Don't you just hate Gnome 42?

Lounge EndeavourOS pub
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I know, as I type this post, the pane to my right is saying Your my topic is similar to… but it’s not, so I just want to throw it out into lounge so it can go OT and see where it leads without having to stay on the DE subject.

After reading so many complaints that the Gnome Project is trying to lock us into their system, I just had to see what all the fuss was about. Some Youtubers are even calling it the end of theming. It put me off trying out Gnome 42 for a while, but with Gnome Tweaks you can change a lot of stuff you don’t like. Anyway, I decided to spin it up in Gnome Boxes, to see what all the fuss is about and I don’t see what all the haters are on about.

@Scotty_Trees is working the Gnome way, and I must admit not having that maximize/minimize button feels wierd at first, but you do get used to it. Kind of like I had to get used to a single mouse button on Magic Mouse on the Mac, until I realised it can be changed (I am back to single button again). These days I don’t even notice it and I have been using a Magic Mouse since they released them. I guess you can get used to anything!

I wanted to try the vanilla approach to see if is Gnome 42 is any good for improving productivity. If a workflow leads to further degrees of free energy, then I am all for that because I see a computer as a tool not a toy. I don’t game, it’s a tool for putting food on the table.

So far, Gnome 42 is staying out of my way and I can get to whatever I need fast. That’s really all I expect from a DE, and it’s doing it better than any DE I have tested so far. Kudos to the Gnome team for sticking to their guns.

What about Plasma, I hear you say?

I did try out Plasma for a while and found it has far too many settings buried in more menus, that I just don’t care about or need. The last time I used KDE or was it Kool DE back then, it was klunky and crashed a lot. Now it looks like a sleek racing supersonic jet but with far too many controls for my liking. I’m sure you can get an efficient productivity from KDE, but it does get in my way, apart from maybe Yakuake with the F12 key.

Of course YMMV, depending on what you expect from a DE. For me, being a compulsive documenter, everything goes into Obsidian to build my lifelong Zettelkasten PKM (look it up) Thunderbird is my daily driver mail client, but it is heavily customized to my workflow with many aliases (identiities as they call them) and its sitting on one of the workspaces quietly doing it job as soon as I turn on the computer. as for browsing, Vivaldi is my browser for daily web work, and Firefox is for browsing sites securely and privately. Data harvesters/aggregators want to grab my personal details, so I run awesome extensions lie multi account containers to bifurcate my activities.

Anyway, that’s been my experience so far. What do you think about Gnome 42? Did it excite, disappoint or is it something you just HATE?

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Don’t you just hate Gnome

Fixed it!

honka_animated-128px-42

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You take every opportunity to clown it up :rofl:

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You like the gnome workflow? Me too. But without a proper theme I dont want to use it anymore. A customized theme does not change the workflow. It should not be gnome’s concern if I like my window title bars pink and the text yellow. And gnome should not prohibit custom themes.

The new “theming-is-dead” policy of gnome42 also prevents the use of gnome apps in other DE because they will not follow any theme and will just look ugly in plasma, cinnamon or XFCE. That is a pitty. I really got use to evolution or eog for example.

gnome42 is starting a new era of paternalism. But without me.

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You have a meme for everything.

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honka_memes-128px-39

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I think the indefatigable effort is worth an exclusive badge :wink: :sweat_smile:

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But don’t you think someone will come up with a workaround, like they seem to do with everying in the Linux world? Why would Fedora use it as default? I jst like dark theme, so it has me covered, but I do see why the Youtubers are so up in arms. https://youtu.be/XQrIf3Rkjjs

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My themes still work fine and its a smoother overall experience. I’m still having a good time with Gnome 42 and it has the best Wayland implementation so it’ll be my go to for a while yet.

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Honestly won’t even try quite happy on kde. Though do like seeing what can be done with it

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“Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never make it out alive.”

YouTubers especially Linux YouTubers have little to talk about. If they don’t make outlandish claims and headlines, even less folks would care about their content than they already do. If it’s not the best thing ever, or doom and gloom, it’s just not click bait worthy.

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as much as i like youtube mostly clickbait

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I can’t say I gave Gnome a full trial to adapt to it’s way. It doesn’t absolutely kill me or anything, and I have stayed on it for three WHOLE contiguous days lol so far.
As far as KDE settings, no one compels you to dig deep into them. You can pretend they aren’t there.

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you can but once you start digging through options are almost endless

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IIUC it is possible to customize colors using gtk3/4 settings. I have seen some article that shows how.

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Yea, default Breeze and Breeze dark themes are really good. If can leave them as it is. You can dig into settings only if you want to customize it more. Gnome doesn’t give this option

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My current theme is part breeze part sweet and part matetia with a few minor tweaks to get it matching

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Gnome is a business focused user experience first. The more customization it has the more people (read employees) will be inclined to customize it instead of doing work. They are doing a great job at their goal. Themes are not a goal. Productivity is.

Being upset gnome has little customization, and kde has too much is a goldie locks problem. I would recommend Cinnamon for a little more customization and still nowhere near kde.

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The lack of maximize button is easily replaced by double click on titlebar. The lack of minimize button isn’t replaced. Pop has minimize button but not maximize button, so I felt the balance.

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I use the keyboard shortcuts for everything… to hide the window use SUPER + H

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