What on earth are they thinking?!

Okay. I've used Linux since 1997... I don't get the direction that Gnome is going... I installed the latest Ubuntu... Still the crappy Unity interface that makes it next to impossible to get anything done. Then I grabbed the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed network install... Chose Gnome... Basically the same clunky mess that pushed me from Ubuntu to Mint. Its not innovation, its annoying. People think the Windows 10 start menu is a hassle? No... Not at all.

KDE I used to like but its just a bloated mess now.

I guess I'll just stick to Mint and Cinnamon. Its a sorry state of affairs the direction linux has gone. Back in the 90s the push was for XFree86 to look and act like Windows 9x and now its like some hideous hybrid of OS X and Windows 10.

I don't get how Ubuntu still keeps its popularity. I never could get used to Unity. I don't see how anyone could. Its just one ugly disaster.

I am going to give KDE a try on Tumbleweed but I think I'll be grabbing Mint 17.3 Cinnamon very shortly.

 

Well I grabbed KDE Plasma on OpenSUSE and its *MUCH* better than it used to be. Absolutely gorgeous interface, classic KDE start menu. I don't know where Gnome went wrong but Plasma looks very promising.

 

Tumbleweed moves to Plasma 5.3 and a new release of KDE Applications
May 16th, 2015 by Jos Poortvliet
https://news.opensuse.org/2015/05/1...ma-5-3-and-a-new-release-of-kde-applications/

"At the time of writing this, the openQA servers were busily running tests and, by the time we publish this article, they should be done. What was being tested? A massive amount of changes, bringing not only the latest Plasma 5.3 and Applications 15.04.1 to Tumbleweed, but also marking the switch to Plasma 5 as the default desktop!"

 

For me, gnome 2 was probably the high point in looks/usability (back in the ubuntu 8x era). I like KDE but I get lost with its many configuration options. Unity doesn't bother me, I could take it or leave it. I'm not a fan of docks. For now my usual setup is mint cinnamon.

 

I don't like Ubuntu's Unity, but I do love me some Xubuntu. I run it on my laptop (dual boot with Windows 10), desktop (dual boot with Windows 10), and linux server.

 

Gnome's goal is a UI consisting of a beautiful, clean, elegant button that does nothing when you click it.

 

That's basically what they've done. It's no wonder Linux isn't more widespread, I don't see how anyone could put up with that UI. Plasma is actually kind of nice though. I haven't given KDE a shot in a long time and it's actually pretty well done, at least on OpenSUSE.

 

If you like KDE, try out PCLinuxOS KDE.

 

Yeah, Gnome needs a **** ton of work to make it usable. The build I'm using i grabbed it from our servers at work, and it flies like anything.

 

I used to use PCLOS years ago but really I prefer Mint. Codecs out of the box, great package maintenance, very stable, and you don't have to pay to get updates quickly unlike what PCLOS did back in the day. I swore to never use PCLOS again after paying just to get dumped on a server that was pushing less than a megabit of bandwidth...

 

^^ wow I didn't know that.

 

Mint and KDE for me, thanks.

 

I would probably switch from Cinnamon to the KDE branch if its Plasma. I was really impressed with Plasma.

Although I miss E17. Enlightenment was a royal pain to set up but for its time, it was pretty incredible what you could do with it back in the days when getting a window manager running was an affair worse than setting up Windows 3.1 with VGA drivers and a sound blaster knock off on a Pentium Pro.

 

I love Mint, but I prefer MATE to KDE or Cinnamon. Tends to be more stable for me. But that's my choice, you likely may want different, I had stability and usability issues with Unity on Ubuntu. I am using Chalet OS currently, and I like it. Zorin OS 9, Mint, and Chalet are my current favorite distros.

 

I haven't even heard of Chalet before. Zorin... wasn't that supposed to a BeOS knock off or something? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

I honestly wouldn't mind MATE either, especially since there aren't any Cinnamon hardware monitors I'm aware of, but Cinnamon is just so polished. I don't know.

 

Chalet is a LXDE type desktop, and it comes with the hardware monitors as default. Very Windows like as is Zorin OS, among the nicest desktops visually. I think you'd like them.

 

I'll grab em and try em, thanks for the recommendations.

 

You don't get how other people can use it, but your post is not exactly enabling people to understand your problem neither. What design choices are you mad at exactly? "It's just one ugly disaster" isn't telling much, especially when it comes to the "ugly" part (aesthetics isn't as objective as function).

If you're not used to it, just say you're not. If you believe bad choices are made from the dev's side that leads to a disaster for people beyond yourself, how about saying something more specific?

 

Okay. First off, its not going to be obvious to your average user that the Ubuntu logo is their version of "Start"

Secondly, its next to impossible to find the application you're looking for without having to type it out. New users to Linux won't have any idea where to find anything because they won't know the name of the application they need.

Third, its slow. There's no excuse for a 4790K seeing the spinning cursor constantly in Unity.

Fourth, notifications that pop up that require user interaction (for example, when you have system updates) don't always respond to clicks. They dim but it sometimes takes multiple tries to actually get them to do anything else.

Fifth, its not stable, even with the fact that its not new. It freezes and crashes for absolutely no reason on 16.04.

It isn't just Unity that I slammed so I don't see why you felt the need to pick out that one part of the entire post.

 

Mate has been my go-to desktop environment on the (practically ancient) laptops that I sometimes throw distros on. I haven't used Gnome2 (I started on Gnome3), but many reviewers and end users compare it to Gnome2. Mate is pretty lightweight, though I doubt there's a noticeable difference in performance when compared to Cinnamon (also a great DE!)

I cannot stand Unity as well. The last time that I used it was a few (2-5?) years ago, and I hated how awkward the interface was and how Canonical decided to show me ads when I wanted to find one of my local applications. Yuck.

 

Personally, I think the *buntu 10.10 was the pinnacle. It's all downhill from there.

Thankfully, Lubuntu has stayed solid up until this final parting gift that is Lubuntu 16.04 LTS. They're going to move to LXQt after this and somehow I'm not feeling hopeful.

There is this trend of completely discarding mature components in favor of some shiny new "feature."

There aren't even shortcuts for Min/Max/Restore menu that you get by right clicking on window title bars in Gnome 3.x. That's a feature?

 

I used to like Kubuntu but the OSS only crap pushed me away. Now Mint 18 doesn't install codecs by default anymore either. People wonder why Linux never took off but you think android is fragmented?! Ugh...

 

That's why I like Xubuntu, it's not about new and shiny things, it's literally just Ubuntu with XFCE and will likely stay that way.

 

Lubuntu give me an option to include Third Party Software at the install screen. I think most other *buntus do that too, but I think you may be referring to something else.

Well, that's what Lubuntu was, just plain ubuntu with LXDE... until it wasn't.

Well, I'll ride out Lubuntu 16.04LTS at least.

I don't get it. It's like the distro eaches a maturity point where it's just set, just perfect. And boom, new groundbreaking changes are announced to start some components from v0.0.1.

Case in point, Evince. Man, till some time ago, it was perfect (except one nagging flaw - no shortcut to toggle the Toolbar), but I think that took an ugly turn.

Thankfully somebody did the right thing and forked it off as Atril (or whatever the history is there).

 

Mint 18 is out? Or are you using beta?

 

Anyone else having issues with the network manager disabling the wifi when resuming from suspend in 16.04?