What is the future for Gnome 3 [Archive]

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Linux_junkie

October 22nd, 2011, 10:07 PM

T.J.

October 22nd, 2011, 10:22 PM

Whilst surfing other distro's I discovered two so far have dropped Gnome desktop these are Mandriva and PCLinuxOS. Now with the development of Unity relying on Gnome 3 and Fedora / RedHat being one of the major developers of Gnome 3 I cannot see either of these two distro's from abandoning Gnome. But I wonder if other distro's will abandon Gnome 3 and simply concentrate on the other desktops (KDE; LXDE; XFCE; etc.).

Interesting to find out what you think?

Honestly, I think that's making the assumption that Linux has a preferred UI. UNIX in general, and thus Linux - has never had a strict unified user interface. As a historical footnote, X11 has never mandated one. It was always left to the user to decide what they wanted. I'm not going to debate which UNIX interface is better - that has been going on for a lot longer than Linux fans imagine - over 20 years in point of fact.

So, we aren't going to solve it here.

If you want an opinion on Gnome 3, I'd say that the changes they have made is to gear it toward touch screens. I think that is extraordinarily smart on their part. The current trends indicate that touch screen mobile devices are the way to reach the widest audience possible. It may raise a few complaints from the desktop crowd. Even Linus T. has chimed in, but in the end, it really doesn't hurt anyone or even Linux. The code is available, so if don't like it, you can easily run a traditional panel setup on top of Gnome 3's libraries instead of Gnome Shell.

I know, because I've already done so.

Ubuntu's Unity is its attempt to establish its own design. There is nothing wrong with that either, but it does need a lot more work. I don't feel that it is ready for mass consumption, especially with the global menu working for some but not all applications. In that light, Gnome 3 is far better thought out and designed to be consistent.

LowSky

October 22nd, 2011, 10:35 PM

Doesn't look like gnome-shell built for touch screens to me. Its very mouse oriented.

PCLinuxOS and Mandriva are KDE distros, with Gnome available if users wished, much like OpenSuse. If they choose not to support the use of Gnome thats up to them, but it was never their primary choice.

Honestly I like Gnome 3. Its clean, works well with the integrated applications, and with a few tweaks can look anyway the user wants. I use Arch Linux so I get the plain vanilla version, so I can honestly say even in that form its great. I'm betting Fedora will make it look even better in upcoming releases. Heck I wish Ubuntu used it and added their own charm, but alas they chose to make something that I see as ugly and a mish-mash of features seen in Gnome and XFCE.

tartalo

October 22nd, 2011, 10:35 PM

two so far have dropped Gnome desktop these are Mandriva and PCLinuxOS.

Both have had KDE as the default for years:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mandriva
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos

What do you mean they have dropped Gnome? Any link?

Rasa1111

October 22nd, 2011, 10:37 PM

I think..
from what Ive seen so far..
The future of Gnome3..
is bright! ;) lol

Linux_junkie

October 22nd, 2011, 10:40 PM

Both have had KDE as the default for years:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mandriva
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos

What do you mean they have dropped Gnome? Any link?

Just looking on their websites cannot see any links to download distro with Gnome, Mandriva 2011 only has KDE available and PCLinuxOS has KDE; XFCE; LXDE; Openbox but no Gnome.

Gremlinzzz

October 22nd, 2011, 10:43 PM

Grime,soon as Gnome 4 comes out they'll drop em:popcorn:

qamelian

October 22nd, 2011, 10:48 PM

Just looking on their websites cannot see any links to download distro with Gnome, Mandriva 2011 only has KDE available and PCLinuxOS has KDE; XFCE; LXDE; Openbox but no Gnome.
You can still install Gnome on Mandriva. KDE is simply the default DE. It always has been for as long as I can remember. Actually, the mandriva site says that they are concentrating on KDE, but that they have put great effort into ensuring the Gnome and KDE apps look the same.

I don't know about PCLOS, but I'd be surprised if the same didn't hold true there.

GerryB

October 22nd, 2011, 10:48 PM

There will always be lots of choices as you can see here.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Introducing-Ubuntu-11-10-Without-Unity-228425.shtml

wolfen69

October 23rd, 2011, 02:23 AM

If you want an opinion on Gnome 3, I'd say that the changes they have made is to gear it toward touch screens.

That couldn't be further from the truth. If anything it is geared towards power users that use the keyboard a lot. Even the gnome developers will tell you this.

Touch screen UI's don't have docks with small icons on the side with a hot corner. See android and windows 8. Those are touch screen UI's.

kvvv

October 23rd, 2011, 03:22 AM

@above, I have to agree that it is closest to touchscreen than anything else. But more than that, they seem to be going for a unified UI for both touchscreen and desktops.

If you want a primarily mouse based DE, go to gnome2 or xfce. Gnome 3 requires too much mouse movement to be an efficient mouse-based DE.

Power users who use keyboards will be happy with awesome wm or xmonad, or KDE (if they prefer something heavier). Gnome3 can't function without a mouse, if I remember right.

ubupirate

October 23rd, 2011, 03:32 AM

Years ago they tried putting desktop OS onto touchscreen devices and it failed.

