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Comment by bigfatkitten | Hacker News Reader

I really want to like GNOME, but GNOME's developers have almost as much arrogance and contempt for their users as Microsoft.

As an example, the power button can no longer be configured to power off the machine, because this is "too destructive". I'm not talking about defaults -- they removed the ability for me to make this choice for myself. Not even Microsoft has done that.

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755953

On my machine, the power button is recessed and requires quite a bit of force to press. It is impossible to press accidentally, but the GNOME developers apparently know best.

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My favorite GNOME developer's hill to die on is their refusal to implement a system tray or work with the rest of the Linux desktop community to create an alternative to the system tray. Don't get me wrong there has been a abuse of the system tray but the refusal to acknowledge that there is a use case for persistent notifications or status indicators is ridiculous. there suggestion is that notifications are the solution is so inadequate. It's pretty telling that their arguments aren't sound when they have chosen to implement traditional system tray items such as a battery indicator and volume indicator as built in items on the task bar but they dismiss the idea that a chat app status indicator would be useful.

I am personally so glad Gnome does not have a system tray, on every other DE its a disgusting mess of differently scaled and styled icons.

That sounds like an issue that could be solved by forcing icons and sizes for the tray.

Just give users the ability to pin the icons they care about and hide the others in a pop-out panel like Windows does.

That too, very basic feature that should be in every DE.

So rather than disable the system tray, or use other applications that don't have inconsistent scaled and styled icons, you'd prefer that nobody who uses Gnome is able to have a system tray?

I prefer not having to worry about it at all, and I don't. Its tidy by default and stays tidy no matter what I install. Many other "deficiencies" in Gnome, like the lack of desktop filing, or the austere file manager contribute to this tidiness.

The first versions of Gnome 3 did indeed have a system tray for backwards compatibility, and it was hidden out of the way until you needed it. Eventually it was scrapped once enough software was updated to not rely on it.

If somebody insists on having a messy UI, they can use literally any other DE available for Linux.

Mark Shuttleworth (of Ubuntu fame) had quite a bit to say about trying to get AppIndicators into GNOME.

https://archive.is/M1MW2

GNOME is open to adding a system tray. There are even designs for it.

There is just no one working on the technology. TingPing, an Igalia employee and GNOME contributor, was working on a new D-Bus protocol for it, but the work stopped. There is a PR up on the freedesktop xdg-specs repository.

I guess, those of us who actually like the idea should be more vocal. As otherwise the devs would read the comments and decide nobody likes what they do. Personally, I’m super happy about current Gnome. Coming after 10+ years of macOS. I don’t want to see that ugly mess of visual distractions on my screen all the time. Basic vitals like battery is okay for me. Distractions from apps, I don’t need them. They serve zero purpose to me, and being a computer user of 20+ years, I never interacted with those widgets. Even on Windows. So, kudos to Gnome team, I really like Gnome since 42 or when they started this radical simplicity thing. I enjoy the system each and every day I interact with it, and it does not wear off. It’s not like it looks cool, but after a couple of days I understand it isn’t.

Thing is: That's your preference and nobody should force you to use these indicators. Even on Windows, the tray icons are usually mostly hidden away.

I find them highly useful on macOS, but there I lack the configurability I have on Windows.

Having to interact with them, even having to hide them, is forcing them upon me. I don’t understand a reason for them to exist. They’re simply useless to me and a sign of a complex design.

As much as I'm a diehard Linux defender, Gnome can get bent. XFCE does everything I want, which is to say, almost nothing.

XFCE is wonderful. I wish it got more dev time

XFCE is the Win 2000 UI of the Linux ecosystem, perfectly functional and fine; tweaks are possible if needed.

So is https://www.trinitydesktop.org/

While it may seem overblown, it's absolutely RIDICULOUS how fast it flies on contemporary systems, and even older ones.

One can also omit most of their other apps, with the exception of KWIN, drawing the desktop and its window decorations, and konqueror, the filemanager, and the things managing the menu(bar(s)), applauncher.

Using modern apps for the rest, like anywhere else.

And have them styled, themed however you like. With a few mouseclicks.

It does a lot of things, though many are somewhat subtle, like screen locking timeout and stuff with networking and a bunch of utility programs and so on. I like to start off Xfce Debian and plaster i3wm over it, it's the best 'power user' setup I've come across.

