I gave it a fair shot for about a year, using vanilla GNOME with no extensions. While I eventually became somewhat proficient, it’s just not good.

Switching between a few workspaces looks cool, but once you have 10+ programs open, it becomes an unmanageable hell that requires memorizing which workspace each application is in and which hotkey you have each application set to.

How is this better than simply having icons on the taskbar? By the way, the taskbar still exists in GNOME! It’s just empty and seems to take up space at the top for no apparent reason other than displaying the time.

Did I do something wrong? Is it meant for you to only ever have a couple applications open?

I’d love to hear from people that use it and thrive in it.

  • Ozymandias
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    12 years ago

    I do. I guess it depends on your workflow though. Gnome tries to get out of the way and is quite minimal. I’m that way too, like to keep my desk uncluttered for example. I couldn’t even imagine a task that requires me to have 10 programs open, but if I had to, I guess I would try to group them on workspaces and try to limit the amount. Would be far easier for me to remember that way.

    I’ve tried other DE’s and window managers, but they all feel like taking a huge step backwards to me. You should however try to find something that suits you the best, maybe KDE?

  • @[email protected]
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    52 years ago

    I can live in GNOME and only use the defaults. It just takes time to adjust my workflow. What helps me with whatever I’m using or whatever I’m doing (in life), is to not focus on the things “missing” and just make the best of what I have (to work with).

    Since two years I’m on KDE but not because I was fed up with GNOME. I just wanted to try something else. Pretty much using stock KDE only that I moved the taskbar to the top of the monitor.

  • @[email protected]
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    12 years ago

    I hate vanilla gnome but love it once I’ve tweaked it. I definitely have to arrange workspaces how I like them though. 2 side by side terminals on wkspc1. 2 side by side file browsers on wkspc 2. However many browser windows on 3. Whatever main program I’m using on 4 and maybe PDFs on 5. Gnome makes it a breeze to fly around the workspaces on a laptop.

  • @[email protected]
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    12 years ago

    I used to use GNOME with minimal plugins (like adding a tea timer or my local ip to the top bar), until they changed the vertical layout. It was a while ago when I was going though some older issues I posted on the GNOME issue tracker and I realized I haven’t used the desktop switching feature since they changed it. They move horizontally now and it just doesn’t work for me on 3 monitors. It’s like the adjacent monitors switch into each other, but they don’t.

    Now I use dash to dock. I tried a plugin to reinstate vertical desktops but it’s buggy as hell.

    Also, GNOME doesn’t remember window states and positions anymore since the latest version, which annoys the hell out of me. I feel like every new version is equal parts forwards and backwards. Things get better and worse.

    One final fuck you to the guy who decided that dead keys and diacritics should be shown while you’re creating them. That’s decades of muscle memory out the window and switching between other os’s just got worse because of it.

  • SokathHisEyesOpen
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    52 years ago

    I use Gnome and I love it, but I have never used workspaces. Okay that’s not entirely true, I tried about 10 years ago and I found that it actually slowed me down instead of speeding me up. I’m content with a single desktop and multiple monitors.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    I use GNOME (under Fedora) on a laptop that sits at my right hand side, so I use it with only one hand. Using three-finger swipe to change workspaces is awesome - I usually use a workspace for each app, or sometimes two apps share a workspace, but I don’t worry about which one they are on, it’s so easy I just swipe until I find the one I want.

    I use an extension to auto-reveal the dock when I go to the bottom of the screen. The default behavior of going to the top left of the screen, only to traverse all the way down to the dock at the bottom (or the right for workspaces), just seems really inefficient, especially on a touchpad.

    I had it all tricked out with other extensions but they keep breaking with new GNOME releases, so I’ve mostly given up on that.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      I usually bring up the dock by tapping the super key or using a three finger swipe up. I barely use the hot corner at all since Ifigursed that trick out.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    Yes I love Gnome workflow. Actually so much that if I am forced to use KDE for example, it feels really archaic and slow to use.

  • methodicalaspect
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    112 years ago

    I can’t get used to vanilla GNOME. First things I always install are Dash to Panel, ArcMenu, Caffeine, AppIndicator support, and Pop Shell. It’s basically Cinnamon with a tiling/stacking toggle and without the need for a “restart if it crashes” setting.

  • @[email protected]
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    252 years ago

    Yes, I prefer Gnome to KDE by a long way, it’s much nicer looking and easier to use, the trick is to use it the way it’s intended, instead of trying to control it to work how you think it should

  • V6277
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    42 years ago

    I do, except I always enable minimize and maximize because it seems foolish to me to have those disabled by default. It’s really smooth and whenever I have too many windows open, the overview makes it easy to find what I’m looking for. Initially I was against hiding the dock in the overview but I decided to give it a try one day and I actually ended up enjoying it not being visible.

    What’s funny is that I actually end up using the overview instead of alt-tab most of the time because it’s faster for my workflow, and the default window switcher for apps with different windows open is BAD.

    I’ve gotten so used to the workflow that I find myself dragging my mouse to the top left corner of the screen on Windows lol and painfully wait the extra second it takes to open the Windows overview when swiping up with three fingers on a trackpad.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    I like it quite a lot on my projector / media pc, but I wouldn’t daily it over sway with custom hotkeys. Cosmic is definitely turning my head tho…

  • @[email protected]
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    152 years ago

    I have ADD and GNOME is a life saver. I usually put one and only one window by workspace. It allows me to be focused to the max on the task I’m doing.

    Also Libadwaita is so sexy.

  • KSP Atlas
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    12 years ago

    Decided to try GNOME when i switched to fedora, it’s good surface level but the ugliness is in the details

  • @[email protected]
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    192 years ago

    You can just switch to kde or xfce if you dont like gnome, thats what linux is all about. For one I cant really use anything not-gnome anymore, its workflow feels just so efficient and is equally good with a touchpad, keyboard and mouse. I usually get distracted really easily on kde and the likes but gnome just gets out of the way and lets me focus more on my work.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      52 years ago

      The other options I tried were a bit too buggy for my tastes. I’ll stick with it a bit longer. Idk.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        Fair lol.

        I’d suggest trying to always use the apps in the same workspaces. I always open discord spotify steam in the leftmost workspace, firefox in the rightmost and the 3-4 ides i have open in the middle each on its own. Makes navigating through them a second nature in no time.

    • SALT
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      2 years ago

      The problem is with GTK4, most software are moving, and it cause different UI and since GTK4, we as user can’t have option to enable noCSD anymore like GTk3 :')

      I’m saying about XFCE, because I’m fond of XFCE workflow

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        The problem is with GTK4

        I agree with this, and with no option to enable no csd… it sucks sooooooo much