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FF4m3
@bhn.net

FF4m3

Anon

Is GNOME in Free Fall?

Is GNOME in Free Fall?:

..."the GNOME developers walked away from their existing user base, ignored the protests with 'trust us, we know better than you what you really want,' and went ahead and designed something completely unsuitable for keyboard and mouse input, and now they wonder where their users went"...

Linux Mint developers work on GNOME file manager fork:

GNOME is continuing to lose supporters as now part of the Linux Mint programming team start working on a fork of the GNOME file manger, Nautilus.

Linux Mint team forks Nautilus:

After creating its own GNOME Shell and Mutter forks, Nautilus is the third major component of the GNOME desktop stack that the Linux Mint team has decided to fork and maintain itself... the Elementary project also maintains its own derivative of Nautilus.

pablo
MVM
join:2003-06-23

1 edit

pablo

MVM

Hi,

The above sounds like early KDE 4.0, 4.1 ... 4.3(?) releases. I'm on KDE 4.8 and soon I'll go to KDE 4.9.

I stuck with KDE 3.5 until 4.x became suitable for /my/ needs. I'm glad I'm on 4.8 (and I can't wait to get to 4.9)

Edit: I decided to burn in KDE 4.9 on my laptop. It's upgrading now. If my point above was too subtle, there are "chicken little's" in the world and they do have their place. I believe their points are counter-balanced with those who are of the "cutting/bleeding edge" variety.

Cheers,
-pablo
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to FF4m3

Premium Member

to FF4m3
Linux playing catch-up with Windows 8?

Bottom line? "I just don't get it," Mack concluded. "I realize touch screens are great for some things, but they are harder for things like programming or even writing moderately sized documents, yet the entire industry seems to want to abandon the mouse and keyboard despite what their own users are telling them.


rexbinary
MOD King
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join:2005-01-26
Plano, TX
·Frontier FiberOp..

1 recommendation

rexbinary to FF4m3

Premium Member

to FF4m3
This is something I see written a lot but I don't understand it.

GNOME 2 was 'inspired by' Mac OS Classic
KDE was 'inspired by' Windows
GNOME 3 was 'inspired by' Mac OS X (Along with Unity)

I see nothing in GNOME 3 that would make it suitable for touchscreen use, just like Mac OS X is not suitable for touchscreen use. Does anyone have any examples? I think the people that make these comments don't own a iOS device or an Android device, or I am just missing something here.

On a side note, the GNOME 2 to GNOME 3 transition was not a big jump for me having been though the Mac OS Classic to Mac OS X transition. I think the users that feel shell shocked with this transition probably never used a Mac as well.

timcuth
Braves Fan
Premium Member
join:2000-09-18
Pelham, AL

timcuth to FF4m3

Premium Member

to FF4m3
I cannot speak for everyone, of course, but Gnome 3 with gnome-shell is my DE of choice.

Tim

No_Strings

join:2001-11-22
The OC

2 recommendations

No_Strings to FF4m3

to FF4m3
Here's the problem: the first link's author misses the mark.
GNOME developers walked away from their existing user base, ignored the protests with 'trust us, we know better than you what you really want,'
Innovation does not come from focus groups or feedback clicks. It comes from leaders with a vision who offer something beyond incremental features. Steve Jobs is the poster child for such an approach. iPod/iPhone users didn't know they needed (funny word, "need") those things until Steve built it for them.

Not every innovation is successful and "new" or "different" doesn't equal enthusiastic adoption. I have no idea if GNOME is losing users or gaining new ones; I wouldn't presume to predict whether they are poised for the future or headed off a cliff.

It's a flawed premise, though, to say that not listening to your users is a recipe for disaster.

Secondly, does it not indicate support for GNOME that there is increased development activity around some of the components, even forks of them? Don't those projects offer the potential to improve the platform vs. abandoning it for KDE or some other DE?

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
Premium Member
join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

Maxo to rexbinary

Premium Member

to rexbinary
said by rexbinary:

I see nothing in GNOME 3 that would make it suitable for touchscreen use, just like Mac OS X is not suitable for touchscreen use. Does anyone have any examples? I think the people that make these comments don't own a iOS device or an Android device, or I am just missing something here.

