Do you also feel that Gnome is becoming dumb?

[yesint]

I have a feeling that with each next release Gnome becomes more and more dumb and loses flexibility (and unfortunately custom Ubuntu tools follow). For example:
* No themes and no GUI config for new gdm
* No GUI option to switch off exit warning in terminal
* No GUI option to switch off warning on logout
* No customization at all (!) for OSD notifications.

I don't like this trend at all. I was a Gnome fan for a long time because there are just too many customizations in KDE, but now gnome is going to drop ANY customizations, which is another stupid extreme.
I'm sure that I'm not the only one uncomfortable with this. Is it possible to influence the way Gnome is going? Ubuntu has a huge community, so probably this is a time for some action?

[HappinessNow]

I have a feeling that with each next release Gnome becomes more and more dumb and loses flexibility (and unfortunately custom Ubuntu tools follow). For example:
* No themes and no GUI config for new gdm
* No GUI option to switch off exit warning in terminal
* No GUI option to switch off warning on logout
* No customization at all (!) for OSD notifications.

I don't like this trend at all. I was a Gnome fan for a long time because there are just too many customizations in KDE, but now gnome is going to drop ANY customizations, which is another stupid extreme.
I'm sure that I'm not the only one uncomfortable with this. Is it possible to influence the way Gnome is going? Ubuntu has a huge community, so probably this is a time for some action?Just use KDE or another DE or WM if your unhappy with Gnome, it is just that simple.

[Bachstelze]

I have a feeling that with each next release Gnome becomes more and more dumb and loses flexibility (and unfortunately custom Ubuntu tools follow).

Linus talked about that long ago. ;)

[yesint]

Just use KDE or another DE or WM if your unhappy with Gnome, it is just that simple.

Not so simple :) Ubuntu is Gnome-centric. If I decide to change the WM I'd rather change the distro as well.

[Sashin]

Its only four things and about half of it are ubuntu things not gnome things. Some are temporary. Why need a GUI right now?

[Bachstelze]

Not so simple :) Ubuntu is Gnome-centric. If I decide to change the WM I'd rather change the distro as well.

Why? I use Ubuntu with KDE since Breezy and never felt like changing.

[jonmartin]

Gnome is simple - like in "not-getting-in-the-way". KDE is way more fancy I think, I use both ...

[Bachstelze]

Gnome is simple - like in "not-getting-in-the-way". KDE is way more fancy I think, I use both ...

That's pretty much it. Gnome's default will work for most people, but if they don't work for you, you're screwed.

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

I like gnome. I discover something that I like every day. First it was that I could sample my music by mousing over it. Recently, I discovered I can open multiple tabs in nautilus. Then I can drag files up to the tab, at which point it will switch to the tab that I have dragged the files to, so that I can see where I'm placing them. Love it.

[Amazona aestiva]

I still prefer GNOME to KDE. KDE is way too much eye-candy I think.

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

I still prefer GNOME to KDE. KDE is way too much eye-candy I think.
It's not the eye candy that bothers me. KDE is still not intuitive. Things just don't behave how you'd expect them to. It is MUCH better than it used to be, but it's still a little off imo. I won't explain here, but I've done it lots of times before.

[kerry_s]

* No GUI option to switch off exit warning in terminal
* No GUI option to switch off warning on logout

gconf-editor is a gui tool.

[pelle.k]

Do you also feel that Gnome is becoming dumb?
No.

* No themes and no GUI config for new gdm
* No customization at all (!) for OSD notifications.
The new GDM is a work in progress. It's coming. It's not that it's removed (well, that depends on how you look at it really), it's just not implemented yet.
The customization of notify-osd is not a gnome issue. Canonical wrote most, if not all of notify-osd, unless i am mistaken.

[Bachstelze]

Things just don't behave how you'd expect them to.

No, things don't behave how you expect them to, because you are used to something else.

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

No, things don't behave how you expect them to, because you are used to something else.
That's true. Regardless, I've used many desktop environments and as far as full featured desktops go, KDE has been the most difficult to grasp. Settings all over the place and some of them hard to find.

As you pointed out this is all my personal experience. I like KDE for other reasons, but simplicity is not even close to one of them.

[hyperdude111]

I often switch between gnome and kde because one starts to annoy me just enough after 3 months so i change. So each release is split with to DE's.

[gormac]

That's true. Regardless, I've used many desktop environments and as far as full featured desktops go, KDE has been the most difficult to grasp. Settings all over the place and some of them hard to find.

As you pointed out this is all my personal experience. I like KDE for other reasons, but simplicity is not even close to one of them.

Usability is not an exact science, if it was all HIGs would basically be the same (no one makes counter-intuitive software by choice).

