That's my setup because it has fewer moving parts and lower latency, as there are only a handful of processes running and no compositor.

I might be mistaken here, but it seems to me that the international users who want a simple experience are already well served by smartphones (android or otherwise).

The international users who are going to install linux on a laptop are the tinkerers and fiddlers and the self motivated learners who aren't going to be motivated by a dumbed down, inaccessible interface.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2536558/red-hat-sees-n...

https://lwn.net/Articles/56947/

smartphones have small screens, and terrible keyboards.

almost no one will creatw anything except simple photography and tweets on a phone.

my phone can't even provide capital letters reliably.

self motivated learners aren't stopped by a simple UI; they can use terminal and web apps.

Now having GNOME with its Javascript based shell and extensions, making every click take a couple of seconds longer and me wondering what it is doing, no thanks.

I don't understand why you have to wonder what it's doing, the javascript is all self-contained and hosted locally. It's not using npm or anything like that. And the extensions are pretty much the same as any other app you use that supports plugins.

https://access.redhat.com/solutions/3410651

"GNOME Shell Performance Improvements in Ubuntu 20.04"

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/gnome-shell-performance-impro...

"Boosting the Real Time Performance of Gnome Shell 3.34 in Ubuntu 19.10"

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/boosting-the-real-time-perfor...

When I complain about GNOME performance, I am not making it up, learn that and bye.

Thing is, not everyone is a die hard fan. Developers on Gnome, by definition, are, but outside of that, customers are going to go with what works. And that's not Gnome. Customer's don't care that the UI slowness in version 1 was caused by X, and UI slowness in version 2 was caused by Y. There was UI slowness, which made it unusable, and, well, now they're using XFCE or OS X or Windows. It doesn't matter that there was a bug and it was fixed a year ago. The problem is that there was a bug a year ago, and that particular customer is gone and can't be recaptured - they've got a solution that works and they're not looking to switch to a different one. Especially one that has a history of problems.

That's not to say GNOME _isn't_ resource intensive -- it is, especially when compared to desktop environments that were either written to be lightweight or written 30 years ago -- that just isn't the best way to measure it.

That's why I said apples to oranges initially, but you're right, I could have clarified that part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octet_(computing)

https://www.google.com/search?q=gnome+3+cpu+use

sure...

Also, your characterization of GNOME's rationale is totally wrong. The goal was never to make a desktop with no features, it was more to make a desktop that is streamlined towards certain functionality. If that's not for you, then use a desktop that's more streamlined towards what you want. There's plenty to choose from. What is the real problem?

Edit: I also want to address another common misconception that I see -- the GNOME Foundation does not direct development in a top down fashion and does not impose any rationale on the project. If some feature was removed, it was probably because an individual volunteer working on it decided that it wasn't worth spending time on that anymore, possibly because the need was better filled by a different project.

Useful links: 1. https://ometer.com/preferences.html, the subset of Mr. P's original essay that the original contains a link to. 2. https://www.derstandard.at/story/1313024283546/gnome-designe..., an interview with Jon McCann.

For the record: I care.

Roughly, I'd characterize it like the following: I believe that the best way for Linux to gain ground is to be a serious, perhaps even a little boring, but definitely "grown-up" desktop. Simplicity is very important, but tt should lean toward configurability and techniness.

What it should NOT do is what GNOME is trying to do, which is trying to streamline and appeal to everyone. This approach is like trying to beat Apple at their own game, which is dumb -- given that beating Microsoft at their own game is well within our reach. Heck, look at Windows 11, we're like a third of the way there already.

To put it another way: maybe some specific mode of "Linux gaining ground on desktops" with "configurability and techniness" is your goal, but people working on any given desktop (including GNOME) may not share that goal in the same way you do, and it doesn't make any sense to expect them to.

To elaborate a bit about why I'm saying this; For quite some time, onboarding people to Linux was pretty easy. "Just use Ubuntu" was a really good answer. And then Unity came along, with a) bloat and b) this new paradigm that was ostensibly as simple as a Mac, but different enough that people wouldn't recognize it. And this was a terrible direction for Ubuntu to go, especially since XP was on its way out.