THIS.
I am a programmer, and I use Unity to great effect. It is very keyboard friendly, and allows me to work much smarter.
If I want to open SQL Developer I hit then 'S' followed by and it loads. A terminal can be brought up with ++t. I put different tasks on different virtual desktops and can quickly execute a command from a drop down menu with + and type in whatever without having to find where in the menu structure it was placed.
Unity is absolutely for desktops and power users.
I've played around in Gnome 3. I keep going back to Unity, which is probably speaks more to which desktop I've invested myself in being comfortable than the merits of one over the other.

TuxRaiderPen
A Warm Embrace
join:2009-06-02
Outer Rim

TuxRaiderPen to timcuth

Member

to timcuth
said by timcuth:

I cannot speak for everyone, of course, but Gnome 3 with gnome-shell is my DE of choice.

Tim

You're not alone.

Love my Gnome 3 setup (Fedora 17).

FF4m3
@bhn.net

FF4m3 to FF4m3

Anon

to FF4m3
Personally I've never run GNOME. The closest I've come to it is Xfce.

That said, I find these discussions interesting.

Is GNOME "Staring into the abyss?":

Benjamin Otte, a leading GNOME developer thinks GNOME, once a popular Linux/Unix desktop but now more often used as a foundation for other desktop interfaces, is "staring into the abyss."

By July 2012, of all the major Linux distributors only Fedora remains a steadfast GNOME 3.x supporter. There's a reason for that: Otte states that GNOME is a Red Hat project.

"If you look at the Ohloh statistics again and ignore the 3 people working almost exclusively on Gstreamer [an open-source multimedia framework] and the 2 working on translations, you get 10 Red Hat employees and 5 others. (The 2nd page looks like 6 Red Hat employees versus 8 others with 6 translators/documenters.) This gives the GNOME project essentially a bus factor of 1.”

Bus factor? It's engineering/developer slang for how many people would need to be hit by a bus before a project would be dead. The lower the number, the more likely it is that the project is too fragile and could easily die. In other words, if Red Hat ever decided that GNOME wasn't worth investing in, the project would be dead in the water. You can see why Otte thinks this when he also observed that core developers are leaving and that GNOME is understaffed.

From OS News by Thom Holwerda:

This is not a project that can be succesfully developed by a handful of developers - it needs more than that. And, Otte points out, the situation is only getting worse, since traditional GNOME/Gtk supporters, like SUSE and Nokia, are backing down.

I'm getting the feeling these concerns aren't exactly new, and that a solution isn't exactly right around the corner. GNOME took a gamble, and it isn't working out. I'm sure we'll see enough comments from people who like GNOME 3, but there's simply not enough of you. That doesn't mean GNOME 3 sucks - it simply means it isn't popular enough to sustain itself.

Add to all this the fact that GNOME has zero presence on the next wave of devices (tablets and smartphones) and the picture is complete - and dire. Sadly, I'm afraid heels will be dug into the sand regarding GNOME 3, and we'll see a doubling-down on an environment people simply don't want, instead of trying to find out what users do want.


AVD
Respice, Adspice, Prospice
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join:2003-02-06
Onion, NJ

AVD to No_Strings

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to No_Strings
said by No_Strings:

iPod/iPhone users didn't know they needed (funny word, "need") those things until Steve built it for them.

not to derail, but the general consensus was that pre iPhones (basically winmo) sucked eggs and something better was needed.

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
Premium Member
join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

Maxo to FF4m3

Premium Member

to FF4m3
When Otte talks about Gnome, I think it is important to note that Ubuntu is a Gnome distribution. The shell is Unity, but Gnome powers that shell. So while Canonical may not be directly working on Gnome Shell, it is putting resources into the Gnome technologies. Given their heavy investment into Gnome, I don't think they could let it die.

No_Strings

join:2001-11-22
The OC

No_Strings to AVD

to AVD
As a former frustrated user of a company-issued Samsung Blackjack II, I could not agree more.
15444104 (banned)
join:2012-06-11

1 recommendation

15444104 (banned) to dave

Member

to dave
said by dave:

Linux playing catch-up with Windows 8?