What is intuitive for some is not intuitive for others. That does not mean one cannot find one DE more intuitive than another, like you said, but try to avoid generalizations like "KDE is still not intuitive".

And simplicity is not the only goal to strive for, configurability is just as (or more) important to some.

[DracoJesi]

I think KDE is easier to customize in several ways but feel like GNOME is much more powerful, even if it's lagged behind in things like transparency... but KDE feels allot like a cute powered-up version of Windows to me...

everything you've mentioned is pretty much temporary, as stated.... whenever you change your foundation to something to different...it's only natural for some things to regress, and people don't like that... I can't blame them... but in order to make progress for the future, sometimes you need to start over in some areas... that's not to say you haven't learned from past projects or that they are irrelevant.. far from it...

and it only gets worse when what your changing, is a very efficient Desktop Environment, or any other huge and user-sensitive project, especially if there haven't been many radical changes to the project in several years....

I think all over us here realize one of the many reasons people run away from Ubuntu, or Linux in general, is simply because it's different, they don't want to give it a chance... so wouldn't it be very hypocritical for us to do the same to the proposed future of GNOME?

I've been seeing allot of this hear lately, and it's depressing....

I see people complaining about the removal of Pidgin, nobody killed it... you can easily install it via synaptic, probably even from the Software Center...

they say Pidgin has more features, and it does, but why? It used to the only option, there was nothing else... so everybody ended up writing plugins for it and nothing else, because again, there was nothing else...

once people start working on Empathy more, this wont be an issue...

back to GNOME, it's gotten allot of crap because of Gnome Shell lately... but remember, GNOME Shell is just a prototype, they aren't sure if they are going to pursue it let alone when exactly it will be ready... and when GNOME 3 does come out, it's very possible it will be absolutely nothing like what has been proposed so far...

I tried Gnome Shell, it has allot of benefits but it wasn't at all functional enough to replace my current desktop, and it kind of bugged out on me a bit... when they figure everything out as far as what they want to do, then I'm sure they will start adding the functionality needed to be suitable for day to day use...... I am very hopeful.... and I can easily overlook the current issues with the shell because I realize how early it is in the development process, like a very early alpha.... if that....

but all I ever hear is negative comments, I never hear anything constructive, no thoughts on how to improve the concept, and that's a shame,

and then there is talk about Compiz, I love Compiz, but it doesn't seem like they've done much recently, and I mean recently, they've done great things and really revolutionized the desktop.... heck I think the cube future should come back in the shell just as a tribute XD

honestly though, I know currently, you have to pick one or the other, and this is disappointing, for certain reasons, gnome shell isn't likely to change in regards to the problem I here.... although I've heard very little talk of how one may be able to get Compiz to work with the shell....

for example, usually you either have to stick with the same wallpaper for the desktops or go without icons but I've seen someone find a workaround, after I was told that it simply couldn't be done...

and I know there are people on this board much smarter and much more knowledgeable than I am, there just has to be, from what I've seen in the past from this community, so I'm sure I'm unaware of allot of issues but I do know if we all start complaining, we won't work anything out.... there are people who have been booting Linux far longer than I have here, but I know that I personally have never seen a crappy distro, or crappy DE...and somehow, I don't think I'm going to anytime soon...

what I personally would love to see is a component of gnome shell, that would allow users to install plugins, like many Open Source apps do.... this would allow you to add extra functionality and customizable options to be added to the shell..... think of the possibilities...

and what would be greater? what if not only did it do this, and not only were the Compiz plugins ported.... but what if the Compiz team actually worked closely with the GNOME team? just think what could happen....

and if it doesn't, and the shell can't do everything Compiz can, there will be a fork I'm sure... and we'll have to make a choice, but at least we'll have the choice...

but who really knows what's coming here... it's way too early to tell

Edit: personally, I love the eye-candy..... but still prefer GNOME, and COmpiz provides plenty of eye-candy :)

[MorphingDragon]

I've never liked Gnome since whatever the version was in UB6.06. I use KDE 4.3 or Xfce depending on my situation. Hell, anything that uses .Net/Mono is a big no no in my book.

I've used 9.10 BTW, a lot of the Custom UI changes have a Mac OSX fell to them. (And I'm not talking about snow leopard, Tiger and below man)

[DracoJesi]

I will say though, KDE's browser is pretty cool with the terminal ability (could that be dangerous?)

and it's file browser has nice features as well, like "split-view"

I've never liked Gnome since whatever the version was in UB6.06. I use KDE 4.3 or Xfce depending on my situation. Hell, anything that uses .Net/Mono is a big no no in my book.