And now, when people ask me, hey, how do I get started with Linux, and they've heard of Ubuntu, I can't just say "Yeah, go for it." I have to launch into a thing and name 2 or 3 different distros, primarily due to the weirdness of GNOME. I appreciate freedom and choice, but I'm also quite free to say, I believe the following: I really wish the GNOME people would more-or-less give up, because they have mindshare not off of the quality of their current interface, but because of the momentum of their old one plus Ubuntu. I believe that (much like Windows, frankly) if they actually had to compete in this space on the merits, they'd lose out.

KDE (and LXDE and others) are doing a better job of making a predictable useful interface.

But anyway it sounds like you just fixed that by using a different distro, you can even just suggest the KDE or LXDE spins of Ubuntu. Those still exist, and it's not hard to use them. If you're already using them then it's very hard for me to see what your actual complaint is or what you're trying to discourage. It's true you're free to express what you want, but please consider that what you're expressing may not be something that was done with having the full information. I've noticed there is a lot of confusion about what GNOME is and a lot of people seem to mix it up and equate it with Ubuntu or Red Hat or something, which is understandable, but it's not true. I'm only here to explain why.

And just to make it painfully clear: it is already hard enough to maintain open source and fix all the issues and improve the quality of the current interfaces, without people constantly demanding that open source maintainers give up and stop fixing bugs. If you want to get things fixed, you really don't need to do this.

Thus, I'm commenting as a fan/user/potential customer, who might find this useful in some way. Or not. Sports fans can talk about their team or the state of the game or what they like and don't like. That's what I'm doing. I'm not "demanding," and if anything, I'm arguing for less work. By the GNOME people, because their thing is a waste of time. Go work on the better things :)

This is incorrect. GNOME users would not consider it a waste of time, just like KDE users would not consider it a waste of time for someone to do work on KDE, or Mac users would not consider it a waste of time to work on macOS, etc. Please consider that your suggestion can be considered rude, you are simply not the target audience.

In general, open source doesn't work like this. These are volunteers, nobody can really tell them to go work on something else, because they work on what they feel like, which may or may not be seeking the approval of people like you. If you want to find another project that seeks your approval, that's great, go do that, let us know about it later and maybe I'll even try it out. If your goal is to harass open source developers until they quit open source, then please stop doing that, that would be making it worse for everyone.

There are "moneyed" business interests who have a lot at stake at their team winning mindshare and profits. Now, I have no problem with businesses being businesses generally. But part of their "product" is these interfaces. And so again, what I would suggest is that pushing GNOME type interfaces is, long term, a bad strategy that is likely to continue the trend of "Linux" being a second class citizen, by wasting energy toward the impossible goal of beating MacOS at their own game.

Conversely, pushing more configurable and slightly more techy KDE-like interfaces I think has stronger likelihood of making "on the tech margin" people more excited and interested in Linux, and ends up helping more people overall.

Now, I could be wrong about this -- but, while I definitely agree with "no one should to demand what open source developers do, especially if they're not being compensated" -- it's equally as bad (if not worse) to suggest "let's not offer big-picture criticism of trends in open source software that affects a lot of people."

I adhere to the idea that you should never be rude unless you feel there is something at stake that makes being rude worth it, and I think "trying to gain ground on the Linux Desktop" a thing that affects LOTS of people outside of the developers, is.

They surely where born that way, GNOME only exists due to the original Qt license.

Then Gtk+ was always the go to framework for C devs, while KDE was embraced by C++ community on GNU/Linux.

Murray did a very good job for the C++ refugees on GNOME/Gtk, but that has always been a minority versus being on KDE land.

Also I really wouldn't say that C and C++ are equivalent to political parties, that's like saying the same thing about coke and pepsi.

You haven't seen any drama, really?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/05/qt_lts_goes_commercia...

C vs C++ flame wars have been a thing since C++ was born at AT&T.

Since you aren't following up the news,

"CppCon 2015: Kate Gregory “Stop Teaching C"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnWhqhNdYyk

"We stopped teaching C"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZUTJ2UNXxI

You can find similar stuff from C side, specially if you back in time to GNOME mailing lists, Usenet archives from comp.lang,languagex

As for your posts about C, I can give a personal anecdote: I would agree with those sentiments, C has a lot of really bad problems as a language. But yet, I still write it a lot more often than C++. So It's not as simple as you're making it out to be. Also I checked some of those slides and I wouldn't describe anything there as a "flame war."

