(If you know where I stole this from, I love you.)

  • whelk@retrolemmy.com
    0·
    1 month ago

    I think the key is to just not hate on someone else for having a preference for one you don’t care for. (And not being an overzealous missionary for your own preference.) It’s fun seeing the variety and people geeking out about the little intricacies they love about their favorites

    • MUGv0@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      1 month ago

      That’s the right take. Every couple years I’ve given KDE a shot for a month and it just won’t click no matter how much I configure it, this goes back pre plasma. I dislike gnome but it’s closer to what I want out of the box, then popos came along and I realized I just wanted a tiling wm all along but needed the hybrid approach to enjoy adjusting.

  • JuliaSuraez@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    This made me laugh more than it should have. It perfectly captures how we all try to be neutral… until that one preference slips out. Classic moment.

  • jmf@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    1 month ago

    All the JavaScript in gnome make it super icky to me as an ex-webdev, and unusable on hardware that is otherwise perfectly fine with other DEs. From high resource usage, memory leaks, and breaking extensions, I have a hard time believing that their userbase is anyone other than mobile native younger folk who are good at consuming via the iPad launcher paradigm. Just my humble opinion, nothing more.

  • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
    0·
    1 month ago

    I like gnome DE, I dislike the arrogance of the project team.

    My straw was the login-to-exposé thing.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      It was (and still is) the default input focus to the Search box on the Save dialog. Why? Just… why? Why would I ever want to start typing in the Search box when I’m saving a file. I have never, ever thought to myself as I saved something that I should search for something to name this thing I’m saving after something else somewhere on this filesystem.

      • OwOarchist@pawb.socialOPEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Why? Just… why?

        Any time you ask the Gnome devs this, you can expect the answer to be “elegance”. And then they block you.

    • ADTJ@feddit.uk
      0·
      1 month ago

      Can you elaborate for the curious? I tried searching but couldn’t find anything. What’s the login to exposé thing?

      • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
        0·
        1 month ago

        Once upon a time, when you logged in you arrived at the desktop. Then typically you’d click a docked application icon or use the hot corner to open the overview (Apple calls it exposé on macOS) and search for an application to start. Some people would just hit the keyboard shortcut and start typing an application name. Very quick.

        One day, the gnome team decided that since a lot of people do this, that immediately after logging in you’d arrive directly at this overview/exposé mode ready to type an app name.

        Quite a few people didn’t like this change, and requested a setting so they could enable/disable it as was their preference. The response from the gnome team was essentially ‘get fucked’ enshrouded by weak/nonsense justifications for the change and for not making it optional, apparently taking the request as some kind of personal attack.

        It was a trivial minor change but the way the team handled it was… lacking.

        • rushmonke@ttrpg.network
          0·
          1 month ago

          Yeah, that sounds exactly like the GNOME3 team.

          For years, they fought back against giving users the option to change where their dock is, forcing them to be stuck with an asinine vertical dock because “vertical space is at a premium.”

          They do this because they’re lazy and incompetent. They simply do not want more work for themselves and will browbeat any of their users into doing things the “stupid gnome3 way.”

          Their designers are some of the dumbest people in the industry. Since they have a yes-man/echo chamber culture, they don’t ever get to learn from their mistakes because nobody holds them accountable for failure.

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
    0·
    1 month ago

    Gnome is very competently made except it’s made for a different genre of person to me, and their attitude towards customisation is outright disdainful. You install an extension or mess around in tweaks and gnome looks at you like you just used the salad fork for seafood.

    I think it’s made for people who like Macs or sth.

    Wouldn’t be a problem(people can use whatever makes them happy) if the gnome Devs shit attitude didn’t trickle outwards and harm customizability in other environments.

      • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
        0·
        1 month ago

        Posh person nonsense. At fancy parties you’re supposed to use different food weapons for each course and work your way from the outside in. Fairly sure the only reason it was invented was so rich ppl could show off how many fancy pieces of cutlery they owned.

        Which is the vibe I get from Gnome’s design and its devs’ attitude in general. “Fancy party”. A bunch of dumbass rules you have no influence over and which people will sneer at you for breaking.

    • mystic-macaroni@lemmy.ml
      0·
      1 month ago

      Serious question. Why is there an expectation that your DE should be customizable? Isn’t the fact that you can choose one in the first place a customization?

      • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
        0·
        1 month ago

        I don’t care much about whether gnome is customizable, if people like it then great, but I hate how they’re forcong terrible patterns that often break other DEs (window decorations)

      • OwOarchist@pawb.socialOPEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Why is there an expectation that your DE should be customizable?

        Why wouldn’t there be? It’s Linux. Everything should be customizable.

      • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
        0·
        1 month ago

        Because the point of Linux is I get to make it my own

        If I wanted to use what the Devs tell me is the right setup and “just works”, I’d not own a computer at all. I’d just get an iPad, which has that appliance like “no options, just does what it’s made to do, works great under those constraints” thing going for it.

          • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
            0·
            1 month ago

            I don’t think you understand the implications of what you’re suggesting.

            Forking a project as large as Gnome is a massive undertaking. Not only is it a lot of up-front work to implement the functionality, but you also have to stay up-to-date with all upstream changes, and there’s likely at least a few Gnome developers that are paid to work on it full-time, so that is a lot to maintain. And not only do you have to build it for your own distro, but you also have to convince maintainers of other distros to adopt it as well and put it in their repositories, otherwise you have no community of users, which means no community of developers either.

            Forking Gnome is wildly impractical. It’s not a feasible suggestion to make at all.

          • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
            0·
            1 month ago

            Orrrr I can use something else. Which I do. Something that respects the fact that my computer is in fact mine.

            And like i said. It’d be fine if gnome was gnome… If it stayed in its fucking lane serving the people that like it.

            But the gnome Devs have a lot of influence on how things like Wayland are taking shape, so their “let’s turn Linux into iPad” attitude does in fact affect me.

      • rushmonke@ttrpg.network
        0·
        1 month ago

        Customization is necessary especially in the free software space because designers aren’t good enough to make acceptable defaults.

        I love KDE, but each new install takes a bit of fiddling to get it just the way I want.

        I wouldn’t have as much of an issue with GNOME’s lack of customization if they didn’t make stupid-ass decisions.

    • low@lemmy.today
      0·
      1 month ago

      I hopped from a fully customized AwesomeWM install on Arch to Gnome on Debian and… there is something to be said about having your OS look & work cleanly out of the box.

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    I like gnome and it’s philosophy 😬

    There’s plenty of “customizability” friendly options out there. I like how gnome isn’t afraid to break things to improve

    • Seefra 1@lemmy.zip
      0·
      1 month ago

      Gnome haven’t “improved” anything since gnome 2. Gnome 3 and above? Only downhill from there.

      • jeffep@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 month ago

        They thought they were doing opinionated design while all they really did was ignore valid user concerns

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        “How dare someone have a preference different than me”

        Seriously though, I don’t get the gnome hate circle jerk. It isn’t for everyone but works well for some.

        • rushmonke@ttrpg.network
          0·
          1 month ago

          It’s extremely important we voice our opinion on bad design so that their decisions don’t become mainstream or standard.

          GNOME has been a dumpster fire since 3 and the developers only care about what will result in the least amount of work for them. They think they’re as good as Apple, where they can be the sole authority on how their DE is used, but then they make incredibly stupid decisions like dictating where users can put the dock. Their design team is nowhere near the level of Apple and they should stop pretending otherwise.

          • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            Don’t use gnome if you don’t like gnome. No one is forcing you to use it.

            I like gnome and so do many other people.

            • OwOarchist@pawb.socialOPEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              Don’t use gnome if you don’t like gnome. No one is forcing you to use it.

              But I also don’t want it to be the default DE on mainstream distros that could be frequently used by Linux newbies. I suspect a lot of the people out there who tried Linux and then hated it because it was weird and too hard to figure out … came to that conclusion because the first distro they had defaulted to Gnome and they thought all Linux was like Gnome.

        • pot_belly_mole@slrpnk.net
          0·
          1 month ago

          Same. I’ve used Gnome, KDE and XFCE (and OS X and Windows) and Gnome is my clear favourite. Claiming that their decisions don’t make sense is clearly false if it works so well for so many.

          • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows though. Gtk3 theming doesn’t match libadwaita and gnome still lacks status bar support.

            Gnome apps also tend to be overly minimalistic in some cases.