I've used 9.10 BTW, a lot of the Custom UI changes have a Mac OSX fell to them. (And I'm not talking about snow leopard, Tiger and below man)

I've been using 9.10 beta and now the official release and honestly.... while there are theme differences, it feels allot like 9.04.... what do you mean an OSX feal to them? the more polished icons perhaps?

and I need to update my info on here, it says I'm on Jaunty lol

[praveesh]

Unless they don't change their design principle (usability is inversily proportional to configurability) and if they start every thing from the beginning like KDE , yes Gnome is becoming a dumb.

[MorphingDragon]

I will say though, KDE's browser is pretty cool with the terminal ability (could that be dangerous?)

and it's file browser has nice features as well, like "split-view"



I've been using 9.10 beta and now the official release and honestly.... while there are theme differences, it feels allot like 9.04.... what do you mean an OSX feal to them? the more polished icons perhaps?

and I need to update my info on here, it says I'm on Jaunty lol

Well not really the look, more of the behavior. The log ons act nearly identical, the window activity feels very similar. I know its not the stock behavior as Fedora and Gentoo do not act the same way.

Its not necessarily a bad thing but wheres the originality anymore!? A copy is never as good as the original.

[yesint]

back to GNOME, it's gotten allot of crap because of Gnome Shell lately...

I tried GnomeShell recently and it is fine as a curious prototype, but not more for me. My personal feeling is that such revolutionary change is not actually justified. People are just fine with the panels. Why not to fix all long-long-long-standing bugs in gnome-panel (like screwed vertical panels)?
And what is the purpose of the top bar in GnomeShell if it does not act as a panel? Now it's a waste of space.

[yesint]

gconf-editor is a gui tool.

gconf-editor is surely a GUI tool, but I mean that the program itself should have a clear option to disable warning. It's just a must according to usability principles. Experienced user should be able to switch off the warnings, but searching for a key in gconf is a bit too much even for experienced user. This is for "geeks".

gconf-editor is the same thing as regedit on Window$. This is a tool, which should never be used by "normal" user. If I feel like tweaking config files for routine things like warnings I would install Arch or Gentoo or whatever of this bread. Ubuntu is a bit different beast, imho.

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

@ yesint: Indeed. How about designing panels that don't look retarded vertically for us widescreen users? Vertical space is a problem that has existed for a long time.

[yesint]

Unless they don't change their design principle (usability is inversily proportional to configurability) and if they start every thing from the beginning like KDE , yes Gnome is becoming a dumb.

They will never change the principles without strong community pressure

[yesint]

@ yesint: Indeed. How about designing panels that don't look retarded vertically for us widescreen users? Vertical space is a problem that has existed for a long time.

On my laptop I use CairoDock, which is fine in vertical orientation, but it can't (yet?) replace the panel (it does not integrates well with notifications and the system tray for me). As far as I know from many discussions gnome-panel will not be improved anymore because of the GnomeShell.

[mivo]

Not so simple :) Ubuntu is Gnome-centric. If I decide to change the WM I'd rather change the distro as well.

Well, there are Kubuntu and Xubuntu, and Lubuntu is not far away. The options are there, if you want to keep using Ubuntu.

But sometimes changing the distro also broadens the horizon and teaches new aspects of Linux, so it's not such a bad idea if you want to experience something different. For one of my desktops, I was happier with Arch, for example, whereas my laptop still uses Ubuntu.

It's all about choice and what you want from a distro.

[samjh]

They will never change the principles without strong community pressure
The Gnome project is entrenched in its overly dogmatic and restrictive HIG, which tries to minimise the amount of visual clutter for users. The side-effect of that is the software lacks options for customisation by users.

Keeping the GUI simple is a good concept. I don't think anyone will dispute that. What some Gnome developers don't seem to "get", is that as users use their software more and more, there will come a point when those users will want to make changes to the default feel or behaviour of the software. When those users can't see an obvious way to make those changes, dissatisfaction and frustration is the result. That is not good user experience.

Another problem is that some Gnome developers refuse to introduce new features into their software because the particular application is "not intended" for the feature under discussion (one example among many: split view for Nautilus). So suggestions (which often includes community-contributed patches) are shut down with no further progress possible.

In order to keep user interactions efficient (and consequently provide them with a good user experience) is to design the interactive component elegantly. So how do you add features which might complicate the interactive component? You conceal the complexity. This is why paradigms like tabbed interfaces were born. I think Microsoft Office 2007's ribbon interface is probably the most refined example of this paradigm. The same goes for Gnome-Do and Docky.

Gnome keeps things simple, and only simple. That's great for keeping things easy. It's also inflexible and restrictive. And my impression from reading various Gnome mailing lists, is that the Gnome developer community as a whole, are rather too conservative about how far they want to push the boundaries of the Gnome HIG in relation to complex visual interfaces.

[praveesh]

The Gnome project is entrenched in its overly dogmatic and restrictive HIG, which tries to minimise the amount of visual clutter for users. The side-effect of that is the software lacks options for customisation by users.

