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GNOME GUI Ubuntu Linux

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."
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Linux Mint Will Adopt Gnome 3

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  • GNOME Survey (Score:4, Informative)

    by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:19AM (#37751078)
    They might want all users to take the survey, but there is really no reason to unless you use GNOME. A good portion of the questions are basically 'How does GNOME work for you.'
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "GNOME works great! Please take away more options so I have even fewer buttons to worry about!"

      Unfortunately by only asking feedback from self-selected users, they'll only get feedback that reinforces what they've already decided.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Trix ( 5592 )

        Unfortunately by only asking feedback from self-selected users, they'll only get feedback that reinforces what they've already decided.

        That's why more people that aren't necessarily happy with GNOME need to take the survey. I've used GNOME since the 1.0 days, but GNOME3 was enough to make me install XFCE4 -- and I'm considering dropping the whole Desktop Environment thing altogether and going back to fvwm (or something similar)

        Maybe I'm just old, but I think the current direction of development has lost sight of the reason XWindows was created in the first place. The client and server shouldn't have to be on the same host. The User shou

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by aztracker1 ( 702135 )
          Personally, I *really* like the Windows 7 interface of those I've tried. XFCE and LXDE are second and third respectively... though each leaves something to be desired.. I was pretty happy with a tweaked Gnome 2 as well... I just find the convenience of having my most used apps already on the toolbar, with a shared icon, and shared space with new launches. I like the reduced system tray in Windows as well. I like that more system utilities in Gnome have better integration, even if third party efforts thou
          • For me, the perfect desktop was Gnome 2 with Gnome-do and Docky. None of the new desktops really add much, if anything over the useability of that combination, for me anyway.
        • Re:GNOME Survey (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Kagetsuki ( 1620613 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @12:01PM (#37751630)

          I was of the exact opinion as you until a day ago. Since I upgraded to to Ubuntu 11.10 I got stuck with GNOME3 (sorry, I still hate Unity) and I had a variety of issues - but many I found could be resolved in very interesting ways. Lack of a lower task-bar for example, you can use tint2 or a dock like Avant Window Manager - and the bar that comes out when you hit the bottom right of the screen already has plug-ins and modifications to make it work like a taskbar. Multi-monitor behavior bugged me as well until I learned you can change it, but I actually got hooked on the default behavior. 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. Then today I was giving a demo to some prospective customers (dirty mac users!) and they pointed out how nice they thought it was.

          I really really understand the feeling of loss and confusion over GNOME3 vs 2, I do miss my old desktop - but with just a few customization options (that look like they will come in future releases) I think I'll stick it out and enjoy the new.

          By the way, rough calculation we've been using GNOME now for something like 12 years. Really up until now the biggest change was moving to the upper and lower bar by default (which I love(d)), that and ditching the stone texture on the icons...

          • by Lumpy ( 12016 )

            Until you use it on a laptop and discover there is no Gnome3 tool to control the synaptics touchpad and it drives you insane....

          • Re:GNOME Survey (Score:4, Interesting)

            by fwarren ( 579763 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @01:48PM (#37753036) Homepage

            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.

        • by julesh ( 229690 )

          Yep. GNOME3 is horrible. I'm not a regular GNOME user, but just yesterday I happened to need a Linux system quick for some maintenance and the only thing handy was an Ubuntu 11 live CD. I hate to admit it, but I had to google to figure out how to get a terminal. As far as I could tell, there is no menu of applications, just a search interface...? What the hell happened to discoverability?

          • If you were running a Ubuntu 11.04/11.10 Live CD, then more likely than not you loaded Canonical's Unity interface rather than GNOME3, which imo is even worse.
          • You're just supposed to know what you want, and type it into the search bar. The era of looking through a menu to see all your options is apparently over.

            Luckily, KDE still hasn't changed from the traditional desktop UI. People who want a menu, or configurability, should look into it. Make sure to look at a distro that uses 4.6 or better yet, 4.7; don't bother with the latest Debian "stable" that for still uses an ancient KDE 4.4 that's full of bugs.

