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Comment by Andrew_nenakhov | Hacker News Reader

When Ubuntu dropped the hammer on Gnome2, I saw Unity desktop and was kinda... ewwww. And next I have installed Gnome 3. After 15 minutes with it I decided that Unity is actually not that bad, so I switched to it.

In the following years Unity kinda grew on me, so I'm sad that it was axed and now everyone use this Gnome3 abomination. It is not as bad as it was five years before, but loss of top menu and general preference for biggins buttons instead of drop-down menus is a bad idea for desktop computers.

I wish someone would fix Gnome3 by making it look back like Unity .

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As someone who has used too many distributions and window managers to count (over the course of many years), I've settled on Ubuntu and whatever their default UI. And I quite liked Unity as well after a while.

Of course if there was a major reason to switch away from Ubuntu or their default DE, I would, but it's the pragmatic choice. The constant "finding" of the perfect fit gets in the way of actually doing stuff. Once you adjust expectations towards a system, I'm still far happier with Ubuntu I could ever be with macOS or Windows, and don't waste time having a different system to work with every two weeks (slightly exaggerating).

Is it perfect? No. Is it good enough? Yes. Is it great compared to alternatives (factoring in speed of deployment and productivity from the get to)? Definitely yes.

I'm glad popOS uses Ubuntu and Gnome as backbone and tries to give you a customized experience rather than completely reinventing everything. Though for me, as long as Canonical doesn't screw it up in a major way, stock Ubuntu it is.

> Though for me, as long as Canonical doesn't screw it up in a major way, stock Ubuntu it is.

It's not like they're not trying, with snaps and all... we shall see.

I guess what constitutes a "major screw up" can be debated. I don't have a problem with snaps.

The basic idea is fine, but the obnoxious gnome-esque, "we don't care about convention or your preferences" is the main problem.

To me, the fact we aren't given full control over when apps update is the main problem.

As far as I can tell, Ubuntu's position is still that users shouldn't be allowed to stop updates indefinitely: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for...

I keep a handy script to remove old versions of snaps. I regularly retrieve gigabytes of lost storage after updates.

I never liked Gnome3 and I never liked Unity. I have however been more than happy with XFCE distros. Simple task bar, simple menu, doesn't waste space and can look quite nice if a little attention is given to design. If you are unsatisfied with the major DEs it's worth at least trying.

To me, XFCE feels like a visual evolution and refinement of Windows 98 - and I mean that in the best possible way. Windows has three or four separate and inconsistent visual styles that get mixed nowadays, macOS has UI style changes in every single yearly update for seemingly no other reason than to change things, and Gnome 3 threw any good sense in usability out the window, but XFCE is still trucking along with a single style that stays consistent and highly usable without being ugly.

and xfce supports using a tiling window manager and keeping the rest of the desktop environment, which makes it perfect for my needs.

LXDE and LXQt also do this, for anyone looking to learn about more DEs.

The best thing about Unity is that now it will never change for better or worse and still works with Ubuntu 20.04. It's fairly minimalist and frozen in stasis like I wish Apple had done with the SnowLeopard UI.

The only thing I liked about unity was the HUD that allowed you to search through application menus by typing the setting you were looking for. Do you know if there’s anything offering that functionality for Gnome3?

https://github.com/hardpixel/gnome-hud

If you hit the Windows key on Gnome 3, you can type the name of a program, file or system setting and it will generally find it.

That's not it. Unity let you find at you typed to get to menu options. So you did not have to care whether the item you wanted was under File, Edit, or whatever, you could just start typing "preferences" and it would let you find it and go to it with the keyboard.

That was pretty good, actually.

That is the single feature I miss the most about Unity. Gnome's prodigal attitude to screen real estate is annoying (though the Ubuntu version is somewhat better), but being able to search menus makes a real usability difference. I miss it every time I use InkScape or QGIS or similar programs with five layers of voluminous menus...

That went away with global menu, I'm afraid. In vanilla gnome every app handles it own menu however it likes, so this kind of integration is not possible.

For all its flaws, Unity really tried to offer an unified desktop experience.

That works in Gnome for os level items, but not for application level items.

Again, that's not what is being asked.

Not for GNOME 3 but MATE has a Heads-Up Display https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/mate-hud

This is my biggest missing feature from the Mac. Do any of the major GUI toolkits for linux support this?

MacOS sort of supports it - the help menu for each app has a search box CMD+Shift+/ (or CMD+? If you prefer to think of it like that) will open it up.

Each of the menu bar options should be searchable, and the search box will open the requisite menu to the correct branch/leaf and highlight it for you.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I know the Mac has it, I was asking if there is a similar feature on linux.

Whoops my mistake, I realise now that I misread you completely, sorry about that.

I didn't know that. Thanks.

There is for instance http://afiestas.org/appmenu-runner-meet-the-kde-hud/ , and I bet there are similar tools for Gnome. However, from what I heard of Unity, it seems to be a hell of a work to keep/maintain it running for all kind of programs (regarding the different UI toolkits).

Right. If KDE or Gnome were to automatically generate searchable actions as part of the toolkit, that would be enough to get me behind one of them as a toolkit.

Qt and GTK do, there is the freedesktop menu standard https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/menu-spec/

Despite these standards we still don't have this feature widespread. It's a pity.

