Linus Torvalds Drops Gnome 3 for Xfce, Calls It 'Crazy'

is he stuck in the past perhaps?

If the past means a DE that actually DOES NOT SUCK ON too much sys resource just to be flashy while at the same time does allow for user customizable flashy additions then yes.

Gnome 3 continues to bleed users away from Fedora...Its absolutely rubbish.

I also think that Gnome 3 is a absolutely * .

personally, i think many windows of the same app are annoying. with terminal i just make a new tab. i can't see why you would want to have many windows open. it's just a question of organizing your workspace :) i'm quite happy with gnome3 so far. there are a couple of things that i've come up against that didn't make sense and i had to change, but if that bothered me i would be a windows user. :p

What about open a man in a terminal and apply it in another windows ? I didn't buy a 28" monitor to switch tab whan i need 2 windows aside !

OK, let's wait modernization of Xfce. XD

xfce its a light-weight window manager so i don't think it would improve to the point that it's suitable for a majority of users

Xfce is not a window manager. xfwm4 is Xfce's default window manager.

I am using Gnome 3 and I like it overall. I would like to see it improve and it will. I am also sure it will get better as developers create utilities to enhance usability.

gnome3 is pretty good... and Win-button usage is excellent

He is following me =))

ultimate edition 3.0 lite is out,and gnome 3 is rubbish

1. Launching an application takes twice longer as before.
- In Gnome 2 I have a launcher in the task bar, and I need only 1 mouse move.
- In Gnome 3 I need always two mouse moves - first to activities corner, then to the application icon.
So, ergonomy is worse in Gnome 3.

2. Gnome 3 is not flexible, not configurable. In the last 3 years I am using mainly Ubuntu and Mint. I have never used Gnome as is.
- I have always moved main menu
- I have always configured inidicator applets
- I have always added System Monitor applet to the panel
- I (not Gnome developers) have decided, which applets and lanchers I need
- I (not Gnome developers) decided, at what position in the panels to place them
- In Mint, I haven't used default (Mint special) menu. I was able to remove it and use standard Gnome 2 menu.
I like Gnome 2, because it is configurable. After installing new distro, it took a few minutes to configure Gnome for my needs.
Gnome 3 is NOT configurable, NOT flexible. There is no way to configure it for my needs, no way to make it convenient for my needs. Gnome 3 is approaching Windows. But now even Windows is more flexible than Gnome 3 (one can at least decide, where should be displayed the task bars and which shortcus to place in quick start panel).
What I like in Gnome 3, is flexible number of workspaces, and possibility to get and overview of all open windows. But I would use it only in some cases, when I have too many windows and wish to find needed one based on its appearance, not based on its title. I would use it in some cases. Also I like the search embedded into desktop. It is not new, such search is used in Open Suse as of years, but not in desktop.

To maximize a window in Gnome 3 one has to drag it over the whole screen. It may be 15 to 20 cm way (on 22" display)! Why??? Why do Gnome 3 developers force me to make more efforts? Why do they want me to be more tired?

Double click on title bar works too, as before. But why should I make double click if single click was is sufficient??? Again, why do they force me to make more effort?

I cannot configure Gnome 3 for my needs, I cannot start applications quickly (with 1 move instead of 2), I cannot monitor my PC (because I cannot add indicators). Known workarounds with JavaScript (in .local/share) are only workarounds, they don't bring the comfort from Gnome 2.

So, basically I am missing ergonomy. Gnome 2 is ergonomic. Gnome 3 is not.

I was looking for alternatives. Twice a year I give KDE a try. I like plasmoids. I like hot spots in the corners and at the borders. But KDE looses each time, because it is missing flexibility. I don't like the main menu in KDE. It is not configurable. No way to change it.

XFCE is not yet as shik as Gnome 2 is. May be when it is more mature, I will switch to it. LXDE is also not good, it doesn't matter for me how light is it, important is, how comfortable is my work with it.

So I switched to Mint. They promise to support Gnome 2 for a long time. If someday Gnome 2 support is dropped, I switch to XFCE. But not Unity or Gnome 3. As of Unubntu 11.10 Gnome 2 will not be supported at all.

Ciao Ubuntu.

You hit it right on.

For the sake of trying to adjust to the new look and way it works, I have been forcing myself to use it for over 1month now.