Bottom line? "I just don't get it," Mack concluded. "I realize touch screens are great for some things, but they are harder for things like programming or even writing moderately sized documents, yet the entire industry seems to want to abandon the mouse and keyboard despite what their own users are telling them.

Windowss 8 with that OBNOXIOUS Metro UI is going to FAIL, horrifically, Vista will look good after the disaster that will result from Windows 8.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

Perhaps: but the points I was making were about "user interface developers ignoring the opinions of the user base" and "user interface rushing to touch and tablet and brushing aside the truth that people still want mouse and keyboard".

FF4m3
@bhn.net

FF4m3 to FF4m3

Anon

to FF4m3
Which Linux Desktop Will Dominate in the Future?:

...GNOME 3 would not only lag behind KDE for code maturity and innovation, but fail catastrophically with users, resulting in alternative interfaces, ranging from Ubuntu's Unity to Linux Mint's re-creations of GNOME 2 in Cinnamon and Mate.

The collapse is so thorough that GNOME is reportedly now talking about obtaining a twenty percent share of the Linux desktop by 2020, where a few years ago its share was well over forty percent.

I know of no figures for traditional desktop usage in 2012, but LinuxQuestion's 2011 survey showed KDE in front, followed by Xfce. Cinnamon was too new to make the survey at all, and Mate registered only a few percent, but, like Unity, both are almost certain to do better this year.

Some, or even all three of these desktops are likely to do better than the 19% that GNOME 3 managed in 2011. GNOME 3 itself will probably show even further decline. As for actual numbers of users, all traditional desktops are likely to lose ground to mobile devices.

Today, the Cold War of the giants, of KDE vs. GNOME, is over. We are in a new era of diversity (or fragmentation, if you think having more choices is a bad thing). So which, if any desktops are likely to dominate in the next few years?

Which will be the source of major innovations? Which will fail to emerge from the pack? Which are likely to be in the running?

None of these questions are as easy to answer as they were three years ago.


FiReSTaRT
Premium Member
join:2010-02-26
Canada

FiReSTaRT

Premium Member

Who's gonna dominate? Pretty obvious. Spacecoke Mark has his army of Kool Aid Kids, almost as bad as the fruit fanbois. He really worked on building a cult and Ubuntu's still the most popular distro, that ships with Unity by default. He's also investing in alternative devices like tablets and TV's, which will familiarize more consumers with his interface. Unity will be #1 soon enough.

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
Premium Member
join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

1 recommendation

Maxo

Premium Member

said by FiReSTaRT:

Who's gonna dominate? Pretty obvious. Spacecoke Mark has his army of Kool Aid Kids, almost as bad as the fruit fanbois. He really worked on building a cult

Why is it necessary to be insulting every time you talk about Ubuntu? Is it out of the realm of possibility that Mark is doing something that others genuinely appreciate and perhaps that's a good thing? Is it so hurtful to you that people do things that are not your personal preference?

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

Premium Member

said by Maxo:

Why is it necessary to be insulting every time you talk about Ubuntu? Is it out of the realm of possibility that Mark is doing something that others genuinely appreciate and perhaps that's a good thing?

He does have a point.

Unity, and before it, the Gnome layout in Ubuntu, were entirely driven by Mark's vision. To boot, he rulse the thing with an Iron fist as well.

As it stands I find Unity to be more useable, even if I'm not fond of it aesthetically, so as much as history is proving Mark right; right now, it doesn't make him any less inflexible.

No_Strings

join:2001-11-22
The OC

4 recommendations

No_Strings

The point was people can disagree with the direction of a company or its products and still be adult about it. "Spacecoke Mark" is no better than referring to Apple as "crapple."

In fact, most of us are far more likely to listen to an alternative view when it's professionally presented. Too often, that's not the case in this forum.
pablo
MVM
join:2003-06-23

1 recommendation

pablo

MVM

... and to No_Strings See Profile point, it's rare that I ever block anyone on here but there's one person in this forum who I have blocked because I simply got tired of picking out the wheat from the /excessive/ chaff in his posts.

