Switching from KDE/Plasma to Gnome3 for one week
This guy is doing a great work, providing patches to improve kwin, and then tried Gnome3 for a week, 7 days. His verdict:
overall, after one week of using this, I can say…
it’s f**king HORRIBLE!!!
…well, it’s not as bad as I thought… but yeah, it was overall a pretty unpleasant experience…
I definitely have seen improvements, but the desktop is still not in shape.I mean, it’s still not as usable as KDE is….
Honestly, I can’t agree more. I have tried Gnome3 for over a year, again and again, and it feels like a block of concrete put onto the feet of dissidents by Italian mafia bosses. It drowns and kills you.
Here are the links: Start, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7.
Thanks a lot for these blog posts, incredibly informative and convincing!
Serious question: Is there any professional distro with commercial support for KDE that one can recommend to organizations?
You may try OpenSuse or Rosa Linux.
The petulance of that user was astounding. Many of their arguments were without merit: They complain about ‘being like Mac instead of ‘being like windows’ to such an alarming degree that I really wonder if they’ll ever be able to actually see that the win95 interface does have faults.
Absolutely dreadful reviews. I am not fond of GNOME’s hostility either but it was so cringeworthy I had to stop after the first few days.
It was not to be expected, as it was clearly stated at the start blog of the series. And although the style is sloppy, it points out lots and lots of shortcomings of the G3 desktop.
I have gone through many of the pains myself, when trying to force me to get used to G3 for in total over 1 year (!!!), only to have come to the conclusion that nearly everything G3 related needs to be purged from my computers.
I then moved to Cinnamon, which I co-maintain, and now to KDE/Plasma where I realized what I have missed to realize over the last 20 years.
It is as it is, G3 targets dummy users without the need for configuration. That is a valid design decision, but not one I want to be treated with.
Not constructive.
Maybe, but true, and that is the depressing thing.
I’ve been playing with desktop environments too, here are some of my notes about gnome.
– the hot corner is not efficient, if you just use that, then no apps appear listed in the gnome shell view, you have to click explicitly on the dots icon, also the app names are cut (serious issue), and not sorted according to their categories (not important). That means three actions minimum just to pop up your window, when only one click is necessary when you use something like a dock. I was surprised my hand gets exhausted when using Gnome.
– nothing to customize Gnome appearance and theme. You have to download themes from art sites and find out how it works and where to uncompress them.
– no way to install gnome extensions directly from within the app, you have to go on their website.
– gnome calendar is tied to evolution-data-server, I understand the database requirement but it’s not an honest one, apps other than evolution can’t handle it and the gnome environment itself possesses no way to set it up: you have to use evolution.
– gnome online accounts is limited, no caldav support, adding imap account doesn’t have a new mail notifications feature which would have been nice.
– the basic gnome apps from “gnome” package are funny experiments but are mostly redundant and useless so it’s better to just keep gnome-core.
– backspace doesn’t go to parent directory in nautilus
– the “Notes” applet (not part of Gnome) doesn’t stay on the desktop, you have to click on its icon to make post-its appear, not convenient.
So yes I had a fight with it, like I do everytime I try to set up a debian system which is not for me. I tried Cinnamon (average success), now Gnome (less than average I would say because of all the dissuasive quirks but still acceptable). In the end I get comparable results between Cinnamon/Gnome. Even Windows 95 felt more simple and doing better. I personally use tiled wms and can craft my things, but didn’t realize more common people had to deal with such painful things.
Maybe KDE will be my next serious try if there is any, I used it 15 years ago, but my first impressions on recent versions didn’t manage to convince me.
Thanks for your interesting additions! Please, try KDE/Plasma with my packages of Plasma (which are considerably newer than what Debian official offers), and let us know your verdict!
I am an exclusive Gnome user for about two years now. I’d never been much of a Gnome fan prior to late 2018. Why the switch? The clarity of the fonts for these aging eyes is the reason.
I’ve used Linux since late summer 1996 and started with Slackware ’96 and FVWM95. KDE caught my eye by the late ’90s but my hardware wasn’t up to the task and then there were the various licensing issues. Around 2005 I discovered KDE 3.4 and then 3.5 via the Knoppix CDs and adopted it as my desktop of choice. By that time I had tried Gnome once or twice and wasn’t impressed.
Then KDE 4 arrived.
I recall Konsole having support for the PC speaker removed and even though I and others presented a use case for its retention the developer’s decision was final. The suggested workaround of having Konsole play a sound instead was too slow to be useful. Other frustrations with KDE 4 led me to discover Xfce which became my desktop of choice for many years.
Several years ago I jumped from Devuan to Slackware and reintroduced myself to KDE. By this point KDE was much improved from when I last used it in the early KDE 4 days on Debian so I stuck with it. Keeping Slackware running proved to be too much of a daily hassle so I opted to come back to Debian in late 2018 and did a default installation and as aforementioned the crisp and clean fonts won me over. I figured out how to install a theme, Greybird being my favorite, and some other extensions and tweaks and things work smoothly and quickly for me. I am typing this on a Lenovo T410 laptop with integrated Intel graphics running Debian Bullseye and the latest Gnome packages on Wayland. Oh, and Gnome Terminal plays its sound in near real time so that I don’t miss the beep from the PC speaker any more!
The key to using Gnome is to use the keyboard. It is very much a keyboard driven desktop. It expects the use of the so-called Windows key and then typing a program name for easiest access to applications. Alternatively, an applications menu can be enabled which makes finding programs via the mouse a normal function. The hotspot is as much an annoyance as a help and can be disabled. So far I left it enabled but am getting closer to disabling it on a trial basis.
I now have a workflow established with Gnome that works for me. Now that the initial configuration and the occasional tweaks have been made that suit me I leave things well enough alone and concentrate on the applications and the work that needs to be done. In that regard Gnome pretty much stays out of my way. This from a long time fan of KDE who got burned a few too many times along the way.
I never liked Gnome even I started with it (RedHat 6.0).
I tried Gnome numerous times, but I can’t stand it. People say Gnome 2 was better – but I hate that too.
Tried all other desktops and tried to like them – all are too primitive to my taste.
KDE is my desktop of choice.
Most of the things he complains about is from his lack of understanding of how to use Gnome. He is trying to use Gnome like a traditional taskbar type DE. It isn’t. It is meant to be keyboard driven. Don’t waste time moving your cursor to the top left corner. Just hit the windows key and type away. If you already have firefox open, type firefox then hit enter. It will bring up your opened firefox window. If you want a new window, which is more rare, hit the windows key, type firefox..then right click > new window.
Basically, the DE becomes an app launcher and gets out of the way quickly.
I disagree. I have used Gnome with kbd for a long time (nearly a year), and still get fed up with the desktop, everytime. Boils down to the fact that I don’t want to get baby-sitted by the Gnome devs. Those whole like it, sure go ahead!