Gnome feels uneasy to use.

[Gat Pelsinger]

So I finally switched to a distro like Ubuntu to mark the day of my complete Windows independence (hopefully). But I already had this feeling in my mind that Gnome won't suite me. Last time I had a very aggressive opinion about Gnome but I have used it a bit now and it is not as bad as I thought, or at least the Ubuntu version (vanilla Gnome is a different story). 

 

I really was against the application menu. The GUI suites more to a touchscreen device. But I had this second thought that if GUI is made to increase your productivity in a different way, then going full GUI should help. And I think that is right. Launching applications is kind of faster. But the GUI is designed in such a way that it gives us a lot of information on the screen that it becomes harder for use to find the application we want. What I am saying should make sense. Still though, it is probably because I am coming from Windows and I just need to get used to it. I just need people's opinions on how they feel of Gnome.

 

Something that is actually much bothering, is having the top bar which has the time and the quick panel. Out of the box Gnome feels suffocating. The left app pane combined with the top bar take a bit of your screen space. On one of my laptops which has a poor 768p display, the moment I installed Gnome (on Debian), I was panicking like heck because I had quite a little screen space to really work and breath. On this machine it has a 1080p display and well, it still feels suffocating. That is why I tweaked it a little bit. Positioned the app panel down so it feels Windows-like, made it dynamically appear (I was impressed how responsive it actually is), and made it not be a whole panel. And no way I am scaling it higher than 100, even if fonts and some graphics are hard to read. I know I can increase the font size (gnome-tweaks).

 

But the top bar does still bother me. For example if I have a maximized window open, I am generally made to go all up there to control the window, but I end up clicking on the top bar. There is no apparent setting to control that. Can I even customize it? I would like to make it Windows like. Merge the app panel with the stuff shown in the top. The top bar anyways has a lot of blank space so it would be very space efficient to merge it with the app panel.

 

There are some other minors stuff that I would like to change are like the animation speed and know how to switch between workspaces fast. Clicking right and left is not responsive at all. Key bind?

 

[OhioYJ]

Welcome to Gnome 3, and Gnome has no one to blame but themselves. Gnome 2 was amazing. Then the Gnome developers decided they knew better than all their users and to ignore the huge backlash to Gnome 3, and it's been all downhill since.

[RONOTHAN##]

37 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I just need people's opinions on how they feel of Gnome.

It sucks for desktops, but is amazing for laptops. There very much are annoyances with the UI and it does feel like it was designed for touch screens, though where it shines is in its virtual desktop implementation. It is by far the most seamless and easy to use vitual desktop implementation I've ever used with automatically adding and removing workspaces as needed. On a desktop where you can have 3+ monitors for work, it doesn't help much and the UI annoyances outweigh its potential benefit, but on a laptop where you only have a single screen and can easily swap between workspaces with a three finger swipe, its amazing. 

 

Most of the UI issues with it on desktop can be fixed extensions, though IMO if you don't want the virtual desktop implementation, you're better off using KDE or Cinnimon instead. 

 

54 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Can I even customize it?

If you can think about it, there's probably an extension for it. Don't know what it would be called off the top of my head (it's been about a year since I've daily driven Linux on my laptops) though there are plenty of extensions that would do anything you want it to. Dash2dock is the big one for giving you a MacOS style application bar, and I do know there is one specifically for giving the MacOS style global action bar though I forget what it's called. 

 

59 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I would like to change are like the animation speed and know how to switch between workspaces fast.

Animation speed I'm pretty sure you need to have an extension for, switching between workspaces has Win+Shift+PgUp or PgDn (this can be edited in settings). I do know there is (or at least was) an extension that gave you the ability to switch workspaces by scrolling on the top bar, that was what I ended up using when I used a moues. 

 

 

 

TL;DR: Get some extensions or switch to KDE. 

[wasab]

On Linux there are two flagship desktop enviorment. KDE and gnome. All other ones are shrimps compared to these two whales and so most distros default to either one or the other. Gnome is by far more popular because you know, it is gnu. 

 

If you have used macos, Gnome should be quite familiar. If windows only past, it does feel a bit alien. 

[Nayr438]

11 hours ago, wasab said:

Gnome is by far more popular because you know, it is gnu.

GNOME hasn't been part of GNU since 2019. It's popular because GNOME is mostly backed by RedHat and has a actual release schedule. It's the Enterprise Linux Desktop.

 

11 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

Welcome to Gnome 3, and Gnome has no one to blame but themselves. Gnome 2 was amazing. Then the Gnome developers decided they knew better than all their users and to ignore the huge backlash to Gnome 3, and it's been all downhill since.

Because their target users are Enterprise users and people who do simple tasks and want something that just kind of works without being over complicated or in the way.

Your not the target audience anymore.

 

11 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Most of the UI issues with it on desktop can be fixed extensions

Except these are considered unsupported and frequently break between GNOME updates, the more upstream you are the more likely you are to run into it, just be aware of that.
 

12 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Positioned the app panel down so it feels Windows-like, made it dynamically appear (I was impressed how responsive it actually is), and made it not be a whole panel.

I would like to make it Windows like.

It's sounds more like you want something more customizable and similar to Windows in which case KDE Plasma would be a better fit.

 

12 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I just need people's opinions on how they feel of Gnome.