Cheers,
-pablo
Expand your moderator at work

Santa Fe
BUT.....I Digress!

join:2000-08-22
Freight Yard

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Santa Fe to FF4m3

to FF4m3

Re: Is GNOME in Free Fall?

Well maybe I'm weird, but I don't wish to see GNOME fail, even IF Unity was the reason I went Xfce only. (That & having 4 different versions (KDE, Xfce, GNOME, LXDE) on the same computer made for some fun dependency problems).

FiReSTaRT
Premium Member
join:2010-02-26
Canada

1 edit

1 recommendation

FiReSTaRT to FF4m3

Premium Member

to FF4m3

1) Mark decided to puke Unity onto the desktop market and lock down any real alternatives with an iron fist, while ignoring the general consensus that most Ubuntu users hated it. That is why he lost a good chunk of the dominant desktop share that he used to enjoy. He is banking on regaining it not by providing a superior desktop experience but by getting people hooked on Unity by using their smart TV's and tablets and switching to a familiar experience on the desktop.

2) This has nothing to do with others using something other than my preference. It's about him saying to me "your preference, doesn't matter, it's my way or the highway." Well, I'm enjoying the highway, but I lost a lot of respect for that man as a result of his actions.

3) If you're taking exception to the cult statement, you need to take a closer look at the infrastructure. He set up a bunch of LUG's all over the globe with the goal of preaching his religion, has conferences where they meet and promote his vision and they raise him up on the pedestal as their glorious leader. There are some benefits to that as they exposed more people to GNU/Linux, but he's backing away from being associated with Linux anyway.

4) Most Ubuntu users that I've had the dubious pleasure of assisting don't even know they're using GNU/Linux. "What operating system are you using?" "Uhmmm... Ubuntu" Chances are, a Mac user is more likely to know how to open the Terminal than a Ubuntu user. Yes, the GNU/Linux community needs those too as some eventually learn a thing or two and contribute, but not if they're completely disassociated from what Ubuntu really is - a distribution of GNU/Linux.
dave
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join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

Linux users seem to be their own worst enemies.

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
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join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

Maxo to FiReSTaRT

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to FiReSTaRT
I wasn't asking why you don't like Unity. I was asking why you couldn't talk about it like an adult.
I could respond to your specific concerns, but I don't want to derail the Gnome3 conversation to one about Unity.
For the record, the name is Mark Shuttleworth, and those who like Unity are people, not Kool Aid.
Regardless of your concerns about Unity, how it was implemented, and what that means for the future of Ubuntu, there's no reason to make yourself look bad by choosing the language of TRP.
Edit: If a mod wants to move this portion of the thread to its own topic, I'd be happy to discuss it.

nwrickert
Mod
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Geneva, IL

nwrickert to dave

Mod

to dave
said by dave:

Linux users seem to be their own worst enemies.

It sometimes seems that way.

There's a lot of choice in distros and in desktop environments. I'm not sure why some people get into an ideological war about it. It is easier to just move on to another choice.

FiReSTaRT
Premium Member
join:2010-02-26
Canada

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FiReSTaRT to Maxo

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to Maxo
The GNOME hippies will suffer the same fate as Canonical in the short run. The difference is that they don't have any real driving force to take them onto the tablets, smartphones and TV's the way Canonical does, so whatever they lose in userbase will be permanently lost. Also, they didn't build up a proper cult. Gotta give Mark points for that.

If you're wondering about why both spacecoke Mark and the GNOME hippies are getting a bit of hostility from some of us, that's because both entities decided to unilaterally throw their desktop userbase under the bus and dictate what we're supposed to like. Yes, we appreciate what they've done in the past, but they ended up abandoning us. Only the zealots and those who don't know that there are alternatives stick with either of the 2.

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
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join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

Maxo

Premium Member

said by FiReSTaRT:

If you're wondering about why both spacecoke Mark and the GNOME hippies are getting a bit of hostility from some of us

Nope, I'm asking why your chose of words has to be such that it makes you look childish.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to nwrickert

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to nwrickert
It's religion. Fork = schism.

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
Premium Member
join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

Maxo

Premium Member