Cross-posted from "It's that time again" by @Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com in !linux_memes@programming.dev
This is why I stopped using Gnome. After every update most of my extensions stopped working. Some took ages to get up to date or were abandoned. And there was no simple way to enable all extensions that the update disabled, having to manually enable them one by one. Maybe that has changed now? It's been yearsnow... Not that I would go back anyway, tiling managers is where it's at.
GNOME is great but people recommending it to beginners need to make it clear that there is only minor customization, and that major customization / extensions will cause headaches.
Plasma is highly customizable out of the box. It's personal preference in the end of course.
Then, after that, you can introduce them to Hyprland which is EVEN MORE customizable, at the cost of learning the hyprlang and jsonc if you also want waybar.
And then there is sway. Which makes you cry but respected.
Isn't sway more limited in customization compared to hyprland?
(i know that swayfx is for that, but still not sure if it'a as good)
Yeah, probably true. It was a lighthearted joke, I do not know too much about sway or hyperland.
Just use KDE Plasma
This is what I concluded in the end...
I do at home, can't choose at work (but we keep pushing the people in charge)
I heard of imposing operating systems (which I'm also against*), but never specific distros or DEs.
* at least for technical people who know what they're doing and wont spam the IT support
My company started enforcing Macs this year but as a special exception they'll let us use Windows or Ubuntu. No other distro and the CTO must still authorize it.
The reason? Meet some vague security guidelines that the PR team wants us to be able to say we meet, by forcing us to run a spying agent to ensure our OS is up-to-date so I'm not vulnerable to leaking data I don't even have access to. But the tool doesn't support anything that updates frequently.
I had just built a brand new laptop for work and I refused to sully it with Ubuntu so I installed it on an old desktop and just been putting zero effort into fixing Ubuntu shit. Wifi often can't handle meetings, none of my cameras worked ootb - also can't go to the office anymore since I can't carry the desktop there.
Still a year away from being able to request the company buys me a machine again (last time there were no conditions for it) - but I don't intend to stay here until then.
I'll bet you 20$ that when some information finally leaks it is 100% some fuck ass exec giving away company secrets to impress a potential side piece or some geriatric board member ass fuck clicking a "Hot Dingles near you" ad
The other week had a GNOME dev reply to a thread of mine on mastodon stating that the users desire to select a default terminal emulator was an "edge case" and it was beneath GNOME. then all the GNOME fanboys came out to his defense.
It's an insufferable DE and community.
As insufferable as KDE users always shitting on gnome?
I've generally found gnome users just use it. New KDE releases don't have gnome fanboys bashing it, etc.
But new GNOME releases? Directly the opposite.
Really wish people would just chill.
New KDE releases don't have gnome fanboys bashing it
There is a lot less hate for KDE… Because KDE doesn’t break the user experience every time it updates. Gnome is the Apple of the Linux world. The entire dev team embodies the Apple attitude of “we know better than you, and you’re wrong for wanting to use anything except the default settings.”
You’re essentially getting the “iPhone user seeing all of the hate from android users every time iOS updates” experience. Because every time a new iPhone feature comes out, all of the android users go “lmao iOS didn’t have that feature until now? Android had it three years ago. Apple fucking sucks.”
Yeah, there is way less hate and mockery towards KDE. Now let's think why that might be
To me it speaks more of the users, less of the DE.
Either somehow every GNOME user is a saint and everyone else is just an asshole, or GNOME is laughably bad and every new release is also bad. It's either of those two.
At least for a time, many of the big distributions focused exclusively on Gnome, and for KDE users it was kind of frustrating as everything would be all wired up for Gnome, and either KDE wasn't packaged at all and you had to go third party, or it was a clearly second class citizen where the packagers just didn't bother to wire up equivalent features. You would look it up and see how KDE had the same capability implemented, but the packager just hadn't included some dependency or configured something to manifest it.
Now I feel like the distributions take Plasma more seriously and so it's easier to just ignore whatever Gnome is doing... Except for the occasional horrible UI presented by a Gnome app in your otherwise credible desktop. Since Gnome is both a DE and a UI framework, the UI framework gets to rear its head even if you largely ignore the DE.
Then of course you have the tiling window managers/compositors, but those projects tend to be less ambitious anyway, and what the audience wants is pretty much what they can get from packages, even if the packagers aren't quite as invested to know what can be done.
I find that Penis Stroker 2000 never has users bashing it when a new release comes out.
But every single new release of Scrotum Puncher 5000 that comes out, it's getting criticized. I'm sick of it!!
As insufferable as KDE users always shitting on gnome?
This 100%
Such a GNOME thing to say
We all got choices, that's what I like about Linux. KDE seems to run great for most people, for me it always seems to bug out and act super janky (the panel editor in particular would bug out and crash constantly, I could never get the damn thing to where I liked it). If it was more stable for me I'd probably use it, I love customizing my system. I've tried making it work a few times, never seems to click.
GNOME's extensions may break on updates from time to time but my day to day experience with it is much nicer. While more rigid it's a lot more polished and doesn't crash out on me just using the interface. I like the layout of it. I'm glad KDE works for so many of you guys, but I'll stick with GNOME until a better option comes around.
That said, if anyone has a better suggestion for a desktop environment I'm all ears.
When's the last time you tried Plasma? I felt the same way about it as you did until version 6. I've been driving it now since 6.2 and its at least as polished as Gnome but with WAY more features and almost infinite customization out of the box.
Cinnamon. After using Xfce and KDE Plasma for years, and having testing Gnome, Budgie, etc., Cinnamon feels like it took the best ingredients from all of them.
I just don't customise very much, either DE mentioned. I did initially when I was new to using Linux out of novelty, but I noticed stuff breaks the more I deviated from the norm after enough updates. Plus it's such a timesink to begin with. I realised I just wanted to use the fucking computer, not tinker and fight it.
KDE on my office desktop. I like one of the themes CachyOS ships with so I left it at that.
GNOME on the living room PC hooked up to a TV. I think it works better there controlled by a wireless trackpad keyboard from the couch and for purely entertainment purposes. Stremio, web browsing, and gaming.
It's your own fault you use GNOME
Which is why Plasma is better
I like how GNOME looks and functions for the most part, but I really wish the world provide more options instead of whatever design philosophy they think needs enforced.
I think Gnome is the most beautyful Desktop out there. But it's UX drives me crazy. I tried it a few times but never could get used to it. I always needed extensions to customize it to my needs. But that's also what I want to avoid because extensions might break in the future. Therefore, Gnome is simply not the right Desktop for me.
But I'm happy for everyone who likes to use Gnome. The great thing about Linux: We have a choice!
At this point, what did you expect to happen?
I'm having a great time on GNOME, even without any extensions at all!
That is sort of the thing with Gnome. If you like it it's great, but if you don't there is nothing you can do to really change it. Like I think it's okay, but there are things I don't like and it is just too much effort to try to adapt it to my preferences.
Dunno, I saw GNOME 3 run like molasses on my PC, went "ok, this might be lost cause", went with LXDE and then XFCE, and now I'm like "if it's a beefy proper PC I'll go with KDEPlasma and if it's, like, very obsolete system I'll, dunno, go with XFCE".
GNOME is just opinionated. I get it, it was kinda vaguely modeled after Mac OS, which is kinda an opinionated desktop environment, but the thing is, it's even more opinionated than Mac OS ever was. The thing about (early!) Mac OS X was "hey, we have this slick desktop environment but also some power user features you might want to use. But we're not forcing you to!" (Kinda like GNOME 2!) ...GNOME has been kinda sweeping those under the rug, in my opinion.
Hint: :q!
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