A GNOME Flavor Of Ubuntu - "GNOME-buntu"

[LinuxID10T]

Based on this article, it did get a lot of work done on it between 11.10 and 12.04:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/03/g...-ever-changed/

It still needs quite a bit more work before it can reach the level Gnome 2 did. Polish wise that is.

[Rantpaste]

So you subconsciously knew what shortcuts there were on KDE? You did no research whatsoever? Just installed it one day and were all "Hey, it's KDE! I know this!"? Please.

This. A million times this.

My girlfriend uses Windows frequently at work, and as an experiment I stuck her in front of a Windows 8 machine and watched her use it (she hated it and found it hard to use, but that's kinda irrelevant). Then, for kicks, I stuck her in front of a vanilla Fedora 16 install - she just picked it up and got on with it. The only thing she didn't get was virtual desktops, probably because there is no equivalent in the windows world and it's not very discoverable. So yeh, they could do some work on that.

The point is that it's a good desktop and novices pick it up without much hassle - indeed, with less hassle than other desktops. If you managed to learn KDE you've got the capacity to learn another DE. If you can't use it because you refuse to change how you do things, well good luck to you. Never update, never buy a new car, keep your old mobile phone..

[johnc]

Maybe I was just using a super-early-non-complete version or maybe I'm just incredibly stupid, but I couldn't figure out how to switch between active windows without going to the "Activities" section.

[Rantpaste]

Maybe I was just using a super-early-non-complete version or maybe I'm just incredibly stupid, but I couldn't figure out how to switch between active windows without going to the "Activities" section.

Alt-tab? There isn't a taskbar, if that's what you mean. The nice thing about the activities overview is that you can just flick the mouse into the corner then choose from a collection of nice big window thumbnails.

[drag]

If that's the case, it's safe to say that the most modern Linux desktop sucks quite badly. I'm fed up with this Gnome 3 bullshit crusade. During the last year, and after reading some posts like this, I installed a couple of virtual machines to see what the fuss was about, only to discover that either some people are on drugs, on a trolling trip, or outright fucking taking the piss. It's been quite a few years both my home and work computers run Linux, and I fucking swear to god I'd go back to Windows on an heartbeat if I were forced to use this Gnome 3 abomination. Basically, I could not find out how to do *anything* at all. Maybe there is some way to accomplish the kind of things I do with KDE, such as assign shortcuts to move and resize windows with the keyboard, to maximise them in either dimension, to change focus to windows to the right/left/top/bottom, to automatically group them or to customize per window and per application behaviour, but I couldn't work it out. Of course, I devoted the same time to learning how to do these things as I did with KDE, i.e., none whatsoever: I'm not going to look up how to do this kind of shit, I've got plenty of better things to do.

Maybe your frustration stems from the fact that your primary purpose of having a desktop is to futz around with it's settings.

[drag]

... and micromanage windows.

Just guessing.

(editing feature is broken right now)

Alt-tab? There isn't a taskbar, if that's what you mean. The nice thing about the activities overview is that you can just flick the mouse into the corner then choose from a collection of nice big window thumbnails.

Or just hit a single button and you go into overview. From there you can do web searches and application searches and whatever else you want.


alt-tab --> switch between applications
alt-~ --> switch between windows in a application
alt-tab+arrow keys --> select any window from any application from any desktop
alt-arrow_up --> move up a desktop
alt-arrow_down --> move down a desktop
shift+alt+arrow_up/down --> Move windows up and down the desktop

Maximize window --> drag window to top of screen
maximize window 2 --> double tap window title
Maximize left side --> drag window to left of screen
maximize right side --> drag window to right of screen.


Gnome-tweak-tool provides:
* Have file manager manage desktop
-- computer icon on desktop
-- Home icon on desktop
-- Network servers icon on desktop
-- mounted volumes icon on desktop

* Change fonts
-- scale fonts
-- select various fonts

* Shell
-- modify clock settings
-- select buttons on titlebar (maximize, minimize, close)
-- action on lid close for laptops for battery and AC

* Shell extensions
-- disable/activate extensions

* Theme
-- manage various themes

* Windows
-- change default window behavior. (sloppy focus/middle click/right click/etc)


Extensions that I use:
* remove accessibility extension
* gpaste extension (clipboard manager)
* gtile (tiling windows)
* media player (control media player from panel)
* user themes for shell
* places status indicator (select home/downloads/removable devices/etc from panel)

Then there are all sorts of crap like that.

