Gnome 3 vs Gnome 2 (Compare)

[spyworld]

My favour Desktop Environment is Gnome 2. Gnome 3 has a nice design but always facing some problem here.

Gnome 3 always automatically reload. If you're developing/scripting application or writing document, your application will disappear and you have to start everything again.

Sometimes, OS freezes because Gnome 3 generate 100% CPU Usage.

[Dan]

I recommend installing and trying (in this order):

• Cinnamon
• MATE
• LXDE
• XFCE
• e16
• E17 (Enlightenment)

I've settled on the last two ... but I'm not exactly normal. <....>

[RupertPupkin]

A GNOME 2 vs GNOME 3 thread? Wow, we haven't had one of those in a long time, maybe 3 hours!

By the way, Linus Torvalds called GNOME 2 "a disease".

[kkshethin]

Gnome 3 may be excellent for touchscreen and smallscreen. As i have said earlier in another thread, all three present interfaces (unity, gnome-3 & metro) are going same way.

But Fedora (a cutting edge technology) & gnome-3 (a interface for not using your brain much) are contradictory concept in themselves. And think of enterprise with gnome-3 (on tablets????).

I predict divorce of fedora with gnome-3 in near future. These cannot co-exist in single distro.

[ElderSnake]

I dont think Gnome 3 will go anywhere. Even Debian will have/has it.

[JohnVV]

A GNOME 2 vs GNOME 3 thread? Wow, we haven't had one of those in a long time, maybe 3 hours!

On a different distro but...
i put off upgrading for this VERY reason

i and most defiantly NOT liking gnome 3
Never been a big fan of kde , though i like qt .Just not the desktop

time to build e17

[Dan]

time to build e17

<....> It's already available in the fedora fmd repos.

[JONOR]

It would be interesting to try something that was a combination of Gnome 2 and 3.
Then 3's over-view could be used for setting up and re-organizing the workspaces
with more routine activity being based on 2's workspace selector.
This would combine 2's convenience with 3's organizational strengths.

[spyworld]

I'm agree with "JONOR". Gnome 2 is much more convenience.

[droidhacker]

With a lot of extensions and tweaking, gnome3-shell may become usable. Things that can actually make it look and feel much like gnome-panel while retaining the majority of actual new features. The biggest thing they missed in gnome-shell was the default overview panel ui crap. Probably fine for tablets, but totally worthless if you use a mouse, especially with multiple displays.

Now nice thing is that it is still "panel" based. The upper panel can be modified -- things added and removed, in much the same way as gnome-panel could be. Where they missed the boat is that the panel modifications are fixed within the extensions themselves rather than user-controllable, so for example, you don't get to add something to the panel and drag it over to a different place.

There are also ways of adding additional panels on the screen, but again, they make its placement and design a function of the extension providing that panel rather than having a generic panel that can be added as needed.

Nevertheless, it can be done.

What I would really like to see is a more generic panel/component framework, which could be built in the form of well thought-out extensions. It actually wouldn't be a big deal to re-implement the entire gnome-panel interface as extension[s] to gnome-shell.

[AlexDudko]

Originally Posted by spyworld

I'm agree with "JONOR". Gnome 2 is much more convenience.

I'd say rather a habit. LXDE can be easily configured to look like classical Gnome-2. And it's much more lightweight.

[RogerOdle2]

I don't have a problem with the basic design of Gnome 3. It is a different style yes but some things are more convenient than traditional desktops like Gnome 2. In the long run, touch displays will gradually become the norm and neither Gnome 3 or Gnome 2 is quite ready for that. Gnome 3 is somehing of a transition to touch oriented operation but it is not there. What goes further than anything to give Gnome 3 a blackeye is the bugs that make it clear that it is not ready for prime time.

What is the greatest mistake for Gnome 3?

The 3D desktop. Flashy cosmetic effects like 3D should never be required for basic computer operation. It does nothing important that can not be done with 2D graphics even when 3D programming may be easier. 3D is OK for an option but the requirement for basic graphics hardware support should be minimal. The fallback mode was a mistake, Gnome 3 should have been fully operational with 3D graphics turned off from the beginning. There is no reason it could not have been. Instead, we have had driver problems like 100% CPU consumpltion of Radeon hardware. This would never have happened if we could simply turn 3D off and rely on basic 2D graphics.

What about the fallback mode?

There is reason to not support Gnome 2 style desktop for those who do not want to change. People still need an environment that supports the underlying advance of the graphics libraries. We have to be able to run applications that use GTK 2, 3, 4... regardless of the style of the desktop. The biggest problem is the supply of developers to maintain two desktop environments.

What should be done now?

Forget new features for now. Go after the bugs with a vengence. Create a solid baseline that will work with simple 2D graphics only and has least impact on the CPU. Some of us do real work and do not need to waste CPU cycles on pretty trinkets. This is also of interest in maximizing battery life in laptops when every CPU cycle translates into one more unit of energy taken from the batterty. Never forget that most people use laptops now even if they remain plugged into the wall most of the time.

[Dan]

Oddly enough ... most of that including enough eye-candy to make it pleasant to use, has been handily accomplished ... in E17.

[RogerOdle2]

Why do you think that a 3D graphics engine is neccessary? Functionality and reliability should be first priority. Second priority should be making it work on the widest range of hardware. Linux is not Microsoft and can not tell the hardware manufacturers to rise to its requirments. It needs to attract a wider audience. It can not do this if it doesn't work.

I had the hardest time using Fedora until they made the installer work on all of the graphics system I was using. Whatever the installer is using is a good starting point for the environment that the desktop must operate on. My system needs to default to that configuration if the desktop can not run for any reason. The latest "something went wrong" fiasco can not be allowed to happen. When something does wrong then such down all non-essentials (including 3D) and give me a desktop. Do not give me an entirely useless message.

[droidhacker]

Originally Posted by RogerOdle2

Why do you think that a 3D graphics engine is neccessary? Functionality and reliability should be first priority. Second priority should be making it work on the widest range of hardware. Linux is not Microsoft and can not tell the hardware manufacturers to rise to its requirments. It needs to attract a wider audience. It can not do this if it doesn't work.

Given current hardware, utilizing 3d/GL for drawing the desktop is actually LESS complex than using old 2d acceleration. Fact is that modern GPUs don't have dedicated 2d components any more. What this means is that accelerated 2d desktop will run via the 3d hardware either way.

So you have the choice of running 3d software on 3d hardware, or running 2d software hackishly on 3d hardware. Have you ever noticed how 2d is SLOWER on modern GPUs since about... Radeon R600 and similar compared against R500? The R500-generation of hardware was the last to have 2d hardware.

I had the hardest time using Fedora until they made the installer work on all of the graphics system I was using. Whatever the installer is using is a good starting point for the environment that the desktop must operate on. My system needs to default to that configuration if the desktop can not run for any reason. The latest "something went wrong" fiasco can not be allowed to happen. When something does wrong then such down all non-essentials (including 3D) and give me a desktop. Do not give me an entirely useless message.

The installer itself is still 2d. It is only post-install that you are faced with 3d requirements and the moronic "oh no" message. I have to admit that gnome-shell/mutter has become a lot more robust in recent versions compared with 3.0, though I'm not sure if it is a matter of the gnome-shell side of things, or the GPU driver side.

In either case, however, it sure is a mess trying to escape from gnome-shell on a system that doesn't have functional 3d hardware. Softpipe is NOT adequate, and SHOULD NOT be used in place of gnome-panel fallback mode.