Swicth from Gnome to KDE
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Par Remi le lundi 23 décembre 2013, 14:08 - General - Lien permanent
Some people will probably think I'm only following a recent fashion...
For memory, I'm using Linux on my workstation since Red Hat Linux 8 (aka Psyche), so, in 2002. Since this date, after a quick test of KDE, I was using the Gnome environment.
During more than 10 years, I have consider Gnome as the best desktop environment, and spent a lot of time to defend it.
I was among the firsts to test Gnome Shell (with F14), to quickly adopt it, and to promote it in front of its numerous detractors.
I'm usually very faithful, and I don't change easily my way of thinking, on any first small issue. Yes, changes in Gnome were needed, Gnome have become obsolete, and Gnome 3 have done a lot of courageous choices.
I'm probably a quite special user (but we are all different), I don't use most of the Gnome integrated applications, and I faithfully use, since the beginning, Firefox, Thunderbird, X(Hex)chat. My main tools are the terminal and the text editor, and I usually don't change the environment configuration.
But, listening lot of criticisms about Gnome, I finally start to agree, and I can't find any more excuses to the project. And finally, I also have my own observations.
- Default fonts are blurred (in F20) so I have to switch to Liberation.
- The application launcher is just too complex, you have to know the exact name. The drop of the category tree presentation was one more mistake.
- Software is really unusable, for now, to manage applications installation and update (just try toinstall PHP....)
- The move of menu options to the global menu (AppMenu) is just unnecessary and not ready as it is not possible to detect if the menu is present or not (during ssh session, for example)
- Ctrl-Alt-L replaced by Super-L (to please who ?)
I agree, this are minor details, or temporary bugs. But, this is just too much for me, so I decide to switch to a new desktop environment, and I'm now testing KDE.
This a clear, I only use a very few KDE features, as I was using for Gnome. And I'm currently fine with it,Now, I understand all those people who have left Gnome, but I will not become a KDE ambassador, just a simple user.
Commentaires
I'm no specialist, but I agree with you on most of the things.
To your 2nd argument: There is an easy fix for that: Use the tweak tool and install an application menu extension.
5th: one key less, all system wide operations with super key?!
Gnome shell really has the potential to be awesome, but there are a number of rough edges that makes daily use a pain for me.
The most serious problem as you pointed out is the lack of a structured way to browse and discovering applications.
Here are my additions to the list in a desperate attempt to reach the Gnome devs:
* The modal password dialog makes it hard to use strong passwords stored in a password manager. That makes Google two factor authentication unusable. If the dialog need to be modal, atleast provide an API to integrate with password managers.
* The message tray. It looks good on the paper, but is totally unpractical. Why would you want to access your chat conversations in two inconsistent ways?
Basically I have to learn two UIs for chat, because the message tray chat can't send files etc so you need to switch workflow all of the time. Just get rid of it please!
* You can't select a web based e-mail or calendar service as default mail application without some hacking.
* Please hide some useless applications from the menu. For example java and selinux settings. That kind of stuff should just work without any tweaking. No need to clutter the menu.
Merry Christmas!
I thought the same as you when Gnome 3.x first came out. Frankly speaking, II hated it. I promptly loaded gnome tweak tool and put back my desktop icons, maximise and.minimise buttons, shortcuts how I liked them and extensions for this, that and the other. Basically I did my very best to turn it back into Gnome 2.x.
But thinking about it in my rage - how dare they change MY desktop - my only real objection was that it was different. A learning curve had been forced upon me and I had a choice. Stick with it and reap the supposed benefits or switch to an environment that behaved like the old one by default, never to return.
I chose to stick with it. Over time, I've turned off my tweaks until I have a nearly default install and, you know what, I totally love this Gnome 3 thing!
The only tweaks I have turned on now are the clock with date+seconds and "normal" (old fashioned?) alt+tabbing. They'll pry my clock with date and seconds from my cold, dead hands but alt+tabbing - maybe some day they'll convince me their way is superior - but it doesn't work for me. Thankfully I can change the default.
Out of the 100's of things they've changed - I now only care about those three. The rest I like - e.g. the handling of notifications, the top bar with its simple interface (especially the latest release in F20) and generally the superb unobtrusiveness of it all by focusing on what matters - the application. I'm here, after all, to work in applications.
So I'd urge you - don't give up. I'd wager a £5 that this great piece of engineering that is Gnome 3 will grow on you as it did on me. :-)
Specifically to your points:
"Default fonts are blurred (in F20) so I have to switch to Liberation."
So you fixed it! Great!
"The application launcher is just too complex, you have to know the exact name."
a) "refo" in the search brings up "firefox".
b) Select the dots from the bar on the left to get a list of all apps.
c) Extensions can re-add categories, etc, if you really want it. But seriously?
"Software is really unusable, for now, to manage applications installation and update (just try toinstall PHP....)"
I've never used a GUI for that since Redhat 5. Use terminal + yum. I'm not sure if the Gnome Software app is meant for doing system level stuff like PHP interpreters anyway?
"The move of menu options to the global menu (AppMenu) is just unnecessary and not ready as it is not possible to detect if the menu is present or not (during ssh session, for example)"
Not sure what this means. I ran, for example, gnome-terminal - there is a normal menu bar and a global menu. You can turn off the global menu with tweak tool anyway.
