This article was written in the sense of bashing gnome but yet some points seem to be valid. It explains the history of gtk 1 to 4 and the influence of gnome in gtk. I’m not saying gnome is bad here, instead I find this an interesting to read and I’m sharing it.
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You left off the part about this being just your opinion and a lot of people like gnome.
Also, what kind of monster has desktop icons or files in 2023?
Most people.
No wonder you guys say you don’t like Gnome. You like clutter and lack organizational skills. It’s ok though. We all have our burdens to bear.
Do not misunderstand me. I don’t generally use a lot of desktop icons. For the most part, the fewer icons are on my desktop the better, but I do have a few.
But back when Ubuntu briefly got rid of them, it sucked because occasionally I do want some icons on my desktop.
In short: if you don’t wanna use any, you don’t have to; just gimme the damn option.
Also, I never said I dislike Gnome.
Oh I know I’m just being purposefully jerky. That’s the best part about Linux; options!
That’s what they did initially. Unfortunately, keeping around an antiquated optional feature that no developer wants to work on isn’t free. It ends up being a hurdle for improving other stuff and at the same time it doesn’t work as well as the user would expect. There is more context here if you’re interested.
Antiquated? Hardly. Lots of people still use desktop icons.
(Unless you’re referring to Gnome users; maybe it’s different with that subset. I’m more referring to computer users in general.)
Also, that is interesting! I’ll read it sometime! Thanks!
Clarification: In my previous comment I meant that the implementation was antiquated, which is why it was causing many problems.
Although I do think that desktop icons in general are outdated because they’re designed around a desktop metaphor that is itself outdated. Our use of computers has changed vastly over time and the original metaphors are irrelevant to today’s newcomers. Yet most desktop environments are still replicating the same 30 year old ideas. It’s because we’re used to them (which I understand is a valid reason), not because they are necessarily the most pleasant or the most efficient.
That’s fair. Like I said, I mostly don’t use them. But if I really need to remember something in the short term, I’ll put it on the desktop. Or if I don’t really have any other place to put it I’ll put it there.
My point is that it’s useful to have when you need it, even if you don’t normally use it. Although I suppose it wouldn’t be difficult necessarily to find a new workflow. Still, to most everyday people I imagine desktop icons are kind of a non-issue.
I have opened in a tab that article you sent me. If keeping such an otherwise minor feature available is such a problem for future development for developers, I will have to read that. Because it otherwise seems almost inconsequentially small a detail when compared to the OS / file system experience as a whole.
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Umm well akshually 🤓👆: KDE doesn’t exist because people don’t like GNOME lol. GNOME was made because KDE uses QT, which used to be proprietary.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#History
Yeah I remember those early days. KDE had a 1.0 version out in the late 90s, which was perfectly usable as a standalone desktop environment, while at the same time Gnome was little more than a panel with a foot. Early Gnome was an unholy mess and remained so until the late 2.x versions in the mid 2000s. Like how many window managers and file managers did they go through? I believe they even had Enlightenment as the default window manager for a while, and then there was that weird Ximian desktop phase.
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If we are getting pedantic here, the above quote is clearly implying that alternatives exist and are actively developed because people dislike GNOME. Your statement does not take in to account the possibility that people just like the other alternatives, and may still like GNOME as well, or feel indifference towards it.
No one is claiming that GNOME has the superior desktop experience. Rather, GNOME has a more opinionated experience, that suits some people, and not others. For some people, it will be superior. For others, they will prefer KDE, XFCE etc.
GNOME 3 was released 12 years ago, and hasn’t changed that much (unless you consider horizontal virtual workspaces are a major paradigm shift somehow).
Just use something else if you don’t like it; no one’s “pushing” anything on to you. Clearly, other people do like it.
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Well, then I’d highly suggest you just use Xfce and not worry about GNOME so much. Xfce hasn’t changed much in years.
This is easily the best part of GNOME. I wish macOS implemented mission control as well as GNOME has implemented Activity Overview, because using macOS feels like typing with one hand tied behind my back.
Go to GNOME Control Centre > Accessibility > Seeing > Reduce Animation. It also sets it globally so websites can choose to respect this setting. What animations remain?
They removed it because nobody wanted to maintain the code, which was generally agreed to be subpar, and it was blocking development elsewhere in Nautilus. They acknowledge it was a dumb idea to implement this functionality inside of Nautilus in the first place when they should have done it in the shell. They realized they were leaving users in the lurch here, so offered a few solutions like installing Nemo Desktop. They even developed a GNOME shell extension prototype before removing it that users could move straight to.
It wasn’t part of some grand design decision that precluded desktop icons. They just made a bad technical decision 20 years ago that ended up accumulating a lot of technical debt.
Now, if you wanted to complain about something, shell extensions are certainly a horse worth beating. Or only letting you set shortcuts for the first four workspaces and forcing you to use Dconf for more. This is really dumb design.