Cross-posted from “It’s that time again” by @Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com in !linux_memes@programming.dev
Yeah I very much like dislike the culture of Gnome… maybe I’ll try something else someday. KDE isn’t for me but Cosmic maybe.
There are so many things the Linux kernel project does just right. One of them is “never break user space”.
Unfortunately most projects completely fail to get why this is important.
I think one of the worst examples is the enormous setback it caused when Python was “upgraded” from 2 to 3, which meant breakage of huge amounts of libraries, that were never fixed, and was extremely detrimental to Python.The kernel respects user-space, but actual user front ends do not!?!?!
KDE generally does the same when they upgrade to new versions of QT.The kernel equivalent of shell extensions would be kernel modules. Out of tree modules break all the time. There’s no stable in-kernel ABI, just like there’s no guarantee that shell internals never change.
python 2 to 3 is actually an enormous change
You can make improvements without introducing breakage.
staying on an end of life unsupported programming language does not spark joy.
open source projects are (often) maintained by unpaid volunteers. unpaid volunteers doing something for the passion of it often don’t want to build with one hand tied behind their back
fuck gnome.
This is my professional opinion.
Same with Manjaro and the AUR.
At this point, what did you expect to happen?
Which is why Plasma is better
Running 14 extensions on Gnome, literally never have had an issue, even through major version upgrades with Fedora. KDE and Qt are gutter garbage trash, fight me
Edit: wait I actually got downvoted lol your boos mean nothing
Same experience here. Running 9 extensions without issues. On NixOS BTW.
I am pretty much in the same boat. I think I have had one or two extensions break, but they weren’t ones I depended on and they didn’t seem that well maintained to begin with.
You guys are incredibly lucky then. I ran about 7 to 8 extensions and had the whole shell crash 3 times on me over a time of a few weeks, making me lose progress. The journal logs weren’t helpful, the gnome-shell just crashed and bailed.
GNOME only makes it possible to make Extensions via directly patching shell code and refuses to create an API. They can say whatever they want, this way of doing things is inherently unstable and will always break at some point, and it’s not primarily the fault of extension devs or users if that happens given there literally is no other way of doing it. Even something as simple as the RunCat extension is potentially able to crash your whole desktop. This is comparable to every single modification you do in KDE being a KWin script (that settings window does have a warning in front of it for a reason). Another comparison: This is also similar to how Firefox did Extensions until they adopted the common extension API in Firefox 3 (?), before then that browser was known to be crashing a lot and become sluggish quickly since any extension was monkey-patching code into it - exactly what Gnome extensions do to work.
It’s one thing to have a clear design idea, but Gnome took away so many freedoms (even basic theming) while merely providing an absolutely ridiculous way for even the smallest customization to then blame users and extension devs when something breaks or becomes unstable. It’s no wonder people are upset. System76 outright began to work from scratch, meanwhile Linux Mint is providing libadapta as drop-in replacement for libadwaita to patch basic theming features back into programs that use it.
If Cosmic drops its version 1.0 and keeps its promises I’d bet a lot on Gnome slowly but surely declining. It does what Gnome doesn’t want to.
You clearly know a lot about how it works and I do not. I am curious though – what extensions are you using that break?
I am hoping cosmic is all it’s cracked up to be. I’d definitely consider switching for the performance benefits alone
I had some debates with Gnome devs about it which I primarily take my points from. One of them told me they actively decided against an API, for the mentioned reason.
Looking at some old screenshot, before I cleaned out a lot in an attempt to stop the crashing I had these (don’t know which ones were still active when it crashed the third time, I only know it was about 7 to 8 and that I immediately began looking up how to install KDE out of frustration).