That is for the desktop menu (like the windows start menu). Searching that is fairly widespread (Off the top of my head KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon, and XFCE all do it). I'm talking about the menu inside an application.

For example, I want to change the printer settings in libre-office writer. That's under the "File" menu. Given that it has nothing to do with files, I don't look there. On a Mac I can search all application menu items from the "help" menu. Why can't I do that with all GTK3 applications? Or all Gnome applications if it's out-of-scope for GTK?

XFCE has the Whisker Menu which does exactly that.

I had abandoned all the desktop environments for xmonad and then stumpwm. However, I’ve recently given KDE Plasma a chance, and it’s really grown on me: especially for my current setup (55” TV), it’s much more ergonomic than tiling WMs and it doesn’t have the annoyances I had with KDE4, Gnome 3 or Unity.

Maybe join us Plasma users in the dark side. Honestly, it's pretty sweet and you can configure it to look and behave just the way you want it.

Yeah, I’m really glad the KDE world seems to have recovered from the KDE4 disaster. However, the Linux desktop ecosystem largely feels like it’s just sort of rotting: I really like KMail, for example, but it had a bunch of show-stopper bugs last time I used it.

Yeah... the desktop environment itself is pretty nice, but a lot of the apps built around it are either abandonware or just plain low quality. At least nowadays GTK applications don't look completely out of place so even using all kinds of disparate programs (Thunderbird, Goland, Slack, Chrome, etc.) results in a pleasantly consistent experience.

I do like that everything is configurable but it can be a huge timesink when trying to tweak everything.

Agreed. That's why I settled with using the standard theme (Breeze) with some minor panel changes to make the system work a bit like macOS: global menu on top, small self-hiding dock at the bottom.

The whole thing took maybe a couple hours of experimentation two years ago, and I've since been running with the same configuration.

If only their Wayland implementation would be a bit more stable.

A someone that prefers Gnome2 and KDE... Gnome3 and Unity are both ewwww...

I'm using a dozen extensions to make Gnome 3 behave like Gnome 2 as much as I can. No animations, no menu on top, no top bar, task bar at the bottom, no dock, no activities, one virtual desktop per project. That was impossible with Unity.

Have you tried MATE? I haven't, but I believe it's a modernized fork of GNOME 2.

I never managed to install its desktop on Ubuntu. Anyway I'd have to customize it too. I never liked desktops with a top bar, since the very first Mac. I couldn't get rid of it on Unity so I never used Unity (same for Macs.)

Why don’t you use Gnome Classic out of curiosity?

I did use Gnome Fallback (Flashback?) until Gnome Shell had all the extensikns I needed and got rid of some bugs. Gnome Fallback was almost abandonware by the time I switched. It started to develop new glitches as the world around it moved on.

Is Gnome Classic the other option I have at login on Ubjntu 20.04? I gave it a try one year ago. Either it didn't work or wasn't the desktop I was looking for. I prefer my custom desktop. Of course nobody can develop one system that suits the tastes of every single person. The important thing to do is to leave enough freedom to make people customize their systems.

I have found peace of mind using XFCE :)

First off.. this is not an official release (kairos) like my Kinto project, but you can install https://ubuntubudgie.org and use their global menu or run my script which will fully configure everyone w/ my Kinto project and other various fixes.

You will have a modern desktop with a global menu.

https://github.com/rbreaves/kairos

> general preference for biggins buttons instead of drop-down

I could never understand the strong revulsion some people have with that design language. To me the Windows 95 "File Edit etc." toolbar is terribly eye straining and has no place in the 21st century. Besides, with the ubiquity of touch screens in laptops the GNOME team has been entirely vindicated in their decision to take a more touch oriented approach. Larger buttons are easier to click with the mouse too.

And we can't understand your revulsion to having usable screen real estate and high quality (non-touch) screens and input methods. I don't want to paw at my screen all day with gorilla arms.

I agree. So now I'm on Linux Mint. Cinnamon is the natural extension of GNOME 2. It's really really good. It's just simple and clean.

I installed Mint on a 9 year old iMac for my girlfriend to use, who's not particularly technically inclined. She picked it up immediately, without issue, which is honestly a great selling point of Cinnamon in my opinion

Yeah I've been on cinnamon consistently. It does everything I need comfortably.

You're not alone. Once I had the keyboard shortcuts down-pat, I adored Unity honestly. I can't seem to get used to Gnome 3 no matter how hard I've tried, so I've given up sadly. I don't have any desktop Linux installs these days aside from my old iMac running Linux Mint downstairs that only my girlfriend uses!

> loss of top menu

There's a Unite extension for that: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1287/unite/

Unity had its own problems, mostly related to trying to be Mac OSX without being Mac OSX:

- Breaking alt-tab

- Moving window controls

Or, rather, fixing alt-tab and moving window controls to where they should be. I guess it's a matter of taste and habit.

Full disclosure: I'm a former EM for the Unity dev team. I have heard more mindless opinion disguised as fact than you can possibly imagine.

> Full disclosure: I'm a former EM for the Unity dev team.

The real problem here is you had an extremely enthusiastic fan base and chose to break everything for many of us.

I tried really hard to like it but for me it was broken and unlike in KDE where I can tweak anything there was no way to fix alt-tab.

Such a minor thing, such a major productivity killer for those of us who rely on years of keyboard experience.

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