Keeping the GUI simple is a good concept. I don't think anyone will dispute that. What some Gnome developers don't seem to "get", is that as users use their software more and more, there will come a point when those users will want to make changes to the default feel or behaviour of the software. When those users can't see an obvious way to make those changes, dissatisfaction and frustration is the result. That is not good user experience.

Another problem is that some Gnome developers refuse to introduce new features into their software because the particular application is "not intended" for the feature under discussion (one example among many: split view for Nautilus). So suggestions (which often includes community-contributed patches) are shut down with no further progress possible.

Gnome is great at catering for the novice, but not the mature.

So true

[yesint]

For one of my desktops, I was happier with Arch, for example, whereas my laptop still uses Ubuntu.


I have Arch on my laptop and Ubuntu on desktops at home and at work :)

[yesint]

Gnome keeps things simple, and only simple. That's great for keeping things easy. It's also inflexible and restrictive. And my impression from reading various Gnome mailing lists, is that the Gnome developer community as a whole, are rather too conservative about how far they want to push the boundaries of the Gnome HIG in relation to complex visual interfaces.

You are 100% right! At some point Ubuntu developers (and probably developers of other Gnome-centric distros) will be forced to fork Gnome I'm afraid.

Btw tabbed interface in Nautilus is much more complex and much less convenient than a split-view...

[praveesh]

'X' will soon become the desktop you want , and not the desktop we think you want .

[samjh]

You are 100% right! At some point Ubuntu developers (and probably developers of other Gnome-centric distros) will be forced to fork Gnome I'm afraid.I don't think it needs to be forked. What I think will happen is that some dissatisfied individuals will try to implement the features they want via plugins, as long as that is possible. Then distros will include a selection of such plugins by default.

Btw tabbed interface in Nautilus is much more complex and much less convenient than a split-view...

Funny that you say that.

In the mailing list thread discussing split-view for Nautilus, the principal argument against it was that Nautilus was not intended as a file manager, and split view is not needed for the purpose Nautilus was intended for. The argument was that a lot of users have been mistaking Nautilus for a file manager, when it is merely something like a directory browser, and that users should use a dedicated file manager or the command-line for complex file management instead of Nautilus.

I personally found that argument to be completely ridiculous. What are users supposed to think when they use the default software for viewing and manipulating files? Since Nautilus is the default software for such tasks in Gnome, it is only natural that users consider it to be a file manager. The result of such a "mistake" is obvious: when those users encounter a use-case which is not satisfied by Nautilus, they request a feature to support their use-case.

To me, it is the responsibility of the developers to then respond to such user requests by implementing the wanted feature (if it is technically possible), not hide behind artificial excuses like, "that's not what it was meant for", before suggesting they look elsewhere. I think they would have been better to present a solid technical or architectural argument rather than allude to the stupidity of their users.

(Eventually, tabbed browsing partially solved the split-view use-case, but not wholly.)

That is one example of the reason why Gnome is seemingly lacking in features, and why people like Linus Torvalds said, "if you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it". Fortunately for Gnome, Gnome users aren't (mostly) idiots. Unfortunately, non-idiotic users tend to be demanding customers.

BTW: Holger Berndt is working on the split-view patch for Nautilus, which is undergoing testing.

[purgatori]

Is this a Gnome trend, or a Ubuntu trend? I ask because I'm really not sure... either way, things in the GUI world seem to be becoming less transparent/configurable; yet another reason I use wmii and console apps, with nice, simple, human-readable configuration files and no nonsense.

[Bachstelze]

Unfortunately, non-idiotic users tend to be demanding customers.

The problem here is that Gnome users are not customers. I am apalled by how many people still that volunteer developers are at their service and should implement whatever they request.

[yesint]

The argument was that a lot of users have been mistaking Nautilus for a file manager, when it is merely something like a directory browser, and that users should use a dedicated file manager or the command-line for complex file management instead of Nautilus.


God, this is really ridiculous! I also like the idea of using the command line for file management :) This is the kind of argument, which shows that Gnome developers tend to find an excuse for ignoring many feature requests.

Looking forward for split view to retire mc finally :)

[yesint]

The problem here is that Gnome users are not customers. I am apalled by how many people still that developers are at their service and should implement whatever they request.

Well, surely the word "customer" is not applicable here. However, large and very popular open-source projects like Linux in general or Gnome in particular, are much more than a playground for the developers because they become a cultural phenomenon. The developers should understand this.
There are 100000+ users and few dozens of developers. If 100000+ users think that certain feature is convenient and 10 developers think it is not, then I would say that those 10 individuals are just wrong.
This has nothing to do with the "service", this is just a response of the very-very large army of testers, who say that certain feature is missed.