- Dash to Dock
- GSConnect
- Media Label and Controls (Mpris Label)
- Net Speed (definitely deleted this one later)
- Next Up
- RebootToUEFI
- RunCat
- Tray Icons: Reloaded (This is a freaking technical necessity)
- TwitchLive Panel (definitely deleted this one later)
- UPower Battery
- User Avatar In Quick Settings
- User Themes
- Wifi QR Code
Ah ok. I have not heard of most of those. Here’s what I’ve been using:
Come to think of it, I did have some issues with open bar and dash to dock a while back, but I’m pretty sure it was because 1) I was using dash to dock with pop_os’s cosmic dock and those two do sort of the same thing so they probably conflicted and 2) pop_os is pretty behind on Gnome in general. Right now I think the are 6 major versions behind! Since a few months ago, the issues cleared up.
Also, I do realize that theming on Gnome isn’t officially supported on an OS level, and I don’t fully understand it all, but I do have a fairly consistently-used custom theme installed using Gnome tweaks. GTK3 iirc.
Gnome may have some issues, but I still think it’s a much cleaner UI than KDE, and I’m pretty used to it at this point.
You’re in a rather special position regarding the extensions in this case because except for 3 of them, they’re all directly maintained by your distro of choice. Which, additionally, is super slow with updating due to focusing on getting Cosmic ready and therefore extremely stable (and outdated) given nothing changes. Distro-specific extensions really are one of the few places where this kind of unstable extension system makes sense, since your distro maintainer also controls the update flow of Gnome for you and can do proper QA on it w/ those extensions before making updates available. It’s not a mix’n’match of code.
Also, I do realize that theming on Gnome isn’t officially supported on an OS level, and I don’t fully understand it all, but I do have a fairly consistently-used custom theme installed using Gnome tweaks. GTK3 iirc.
Modern Gnome applications using libadwaita instead of GTK3 or 4 will happily mostly ignore those, and the “User Themes” extension you need on modern Gnome to enable theming likes to cause problems. Usually one of the first “recommendations” you’ll hear when Gnome starts misbehaving is to disable your themes as Gnome just does not want to have them. I was just straight-up told to “not use Extensions if you want a stable system” (after losing about 40 minutes of work, again).
This is why I stopped using Gnome. After every update most of my extensions stopped working. Some took ages to get up to date or were abandoned. And there was no simple way to enable all extensions that the update disabled, having to manually enable them one by one. Maybe that has changed now? It’s been yearsnow… Not that I would go back anyway, tiling managers is where it’s at.
We all got choices, that’s what I like about Linux. KDE seems to run great for most people, for me it always seems to bug out and act super janky (the panel editor in particular would bug out and crash constantly, I could never get the damn thing to where I liked it). If it was more stable for me I’d probably use it, I love customizing my system. I’ve tried making it work a few times, never seems to click.
GNOME’s extensions may break on updates from time to time but my day to day experience with it is much nicer. While more rigid it’s a lot more polished and doesn’t crash out on me just using the interface. I like the layout of it. I’m glad KDE works for so many of you guys, but I’ll stick with GNOME until a better option comes around.
That said, if anyone has a better suggestion for a desktop environment I’m all ears.
I just don’t customise very much, either DE mentioned. I did initially when I was new to using Linux out of novelty, but I noticed stuff breaks the more I deviated from the norm after enough updates. Plus it’s such a timesink to begin with. I realised I just wanted to use the fucking computer, not tinker and fight it.
KDE on my office desktop. I like one of the themes CachyOS ships with so I left it at that.
GNOME on the living room PC hooked up to a TV. I think it works better there controlled by a wireless trackpad keyboard from the couch and for purely entertainment purposes. Stremio, web browsing, and gaming.
When’s the last time you tried Plasma? I felt the same way about it as you did until version 6. I’ve been driving it now since 6.2 and its at least as polished as Gnome but with WAY more features and almost infinite customization out of the box.
I tried version 6 last, the customization kept crashing the desktop, it didn’t like me messing with the panels at all. I just wanted a top bar and a dock.
I’ve recently installed the latest version for my fiance who is transitioning from Windows. Immediately there was a small problem with the app menu leaving graphical artifacts on the panel when the menu got closed (it was fixed by increasing the animation speed a bunch somehow?).