          • by DrXym ( 126579 )
            GNOME 3 is perfectly usable as a desktop. It definitely lacks some things it needs (such as almost every setting hidden in the tweak tool) but it works. The workflow is good, it looks great as a desktop and I expect shell extensions will augment it in time too.
        • I'm a perfectly targeted Potential New User and I'm trying to weave my way through the Linux maze, but I'm getting a little lost.

          Last I had figured out, I'm Ex-Ubuntu after various updates stopped working on my older hardware. OpenSuse was okay, but I was thinking I wanted the Debian Packager and the improvements in Squeeze, but Debian "Raw" is too hard for newbies, so indications were leaning towards Mint-DebianEdition. I've used (and disliked!) both Gnome3 and KDE4, so I think that means I'm leaning towar

          • +1 (Score:3, Insightful)

            by stooo ( 2202012 )

            +1
            right click disappeared. But PCs are not macs, and HAVE a f*** second button !!!
            no menu mean no way to find an application unless you remember the name !!
            Gnome 3 is bullshit
            Unity is worse

          • +1 lol yeah--I think this sums it up better than a people who've 10 times as much.
        • by RCL ( 891376 )

          Maybe I'm just old, but I think the current direction of development has lost sight of the reason XWindows was created in the first place. The client and server shouldn't have to be on the same host. The User should be able to customize their own environment in whatever way makes it easier for them to work.

          "Client-server" approach for a desktop UI looks like an old attempt to solve problems that never became common. I would prefer to have direct (except for kernel-level abstraction) hardware access, memory efficiency and low sound latency instead. Network transparency can be added on top of that (see Windows & Mac OS X) for those who need it.

        • Same here. I recently switched over to Xubuntu and couldn't be happier. I'm curious to see their download statistics. From what I've read on other Linux forums, quite a few are defecting from Gnome and the God-forsaken Unity.

        • by DrXym ( 126579 )

          Maybe I'm just old, but I think the current direction of development has lost sight of the reason XWindows was created in the first place.

          XWindows won't be long for the world either and good riddance to it when it happens.

      • by mmcuh ( 1088773 )
        Are you saying that they should remove all the negative options from the survey to make it simpler to use, since only a very small percentage will actually need them?
    • That was my impression. It starts with 'Do you know what GNOME is?' and then proceeds as if you use it. I never actually have unless you count Xubuntu which seems to be a weird mixture of XFCE and GNOME.
    • Re:GNOME Survey (Score:4, Interesting)

      by think_nix ( 1467471 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:39AM (#37751322)

      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.

      • A preview [phoronix.com] of the types of comments being received was just posted, with predictable results so far (i.e. an onslaught of anger and hate directed towards the GNOME devs)

    • Re:GNOME Survey (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HermMunster ( 972336 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:52AM (#37751490)

      Gnome 3 is as much the stupidification of the Linux desktop as Metro is to Win8. It always happens when you let the developers make decisions rather than letting consumers have the choice.

      What they need is gnome 3 with the gnome 2 interface.

      • Re:GNOME Survey (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Toonol ( 1057698 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:56AM (#37751554)
        However, in Win8 you can just clickthrough to the full, standard windows desktop, so at least they haven't removed the option. Gnome seems to eagerly remove options.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    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

    • by XanC ( 644172 )

      What's the reason to not use Debian?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by David Gerard ( 12369 )

        Using Debian remnds you of all the little papercuts that Ubuntu takes care of.

        Also, setting up any sort of wifi on Debian feels like having a little RMS on your shoulder lecturing you. Complete with smell.

        That said, once Debian is set up it stays set up. Ubuntu (specifically parts of GNOME) is flaky as hell in 11.04.

