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G'day, MATE!

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Caitlin
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G'day, MATE!

#1 Post by Caitlin »

This is not a question, it's a comment.

Gnome 3 stinks. I hated it just from the descriptions I read long ago. Finally I had to upgrade to Wheezy and Gnome 3 came with it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, it was much worse!

The strongest statement I can make regarding the "new and improved Gnome" is just not to use it. And I'm not the only one.

My first order of business was to replace it. Finally, I discovered MATE. I was so happy I couldn't help shouting "G'day, MATE!"

May the Gnome 3 team rot forever in the lowest levels of hell.

Caitlin

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deltaflyer
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#2 Post by deltaflyer »

moved to General Discussion,as it's not a question
free your computer,use opensource

kedaha
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#3 Post by kedaha »

Caitlin wrote: Gnome 3 stinks. I hated it just from the descriptions I read long ago.
The descriptions of systemd, jessie's system and service manager don't exactly inspire the opposite emotion either. :wink:
DebianStable

Code: Select all

$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

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yzT
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#4 Post by yzT »

That's your opinion.

I've tried MATE, XFCE, LXDE, KDE and Cinnamon, and yet my DE of choice is Gnome with Cairo-Dock.

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edbarx
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#5 Post by edbarx »

yzT wrote:That's your opinion.

I've tried MATE, XFCE, LXDE, KDE and Cinnamon, and yet my DE of choice is Gnome with Cairo-Dock.
Clearly, you have powerful hardware to say that. This is not the case for many who found CHOICE as a way to prolong the life of their 'outdated' hardware. Unfortunately, or better, intentionally, systemd and GNOME3 will streamline that to match the world out there.
Debian == { > 30, 000 packages }; Debian != systemd
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keithpeter
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#6 Post by keithpeter »

edbarx wrote:...many who found CHOICE as a way to prolong the life of their 'outdated' hardware. Unfortunately, or better, intentionally, systemd and GNOME3 will streamline that to match the world out there.
Gnome is a resource magnet (mainly I suspect because of the 3d composited desktop its window manager requires), agreed. Wheezy default install runs (ok, sort of jogs) on a thinkpad dual core X60 with 1Gb ram. Things get better with 1.5Mb. This laptop has Intel video, so no binary drivers needed.

Systemd and its associated mudball does not, oddly, seem to add a huge overhead when used on a minimal system. According to my notes it is something like a couple of Mb on the old-school desktop (68 cf 62 idle off a fresh boot, before I had the cups daemon running). I prefer to run sysvinit for the lutz and the absence of mudball dependencies.

I ran the tiling window manager dwm along with the dmenu search based application launcher on Squeeze for a year or so. You don't get much lighter than that. Oddly enough, Gnome *reminds* me of dwm. Search based and keyboard friendly. Just several thousand times larger!

I might do a reinstall on the test laptop and see how MATE runs with systemv and (I guess) the systemd-shim in Jessie next week if the current version mis-match has gone away.

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yzT
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#7 Post by yzT »

edbarx wrote:
yzT wrote:That's your opinion.

I've tried MATE, XFCE, LXDE, KDE and Cinnamon, and yet my DE of choice is Gnome with Cairo-Dock.
Clearly, you have powerful hardware to say that. This is not the case for many who found CHOICE as a way to prolong the life of their 'outdated' hardware. Unfortunately, or better, intentionally, systemd and GNOME3 will streamline that to match the world out there.
and do you think is it fair to say Gnome sucks just because you have an old PC? Evolution dude, evolution.

Gnome runs fine on PCs of seven years ago, not my fault you try to use it on something from ten years ago.

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Re: G'day, MATE!

#8 Post by sirfer »

What is peoples obsession with DE's? IMO they all suck. WM's can be customised to order...especially on a PC where I want the OS to get out of my way and let me work...computing makes me money so fretting over this DE or that because it borks my Xorg or uses 50MB of RAM instead of 30MB is something I left behind years ago. Hell, my current system uses ~160MB for the WM alone, but thats due to the crappy ATI drivers I need to get Xorg running smoothly.

And yzT nobody even said anything was your fault, thats a childish retort if ever I saw one.

