Desktop Fork for GNOME; Yet Another One Bites the Dust...!

[Roxoff]

Gnome3 is very, very slow on my eee-pc. So slow that i can't stand to use it. In addition, it just takes far too long to do anything,

I had that problem - my eee pc had the original ssd and that was the cause. I bought a new, significantly quicker ssd, and the problem is cured. In fact it's so quick it resolved all the issues I ever had with my eee pc. If you have a hard disk in your eee, then this would make no difference...

[rokytnji]

Windows Managers on My EEEPCs. FTW.



Merry Christmas one and all, Rok

Need to slow down on the eggnog. I can't believe how buzzed I was reading this the next day.

[Leeky]

Having read this thread I thought I'd join up (honestly thought I already had a membership!) and post rather than browse like I have for years.

I don't really get the whole inefficiency comment personally. I was a user of Gnome 2.x for many years, before moving to XFCE recently, and now back to Gnome 3.x as its matured.

I personally do not understand how moving your mouse cursor to the top left corner, then typing a couple of letters on your keyboard and hitting return to open something is "worse" than selecting it from Gnome 2's menu. Sure its different, but it certainly isn't worse.

I find I'm actually more efficient using the new interface versus using the old menu system, and it certainly looks nicer overall.

I understand its different and doesn't appeal to everyone as we all have different tastes, but as a power user I fail to see it when compared to XFCE or Gnome 2.x.

A second problem is what many critics refer to as "bloat." The more bells and whistles a desktop environment has, the slower it is. One of the reasons I do not like Kde is the slowness. I have experimented with Kde on Slackware, OpenSuse and PCBSD. All three systems ran slowly, because they were bogged down by the size of Kde. I have not used Gnome3, but one look at the screenshots on the Gnome web-site was enough to convince me to stop using Gnome, because Gnome3 looks suspiciously like Unity (which is absolute garbage).

My experiences of KDE are the same.

Gnome 3 however, runs absolutely fine on my laptop. Its a Dell D630, with a dual core 2.0GHz Intel CPU, 2GB DDR2, 16MB On-board video, and having run XFCE on it for months I'm seeing very little difference with Gnome 3. I'm running openSUSE 12.1. I have to admit the reason I ran XFCE was because of concerns with performance using Gnome 3 due to the older hardware. But I wish I'd had a go sooner tbh as it runs absolutely fine.

There is a big difference between Unity and Gnome 3 as well. I'm not a fan of Unity at all as it feels too "tablet" styled in my opinion. I've fallen out of favour with the whole distro really -- I don't feel they've made anything solid since they first launched 6.06, but again that's a personal opinion and I realise its subjective at best.

I don't think its a case of eyecandy this and that, I think Gnome 3 represents an evolution in DE's. At the end of the day I'm sure Gnome 1.x > 2.x was met with the same concern and negative reviews in the beginning. It is hard to change from something you have become acustomed to over many years of reliable service. But, sometimes it is also worth the change, and while its different, in the long run those that adapt to it will likely find it works just as well, just in a different manner.

I'm new here, so I'll give a brief introduction. I've been using Linux daily since 2005. I cut my teeth with Ubuntu, before moving onto Slackware. Then onto Fedora, Debian and SUSE. These days I use Debian, CentOS, openSUSE, SUSE and 'buntu (more clients than myself). I've used KDE (I've never liked it, but tried it to see if I could get used to it on many occasions), Gnome 2/3, and XFCE 4.6/4.8.

I find that Gnome 2.x just doesn't work for me having used and started adapting to its newer release. So I tend to now use XFCE for most installs (No GUI on servers though for obvious reasons) and stick to openSUSE 12.1 and Gnome 3.2 for my personal usage.

[sgosnell]

Using either the keyboard or the mouse is fine, but having to use the mouse, then the keyboard, then the mouse, is not an efficient way to get things done. If you have to click, then clicking should be all you have to do, not drop the mouse and then type. But if it works for you, fine.

I have an aftermarket 32GB SSD in my eee, not the original slow one. I'm not sure why, but mousing to the upper left corner and clicking on Applications takes many seconds before anything happens. It takes far too long to find and open anything. I just refuse to spend that much time waiting, when I'll never get that time back.

[Jonathan183]

I have come to the conclusion for me a DE offers little benefit for the performance cost so use IceWM. Other systems have gnome2 for the moment Mint Debian Edition (some running testing and some running stable). I'll wait and see how gnome3 works out on the systems, if it does not they will be switching to IceWM. A default IceWM is short of icons on the desktop and automatic menu updates - otherwise I'd just use it on all systems ...

I'm glad gnome3 is available for people who want to use it ... and that alternatives are available and being developed for people who don't

[Leeky]

Using either the keyboard or the mouse is fine, but having to use the mouse, then the keyboard, then the mouse, is not an efficient way to get things done. If you have to click, then clicking should be all you have to do, not drop the mouse and then type. But if it works for you, fine.

I use it the same way I use my W7 PC mainly. I don't bother with the menu, I just click it and type what I want. In that respect Gnome 3 works very well as well.

I appreciate people have different opinions, (and I'm sure this doesn't apply to you) but reading the various negative comments online I've come to the conclusion that most people are just knocking it because someone else is, and its "cool" to join in. I'd be surprised if most people have even used it for more than 5 mins (if at all) before summarising it as useless.

That said, the wealth of options for WM's or DE's means there is always something to please someone. We're mostly all here for the same reasons, and regardless of what we use the underpinnings of the OS are why were are all here.

I have an aftermarket 32GB SSD in my eee, not the original slow one. I'm not sure why, but mousing to the upper left corner and clicking on Applications takes many seconds before anything happens. It takes far too long to find and open anything. I just refuse to spend that much time waiting, when I'll never get that time back.

I'm just using a 7,200RPM 80GB hard disk, and I find it fine. Its near instant in its response, but I think that would definitely annoy me as well. That said, my laptop is just for the social aspect of my online activity and computer use. My production machine still uses W7 as its also currently my gaming rig as well. Maybe some time in the future I'll move over to Linux full time for a production machine, but I like my gaming too much to fully get rid of Windows.

[Giro]

Hotkeys help with not using a mouse, Unity Technologies Blog » Blog Archive » Unity Hotkeys – keyboard shortcuts in Unity

[Randicus]

If the only way to use a desktop environment that approaches efficiency is to bypass it by using short-cuts or use the CLI, the DE is not very good.
A few Ubuntuphiles support Unity with the argument that the slow navigation through the series of full-screen menus can be avoided with hot-keys. "Unity is great! I bypass the GUI, but Unity is great!"

[sgosnell]

Yeah, if you have to use the keyboard, what's the use of a GUI?

[elija]

Yeah, if you have to use the keyboard, what's the use of a GUI?

It's pretty?