[RATM_Owns]

Gnome BECOMING dumb?
It's been bloated IMO for a while.

I tend to stick to openbox and tiling window managers.

[23meg]

Funny that you say that.

In the mailing list thread discussing split-view for Nautilus, the principal argument against it was that Nautilus was not intended as a file manager, and split view is not needed for the purpose Nautilus was intended for. The argument was that a lot of users have been mistaking Nautilus for a file manager, when it is merely something like a directory browser, and that users should use a dedicated file manager or the command-line for complex file management instead of Nautilus.

I personally found that argument to be completely ridiculous. What are users supposed to think when they use the default software for viewing and manipulating files? Since Nautilus is the default software for such tasks in Gnome, it is only natural that users consider it to be a file manager. The result of such a "mistake" is obvious: when those users encounter a use-case which is not satisfied by Nautilus, they request a feature to support their use-case.


For the sake of fairness and accuracy, this (http://www.mail-archive.com/nautilus-list@gnome.org/msg05473.html) probably is the post referred to. Please read it before ruling that the argument is "ridiculous", and note how it doesn't outright rule out that a split view can be useful:

So, if we were to have a split view feature in nautilus it should really
be a completely different kind of window/app in the eyes of the user.
One designed to have all the advantages of a mc style app and none of
the non-useful leftovers from the browser/spatial window. In other
words, a nc clone based on the nautilus codebase, sharing code and user
data (like bookmarks, mounts, emblems, metadata and history).

It's a classic example of a good maintainer being skeptical when faced with a new feature request or patch (http://ometer.com/features.html), with the hope of keeping the scope and sanity of his project intact.

[whitefang5412]

I absolutely love gnome more than any other DE out there. It's simple enough for me, without being too simple or too complicated and its perfect. I find gnome more useful.

[Keyper7]

The original post makes some mistakes.

* No themes and no GUI config for new gdm

Work in progress. It has the potential for being more customizable than the original gdm in the future.

* No GUI option to switch off warning on logout

Ubuntu, not Gnome. And it's a work in progress, the applet has just been rewritten from scratch and as far as I know the developers never stated that this option won't return.

* No customization at all (!) for OSD notifications.

Ubuntu, not Gnome. And it's a work in progress. The developers still haven't decided on several definitive properties of Notify-OSD and eventual decision-changes might mean substantial changes in code. Adding options and options at this point is unnecessary work for minimal gain.

Gnome's philosophy is reasonable defaults over configurability, but you should at least check developer mailing lists and developer blog posts before assuming they already decided certain things which are not true and coming to unfair conclusions. It's like when KDE 4.0 was released and several people went "OMFG they DECIDED that KDE4 is going to have less features than KDE3!!!".

[23meg]

but you should at least check developer mailing lists and developer blog posts before assuming they already decided certain things which are not true and coming to unfair conclusions. It's like when KDE 4.0 was released and several people went "OMFG they DECIDED that KDE4 is going to have less features than KDE3!!!".

I would especially like it if people cited sources when quoting people on development and design decisions on behalf of a project. Otherwise, hearsay and misinterpretations spread rapidly.

[Keyper7]

I would especially like it if people cited sources when quoting people on development and design decisions on behalf of a project. Otherwise, hearsay and misinterpretations spread rapidly.

I, personally, would like to do this more. But sometimes there is not a single link to point to because it's something decided after long threads of discussion and there is no complete summary written afterwards. I'll try harder to keep this in mind, though.

[23meg]

I, personally, would like to do this more. But sometimes there is not a single link to point to because it's something decided after long threads of discussion and there is no complete summary written afterwards. I'll try harder to keep this in mind, though.

With mailing list discussions, Gmane (http://gmane.org/) comes in handy.

[Regenweald]

How about we wait for Gnome 3.0 final ? you people are sounding like the same people who said that that silly newfangled 'mouse thing' would never catch on.
Don't make stupid assumptions, wait for the final product and contribute to the one in progress.

[whitefort]

Ubuntu, not Gnome. And it's a work in progress, the applet has just been rewritten from scratch and as far as I know the developers never stated that this option won't return.


Actually they kinda have.
When I discovered that the usual right-click didn't work in the applet, I originally assumed it was a bug and went off to report it. As usual, others got there before me, and the devs had replied saying *very* clearly that this was a deliberate choice 'to simplify things for users', and that they had no plans or intention to 'fix' it.

There comes a point when 'simplify'= 'made needlessly dumb', and I think this is one of an increasing number of such choices in Gnome.

[Johnsie]

I think alot of gnome apps are plain and ugly. App developers need to do something about ugly interfaces and make things a little more polished looking.