Today they are trying to put touchscreen OS on desktops, and I can see it failing.

masgeeks

October 23rd, 2011, 03:41 AM

Choice is important - and even though I am a heavy desktop user, I like gnome shell - it is clean, uncluttered. I am a keyboard person, and gnome shell works well for me, even unity did (until I went to 11.10 and unity seemed to become quirky compared to the way it was in 11.04). I really like being able to just hit a key and type a few letters to call up the gui's I need - or to invoke a terminal so I can work from command line... I hate reaching for my mouse so like to limit my interaction with it where and when I am able...!!! :)

MonolithImmortal

October 23rd, 2011, 03:42 AM

Everyone saying that Gnome 3 is for touch screens obviously has never tried using it on a touchscreen.

gsmanners

October 23rd, 2011, 04:39 AM

What would be great is if we saw a big merge between Unity and Gnome 3 like what happened to Compiz. Remember when that was fragmented and it divided the community?

wolfen69

October 23rd, 2011, 04:50 AM

Everyone saying that Gnome 3 is for touch screens obviously has never tried using it on a touchscreen.

Exactly. It is a keyboard driven ui.

wojox

October 23rd, 2011, 04:54 AM

What is the future for Gnome 3?

Same as Gnome 2.x

It will be replaced by Gnome 4

wolfen69

October 23rd, 2011, 04:57 AM

What is the future for Gnome 3?

Same as Gnome 2.x

It will be replaced by Gnome 4

Good one!

Dy1anW

October 23rd, 2011, 07:12 AM

That couldn't be further from the truth. If anything it is geared towards power users that use the keyboard a lot. Even the gnome developers will tell you this.

Oooh, I'll have to have a looksee.

hotweiss

October 23rd, 2011, 07:36 AM

Gnome 3 will be more widely adopted when all the bugs are ironed out. I personally loved it. At least the Arch implementation.

There were bugs: the weather plugin stopped working, the new documents app stopped working, the online accounts would not work, there were some ALSA problems, etc... Also it needs an official package manager/updater and a print queue manager. The list of apps in the dash would also take too long to load. A global menu would make sense in Gnome 3 as the window title bar only holds the name of the app. Being able to disable the accessibility icon would also be nice; someone created an app for that. Although the most annoying thing for me was the Empathy integration. If I would start Empathy, my screen would return to its' previous state and a message at the bottom would appear that Empathy is ready where afterwards I would have to select it in the window chooser again. Not to mention the fact that Empathy would hold two different conversation histories: one for the main window and one for the quick response bubble.

Great concept, but all of the bugs need to be worked out.

NormanFLinux

October 23rd, 2011, 10:19 AM

NormanFLinux

October 23rd, 2011, 10:21 AM

Both have had KDE as the default for years:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mandriva
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos

What do you mean they have dropped Gnome? Any link?

PCLOS has a variety of DE's: KDE, GNOME, XFCE, LXDE, e17 and Openbox.

If one DE doesn't suit you, odds are you'll find another that works. Underneath the shell, its the same PCLOS operating system.

NormanFLinux

October 23rd, 2011, 10:24 AM

Just looking on their websites cannot see any links to download distro with Gnome, Mandriva 2011 only has KDE available and PCLinuxOS has KDE; XFCE; LXDE; Openbox but no Gnome.

PCLOS offers GNOME on a separate website, Linuxgator:

http://linuxgator.org/

Sailejay

October 23rd, 2011, 10:56 AM

Gnome Shell (GS) and Unity-like desktop environments will be accepted en masse once hardware catches up to what these environments are trying to accomplish, probably within the next 10 years or so. Soon the way we interface with computers will be quite different and we'll look back at QWERTY the way drivers look back at cars with no power steering and engines that required a hand crank to start (which broke many a wrist btw). When that happens, sooner than we think I suspect, then GS and Unity-like desktop environments will be welcomed with open arms.

A lot of the backlash we see with respect to the new flavor of desktop environment seems to be rooted in the idea that these particular environments are ahead of their time, as many complaints focus on them being more useful for smart phones and touch screens; the latter of which will likely, in some form or another, be commonplace for desktop/laptop users, if desktops are even at the fore of personal computing, that is. Likely, even the hardcore power computing hobbyist will embrace the new hardware that makes better use of GS and Unity-like environments.

The idea behind GS and Unity is a good thing, I believe. They are young desktop environments, yet they don't have nearly the freedom of KDE et al., but they are evolving now so as new hardware (specifically input) trickle in these environments will have been improving for some time and will be put to good use on such systems.

Do you folks remember that movie with Tom Cruise where they would arrest people for their crimes before they committed them? Remember that computer they had? Yeah, Gnome Shell would be awesome on that machine.

gsmanners

October 23rd, 2011, 05:10 PM

A lot of the backlash we see with respect to the new flavor of desktop environment seems to be rooted in the idea that these particular environments are ahead of their time, as many complaints focus on them being more useful for smart phones and touch screens; the latter of which will likely, in some form or another, be commonplace for desktop/laptop users, if desktops are even at the fore of personal computing, that is. Likely, even the hardcore power computing hobbyist will embrace the new hardware that makes better use of GS and Unity-like environments.

:-k

That is some truly mad trolling there. \\:D/

A lot of the "backlash" may well be in your imagination, I think. What I'm seeing are people raising serious concerns over lack of configurability and usability. Real issues that need solving. But whatever. I guess keeping the interface hidden and unmovable gives it some mystical power to help you focus better on your work. LOL