ps-output-difference-between-vsz-vs-rss-
memory-usage#h1-vsz-virtual-set-size)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_set_size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_set_size)

[3]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/10/23/bold-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/10/23/bold-
prediction-kde-will-steal-the-lightweight-linux-desktop-crown-
in-2020/#4c8cc81026d2)

~~~
bmn__
> You're looking at virtual memory and not resident memory.

That does not change anything in the conclusion.

    
    
          685M kwin_x11
          417M plasmashell
          161M krunner
        74820k kded5
        58612k kdeconnectd
        53368k polkit-kde-authentication-agent-1
        52460k ksmserver
        50364k kaccess
        49488k plasma-browser-integration-host
        48568k kwalletd
        44268k kglobalaccel5
        44044k org_kde_powerdevil
        44020k klauncher
        40384k kactivitymanagerd
        26068k kdeinit5
        24432k xembedsniproxy
        21508k kscreen_backend_launcher
        18964k file.so [kdeinit5] file local:/run/user/1000/klauncherwpWDlK.1.slave-socket
        11672k kio_http_cache_cleaner
         3984k kdesud
         3652k xsettingsd
           96k start_kdeinit
        
          144M kate
        96464k konsole
        

\----

    
    
        73828k xfdesktop
        59788k xfwm4
        44508k xfce4-screensaver
        38552k xfce4-appfinder
        36260k xfce4-panel
        29392k xfce4-session
        29216k wrapper-2.0 /usr/lib64/xfce4/panel/plugins/libactions.so
        27156k wrapper-2.0 /usr/lib64/xfce4/panel/plugins/libsystray.so
        27064k Thunar
        25284k xfsettingsd
        25284k xfsettingsd
        25140k tumblerd
        17656k xfce4-notifyd
        15248k xfce4-power-manager
         5880k xfconfd
        
        54492k mousepad
        51244k xfce4-terminal
       

The findings from the article are non-reproducible, too. When I run the
desktop environments with a text editor and terminal each, `free -h` reports a
clear difference in the "used" column:

    
    
        KDE 5.19.4:   1.2Gi
        Xfce 4.14.5:  521Mi

------
yrro
I find the app-based window navigation in vanilla GNOME 3 rather frustrating,
and try as I might, I just can't get comfortable navigating between what _I_
think of as applications.

This is because I have a few applications (Firefox, Terminal) that are really
not applications in and of themselves; the applications are really Outlook,
JIRA, Confluence, Slack, OpenShift (logged in as cluster admin), OpenShift
(logged in as my regular user), that quick terminal session I opened to work
on a script, the SSH connection to an OpenStack director, the 'oc rsh' command
that I'm using to administrate a PostgreSQL database running in OpenShift, and
so on.

This becomes far worse when using multiple monitors. Say I have teams hanging
around on my secondary monitor to keep an eye on stuff. I literally just now
alt-tabbed into a terminal and then alt-tabbed back to continue writing this
comment. As a result, I'm back in Firefox on my primary monitor (as expected)
but now I have an unwanted random Firefox window that I forgot was even open
on top of Teams on my secondary monitor!

The only window manager I've ever been at home with while using multiple
applications, workspaces and monitors has been i3. Specifically I love how it
manages multiple monitors in that each has a current workspace, but workspaces
are not bound to a particular monitor. So I was able to have my secondary
monitor always showing my 'Slack and email' workspace, and switch between my
multiple task-based workspaces on my primary monitor and never get confused
like I with GNOME where I want to switch to my email tab but to get there I
have to remember ahead of time that I have to switch to my first workspace,
then switch applications to Firefox, then switch windows to the one with
Outlook in it, and finally switch to the Outlook tab...

Anyway. This project looks awesome and I will try it out!

~~~
bobince
Very this.

My mind is not app-centric. I want the shell where I'm looking at logs, the
editor where I'm taking notes, the browser where I'm checking some doc. I
don't care to think about which terminal application the shell is inside,
select that, then find I've opened a different terminal window and have to
search through the windows separately. I don't care whether the doc is loaded
in Firefox or Chromium so don't ask me to choose based on that.

IMO app-centric task switching works much, much less effectively than window-
centric task switching; I hate that all the major DEs have copied the same
basic app-based dock design that has been failing in obvious ways since day
one.

(Although Windows can at least configure grouping away, and there's the dash-
to-panel extension to make GNOME tolerable again.)

I get that an app-centric view is attractive to app developers, who would love
me to be engaging with their brand. And that mobile has its own reasons for
putting apps in silos. Does nothing for me as a desktop user though.

~~~
transpostmeta
It's interesting. Microsoft agreed with this philosophy and fought tooth and
nail against tabbing in browsers, opting instead that each browser tab be it's
own window and accessible from the task bar. After all other browsers had
switched, they were forced to introduce that in IE as well.

The worst offender here is OSX. I still haven't figured out a good way to
switch between multiple open windows of the same application, not even the
file explorer (Finder). It's a huge pain.

