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Comment by rplnt | Hacker News Reader

Gnome doesn't let you switch easily (alt-tab is somewhat bad). Gnome doesn't let you see your apps well (huge waste of space for candy graphics). [and the list with Gnome goes on and on]; KDE doesn't let you launch them easily (yay for ignoring super-key). KDE is super unstable. I'm sure there are caveats with Unity as well. Simply, there is still reason to chose one or the other, these systems are not interchangeable in looks, feel, or functionality.

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Alt-Tab works perfectly fine for me in Gnome Shell (I was initially annoyed by Alt+` to switch windows within a program group but now I find it useful). I find the app overview also clear and very usable. And it's nice that it's JavaScript-based so I can tweak some minor things easily (hot corner on external monitors).

For Unity I'm probably simply not in the target group, I don't like it.

I left KDE many years ago because I found it buggy and bloated. Maybe it's time to give it a look but I'm happy with my Gnome Shell (in a very nearly out of the box configuration).

  I was initially annoyed by Alt+` to switch windows within a program group but now I find it useful

Oh, you're joking. They will have pinched that one from Apple. I've gotten used to it as well, but it's one of Mac's worst features, and completely opposed to the notion of activities over apps, which I remember was a big thing for Gnome when they were discussing their v3 vision (which at the time I found compelling and is probably best realised today on Windows Mobile).

Personally, I left Gnome because it felt unrefined and designed for a device other than a conventional laptop (i.e. one without a touch screen). I left KDE many years before then because I found the UI too busy, but they seem to have left that behind them so it might be time for me to take another look as well.

Well, I never was much concerned about UI/desktop visions and philosophies. Maybe I am missing out on something, I don't know. I like that Gnome Shell goes pretty much out of my way most of the time and works for me without tweaking, without bloat and is intuitive enough (plus I like its rudimentary support of window tiling). I agree with other people commenting here - I simply want to get my work done and don't care much about else, I especially don't care how well it works with touch screens - I don't have any use for that.

On the other hand, the persistent sessions/activities in KDE someone mentioned sound intriguing.

What did you switch to?

> Alt-Tab works perfectly fine for me in Gnome Shell

That's what I was trying to say. I'm sure it works for many, but it doesn't work for everyone. That's why people still "care" (if selecting one or another is caring).

The great thing about gnome-shell is you can have it however you want:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/

Unity has alt-tab weirdness as well. Simply tapping alt-tab only selects program groups, so if you have four gnome-terminals open, it will bring those four to the front. Selecting a specific terminal takes additional effort.

krunner has been around forever and lets me launch any program (even command line ones) or switch between open windows. It's bound to alt-f2 by default but you can remap it to super-key if that works for you.

No, you cannot remap it to super key, that's the thing. There's an utility for that of course (not in repository and with a lot of dependencies), but out of the box it's not possible.

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