It takes me twice as long to get any work done. As long as I am doing simple tasks it is ok, but as soon as I try to do more complex work it ends up p!ssing me off immensely. A job that would take me a 5mins on gnome2 (switching between apps) now takes at least 10mins to do.)

Another fact I hate is that sometimes it crashes, and it takes the whole desktop with it, when gnome 2 crashed I was still able to recover and at least save what I was working on. Now I get a big screen that tells me Oops and a button to logout.

So yet again I am rolling back to 11.04 with gnome2 and I will use that till it becomes unusable then I will look at alternatives.

Great comment, basically the story of my life. Just like Andy I do the six-month tour of Ubuntus and the desktop-dance hoping a great leap forward will magically appear.

*facepalm*

Gnome 3 tries to be Whinedows.

The most annoying thing with whinedows is Microslop tries to do too much. In doing so they prevent me from working in the way that is most natural for me. It's the Whinedows way or no way.

Gnome 3 has now caught the same disease.

Don't tell me how to do my work. You don't know me. You don't know my work. Give me options, don't take them away. Straight jackets are for the insane and foolproof systems are for fools.

Xfce should suit Linus rather well, just as both KDE 3.x and then later Gnome 2.x had.

So, if history is any indication, he'll jump ship again if Xfce changes course like the other two, and run to LXDE.

He's going to be left behind.. he's a perfect example of someone who loves what he knows and won't support new ideas and ways just because it's different. Not all of us want to use terminal on a daily basis, some at all. Yes, Gnome 3 has a lot of work to do, like making theming easy and accessible, but I think its a step in the right direction. Get with the times Linus, and maybe instead of abandoning and flaming a good project, you could get involved and contribute...?

floss is about freedom, everyone thinks they know "best" but what is best is being able to have what you want.

What exactly is the improvements in Gnome 3?

um... I believe you've replied in a manor that shows that you've missed the point in the first place... Its not "different" that is the issue, its not "new ideas" that is the issue, its what core-linux is about, 'I control MY OS, MY Box, My way' and up until now, that has been available and done, if you get any core app that controls that much of your system, just go back to windows. Linus said 10 years ago, the OS should never be seen (the DE being a part of the OS) it should only respond to what the user inputs. I would suggest you watch "Revolution OS" if only for Linus's comments.

I agree with Linus Torvalds. I haven't tested Gnome3, but for what i can see so far gnome3 is more alike kde4. It's beautiful, nice to the eye but slow for thoses o want to work, very good for people o want a computer to listen to music and have nice widget and wallpaper too.

It's true that people resist to change, it's necessary, however let's try to make this change for the better and not for the worse.

Let's please the user and not the eye...

Not used Gnome in ages. LXDE and KDE are all I use now so have sidestepped all this debacle. I've used Gnome 3 a little and hated it and have seen enough videos but people seem to not realise that Gnome is not the only DE.

Linus is right. GNOME 3 was a horrible idea. I'm keeping a GNOME 2 environment by running Gentoo, but you can't sneer at Linus for switching to an actively maintained DE. Seriously, whoever designed GNOME 3...GO AWAY!!

Tested new Gnome 3.....horrible
extremly slow, not configurable, not ergonomic, wastes energy and
resurces
the_crow

I am a long term linux fan, just upgraded my fedora install and after a day using gnome 3, I am afraid I will be booting in windows 7 from now on.

Hate it ... it's a step backward

I like how everybody is saying get involved and contribute. Feedback positive or negative is getting involved and contributing. You do know that most of the people complaining about Gnome 3 are already involved in projects that take their up time, and from what I have seen most are power users who use their machines for more than playing games, listen to music and posting on facebook.

It may not sound like much but loosing a minute here and there because it takes twice as long to complete a task in the new Gnome 3 all adds up and makes it frustrating, when people get frustrated they vent.

Gnome 3 should of not been released like it was. The shell should have been an option that could be enable. This would of allowed the original layout in gnome 3 so that your power users can carry on been productive while the developers have the time and the user base contributions to put in all the features that gnome is now missing, and not rely on work rounds. This way those who want the “new experience” can have it and help develop it further, and those who just want to be able to work with what they are use to at the same level of productivity they had before.

Yes I do know about the fall back option and it did not allow full customization either but at least it allowed some tasks to be speeded up. All the gnome 3 fiasco has done is push away long time users, killing off a large part of their user base.