It's designed to be simple, accessible, and to stay out of the way.
Some complaints I do have

• They dropped appindicator because it was supposedly in the way...
  • Canonical maintains a extension that does track upstream.
• Nautilus drag and drop has been broken since portals was introduced.
• Nautilus hides the URL bar behind a keybind so users don't get confused...
• Apps tend to be oversimplified and offer limited functionality
• GNOME Devs like to pretend that other Desktop Environments don't exist.
• GNOME only focuses on standards that benefit its Enterprise user base
• GNOME Devs can be hostile towards other projects and contributors

Overall though I think GNOME is fine if your not a power user and just want something that mostly works, with that said I think most Distros butcher GNOME in various ways.

I personally use KDE and GNOME and find they both have their strengths and weaknesses and will choose one based on what the system is used for.

[Gat Pelsinger]

13 hours ago, wasab said:

Gnome is by far more popular because you know, it is gnu. 

Wait really? What does GNU has to do with Gnome?

[Nayr438]

16 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Wait really? What does GNU has to do with Gnome?

GNOME was originally a GNU project dating back to 1997 but this hasn't been the case for awhile. In 2009 the GNOME Team proposed splitting off from GNU and in 2019 they officially did with GNU removing any references remaining in 2021.
https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relationship-gnu-fsf/

 

[thevictor390]

I have bounced off of Gnome since Gnome 3. Too much mouse movement, the applications menu feels like it's for a touch screen but the rest of it doesn't. It seems to be designed around gestures and shortcuts but not clicks.

[uzivkovic97]

On 5/22/2024 at 11:30 PM, Gat Pelsinger said:

So I finally switched to a distro like Ubuntu to mark the day of my complete Windows independence (hopefully). But I already had this feeling in my mind that Gnome won't suite me. Last time I had a very aggressive opinion about Gnome but I have used it a bit now and it is not as bad as I thought, or at least the Ubuntu version (vanilla Gnome is a different story). 

 

I really was against the application menu. The GUI suites more to a touchscreen device. But I had this second thought that if GUI is made to increase your productivity in a different way, then going full GUI should help. And I think that is right. Launching applications is kind of faster. But the GUI is designed in such a way that it gives us a lot of information on the screen that it becomes harder for use to find the application we want. What I am saying should make sense. Still though, it is probably because I am coming from Windows and I just need to get used to it. I just need people's opinions on how they feel of Gnome.

 

Something that is actually much bothering, is having the top bar which has the time and the quick panel. Out of the box Gnome feels suffocating. The left app pane combined with the top bar take a bit of your screen space. On one of my laptops which has a poor 768p display, the moment I installed Gnome (on Debian), I was panicking like heck because I had quite a little screen space to really work and breath. On this machine it has a 1080p display and well, it still feels suffocating. That is why I tweaked it a little bit. Positioned the app panel down so it feels Windows-like, made it dynamically appear (I was impressed how responsive it actually is), and made it not be a whole panel. And no way I am scaling it higher than 100, even if fonts and some graphics are hard to read. I know I can increase the font size (gnome-tweaks).

 

But the top bar does still bother me. For example if I have a maximized window open, I am generally made to go all up there to control the window, but I end up clicking on the top bar. There is no apparent setting to control that. Can I even customize it? I would like to make it Windows like. Merge the app panel with the stuff shown in the top. The top bar anyways has a lot of blank space so it would be very space efficient to merge it with the app panel.

 

There are some other minors stuff that I would like to change are like the animation speed and know how to switch between workspaces fast. Clicking right and left is not responsive at all. Key bind?

 

I found Gnome to work best for me. Was bouncing from different Distros to Windows in the past few years up until few days ago when I finally commited to using Linux all the time. I'm currently on POP!_OS and I love it. Other DE's (like KDE Plasma) might be more customizable but I found Gnome to be best for me.

As for merging top and bottom panels, I use extension called ''Dash to panel".
This is how it looks like in my case.
 

[10leej]

I made this video a while ago maybe it can help

[Gat Pelsinger]

46 minutes ago, 10leej said:

I made this video a while ago maybe it can help

Oh lol it's you! Am gonna sub :D.

[10leej]

6 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Oh lol it's you! Am gonna sub :D.

I'll warn you now. I dont target new to linux users.

[wasab]

On 5/27/2024 at 3:44 AM, uzivkovic97 said:

I found Gnome to work best for me. Was bouncing from different Distros to Windows in the past few years up until few days ago when I finally commited to using Linux all the time. I'm currently on POP!_OS and I love it. Other DE's (like KDE Plasma) might be more customizable but I found Gnome to be best for me.

As for merging top and bottom panels, I use extension called ''Dash to panel".
This is how it looks like in my case.
 

My gnome setup is always hide the panel and install plank to use as a dock. It is just like a Mac desktop. Too bad plank has no wayland support 

[Gat Pelsinger]

45 minutes ago, wasab said:

Too bad plank has no wayland support 

Xorg superior .

 

maybe actually.

[uzivkovic97]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

My gnome setup is always hide the panel and install plank to use as a dock. It is just like a Mac desktop. Too bad plank has no wayland support 

Dash to panel works best for me because it takes less screen space than default (top and bottom panels), and I'm kinda used to Windows taskbar, so i like tray icons and date and time to be bottom right. 

Used Mac only one time and I didn't like how it looks at all