~~~
ctrlrsf
Just press Command-` to switch between windows of the same application.
Command-Tab to switch between windows of other applications.

~~~
kilburn
Note that on a US keyboard the ` (backtick) key is the one right below ESC.

If you have the keyboard in another locale (I use ES-intl) that hotkey doesn't
make any sense at all: ` is next to "p" in my keyboard, and works only as a
dead key. Cmd-` is literally impossible to use on it.

If you are in this situation, do yourself a favor and remap the "move focus to
next window" hotkey [1]. It is very useful and I couldn't live without it now.

[1] [https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280220/how-to-
chan...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280220/how-to-change-the-
default-shortcut-for-move-focus-to-next-window-to-something)

~~~
emidln
` (backtick) is also right above tab. On a US keyboard, this makes Cmd+Tab
switch apps and Cmd+` switch windows of an app.

It's probably worth noting that the defaults remain on common Linux (at least
KDE, GNOME, and Cinnamon) and Windows desktop shells with Alt instead of Cmd.

On Linux, Windows, and OSX, adding Shift cycles in reverse order.

------
pimlottc
The word "modern" is really overused in tech, and it doesn't really tell you
all that much, just that "this is better because it's new, and new stuff is
better than old stuff".

Consider a more descriptive word, such as: \- minimal \- streamlined \- sleek
\- simple \- opinionated \- spatial \- comprehensive

etc...

~~~
arendtio
How about providing an explanation for those words?

\- minimal: limited features set aka either you like it in 10 seconds or you
don't

\- streamlined: good looking?!?

\- sleek: combination of streamlined and minimal?

\- simple: IMO even more overused than 'modern' and as diverse in its meaning

\- opinionated: There is exactly one way of doing it right and either you like
it or you don't, but it might come with an extensive feature set compared to
minimal.

\- spatial: no idea; Endless space? 3D? Depending on my geolocation?!?

\- comprehensive: 'Oh, I have to learn something, but not too much'

Modern, on the other hand, means to me: Mainstream look & feel (kinda
polished) and with considerable feature set.

Whats your definition?

~~~
pimlottc
I think those are all valid interpretations that give some useful information
about the product.

I tend to think of the words as staking a position vs its opposite, so you at
least have some idea where the product lies on at least one axis.

\- minimal vs maximal: "we favor fewer few design elements vs more"

\- streamlined vs not streamlined: "we have intentially chosen to focus on a
few specific goals"

\- sleek vs rough: "we are aiming for a polished appearance"

\- simple vs complex: "we prioritize ease of use over supporting lots of use
cases"

\- opinionated vs configurable: "we have a philosophy of the right way to do
this, which this tool supports out of the box; if you have a very specific use
case, it might not be for you"

etc..

On the other hand, the opposite of modern is... old fashioned? Isn't almost
everything basically modern, then? And how is that necessarily any better?

~~~
heartbeats
The opposite of modern is quaint. Modern means that it uses new technologies
(Web/HTML5/React), quaint means that it uses old technologies (Win32 UI/HTML
4/command line)

~~~
bergheim
You say this with authority. According to whom is web modern and everything
else «quaint»? Not to be that guy again but electron-based apps feels nothing
like modern, except maybe in the worst possible sense.

«Command line» is still very much alive as well by the way, and underpins a
lot of things, say ci/cd.

------
aszen
Tried it briefly, I currently use i3 on ubuntu and found it to be much much
slower than that, the animations while pretty get pretty jarring once u start
switching windows too often. I much prefer the i3 style of just showing a
blinking cursor on switching windows.

The grid layout is interesting but I found it strange that the all tabs are
shown along the left side in split mode. It would be interesting to see how
the grid differs from the tree layout that i3 uses.

I did like their default hot keys and the side bar for switching work spaces.
Ultimately though if you don't like gnome this isn't going to change that. But
if you do prefer i3 and want a more nicer environment with all the gnome
system management ui's consider using [https://regolith-
linux.org/](https://regolith-linux.org/)

~~~
gavinray
I Ctrl+F'ed in this thread for Regolith, this should be higher.

Zero setup, incredible keybindings.

You can install it on top of your existing Distro, as an apt package. And then
log out + log back in using new DE.

I had never used a tiling WM before Regolith, i3 seemed too difficult to
configure for someone who didn't truly didn't understand the point/benefit of
using tiling WM's.

A day into using Regolith on Ubuntu I was hooked. Been using it for years now
and it's the best decision I've ever made, productivity skyrocketed and it
looks nice.

I tried Pop_OS shell's tiling WM, as I was hopeful, but the keybindings and
behavior aren't as nice as Regolith. It does a "swap" animation when changing
tile positioning that slows stuff down, and I could never get the gap borders
to disappear completely.

------
GekkePrutser
Nice!!! This is the kind of thing I visit Hacker News for.

I wonder how this compares with the Gnome tiling Add-on from Pop!_OS that is
becoming very popular. But this material shell sounds like a much more
holistic approach than just adding tiling to Gnome. I'll definitely try this
out.

