Gnome replaces Unity

[Bret Busby]

On 17/10/2017, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>

Oh, and my version of gedit shows as being 3.18.3, and, I have the
drop down menu names where they should be.

The removal of the drop down menu's names in software, is simply malicious.


-- 

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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