Feeling brave? GNOME 40 is here and you can have a poke around in the Fedora 34 beta
- Reference: 1616697911
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/25/gnome_40/
- Source link:
GNOME is the default desktop for numerous Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Red Hat and variants such as Fedora and CentOS Stream, SUSE, and many more.
[1]
Version 40 is the first to use a new numbering scheme. The previous version was 3.38, but the project did not want to get to 4.0 out of concern that it would be perceived as too big a shift. "If we ever did release 4, then people would see it as a huge change in [that] everything's going to be broken again, and that's not really what we've got," executive director Neil McGovern [2]told The Reg last year.
There is history here: GNOME 3.0 caused considerable grief and was [3]described by Linus Torvalds , creator of Linux, as "crazy crap" and "really annoying".
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[5]
The GNOME 40 File Manager
The messaging for GNOME 40 is mixed, though, since going from 3.38 to 40 is quite a jump, and the GNOME marketing people have created a [6]dedicated site to trumpet the new release. From now, perhaps, the emphasis will be on smaller iterative updates.
GNOME organises application shortcuts into Activities, and in version 40 the way these are displayed has been revamped. The Activities Overview shows workspaces at the top, below it a grid of shortcuts called the App Grid, and at the bottom a taskbar called the dash. The dash only shows in the overview, unless you install an extension called Dash to Dock. The idea is that users take advantage of keyboard shortcuts, like Super + Alt + up/down arrow for toggling the overview. "Super" means the Windows or Apple key. There is also improved Touchpad support, with a three-finger gesture for toggling the overview and switching workspaces.
[7]
Keyboard settings including Compose key for typing special characters
Changes in the core apps include a redesigned Weather app, updated tabbed browsing in the web browser, called simply Web or Epiphany, and a revamped file manager with a new preferences dialog. Users can also enable a Compose key, such as the little-used Right Super, making it easier to enter special characters.
There are changes to multi-monitor support in GNOME 40, such as the introduction of the workspace navigator on secondary displays. There is also a change from workspaces being vertical (in a virtual sense) to horizontal. "Horizontal workspaces are a feature of every other desktop out there. Not only is it how every other desktop does it, but it is also how GNOME used to do it prior to 3.0, and how GNOME's classic mode continues to do it," [8]say the team . It all ties in with a design theme in GNOME 40, a "film-strip of workspaces."
[9]
The Activities Overview showing the workspace switcher and the 'dash' taskbar
Under the covers the big new feature is the use of GTK 4, a major new version of the GNOME toolkit used by developers to build applications (unless, guided by Canonical, they [10]defect to Flutter ).
GTK 4.0 was [11]released in December 2020 after four years in development – underlining that GNOME 40 is in fact more than just a point upgrade. There is also a push towards using Flatpak for packaging applications, for safer and easier deployment than traditional package managers. The current release is now GTK 4.01, released in January.
[12]
A quick way to get hold of GNOME 40 is to install the just-released [13]Fedora 34 beta , ahead of the full release towards the end of April. Ubuntu is sticking with GNOME 3.38 for the 21.04 release, with [14]concerns including "the new shell design, is it going to be fully ready in one cycle? What's the impact on our desktop and extensions? It's likely that we will have design questions to resolve and non-trivial code changes." GNOME 40 can be expected in the Ubuntu October release. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YF0WDhhPvPtAthoSeNLwGAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/23/this_was_bigger_then_gnome/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_three/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YF0WDhhPvPtAthoSeNLwGAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/25/filemanager.png
[6] https://forty.gnome.org/
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/25/settings.png
[8] https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/02/23/gnome-shell-40-and-multi-monitor/
[9] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/25/overview.png
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/22/canonical_flutter/
[11] https://blog.gtk.org/2020/12/16/gtk-4-0/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YF0WDhhPvPtAthoSeNLwGAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/17/fedora_34_preview/
[14] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/staying-on-gtk3-and-gnome-3-38-this-cycle/20466
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Not coming here
I did like GNOME 2 and after they shafted all of us by axing it and replacing it with a half-baked, incompatible and completely different GNOME 3 I switched to MATE (a maintained desktop forked from GNOME 2) and have been extremely happy with that choice..
Unfortunately, this goes beyond just the GNOME desktop because the majority of the major Linux applications are based on GTK and it's the underpinning library for many of the desktop environments including MATE and XFCE which means that some of the terrible GUI design decisions by GNOME are now bleeding through into the other desktops. This includes the use of client-side decisions for windows (meaning you get a fat, horrible title bar with nested buttons and a hamburger menu) as well as replacing traditional contextual menus with things called 'pop overs' which (in my opinion) look ridiculous but also behave more like mobile phone menus - I.e. very touch centric and useless for mouse users.
