cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/43631736

Gnome Slander Rules

What's wrong with gnome?

Literally the only foundation that made Linux usable, stable, unified and customizable.

Yeah it is barebones and extensions can't really fully supercustomize it, but it does its job pretty well.

Hey I like Gnome :((((((((((((

I see no lies

Controversial choices made by devs against most userbase mostly in the name of semplicity at the cost of usability.

Lately they've updated Nautilus's "open with" menu, which was working fine, to libadwaita and now it lacks search, so I must scroll through a long list of apps. Or other stuff like that which breaks retro-compatibility like no one cares (why do I need extensions and a custom theme by a random dude to make gtk3 not look alien next to gtk4?). Poor extensions developers must convert their extensions every six months.

I'm still on it because I like its apps' UX and Plasma still feels unpolished. But I think that's just a matter of time, given how things are going on.

It literally isn't.

I really like using gnome DE. No software is perfect, and no user interface will suit everyone's user case though.

The gnome project however has some members that are quite opinionated to the point of being hostile to any criticism or even just opposing opinions.

Valid criticisms

I’m still on it because I like its apps’ UX and Plasma still feels unpolished.

I mean , you could add its UX as a criticism too, but it's also the whole point of Gnome3 is to be ... whatever the fuck it is they are going for. OpenSource mac+? Plasma feels unpolished because its plain and unassuming, and you form it into what you want it to be.

Also it gets funky with multi monitors, so I have widgets getting scaled randomly on the 2d monitor, and have

kquitapp6 plasmashell && kstart plasmashell

bound to an alias

Barebones 🤣 🤣

Not even a little. GTFO. Flux is barebones, LXDE and LXQT, maybe XFCE but gnome? 😂 bloated DE for touchscreens

Gnome is great.

Most Linux users can't deal with every single project not prioritizing customization. Gnome having a unique workflow (which is a great one) is unbearable for some reason.

I am not gonna place the full blame on the Linux community though. Gnome started out way more customizable, so maybe that suddenly getting pulled from underneath Gnome users so inconsiderately gave it a bad reputation.

Then they went and did absurd things with libadwaita to not only stop supporting customization, but actively interfere with people's choices of customizing Gnome and libadwaita apps so apps ~"are viewed and used as intended by their developers, and people don't accidentally break apps and complain to the devs" (i.e. Bullshit).

Literally the only foundation that made Linux usable, stable, unified and customizable.

I really can't see how. It's popular and user friendly, but I can't seriously give it that much importance.

For me at least: It just serves to show that Linux UIs can be clean, consistent, and user friendly. Which might pull in funding from companies and governments looking for a good UI to mass deploy.

But if it didn't exist, Plasma would've eventually filled that vacuum.

WDYM Libadwaita is not customizable? Libadwaita is the most customizable UI lib I would say. You literally fan just change every part of any app through css and call it a day.

Unlike QT slop - literally fuck ton of inconsistency. And if you don't like classic Breeze - good luck. Because Kirigami makes it impossible to customize QT apps at all.

Just as you mentioned, GNOME is not very welcoming to deep customization. You either use it the dev-intended way, or you don't use it at all.

If you like the default GNOME way of doing things, it's alright. If you don't - no amount of extensions will help.

And it all would be fine if GNOME wouldn't be the default on quite a few distros, including, most importantly, Ubuntu. New users come from Windows, hear the old advice to just "go Ubuntu" and meet an absolutely horrible and unintuitive experience unlike everything they ever touched. This alone made Linux some bad rep.

The project is filled with "my way or the highway" types. They've generally held back Wayland development by not implementing a bunch of APIs everybody else wanted. GTK especially with libadwaita is very hostile to theming, leading to worse experiences on other desktops.

WDYM Libadwaita is not customizable? Libadwaita is the most customizable UI lib I would say. You literally can just change every part of any app through css and call it a day.

I haven't tried doing it in a while, but I remember it being very difficult to change themes beyond tint and colors, with lots of apps having custom colors not in the pallet used in the "gtk.css" file.

I like old gnome and have stuck with cinnamon

Uhhhhh anyone know… …the artist’s… name? Cuz cute.

you're at the whims of devs that DO NOT take user feedback at all. so it's a very opinionated DE. If you're not using GNOME the way the devs intend you to use it, then you shouldn't be using it according to them. so it kinda goes against the grain of Linux as a whole which is all about a custom user experience. GNOME says no to that idea.

Everyone asking about gnome, but what's a braixen?

It's a Pokémon, and in the game, the creatures you don't intent to use are stored in a PC

Get in the fucking PC braixen.

None of this would be bad if the devs also didn't think that they should be the default Linux desktop. It's one thing having a constrictive desktop environment that forces you into its way of doing things. I can see that actually being useful in a corporate setting. But to borderline-force that on everyone by way of defaultism, especially those who don't know better, is where it crosses a line.

I wouldn't blame GNOME for being the default environment. They're the default because GNOME is stable, and their apps have a coherent design language. It's a very approachable platform. Their app names are boring, but they're self-explanatory.

• Calendar
• Calculator
• Files
• Image Viewer
• Web

KDE on the other hand is still decently unstable. Last time I had KDE crash on me when doing nothing but opening the panel edit view was literally last week. The application UX is a bit all over the place, and a lot of them feel like they were "made by developers." The naming scheme is the olden cutesy KDE/Linux naming scheme, which is charming but feels pretty alien when you're new to it.

