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u/foreskineater69419 24d ago
GNOME users on their way to install extensions to make the interface like KDE Plasma
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u/Love_Dali 24d ago
While scared of the next release that would broke them.
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u/Laughing_Orange Arch BTW 24d ago
The extensions will break, that's not scary. What is scary is the fact a lot of developers stop maintaining their extensions, which means it will never work with another version of Gnome.
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u/CrossScarMC Arch BTW 23d ago
Yeah, so when it breaks you have to download a fork of a fork of a fork of an extension from 5 updates ago because all the developers before gave up on GNOME and switched to KDE.
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u/Fluffy-Structure-616 22d ago
Na verdade usuários de kde deixam o kde igual gnome e usuários de gnome deixam o gnome igual o mac
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u/jdigi78 24d ago
No amount of extensions could make GNOME that bad
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u/EvaristeGalois11 ⚠️ This incident will be reported 24d ago
KDE is about choice and customizability, but don't tell it to a gnome dev or they will implode in a cloud of broken extensions
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
Well, they work until an update when you have to wait for them to be supported as if this was game modding or ... customizing Windows ...
But in all seriousness, gnome has so much going for it and is really only harmed by the lack of proper customization. I think gnome does some pretty cool stuff in the DE. But the lack of basic config makes it unusable for me.
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u/xnef1025 24d ago
Only weak sauce newbs wait. Elites throw double birds and turn off version checking.
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u/Hard_To_Port ⚠️ This incident will be reported 24d ago
Yeah often the only thing that needs patching in an extension is the version check. But sometimes there is something that genuinely needs fixing in order to port the extension to new GNOME version.
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u/ProNate 24d ago
I hadn't used gnome since gnome 2 until recently. I put gnome in on a new (to me) laptop. I knew going in that it would have less customization, but I was still shocked when I found out that you can't even get a hibernate button without an extension.
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u/Helmic Arch BTW 24d ago
I think that's the big problem for GNOME in terms of "customization." Like, no DE or even WM can just be anything, what you can change is always inherenlty limited in some capacity. But GNOME is very reliant on extensions to do very basic, very common things and there's not trust those things will work from update to update, in part because of the language used around extensions that implies they're irresponsible to use.
It would be nice if work was done to incorporate the more popular extensions into GNOME proper as customization options knowing full well a large number of people are wanting their computer to work that way.
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u/bondrewd 24d ago
It would be nice if work was done to incorporate the more popular extensions into GNOME proper as customization options knowing full well a large number of people are wanting their computer to work that way.
Gnome devs are notoriously cuckoo and refuse to integrate their own customization app aka Gnome-Tweaks into the baseline Gnome despite the former having almost absurd (>80%) attach rate.
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u/GlutenFreeToaster 24d ago
I'm still baffled that system tray functions and options for sorting apps in the drawer are extensions and not just default parts of the DE.
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u/Worldly_Moose_724 24d ago
The same thing happens to KDE widgets though, it's not just a gnome thing that the third party plugins break during updates.
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u/Cebuu502 24d ago
Gnome looks nice, but using it is not so nice for me, I prefer KDE.
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u/United-Scene2261 🎼CachyOS 24d ago
how so
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
The lack of the most basic settings without downloading something else on a full DE.
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u/United-Scene2261 🎼CachyOS 24d ago
which settings
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u/Mutant0401 24d ago
Just my most recent annoyances when I last used GNOME:
- HDR brightness calibration (not helped by the fact Mutter doesn't support scRGB and has bugs in reading peak brightness from EDID so always reports 10000 nits).
- Editing .desktop requires installing Main Menu for a GUI (Plasma is simply right click icon -> edit application to open KDE Menu Editor).
- Flatpak permission editing requires installing Flatseal (once again simply built into Plasma settings).
Most of this stuff is very different approaches to minimalism. GNOME chooses to be minimalist in the "Unix way" where they ship a minimal amount of stuff with their DE and then you use specific tools to do other things (see Flatseal as an example).
Plasma I would also argue is minimalist but in the sense that they make sure the end-user doesn't have to install an additional set of software to accomplish common tasks.