[schmidtbag]

i used to love gnome until they pulled this overkill simplicity crap. i was hoping for MORE features, not less. gnome is dumbed down so much now that i would rather use a mac. i'm aware gnome is supposed to be simple, so maybe what they SHOULD have done was have a checkbox that enables a simple set of settings, and you can uncheck it and it shows all the advanced features, not take away more than half of our customizations. gnome was my favorite DE and now i don't know if i can ever use it again. i don't want to use kde but i'm switching to it for now.


THIS IS A BAD RISK FOR CANONICAL AND LINUX AS A WHOLE. ubuntu represents linux in a lot of ways. ubuntu is the most popular distribution and gnome is ubuntu's main DE. if they want more users, they can't be taking away features. linux is about freedom and doing whatever you want, not do what is considered acceptable by most people. windows has more customization than gnome at this point.

not acceptable

[the fix it man]

It is funny how all these Gnome "problem" thread end up being a KDE bashing cesspit.

KDE is a different beast. OSX is a different beast, MS Windows is.....blah

[Dark Aspect]

Not so simple :) Ubuntu is Gnome-centric. If I decide to change the WM I'd rather change the distro as well.

If gnome was to ever annoy me to that point I would use Mint Linux (http://www.linuxmint.com/) Since I have been tempted to stop using Ubuntu and use that for some time now. However, Ubuntu's last few releases work well so I haven't experimented with other operating systems very much.

Edit: Ignore my post, I think Mint Linux (http://www.linuxmint.com/) might be gnome based, I thought it used KDE.

[yesint]

The original post makes some mistakes.



Work in progress. It has the potential for being more customizable than the original gdm in the future.



Ubuntu, not Gnome. And it's a work in progress, the applet has just been rewritten from scratch and as far as I know the developers never stated that this option won't return.



Ubuntu, not Gnome. And it's a work in progress. The developers still haven't decided on several definitive properties of Notify-OSD and eventual decision-changes might mean substantial changes in code. Adding options and options at this point is unnecessary work for minimal gain.

Gnome's philosophy is reasonable defaults over configurability, but you should at least check developer mailing lists and developer blog posts before assuming they already decided certain things which are not true and coming to unfair conclusions. It's like when KDE 4.0 was released and several people went "OMFG they DECIDED that KDE4 is going to have less features than KDE3!!!".

If most of this comes from Ubuntu, then this is even more sad. Sincerely speaking I just don't believe that this "work in progress" will ever bring dropped features back. As it was said here already, developers usually respond that cutting the customization was intentional. Nobody is going to fix this because this is not broken. Period.

[CbrPad]

I've moved to a different distro for the first time in five years, primarily because of the broken 3g, but partially because of this lack of configuration.

I absolutely love Gnome for the cleanliness of it's UI, but if actual functionality is dropped then I also agree it's a very bad decision, so I will be keeping a very close eye upon Lucid to see just what happens.

On an aside, in the meantime I've gone to Mandriva with Kde 4.3.2. I could not stand Kde 3.5, but I must admit I'm liking the latest very much. A few themes etc and I've got it looking nice and clean and I haven't found it any harder or more complex to use than Gnome - it took me less than an hour to find my way around and have everything set up nicely.
I suppose my point being that there are alternatives, if you don't like the way things are then just leave them be and move on.

[MorphingDragon]

Xfce is what Gnome isn't

Light Weight, small and easy to use.

No more Compiz Problems is my fav feature.

[koenn]

linux is about freedom and doing whatever you want, ...
This is a very common misconception.
It's propbably based in the typical 14-years-old's concept of "I wanna be free to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it", but this has no bearing on Linux whatsoever.

As a Linux user, you explicitly have the freedoms (or rights) granted to you by the respective licenses the software is released under. That's all.
It's still a lot - it includes the freedom to modify source code to make programs behave the way you like.
But it has nothing to do with "the right to have lots of configurable options" or demanding from others that they add features you want to have. You're free, however, to create them yourself.

This is similar to the equally common misconception that "linux is all about choice". It's not. There happens to be a lot of choice (lots of programs to choose from, lots of distros, open interfaces that allow you to easily combine lots of programs in lots of different ways, ...) but this is merely a side effect of open source as a development model.

[whitefort]

I suppose my point being that there are alternatives, if you don't like the way things are then just leave them be and move on.


I totally agree with this. But some of us love Gnome like a friend, and it hurts to see a friend slowly turning senile. We hate the thought of *having* to leave it be and move on.

Since my first ever linux installation (years and years ago) I've loved Gnome's look, its functionality, and the way I could customise it. Every time I tried something else, KDE, Fluxbox, XFCE, etc., I always came back to Gnome. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

So we can't help whining *a little* when our beloved desktop starts turning into a dumbed-down lowest-common-denominator piece of junk that _intentionally_ makes it difficult for us to make little customisations (a prettier login screen, for instance), or even using a right-click to change a few basic options.

