GNOME: "We are not designing a desktop for people who like to..."

[SteveRiley]

In another thread the other day I mentioned something about a GNOME developer's statement regarding the design of the GNOME 3 desktop. Finally found it:

http://www.christoph-wickert.de/blog...te-of-the-day/

When I asked how to do all this in GNOME 3, Bastien (who helped to invent this nice mechanism in GNOME 2) after a little back and forth told me how things work in GNOME 3. They don’t…

“Because we’re not designing a desktop for people who like to choose their own terminal emulators.“

This “We are not designing a desktop for people who …” has become a new meme. GNOME 3 is not designed for people

• who want to minimize windows
• who want to change the theme, icons or fonts
• who want to configure power management actions
• who want to use panel applets/extensions that can easily be added or removed
• who want to select their native language on the login screen instead of having to re-login after they have changed it in the control center
• who want to use their keyboard layout so they can actually log in
• who want to shutdown their computers from within a GNOME session

and many other people I forgot. If GNOME continues to narrow down their target audience like this, I wonder if there is actually somebody left.

Has anyone done any research to determine whether GNOME 3 has actually attracted new users? I'm genuinely curious about this, because my suspicion is that it probably hasn't. Much like I doubt that Windows 8, with all its simplification, flattness, and whiteness, will attract new users.

[HalationEffect]

When I made the switch to Linux, I started off with GNOME (I think it was 2.0 or 2.2) because then, as now, a lot of major distros used it as their default DE. I tried to like it. I wanted to like it. I think I lasted about a week before I tried KDE 3.x and I never looked back.

Considering that one of the stated aims of the GNOME project is freedom, it's somewhat laughable that their attitude seems to be "You'll have exactly as much freedom as we say you can have!". While I do like the idea of sane defaults, the way that GNOME makes it hard or impossible to change many of those defaults is ludicrous. Computers are pretty much the opposite of homogeneous devices, and one size very definitely does not fit all. The same can be said for people, and their preferences for how they interact with their computing environments.

IMO, the GNOME devs need to watch Monty Python's Life of Brian a few times...

Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!

That one guy in the movie who piped up with "I'm not" in response to that... that guy was GNOME's target audience, I fear.

[serious_lee]

Finally! Some sane people on this planet.
Of course they are not gaining users. Gnome-shell makes Unity look like KDE. Linux Mint already has moved on to Cinnamon or Pepper or whatever they are cooking. Mate is gaining more and more users especially among Debian crowd. In fact every distro except Fedora seems to either use their own cooked version of GTK desktop (Unity/Cinnamon/Mate/Pantheon/....) or KDE, instead of using Gnome. You may have noticed how you don't see many new themes for Gnome-shell on dA anymore, which was buzz with that crap six or so months ago. I guess people got tired of sitting and staring at the blank desktop and moved on to DEs where they can get some work (or anything) done. Here's my middle finger to changing the desktop paradigm _!_

[whatthefunk]

I havent used the latest Unity version, but my impression of earlier versions was that it was doing essentially the same thing as Gnome 3. The general philosophy seems to be that in order to make computers easier to use, it is best to take away all the things that make computers easier to use. I hope to god that KDE doesnt go down this road.....

[tek_heretik]

This is exactly why I wound up at Kubuntu, and so glad I did. I am on a mission to make this installation the longest ever, set a new personal record, I am notorious for installing/re-installing, lol.

[GreyGeek]

....
That one guy in the movie who piped up with "I'm not" in response to that... that guy was GNOME's target audience, I fear.

I think your demographic has nailed the GNOME target audience. Case closed.

KDE better NOT go down that road of trying to please the most retarded user. One can make a DE that is too retarded to use. GNOME4/Unity is, IMO, has arrived at that nexus.

[pauly]

I think your demographic has nailed the GNOME target audience. Case closed.

KDE better NOT go down that road of trying to please the most retarded user. One can make a DE that is too retarded to use. GNOME4/Unity is, IMO, has arrived at that nexus.

