Gnome replaces Unity

[Bret Busby]

On 17/10/2017, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16 October 2017 at 15:39, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I did not necessarily agree with your conclusion, as you said she must
>> not be a demanding or intensive user, without defining what that
>> meant.  I can assure you she can be most demanding (particularly if it
>> is not doing what she wants) and often uses it intensively, but I get
>> what you mean.  OK, so am I right in thinking that you agree that for
>> a user who just uses basic desktop apps, browser, office etc. that
>> Gnome (with ubuntu-dock extension) is operates and looks very similar
>> to Unity?  If so then that's fine and we can put our duelling pistols
>> away again.
>
> I never wanted a fight!
>
> On the surface, at casual inspection, yes, GNOME Shell and Unity are
> similar. When "Xen" considers Mac OS X and Windows to be similar, then
> yes, at that level, they're twins.
>
> But significant differences that bother me:
>
> * Virtual desktops.
>
> The virtual desktop mechanism is totally different.
>
> Actually, here I prefer GNOME Shell, with a dynamic number of desktops
> access via a toolbar on the right. But it is, to pick an example of
> something I _hate_, not possible on a dual-screen machine to have the
> dock thing on the left and the virtual-desktop toolbar on the right.
> They must be on the same screen, which to me is brain-damaged. No
> extension can work around this.
>
> * File manager
>
> GNOME is progressively crippling Nautilus by removing features. I'm
> with Jim Byrnes here. On Unity it is easy enough to put Cinnamon's
> Nemo in instead.
>
> * Title bars
>
> GNOME has merged title bars, toolbars and menu bars. Menus are
> deprecated (!) and the remnant stub is in the top panel.
>
> This is bizarre to me. Desktops aren't phones. That was my primary UI.
>
> * Menu bars
>
> GNOME is getting rid of them; GNOME 3 apps don't have them. Unity put
> them in the top panel. As a long-time Mac user, that's fine with me,
> although it infuriated many people. In more recent versions it is at
> least an option.
>
> * GNOME apps and accessories
>
> The GNOME project is progressively castrating all its apps, removing
> features and UI, in the pursuit of extreme simplicity. This drives me
> mad. The merged toolbar/titlebar is particularly irritating. I spend
> time hunting for where the "do your main function" button is because
> it's been moved or hidden.
>
> I have been going through my work machine, identifying GNOME apps that
> come bundled, and ripping them out, marking them as "taboo" to prevent
> re-installation, and replacing them with Xfce or Maté or Cinnamon
> apps.
>
> E.g. Gedit is now crippled.
>
> It's intentional:
>
> https://blogs.gnome.org/nacho/2014/01/15/gedit-has-a-new-face/
>

I do not know what version of gedit, that is, but I use gedit, and,
mine looks slightly different and, mine looks more usable.

When gnome was changed to the dingbat version - I think it is version
3, designed to make it useless and user-hostile, I went through months
of trying to find a usable interface, and was referred to MATE, and
had, since about Ubuntu 12.04, I think, switched to UbuntuMATE. I am
currently using v16.04.x .

I have it configured to suit me, so it has the taskbar and the panel,
across the bottom of the screen, where they belong, and I think the
"theme" would be referred to, as Win95-like . And, I have the
drop-down menu names across the top, where they belong, and, it works
fine, for me.

Others may want things differently.

And, I use some gnome applications, like gedit (and, while I could use
it, I used gFTP, but, it lacked a functionality that was required when
I switched hosting ISP, so I had to switch to filezilla, for FTP-ing
up web sites), because I prefer the gnome applications, when they
work.

It is a shame that gnome3 was designed to make it user-hostile, losing
the user-friendliness that gnome2 had.

But, the trend in software development, now, appears to be to design
software to suit the developers, and, to cause suffering to the users.

Anyway, my recommendation, for people. who. like me, believe that
modern computers should be user-friendly, and, thence, easy to use, is
to use appropriately configured UbuntuMATE, with easy to use
applications installed.

-- 

Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia

..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

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