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.
gnome 40+ has a great workflow
coming from windows 10, it was different at first but now it feels just naturalComing 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.
GNOME 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.
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 use vanilla gnome. Dead simple, no nonsense, gets out of my way. Perfect DE for me.
I hate the giant app menu thing where everything is massive and clearly designed to accommodate a touch interface, so I’ve never used it much beyond that. I am on a desktop, not a mobile device, why is it designed like a mobile device? It’s the same thing people hated about Windows 8, why the hell would you follow that design philosophy?? I really don’t get it.
I understand you can use extensions and whatnot to change that, but why would I want to fight with it when other DE’s are already designed for a desktop experience? Gnome is just flat out not for me.
What do you think about using a keyboard-based workflow: hit Super button (or click on Activities) to make the fullscreen menu pop-up, then write the first few letters of the app name, and finally hit Enter? Search-based workflow is my favourite way to navigate app menu, on GNOME and KDE alike.
I do this sometimes, yes. But still, even if you do that exclusively, I see no point to it being so massive and out-of-place looking on a desktop. I like KDE’s launcher and Rofi, for example.
Using it because it’s the least buggy DE i’ve tried so far. With a few extensions the workflow isn’t too bad either.
I love the design of the applications in general tho, in the sense that they do one thing and one thing only and there aren’t a billion options trying to cover every use case without doing any of them well.
What I hate is CSD… using it with CSD is sad for #xfce user :'(
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 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.
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.
Ir was my first desktop I encountered when introduced to GNU/Linux and it is actually what made me delay my switch to GNU/Linux since I disliked it so much. back then I did not know there are more desktop options so Iit made me think the whole GNU/Linux is not interesting to me. It was not until a few years later until I was told there are other options and I was shown KDE desktop (not called Plasma yet back then) that I fell in love with GNU/Linux.
Why I did not like GNOME was that it was too limited and limiting and unconfigurable. And I would say nowadays it has gotten even worse while KDE Plasma has improved a lot. I think GNU/Linux would have a lot more success at capturing the desktop OS market if KDE Plasma would be the major and default desktop in all those enterprise distributions. It is just so much better and so flexible you can even turn it to mimic any other desktop or even better customize it to fit your wery own best way of workflow and using computers.
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.
I like a lot of pre-customised versions of GNOME like with Ubuntu or Pop!_OS but (and I’m currently using this on Fedora) the default “out of the box” GNOME experience is a bit rough and unfriendly. Sure I’ve got it customised now with some fancy top panel stuff but its still clear I just shoehorned in a bunch of GNOME extensions - and I’m still yet to find a tray that is 1) still supported and 2) to my liking.
I tend to prefer KDE because I’m a tinkerer, but I don’t hate GNOME or anything. I think it’s good for someone who wants the UI to just work and generally get out of the way without much fiddling, although last time I tried it I did find it needed a few extensions to add some basic stuff for whatever reason.
But ultimately, I think it’s good to have choices for both sides of the spectrum, that’s kind of what FOSS is all about in the end.
