Linux Mint Will Adopt Gnome 3 315
sfcrazy points to news, posted in the current blog post about Linux mint statistics, that the Linux Mint team "has thus decided that in the next version of Linux Mint 12, they will continue to support Gnome 2, but will also introduce Gnome 3." Related news from an anonymous reader:"Contributors in the GNOME community have started a GNOME desktop user survey. The GNOME Foundation wouldn't endorse any survey, but the community has put together a 23-question desktop survey. Regardless if you use GNOME, they encourage all Linux users to participate."
Mint- How many slashdotters out here use it? (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand Mint has a rather loyal (and loud) user base. I gave it a try, but wasn't very impressed. My experience was pretty much a buggier, less supported version of ubuntu. Mint seems to be tailored for a very specific environment and group of users, and falls apart quickly if you go off the rails just a little.
I would not be surprised if it's popularity picks up, however, because there are lot of users that don't like unity. I don't like unity either, but I like a lot of the other subtle-yet-important tweaks and tools Ubuntu delivers that makes using linux a whole lot less painful. Ubuntu is the only distro I've ever used that makes setting up vpn and wireless internet connections remotely easy.
That said, I've been using ubuntu with xfce4 (nope, not xubuntu) instead of the unity wm. Crisp, clean, fast, simplicity with all the powerful apps a click away if I want them.
Re:GNOME Survey (Score:4, Interesting)
I really hope the input from the phoronix survey gets forwarded to the GNOME devs. Especially the comment field. I am also excited to see the results as a whole. How many are really still holding onto their 2.x installs like myself? Using GNOME for about 10 years now and am looking for a decent replacement for 2.32 (or until gentoo gets rid of 2.x)
I don't want to put all the GNOME devs in one basket but after what they pulled with the 3 release , I refuse to use it. It just appears they they keep getting more and more out of touch. After reading things like this [slashdot.org]and for laughs this one [slashdot.org] too.
Decouple GUI from OS (Score:4, Interesting)
Why does every distro but Debian have this weird hangup where the GUI cannot be decoupled from the OS?
Or rephrased, why does Debian apparently find it easy to do, whereas the big corporate OSes just can't handle it?
(I use Debian w/ xfce and on a netbook with a dead mouse pad, ratpoison)
Does anyone expect this trend to accelerate, perhaps the next Ubuntu will only ship with emacs and if you want to edit with vi, well then you'll just have to install Arch which will only have vi and no emacs? Maybe this game will become popular with languages and if you want Python you'll only be able to select from certain distros?
Re:GNOME Survey (Score:2, Interesting)
While X11 was originally designed that way, 3D especially along with other graphics acceleration makes that type of disconnect perform badly. I would like to see something new, with X11 support still baked in for native UI. I think most people have moved more to remote desktop solutions like RDP and VNC as X11 over the internet, for example, at higher resolutions just performs rather poorly, and is a bandwidth hog.
I can't be the only one can I? (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only developer using a very large desktop area? I must be because both Mac, Windows, Unity and Gnome 3.0 SUCK DONKEYBALLS when all you need from your desktop is a very large space to put windows on. KDE is the worsed. MS tried the Active Desktop thing before and it only makes sense for people that see the desktop. I don't, there are windows in front of it on which I am doing my work. I HATE files on the desktop because I first need remove windows to access it. At most I use it because it is an easy place to find in most file managers.
As an experienced users, focus follows mouse is also a must. I very often switch input between windows/apps and that means every click to focus I don't have to do saves a lot of time and agro. It is so bad that on windows I routinely have input go to wrong window simply because I am so used to not having to click a window or WORSE part of a window to have THAT part of my screen receive input.Why should I ever want to move the mouse away from a window and still have the input go to that window?
The OSX unified menu is not just a killer of focus follows mouse (the menu would change as your mouse passes other windows on the way to menu) on a large desktop it means the menu can be a long way away from the window. This would matter less if you didn't need to first click the window to give it focus and then go back to the menu to use the menu... I do notice that most hardcore mac users are users of special packages that have an insane amount of short cuts on their input devices. But us mere mortals have to deal with apps that are far less optimized.
Unity loves to put the menu on the far left... so if your main monitor happens to be on the right... happy mouse travelling!
Gnome 3.0... actually, I am not sure what the hell it is trying to do. Crash a lot? Make years of development of utilities a waste as nothing works anymore? Create a desktop with absolutely ZERO options for configuration?
I know what the flaw is with the recent KDE, Gnome 3.0 and Unity developments. The linux year of the desktop never happened (despite the fact that it has been years my employers even had to consider whether to allow me to use Linux as my development desktop) and they saw how iOS and even Android suddenly got people to use non-MS Windows... and they think that this audience will make them the millions they been dreaming off in secret.
Hell, even MS is doing with Windows 8. Surely it is the standard desktop that is the block to selling more? It even makes some sense. The more supposedly "noob" friendly the app, the more it deviates from the old windows (and I mean here the style slowly evolved from the xerox design, not MS specific). Check your latest brand name computer and its crapware. Wanna bet the config utitlities and virus software looks "slick" with non-standard buttons and such?
Do "users" really like it? I don't. But I am a developer so I don't matter.
So, when asked once again to rescue a windows machine for people who are perfectly good friends but not the brightest people in the world, I installed Ubuntu instead once Flash updates had made certain that it was good enough for people who only use the web, play music, download and chat.
Surely these people, a few who have a below average IQ (this is not me being elitist, one of them has been tested as being around 85 ) would never be able to work with Linux?
Well, they did and not only did they manage but do you remember the nerd rage when Ubuntu switched the window buttons? None of them even cared, most hadn't even noticed. All I really had to do to instruct them was how to accept updates.
Yes, that was silly because when Unity hit, that was the end of the experiment. Unity was NOT understandable and Gnome 3.0 was no better. It was a disaster far worse then ANY MS update EVER. It broke about a dozen installs and I had no easy way to recover. And while these people had no problem switching from Windows to Ubuntu they NEED their Facebook and so i just reinstalled windows and r
Re:GNOME Survey (Score:4, Interesting)
In general my hands leave the keyboard much less now as well - alt-tab switching with that drop down selector is very intuitive and the search/launch is much nicer and more idiot proof than alt-f2 or continually opening terminals.
The irony of all of this is back in the day, many linux folks who were users of Fluxbox, Openbox, Blackbox, Afterstep, E16, etc said that they were more productive with their desktops because of all of their custom short-cut keys. Users of KDE and Gnome scoffed at this and said that icons, menus and mice were the way to go. 10 years later and the users of Unity and the Gnome 3 Shell tell us how productive their environments are. Both of these environments are optimized for "touch" and small display size. With larger screen monitors they fall far short of the "mouse friendliness" that Gnome 2 possesses. How do they make up for this? By boosting their productivity with shortcut keys.
Yes, that would be the very same type of shortcut keys we were told were not needed and users would not adapt to using. Welcome back to 1999 computing 2011 style. A keyboard driven interface that needs 2 gigs of ram and an i5 processor with a 256mb nvidia graphcis card.
Of course as I say that I go back to work on my Fluxbox driven workstation. Using the same short-cut keys I defined 10 years ago and continue to take with me by moving my .keys file to every new computer I get. Maybe they will discover dock apps next.