I gave it a fair shot for about a year, using vanilla GNOME with no extensions. While I eventually became somewhat proficient, it’s just not good.
Switching between a few workspaces looks cool, but once you have 10+ programs open, it becomes an unmanageable hell that requires memorizing which workspace each application is in and which hotkey you have each application set to.
How is this better than simply having icons on the taskbar? By the way, the taskbar still exists in GNOME! It’s just empty and seems to take up space at the top for no apparent reason other than displaying the time.
Did I do something wrong? Is it meant for you to only ever have a couple applications open?
I’d love to hear from people that use it and thrive in it.
Absolutely love it! I’ve donated hundreds of dollars to the Gnome foundation.
I like that practically all of the OS functionality is behind either super+seach or the quick settings menu. I love how powerful the overview is, and all hidden behind a single key press. I like that asking “Is X possible?” is immediately answerable, and 95% of the time it’s right in the first place I think to look. I like the trackpad gestures and workspaces on my laptop where I don’t have multiple large screens. I like that it has very little need for system tray icons which are clunky, inconsistent, and ugly. (Ex: Discord can only be quit from it’s tray icon… -_-)
I’m not a DE power user apparently, but I’m certainly not the mythical “lowest common denominator” that Gnome supposedly caters to either. I do a lot of programming in C/asm/, and write plenty of code involving lots of esoteric math. I don’t have much use for Python for instance, but I don’t think it’s “dumbed down” either. :p
KDE (and Windows to a similar extent) always has way too much “stuff” it wants to show you, 90% of it I’ll never use. Every window toolbar is chock full of icons, and so many actions trigger popups, notifications, or dialogs that have little purpose. It’s all terribly distracting and annoying. Still, I’ve donated hundreds of dollars to KDE foundation as well since it’s an important part of the Linux ecosystem. I don’t use it, but that doesn’t mean I hate it, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t flourish too. Open Source is not a competition.
Good on you for donating to kde and gnome! In case you don’t know, there is an option in discord settings to quit whenever the window is closed.
I did not know that… Thanks! I looked through all the settings at some point, but mussed have missed it.
What I don’t understand about Gnome is how are you supposed to handle some task. I’m thinking about moving stuff around between directories. I sometimes need to have 3 or more separate folders open at the same time and quarter tiling and split view in Dolphin is a godsend. Gnome has neither split view in Nautilus nor quarter tiling.
Yes, I know there are ways around that like Pop-shell and other extensions, but I am specifically curious about the default Gnome workflow. In my opinion Gnome tends to skew too much towards form over function.I do use snapping for some things like my IDE, and use the side by side once in a while, but generally don’t use snapping. I have used the Pop Shell on my work computer where I tend to have a lot of terminals and little windows open on my big 4k monitor, though 90% of the time I leave it off. Generally speaking I just use small free floating windows and use alt-tab or Gnome’s overview to find a hidden window. I dunno when snapping entered the scene, but the first time I used it was maybe a decade ago. It’s nice, but decades of computers before that have trained me to mostly not care I guess. You can do tabs in Nautilus and drag files to the destination tab. I do that a lot I guess.
Its pretty simple you can open 3 different nautilus windows or open 3 tabs in nautilus. Not really very different then dolphin’s function but I found myself never using that function in dolphin anyway. I have a good example for a many window workflow that I do sometimes which is when I tag my music. Usually I have a web browser on one workspace or the music tagger split in half with the web browser and then I have separate work spaces with nautilus open in 2 windows with some tabs. I do all that alongside a game playing in the background casually and maybe a picture-in-picture window alongside that also open watching a video. I only have one monitor.
I think GNOME being minimalist with extensions is a good thing, but I disagree with what GNOME considers basic functionality or not. Two things that stick out:
- an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn’t considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is in real time. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME’s hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.
- tray icons. GNOME treats background processes like bugs to be squashed. Let’s just get real here for a second: sometimes you want programs to run in the background and sometimes you want to be able to see what they are doing in real time. I want my email clients to tell me when I get emails, I wan’t my Nextcloud to tell me when there are sync issues, and I want Discord to tell me if I get DMs. This should be considered basic functionality.
an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn’t considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME’s hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.
Gnome has one. You tap the super key for the dock, then again for the full app list. I see thiscoomplaint all the time, and it confuses me every time.
“I don’t like the default app launcher” or “I’d prefer an always visible dock” fine, but Gnome doesn’t have one? What?
tray icons. GNOME treats background processes like bugs to be squashed. Let’s just get real here for a second: sometimes you want programs to run in the background and sometimes you want to be able to see what they are doing in real time. I want my email clients to tell me when I get emails, I wan’t my Nextcloud to tell me when there are sync issues, and I want Discord to tell me if I get DMs. This should be considered basic functionality.
I both agree and disagree with this. Gnome is trying to make a unified system for this sort of thing, and that’s admirable, but until it works, we kinda need a notification tray.
deleted by creator
@Nefyedardu@kbin.social @shapis@lemmy.ml
tray icons. GNOME treats background processes like bugs to be squashed. Let’s just get real here for a second: sometimes you want programs to run in the background and sometimes you want to be able to see what they are doing in real time. I want my email clients to tell me when I get emails, I wan’t my Nextcloud to tell me when there are sync issues, and I want Discord to tell me if I get DMs. This should be considered basic functionality.