One of the major complaints was the total lack customizability, this has always been a driving force for Gnome 2, to completely disregard that in Gnome 3 lost a lot of users. Yes I know that there are hacks and work around that started appearing right after gnome was release to fill in this gap, but seriously most times they were buggy and caused the Oops screen. There maybe better tools and methods now, but I would not know because I no long want to use gnome 3 or waste my time getting it to work how I want it to work.

I know the Gnome team put a lot of work into this and are trying to keep up with the new look race that is going on, but there is something to be said for retaining your existing user base who have shown amazing loyalty through the years. Maybe the change to the new layout should have been put off to version 4 and left as an option to enable it version 3.

For me I just discovered http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/. Which look promising.

I see no point in wasting time trying to find where everything is or indeed, where things aren't. The Gnome Team have obviously put a tremendous amount of effort into creating Gnome3 - it's a great shame that this energy could not have been exerted in other directions. I do, however, feel guilty about criticising Gnome3 in view of the time put into creating it, but I have found it really frustrating to use. I have now opted for Mint's Debian distro with Xfce. Perhaps if we had all been brought up on Gnome3 from day one, we would really love it, as it would be familiar to us. To the Gnome Team, I say, don't feel too badly about how users feel about Gnome3 and don't be discouraged as your continuing efforts are appreciated, it's just that this time, you may have scored an own goal.

The bottom line is that GNOME 3 has rough edges, really rough edges. Way too many rough edges to have been considered stable for release. People were left in the dark as to how to make it usable. People had to figure out that there was an "Extensions" site the would return some former usability to the desktop. GNOME should have preinstalled many of these extensions because even the most basic of configurability was missing with the default install of GNOME3.

And, speaking of desktop environment. It's hardly a desktop environment at all. When it forces users to follow a defined process to do their work it's more like a phone or tablet environment, which some have said is what GNOME is trying to become.

Personally, I'm a fan of highly available configuration so I can determine my own work processes and how I open applications and move between them. That is what desktop and laptop users expect. Long live the mouse and keyboard! :)

In fact it's interesting to note that studies have been done that show that users of phones, with the option to use an onscreen/soft keyboard or a slide-out hard keyboard, most often use the hard keyboard. It's just way too hard to use the onscreen/soft keyboards because of space, lack of tactile location awareness, etc. I've noticed that most tablet users, for example, revert to the old fashioned two-finger (or worse, one-finger) hunt-and-peck style of typing. This basically reduces any type of efficient use of a phone or tablet to internet browsing or texting. Not many people do that for a living.

So far, in my search for a preferred DE, Xfce, KDE and MATE are looking really good. The latest MATE is looking pretty stable and has the vast majority of the GNOME 2 functionality included. KDE has always been a beautiful, highly configurable DE. It's so well designed in so many ways that I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of people heading that way. One poll on LinuxQuestions.org shows that KDE is used by about 33% of Linux desktop users. Xfce is great. It's light weight and fast but it also has much of the configurabilty of GNOME 2. I've been pleasantly surprised by it. Also, don't overlook Cinnamon (which is based on GNOME3 Shell). It's got some really sharp people behind it at Linux Mint that are working on making it a desktop environment again.

Well. Enough said. I'll close by saying that GNOME needs to listen to it's users. Linus is definitely not alone in his opinion of GNOME3. Look at the distros that are shying away from it. Namely Linux Mint and Ubuntu, which are top two on distrowatch.com, by a significant margin I may add.

I definitely am a huge fan of Linus Torvalds. I have been using Linux for 8 years now. In fact, my music and media sit on a Linux server I built 8 years ago. The thing is a tank! What I would like to know from everyone on this forum is what you do in connecting your peripherals. Do you buy only things that work with Linux or do you spend huge amounts of time reverse engineering drivers and so forth? I'm really curious. I really would love to use only Linux or Unix, but I find that there are just programs not designed for either platform. When you are submitting work to businesses and other people, it has to be in a compatible format for the masses without restricting the original work to a format these businesses can't open. I know, it is one of the oldest debates. I had problems with Ubuntu 12.04 when upgrading from 11.10, Xorg crashed and I had to install on a different HD. What are your thoughts? Which distro does Linus Torvalds use?