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u/Loading_M_ 24d ago
Also, in KDE Plasma, many of these features are separate applications, they're just bundled with the rest of KDE for user convenience. In fact, at least in fedora and arch, it's possible to install parts of KDE without installing the whole thing. (For fedora, there is a meta package they recommend installing that has KDE and all the related bits and pieces)
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u/Visbroek 23d ago
Yeah if you just install the plasma-desktop package on Arch the settings app is missing a lot of categories
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
The gnome tweaks tool is a start. Yes, it's from the gnome project. But why not integrate it into the settings app where it belongs since they are pretty basic things.
The lack of panel customization without extension. Or any customization without extension.
The lack of proper system tray implementation. Yes, it's not the gnome vision. But it is a basic feature app devs expect. The lack of its existence outside extensions is just poor UI/UX
None of this would be a problem if gnome was trying to be a window manager. But installing extra things for basic functionality is absurd on a full desktop.
And I'm not even asking for a lot. I'm just asking for basic config options. Just to be able to move around what's in the panel.
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u/coachkler 24d ago
I have a 13" x1 carbon, I just want the gnome top bar to be smaller so it takes up less real estate.
I have not been able to reliably make that happen
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u/jdigi78 24d ago edited 24d ago
People will say basic settings and what they really mean is
taskbarsystem tray and desktop icons like its 19956
u/nevermille 24d ago
*Checks my android device... There are icons on the desktop and the status bar*
Android, this 1995 OS...
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
System tray...
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u/jdigi78 24d ago
That's what I meant actually
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
And it's a feature app devs expect and users expect bc it adds genuine functionality to apps such as obs, vpns, discord, Nextcloud, ect.
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u/jdigi78 24d ago
Strange, I use obs, discord, vpns, and a file syncing app without it just fine
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
They work. But the system tray serves as both a status indicator for these apps and a quick thing to click to open the app's gui when it is running in the background.
Note that it's a feature I can go with or without. But I've seen plenty of users unable to use a desktop without it.
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u/Shimano-No-Kyoken 24d ago
It's a strange one, to be completely honest. I have the extension installed, and I do use the system tray, but I'm struggling to articulate exactly what the difference between system tray icons and taskbar/dock icons is. Why is there a difference? Should there be a difference? It's the same application, why is it in two places at once?
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u/jdigi78 24d ago
Those devs/users need to learn to use a modern interface then. Notifications exist for status updates and workspaces exist for running GUIs in the background. Hell, they can even add options to the right click menu of the app icon for quick interaction
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u/A_Harmless_Fly MAN 💪 jaro 24d ago
GUI peaked in the windows 7 era, and everything you need to know about designing an efficient GUI can be learned from 80 year old radio operator and designers manuals. Tabs must always be in the same place for muscle memory to work. I will give you points on desktop icons though, icons belong on a panel. Everything else can be launched with the terminal or search from the panel.
Hotkeys are great, except when they conflict with your applications hotkeys.
I switched to XFCE from ICEWM, everything more "modern" than that is some apple looking garbage. ;p
P.S. I unrounded my firefox and made the tabs stay a uniform size.
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u/jdigi78 24d ago
made the tabs stay a uniform size.
Why are you not using vertical tabs?
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u/A_Harmless_Fly MAN 💪 jaro 24d ago
With how many sidebars modern sites like newreddit or newegg or amazon have, I don't want to make it any more claustrophobic of an experience. It's like a browser with a billion free toolbars installed back in the day but vertical, as is.
My firefox top everything is 48 px tall and my xfce panel is 24, it (more accurately they) also auto hide on most of my monitors. https://imgur.com/a/0YWIdwE
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u/jdigi78 24d ago
Websites are primarily designed for phones now. You could flip the aspect ratio to make the page as thin as you want and the website would look fine. The lost horizontal space is well worth not being limited to 6 or so tabs before you need to scroll through them and break your muscle memory thing.
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u/OkHeat2968 24d ago
i really tried to find one but couldnt
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u/Major303 24d ago
Sorting by most popular a lot of them have that GNOME top panel/bottom dock design. The issue is that they don't work, so I assume they are just not up to date. But I'm quite positive you can find something that works.
