I made this post because I really like the design of GNOME, and although i’d like customizability, it is mostly enough for my everyday needs. But I want to understand why people may choose other desktop environments…or why you would/would’nt use GNOME.
I like GNOME but there’s something so frustrating about how much it’s lacking out of the box. It feels like you have to fish out a lot of extensions to make it comfortable to use, and these extensions often break each update. Not having native support for a taskbar to quickly show/minimize the apps you have open… Just why?
Luckily a lot of distros do add those features out of the box like Zorin/Nobara, but otherwise I’d just go for Plasma. A lot of Gnome feels like it’s copying Mac for the sake of copying Mac which I don’t like very much, but maybe I’m biased because I mostly use and got comfortable with Windows-style UI. People compared it to Windows 8 and I totally agree, the way they want you to use Gnome feels more like it’s made for tablets than desktops.
Gnome is pretty good otherwise, it’s just their team makes weird decisions and never seem to change their stance.
I agree here 100%. My first experience with GNOME was using POP_OS’s tweaked version of it and then trying out regular GNOME 3 made me wanna pull my hair out since it seemed like the UX was severely lacking there.
I think there are awesome elements of it but it does feel like I’d need to download all those extensions and gnome-tweaks to make it function the way I want it to which isn’t really worth it; i’d rather have an environment that functions well out of the box .
Coming from Windows, gnome was the desktop that taught me how to use and appreciate multiple workspaces. I’m now entirely sold on KDE, but there’s something to be said about the gnome workflow.
I ran Pop! OS for about a day which uses Gnome (don’t know which version) and while I liked bits of it I really disliked the file browser and image viewer. The file browser makes it difficult to browse folders outside of my home folder, there are no image previews and there’s a needlessly large gap between folders and files wasting visual space. The image viewer is not great, it can’t open the images made by my Nikon DSLR and quite a few times the image viewer would load the image at full resolution putting the title bar off the top of the monitor.
So. Much.
Wasted
Space
I like GNOME because I don’t want customizability.
OK, I like a bit of customizability, but I’m not a designer and trying to make things look consistent and nice is a pain. I once spent days making an icon theme work in Xfce (the freedesktop standards for naming icons are not followed by anyone… (meaning both Xfce and icon themes))
I use GNOME as is and accept it and everything is swell.
Also I use a laptop and I’m addicted the three-finger swipe window preview…
I love customisation and used to customize KDE, but one I saw the new gnome it was pretty much exactly how I was trying to make kde look anyway
I was going for Pantheon-like before and then realised that’s basically just GNOME with some extra bits
Also yes three finger swipe is essential for me on a laptop now every DE should have it
GNOME is opinionated and beautiful. Lots of focus on reasonable design instead of massive amount of customization. It also has a great app ecosystem and documentation. I love it.
gnome 40+ has a great workflow
coming from windows 10, it was different at first but now it feels just naturalI use vanilla gnome. Dead simple, no nonsense, gets out of my way. Perfect DE for me.
I use a vanilla Gnome without extensions - Arch Linux.
- clean desktop
- I don’t want distraction desktop with tons of infos…app like NextCloud must running without infos about syn etc.
- for productivity need clean and optimal desktop with tiling windows
- 3 or 4 working desktops
- and keyboard shortcuts
Most important for me, less blotware, functional, clean and minimal distraction - minimalist desktop.
The only reasons i stopped using gnome is the lack of system tray and the window switching workflow when using a mouse.
Both of those can be remedied by simply enabling an extension and hot corners respectively.
Indeed, but I find the system tray a bit lackluster as some apps don’t appear in it.
I hate the giant app menu thing where everything is massive and clearly designed to accommodate a touch interface, so I’ve never used it much beyond that. I am on a desktop, not a mobile device, why is it designed like a mobile device? It’s the same thing people hated about Windows 8, why the hell would you follow that design philosophy?? I really don’t get it.
I understand you can use extensions and whatnot to change that, but why would I want to fight with it when other DE’s are already designed for a desktop experience? Gnome is just flat out not for me.
What do you think about using a keyboard-based workflow: hit Super button (or click on Activities) to make the fullscreen menu pop-up, then write the first few letters of the app name, and finally hit Enter? Search-based workflow is my favourite way to navigate app menu, on GNOME and KDE alike.
I do this sometimes, yes. But still, even if you do that exclusively, I see no point to it being so massive and out-of-place looking on a desktop. I like KDE’s launcher and Rofi, for example.
I like Gnome Shell. It’s polished and extensible. Libadwaita and the header bars are nice as well. I generally prefer nautilus to dolphin, even if I hate having to ctrl-l to edit the path.
I use KDE however because Mutter is still dogshit slow, especially in wayland. My work PC has a R5 3600, RX 570, and 48GB ram and it struggles to maintain 60fps across 3 1080p monitors. KWin runs significantly better, so I use KDE and just configure it like I would Gnome.
I remember my first time installing Ubuntu as a teenager and the fact that the desktop environment was Gnome made me hate it. At that age and time I wanted something familiar and Windows-like. Since then, 13 years ago, I always hated Gnome (and Ubuntu) and I don’t feel like that is going to change any time soon.
The new SteamOS opened my eyes to KDE Plasma and now I am running Garuda on my main desktop. Eventually I plan to switch to Arch and “make my own distro” or just use SteamOS once it gets official desktop release.
I like a lot of pre-customised versions of GNOME like with Ubuntu or Pop!_OS but (and I’m currently using this on Fedora) the default “out of the box” GNOME experience is a bit rough and unfriendly. Sure I’ve got it customised now with some fancy top panel stuff but its still clear I just shoehorned in a bunch of GNOME extensions - and I’m still yet to find a tray that is 1) still supported and 2) to my liking.
Mostly like. Big negatives list:
- constantly breaks extension compatibility
- actively hostile towards tiling
- forced horizontal workspaces
- fails miserably if dri doesn’t work 100%
- changes configuration systems like socks
- output/logs noisy and not useful
What I hate is CSD… using it with CSD is sad for #xfce user :'(
