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Comment by devinmrn | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else move away from Gnome recently? I've switched to XFCE and find the workflow better adapted to what I'm used to, I gave gnome-shell a month or two before I couldn't take it anymore.

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Really? I've played around with GNOME Shell a few times, but recently I've been seriously considering using it for my laptop because I would like to get the most real-estate-optimized modern GUI possible on there.

Right now I'm running Pantheon (elementary project's DE) on one partition and i3 (tiling WM) on another, and neither quite seem to feel right -- the former likely because it's very WIP (granted I'm optimistically biased being a core developer of the project).

What specifically have you found advantageous to your workflow with XFCE? What did you miss from GNOME-Shell, and what exactly made you switch?

It seems like gnome-shell is trying to do something new with the way I manage running applications. I also miss being able to switch to workstations using the arrow keys and creating and deleting workstations on the fly messes with my workflow anyway, I usually delegate workspaces to different tasks or projects.

XFCE is lightweight and is more in line with how I think. I'm used to a taskbar, application menu, precreated workspaces and icons on the desktop. Could I use gnome-shell for everyday work? Yeah, but I would really be happy with the features above too. I just don't see why I should give up my established workflows.

I was sceptical, but become enthusiastic to the point of not wanting to miss Gnome Shell anymore once I realized how great it works with keyboard shortcuts. For example: hit the windows key, start typing a couple of letters of the desired application or document, hit enter. Fast, convenient, great.

Where does it work? Doesn't work for me in Gnome 2.32.1 on Ubuntu 11.04

It's a Gnome Shell feature. It doesn't work in Gnome 2.

Used gnome-shell on Fedora 15 for a few weeks, loved it but didn't love Fedora.

Moved to Ubuntu 11.04 before giving up on Linux and even though I'm not the biggest Unity look-and-feel fan, it has most of the aspects of gnome-shell I like and worked smoothly on my ThinkPad T60 except for hardware volume buttons which was fixed with [1] and slow wireless due to an older kernel which was fixed with [2].

Overall this idea (inspired by Spotlight and I think perfected in Windows Vista by mapping it to a single key) of mapping the Windows key to an auto-focused, system wide search box is fantastic. I really wouldn't want to go back to a system without that keystroke. Gnome using that same structure and taking you to this nice overview/launch panel is a really slick refinement.

[1] http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60945#p3793... [2] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1837729

Me too. I went back to XFCE after a few months in Gnome 3, and functionality-wise I prefer. I miss the sexiness of gnome-shell, XFCE is pretty bare-bones. With the online accounts in 3.2, I'll probably give it another try.

Funny, I can't get enough of it. It's rough around the edges probably because I'm running from the Gnome PPA on Ubuntu Natty, but the way it manages windows on multiple desktops is like nothing I've seen. It makes so much more sense. To each their own I suppose. Isn't there an option to go back to the traditional desktop?

System Settings -> System Information -> Graphics -> Forced Fallback Mode

Because you totally would look there and not Displays or Screen.

I'm using awesome window manager with basic gnome-session (no panel) which still gives me most of the desktop integration (nm-applet, consolekit, policykit, etc)

I moved to an xmonad based environment but I still keep a gnome-panel on screen, so it's kind of a hybrid environment.

I stuck it out with Gnome 2.x on Ubuntu, until I "had" to convert that machine to Windows 7 (for running IAR). Windows 7 is somehow an improvement over Gnome 3.

Yeah, right now I'm running Windows 7 on my desktop which is used only every now and then and my laptop is running Arch with XFCE. Have you taken a look at the fallback mode on Gnome 3? I tried it and it brought back the features I was used to but just the idea that it was a fallback mode was kinda unappealing, what makes the mode any worse off than gnome-shell?

What is IAR?

Probably the IAR microcontroller development software http://www.iar.com/

I recently installed Windows 7 on a machine after using Gnome 3, so I could give it to my parents. This was the first Windows I'd installed since XP, and Windows 7 is downright primitive by comparison. Gnome 3 supports my workflow very well -- one terminal fullscreened, running screen, one workspace for browsers, and one for mail.

I'm not sure what the complaints are about it, and to me it's preposterous to say that Windows 7 is an improvement.

The window manager in Windows 7 is excellent. Double click a title, make that window maximize. Have a wide screen? Drag one window to the left, one window to the right and you have a split screen. The ALT+TAB on Windows 7 works without using the mouse which is salt in the wounds of GNOME 3 considering you can't do the above mentioned split screening/minimizing. Supposedly alt+` at least does the old GNOME 2 alt+tab behavior but I learned that after converting to XFCE.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic but Gnome 3 can do everything you mentioned by default.

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