I wouldn't hesitate to put a 'regular' computer user in front of Xfce, it strikes a nice combination of simple and discoverable with very few annoyances. It's also where I go when I want to use some many-windowed application that doesn't fit into tiling.

I've never been big on the Windows UI patterns but I recently started using KDE on one of my machines and it feels more polished than the Windows desktop. It has a few quirks but it's one of the most satisfying out-of-the-box desktops I've used, and I primarily use a niche dynamic tiling wm on all my other machines.

KDE is great. It gets slept on because of its bad rap circa 2004, but it has low-key become the best DE by far. Sane defaults, nothing tries to fight you, everything is configurable.

If you don't have the time or inclination to tinker with things like tiling WMs - and more power to you if you do, but I don't - KDE is the best there is.

Tiling WMs have more up front cost, but they don't require continuous tinkering if you don't want to tinker. I have been using the same SwayWM config for like 5 years now.

I've been using KDE for a good decade or so, and what a lot of people don't know is that not only is the desktop great, the applications are, too.

Everyone knows Dolphin is by far the best file manager, but not a lot of people know that Kate is fantastic. Konsole is really good too. The new System Monitor basically replaces a ton of programs. Spectacle is a great and snappy screenshot utility. Filelight is so useful.

There's definitely a few misses, though. kmail in particular. But, overtime the applications actually improve, both in performance and features. This seems to be in contrast in gnome, where apps like Nautilus have been getting worse for a long time. And in contrast to Windows.

> The new System Monitor basically replaces a ton of programs.

Like what? Running htop or btop++ in Konsole(or whichever terminal emulator you prefer), as I do?¹ :)

Just opened that thing right now, and it gives nothing to me.

Shrug?

¹ On one of 9 virtual desktops, arranged 3x3, usually upper left.

https://postimg.cc/K35Qv6Pg < btop++

https://postimg.cc/0zGttJMC < htop

https://postimg.cc/pyTLRfPp < Itsatrap!

System monitor can do all this stuff, pstree and all, and you can get really cool visualizations. Pi charts, line graphs, and my personal favorite, color grid. That one's really good for CPU utilization.

But the real icing is that it doesn't just work for processes, applications, CPU usage and whatnot. It works for any sensor, including temperature and fans. And, of course, it's all customizable.

Be that as it may, it is slow to start, or switch between different views. I tested that again just now. Furthermore, it's causing more load by running, than one btop++ or htop running in Konsole. Which btw. both show temperatures, and could also show the rpm of the little 'Miefquirl'...err.. fan if I wanted them to.

That's seems to be common for all the monitoring stuff running graphically, no matter if Gnome, XFCE, or even old KDE (Trinity).

That aside, htop and especially btop++ are heavily customizable, too.

Whatever. To each his own. It's a matter of taste.

Yeah it's pretty fast but it's still a full graphical application. It's probably written using QtQuick so it's fast... ish. Terminal applications are almost always going to be much faster. But, it's a neat application that doesn't get much competition on the GUI side.

> Sane defaults

I have a tiny tiny bone to pick with whoever decided to enable bouncing app launch icons on my mouse that look terrible.

But like you said, it was just a matter of finding the right config setting to turn them off! I have been quite happy with KDE all things considered.

I started using KDE regularly after trying it out on the Steam Decks desktop mode. It works great! I had used it previously over a decade ago and was not impressed with it at first, but now it's my daily driver desktop enviornment.

I don't think that's the case any more. I'm running the latest Fedora release.

https://pics.mos6581.com/misc/gnome-power.png

Interesting! Hopefully this is part of a broader change in their attitude.

At some point, the GNOME folks are going to have to hire people to go door-to-door and take hardware away from people, because they won't have any software left to remove features from.

I've always joked about the eventual evolution of the GNOME desktop converging to a single login screen followed by a full screen button labeled LOGOFF because they will claim anything else is too confusing for their users.

And clicks the button for you, à la https://youtu.be/7OwgyrTnTRM?si=etU_Wk9sUJ-xPx3h

Jeez that Bastien Nocera guy's reply

> no-longer

"Don't think that's in the OED"

> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf

"I don't like the tone in this sentence."

