Review of Gnome 40 desktop environment, tested in Fedora 34 beta, covering look and feel, ergonomics and many associated problems in the default design, new Activities, Gnome Tweaks, Extensions, desktop scaling, performance, search, tour, and more
Reading a Gnome 40 review from someone who already doesn’t like Gnome is a little useless IMO. Yeah, it doesn’t follow a lot of old desktop paradigms that started back in the Windows 95 days. Get over it. If you want that style of desktop experience there are plenty of options.
Agreed. I tried many different desktop environments and I still come back to gnome when I want a more polished and modern DE.
I can completely understand the critiques but it’s a matter of taste after all
I’m 100% on board with letting niche desktops be niche desktops, but GNOME isn’t niche. It has been elected the default of many distros. Many users will come from traditional desktops and get thrown onto GNOME without being asked whether they like it or not.
As such, I do feel like the GNOME devs have a responsibility of catering to a broader audience. Obviously, they also have the responsibility to push users towards what they envision as the most efficient workflow, but I don’t think that justifies a hard break with the traditional desktop paradigm when the two paradigms don’t get in the way of each other.
The whole point of GNOME is to do things “better” than those systems. If they manage to do so or not I’d say is subjective, but in my own opinion it provides me a better workflow. So yeah. People are indeed different.
I much prefer macOS to Windows, and Gnome is a good transition from macOS.
I use a trackpad, and never found the need to use min / max buttons. I use the upper left hot corner to display all windows, and lower left to display the desktop.
On Mac I use 4 finger swipes a lot to transition between workspaces for applications I want to use full screen. So those gestures in Gnome 40 sound like a welcome addition, and I’m sure they’ll go some ways to convince more Mac users to try Linux.
I know Gnome and especially Pop!_OS are meant to be very keyboard-centric. But I’m quite used to using a trackpad.
Well, I’m transitioning into using TWMs like Sway now, but Gnome is definitely my favorite DE.
I’m also forced to use Windows a lot, but don’t enjoy it at all.
You might already know that, but Pop is developing a tiling extension for gnome called Pop Shell. I had been using different TWMs for years before I tried Gnome with this extension, and it does its job. It probably isn’t great for people who prefer automatic layouts, but transition from i3/sway to Pop Shell isn’t that hard. I gotta say that I enjoy the polish of Gnome, mostly notification, sound or bluetooth settings, etc. Though InstantOS is trying to achieve something similar with a tiling window manager, which is very interesting, but it’s still in beta, but worth checking out.
I have never used a Mac in my life and also really like gnome (prefer it greatly to what I’ve seen from macs) - it just feels a lot more natural and fluid of an approach. It takes some relearning but formation and new habits and I get that not everyone are up for that.
Reading a Gnome 40 review from someone who already doesn’t like Gnome is a little useless IMO. Yeah, it doesn’t follow a lot of old desktop paradigms that started back in the Windows 95 days. Get over it. If you want that style of desktop experience there are plenty of options.
Agreed. I tried many different desktop environments and I still come back to gnome when I want a more polished and modern DE. I can completely understand the critiques but it’s a matter of taste after all
I’m 100% on board with letting niche desktops be niche desktops, but GNOME isn’t niche. It has been elected the default of many distros. Many users will come from traditional desktops and get thrown onto GNOME without being asked whether they like it or not.
As such, I do feel like the GNOME devs have a responsibility of catering to a broader audience. Obviously, they also have the responsibility to push users towards what they envision as the most efficient workflow, but I don’t think that justifies a hard break with the traditional desktop paradigm when the two paradigms don’t get in the way of each other.
The whole point of GNOME is to do things “better” than those systems. If they manage to do so or not I’d say is subjective, but in my own opinion it provides me a better workflow. So yeah. People are indeed different.
I much prefer macOS to Windows, and Gnome is a good transition from macOS.
I use a trackpad, and never found the need to use min / max buttons. I use the upper left hot corner to display all windows, and lower left to display the desktop.
On Mac I use 4 finger swipes a lot to transition between workspaces for applications I want to use full screen. So those gestures in Gnome 40 sound like a welcome addition, and I’m sure they’ll go some ways to convince more Mac users to try Linux.
I know Gnome and especially Pop!_OS are meant to be very keyboard-centric. But I’m quite used to using a trackpad.
Well, I’m transitioning into using TWMs like Sway now, but Gnome is definitely my favorite DE.
I’m also forced to use Windows a lot, but don’t enjoy it at all.
You might already know that, but Pop is developing a tiling extension for gnome called Pop Shell. I had been using different TWMs for years before I tried Gnome with this extension, and it does its job. It probably isn’t great for people who prefer automatic layouts, but transition from i3/sway to Pop Shell isn’t that hard. I gotta say that I enjoy the polish of Gnome, mostly notification, sound or bluetooth settings, etc. Though InstantOS is trying to achieve something similar with a tiling window manager, which is very interesting, but it’s still in beta, but worth checking out.
I have never used a Mac in my life and also really like gnome (prefer it greatly to what I’ve seen from macs) - it just feels a lot more natural and fluid of an approach. It takes some relearning but formation and new habits and I get that not everyone are up for that.