~~~
mcny
I have not looked into these things too much but I like how gnome keyring
unlocks when I login to my fedora machine. After a simple initial setup, all
my git commits are automatically signed by my gpg key. I don't even have to
think about it. I haven't used this for anything serious but I think
alternatives will need to achieve feature parity before I can seriously
consider them.

Kind of like how I go back to x as opposed to wayland because obs can't
capture screen (last time I checked).

~~~
gtf21
You don't need to be using the full GNOME DE in order to use gnome-keyring and
have it unlock [1].

[1]:
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/Keyring#Using_the...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/Keyring#Using_the_keyring_outside_GNOME)

------
V6HBGNQHU
Pop Shell from System76 also does something similar. That is a gnome shell
extension that provides tiling window management. It's focus is keyboard
driven window navigation and has the option to switch between tiling and
floating mode.

[https://github.com/pop-os/shell](https://github.com/pop-os/shell)

~~~
mark_l_watson
I was going to mention the same thing. I liked the old Pop Shell and have now
been experimenting with the new tiling interface.

Off topic, but System76 really seems like a great company. I enjoy my Linux
laptop and their software support is good. I am stuck on Apple's platform for
the Apple Watch and iPhone (and I like iPads), but I wonder if I would ever
buy another Mac laptop. Turnkey Linux systems, like those of System76, Dell,
etc. really make using Linux low overhead.

------
squarefoot
I tried this a couple years ago on a Atom tablet. If memory serves it had no
tiling yet, but I liked it because it was the only working solution that would
allow a tablet-like experience under Linux, all others being either buggy or
incomplete (rotation not working or not consistent with mouse, etc.). I admit
it was well thought, beautiful to look at and very usable, although they
didn't resist the temptation to dumb down even further the config panels by
removing more and more options, which is the reason I avoid Gnome in all my
PCs. The only real problem is that it was _slow_ , I mean _really slow_ , and
memory hungry. OK, in 2018 having 2GB RAM it's the users fault, although that
tablet was impossible to upgrade, so I had no other choice than either
reinstall Windows 10 (which was a lot more snappy) or give the tablet away,
which I did.

I seem to have read somewhere that an open phone manufacturer (Librem?) is
using a deeply optimized version of Gnome 3 to overcome its slugginess on less
powerful hardware. Are there any chances their optimizations can be merged
back so that every platform could take advantage of them?

------
heresie-dabord
> "Improve your user experience and get rid of the anarchy of traditional
> desktop workflows."

This usage of "anarchy" makes me wonder what is so satisfying to advocates of
"tiling". I personally don't have a need for new windows to conform to a
strict placement algorithm.

My usability requirement for new windows: a) open the window in a timely
manner and make it distinct so I can identify it; b) don't fiddle with my
visual field unnecessarily.

I use OpenBox. I make the "active" window distinct using a custom theme. I
open what I need and hide the rest in a shaded window and/or virtual desktop
until I need it. I find what I need in the menus.

(I won't debate the qualities of Gnome, but I prefer a lighter DE.)

------
tkainrad
I don't see why you would need such a complex system (spatial model) to switch
between your apps.

In my opinion, this has been solved perfectly many years ago. I simply use
Super+<num> to launch/switch to my 10 most important applications. Supported
out-of-the box by both Windows and Gnome and 100% predictable. Every shortcut
invocation will launch exactly the right application.

~~~
nsonha
I find that wierd too, and example of nerds cooking up something no one needs
but then it catched on because nerdy things are hip now.

------
mikewhy
I've always wanted to try a tiling window system, but they just don't seem to
gel with how I work at all. Rarely, if ever, do I want a window to take up
some common percentage of the screen. My editor is ~100 columns, which will
change depending on the font / font size. My terminal is all over the place.
My browser is multiple widths, because I need to test responsiveness, or what
fits in my current tab does not fit what's in my next tab.

Is there any sort of middle ground tiling solution for people like me?

~~~
olejorgenb
Shameless plug:
[https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/](https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/)
Gets rid of window overlap, but doesn't force all windows to be fully visible
at the same time.

~~~
shortformblog
I'm a fan of PaperWM. It's great.

------
wayneftw
Can the user merge the workspace panel into the the system panel and move all
that to the bottom of the screen instead?

I honestly can't stand global top bars and "system panels" that are nothing
more than always-visible launcher menus. They're just a waste of space. IMO
Chrome looks ridiculous in the video, with a set of tabs directly underneath
the workspace panel tabs.

What I'd really like to see is XFCE with automatic tiling. I can probably
script a half-assed version of it myself without too much trouble, but it
would be nice to have a full-assed version of that.