Ideally the graphical app shouldn’t be running in the background UNLESS the user explicitly allows it. VLC is an example of an application that doesn’t run in the background unless the user allows it.
Yes, I prefer Gnome to KDE by a long way, it’s much nicer looking and easier to use, the trick is to use it the way it’s intended, instead of trying to control it to work how you think it should
Every time I’ve tried using modern GNOME it’s like pulling teeth. I hate it. I think it has actual usability issues. Not disparaging anyone who likes it, it just really doesn’t suit me.
GNOME classic shell was ok, but when I installed KDE Plasma it was like coming home. Everything made sense and everything was where it needed to be. More or less.
In the end I’m just glad Linux has a variety of DEs to choose from. Even if you choose GNOME, you weirdo.
Yes, I thrive in it.
I’ve always compared it to a window manager, but with a mouse focus instead of the keyboard. It feels very natural to me.
I have ADD and GNOME is a life saver. I usually put one and only one window by workspace. It allows me to be focused to the max on the task I’m doing.
Also Libadwaita is so sexy.
deleted by creator
Surely you dont have 10 workspace for 10 windows.
Am I not supposed to?
This is kind of the problem, if you add multiple apps in a random workspace, the only way I can think of to know which apps are in the background of that workspace is to memorize it. Which feels bad having to use my brain for that instead of focusing on whatever I’m doing.
If vanilla GNOME doesnt work for you, just install extension or move to another DE.
I’m trying dash to panel now, it seems to fix quite a few of my gripes.
If you do super+tab you can see all the windows in a workspace.
deleted by creator
I can’t get used to vanilla GNOME. First things I always install are Dash to Panel, ArcMenu, Caffeine, AppIndicator support, and Pop Shell. It’s basically Cinnamon with a tiling/stacking toggle and without the need for a “restart if it crashes” setting.
You can just switch to kde or xfce if you dont like gnome, thats what linux is all about. For one I cant really use anything not-gnome anymore, its workflow feels just so efficient and is equally good with a touchpad, keyboard and mouse. I usually get distracted really easily on kde and the likes but gnome just gets out of the way and lets me focus more on my work.
The problem is with GTK4, most software are moving, and it cause different UI and since GTK4, we as user can’t have option to enable noCSD anymore like GTk3 :')
I’m saying about XFCE, because I’m fond of XFCE workflow
The problem is with GTK4
I agree with this, and with no option to enable no csd… it sucks sooooooo much
The other options I tried were a bit too buggy for my tastes. I’ll stick with it a bit longer. Idk.
Fair lol.
I’d suggest trying to always use the apps in the same workspaces. I always open discord spotify steam in the leftmost workspace, firefox in the rightmost and the 3-4 ides i have open in the middle each on its own. Makes navigating through them a second nature in no time.
I’ve been testing KDE for several weeks now, XFCE before that but I’m back to Gnome. It just feels right. Everything is where I expect it to be. No searching in thousands of menus. What scares me about KDE is that there are tons of options and stuff that no one will ever need. Especially KMail I find just awful. So many options and you only find what you are looking for, after an extensive search via a search engine of your choice. This is totally frustrating. XFCE does a lot better here, but I miss the one or other pleasant animation when opening windows and the like. Gnome, on the other hand, isn’t great either, but I feel most comfortable here.
I really like it, the constraints works for me to enforce more efficient habits. I would say I’m not a naturally efficient person, I recognise that and, essentially, benefit from having a workflow created for me. With KDE, it has the customisability out of the box to create your own workflow, but I couldn’t personally design a good workflow.
But I’m not everyone, of course, and I would say GNOME is not necessarily for everybody.
Good that you gave it a fair shot. I feel like a lot of people just throw a lot of extinctions at it without trying to understand the vanilla workflow - I used to be one of them until I tried vanilla for about 3 months.
I switch between apps from overview or by typing in search, or by sliding between workspaces. It is more convenient to me than classic desktops with a taskbar and minimized windows.
GNOME is the reason I use KDE.
I really really tried it, but it feels like the whole default GNOME suite has never been used by powerusers at all.
Nemo (is it Nemo?) is especially bad. Once you have to deal with several thousand files in a folder (e.g. drive recovery) it totally breaks apart.Yeah Plasma is like the only decent DE IMO
I use GNOME (under Fedora) on a laptop that sits at my right hand side, so I use it with only one hand. Using three-finger swipe to change workspaces is awesome - I usually use a workspace for each app, or sometimes two apps share a workspace, but I don’t worry about which one they are on, it’s so easy I just swipe until I find the one I want.
I use an extension to auto-reveal the dock when I go to the bottom of the screen. The default behavior of going to the top left of the screen, only to traverse all the way down to the dock at the bottom (or the right for workspaces), just seems really inefficient, especially on a touchpad.
I had it all tricked out with other extensions but they keep breaking with new GNOME releases, so I’ve mostly given up on that.
I usually bring up the dock by tapping the super key or using a three finger swipe up. I barely use the hot corner at all since Ifigursed that trick out.
Yes. With many windows open but I don’t use workspaces. Alt-Tab, and Alt-“above tab” is enough to me. And you can always super, first chars of the app name, enter.