Yeh but KDE has a netbook addition. It seems KDE can walk and chew gum.

[HalationEffect]

Yeh but KDE has a netbook addition. It seems KDE can walk and chew gum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_Workspaces

IMO, KDE is doing it the right way. A common back-end, with three different front-ends that have specific roles.

Plasma Desktop - for desktops and larger models of laptop.
Plasma Netbook - for smaller, lower spec models of laptop.
Plasma Active / Contour - for tablets, smartphones, etc.

As long as they resist any urges to to combine those three workspaces into one, I'm happy.

[GreyGeek]

...
As long as they resist any urges to to combine those three workspaces into one, I'm happy.

I agree, with one addition ... that during the install they give the user the opportunity to select which of the three desktops to install, and not assume that because of some detection algorithm one is automatically installed without asking. And, we mustn't forget the console install mode, either. During login I appreciated the opportunity to select which desktop I wanted to use that some other distros gave me. The console (NOT Konsole) option can come in handy when the xserver doesn't start and one wants to log in under the console and play around without having to go through the repair option on the boot menu.

[HalationEffect]

I agree, with one addition ... that during the install they give the user the opportunity to select which of the three desktops to install, and not assume that because of some detection algorithm one is automatically installed without asking. And, we mustn't forget the console install mode, either. During login I appreciated the opportunity to select which desktop I wanted to use that some other distros gave me. The console (NOT Konsole) option can come in handy when the xserver doesn't start and one wants to log in under the console and play around without having to go through the repair option on the boot menu.

Agreed. I really dislike software that thinks it knows better than I do what I'll want and goes ahead and makes those choices for me - thus taking away my choice. Ideally, software should say "I've pre-selected the option I think is best for you - hit <next> to accept that option, otherwise change the option before hitting <next>".

GNOME can crow about their 'sane defaults' all they like... but without the option for the user to easily over-ride those defaults, what you have is a form of software dictatorship.

[tek_heretik]

Agreed. I really dislike software that thinks it knows better than I do what I'll want and goes ahead and makes those choices for me - thus taking away my choice. Ideally, software should say "I've pre-selected the option I think is best for you - hit <next> to accept that option, otherwise change the option before hitting <next>".

GNOME can crow about their 'sane defaults' all they like... but without the option for the user to easily over-ride those defaults, what you have is a form of software dictatorship.

One could easily replace Gnome with Win-DOHs in that statement, one of the major reasons I abandoned Micro(management)soft, lol.

[67GTA]

I just got this article in my RSS feed right before reading this thread. They HAVE to be running users off. http://www.muktware.com/3821/nautilus-get-major-make-over-gnome-36

[K-Project]

I just got this article in my RSS feed right before reading this thread. They HAVE to be running users off. http://www.muktware.com/3821/nautilus-get-major-make-over-gnome-36

Good grief. :eek:

/cuddles Dolphin

This type of thing is definitely why I started to drift towards KDE. I don't dislike Gnome. I appreciate what they are trying to do, but over time I realised that my clinging to Gnome distros was borne out of a desire to see Gnome become something it was never going to be, and was never intended to be. Like all these Gnome 3 forks. Such a lot of wasted effort. And it's a waste of time to me as an end user, when I can just make KDE do everything I want it to do and more.

[NickStone]

When I fistt saw Gnome Shell straight away I thought that the developers had tablets / touchscreen monitors in mind. So it is no surprise to me to read that the developers are removing certain aspects of Nautilus so that it can be used on tablet pc's.

[dequire]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_Workspaces

IMO, KDE is doing it the right way. A common back-end, with three different front-ends that have specific roles.

Plasma Desktop - for desktops and larger models of laptop.
Plasma Netbook - for smaller, lower spec models of laptop.
Plasma Active / Contour - for tablets, smartphones, etc.

As long as they resist any urges to to combine those three workspaces into one, I'm happy.

And don't forget Plasma-Mediacenter