~~~
armoredkitten
A few months ago I set up i3 to work within Xfce (essentially swapping out
xfwm4 as the window manager), and I love it. It took a bit of tinkering to get
the two to play nicely, as you might expect, but once I got it set up properly
it was great. I wanted to use a tiling WM, but I had a setup I really liked
with Xfce and didn't want to give up all the DE niceties with my panels,
system tray, etc. This gives me the best of both worlds as far as I'm
concerned.

That said, I agree with you that it would be nice to have a built-in option to
switch between tiling and floating. I've seen that Pop_OS has this, but that's
also using Gnome.

------
christophilus
This looks decent. Tangentially, why do Gnome windows have such big title
bars? Is that something you can adjust?

~~~
p_l
It's because a) GNOME no longer renders title bars b) GTK3 instead treats
title bar as combined titlebar + menu space

~~~
barrkel
Gtk3's title bar / hamburger menu / tool bar / modal dialog hybrid thing is a
great motivator for avoiding Gtk3 apps. I've been pretty successfully avoiding
them since upgrading to Ubuntu 20 and discovering that horrorshow.

I'm having difficulty getting different colours on active vs inactive title
bars on regular apps, though. Still working on it occasionally.

~~~
alex_duf
Why is it a horror show? It never bothered me

~~~
petepete
It's not, some people are just a little _dramatic_ about it.

~~~
II2II
I wouldn't go as far as calling it a horror show, but do find it genuinely
unpleasant to use. In a default configuration GNOME's task switcher seems to
assume that there is only one window open for each application. Switching
between multiple windows in the same application is rather inconvenient. The
title bar stuffs in frequently accessed options then hides the menu bar under
the hamburger icon. Those frequently used options are the ones I am least
likely to access from the title bar since they are bound to hotkeys that are
common to most programs.

For anyone who is accustomed to other metaphors, I'm not terribly surprised by
the description horror show. Even as someone who is willing to adapt to
change, many of the changes seem to be contrary to usability or efficiency.

~~~
petepete
GNOME's task switcher has two modes, the one you're using switches between
applications. Alt+(the key above tab) switches between windows within an
application.

The hamburger menu keeps the applications looking clean, if there's anything I
use that frequently I'll just use the keyboard shortcut.

It's improving every release, but if you want traditional, I'd choose XFCE.

~~~
barrkel
A "clean" UI is often a less functional or efficient UI; cleanliness is
usually achieved by adding indirection or removing functionality. But Gtk3
isn't even clean; it's often cluttered. Just look at the title bar on dconf-
editor when you're 5 levels deep in a config tree.

Menus are ideal for commands which are individually infrequently used, but
collectively frequently used. That is, where any given menu item isn't used
often enough to warrant learning the keyboard shortcut (not that Gtk3 menus
show shortcuts, because they don't), but the menu as a total is visited to
execute a command frequently. Consider things like IDEs, photo manipulation,
video editing, sound editing, basically anything with a lot of tools to apply.

I find it particularly ironic that Gimp - the OG Gtk - doesn't use a hamburger
menu, because that would be _ludicrous_.

~~~
p_l
Another point with menus is that the typical top-of-the screen, and nowadays
"hamburger" menu is just dumping ground for all functionality, and should be
at most of a secondary use to common _and_ context-specific actions
represented by buttons/context menus/etc.

Something usually lost in "clean" UIs...

------
yboris
Reminds me of the 10/GUI ("contenuum") [http://10gui.com/](http://10gui.com/)

A user interface mockup where everything is grouped, spatially oriented, and
scrollable.

[https://vimeo.com/6712657](https://vimeo.com/6712657)

~~~
dflock
PaperWM is inspired by/implements parts of this:
[https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/](https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/)

------
bengalister
I tried tiling WM: i3/i3gap for a year, then sway and bspwm for a few days but
finally went back to Gnome.

I got fed-up spending way too much tweaking the UI to my "needs". (To be fair,
most of the time was spent on the toolbar (polybar, i3bar) configuration). I
also realized that I mostly needed tiling for the terminal.

Thus I embraced Gnome UI with a few extensions: unite, dash-to-dock, system-
monitor, etc. and started using tmux for the terminal.

I might try Material Shell but I am actually happy with today's Gnome3.
Performance is decent, and the level of configuration is enough for me with a
few extensions. It is not as stable and polished as MacOSX but there is no
blocking point.

N.B: I kept i3 for my work Linux VM due to very limited system resources.

~~~
gkop
Beg to differ that macOS is more stable and polished. macOS makes “arbitrary”
UI changes over the major versions, including what I experience as
regressions, while Gnome 3 keeps what works. And I experience more UI latency
with macOS and a less-polished out of the box experience: Eg, macOS has no
built-in tiling. Eg, macOS prohibits using the keyboard to interact with
system modals unless you change settings. Eg, macOS hotkey for spotlight
requires holding down a modifier key. Eg, macOS spotlight autocomplete is
unbelievably brittle/dumb. Eg, macOS doesn’t allow changing the system font
size, you must scale the whole viewport.