After a certain point I gave up and moved on, I can’t agree that it’s as polished as Gnome from my personal experience with the two. But as always, user experience may vary. My experience with KDE seems to be a minority which is good for everyone else lol
Hmm, well, “works on my computer” is never a helpful comment but I have a heavily modified panel that I moved to the top with no issues.
I’m using the built-in task manager widget rather than a dock. Maybe that’s why?
Mind me asking what distro? And Wayland or X11? Also, which dock?
I’m using Wayland and Fedora (Plasma 6.4) and also had a good experience with NixOS (6.3, also Wayland).
I’ve been using Nobara for a long time now, before that I was on Debian, before that Kubuntu. I’ve tried both Wayland and X11 on Nobara until they fully switched to Wayland, they both had issues.
I tried several variations on getting a dock to work, but even organizing the top bar or editing any of the panels at all was causing glitches and crashes. After a certain point I said fuck it and tried Gnome, my problems went away and it only took a few extensions to get it where I wanted. Been more stable since the switch so I haven’t been inclined to go back myself.
Hmm, oh well. As long as you found your happy place…
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy it works for you. Linux has something for everyone and that’s fantastic.
Once Gnome dispences grilled cheese sandwiches it’ll be my true happy place
Cinnamon. After using Xfce and KDE Plasma for years, and having testing Gnome, Budgie, etc., Cinnamon feels like it took the best ingredients from all of them.
It’s that time again… Pile more and more dependencies on top of a desktop environment, get shocked when it breaks, and take out your rage on people explaining that it’s free dev work and you’re welcome to contribute.
Nah. As far as I am aware of, Gnome went “this is it by default, want more customisability - here is API, install or write your own extensions”. Which is fine with me. Then they break API without announcement in advance, and their response to community is along the lines of “fuck you, deal with it”. Which is not fine with me, and I am not using Gnome ever since discovering it
As far as I am aware of, Gnome went “this is it by default, want more customisability - here is API, install or write your own extensions”
Not even that is true. They do not provide an API (specifically decided not to due to “extension developer freedom”), but allow Extensions to monkey-patch code in. That’s why it becomes unstable due to Extensions instead of just the Extension (or at least the Extension process) crashing. Imagine every change in KDE being a KWin script, or Firefox still relying on monkey-patching instead of the extension API. It’s wild.
Meeting criticism of this absurd way of doing things in something as important as the graphical shell with “it’s FOSS so either contribute or shut up” mentality some people show here is just dumb.
GNOME is great. Things break sometimes which is a Linux and a software thing. It’s free dev work to begin with.
Doesn’t mean being a dick is ok, even if a useful dick
I don’t know, I don’t choose my software based on the developer’s personal dispositions. I suspect I’d be unable to use any software if I did.
More or less this is my estimate too, but being developer myself has its consequences: some things I will never accept to the point of “I will rather code this myself than encourage this kind of attitude going on”
It’s your own fault you use GNOME
I think Gnome is the most beautyful Desktop out there. But it’s UX drives me crazy. I tried it a few times but never could get used to it. I always needed extensions to customize it to my needs. But that’s also what I want to avoid because extensions might break in the future. Therefore, Gnome is simply not the right Desktop for me.
But I’m happy for everyone who likes to use Gnome. The great thing about Linux: We have a choice!
I remember seeing a very MacOS like demonstration of Gnome. Someone had themed a Gnome desktop with a kind of sunset in the forest kind of feel, and they were opening menus and launching Nautilus and such like that, and it looked absolutely amazing.
I don’t know how anyone lives with it. I’ve got Fedora Gnome on a tablet that I use basically to have FreeCAD and power tool manual PDFs in my wood shop, and at some point I’m going to try something else. “Opinionated” is the gentle way to put it.
GNOME is great but people recommending it to beginners need to make it clear that there is only minor customization, and that major customization / extensions will cause headaches.