So, yeah, if this keeps up, we'll probably leave it and move on... but please, let us mourn/grumble a little bit first!
:-({|=

[CbrPad]

I totally agree with this. But some of us love Gnome like a friend, and it hurts to see a friend slowly turning senile. We hate the thought of *having* to leave it be and move on.

Since my first ever linux installation (years and years ago) I've loved Gnome's look, its functionality, and the way I could customise it. Every time I tried something else, KDE, Fluxbox, XFCE, etc., I always came back to Gnome. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

So we can't help whining *a little* when our beloved desktop starts turning into a dumbed-down lowest-common-denominator piece of junk that _intentionally_ makes it difficult for us to make little customisations (a prettier login screen, for instance), or even using a right-click to change a few basic options.

So, yeah, if this keeps up, we'll probably leave it and move on... but please, let us mourn/grumble a little bit first!
:-({|=

Lol! I totally get you, I'm the very same. I'm liking KDE in that it has very much improved since I last tried it and I think it looks stunning, but I would still prefer Gnome.

I'll be keeping the eye on Lucid but what with the development of Gnome-shell etc I'm not holding out much hope. Perhaps Gnome is about to undergo a similar transition as that of Kde from 3.5 to 4, where all the old-school guys will be very unhappy and it'll take them several years to get basic functionality back, I sure hope not though.

[Exodist]

Gnome philosophy is KIS. Keep it Simple.
Now the problem is sometimes is that one developers definition is SIMPLE is another ones NASA rocket switch board, while anothers is so dumbed down someone with a lobotomy can work it.
I hope this phase will pass over. Gnome 3.0 is still in the works and my hope is that is where they are focusing their energy towards.

[t0p]

When I bought an EeePC, it came with Xandros, using a form of KDE called (I think) "Simple Mode". This was to make it more "newbie-friendly" I believe. It was indeed simple - stupidly so - with no configurability, very few features, and a whole lot of crapness. Most users quickly switched to "Advanced Mode" (vanilla KDE) before binning Xandros entirely and installing something better.

Asus and Xandros made a big mistake using this GUI. It gave new users a very poor opinion of Linux in general. This no doubt harmed Linux uptake, as new users gravitated toward XP rather than the shoddy Xandos product.

If the Gnome devs go too far down the road of simplification for the newbies, they may have a similar effect. Simple's nice, but so is a great deal of configurability.

[Keyper7]

If most of this comes from Ubuntu, then this is even more sad. Sincerely speaking I just don't believe that this "work in progress" will ever bring dropped features back. As it was said here already, developers usually respond that cutting the customization was intentional. Nobody is going to fix this because this is not broken. Period.

There is a major difference between "cutting the customization was intentional" and "cutting the customization was intentional and it's going to stay that way regardless of what you say". If you followed the Ayatana mailing list, you would know that the developers step back on decisions all the time. The position of notify-osd in the Karmic alphas is an example.

There are three things you need to understand:

1) Customize for the sake of customizing does not make sense.

The argument "giving the user flexibility is good" is very weak, because it applies to anything. There is always something, somewhere that will be left uncustomizable. For example, if I have a bad neck and this forces me to keep my head slightly tilted to the side, I can state how disappointed I am that KDE, despite being all proud of being customizable, does not allow me to open all windows in a slightly diagonal rotation by default.

So, the solution is removing all customization options? Of course not! The solution is deeply analysing each case, thinking about user cases, providing sane defaults and providing options where it makes sense. But this can only happen with user feedback. Your feedback. There are public mailing lists for that.

2) Putting options in a work in progress does not make sense.

Consider the example of notify-osd. In Jaunty, all notifications were queued in the upper right corner. A lot of people complained that you couldn't choose the corner.

In Karmic, the notifications were separated in two types: synchronous (the ones with fixed size and for which the user expects immediate appearance, such as volume and brightness gauges, and thus cannot be queued) and asynchronous (the ones with variable size that which can be queued, like IM messages).

Now how corner-choosing would apply in the new situation, particularly in the bottom corners? Should synchronous be placed below asynchronous? Should ansynchronous "grow upwards" (bad usability)? Those are not easy decisions, and regardless of their outcome one thing would certainly happen: the most part of the corner customization code for Jaunty would have to be thrown away and rewritten from scratch. This is just asking for bugs.

It would make sense to add customization options if the entire architecture was already decided and set in stone. But they want user feedback first and several things in the architecture might still change. Adding customization is part of the polish stage.

3) Adding customization options might not be an easy task.