(Can you tell I am required to use macOS at work? /facepalm)

------
felixfoertsch
I really wish people would stop using "beautiful" as if it were an objective
adjective.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Ditto "fast".

~~~
Narishma
Unless it's accompanied by benchmarks; then it's fine.

------
scoutt
Can two windows overlap? Or are they just opened full-screen or inside a tile
side-by-side?

If not, then I don't like that very much. For example the calculator: I don't
want it to take 1/3 or 1/4 of the screen. It's like going back into a 35 years
ago pre DESQview era.

Edit: nevermind. _" In Material Shell windows are tiled. These means they are
organised in a predictable way in which they do not overlap"_.

I guess I like my windows to be _not predictable_ , whatever that means.

~~~
approxim8ion
I can't speak about Material Shell, but on dedicated tiling WMs, you get to
select a subset of apps that you want to always open in floating mode to
accommodate the use case you are describing. Nonetheless, I find myself not
using that at all, since in most cases the tiled view allows for optimum use
of screen real-estate in my opinion. If I can't see the entirety of a window
it's kind of useless to me, so i'd prefer it be on a different workspace. But
of course, floating one window like your calculator while your browser and RSS
feed reader are tiled on the desktop is entirely possible and probably quite
common. I do, however, use a popup rofi window with a custom script as a
calculator, so that does indeed float near the top of my screen.

------
_def
I like the tiling. Unfortunately it breaks my beloved workflow with GNOME 3:
I'm using an extension to switch workspaces via scrolling on the top panel,
which makes the workspace approach very useful and fast for me.

I also rather would like the left panel at the top since window lists aren't
important to me anymore (hot corner for overview is so much faster for me
finding the window I am looking for)

~~~
chronogram
Do you have a link to that scrolling extension handy? It sounds useful to me.
And if you have any other recommendations I'd appreciate them too, as I tried
some extensions but have none enabled myself currently (just stock with the
animations off). Your scrolling one is the first one that sounds useful.

~~~
_def
[https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/701/top-panel-
workspa...](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/701/top-panel-workspace-
scroll/)

------
einpoklum
> for GNOME

For the life of me, I can't understand why there are that many GNOME-based
desktop environments. I personally dislike most of their approach to UI. Maybe
the innards are very pleasant to work with, but it's GTK-based, isn't it? That
a somewhat-dated C toolkit, even if it has bindings in other languages. So I
kind of doubt that.

And yet - MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE (ok, that's just GTK, not GNOME proper), Unity.

This is not a rant, I'm actually curious why GNOME is that popular, and those
projects did not choose some other basis. I mean, that should be possible,
right? LXDE switched from GTK to Qt a few years back.

~~~
msb
I will tell you why I use Gnome. Gnome/Fedora was the first distro that played
nice with my 4k XPS display AND the various 2k and HD secondary displays I
use. I switched from Ubuntu/XFCE about five years ago. As I get older, I look
for applications and DE's that require as little mouse use as possible. In
Gnome 3, it's super+space, type application name, enter and use. Super+arrow
to snap around the screen. A minuscule top bar gives me the perfect amount of
screen real estate. The only application that I like to tile is a terminal and
tmux works just fine. So for my use, Gnome just seems to stay out of my way.

------
trilinearnz
Looks really nice. I like how creative the Linux community is with their GUI
experimentation.

My favourite feature is the ability to tile windows with a little gap between
them. Having visibility (even a little) into the wallpaper when you're doing
work makes a big difference for me. It's like it grounds you in a more natural
frame of reference. I'm sure Mac users can relate to this due to the late
introduction of true window maximisation, but as a Windows user I'm coming to
appreciate the "non-fullscreen" or "edge-to-edge tiled" working environment.

------
eximius
I can't recommend AwesomeWM enough. You don't really have to customize it at
all for the workspaces + basic tiling to be incredibly useful. And the
workspaces can be _per monitor_!!! Or you can tie them together! Or use them
as tags instead of workspaces! It's really just so good.

I think the only thing I really added was audio key support and I changed the
menu shortcut...?

I'm not actually sure what the argument is to not use it. (it supports
floating windows, if you want that as the default)

~~~
mqus
> I'm not actually sure what the argument is to not use it.

I'm currently using it, but if I switch away, it will be because there is no
wayland support yet.

~~~
eximius
Heh, valid point.

~~~
Elv13
Patches welcome :P

But really, someone went quite far a couple year ago. Unfortunately he lost
interest before the finish line. There is no such thing as a WM port from X11
to wayland. It's a full backend rewrite.

The design that would have worked (after like 4 rewrite), but wasn't
completed, was to have a WLroot process, then some custom protocols to talk to
an awesome "client". This was a fork of the old codebase with the X11 code
stripped out and the implementation of those little private protocols between
the wlroot "server" and awesome "client".

Using this model, the event loops lived in different process and AwesomeWM
could restart without losing all applications. It did render stuff, including
the wibar and clients (without titlebars). But that's about it. It never got
to the point you could dog-food it.

