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Comment by ndiddy | Hacker News Reader

> I have tried a recent Mac, and the system isn't intuitive at all. The first time I used GNOME, it was a breeze. Not the same with the MacBook system.

I guess it depends on what you're used to? The last time I tried using GNOME, I found it very unintuitive. I ran into stuff like:

- Why don't windows have maximize and minimize buttons?

- Why do I have to go to a separate screen to un-minimize a window?

- Why does launching software require going through the GNOME equivalent of the Windows 8 start screen?

- Why can't I make the trackpad scroll speed slower?

- Why don't I have any system tray icons?

- Why do the extensions I installed to work around some of the above problems (some of which have millions of downloads yet haven't been added as settings) break after every GNOME update?

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My favorite part of GNOME is how the Windows 8 start screen wannabe truncates the names of apps, and provides absolutely no way to see their full name.

Don't know if it's still the case on the latest version, but for like a decade, opening it on Ubuntu would greet you with an icon named "Software Upda..." and another one named "Software & Up...". Every time I saw it, I'd have to stop and scratch my head for a minute, wondering how such a thing could remain unchanged for so long.

Debian Trixie so Gnome 48 or so. Yes, program names truncated in the overview but when I hold mouse pointer over the icon, the full name appears. Not ideal, but I'm assuming borderline acceptable for discovery of applications by examining their icons.

The worst: ImageMagick icon shows four lines of wrapped name/comment in brackets, the last line of which is unreadable as it disappears under the icon below in the grid, so very much not ideal! I'd rather the icon title appeared wider and in a solid colour over the nearby icons when moused over. I'm using a largish font on a small screen (1366x768). Most are OK.

(I have to admit to rarely using the 'Show Apps' or 'nine dots' function, I usually just mash the windows/mod4/super key and type a couple of letters of the name then hit enter)

GNOME devs have a fixation on putting too much whitespace in every UI. They also conform so eagerly to the "Free Software UI" essay preachings---particularly the section, "Standing Up To User Pressure"[1]---thus they find it effortless to defend not fixing poorly presented frontends.

(My own app menu on a 24" monitor at 100% scale has: "LibreOffic..." as well as "LibreOffic..." and the very useful, underrated "LibreOffic...". I also often use "KiCad G...", "KiCad P...", and "KiCad S..." but usually never "KiCad I..." or "KiCad P...")

[1]: https://ometer.com/preferences.html#standing-up-to-user-pres...

> Why don't windows have maximize and minimize buttons?

Having had issues with KDE I decided to give GNOME a try recently. The decision made to remove these buttons absolutely perplexed me beyond belief.

Last time I used GNOME, it had those buttons. Didn't know they removed that. They really wanted more churn, huh?

It bothers me so much that Gnome is like this. The Gnome ecosystem has several programs and workflows that are, at least as far as I can see it, solved. Other than minor upkeep and and a new feature once a blue moon, they're done, and in an elegant manner. But I can't actually use Gnome itself, because the larger experience is nonsense to my brain, with questions like yours coming up every time I try to use it, which makes actually using it willingly a complete non-starter.

It's as if an alien made it, and they nailed certain subtasks, just because the requirements are simple and the path to something that works well is straight and clear, but the larger experience doesn't have many concrete requirements, and thus the road leads to something that does technically work, but which nobody* would want to use.

*Obviously some people like Gnome. Their brains don't seem to work the way mine does though.

this is a fair point. I am referring to more "objective" things, if anything can be, in design. Let's take as an example the alt+tab behaviour with multiple virtual desktops. In GNOME, as it is in Windows too by the way, alt+tab cycles inside the virtual desktop you're in, allowing for efficient matrix-like navigation, and allowing to split tasks between desktops. On Mac OS, alt+tab cycles on all your open programs, making you jump between desktops. To me, this is rather unintuitive. It could be habit, but there is a clear difference in result regardless of habits, and I think the most productive choice is the GNOME-Windows one, and the more "intuitive" one in the sense of what a user might expect out of a virtual desktop, that is, creating a new desktop with its own apps. Of course this is my impression and I am well free not to buy a Mac :)

You can do that same thing just a little different way. Say you want to go through all open apps in one desktop. On my mac its 3 fingers scroll up on trackpad then all windows are exposed. Basically the same function as what you want. Yes technically you are clicking on a window not the application icon but who cares.

Yeah, Apple's OS is clearly not designed for keyboard/mouse users. Triggering this on a standard keyboard requires using both hands (Ctrl-up arrow) and then switching to the mouse. Super annoying.

On Gnome, super let's you search for application launchers or click on windows immediately; works great for both.

“Requires” is a strong word. Apple does have an extremely easy mouse-only solution for this and it dates back over a decade: map the fan-out selector (I forget what they call it these days, maybe Mission Control?) to a “hot corner”.

