let me land, i started working in this place and they asked me to maintain the internal linux distro as well. fine, sure.

they run a modified ubuntu with cinnamon on top… i thought ok interesting choice. no problem right? wrong!

i never noticed since i never used cinnamon much but its missing a shitload of features that regular users expect and that are present in gnome.

some of it its silly,sure. but it has been a challenge, ill just list a few.

  • you cant duplicate your bottom bar on all screens…

  • if you customize your shortcuts and then add the “window group list” applet… it takes over the shortcuts…

  • there is no logout trigger in dconf(WHYYY???)

  • no automatic tiling options can be added(afaik)

  • you cant switch your audio source from the systray icon…

  • tried to remove an applet and now i have a green rectangle in the middle of my screen with no obvious way to remove (see pic)

  • we had to manually modify cinnamon because it wouldnt handle multiple users and gdm at the same time(like WHAT???its fixed now upstream but jeeesus)

  • the issue tracker is a warzone, i opened multiple issues and only once got an answer(the issue above) and theres like 1.6k issues open

we really tried but i dont think we can deploy this much longer, it doesnt seem worthy considering almost none of this is an issue in gnome. im getting tired of getting a ticket and having to reply “well this would work on gnome but on cinnamon we cant,though titties”

to my understanding cinnamon was chosen because more similat to windows but this is not worth it imho… what do you think? have you used cinnamon in professional environments or just stuck to gnome?

  • pezhore
    8·
    7 months ago

    I use KDE as my go-to desktop environment - it’s the only option for my Steam Deck (which is shockingly good when hooked up to an external monitor), and I chose it for my Ubuntu 22.04 LTS work laptop.

    Yes, it does look different from windows, but depending on what global theme you use, it’s shockingly similar:

    • click on the icon in the far lower left to access “Applications”
    • Time/calendar, sound, wifi in the far lower right
    • Single task bar along the bottom that shows currently opened apps and pinned apps

    I spent maybe 10 minutes with my 70 year old mother and she felt comfortable using it despite being a Windows user since 3.1 days.

    Users are more resilient than you’d think - provide documentation on what’s new and you may even be able to sell it as “The upgraded version” of your old platform.

    Hell, the fact that you’re on Linux already is great! Most of the significant issues I run into when converting people over to the OSS side is software availability (coincidentally the thing that made my Mom switch back to Windows).

    • sederx@programming.devOP
      23·
      7 months ago

      If we are ever changing I’m putting gnome back, I wouldn’t deploy kde in my company.

        • sederx@programming.devOP
          21·
          7 months ago

          Among other things plus it’s kinda buggy in my experience which makes sense considering how much stuff it has

          • onlinepersona@programming.devEnglish
            11·
            7 months ago

            When was the last time you used KDE? If you’re a KDE4 user, that’s about a decade old? It would be like judging gnome4 and saying it’s shit because gnome2 wasn’t nice.

        • sederx@programming.devOP
          11·
          7 months ago

          I feel I would encounter similar issues, gnome is the center of development for any commercial distro sadly.

          I would never use it personally(I’m a dwm boy) but for normal people is perfectly fine imho