• Merkuro
• KCalc
• Dolphin
• Gwenview
• Konqueror

gnome dumbed itself down too far, it's turning into the win10 or 11 of linux--with features, basic features.. expected features and functions, now missing.. and the bland ui that makes it difficult to even see a damn window border without customizing tf out of it. i do not subscribe to their idea of one workspace per window or application. fk that.

the only thing that was keeping it on a few systems here was an extension. one not even made by them. i found an equivalent kwin script for plasma. starting switching stuff over the next day.

i won't go back. and i've found that gtk and libadwaita stuff actually looks better on kde, anyway. so no change in what i'm using, just what everything runs from.

i might still put gnome on for others, if all they're looking for is a dumbed-down, simple launcher for their browser--like an alternative to chromebook, but that's it.

Pokemon X/Y fire type starter. Starts as a Fennekin, becomes a Braixen, then final evo is Delphox, Fire/Psychic type.

If you like the default GNOME way of doing things, it's alright. If you don't - no amount of extensions will help.

Not to mention Gnome is monolithic, so any bug will immediately crash the whole desktop. Other than basically any other desktop compositor, window manager and desktop environment are tightly intertwined, so any extension (which still monkey-patch code directly into gnome-shell) can utterly break the whole thing to the point you don't have a graphical interface anymore.

Compared to KDE, Cinnamon and others (who can have their whole desktop crash without taking any applications with it as long as the window manager etc. and drivers remain unaffected, usually trying to restart the DE and spawn e.g. Dr Konqi) Gnome loves to be unstable because of this. If Gnome crashes it takes everything with a GUI with it.

Yep, it's shoutingisfun. They have really good pools.

Reverse image search got me a reddit post crediting @shoutingisfun but don't quote me on that

Love this, thank you hahaha

Thank you! That’s it, good stuff.

Hey, at least it doesn't run windows.

Things can always be worse

Linux is all about computing how you want. Remember that it is just a meme.

Lack of desktop shortcuts by default: pretty much why I always switch to cinnamon.

That said, it's not inherently bad, it's just not inherently good.

Oh no.

That's ... that's too humanoid.

I'm sorry you were made this way Braixen, the internet is not safe for you.

Oh, you didn’t want to be disoriented by all the apps flying apart in every direction when ever you wanted to use the task bar? Oh you wanted a system tray not hidden behind a menu?

Oh, well you can just use a plug in … just pray we don’t update and break all the plug ins anytime soon.

Been using gnome for years, literally cannot remember a single time the entirety of gnome crashed.

I've used gnome tweaks for a long time as well.

Whereas everytime I've tried to use a custom KDE theme of some kind, some part of it is broken in some fun new extremely specific way that I did not know KDE could be broken in.

I would rather use nothing than gnome

Ew, Gnome.

There are dozens of us

Yep. It has one of the highest number of r34 results of any pokemon.

Agreed. GNOME's simply too opinionated for my taste. Imagine not having something as simple as autostart app configuration in 2026. You need a (first-party?) app for that? For basic functionality? Disgusting.

I'm the guy who actually likes and uses gnome as my daily driver.

It's for people who want to spend less time complaining about desktop environments and more time actually doing stuff.

Coming from MacOS into Linux and landing on Debian/Gnome encouraged me into the world of keyboard-driven navigation.

I got into customising keybindings and moved to a split programmable mech keyboard not too long after. Three years ago I made the switch to Sway and now on Niri (all transitions switched off) on my laptop. My desktop workstation still is on Gnome and I switch between the two machines (with full keyboard-driven navigation) seamlessly.

Yes, some extensions do break on updates but I use extensions very minimally and they get patched relatively quickly. For the experience Gnome provides, I dont mind the couple of days that "blur my shell" is broken. The DE remains stable and the keyboard-driven workflow is fast.

Now that I daily drive a WM (on my laptop) I am thankful I started on Gnome upon landing in Linux. It still remains the best keyboard-driven DE out of the box for Linux first-timers. Perhaps Cosmic will be the other DE in a few years.

I hope Gnome sticks to its phislosphy as it truly provides something unique, stable and a great entry point into the world of keyboard-driven workflows out of the box.

Agreed, the workflow is good for me.

I took sort of the opposite route. Lifelong windows user. Tried Linux out several times from like 08-12/13. Moved to Linux full time, and landed on Fedora, and absolutely loved it because of Gnome. It was different enough from Windows that it felt like a fresh start. Have been daily driving it since then.

Two weeks ago I got my first ever apple device because I wanted something genuine reliable for school that didn't have any weird hiccups, and I just could not stomach the idea of going back to windows. It's similar enough to gnome that I am adjusting pretty well. Still have fedora on my desktop and backup laptop, though

Most of the starters for like the last four generations are basically fursonas. It's tragic. I've been a Pokemon fan since the nineties but I'm losing interest.

gtk and libadwaita stuff actually looks better on kde

What? How?

My god, I really don't like Gnome.

Gnome is quite good with dash-to-dock and the system tray plugins, but it does kinda suck both of those need to be plugins.

That's impressive. Who got the most of them?