Yes yes we know, Fitt's law.

Hot corners suck. They either activate too easily or they feel slow.

it's not the same function since it's way slower than using the keys.

Debian Trixie Gnome 48 or so. In Settings | Multitasking right down the bottom there is App Switching with two options: 'Include Apps from all workspaces' and 'Include Apps from the current workspace only'. Debian has the all workspaces option set by default. Gnome Tweaks is installed, and the extensions to have minimise and maximise buttons on the right of windows are switched on by default.

(I think that this situation is worth pointing out because there is potential for talking past one another as a result of the default choices made by different Linux distributions).

afaik Mac OS doesn't have the option. If so, I still am questioning the default choiche ;)

To me, the worst part is when GTK introduced what's known as "client-side decorations"[0], because that means that I can't use my normal window manager decorations.

If I force them on with something like gtk3-nocsd[1], then although I get my normal window manager decorations back, sometimes the client-side decorations have actual important widgets in them like menu buttons. When that happens, I end up with windows that have both kinds of decorations, and it looks weird.

For me this means that it's not nice to use apps like Meld and Remmina.

Just let me use my own WM's decorations please!

[0] https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/CSD

[1] https://github.com/PCMan/gtk3-nocsd

To make macOS remotely usable you need apps for switching windows, to reverse scroll wheel and many more. Ridiculous.

No idea what you are talking about, I need none of the apps you mention...

- macOS doesn't natively support "alt tab"-like behaviour (Cmd-Tab and Cmd+` are not analogous). You need something like alt-tab.app.

- You can't have the trackpad use "natural scrolling" and an external mouse use "normal scrolling" at the same time. The setting applies to all devices at once, so you need an external app (like LinearMouse) to use it.

That said, it's not like OSs and DEs don't have annoying things you need to fix (eg adding plugins to fix GNOME weirdness).

My experience was the same. GNOME is by and far imo the best DE on Linux when it comes to consistency and being the most accessible to non-technical users. However it’s far, far behind macOS’ UX.

Also re: not to mention with extensions they’re single threaded JavaScript applications essentially so when one crashes it literally crashes the entire DE. Just unacceptable.

Something to keep in mind is that you don't have to use GNOME. There are a ton of window managers that run on Linux, and you can find one that works better for you.

There's not much choice on Mac unless you install Linux on it.

It's linux, you can do everything in the terminal. I've never understood what purpose a "desktop" serves.

Want to start Firefox? type "fir<tab>" in your terminal and hit enter.

Want to see your files? Type "ls" and hit enter. Learn just a tiny bit about pipes, wildcards, and utilities and you can leave those mouse-pushers in the dust.

> Learn just a tiny bit about pipes, wildcards, and utilities

Or I could use a desktop on expend my limited mental energy on things more relevant to me. It’s far easier for me to remember things in a visual or spatial manner.

These days I can say the same, I used to enjoy trying to minimize my mouse usage and fiddling with tiling window managers but now I just can't be bothered.

And the weird thing is that the type of mental effort required is not even a useful one per se, it's more like a strain (to me) than something that makes me sharper.

Still some things are easier in a GUI while others in a CLI, just depends on their nature and how often do you have to engage with them. But after a while navigating windows by Alt+Tab (Alt+`) or the mouse is fine really. I don't care to reach for Super+PgDown/PgUp when I can move my mouse to the corner of the screen and scroll to change the workspace.

That’s a good way of putting it. CLI skills are specialized skills that I’m not going to use for anything else, whereas using a desktop environment is re-using skills I already have for other purposes.

Even when I do write code, I spend more time thinking about the code than actually writing so losing time to using my mouse doesn’t matter.

If I want to start a program I can click its icon in the taskbar, if I want to see my files I can click the file manager in the taskbar, and since these actions are done with the mouse I can simultaneously lie back in bed while eating trifle with a long spoon.

I don't see what point you're trying to make. Those two examples work identically in the OSX terminal.

You gotta add firefox to your PATH first, but yeah, this isn't what the terminal is useful for.

Do you adjust audio settings in the terminal? I've been moving away from using my mouse but anything related to audio or display settings intimidates me.

You can't use Firefox in the terminal

You can't use it "in" the desktop either, you just start it from there. Same as with the terminal.

Mostly yeah. The DE does manage the browser's windows and notifications if you use those. The point is, you're going to use the mouse with Firefox, there's no advantage of using the terminal just to open it.

> The point is, you're going to use the mouse with Firefox

I was imprecise. I am solely talking about using a terminal emulator program on a display server, I wasn't talking about refraining from using anything outside a VTE. That would be pointless, yeah.

> there's no advantage of using the terminal just to open it.