        • Agreed, setting up Debian for a desktop environment can be challenging.. Ubuntu/Mint take care of a lot of that.. I've been using Mint/XFCE as my preferred Linux VM for about a year now, and actually like it a lot.
          • by MrHanky ( 141717 )

            When was that actually true? In 1998? As long as you know about Debian's Free policy and take care to install the firmware packages you need (which is easy), it's far easier than Ubuntu for the simple fact that it's much easier to avoid PulseAudio.

        • Which works fine, as long as you're happy with the decisions that Canonical makes, it's a bit like Apple actually, it works fine as long as you don't want to do something that the creator of the software doesn't intend for you to to at which point it becomes a major hassle. At least with Ubuntu, you can ultimately install the packages or remove them.

        • by Hatta ( 162192 )

          Using Debian remnds you of all the little papercuts that Ubuntu takes care of.

          Using Ubuntu reminds you of all the doors they plastered over.

          Also, setting up any sort of wifi on Debian feels like having a little RMS on your shoulder lecturing you

          Have you tried wicd?

          • Have you tried wicd?

            I have, about a year ago. Round about the last time it was updated. It used to be fairly decent, but now it no longer even compiles.

        • by Lumpy ( 12016 )

          Yup, last usable Ubuntu was 10.04.. It's a rerun of 2002 when redhat was king and overnight screwed linux desktop adoption in one fell swoop. Ubuntu is doing the same, all the inroads and advances are being thrown away to stroke someone's ego.

          • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

            Usable or usable out of the box?

            I am on 11.04 now, and debating allowing the upgrade to run...and only because I know I can ditch unity easily enough still. Aside from Unity what makes it so "unusable"? I use it both on my laptop for work, and desktop at home as the primary OS (desktop has steam also, which I can't get to work under Wine so I have windows for that...and pretty much only that).

            I can't say as I remember the redhat thing since I didn't use it at all in the 2002 period, as I had last tried redh

      • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

        It tends to be old. Debian was the first Linux that I liked, I was a user since the Hamm came out. Until Ubuntu 5 or so, when I jumped ship on the desktop...but.... on servers.... I still run Debian.

        Why?

        Well.... Last I ran debian on the desktop, I compared it to Ubuntu and it was several years old. It was taking Debian folks upwards of 4 years between releases, and I was finding myself in the conundrum of really wanting newer tools, but not wanting to build them myself, go "off the reserveration" and then h

    • by Dracos ( 107777 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @01:12PM (#37752526)

      I use Mint KDE because GNOME is

      • Chasing a userbase that doesn't exist (computer illiterates not on Windows), thereby making actual users suffer
      • Infecting itself with a disease called Mono

      I like Mint. It's easy to install and I can do what I want to the desktop. As long as there is a KDE version of Mint I'll keep using it. If there isn't, I'll go looking for another distro where KDE is used (it won't be Kubuntu).

      I used to be a GNOME user back in my RedHat/Gentoo days, along With E.16. E.17 is teh seksi, but I haven't tried it yet.

      • by 21mhz ( 443080 )

        I use GNOME 3 (with not much suffering to share), and I don't have any Mono-based applications. In fact, I just checked and it appears I don't even have the Mono runtime installed.
        That disease is gone, if it ever was in GNOME itself. The language of choice is now Vala.

  • by Nerdfest ( 867930 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:34AM (#37751258)
    I spent my computer time on the weekend away from the current 'normal' Xfce desktop and tried out Gnome 3 and Unity in a more serious. way. I found I could actually live with either of them. I've said before that the big missing feature is configurability, but they're both much better than before, and have the majority of panel widgets that I like. It ended up that I prefer how Gnome 3 works, and it's responsiveness. The big thing missing from it is the integration with mail and chat that Unity has, specifically for Thunderbird and Pidgin. Gnome 3 has no mail notification on the panel that I could find, which is an important feature. It seems to be a little to tightly tied to Evolution. I discovered that I could live with Unity, although it's quite difficult to configure window themes, etc (as opposed to panel themes). I'll figure it out, it's just that that wasn't my primary goal. I do find its actual keyboard response quite slow, and I'll probably remove the integration with the global menu. I'll probably try sticking with it another month or so at least. I think both Unity and Gnome 3 are both quite usable, and deserve a more serious look ... and this coming from someone who switched to Xfce.
    • by horza ( 87255 )

      I have to admit Unity looks pretty good. Reminds me of RiscOS in the way you can drag files onto the task bar, items on the task bar actually do something (eg showing how many emails unread), and you can right-click and get context-sensitive actions. Under KDE the items on the task bar are as useless as under Microsoft Windows.