You can add launchers to the panel if you want. You can have a bottom panel. You can put a application menu in the panel. Get rid of the clock.

Pretty much anything you want. The fact that it's scriptable and extensionable makes pretty much anything you want possible. Far more flexible then Metacity ever was.

[Delgarde]

I love this line:

It was also said, "We have an opportunity to be the 'most GNOME distribution' but shipping as close to upstream as possible."

Really? Because that niche is kind of taken - for all practical purposes, Fedora *is* shipping upstream Gnome. And since many Fedora contributors are also major players in upstream Gnome, I really don't see that changing.

[yotambien]

So you subconsciously knew what shortcuts there were on KDE? You did no research whatsoever? Just installed it one day and were all "Hey, it's KDE! I know this!"? Please.

• The shortcuts to do stuff are in the shortcuts control settings (Go to activities, type in shortcuts and press return if you don't want to click as you're so l33t).
• You get default shortcuts for moving windows to the left/right and to maximise/unmaximise them with LOGO+LEFT, LOGO+RIGHT, LOGO+UP and LOGO+DOWN respectively.
• CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+{UP,DOWN} will move your window to a different desktops (creating desktops on the fly as needed), removing the shift will just let you change desktop. It's been like this since Gnome 1.X.
• Grouping windows? Not so much - but then, as we're venting bile based on pure conjecture, maybe you failed to realise that app windows *are* grouped together. ALT+TAB for moving between apps, ALT+` to move between windows of apps.
• Customising per windows/per app? Not a clue what that means - you can hack macros into your window manager to deal with apps that don't do the right thing?

Brilliant. Just brilliant.


FTFY

No, I did no research beyond clicking the window operations menu icon, tweaking whatever I felt like and customising kwin's shortcuts in the options. Truth be told, I'd missed Gnome's keyboards shortcut sub-menu. It's actually there, although it appears well poorer than what you get in KDE. It should be obvious, but the reason I didn't have to look stuff up is because KDE hasn't really changed the way I always interacted with computers (no, I don't use activities). Did you really need to read your new TV set or microwave oven manuals? And yet, even this isn't a valid excuse for an interface to appear cryptic: I din't have to check out the manual of my smartphone to figure it out, and it could be argued that its interface departs significantly from the traditional computer desktop.

In your hurry to come up with a witty retort you failed to understand what I was getting at and why. Mr drag made quite a claim regarding gnome-shell, which according to him it represents the most modern linux desktop and provides the most adequate environment for "multitasking" activities, representing a "significant improvement in the speed of switching/selecting between large numbers of windows". My problem with this blanket statement is that it's worded as if it were matter-of-fact, fruit of years of observation and research on how users interact with their desktops. Whereas, considering the different habits, needs and experiences different users have, it's nothing more than pure bollocking.

So again, given that, with my current setup, it takes me no time and find no trouble at all to work out my way through my desktop, what gnome-shell features justify the previous claim? What benchmarks show the mentioned "significant improvements"?

See, the English language has this wonderful thing called "the first person". I suggest using it more often in cases like this.

Maybe your frustration stems from the fact that your primary purpose of having a desktop is to futz around with it's settings.

How exactly you reached that conclusion is a mistery. I made it perfectly clear that I don't enjoy looking up solutions to problems that shouldn't be there in the first place. I'll give you that a good part of why my setup works for me is that I was able to customize it to my liking, to the point that, e.g., certain applications will appear at certain locations, with certain size and without decorations. You seem to be implying that there's no need for this with gnome-shell for it somehow makes a good job at sorting it all out. This is what I'm questioning after trying it however so briefly. And this is what you haven't yet provided any evidence for. You'll understand that knowing that I can change the clock or font settings with some extra tool doesn't precisely support your point.