Why all the Gnome Shell Hate?

[click4851]

all change is not created equal, change for change sake, what I call churn is the worst. Hate gnome shell? I don't hate it, It just doesn't offer me anything I want. Making it default forces me to change it, to replace it. Thats makes me wonder if I am better suited by another distro. If enough users decide that Gnome "mispoke" , and maybe ought to rethink its "mission statement" and you may see even more change.

[ageofsteam]

It takes too much RAM, it takes too much screenspace, and it got rid of my PRECIOUS quick-launch + system-tray bar above my workspace. ;___; I freaked out until I realized I could go back to the former look.

Also, I love to alt+F2 run things, and the method of doing that is completely different (and inferior, to my mind) in Gnome Shell. Also, bringing up simple things like the package manager is difficult, due to its petulant need to search for every little thing when you just want to bring up one common application. And it remembers your typos- or, at least, mine did. One mistype when trying to run something from its location, and you're stuck with it coming up when you search for it. (It's possible that they've fixed that since, or that it was just with my settings- I ran screaming from Gnome Shell within a few days and never went back, so I can't say.)

The Vistified looks are bad enough, but it just doesn't *work* well enough for someone who prefers usability to looks. I also feel like I have less power over it, while I can tweak tweak tweak the older one...

It might well be better for some people, but it doesn't work with my style at all. I came to Linux to GET AWAY FROM Vista, not to go back to it!

I'm sorry if I seem like I'm ranting a bit, but tossing Gnome Shell onto us without warning- without an OBVIOUS way to disable it- seemed to me like somewhat of a betrayal, almost.

[vexorian]

I need around 600 plugins before I can make it be useful.

While other desktops (even Unity) are useful without all that much issue.

So, that's it.

[MadmanRB]

I have to agree with Vexorian.
Gnome Shell in the default form is horrible and you need so much in it just to even remotely make it usable.

[zombifier25]

Even more than Windows users, Linux users seem to get really indignant when anything changes. Especially things that have been around for a long time.

When Ubuntu changed the window buttons to the left side and the colour scheme to purple and orange... oh, it was enough to make people threaten to move to a different distro. For a freakin' colour scheme and a position change of a few buttons. I went through more change when I moved from a Macintosh to a PC.

Pulseaudio was buggy when first introduced to Ubuntu, but quickly matured to be a solid piece of desktop infrastructure. But you take a look in the Multimedia forum here and you'll still find people advising you remove Pulseaudio for any audio-related ailment.

In some circles, there's still hate toward KDE for bringing out KDE 4. Sure, its initial releases were unashamedly for early adopters only, but the fact that it was different seemed to be a big reason for loathing.

Unity and Gnome 3 have been victims of this too. Unity is good now. Gnome Shell was never bad and is more impressive than initially. But a lot of people are taking these changes almost as a personal insult.

You can't even change a system recovery keyboard combination without a lot of boo'ing and hissing, as witnessed when the X developers changed Control-Alt-Backspace to Alt-Printscreen-K. The latter does exactly the same thing, but works quicker and more reliably - and still people complain about "Ubuntu changes things for the sake of change". It makes me sick.

There's even people complaining about Wayland eventually replacing the X server. The software has not even come out yet and won't necessarily cause any changes in the user experience (except that things will work more reliably, faster and with support for more features of today's laptops), and there's still grumbling over "change for the sake of change".

I thought people would hate Windows 8 because of the change, but in fact Windows users seem fairly accepting of it. They can install a Start Menu replacement and there's a hack to boot straight to the desktop, and they're generally happy despite losing lots of functionality in their programs and having to tolerate the ugly flat colours of Metro.

It's just something about Linux users that makes them resistant to change.

OK, I'm going to link to your post everytime anyone rant about changes.

[Copper Bezel]

I have to agree with Vexorian.
Gnome Shell in the default form is horrible and you need so much in it just to even remotely make it usable.

There are definitely some features that seem oddly missing. It takes a couple of tweaks to get Unity working the way I like it, but fewer ticks in Compiz than extensions in Shell. Of course, the Gnome devs are baking in some of those options in the next version based on the feedback they've had; it just seems like an absurdly slow response. (And to an extent, I can understand a hesitation to be rash in making changes to core features based on feedback before users had a chance to get used to things, although I really feel like the Gnome folks are doing enough of that already without responding to user gripes.)

I really can't help thinking, though, that no matter how nontraditional, the system is going to sell on just how much a complete and polished product it is. I really can't get over all the bumbling around over the the notification tray, or the problem with the system panel with fullscreen videos that Unity fixed and Shell didn't.

With all the complaints Unity gets for having a rigid workflow, I really feel like the Gnome folks really haven't figured out just what their intended workflow is. And it's too bad, because I really do think that Gnome is the better concept, in concept.

[pissedoffdude]

At first glance, it's missing a lot, and I can see why people would bash it. But after customizing it and adding extensions, Gnome 3 has really grown on me. In fact, I find myself using it more than any other DE/Window manager on my laptop.

With the right extensions, you can get most of what you're looking for in a DE so long as your specs are decent. To bash it because of its default configuration is just wrong. We don't bash arch because it's not the easiest distro and commands like pacman -S are pretty counter-intuitive.

Ultimately, Gnome's configuration is left up to the distro that ships it, so I don't think the configuration problem lies soley with the Gnome devs.

[Bazon]

Gnome Shell is great. Mainly because of two reasons:
1. good design
2. EXTENSIONS!
So Gnome-Shell is an open platform you can customize very much. in contrast to unity. (which i hate.)

[Copper Bezel]

I just have to disagree that that's enough to carry any piece of software. Yeah, it's a better concept. Yeah, it's more open and configurable. It still has to work. Upgrading from 12.04 to 12.10 and seeing Unity fix the outstanding bugs from 12.04, while Shell rearranged some things and broke their notifications again instead of fixing their bugs, really changed my impression of what these two pieces of software are. I'd really like to continue to use Shell, but I can't bloody trust it.

[deadflowr]

Personally, I like gnome-shell but after having read this:

https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012...ing-in-threes/

I feel disturbed.

Giving credit where credit is due, I'd point out I found this in another thread about gnome:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...073181&page=11

Post#110 by VTpoet.