>Everything that implies taking sides is politics, no matter what.

If you really want to look at things that way, you could, but this seems to not be strictly true. Just because there is taking sides does not mean there has to be fighting or politics.

On GNOME the documentation seems to have stagnated, then we had Anjuta, now GNOME Builder (which tries to be XCode like), a UI design tool that is being re-written from scratch, the various frameworks don't seem to compose, and then each binding does their own stuff, only adapts a couple of Gtk tutorial samples to their own language.

Naturally being GNU/Linux, everything that falls out of the UI only has POSIX or GNU/Linux specific C APIs to refer back to, yet another experience completely devoid of how things work on macOS (there is no Foundation, Accelerate, Core...).

I find this statement humorous because I've said much the same thing about Linux Desktop GUIs in general. "It's like they were made by someone who's only ever had a GUI described to them in an email". Compared to a system like the original Macintosh or RiscOS that thought hard about how to abstract things for a graphical display and a mouse, or even Windows that just copied as much of that as they could get away with, it's really quite terrible.

This is a vice, not a justification.

> “ The goal was never to make a desktop with no features”

Wow, your first paragraph you accuse people of lying at worst, or capriciously taking a position that doesn’t matter to them at best. It gets better in paragraph number two where you misquote GP and go boxing with that strawman.

So to address your first paragraph, I’d say people here care a lot, and the bashing they do is not out of a place of tribalism, but out of a place of constructive criticism. Most of us here would LOVE to see improvement in $ArchEnemySoftware, and the failures strike deep because this stuff means so much to us. A mixture of disappointment with the status quo, and/or poor judgement calls with design or execution, rather than knocking a bit of tech that doesn’t appeal to us.

As for the second paragraph, GP didn’t say “no features” in reference to GNOME, but decried the basic features that were removed, thereby rendering the software less useful to them.

I’d take a brighter outlook on discussions like these, if the points land on the right ears, perhaps positive change might happen in GNOME. We can hope anyway.

I also didn't see any constructive criticism, if you have any specific suggestions for positive change you'd like to make, then please make them. I'm all ears. But for the record, if you'd like to get involved in development, places like HN and reddit are generally not a good place to do it. The people who are most likely to listen to requests don't visit here.

Also, no hostility here. I find these discussions illuminating.

As for Reddit and HN, these places are excellent places for such commentary. Often times the maintainers of different packages heed complaints leveled here and change their ways. That’s a win for everyone if the change is a positive one.

I have not said that, I just asked you for your specific criticisms.

You’ve made that abundantly clear in this thread.

That's not correct, as a show of good faith I've explicitly asked for specific details on what the complaint is. I can't help you if you don't provide those details. If it seems I haven't done that, I apologize, that was not my intention. I'll try to be clearer next time. Let me know if there's anything specific you want me to clear up.

Perhaps you should keep those ideas to yourself and only concern yourself with your own level of contribution to the topic at hand. I don’t need you to mind my comments.

What do you find disappointing? I guess that’s what I’m driving at. When somebody knocks MacOS, and it’s a valid point, I hope somebody from Apple is reading! Then maybe it gets fixed. So why would that arrangement disappoint you?

I'm just relaying what other people have told me, these type of forums are full of uninformed comments, and are not a good place to solicit feedback. You could hope that maybe an Apple engineer would read it but they probably won't. You would have better luck sending them feedback through their official channels, where you know they will read it. If you're giving feedback to a YC startup then this would be a good place, but otherwise not so much.

Hacker News has solid representation from Big Tech, FOSS projects, and Academia. What data do you have to back up that this is a bad place to air grievances with software?

Whenever anyone mentions Amazon, my ears perk up. If it is within my power to correct, I take action. So what data do you have to support the assertion that HN comments are uninformed, and that this is only a good forum for YC startups?

I've seen plenty of complaints about Amazon here go unanswered. Amazon is a pretty big company, I'm guessing you don't know everything about it and may not be the right person to ask about many things. If I had a question, I'd definitely ask you if it was something you were an expert in, but I don't know what that is because you didn't say.

Obviously Amazon has some huge issues to overcome, both culturally and policy wise. If you keep bringing issues up, I’ll do my best to get them in front of the right folks.