Thoughts about Gnome 3

Visually and technically, the third Gnome is a huge step forward: animations, elegance - and a new concept that no longer come from the 90's or to be copied of Windows or Mac seems. The crux of it: exactly those changes are also the biggest problems.



Appearance
The first is the look. The delicate elegance of Gnome 2 is passé. There are now a lot more white space, the symbolism is so oversized that a chicken running from the keyboard would clear it. The title bars are clunky, the buttons are on Windows XP Luna qualities. Elegance achieved the new Gnome alone on dark colors and effects. Structural aesthetics seems to be the Gnome shell devoid of. The effects are great - but the proportions of the elements to vote for anymore. Every bar, every part of the new shell has a different size and width; status texts everywhere, overflowing symbol deserts in the selection modes.

Thicker taskbar in Gnome 3
Polemically could say it looks like services targeted on gross motor skills mix of tablet surface and ticket machine. In contrast to the recent Gnome (just think of the simple to the scale holding two strips above and below) the Shell and agitated thrown together.

Limited customization
Well, the look can change most simply, are more severe functional aspects. Simplification, simplification, clarity. This was and is the creed and the Gnomes is the particular appeal of this desktop. Tidiness well and good, but then gradually you get really feel that is clearly exaggerated. The possibilities of the user to adjust "their" desktops with Gnome 3 is still further curtailed, as Gnome 2 this already did. The top bar - almost relegated to the status display - is permanently visible, dominating the entire screen. The display mode of the views can not be configured. The former work area has acted only as a picture frame, the actual "desktop" no longer serves the processing and storage of files. The panels / bars can no longer fit with additional "applets" and expand it to function individually. Gnome also forcing its users to now actually use the concept of "activities".

Fear of buttons
What recently was a joke was good and the author was even resented (what's this absolutely nonsensical GNOME bashing) is now arguably a genuine reality: In the standard Gnome there will in future only a single button in the window title bar - the close tab, nothing more. Minimize and Maximize is reserved for the menu.

No more joke: Bye, Maximize / Minimize!
By now, many wonder whether the leaders can still take it seriously. Here, the decision is (there since the concept of minimizing it in the shell actually not) aside that almost all systems found on such logical buttons, but the reasoning absurd: the user - no joke! - Could even "accidentally click on it" ("... but makes your window vanish if hit accidentally"). Consistently thought would continue to remove Gnome so at some point itself, because "the users might even accidentally turn on the PC."

System cuts
And then of course there's the vexing issue system. The Gnome-3-shell you can use only with proper hardware. If the computer is too old or it contains the "wrong" graphics card, instead you get the new design, only a statement of regret - and the old Gnome-2 desktop set before.

Shell or Shell, interim solutions do not exist
Practical and from a user perspective, Gnome shoots so, ironically, back right back in the 90s: in the times when one Linux only by chance to run, got the screen was often just black or indicated instead of a desktop a fancy colorful abstract pattern. The question of whether on their PC "Linux" can use as hoped, is again a matter of luck. Of course, the fallback and alternatives. But the help is not to disappointed expectations, but if the user really wanted to have the fancy new Gnome. At the end, then again only to realize that "Linux does not work, it is difficult", etc. Here, the Gnome developers might even learn something from Microsoft. Even Windows 7 runs on older machines, because they require all the features that high-end graphics are strictly optional and there is no need for emergency response solutions. Gnome 3 with Shell is all or nothing does not.



Significant loss
The severe change (completely new operating concept, compelling high hardware requirements) all the more surprising when that Gnome so far as traditional and evolving desktop positioned. That choose just the GNOME developers for a de facto complete break with traditional one, is therefore a surprise, especially since broken unnecessarily with the classical concepts. Gnome is thus a high risk of their own importance in the Linux world. In recent years, the Gnome desktop has the No. 1 perceived developed under the Linux desktop. Originally limping behind KDE, emancipated himself with the latest Gnome 2 and became something like the face of Linux. Hardly a distribution was made without Gnome, the large corporate distributions from SuSE and Red Hat Set to Gnome as the default. Above all, Gnome Ubuntu but helped to further dissemination and publicity. Was just in this country before the KDE figurehead as such, has Gnome as part of the Ubuntu hype is also becoming more popular. The distributions were interchangeable, Gnome was a standard interface to the user almost anywhere they found a similarly good preconfigured Gnome, sometimes in blue, green or brown. Those days are over now, with the image of Gnome Linux 3 should now be fragmented. Gnome will no longer be the "desktop" or even reference surface, as was the first collateral damage it already: Ubuntu with Unity. Who will install Ubuntu in the future, do not get a more standard Gnome set before. Whether you follow other distributions, and prefer to rely on proprietary development and alternatives, because they do not want to bother with their user base to become victims of experimental design studies, can not yet foresee.



Conclusion
It should be noted that Gnome Gnome-3, including Shell finds the new desktop. The operation is changing radically, and all under the slogan of the easy accessibility for the average user. But even if the good access refers to Gnome, is doubtful. Will you really use a desktop that comes along with not even the usual window buttons? Sure, you can change everything - but the mass remains the standard just yet. If done so not just Windows who are changing even more difficult to get an easy introduction to Linux? All the world is currently on "Apps" - Gnome throws them out of hand and brings the rigid single-class desktop that can be modified any more. The new Gnome looks ambitious at the expense of breaking with familiar concepts. The changes are brave, perhaps too brave. Gnome is to develop a desktop for the masses, could this time but have so miscalculated badly. The shell looks more like a futuristic project for advanced users who are not afraid to try out new ways of working. Whether this clientele, however, as it were happy with the philosophy of making functional reduction may well be doubted. The normal user, however need desktop icons, a taskbar, and flexible - to put it flat - the usual Knöpp in the usual places. Both will offer not Gnome third After all, the old Gnome is not abolished 2, it lives further modified as a fallback solution for weaker or wrong hardware. Thus Gnome 3 is now of two different surfaces, depending on the available computing resources. If that's not something the user confused.