------
linuxdaemon
I have tried to like tiling window managers and for whatever reason, it just
hasn't clicked for me. I have really come to like the way default Gnome works.
That said, I have used material-shell for about 1/2 an hour, and so far this
is the first time I can see myself actually liking a tiling window manager.

At the risk of being the guy who has used it for a minimal amount of time and
starts complaining about it because it doesn't work like I'm used to...There
are a couple preference things for me that I wish were a little different.

I like gnome's no-frills fullscreen. You only have the app and the top panel
stuff. In material-shell, I can SUPER+ESC to get full screen, but I think I
want to be able to just mouse-over to the left side to bring up the panel
while in full screen. To get to anything at the panel I have to SUPER-ESC
first. Which is ok, I'd just rather it optionally auto-hide.

Kind of the same as the left-panel, the top-panel workspace list looks
especially jumbled when you have an app like a browser maximized. So you see
the workspace list, then your titlebar, then your browser tabs. It just adds
extra "business" that I would prefer to not see. And again, enabling
fullscreen with SUPER+ESC basically gets me what I want so it's not that big
of a deal.

Finally, I understand why people would like it, but for me I would prefer to
not have the "+" in the workspace switcher at all. Or at least minimally have
it skip being part of my SUPER+A/SUPER+D switching. I REALLY don't like it
showing up when nothing is open on my workspace or when I have a vertical
split workspace, and only one thing on the screen and it shows the "+" content
window. I am so accustomed to just hitting SUPER and then typing the app that
I want, its way faster to do that and I'd rather the whole "+" window go away.

All-in-all, I'm pretty satisfied with material-shell and will definitely be
using it as my desktop.

------
gigatexal
meh, imo, regolith is peak desktop for linux right now. [1]

[1] [https://regolith-linux.org/download/](https://regolith-
linux.org/download/)

------
asciimov
Thinking about those default keybindings (super+<w,a,s,d>) make my wrists
hurt. Since the typical keyboard only has super (win) on the left, they
should've used super+ <i,j,k,l> or <h,j,k,l>.

------
corytheboyd
Please. Add. SCREENSHOTS!

You lost me at having to watch a video. Just lead with a screenshot. A video
is fine as supplemental marketing, but you NEED a screenshot otherwise you’re
losing those first impression opportunities.

------
dusted
I think I'll just stick to i3 for now.

~~~
rtlfe
It's moderately intimidating to jump into i3 or xmonad if you haven't used
them before. This looks like a friendlier way for more people to get exposed
to tiling, but doesn't seem to offer anything compelling for people already
comfortable with one of the others.

------
bestouff
Looks nice, is there a video of how it works with multi-monitor setups ?

------
sanqui
This is so close to how I would want my shell to work! For instance, there is
a floating mode which can be enabled per-workspace. Big fan of the
persistency. I have a few nitpicks, but the author seems active on Discord and
work is ongoing. Going to give this an extended ride for sure.

EDIT: For Fedora users, apparently the package is quite outdated and missing
some features and fixes. The author is going to make a new release on GitHub
and hopefully package maintainers will make an update.

------
forbiddenvoid
Installed and activated this morning. I'm already a fan. Easily revertible if
I decide later that I hate it, but I like this workspace strategy much better
than what's built-in with gnome.

I did find it a bit challenging to figure out where the settings were located
(I don't use many GNOME extensions), but once I figured out the settings are
on the extensions.gnome.org page for the extension it was lot easier.

------
RMPR
I really like the idea, maybe this can make me back to GNOME, but it seems to
me it lacks an absolutely vital feature of i3/Sway: the scratchpad[0], I
always have an Emacs buffer opened to my org folder, and the scratchpad is
very handy.

0:
[https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#_scratchpad](https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#_scratchpad)

------
kevinherron
One thing I've learned from using i3wm and trying various other tiling
shells/scripts over time is a stacking mode is crucial to my workflow.

It doesn't look like this has one. There's an outstanding PR to add stacking
to Pop Shell [0] that I'm hopeful about.

[0] [https://github.com/pop-os/shell](https://github.com/pop-os/shell)

------
michaelmrose
How does this handle multiple monitors? Isn't the default on gnome 3 still to
only switch the primary monitor when switching workspaces?

