an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn’t considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME’s hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.

GNOME does have a launcher, which works just like the launcher on Mac and Android. You can even select whether to see all your apps or only the most-used ones. I do agree that a taskbar/dock with intelligent auto-hide is a must, though (at least for my usability). That’s also not to say that some folks would rather have a Windows style launcher, and there are several DEs that provide that.

A qualified yes. I love the overview, which is, IMO, the most elegant way to launch applications and manage workspaces of any OS or DE. I also love the general look and fluidity of the environment and how it gets out out of your way when you don’t need it. But I preferred the pre-GNOME 40 vertical workflow to the new horizontal workflow.

There are also three must-have extensions that make GNOME usable for me:

• AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support. GNOME can wish away tray icons if they want to, but the tray hasn’t gone away and is still necessary for some applications.
• DashToDock. Makes app switching more accessible and adds right-click to close.
• Gnome 4x UI Improvements. Increases the size of the workspace thumbnails so you can actually see what’s in them (like it was before GNOME 40).

I still favor native packages, but I don’t have a problem with Flatpaks. I’ll use them when a program isn’t available in the repo or there’s a compelling reason to have a never version of an application. I’m on Debian Stable, so I’m obviously not obsessed with having the newest, shiniest version of everything.