        • TerdFerguson@lemmy.world
          0·
          1 month ago

          Oh this argument is just a meme and I’m here to enjoy that. But also KDE > Gnome, no question.

          Gnome is the reason it took me so long to like Linux for daily driving, because it was the default DE on the distros I was trying. Thank goodness for Fedora+KDE Plasma. If someone else likes it, good for them - I like that they are using Linux.

  • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    The #2 reason I’m still on a Mac is because I prefer the look of its UX. Can you recommend a good window manager/theme that replicates macOS Sequoia?

    And also one that will replicate system 7 because I am an old and nostalgic man.

    • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      As a GNOME user since forever, I find it fascinating how much time KDE users spend thinking about GNOME. They seem so obsessed with customization, yet seem incapable of understanding that people could have preferences different from their own.

      • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
        0·
        1 month ago

        It’s because we wasted so much time on the Gnome side of the fence, cracking jokes at KDE, and now we know what we were missing and we want our wasted time back.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
          0·
          1 month ago

          Just want to remember everyone that the point of this scene is that Draper is an unstable and insecure man that is actually obsessed about how everyone around him are perceiving him, all the time. So this line is just stupid bravado, because he thinks the phrase projects the image he wants others to have of himself. He is lying because he actually thinks about what others think of him constantly. He works in advertising ffs.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 month ago

        yet seem incapable of understanding that people could have preferences different from their own.

        Perfect description of Gnome developers.

        • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          Oh yes, I forgot about that time they tracked down and kidnapped KDE contributors never to be heard of again, depriving the poor FOSS community from their freedom of choice.

            • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              So apps look the way they are made?

              When I use KDE apps in GNOME they also look like KDE apps. Obviously - that’s the way they are made. If I want something else than what someone else created I will use something else, not complain about how they didn’t create it the way I personally prefer.

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
            0·
            1 month ago

            Lmao you hyperbole’d your own statement quoted back at you.

            Or have there been cases of KDE preferers/devs doing this to gnome preferers/devs?

            • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              I was talking about users, not developers.

              I’m under the crazy opinion that developers are free to develop whatever they want, and users are free to use whatever they want. If they are unhappy they can use something else or become developers.

              If I develop something you do not want to use I do not restrict your freedom. GNOME developers are not restricting your freedom by creating a product that’s according to my preferences. They are giving us both freedom to choose what we prefer. The fact that GNOME is so different from KDE increases freedom of choice.

              I don’t get what is so hard to understand here.

      • ugo@feddit.it
        0·
        1 month ago

        Maybe if gnome’s choices didn’t impact the part of the ecosystem that do not rely on gnome in any way, people would be less disgruntled about gnome. For example, the refusal of gnome devs to support server side decorations, forces app devs to implement client side decorations even when they design apps that don’t make use of the features enabled by client side decorations.

        I don’t care if people use gnome, people should be free to use what they prefer. I do care if the mere fact that gnome exists complicates app development because gnome devs seem incapable of understanding that people could have preferences different from their own.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        As both a Cinnamon and KDE user, you can tell you’re using an app made for Gnome because it either outright doesn’t do anything, or it does the barest least nuanced most stereotypical version of that thing. Oh great, another empty fuckpuke window that doesn’t respect the system theme with an empty hamburger menu and one button in the very top-left that says “Do Something”.

        I don’t know of a package manager with a GTK filter.

        • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          I don’t know of a package manager with a GTK filter.

          This I could agree with, but the problem here is a lacking feature in package managers, not the fact that apps that you don’t personally enjoy using exist.

          I don’t particularly enjoy using KDE apps, but thankfully the K-centric naming convention make them really easy to avoid.

    • somenonewho@feddit.org
      0·
      1 month ago

      Been using GNOME since ~ 3.8/3.10 (so i guess a while now) and out of the box it mostly just works for me. I have maybe 3-4 extensions none of which I desperately rely on (although TopIcons is clutch) and I agree with most design choices. I’ve thought about switching some times but I think all I would do is try to replicate my GNOME workflow elswhere so why bother?

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
      0·
      1 month ago

      The criticisms I’ve heard:

      • You can’t customize it!
      • Hey, extensions don’t count, because sometimes they break between major version upgrades!
      • The developers are mean! They didn’t even take my suggestions!
      • The design philosophy is bad! It doesn’t even want to be windows!