      Phillip.

      • Re:Desktops (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anomalyst ( 742352 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:59AM (#37751602)

        Reminds me of RiscOS

        Is that the one where you attack Kamchatka from Irkutsk to get a directory listing?

      • After getting rid of the silly menubar-at-the-top thing (one of the biggest misfeatures of Mac OS that makes it so hard to use) and putting the window buttons back where they're supposed to be, I found Unity to be quite good.

        Gnome 3 is unusable unless you've got a keyboard with a Windows key (so that's my IBM Model M out, then), and it has seemingly been deliberately designed to be impossible for left-handed people to use effectively. If I'm doing graphics work, I don't want to have to keep taking my hand

    • The problem with Unity is that even if they do get it to work properly, they managed to chase off people by introducing an obviously alpha menu bar that doesn't scale well to large displays, with the threat of dropping the alternatives with a future release.

      They probably will/have gotten it to work properly, but at this point it's pretty hard to justify using a distro that can't even be arsed to allow logins with a wireless keyboard.

  • by cyberkahn ( 398201 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:36AM (#37751280) Homepage

    Is Arch Linux [archlinux.org]. After using Ubuntu for a long time they have really forced me to leave with their decision to force a Fisher Price desktop on me.

  • Decouple GUI from OS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vlm ( 69642 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:47AM (#37751408)

    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?

    • by teslar ( 706653 )

      I have no idea where you get the idea from that these distros have a hang-up about GUI and OS not being decoupled - you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

      Ubuntu/Lubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu only differ in the choice of GUI. And if you don't care for Unity, Gnome 3 is trivially installed. (Which, I presume, is how Mint (an Ubuntu derivative) is doing it in the first place). If you favour an esoteric GUI, that is easily installed too; this is still a debian derivative!

      So you really seem to be complainin

      • by lahvak ( 69490 )

        Ubuntu offers a fixed set of choices, none of them satisfactory for me. It is not that hard in Ubuntu, or Mint, to do things your own way, but it is definitely easier to do that in pure Debian. Trying to use for example fvwm2 and slim in OpenSUSE is total exercise in frustration, I tried that for about a year, and ended up running screaming back to Debian. You are correct saying that it is possible to use any wm and dm in most current desktop distros, but the GP is definitely correct stating that it is

      • by RDW ( 41497 )

        I have no idea where you get the idea from that these distros have a hang-up about GUI and OS not being decoupled - you clearly don't know what you're talking about...Ubuntu/Lubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu only differ in the choice of GUI.

        I'm not sure that make your point very well. The Ubuntu derivatives use the same packaging system and repositories, but differ a lot in their selection of default software, not just the desktop. Ubuntu could very easily make the choice of desktop an option in the installer, but deliberately doesn't - that would mess with the 'corporate indentity' it's trying to create, which has now become synoymous with Unity. Of course there's nothing to stop an experienced user installing, say, Xfce afterwards, which is

    • by laffer1 ( 701823 )

      It's simple, man power. The sheer number of dependancies that Gnome and KDE require alone is mind blowing. Someone has to package all those things up. It's not one big Gnome package, it's a package for gtk, gnome libs, pango, pkg-config, gstreamer, gdm3, ...

      Debian is lucky enough to have a lot of people working on packages. Most projects don't have that kind of support. Some of them are very small and only have a few guys helping out.

      As someone working on a BSD project with a similar issue, I can tell

    • by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Because commercial distros are expected to ship with a pretty GUI to appease the marketroids. They have to pick one to go with by default, and that one gets elevated among the rest.
      Distros like debian, arch, slackware, etc, which don't install a GUI by default make it much easier to choose your own desktop, but it's more work up front to get to a pretty GUI.