"Ctrl-Alt-L replaced by Super-L (to please who ?)"
Windows boxes use that shortcut by default. I got annoyed with that change for about 5 seconds until I tried Super+L and now I just use that. On the plus side - it's one less key to find. If it really bothers you though, define it how you like here: Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> System -> Lock Screen
Merci!
"The application launcher is just too complex, you have to know the exact name. The drop of the category tree presentation was one more mistake." Amen, mon frère. I started looking for a gnome shell extension to restore this to its former glory, with no success as of yet. Also, I always liked the default "flat" list of all available apps in gnome shell's applications overview, and felt that it was a superior interface, compared to unity, primarily for that reason. Now one has to drill down into an application category to discover what you're trying to run. Submenus, anyone?
"Ctrl-Alt-L replaced by Super-L (to please who ?)". Probably the same dude who changed the alt-click-drag-anywhere-on-the-window-frame-to-move-it to super-click-drag-anywhere-on-the-window-frame-to-move-it. Because the super key is just über alt, don't you know. In their defense, it does make it more mac-like, if one considers that a good thing.
Lately, it does just feel too much like change simply for the sake of change, and gnome users are not being listened to.
I never quite figured out what happened to Gnome. When I installed Fedora 18, I could no longer find an iso image containing Gnome. So now I use KDE. It was a bit difficult to learn by it works very well and I have installed it on a Lenovo laptop with an SSD drive and the system run superb.
"The application launcher is just too complex, you have to know the exact name."
The primary interface with it is and _has always supposed to be_ keyboard search, not looking through the whole list. The search finds things based not just on the displayed title but on most of the metadata in the .desktop file, including description and categories; if I type 'burn', for instance, the results are Brasero and K3B, which seems sensible. I don't think I've actually _ever_ run an app by clicking through the menus except for test purposes. Press Start, and type. That's how it works.
"Software is really unusable, for now, to manage applications installation and update (just try toinstall PHP....)"
PHP isn't an application. Software is for installing applications, not web frameworks. There are other projects aiming to be GUI wrappers around yum, Software isn't one. If what you want is a GUI yum wrapper, use something else...
"Ctrl-Alt-L replaced by Super-L (to please who ?)"
AIUI they moved a lot of shortcuts to use Super instead of ctrl/alt because there tend to be lots of collisions with apps on the older modifier keys.
For Jens: there's a bug for that. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug...
@adam
> "The primary interface with it is and _has always supposed to be_ keyboard search, not looking through the whole list."
This is exactly the problem. Example : how do I launch "Software" when I don't know it's named "Software" if I'm not English speaking ?
Yes, I had to search for it.
> "PHP isn't an application. Software is for installing applications"
Ok. So we have to tell "new" users to use command line (at least to install another Yum GUI). Not user friendly (not a problem for me, I mostly always use command line, but I also do a lot of support for new users).
@Paul
> "Not sure what this means. I ran, for example, gnome-terminal - there is a normal menu bar and a global menu. You can turn off the global menu with tweak tool anyway."
Try "ssh -X someuser@somehost gedit", and the try to access preferences. See RHBZ #982620
> Example : how do I launch "Software" when I don't know it's named "Software" if I'm not English speaking ?
You're reacting as if it were a design decision, when in fact this is just a bug: the application title has not been translated.
In fact, the application just hasn't been translated to French at all (but it has been translated to other languages).
In addition, desktop files can include keywords which help with the search, but Software doesn't have any.
So you're putting the blame on the wrong group: the problem is not the application launcher, it is a translation/metadata bug on a specific application.
> Default fonts are blurred (in F20) so I have to switch to Liberation.
Can't use Tweak tool, freetype bytecode or freetype infinality?
> The application launcher is just too complex, you have to know the exact name. The drop of the category tree presentation was one more mistake.
How? type movies, text, audio, video; and you can use "Software"-> "Installed" tab to know about the installed software.
Like how many apps are installed? you can launch and know about them right? This is how we discover softwares, in windows, android, iphone, kde. Right?
You think categories help? So explain this: what does these will mean to a new
multimedia/kdenlive
multimedia/k3b
multimedia/amarok
graphics/okular
graphics/krita
the above categories makes no sense to a new or unfamiliar user.
> Software is really unusable, for now, to manage applications installation and update (just try toinstall PHP....)
Software is meant for users, not developers. Only apps are supposed to be installed, not libraries, which a normal desktop user won't use. And as a developer, using 'yum' or 'apt' or 'pacman' is difficult? How many times does one need to install and remove php?
> The move of menu options to the global menu (AppMenu) is just unnecessary and not ready as it is not possible to detect if the menu is present or not (during ssh session, for example)
Like how many desktop users use, ssh session?
> Ctrl-Alt-L replaced by Super-L (to please who ?)
eveyone
1. many advanced softwares need too many shortcuts to perfom certain tasks like photoshop, coreldraw, etc. ctrl+alt+L could help there, whereas no software uses Super+L.
2. pressing Super+L is easier for desktop users, as you family members or kids or non-geeky people.