Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 14:15, schrieb Josselin Mouette:
Le mercredi 21 novembre 2012 à 04:03 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit :
Gnome3-classic (fallback) is the option more like to what was gnome2. I
have been using it for a while and is a good option if you want a
desktop like gnome2.
It may be for you or for some others, but not for all a viable option.
Most definitely not for me, the local and remote folks I asked around
the globe.
Yeah, because people can’t stand their panels going from gray to black.
Even IF that would be the only problem, yes... I would be concerned
enough to let the users allow to change the color of the panel. But I
guess even you gnome3 apologists did acknowledge that after some time...
or do you not know that now you actually can change the color of the panel?
Don't get me wrong most of them could probably "get along"
with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would
miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete
infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse.
Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That "mule"
behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects.
You need to be more specific because despite being one of the
maintainers I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I can just assume that you are joking there... or do I really have to
make screenshots now to show you the optical and technical differences
in the UI?
The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters;
This is by design. Please point me to a case where the new layout
mechanism doesn’t answer *real* user needs. OTOH being finally free of
absolute positioning means the end of the awful bugs when resizing the
screen or when applets change their size.
And that design is limiting, but it's fine if some DE goes that way of
limiting its users. But I found it kind of strange how far the
gnome-folks went that road... but even that is fine. And you do not need
to agree there at all. It seems to be fine for you, great! :)
Have a look here, a real user need:
http://picpaste.com/pics/panels.1353555116.png
And I need that to be able to make groupings of applets, to make sure
they don't wobble around and *always* *stay* *where* *they* *are* (which
does break when resizing screen, which is a bug and not to be answered
by removing that feature, at least if one has the broad variety of users
in mind). And to distinguish those groups clearly. Two times mate-menu
because two displays and I sometimes switch one off, before you ask.
And yeah... not that pretty, but function is more important to me there.
I did mention that from an aesthetic point of view gnome-shell *is*
pleasing? But shiny looks tends to not have the users needs in mind as
it seems... at least sometimes.
not all applets ported;
Port them. I’ve done it for a pair of them, it is really simple.
That was not the point. We have the overall user here in mind, correct?
Or is Gnome3 now for the computer geek who likes to hack code and write
their own stuff?
simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click
is needed now;
Obviously you haven’t had to manage a help desk where you get calls from
people who have accidentally removed their notification area or their
window list with a wrongly placed right click.
Sadly not for GNU/Linux desktops, which is a shame, really. But I do
support other operating systems and I have similar issues with their
users, I can assure you, no fun at all! But, I explain them what they
did, why they did it and what to do to prevent them from doing it again,
or most importantly that they can do it if they want to. I want to have
competent users and not the granpa- and grandma-style. It is of utmost
importance to try to learn, we all know that. Striping something down so
that there is less to learn is not always the good way to do things.
menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical
fashion;...).
Wut?
I find it kind of weird when I need to click on my name to be able to
log out or reboot or find the stuff to configure the box. It concerns
the "system" as in "computer system" or "operating system", great, let's
call it "system". Nothing wrong with that. And I really love those three
menus! They are so damn logical and the names do make sense in every
regard! I know my name, I don't need that huge space wasted to see it.
But agreed, there is some other stuff in the menu that makes at least
some sense in that regard, but it is just not the way I (and many
others) like it. So I don't think those that find it ok are completely
out of their mind. ;)
No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you
speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the
system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password
then!).
This one, I agree, is a real problem. I don’t like how upstream moved
regional settings to the control center. Patches that reintroduce
keyboard selection in GDM in a correct fashion will be accepted.
And it is the general target user of gnome3 that should sent that patch? ;)
Seriously, funny that you only agree there and seem to ignore all other
issues. See, just for our sanity, is it so hard for you to understand
that different that users may have a different point of view and a
different set of priorities and that just based on that should not be
considered to be wrong? Let the religions be that way, but please not
Debian.
The control-center, a lot of stuff is missing. Gone are the days
you can keep your laptop running when closing the lid. Want to prohibit
display blanking? Sorry, gone too.
If you want very specific settings you can use gsettings to set those
defaults. You are not talking of basic use cases that a random user with
no understanding of a command line would need.
Sure I do not speak of basic use-cases. And again, if gnome wants to go
that direction I am absolutely fine with that. It seems I am just not
the guy who wants to watch a movie (which tends to be longer than 1
hour) and wanting to move the mouse a bit every 59 minutes, google
around how to do it with a specific DE, install some random extension
that should fix that but does not. It is just some random feature many
of us take for granted, period!
That list goes on and on (ask the web for a more comprehensive list)
Yeeehaw, just “ask the web”. What could go wrong with that? Haven’t you
noticed how asking the web will always lead to the same answer: any
change will be deemed absolutely horrible and destructive.
Now I see how that works for the gnome folks! *lol* Really, if the
general gnome attitude is "all complaints are dumb and should be
ignored, what we do is the holly grail" then...
I really never heard something that weird when it comes to software that
is intended to be used by others that did NOT write it in the first place.
And don't confuse change with regression. Apart from that some issues
may be both for some folks, try to acknowledge that. And change is most
often a good thing. Otherwise we would not even bother releasing a new
Debian release every now and then. :) But any change has to have a (more
or less) good reason, you don't change just to change something. And let
me emphasisze this, Gnome did change a lot, they go an interesting new
and different way. In general no critics there. But many of us think the
new approach just differs too much from what gnome2 was. Even back in
those days, many did criticize that gnome did loose options from release
to release. To a certain degree that is ok, if the defaults are sane AND
there is a way to change it nevertheless, even when some cli-stuff need
to be performed there. As long as they are documented, fine. I don't
even remember *any* important option that got thrown out, so it must
have been okish what Gnome did back then in that regard. But with Gnome3
it was just way too much for many. From a logical perspective it was
that much different, that it should not have had the same name at all
and should have been a completely new project.
and some of those shortcomings can be
tweaked away, which means effort and grief in varying degree. In short,
gnome3-fallback just looks at the upper surface almost like gnome2 did,
but is, behaves, works completely different.
Indeed, it works much better. It is a fallback for GNOME3, not just
GNOME2 with sed s/gnome/mate/ so it was a bit more work, but certainly
worth it.
The work might have been massive, the code might be as beautiful as a
sunrise in belize but function-wise... err no. And it just happens to be
that many do not agree that it was worth it. And even if I can give
kudos here and there for gnome-shell, as it has some nice aspects and it
really does look good and it was not at all such a buggy and unstable
one-crash-per-minute experience as the early KDE4 releases were...
still, I can't say that for the fallback mode. And I am really perplexed
to see you think it would work better... especially as that option is
deemed obsolete.
And those strange side-blows directed at the MATE folks...
I kind of insist it being in jessie ;) And yes, that makes another good
point why the gnome3-fallback just can't feel like the real thing. It is
supposed to be for those users that 1.) can't use the shell as no 3D
acceleration available 2.) absolutely can't or don't want to work with a
new and different desktop-paradigm, with accepted pain and grief in
varying detail...
So what you suggest for jessie is, after users having gone through the
“pain” of moving from GNOME2 to GNOME 3 classic, to go back to GNOME2
with GTK2, GConf (sorry, MateConf) and almost everything looking like a
squeeze desktop?
Way to go.
I don't suggest anything, but that sounds about right what some may do
nevertheless. That's why I had this insane idea in the first place, so
that most desktop users (if they would happen to have the wish to remain
at the gnome2-idea of a desktop ui) would not need to go through all
that pain and trouble.
regards
Michael
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