I made this post because I really like the design of GNOME, and although i’d like customizability, it is mostly enough for my everyday needs. But I want to understand why people may choose other desktop environments…or why you would/would’nt use GNOME.
What I like:
- I like GNOME 40 more than GNOME 3 because it’s prettier.
- I like GNOME in general because it’s stable with pretty, high quality bundled programs.
- I like the UX. It takes all the good things about the macOS UX and makes them better, while taking all the bad things and making them less stupid.
- I like that they completely separate the dock from normal window management, so I never hit it when my cursor reaches the edge of the screen.
- I like that you can set Nautilus to use one-click to open folders, even though that is cribbed from Dolphin. (Even if I use
lfmost of the time) - I like the simple IBus integration that lets me setup my Japanese IME easily.
What I dislike:
- I dislike that I need a system tray extension for some software.
- I dislike how in-your-face the notifications are and that they can’t be stacked.
- I dislike that I need to use Dconf to set shortcuts for workspaces 5-10.
- I dislike needing GNOME Tweaks to set autostart software/daemons—this is a basic feature, not a “tweak”.
- I dislike not having an easy way to port my settings for GNOME to a new computer. It’s annoying to have to set all this stuff up again compared to Sway, where I clone a repository and copy some config files over.
- I dislike the new screenshot tool in GNOME 40+. It automatically saves photos to a directory, rather than letting me copy it. Come to think of it, I also dislike that it doesn’t support the same screenshot protocols Sway does for
grimandslurp, which is my favorite screenshot workflow.
export settings on old pc:
dconf dump / > dconf-settings.dumpimport on new pc:
cat dconf-settings.dump | dconf load /Oh! Super handy, thank you! I was just considering how I might use dconf to get this setup.
I haven’t tried it out yet but it seems like it would work well!
Glad to help! Just keep in mind that what you’re doing there is dumping the entire dconf settings tree and applying it as is. That will include a lot of things you don’t want/care about, including state data of certain applications. You should probably sift through the dump file and throw stuff out before loading it again, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
I’ll keep that in mind. The main thing is changing keyboard shortcuts—I like most of the defaults in GNOME. In theory, this should actually be easier to port over to new computers than Sway, because I only need to import one configuration dump.
I mean, I probably could have written a Makefile or something for my
dotfilesrepository but I’m lazy…
I like GNOME because I don’t want customizability.
OK, I like a bit of customizability, but I’m not a designer and trying to make things look consistent and nice is a pain. I once spent days making an icon theme work in Xfce (the freedesktop standards for naming icons are not followed by anyone… (meaning both Xfce and icon themes))
I use GNOME as is and accept it and everything is swell.
Also I use a laptop and I’m addicted the three-finger swipe window preview…
I love customisation and used to customize KDE, but one I saw the new gnome it was pretty much exactly how I was trying to make kde look anyway
I was going for Pantheon-like before and then realised that’s basically just GNOME with some extra bits
Also yes three finger swipe is essential for me on a laptop now every DE should have it
gnome 40+ has a great workflow
coming from windows 10, it was different at first but now it feels just naturalGNOME is opinionated and beautiful. Lots of focus on reasonable design instead of massive amount of customization. It also has a great app ecosystem and documentation. I love it.
What I hate is CSD… using it with CSD is sad for #xfce user :'(
I use a vanilla Gnome without extensions - Arch Linux.
- clean desktop
- I don’t want distraction desktop with tons of infos…app like NextCloud must running without infos about syn etc.
- for productivity need clean and optimal desktop with tiling windows
- 3 or 4 working desktops
- and keyboard shortcuts
Most important for me, less blotware, functional, clean and minimal distraction - minimalist desktop.
The only reasons i stopped using gnome is the lack of system tray and the window switching workflow when using a mouse.
Both of those can be remedied by simply enabling an extension and hot corners respectively.
Indeed, but I find the system tray a bit lackluster as some apps don’t appear in it.
I admire their uncompromising stance on feature creep and polish of the core functionality.
I’m a simple man, all I need 95% of the time is keyboard shortcuts to switch between maximized browser and a maximized terminal emulator.
Compare and contrast KDE, where you have three infinitely configurable screen zoom plugins, and I’ve never seen 3/3 working.
If that’s all you need, sway may be perfect for you
I’ve used it for… IDK, 2017-2022? I’m well aware of what it offers.
I use vanilla gnome. Dead simple, no nonsense, gets out of my way. Perfect DE for me.
I like the overall design of the Gnome Shell (top panel) and the workflow with different workspace. I like it so much that I actually copied it in KDE. What I don’t like is the look and feel of GTK apps. They’re often so limited or the advanced options aren’t clear at the first look.
I can never stick with gnome/gtk because it’s been impossible for me to get a consistent theme/look across my apps.
Newer gnome/gtk has its DPI jacked so that the title bar, buttons, etc. are far too huge for my desktop or laptop, with the only fix being to tinker with the theme config files. Older gnome apps don’t have this issue, but their themes are incompatible so good luck finding a matching theme pair. Non-GTK apps would get stuck with the newer title bar — I swear it would be >100px tall. And doesn’t gnome/gtk 4 have an even newer theme interface that’s incompatible with 2/3?
I’ve since moved to openbox and tiling managers; they actually bother to get this right.
There are plenty GTK themes like GNOME Professional or Qogir, that you can apply to GNOME, and you can change fractional scaling and fonts. This myth that finger sized GNOME title bars cannot be changed is dumb.
Coming from Windows, gnome was the desktop that taught me how to use and appreciate multiple workspaces. I’m now entirely sold on KDE, but there’s something to be said about the gnome workflow.
I remember my first time installing Ubuntu as a teenager and the fact that the desktop environment was Gnome made me hate it. At that age and time I wanted something familiar and Windows-like. Since then, 13 years ago, I always hated Gnome (and Ubuntu) and I don’t feel like that is going to change any time soon.
The new SteamOS opened my eyes to KDE Plasma and now I am running Garuda on my main desktop. Eventually I plan to switch to Arch and “make my own distro” or just use SteamOS once it gets official desktop release.
I don’t use it on the desktop, but it’s a pretty great interface on the Pinetab 2 I have. It simply behaves very well with touch input. One annoyance I have though is not having a “right click” with the touchpad built into the keyboard case. I need to use two fingers in Gnome. It’s not annoying enough to where I absolutely need to change it though.
How is the pinetab 2? I think about picking one up now and again but without pen support I’m really unsure. It would be awesome to use it with a wacom pen but otherwise I don’t know what I’d use it for. What do you do with it?
I use gnome 4 because it is the most “out of the way” DE. I disable the dock and use an extension to hide the top bar, so there is literally nothing on my screen but the program(s) I’m using. I haven’t found another DE that let’s me do that (hiding the dock/taskbar doesnt count, cause it still comes up when you get the mouse too close which is super annoying).
I also like the window presenter thing, which I first started using with KDE. I prefer gnome’s implementation though, since it is the same key to bring up the window selector and the app launcher. I often want to switch to a window only to find it isn’t open, or I want to open a program that already is open but hidden behind other windows, so it makes sense to put them together. I also can’t be bothered to learn more than one hotkey. I’ve tried to obtain this overall behavior in KDE, but I found it was a whole lot of configuration just to get what gnome already does, so I might as well just use gnome.
I found the “touchscreen-y” interface bothersome at first, but I’ve gotten used to it. The biggest issue is not showing a large number of app entries efficiently, but it’s pretty trivial to remove the entries you don’t actually need with alacarte.
Gnome’s default apps (like the newish gnome text editor) are getting too simplistic for my preference, but again it’s super easy to swap them out.