Users, specially non-programmers, tend to think that if the concept is simple, the code should be simple. In most cases this is not true. The previous example illustrates that: now that notifications are separated in two types, a different placement algorithm is necessary for top corners and bottom corners. It's not simply one variable or one change in an artithmetic operation somewhere.

"But person X hacked this in five minutes and set up a PPA!" is a classic response, but this person is working on a specific version of the package. He is not the maintainer of the code and has a lot less to worry about than the official developers. Not to mention that if his code causes any new bugs, it's the official developers who will receive the backlash.

It's very easy to pull off a Godwin-Torvalds and complain how the Gnome/Ubuntu devs are nazis. But Linus went to the mailing lists, provided reasoning and gave patches (in his own words, he "put his money where his mouth was"). And eventually achieved some victories. "Oh, the evil devs would never listen to me" is a nice dramatic argument for a forum rant. But also sounds like a very easy excuse for being lazy and doing nothing yourself. On a second thought, that's not laziness: I've seen rants in forums ten times as long as posts in mailing lists that actually achieved something. The energy definitely exists, it's just misdirected.

[cammin]

The developers should understand this.
There are 100000+ users and few dozens of developers. If 100000+ users think that certain feature is convenient and 10 developers think it is not, then I would say that those 10 individuals are just wrong.
This has nothing to do with the "service", this is just a response of the very-very large army of testers, who say that certain feature is missed.

The users should understand that the only choice they get to make is to either use the software or not. Doesn't matter how many other people they get to agree with them if those people aren't actually writing the software.

[Keyper7]

Actually they kinda have.
When I discovered that the usual right-click didn't work in the applet, I originally assumed it was a bug and went off to report it. As usual, others got there before me, and the devs had replied saying *very* clearly that this was a deliberate choice 'to simplify things for users', and that they had no plans or intention to 'fix' it.

I stand corrected. See my previous post, though. There is a difference between "we are not convinced so far" and "we will never be convinced". Several design decisions have changed in both Gnome and Ubuntu's histories.

[koenn]

gnome is getting smarter

The purposee of a desktop environment, such as gnome, is to provide an environment that lets people accomplish tasks : write a letter, look something up, write mail, chat with friends, play a video, prepare a presentation, manage your photos ...

So the prime objective of a desktop environment is to make it easy for people to do these things.
That's what gnome does.

A smart DE (or UI in general) doesn't need to ask the user what to do or how to behave : it knows what it needs to do, and, ideally, adapts itself to the user's behaviour without having to be told to do so. This is the direction gnome is evolving in.

That is also why gnome tends to move al sorts of maintenance and sysadmin tasks, config options, and preference options out of the Desktop as it is presented to the user.

This is mildly frustrating to the 2-3% of computer users who like to tinker with every single component of their computer, and for whom 'messing with the computer' is a goal in itself, but for a regular user, this is irrelevant. And since Ubuntu is set up to be Linux for the 98% of non-geek computer users ("Linux for human beings", bug #1, ...), gnome is the only sensible choice.


Underneath this apparent simplicity, gnome is still completely configurable, for those who want or need it. And what's more, this configurability is implemented in a well-organized, structured, systematic, unified way, allowing to distinguish between system-wide and user-specific settings, and allowing system administrators fine-grained control over defaults, mandatory settings, user-configurable options, ... Maybe it's still lacking a couple of easy to use programs to edit those settings, but so what, if they're needed they will be added.

In any case, gnome's vision on configurability and usability will probably be an improvement over the jungle of context menus, toolbar buttons, control panels, preferences menus, wizards and "Settings > Extra > More > Advanced " dialogs that other systems rely on to get their configuration right. Although some people may have come to expect this as 'normal', and have their power user status depend on their ability to remember where everything is. Too bad.

In any case, this is not a matter of wanting to dumb things down, of an aversion to configurabile options, or a blind adherence to KISS or any arbitrary design principle. It's about making a better desktop environment.

[frodon]

Moved to Recurring Discussions

[graabein]

Just use KDE or another DE or WM if your unhappy with Gnome, it is just that simple.

When someone has been a fan of something over time they don't just switch. They care about it and ask questions. Have some understanding.

[yesint]

The users should understand that the only choice they get to make is to either use the software or not. Doesn't matter how many other people they get to agree with them if those people aren't actually writing the software.

I'm a decent programmer myself and given a lot of time and motivation I could fix (hopefully) some of the most annoying "features", but this fix will never be accepted. So, I have no motivation.
What is more important is that "writing the software" != "coding".
Testing and feedback is probably more important. This is missed in Gnome development now, imho.

[TheLastDodo]

The users should understand that the only choice they get to make is to either use the software or not. Doesn't matter how many other people they get to agree with them if those people aren't actually writing the software.

Bingo. The whole idea of open-source "freedom" only applies to those with the capacity to create software or fund its creation.