~~~
kevincox
It doesn't appear to work well with multiple monitors. I could open apps on
different monitors but not move them between. The native GNOME shortcuts just
caused the windows to flicker and their shortcuts don't have anything to do
with monitors.

~~~
michaelmrose
[https://github.com/material-shell/material-
shell/issues/269](https://github.com/material-shell/material-shell/issues/269)

>We are currently only compatible with the one workspace per external monitor
mode since it's was the most adapted to my vision of the ideal workflow and
also because altering the behavior of GNOME Shell can be a bit complex and
maintain multiple mode can be very time consuming. Therefore step after step
our code base is becoming more mature and I may be incline to work a second
option if there enough demands. But we also have other fundamental stone to
build like window resizing.

Seems like figuring how it works across multiple monitors would be a rather
basic building block but dev has different priorities it seems.

------
miguelmota
I switched from i3 to bspwm and never looked back. It’s more true to the Unix
philosophy of doing one thing only and doing it well. I use sxhkd for the
hotkey daemon and polybar for the status bar. It’s more initial work to set up
though than i3 which just works out-of-the box which makes i3 good enough for
most people.

------
y2kenny
For folks who are looking for tiling without switching the windows manager,
the gTile [0] GNOME shell extension is pretty good.

[0]:
[https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/28/gtile/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/28/gtile/)

~~~
gkop
Gnome has [very] basic tiling built in.

------
forbiddenvoid
Installed and activated this morning. I'm already a fan. Easily revertible if
I decide later that I hate it, but I like this workspace strategy much better
than what's built-in with gnome.

I did find it a bit challenging to figure out where the settings were located
(I don't use many GNOME extensions).

------
satya71
Looks nice and innovative. But GNOME already lost me as a user. Wish they'd
make it independent of GNOME.

------
fareesh
I find everything other than KDE and lighter desktops really slow - even with
good hardware

------
mkaymalright
I like it!

There is just one thing I'm missing from Gnome which is the white dot on top
of the time signifying there is an unread notification. With Material Shell I
have to manually click the time to see if I have any unread emails or slack
messages.

------
lubonay
Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that there are no tests in the repo?

------
aabbcc1241
I used to switch between gnome and cinnamon. I switched between them when one
failed after update. They seldom fail simultaneously, but once that happened,
I switched to awesome and never go back.

------
t0astbread
Nice! I use i3 but I've always thought it would be great if it supported
manipulating windows with the mouse as well. I don't use GNOME so this isn't
for me but I like the idea.

~~~
Galanwe
You can have floating windows with i3.

Try meta-shift-space, you will get a floating window that can be dragged and
resized with the mouse.

~~~
t0astbread
I know about that and it's a handy feature but I meant the typical window
operations (moving in the tile grid, resizing of grid rows/columns possibly
also sending to other workspaces or the scratchpad and toggling floating or
fullscreen mode via a context menu on the title bar)

------
5h
I've lived in Awesome WM for years, this looks pretty good to me!

~~~
Elv13
You can have both! [https://github.com/material-shell/material-
awesome](https://github.com/material-shell/material-awesome)

This was an earlier version of Material Shell based on AwesomeWM. At some
point the author wanted more animations and custom menu handling. Those are 2
areas AwesomeWM doesn't really handle well.

------
dubcanada
My biggest issue with i3 and awesome is as soon as I plug in a second monitor
the whole things just falls apart and it becomes too much to manage.

Anyone try this with multiple monitors?

~~~
michaelmrose
The way multiple monitors work out of the box is that a workspace is created
when you first switch to it on the monitor that is focused. This means that
even if you always use foo on monitor bar you must switch to monitor bar
before hitting the hotkey to switch to foo.

If all you know is focus directional hotkeys you could trivially have to hit
focus left 7 times to get to the left monitor for example before hitting
super+3 to switch to 3. This is of course horrible.

Your life would be simplified if you had a hotkey to focus output right and
focus output left. This makes it not TOO laborious however your life would be
simplified MUCH MUCH more if you used the assign directive to assign
particular workspaces to particular monitors for example 1-5 on left monitor
and 6-0 on right.

You would accomplish this for example by using

    
    
        workspace 1 output name
        workspace 2 output name
        ...
    

Then if you watch to switch to 3 on left monitor you don't have to worry about
where you are presently you can simply hit super+3 wherever you are.

------
pmlnr
Don't worry, the next gtk3 update will break it. /s

------
dzonga
looks okay, tried it and bang! everything is in disarray. I found organising
windows to be a pain. suddenly everything is in full screen mode. I thought
the search would've been like the search provided by kde, i.e search through
open windows no matter what app. that's one thing I miss about kde. and wish I
could get in gnome.

------
nomdep
These "Workspaces" are called "Activities" in KDE (avaible since KDE 4 I
think). I use them daily

------
Angeo34
People jump at the words minimal and modern but "Private secure and fast" is
never questioned makes sense.

------
robertlagrant
How is the tiling with multiple monitors?

------
square_usual
Why does this website need javascript to load? Everything in there could fit
on a static page with gifs.

~~~
chabad360
The issue of the gifs was actually discussed on discord. IIRC it was because
the gifs would be to big in some cases.

~~~
marksbrown
That's a poor excuse given that a) mp4 support is pretty good these days and
b) CSS already has responsive loading of assets. It's purely that to a man
with a JS framework everything looks like a dynamic site. I highly recommend
running Noscript to see how much of the Internet is broken because of this
kind of nonsense.

~~~
tssva
Running Noscript doesn't show you how much of the internet is broken but
instead is you purposefully breaking the internet for yourself.