My point is that it is. Typing 'firefox' is way simpler to open the program, than traversing an application list and selecting it. The latter can become faster once you have a shortcut, but then it's equivalent to 'f<TAB>' or '!!' and the like. Language is more versatile, that's why we use it for fast communication. If you want the scissors from someone, you tell them, you don't make gestures or draw a picture, because that's way more work (unless you are mute).

Mac is just a different philosophy. Yes there are window managers for mac if you really want to replicate linux window management. That is possible for you. There are several tools for this, e.g. Amethyst.

But really mac is less about having every square inch of your monitor filled with a dozen different applications sized perfectly to fit the exact information you want on these screens. You can of course do this if you like but thats not really the philosophy.

The philosophy is that this is a real life desktop. Just like papers on your desk. Do you resize papers various ways and print them to maybe 3 inches across and lay them out on your desk such that you can see every paper at once, no space from one page to the next? No. You have piles. You thumb through piles and pull out stuff you need and lay them loosely next to eachother. Nothing is fixed in any constraints. Stuff can overlap or have space in between.

This is exactly how windows management works in macos. It is simply a different philosophy, but it is much closer to how desktop management actually works in real life with a physical desktop and physical papers.

It's dumb and pretentious

I've never used it that way ever since I was a little kid using OS 8. macOS even copied the Windows snap system, and I use it.

I spend time in the digital realm because I hate paper. Paper is a horrible analogue with real world limitations we should have left behind in the 90s.

interesting point, but in a real desktop, or multi-desktop setup, you can have different things on each one and look at them one by one, by table. The alt+tab default behaviour on MacOS is not that. This is my problem with their design choice.

> Yes there are window managers for mac if you really want to replicate linux window management.

Not really. None of the "window managers" for macOS actually play the role of compositors on Wayland or window managers on X11. macOS has exactly one window manager, plus a bunch of apps that run automation against it and sometimes call themselves "window manager".

> This is exactly how windows management works in macos. It is simply a different philosophy, but it is much closer to how desktop management actually works in real life with a physical desktop and physical papers.

Most window managers (and the vast majority of the popular ones) on Linux are also like this. It's called a "floating window manager". Tiling window managers are cool but they're marginal even on Linux.

There's such thing as one DE being less convenient than other, but it's far less important than it being reliable and easy to get help with. We've changed DEs at work a couple of times, and it's never because of usability, it's because the old one became unsupported or wasn't compatible with something.

Same with X11 vs Wayland. I don't care which, I just want the one that works, and want to never hear about the other one again. Linux Mint comes with X11. It didn't work on my fairly standard PC because of something about graphics switching.

GNOME 2 used to mimic Classic Mac OS UI, plus it was super customizable and easy to create extensions for.

Peperridge Farm remembers.

God I miss GNOME 2... I will never forgive the GNOME devs.

The whole GNOME 2 being replaced with Unity thing turned me away from desktop Linux entirely. I don't care if KDE or whatever exists now, I just want there to be one clearly most popular DE that does something reasonable.

Now? First KDE release was in 1996, first Gnome in 1999.

Don't care

> one clearly most popular DE

Okay, I guess, but that's a social wish about the preferences of others. It makes about at much sense as me wishing you just liked KDE. And at any rate it's not a technical or design wish that any software developer or team thereof can fix per se.

I have nothing against KDE. If they made KDE the default thing, great. Could be Gnome instead, doesn't really matter. If anyone wants to make Linux a mass alternative to Windows, they need to agree on basic things like this, and then stop randomly changing it.

There are some people who could make it happen. Torvalds could distribute an official desktop Linux and people would probably use it, like how there's already one official kernel. Nothing would stop people from customizing their systems, but 99% don't care to. He isn't interested in doing that.

It's still around and what I use. It's called Mate now.

I was thinking on going back to Mate. Now I can happily vibe code any Gnome2 Plugin I want.

Worst case the code sucks but it's fine if I keep them for myself.

- Why do I need a damn extension for everything in Gnome?

dios mio!

i just came back to GNOME from KDE after messing something with my system (disk space was eaten fully i don't know why) but all your points are mostly invalid... you can literally start GNOME out of the overview with a simple extension install, then you can launch your apps via whatever you f** want! dmenu? custom shortcuts? mouse gestures? a python script that will listen to your voice? based on weather? come ON, you talk like the bash doesn't exist

your max. and min. buttons are just a toggle in Tweaks app - i have a dedicated button on my mouse which toggles the speed sensibility (inside GNOME not on hardware), really useful for doing digital collage work on GIMP

now the extension critic i found it valid! but who knows how far someone can get with AI... personally i had a custom text box at my top-bar after 2-3 prompts which informed where i'm with my keyboard layer (running QMK, doing HID communication)

Apple is a big pile of shit with biased design much harder to modify but also: locked down to the point your now eating ads. in your expensive premium aluminum box

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