Cross-posted from “It’s that time again” by @Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com in !linux_memes@programming.dev
I don’t use gnome because I don’t think a desktop use interface should be designed for iPads
I’ve got Gnome installed on a tablet PC. It’s not good there, either.
When I first used Linux I loved Gnome for the intuitiveness and simplicity but I did not like the same thing you were saying. I guess it makes a good desktop for tablets lol.
The thing is in theory I love gnome for that. In practice keep that shit away from me
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.
I never had too many issues with GNOME but didn’t install loads of extensions. Looking forward to seeing Cosmic grow and develop further, took a while but finally in beta
I’m having a great time on GNOME, even without any extensions at all!
Good for you. I broke my GNOME Pop OS build, I assume because of extensions and pop not updating anything for 2 years. GNOME goes against the Linux philosophy of user customisation.
They don’t develop GNOME for you, they develop GNOME for them
They don’t earn more with more users
If it’s only for them then they shouldn’t mind getting their Wayland protocol veto privilege taken away 🤷
Yea I agree, that seems fair 🤔 but it is for wayland to decide l, I guess
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there is nothing you can do to really change it
So far from true
See: the above meme
You’re right. The several extensions I have used for years don’t exist because: meme. The many settings you can easily change in 2 minutes also fake. Meme.
I’m sure that’s what they meant. That you literally cannot change a single setting in Gnome. What a good-faith interpretation.
Ah yes, the real good faith argument here is saying you can do nothing to customize GNOME because sometimes extensions break. Great point.
Your reading comprehension is severely lacking.
I used it for a while, because KDE was so buggy. Gnome gives you no functionality and it’s still buggy, though.
Once KDE improved I switched to it, though
So you’re not on Wayland you say?
I’ve been running native Wayland exclusively for ages. I disabled XWayland by running gnome-shell with the
--no-x11flag.What makes you think I wasn’t?
There are bugs in Gnome 49 using xwayland like caps lock and other keys not working. But if you don’t use x11 at all (and therefore applications relying on it) you won’t encounter them.
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.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
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.
Try mediawiki for a change. You’ll soon be happy about the few update troubles you had with gnome.
fuck gnome.
This is my professional opinion.
Same with Manjaro and the AUR.
I’ve only ever used DEs that aren’t gnome. And that wasn’t really by choice - it was a workplace. But after hearing about how gnome treats their users… fuck that. I went so far recently as to try to make a nix system that was 100% free of gnome shit and I have actually hard a really difficult time because it has wormed its way into other dependencies.
It really is a shame that they force you to update to the new version. If only there was some way to continue using the existing Gnome version until the extensions have been updated by their authors.
If you want to update your software broadly, it’s a pain in the ass if you need to try to hold gnome and only gnome back.
And many of those extensions get abandoned after the authors get tired of the treadmill of having to redo stuff they already did.
The funniest thing about this is that, according to a Gnome dev, they decided to not create APIs or anything and keep relying on extensions to monkey-patch code into the gnome-shell process to ensure “developer freedom”.
It’s completely mad. I uninstalled Gnome after it crashed on me multiple times, taking either my work or (once) my game process with it.
On KDE at least IF the shell crashes it doesn’t cause all my programs to become unavailable too, I can save whatever I was doing. Its UI/UX is arguably a mess, but at least it god damn works reliably and doesn’t come as barren wasteland with missing base features. I would love to love Gnome, but god damn it hell no.
Shouldn’t that only apply if the other software depends on the new functionality in the updated gnome?
So if I want various things in fedora 42, but I have to refrain because my favorite extension hasn’t been ported from fedora 41. I didn’t use gnome largely because I got tired of keeping up with the extension mess.
Not all of us are trying to micromanage every little piece of software independentlly.
Pinning the version of one package doesn’t constitute “micromanage every little piece of software independentlly”.
No need to get hyperbolic.
If you’re not willing to take even a small action to customize your system, then you should just take what you get and don’t throw a fit.
Or I just pick a solution that lets me customize as I like and supports it in a way I can feel confident about taking updates without worry. So Plasma desktop it is
Gnome is not gods gift to desktop users that I feel I must accommodate, it’s a competent implementation that is just too set in their ways .
Yes the volunteer software authors should work to the beat of the drum of the baying and braying users who insist on using cutting edge software before its wider ecosystem has adapted to its novelties. A very good point.
Wrong on all counts. the voluntary software authors actually go out of their way to spite users, extension developers and sysadmins by constantly trying to redefine what is a standard UX.
No, either gnome should actually support a lot of these things people are such with extensions for it or at least provide some semblance of compatibility if they are so insistent that extensions are the only way to get some of these customizations.
It’s just odd to simultaneously praise extensions as the way for users to get what they want while undermining them every release.
Most package managers allow pinning software versions, you could look into that for your distro. Might come in handy in other use cases too.
Just don’t upgrade to the next OS version?
I’d you are on rolling release tho, that’s on you. Rolling release is by definition the opposite of stable
Which is why Plasma is better
Dunno, I saw GNOME 3 run like molasses on my PC, went “ok, this might be lost cause”, went with LXDE and then XFCE, and now I’m like “if it’s a beefy proper PC I’ll go with KDEPlasma and if it’s, like, very obsolete system I’ll, dunno, go with XFCE”.
GNOME is just opinionated. I get it, it was kinda vaguely modeled after Mac OS, which is kinda an opinionated desktop environment, but the thing is, it’s even more opinionated than Mac OS ever was. The thing about (early!) Mac OS X was “hey, we have this slick desktop environment but also some power user features you might want to use. But we’re not forcing you to!” (Kinda like GNOME 2!) …GNOME has been kinda sweeping those under the rug, in my opinion.
I used to be a Gnome fan. But I hate the direction they took from Gnome shell 4 onwards. Now I use KDE and I’m happy with it.
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
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).
Same experience here. Running 9 extensions without issues. On NixOS BTW.
I use a script for paprwm-like behaviour, and is signcantly hamstrung as well - cannot work with multiple screens. Karousel: https://store.kde.org/p/2045724
This is what got me to drop Gnome from my laptop. Karousel is excellent.
I will use niri wm primarily on most machines, but kde&karousel have some advantages on a notebook.