~~~
square_usual
You don't need Javascript for static content.

~~~
tssva
And dynamic content isn't broken content. Choosing to only view static content
is a personal preference.

------
bluewavescrash
Cool website.

------
axilmar
I don't like this at all. Scrolling is a 'no' in serious UI design, and tiling
should be an option.

The video is too fast to allow any actual evaluation of its offerings.

The big buttons in the section 'find your tasks instantaneously' are not
necessary.

The gnome interface sucks big time and I don't see this as improvement.

~~~
jsiepkes
> Scrolling is a 'no' in serious UI design

Scrolling gives users a spatial feeling (ie. "what is where in relation to
something else") in contrast to just magically letting things appear without
animation or transition. There are plenty of UI designs which use scrolling.
Sure you can debate whether they are a success or not but I've never head of
"Scrolling is a 'no' in serious UI design". That sounds more like a personal
preference.

> and tiling should be an option.

As far as I can tell there is nothing stopping you from simply using a
workspace per app. Effectively disabling tiling.

~~~
axilmar
> Scrolling gives users a spatial feeling

The spatial feeling is necessary only if things take more space than needed.
In this case, this is not valid. There are no things that take more space than
needed. It's simply a distraction.

> As far as I can tell there is nothing stopping you from simply using a
> workspace per app. Effectively disabling tiling.

What if I want windows to be connected? that feature is not offered.

------
mrlonglong
Somehow the title reminds me of Madonna's song Material Girl.

------
dave_sullivan
As an i3-gaps user... I would try this.

~~~
nobleach
I love how beautiful i3-gaps is. I worked awfully hard to get i3, Dunst,
Polybar and many other tools to give me a WM only experience. And frankly, I
hate that part of it.

Simple things like configuring bluetooth, or switching audio... or working
with multiple displays are just painful. I expected this when I started using
Linux in 1996ish. That was part of the hobbiest experience. These days, I just
want to get my work done, and if I can do it with a pretty experience, I'd
prefer that.

So if I do i3 again, it'll probably be with XFCE underneath unifying some of
the experience. Gnome on the other hand, has its own set of issues that make
it annoying.

So I'm with you, I would try this.

~~~
jeromenerf
You can run "gnome-flashback" somehow below i3 using
[https://github.com/i3-gnome/i3-gnome](https://github.com/i3-gnome/i3-gnome)

This is nothing too complicated, just a session with the right components
selected to provide whatever services you need: display management, screen
locking, WiFi, etc.

------
nsonha
when is this material crap gonna die? There are gaps everywhere who wants more
gaps in their DE?

~~~
jeromenerf
I do. I don’t need them when every pixel counts but I think they are useful If
not pleasing in many cases.

That’s why I created what I believe was the first tiling wm "useless gaps"
patch for dwm 10 years ago. Since then, it has been adopted by other wm, i3
being a notable exception.

I don’t use a DE, but I guess a little space between those fat bars and
backdrop’d windows might help to see through the bloat.

~~~
nsonha
I was referring more to the excessive padding in material design in general,
but yeah I'm not a fan of gaps so pairing that with gaps in tilling seems
extra bloated to me.

~~~
jeromenerf
Oh yes, I see what you mean.

I have yet to see an enjoyable material design app. With the same underlying
motivations, I have better appreciation of Apple iOS interface guidelines.

------
anotheryou
I want 2/3rd 1/3rd tiling

------
mmcnl
There's much to love about Linux but the desktop experience is terrible.
Windows and macOS are lightyears ahead.

------
dddw
wow that looks pretty darn great... installing on Fedora silverblue right now.

------
matt_f
Love this. <3

------
d2161
So it's not a shell but a theme?

------
monkin
Sadly it’s a material design, one of the worst design frameworks out there.
And, it is used contrary to its purpose on all possible levels without any
understanding of it.

~~~
scott31
> Sadly it’s a material design, one of the worst shits out there.

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A
good critical comment teaches us something.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
rvz
But actually it's true. Before, It was once great on Android but now it has
been abused on the Web, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop apps, etc.

It is the new Bootstrap, but inconsistent and worse every where else apart
from its use in Android apps.

------
cheph
With how horrible Gnome 3 is to use I guess nothing can be worse, though I'm
sure just like gnome 3 it will also randomly crash every 15 minutes.

~~~
alex_duf
What desktop/os do you use as your daily driver?

~~~
wayneftw
XFCE here, for the same reason - I've been trying out Gnome since the early
2000s and it's always been a bug-ridden, bloated pig. Meanwhile XFCE is
simple, lightweight and it just works.

------
rvz
> Designed to simplify navigation and reduce the need to manipulate windows in
> order to improve productivity. It's meant to be 100% predictable and bring
> the benefits of tools coveted by professionals to everyone.

Oh dear. Now I remember why I keep using macOS which actually does it better
than 'this'.

