[Discuss] Ubuntu 17.10 / Gnome first impressions

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

I've been focusing mostly on Ubuntu because I want my skills to be with 
something very popular that I'm likely to run into elsewhere.? Maybe I 
should focus more on something for power users, as you say.

If I go with the Fedora KDE spin, that will bring me bleeding edge 
software and also RPM package management which I'm more likely to see at 
work (in RHEL/Centos).? I think I would be frustrated with Debian's 
multi-year release cycle, and Arch and Gentoo seem like a LOT of work.? 
This is my daily everything-but-gaming computer, and having it work is 
also of value to me.

Any other distros I should consider?

Thanks. I was really seeing this as a Gnome vs KDE thing but you're 
right, the problem may be partly with the distro.


On 12/20/2017 07:02 AM, Shirley M?rquez D?lcey wrote:
> Ubuntu has been treating the non-LTS versions as betas for a while
> now. Sounds like this one is no exception. I expect some of the rough
> edges you saw (like the inability to run Synaptic as root) will be
> smoothed out for 18.04. But the orientation toward non-power users
> will remain because that's where Ubuntu has been targeted for a long
> time, at least since the original introduction of Unity.
>
> On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 3:55 AM, David Kramer <david at thekramers.net> wrote:
>> My main Linux computer (tracer), was running an old version of Kubuntu,
>> because I really didn't like what either Gnome or Unity became.  But that
>> decision was years ago. My main objections to both were a removal of choice
>> and control, and a move away from having multiple fixed desktop ( I usually
>> have 4 distinct desktops for 4 different purposes and different apps running
>> on them).  And the overall attitude of the project, which was a very clear
>> dismissal of anyone who wanted to work differently than their vision.
>>
>> When Ubuntu went back to Gnome/Wayland, I thought I would give it a try
>> again.  I planned on reformatting and installing from scratch anyway.  A
>> personal goal was to be a big boy and separate out things that objectively
>> don't meet my needs, from things that I was just not used to or didn't like
>> subjectively, but could get used to.  This list is only about the former,
>> because the rest is my problem.
>>
>>   * There has been an increasing trend of shoving components into
>>     distributions well before they are ready, "because clearly we need
>>     them, and we can't wait for them to be perfected".  First one I
>>     remember is pulseaudio. I know many in our group feel the same way
>>     about systemd.  I feel Wayland might fall into this category.  It
>>     appears to work well for the most part, but I ran into serious
>>     problems, like applications like Synaptic can't run as root.  I
>>     ended up switching to Xorg.
>>   * There still seems to be the same "We know what's right" attitude and
>>     a dismissal of any objections.  All of my googling found results
>>     like "Just run this command before you launch apps like synaptic.
>>     No official documentation, no response to the bug reports, and no
>>     solutions that solve the problem so you don't have to run a command
>>     before running the command each time.  Much of the other basic
>>     functionality I was looking for required third party software and
>>     GnomeTweaks.
>>   * In KDE, all sorts of gadgets appeared on the panel, and more can be
>>     added.  In particular, apps running in the background had indicators
>>     in the panel to they can be brought up (eg: SimpleScreenRecorder,
>>     Sococo, VPN, Mega, etc).  By default, you get nothing and like it.
>>     You have to install gnome shell extensions to get some of them
>>     showing up, and some never showed up.  I have to run Sococo from the
>>     command line in my terminal, otherwise there's no way to exit the
>>     application.
>>   * Another related problem I had is suspend.  I set up a keyboard
>>     shortcut for suspending my computer, which I do several times a
>>     day.  Not only is there not an event to map to a keyboard shortcut,
>>     but if you click on the power thing in the upper right corner,
>>     there's no suspend option. You actually have to hold down the Alt
>>     key while pulling down that menu then there will be a suspend
>>     option.  Totally ridiculous gymnastics.  There is another Gnome
>>     Shell Extension that will add a suspend button, but when I installed
>>     that, clicking on the suspend button did nothing.  I eventually
>>     found a setting to suspend when the power button was pressed once,
>>     but that's ergonomically more difficult than a keyboard press for me.
>>   * About those Gnome Shell Extensions... You have to install a back end
>>     program, and then install a browser plugin in order to install them.
>>     There is a perfectly fine package manager in Debian, and there are
>>     several other popular ones that don't involve such nonsense.
>>     Amazingly, they don't appear to be categorized at all.  There's
>>     almost 100 pages of extensions and no categories or groups.  Yes
>>     there's search, which helps if you know what's available
>>   * Multiple desktops, as I mentioned, are much harder to set up, and
>>     require extra software.  Desktops can only be arranged vertically in
>>     one column, and there doesn't appear to be a way of going directly
>>     to a desktop with a keystroke.   That's not a deal-breaker, that's
>>     more into the "not what I'm used to" level.  However, with KDE, I
>>     can bind specific apps to specific desktops and even specific
>>     monitors.  When I start up, all my apps start where they belong.
>>     That doesn't seem possible under Gnome.  And I run many apps at
>>     startup, across the 4 desktops.
>>
>> I'm not saying Ubuntu/Gnome/Wayland is bad. I'm saying it's less likely to
>> appeal to power users who like things the way they like them, and use lots
>> of applications at once.  And that I'm going to install the latest Kubuntu.
>> While it was way better than years ago, I don't see Gnome moving in a
>> direction that works for me anytime soon.
>>
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