I use OpenBox because I realised Linux DE's were going around and around in circles and nowhere fast so I bothered to learn a more basic yet customisable system and I like it. It lets me operate my computer the way I like it by making my own menus and startup options...and it isn't exactly hard to figure out. The *boxes are far more powerful than most people can imagine. Don't get me wrong, MATE and Cinnamon are good, I recently installed Linux Mint with Cinnamon (or was it MATE?) on a spare partition and apart from the hideous greenery in the themes, it is fast and usable. But I always return to my Debian stable with OpenBox because I made it what it is...fast, lean and simple. It sorta looks like this http://sirfer.mooo.com/pix/2013-07-13-1 ... _scrot.png altho I have added a few items to the menu since that screenie, but I could work with what you see there

Don't get hung up on superficialities people, its substance that counts. I use a dv5 1108ax laptop with a dual core AMD something-or-other and 4GB of RAM and its as fast as I could ever want a PC to be.

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edbarx
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#9 Post by edbarx »

yzT wrote:Evolution dude, evolution.
Gnome is not for me and the reason is not that hardware cannot support it. Furhermore, I never condemned Gnome, but the inability of DDs to stand up and be counted. Debian was always reknown to give ample freedom as to what its users can choose to use.

Moving from a state of self-determination, to one where one is constrained to take it or leave it, is an 'evolution' many don't accept. Can anyone who can see reason blame them?
Debian == { > 30, 000 packages }; Debian != systemd
The worst infection of all, is a false sense of security!
It is hard to get away from CLI tools.

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harrycaul
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#10 Post by harrycaul »

debianxfce wrote:Debian will use xfce as default in the next release.
Source?
Gnome is for dummies, you can not configure the desktop easily, it is slow and filling the screen with menu items is stupid.
No argument here. Xfce > Gnome

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harrycaul
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#11 Post by harrycaul »

debianxfce wrote:Debian will use xfce as default in the next release.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 28#p555614

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RU55EL
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#12 Post by RU55EL »

If everyone in the world was the same, life would be so boring!

As everyone here should know, GNU/linux gives us the luxury of choosing one of many desktop environments. Certain DEs work better with certain hardware, and certain people.

My two primary computers, one at home, one at work, are fairly peppy, 3.4 GHz quad core with 16 GB of RAM and several terabytes of hard drive space. Given that, just about any DE will work on the hardware. I've tried XFCE whole heartedly, and do find it very resource efficient, but not task efficient - at least not for me. I really like Gnome, I can work much faster using it and find myself using the mouse less and less. I'm just surprised that so many people here seem to dislike it.

OK, that being said, I have an old XP machine with a dual core 3 GHz processor, 2 GB of ram, and two 125 GB drives in RAID 1 working as a file server with XFCE installed so that it can be used as a desktop computer if needed.

Ah, nothing like the freedom of choice!

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Re: G'day, MATE!

#13 Post by Ardouos »

debianxfce wrote:
Debian will use xfce as default in the next release. Gnome is for dummies, you can not configure the desktop easily, it is slow and filling the screen with menu items is stupid.
Gnome is now default again, unless you provide us with an up to date source.

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 65#p554178

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Caitlin
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#14 Post by Caitlin »

I am tired of hearing the argument that the "lightweight" desktops are for older, less powerful hardware. GNOME 3 is crap, and with a faster machine, it'll just be crappy at a faster rate of speed. Ralph Nader said some cars are "unsafe at any speed" and that's the way I feel about the new GNOME.

And it doesn't matter that the bugs are still being worked out of it. When it's debugged, it'll just be crappy without bugs.

I once saw an article about how having a computer doesn't have to be expensive. For the cheaper alternatives, they suggested Linux as it's free. For those who have more money to spend, they suggested Windows. In effect they were saying to get Windows if you can afford it -- it's the same type of argument to say get GNOME 3 if your hardware can support it.

Caitlin

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RU55EL
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#15 Post by RU55EL »

Caitlin wrote:[...] GNOME 3 is crap, and with a faster machine, it'll just be crappy at a faster rate of speed. [...]
Why do you say that it is crap? Because you don't like it? Or, is there something wrong with it? Don't get me wrong, I am asking because I'm genuinely curious. I am reading that a lot of Debian users, clearly very capable users, really don't like Gnome and I wonder why. Everyone has their own preferences, that I respect, if fact, that is one of the great things about Debian. Freedom of choice. But, I can't help wondering if there is a fundamental software problem with Gnome, considering how much it seems to be despised here.