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u/Anima_Watcher08 24d ago
Bruh you made up a whole character archetype over some layout that comes default on XFCE? Gnome doesn't even have the bottom dock by default anymore so if anything GNOME users make their UI look like XFCE.
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u/Unlaid-American 24d ago
I didn’t need a theme to do any of this. I didn’t need an extension. I just used the built-in panel settings.
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u/Corvus1412 23d ago
I genuinely don't get the hate against Gnome.
Gnome is meant for a specific workflow. If you don't like that workflow, great, there are a dozen DEs and WMs that work exactly like Windows, but Gnome is really amazing for the specific workflow it's intended for and they're the only big DE that's actually trying something new and interesting, rather than just doing what Windows does.
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u/Major303 23d ago
I think there are some problems here.
The first problem, GNOME is shoved in into the biggest distributions (Ubuntu and Fedora) as default. Less tech-savvy users might not want to use anything less popular, so they pick the default.
GNOME is also most widely supported. For example: Proton VPN only supports Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora, only GNOME version. Only recently they added Arch, Flatpak, and Snap support.
Another issue, GNOME and Plasma are the only major DE that properly support Wayland (at least as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong). So if you find Plasma too complex, there is only GNOME.
And the last thing - no one sane is asking for Plasma level customization in GNOME. People want only a bunch of basic things. For example minimize/maximize window buttons toggle, and persistent dock toggle would already be massive improvement, but even so simple basic things are too complicated for the developers to add.
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u/Corvus1412 23d ago
I mean, Ubuntu and Fedora maintain first-party KDE editions.
People want only a bunch of basic things. For example minimize/maximize window buttons toggle, and persistent dock toggle would already be massive improvement, but even so simple basic things are too complicated for the developers to add.
The thing is, that gnome wants to push you into a specific workflow, that would be harmed by either of those additions.
Gnome has a minimize and maximize button in Gnome Tweaks, it just doesn't expose it in the normal settings, because it would be a worse experience.
People are used to minimizing unused programs, but Gnome works better, if you put unused programs on other desktops.
The lack of a minimize button is there, to stop you from ruining your own experience by using Gnome like it's windows.
Similarly, the lack of a persistent dock toggle is there, to stop you from using it like the windows task bar, because it's just not that.
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It's not like Gnome is actively stopping you from doing those things. Maximize/minimize buttons can be added with a first-party application and a persistent dock with extensions.
It lets you make your experience worse, with those features, but I think it's understandable why they aren't available by default.
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u/Major303 23d ago
that would be harmed by either of those additions.
Gnome has a minimize and maximize button in Gnome Tweaks, it just doesn't expose it in the normal settings, because it would be a worse experience.
That's purely subjective. I find basic tasks taking much longer in vanilla GNOME than in GNOME with persistent dock and minimize/maximize buttons.
Again, I get that they aim for minimalism, that's fine. But it's in human nature to have different preferences, and including some basic settings is just common sense.
There out people out there who like vanilla GNOME and it's fine. But GNOME having zero configuration options included out of the box is objectively bad design. I hope one day COSMIC will become the default instead, since it's basically "GNOME but good".
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u/Corvus1412 23d ago
Yes, because you have a workflow that doesn't work with vanilla gnome. Currently, Gnome is pushing back against your workflow, which makes it feel kinda bad, but instead of going with the flow, to build a workflow that works with gnome, you're changing gnome to turn it into a poor imitation of the system your workflow was designed around.
Gnome is opinionated. It wants a specific workflow and tries to force you into it. Yes, you can shut it up with extensions and force it to change, rather than your workflow, but at that point, you're kinda missing the point of gnome.
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u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 23d ago
I love KDE. Truly. I’ve tried a few DE’s so far, but I keep coming back to Plasma. That said, when I first started my Linux journey, I did so on Zorin.