What a genuinely horrible person

From your link:

>> gsd

> gnome-settings-daemon.

>> no-longer

> Don't think that's in the OED

>> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf

> I don't like the tone in this sentence.

I am dumbstruck that someone can be so utterly full of themselves that they can smugly correct someone’s grammar, and an obvious acronym, only to turn around and clutch their pearls that their victim said mean things in the nicest way possible about their software.

I knew there was a reason I haven’t liked GNOME for years. XFCE is the way.

That exchange is what happens when CADT and therapy language collide head first.

Not familiar with CADT, and Google wasn't any help for anything that seemed relevant.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250429170348/https://www.jwz.o...

I currently use Gnome on my machine (plain vanilla Ubuntu with no mods). It's such a love hate relationship. On the one hand everything you said and everything the child comments mention are totally valid and very annoying. But on the other hand (at least in my experience), Gnome has been the only solid DE that is "consistent", the only other one that got close was XFCE.

I might eventually switch back to XFCE but for now I just need a DE that works and gets out of my way so I can write code, and for all it's faults Gnome still gets the job done.

No Linux desktop delivers what the user wants, needs or expect. Only what the developers think they need and find interesting to fix. It's more fun reinventing wheels badly than fixing shit generally. Some people are lucky this aligns with their needs, but for most it doesn't. It's jarring and unproductive.

It needs corporate (or government!) drive behind it or that won't change. I'm not talking about Redhat either who appears to just be a holding pen for the above.

Some of the more influential developers are Red Hat employees, and Red Hat has retasked them with other work in recent years.

That might be enough to prompt a change in direction, I guess time will tell.

Oh wow, that Nocera is great, correcting spellings to be passive-aggressive.

> Review of attachment 312719 [details] [review]:

>> gsd

> gnome-settings-daemon.

>> no-longer

> Don't think that's in the OED

>> gsd no-longer facilitates users overriding power key actions

> And include references about when this happened.

>> This is rather unfriendly and considerably more effort than editing logind.conf

> I don't like the tone in this sentence.

So helpful.

I really dislike these turf sitting devs. They try to just defend their throne rather than looking at the merits.

I like Mate. I recommend it.

agree

Weird, I'm using the latest stock fedora with gnome and the option is there to use the power button as "power off" command.

Gnome sucks... KDE is awesome :)

Try plasma.

+1 plasma is pretty nice and also lets you reconfigure things if you like. The rate of "we broke this and you were stupid for ever wanting it" is much lower than for gnome

Plasma was super unstable and janky, and the whole KDE desktop environment feels like developer art.

You last tried it 25 years ago right?

That's what I thought for a long time, until I tried it on the Steam deck since they use it for its desktop mode. I now use it as my daily driver desktop environment

Early days of Plasma 5 definitely can be described this way. Although I think we all forget just how fucking ugly early gnome 3 was.

But since mid Plasma 5 and on, it's incredibly stable and consistent in design. At this point, more consistent than gnome.

I was using Plasma 6 to get fractional scaling working (wrote the wrong version in original post)

That's because you're not the target audience: both Windows and GNOME primarily target the computer illiterate. If you know what you're doing and understand how the computer works, these desktops at best are a nuisance and more than likely to get in your way.

My go-to comparison is power tools: there's a consumer line that's underpowered but pretty easy to use by anyone, and then there's the professional tools for people that know how to handle these tools properly: more power, versatile, and user serviceable.

Smartphones take this to the extreme: on both Android and iOS every user is illiterate, because the OS is deliberately opaque to the user.

I'm not a huge fan of this statement - just because some users prefer simplicity, doesn't make them "illiterate." I'm happy to be a pretty tech-savvy gnome user - everyone uses a computing device for different purposes (as a tool, not a hobby). For example, it's great that KDE offers 2 or 3 kick-off menus, multiple clock plasmoids, etc, but just because a user is fine with a single, well-refined option, doesn't mean they are less "computer literate."

> the power button can no longer be configured to power off the machine

Seriously?

Are they removing ways to access the terminal or you can still at least do shutdown -h now?

Don't give them any ideas!

The best UI is one that stays consistent and doesn't change.

XFCE in other words.

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