As for calling it GNOME 40 - well this to me just stinks of how corporate it's become. The marketing department has decided to ditch that pesky major number with no clear understanding of the implications.
It's a sorry state of affairs and I'm most upset that my non-GNOME desktop is now unavoidably behaving like GNOME 3.x :-(
Just wait until a few more of the XFCE users find themselves faced with hamburger menus after their next LTS distro upgrade!
I wonder what useful features they've removed this time?
A redesigned Weather app ?
Weather app a core app ? WTF? It seems they sincerely believe this was badly needed.
Gnome default desktop for SUSE ?
Isn't it KDE ?
Re: Gnome default desktop for SUSE ?
Insofar as there is a default desktop for SUSE, it's KDE. It appears at the top of the list during installation, anyway.
Re: Gnome default desktop for SUSE ?
Qt shite - no thank you
Re: Gnome default desktop for SUSE ?
"Qt shite - no thank you"
Then don't bloody well use it!
This is Linux we are talking about.
You have a choice.
Version 40 is the first to use a new numbering scheme. The previous version was 3.38, but the project did not want to get to 4.0 out of concern that it would be perceived as too big a shift. "If we ever did release 4, then people would see it as a huge change in [that] everything's going to be broken again, and that's not really what we've got,"
So instead of 3.38 to 3.40 or 3.38 to 4.0 they went from 3.38 to 40.
If they had asked us, we could have told them that 4.0 - 3.8 is 0.2, but 3.8 to 40 is a WTF are you guys smoking at the moment.
But why 40?
If 4.0 would have been "perceived as too big a shift", why would adding 37 to the major version be seen any differently? I don't understand this logic at all.
Can you honestly say that you are happy with the state of this project?
Just a few of the issues that come to mind:
- You unmount the memory stick and have absolutely no indication of if it has succeeded or not
- When you move the brightness slider it flickers around like mad and generally resets every so often
- When you disable IPv6 DHCP client, it still grabs an address. Not properly connected to NetworkManager daemon or systemd-networkd.
- You try to open up two file managers to drag and drop a file across. Have to hold alt, or was it ctrl? Or was it shift and middle mouse? Doesn't matter because it will change next week.
- When you want to add a package you can't because the rpm database is locked because the silly fake store app is constantly checking for updates.
- You feel flustered because all the big windows are in your face and none of them have minimize buttons by default. You also have no task bar.
- You click activities and all the windows are in different places each time, leading to no consistency and breaking you out of focus
- Some (even default) apps are just missing icons making the whole thing look scrappy.
- You open a window and see nothing but a notification saying the window is ready only to realize it has appeared at the bottom of the stack randomly
- SELinux alert. Was it a false positive? Who knows. Gnome certainly doesn't.
- You realize all of these issues suggests that no-one actually uses Gnome and that you are wasting your time being the only mug using it.
- All the extensions required to fix Gnome to make it usable would amount to more code than a new desktop environment from scratch.
- You realize all the kids around you love it because they have never actually experienced anything better. Gnome 2, KDE 3.5. Heck even Windows 95's UI.
It really is just terrible. Gnome 3+ has set back the Linux desktop by ~10 years.
Re: Can you honestly say that you are happy with the state of this project?
"You realize all the kids around you love it because they have never actually experienced anything better. Gnome 2, KDE 3.5. Heck even Windows 95's UI."
It's like fashion, or movie reboots. It's (usually) generational. The news kids on ther block didn't see the last but one incarnation and think they are cever becuase the (re-)invented something "new".
The most obvious is my Lenovo laptop. Years ago, if something failed hardware wise and the screen didn't display anything, the system would beep a short, memorable sequence of long and shot beeps. When everthing was placed on the main board instead of being expansion cards, the beeps went away because all the faults were the same thing. Main board. Now Lenovo have "invented" a new system of error beeps whereby it plays a little tune. Unless you have a eidetic memory and perfect pitch, you can't easily figure it out, not even from the manual. No, the "new and better" invention needs a few 100 quids worth of mobile phone and an app that can "listen" to the tune and tell you what the error is.
Likewise, if you need to set the date and time in the BIOS, there's no option to type the numbers in any more. You have to click the dropdown and scroll down potentially 31 rows to set the day!
All becuase new young "designers" think it's cool with little or no concept of usabilty,
/rant
(sorry, but it really bugs me when things change for the sake of "cool" and not usuability and don't at least retain the option to switch the shiny off - especially when it's Linux and the mantra has always been "There's a choice". Well, no, the choices are getting limited as more stuff depends on big projects)
Now, git of ma lawn!!!
Not coming here
I never liked gnome 2, from what I've read, this is even worse.
Coat 'cos i got out of it as soon as I could!