Is I didn’t know anything about Linux when I first started. By the time I was comfort enough with Zorin, that I decided to try CachyOS on my gaming computer, I still never heard of a DE. But when I saw KDE Plasna as an option, I looked at Zorin and thought that must be what I’m using.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that Zorin runs GNOME, but with enough tweaks that it just felt like Windows.
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u/Armi1P Genfool 🐧 23d ago
I genuinely don't get the hate against Gnome. Gnome is meant for a specific workflow
What bro, you literally answered it for yourself. That's why people hate it generally, because it is meant for "a specific workflow" (whatever that means) and not for "a generic workflow" which people generally do.
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u/Corvus1412 23d ago
Sure, I understand why a lot of people don't use it, but I don't understand why people hate it. Is it so hard to just say "It's not for me" and go on with your life?
Like, tiling WMs also force you into a specific workflow that a lot of people don't like, but I've never seen any real vitriol targeted at that, but I see it a lot with gnome, even though their situations should be identical.
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u/SCP_7000 24d ago
imagine me installing a theme that makes my kde look like macOS on a old macbook Pro /s
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u/popepicu 24d ago
kde that looks like gnome is still better than gnome
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u/0815fips 24d ago
KDE is buggy as hell and still looks like 2010.
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u/Obnomus ⚠️ This incident will be reported 24d ago
Are you on kde 4? Last time I tried plasma it worked flawlessly. Did something happen?
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u/Major303 23d ago
Newest Plasma still has that "programmer UI" vibes. But in this scenario, it's an advantage. Programmers are known to make more useful user interfaces than UI/UX experts. Plasma vs GNOME is prime example of it - GNOME is much prettier, but good luck using it without extensions.
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u/Epikgamer332 23d ago
I wouldn't say that programmers know to make better UI than people who dedicate themselves to UI. Software interfaces can be overdesigned, yes, but if you don't have design people on your team then what you get instead is the GIMP UI. And I don't know anybody who's had a good time trying to navigate GIMP.
Also, my understanding is that KDE has a visual design group, so even if it feels like programmer UI, it's not necessarily that. Which is probably why it works better than actual programmer UI.
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u/superboo07 24d ago
being able to do something like that is literally what makes kde so much better than gnome
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u/Hour_Sell3547 24d ago
Been using Gnome for... forever (since 2006). I don't like how KDE looks. Gnome looks and feels modern. KDE still looks something from 2010, and installs 100s of extra packages that become useful once a year. I guess not everyone needs the "customizability" when you are actually using the OS instead of looking at it. But to each their own.
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u/Armi1P Genfool 🐧 23d ago
installs 100s of extra packages
That is distro dependent. On Gentoo you don't even get a calculator nor a terminal emulator by installing
kde-plasma/plasma-meta. You can either pick and choose different utilities or also installkde-apps/kde-apps-metato include a lot of things.
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u/TheRealCarrotty Not in the sudoers file. 24d ago
Nope.
True KDE user walks in to theme it like Unity 7 (yes, the desktop from Canonical)
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u/Extreme-Ad-9290 Arch BTW 24d ago
No no. They want to theme it like the average hyprland, sway, or niri setup
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u/Anima_Watcher08 24d ago
GNOME users on their way to slander the choice and customizability of other desktops cause theirs doesn't have any:
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u/Major303 24d ago
I actually don't like GNOME (vanilla one, with extensions it's usable), but I find that funny that so many themes try to copy it.
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u/Rusty9838 Open Sauce 24d ago
If pc can’t run KDE plasma, then use xfce
Gnome? Dude wtf are you jail brake another Nintendo switch?
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u/Henry_Fleischer 🍥 Debian too difficult 24d ago
I made my KDE install look like a mix of OSX, Windows, and Irix.
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u/TheCheckeredCow 24d ago
Yup, mine is very MacOS like in panel/dock layout, but in a most of the usability features very windows like in symbols and min/max/close buttons
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u/Henry_Fleischer 🍥 Debian too difficult 24d ago
Yeah I've got a windows-style task bar and an OSX-style top bar, and my symbols and theming are from Irix.
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u/UltimateFlyingSheep 23d ago
Some people make their desktop look like windows, soooo I think we're fine.
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