Plasma is highly customizable out of the box. It’s personal preference in the end of course.
Then, after that, you can introduce them to Hyprland which is EVEN MORE customizable, at the cost of learning the hyprlang and jsonc if you also want waybar.
And then there is sway. Which makes you cry but respected.
Isn’t sway more limited in customization compared to hyprland?
(i know that swayfx is for that, but still not sure if it’a as good)
I like how GNOME looks and functions for the most part, but I really wish the world provide more options instead of whatever design philosophy they think needs enforced.
I installed Debian + gnome today for the first time in years, I hate it even more now then I did back then.
If it had a taskbar it’d be a 10/10 for new users though
Obligatory mention that Linux Mint’s dev team have forked some GNOME apps into their own XApps* project. Part of the reason is so that those apps retain the user’s window manager’s look and feel rather than GNOME’s enforced interface design. That might even be the main reason, but they also throw in their own improvements to the apps where they feel they’re necessary.
They’ve not yet forked all GNOME-looking applications in Mint, and I’m not even sure they intend to, but it’s a noble effort.
* Yes, it really is called that. Like I’ve said before, they probably could have chosen a better name, but they chose it before Wayland was a real threat and before Twitter got lobotomised.
X referred to a display server since long before Twitter was born.
The other week had a GNOME dev reply to a thread of mine on mastodon stating that the users desire to select a default terminal emulator was an “edge case” and it was beneath GNOME. then all the GNOME fanboys came out to his defense.
It’s an insufferable DE and community.
Such a GNOME thing to say
As insufferable as KDE users always shitting on gnome?
I’ve generally found gnome users just use it. New KDE releases don’t have gnome fanboys bashing it, etc.
But new GNOME releases? Directly the opposite.
Really wish people would just chill.
Yeah, there is way less hate and mockery towards KDE. Now let’s think why that might be
To me it speaks more of the users, less of the DE.
Either somehow every GNOME user is a saint and everyone else is just an asshole, or GNOME is laughably bad and every new release is also bad. It’s either of those two.
I find that Penis Stroker 2000 never has users bashing it when a new release comes out.
But every single new release of Scrotum Puncher 5000 that comes out, it’s getting criticized. I’m sick of it!!
New KDE releases don’t have gnome fanboys bashing it
There is a lot less hate for KDE… Because KDE doesn’t break the user experience every time it updates. Gnome is the Apple of the Linux world. The entire dev team embodies the Apple attitude of “we know better than you, and you’re wrong for wanting to use anything except the default settings.”
You’re essentially getting the “iPhone user seeing all of the hate from android users every time iOS updates” experience. Because every time a new iPhone feature comes out, all of the android users go “lmao iOS didn’t have that feature until now? Android had it three years ago. Apple fucking sucks.”
At least for a time, many of the big distributions focused exclusively on Gnome, and for KDE users it was kind of frustrating as everything would be all wired up for Gnome, and either KDE wasn’t packaged at all and you had to go third party, or it was a clearly second class citizen where the packagers just didn’t bother to wire up equivalent features. You would look it up and see how KDE had the same capability implemented, but the packager just hadn’t included some dependency or configured something to manifest it.
Now I feel like the distributions take Plasma more seriously and so it’s easier to just ignore whatever Gnome is doing… Except for the occasional horrible UI presented by a Gnome app in your otherwise credible desktop. Since Gnome is both a DE and a UI framework, the UI framework gets to rear its head even if you largely ignore the DE.
Then of course you have the tiling window managers/compositors, but those projects tend to be less ambitious anyway, and what the audience wants is pretty much what they can get from packages, even if the packagers aren’t quite as invested to know what can be done.
I’ve generally found gnome users just use it
lol
As insufferable as KDE users always shitting on gnome?
This 100%
I checked your Mastodon timeline but I don’t see the post, only the one where you relate the story.
I deleted it because the GNOME users were getting annoying.