      I have been using versions of GNOME for about 5 years now and I have always been able to customize my DE to a very high degree. Out of every random extension I’ve tried, probably 80% work, and that is even counting unmaintained ones that haven’t seen an update in years. And out of those extensions I chose to keep using, I’ve only have an occasional stability issue. I think I’ve actually experienced that once since 2021 when I switched to Linux as a daily driver.

      Maybe I’m just asocial but I don’t expect to reach out to my software devs and influence them at all. Unless I reported a bug and they were a dick about it, I’d probably never complain about the devs. And lastly I think the design philosophy is excellent. Maximizing screen real estate while being quite flexible, rejecting everything shitty about windows and incorporating everything good about macOS.

      Every problem I’ve had is so far outweighed by the positives that it’s not remotely close. It makes sense to me that it’s so popular. KDE on the other hand… I am glad it exists but I wish it were better. I feel like it literally wants to be windows. People say it is SO customizable and I was convinced to give the latest version a chance recently. It does not feel like finished software to me, tbh. Before I could really give it a shot I needed to customize the UI to be more minimalist. I found the UI to do that quickly. Within five minutes I had crashed the desktop several times, and I felt unable to achieve what I wanted at all. The drag and drop UI for the taskbar area wasn’t stable in my experience. It kept crashing AND wouldn’t do what I wanted.

      What criticism of GNOME is so well deserved? I just don’t see any criticism of it that I feel is deserved. Meanwhile KDE seems janky to me and to this day I haven’t once seen anyone hate on it. You’d think it was basically perfect.

      • dil@lemmy.zip
        0·
        1 month ago

        I find gnome easier to customize, something always messes up with kde for me when setting up my ui, gnome also lets you use your computer and watch videos while customizing, kde plasma takes over your screen and you cant see your windows.

      • Imhotep@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 month ago

        When saying it deserves “all” the criticism, I might have been hyperbolic
        I agree with most of what you said.

        The keep it simple philosophy I agree with, but there are a few UI decisions, a few missing features I couldn’t wrap my head around. They tend to be rectified in the end because it’s common sense, but it takes a very long time and it can be frustrating. I’m sorry my memory is shit so I only remember the sentiment and don’t have specifics. I do have one recent example, I needed to change a very simple shortcut. The system doesn’t allow it and it feels arbitrary.

        Extensions are really great. Some are absolute gems, and they tend to work perfectly. But the fact some are almost mandatory to have sane default is an issue. Especially when you have multiple devices. I don’t think most people want a useless popup telling you the program has launched (or the window is activated, what is it again?), popup which once clicked won’t even open said program. The extensions graveyard is hard to see though. I had recently a good one that wouldn’t be ported to latest gnome, killing my linux tablet workflow. and can anyone tell me what the app menu with icons in seemingly random order is for?

        I’ve used KDE for 4 years and mostly liked it, but I had tons of issues, and very few with Gnome.
        KDE users I know your experience might be different but I’m telling you how it went for me. Gnome, while imperfect in this regard, has been much better. I tried Plasma 6 when it came out and it was pretty much the same for me, but I will give it another try at one point.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
          0·
          1 month ago

          You seem to have a really balanced point of view and that’s good. I wanted to like KDE but on the other hand it reads as windows 2000 to my eyes and it bothers me. I did like some things about the interface but overall it felt too busy for me. I hadn’t tried it in years until the recent plasma update and people raving about it and its customizability convinced me to give it another shot. One of the first things I did was try to customize the top bar and task bar to be cleaner. It crashed several times very quickly. That’s a really bad first impression. The bugs I experienced immediately were as many as I’d seen in years of GNOME experience.

          In a perfect world though, yes, GNOME would be more customizable, particularly the overview mode. I do not like it at all. On the other hand, it’s not so bad I wouldn’t just live with it if I didn’t have other options. I do though. To launch any app not common enough to put on my dock, I use ulauncher. It’s not the best but it usually works well as an alfred-style launcher app.

          I hated macs until OSX and since then I’ve hated windows more. Just mentioning because I’m sure someone will read what I’ve written and think I’m a Mac guy. Which was true for a bit but I’ve grown to dislike macs a lot as well. Their OS is still better than windows though!

            • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
              0·
              1 month ago

              The second to last time last time I tried it, when I had all the trouble with crashing, it was in a vm. I think it was on fedora. It was a pretty current version at the time. Maybe 6 months ago. Then a few days ago I installed it as an alternate DE on the current version of pop os. I had some bizarre scaling issues. Didn’t check the version that time. Got frustrated and immediately uninstalled it.

          • Imhotep@lemmy.world
            0·
            29 days ago

            ulauncher

            Out of curiosity: why is it you don’t like the overview? That’s one of my favorite aspects of Gnome, and the first thing I tried to replicate in KDE

            Edit: I do customize it a bit with extensions though. For example when I start typing and the search bar is immediately focused. And a few other things, like middle click to close windows

            • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
              0·
              29 days ago

              What I dislike about the overview is that it takes over the whole screen and also feels a little sluggish. I like the ulauncher loads really quickly and on top of the current UI, blocking virtually nothing from view. Also I like having a few bells and whistles that ulauncher has, like the ability to type a quick math problem and it functions like a basic calculator.

              edit: I just realized that I’m mislabeling the thing I dislike. It’s the “show all applications” feature in reality. I use overview a lot just to keep track of what I have open, and I like it, but it serves a different purpose than what I want, which is just a very quick and unobtrusive way to launch an app not on the dock.

              • Imhotep@lemmy.world
                0·
                29 days ago

                Indeed I see how the “take over the whole screen” could be annoying.
                It does simple math as well though! As for the sluggishness I don’t notice it. You can speed up animations with “Just perfection”, but again an extra extension (although this one is very well maintained)

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          28 days ago

          I remember looking at some point, and Gnome had roughly 4x the number of developers that KDE had. If you want the best (most stable, most well tested, most feature full, etc.) programs, you basically have to use some Gnome programs. That was one of the deciding factors that pushed me to go with Gnome. If I was going to have to use Gnome programs anyhow, and they worked best with Gnome, then I thought I should use Gnome. My experience was that Gnome programs don’t really play well with KDE, but that KDE programs generally work OK on Gnome.

          I really like the customizability of KDE, but I like many of the defaults of Gnome. Unfortunately, if you don’t like some of Gnome’s defaults, it’s real pain in the ass to change them. Personally, even though I liked a lot of Gnome’s defaults, I absolutely hated some other ones. If it weren’t for extensions there’s no way at all I could use it. Luckily, some of the biggest misfeatures are so widely recognized that there are dozens of extensions to choose from to fix them. OTOH KDE’s customizability led to some issues too. I remember having some weird interactions between things because settings A, B and C don’t necessarily work well together. But, at least those settings are built into the desktop environment, and you’re not relying on some random dude’s hobby project for a critical system setting.

          At the moment, I’m pretty happy with Gnome, and most days it just gets out of my way and lets me do what I want to do. That’s something I never ever got with Windows. It was always a pain in my ass. And, it’s something that was only ever 90% true with OSX. Great defaults, but that last 10% is a real pain in the ass. Gnome’s extensions let me get much closer to 100%. I have to admit though, that I do dread the day that I have to upgrade it and all the extensions break.

      • pet the cat, walk the dog@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 month ago

        KDE on the other hand… I am glad it exists but I wish it were better. I feel like it literally wants to be windows.

        KDE’s approach was ‘Windows, but with even more dialogs and crammed lists’ for at least twenty years. And it also felt clunky way back then. People on Lemmy keep saying that Plasma is good now, but I read the complaints and it’s like nothing changed.

      • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        I’m happy I’m not the only one to experience KDE like that. I’ve had far better experiences with XFCE than with KDE, but I keep going back to GNOME because of the user experience. I’m happy people enjoy KDE though, so I don’t generally feel a strong need to trash it online. But my god can the user base be insufferable at times.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
          0·
          1 month ago

          Yeah, a part of me wants to vent my frustration with kde since I truly wanted it to be good, but it wasn’t, ime.

          Now for some reason I just had an idea. It would be pretty awesome if there could be a desktop layout standard configuration format such that on any DE that supports it, you could just load up a config file and get a very similar UI on any DE. I know, it’s a pipe dream but it would be cool.

          Edit: and yes I know, GNOME haters. GNOME devs would be the first to reject this idea.