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harrycaul
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#16 Post by harrycaul »

I put CentOS on a computer for my mom.
Gnome 3 = New Coke
Gnome Classic = Classic Coke
Gnome 2 = original Coca-Cola

I guess KDE is Pepsi then.

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Re: G'day, MATE!

#17 Post by keithpeter »

RU55EL wrote:But, I can't help wondering if there is a fundamental software problem with Gnome, considering how much it seems to be despised here.
Just for the sake of argument, suppose there are three categories of end user for desktop/laptop graphical interfaces...

Type 1: Casual computer users. Web, photos, music player, videos, occasional use of an office package application to produce a simple product possibly e-mail offline if not using a Web mail system. Social sites such as FB/G+ &c Mostly mouse. Basically collections of 'stuff' and simple one application tasks. Printing, wifi, multimedia have to 'just work' for these people. Type 1 users are used to diverse interfaces now as a result of iPad and Windows 8. I suspect Gnome devs tend to focus on Type 1 use cases.

Type 2: Intensive users of a *desktop* system; video editing, sound production or advanced graphics production, creating stuff using a wide range of *desktop* software; highly integrated use of an Office suite and email offline client including calendering. Mouse plus keyboard shortcuts within packages. In Windows based company offices, type 2 users would include 'that guy' in the corner with the three monitors who runs huge Excel spreadsheets. ('that guy' is actually a lady in my office but you know the ones).

Type 3: Developer/sysadmin: Terminals and a Web browser with a command line programming environment *underneath* the desktop. Keyboard orientation.

Type 1 and Type 3 have no particular problems with Gnome, although the Type 3 people may be opinionated and may not like subtle aspects such as alt-Tab alt-` behaviour or the organisation of virtual workspaces. Type 3 likely to use a keyboard centric possibly tiled window manager on X and not bother with much else and so not figure in complaints.

It is the Type 2 people who may have *real* problems with Gnome in my experience because of the way it changed the workflow and logic of window grouping and multi-application working. For these people, Gnome looks like bad design because their use cases were not at the centre of the project. KDE looks better *to me* as a type 2 ish kind of user because I actually rather like the semantic desktop. Others might not.

Any good?

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RU55EL
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#18 Post by RU55EL »

keithpeter wrote:Any good?
Yes!

Thank you keithpeter for taking the time to post a clear explanation.

I'm not exactly sure where I fall in the categories defined in your post, but I'm definitely a computer enthusiast. I tend to use a number of operating systems, windows and linux, and find Debian stable / Gnome 3 to be an excellent operating system and desktop environment.

So, if anything the "problem" is between my ears and not necessarily with Gnome3.

Arthos
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Re: G'day, MATE!

#19 Post by Arthos »

Do I have good hardware or have I just been incredibly lucky somehow?

Jessie 8.2 Stable w/gnome3 on a Lenovo x200 128GB SSD and 8GB ram Intel Core 2 Duo P8600
FTP Server with an AMD 2650 APU with jessie 8.2 stable and gnome3 4gb ram

Its hardly a core i7 with a GTX 980 and 16GB ram I use but I have tried;
  • KDE on 7.8 wheezy
    Gnome3 & classic one time
    Cinnamon on LMDE
    Openbox
Only ever used the FTP server with gnome3 its a new addition to my collection :)

Not once have I ever thought my hardware couldn't support it or was lagging or slow. Do we still say 'your hardware might not support it' for the benefit of people still using these?

Image

I'd actually like to try that with Jessie and and Xfce or something.
root is my account - http://www.garyshood.com/root/

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Re: G'day, MATE!

#20 Post by spacex »

Caitlin wrote:This is not a question, it's a comment.

Gnome 3 stinks. I hated it just from the descriptions I read long ago. Finally I had to upgrade to Wheezy and Gnome 3 came with it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, it was much worse!

The strongest statement I can make regarding the "new and improved Gnome" is just not to use it. And I'm not the only one.

My first order of business was to replace it. Finally, I discovered MATE. I was so happy I couldn't help shouting "G'day, MATE!"

May the Gnome 3 team rot forever in the lowest levels of hell.

Caitlin
I couldn't agree more. Gnome 3 is quite possibly the worst DE I've ever tried. Total Garbage. There is no other way to describe it. I share your wishes for Gnome. May it rot in hell. Also, Debian would become much more free, if it liberates itself from this evil. There isn't a single positive thing that Gnome brings to the table. It's all bad.

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