      There's nothing stopping you from installing ratpoison on Ubuntu or what have you. Just get rid of [x|k|g]dm, and put ratpoison in your ~/.xinitrc.

    • by Zedrick ( 764028 )
      First impression? I want an OS that feels right out of the box. Not very rational, I know - but I'm probably not alone. And since Debian, Unity and Mint are more or less the same under the hood, the (default) GUI is important. Nevermind that I can change it, or that I do all my important work in the shell.
    • 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?

      The code is open, so go ahead and install whatever you want. You don't have to restrict yourself to what your distribution ships.

    • Why does every distro but Debian have this weird hangup where the GUI cannot be decoupled from the OS?

      Because many distros have different goals than Debian.

      Consider one of the more extreme examples of a Unix coupled with an UI: Mac OS X. In that instance, the UI is practically defined as part of the OS. If you're a techie or otherwise take a reductionist view, you know that's not really how things are (there are various different components, such as the Darwin kernel), yet conflating all the components

    • by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      HUH?

      Slackware dies this perfectly. as well as CentOS.

    • The continuous debate we're having over user interface isn't about simply packaging the user interfaces and putting them in repositories as pretty much all the distros allow you to install whatever user interface package you want, it is instead about the average "user" experience of the product. However much we like to laugh and joke about the "Year of Linux desktop" the people who design those Linux desktops are still shooting for the best user experience for the man off the street who isn't going to delve
      • by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        Canonical benefits from RedHat paying kernel developers, and RedHat can benefit if they adopt anything that Canonical writes. To some extent it all goes around.

        My observation is that desktop environment designers are VERY picky. They're focused on vertical integration and everything is my-way-or-the-highway. It is getting to the point that you won't be able to run a particular DE unless you also run a particular SysVInit implementation, or X11 implementation.

        To me this is breaking away from the unix way,

    • Yup. If you want Desktop Environment choice, then you are basically limited to the RPM distros: Fedora, RedHat, CentOS, Scientific, Mandriva, Mageia, PCLinuxOS or Suse.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I just switched to Mint from Ubuntu to get away from Unity. I had been a loyal Ubuntu user since 6.06. I hope Gnome 3 isn't forced on Mint users, or that it doesn't suck like Unity. If so, next is Xubuntu.
  • I was trying to decide what to replace my Ubuntu with (now that they have fully lost their MonoMac-lovin' mind). Now I know: Debian!
  • The hatred for all things new in the FLOSS community never ceases to surprise me. When they change Facebook, all my nontech friends all winge for days about it.

    You'd think it'd be different around here, but it's not.

    I can't speak to how well Gnome 3 works on typical large-screen multi-monitor setup, but my home laptop with a 14" screen, it works exactly the way I've always wished Gnome would. It's well put together, well designed and while there aren't a lot of native config tools for it yet (3.2 aside--haven't tried it), I'm sure that's all in the works (and if it's not, people/distros will create them).

    the idea of Mint's polish on top of Gnome 3 sounds just about perfect to me--exactly the desktop I'd like to use.

    • by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @01:20PM (#37752628)

      The hatred for all things new in the FLOSS community never ceases to surprise me.

      We don't hate it because it's new, we hate it because it's crap.

    • The hatred for all things new in the FLOSS community never ceases to surprise me. When they change Facebook, all my nontech friends all winge for days about it.

      You'd think it'd be different around here, but it's not.

      There's a reason for that. Change for change's sake is a very bad thing. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

      There's nothing wrong with a different desktop type. If you like a gnome 3 style interface, more power to you. It shouldn't have been an update to gnome, though. It should have been launched with a brand new name as a competitor to gnome. After all, think about it: the reason all those people were using gnome 2 was because they liked that interface. Now you removed what they liked.

      Basically, upd

  • by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @01:45PM (#37753000) Journal

    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

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