back to article No place like GNOME: 41 in beta, features frozen for forthcoming release

The next release of GNOME desktop, version 41, is now in beta and its features and API are frozen. GNOME 40 was released in March and, despite the huge leap in version number from 3.38, it was not intended to be radically different from the 3.x line in the same way that GNOME 3 was to GNOME 2. "Radical technological and design …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    4.0 would be perceived as more different than 40

    So they are inhaling some strong, weird substance. Definitely.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: 4.0 would be perceived as more different than 40

      My perception of the difference is ---> .

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. martyn.hare

      Re: 4.0 would be perceived as more different than 40

      Or maybe they lacked the guts to treat versions as arbitrary, like Linus did when 2.6.x ended so made up a story.

      One thing the both Ubuntu and Microsoft got right was the use of dates as version signifiers and IMHO this is what everyone with projects based upon constant, iterative changes should be doing. This way, documentation can be simplified by saying "X was introduced in November 2020" or "Y was removed in July 2021" rather than referencing meaningless version numbers.

  2. RegGuy1 Silver badge

    Gnome 3 is shit

    Have they made the windows slide bar (or whatever you call it) wider? And stopped it from disappearing? Have they put the ticks back on the top and bottom of it again (try just sliding your window a little when it has 30,000 lines of code)?

    Have they got rid of that stupid thing on the side, that eats into your desktop?

    Have they stopped trying to emulate every other window layout out there, either by Microsoft or Apple? Linux is wonderful because it is different. Don't just try to make it a clone of the latest fad by everyone else. Get some balls.

    If you've got a bottom bar you don't need a top bar. Fuck off.

    Gnome 2 was wonderful, then some cunt came along and screwed it up. (Improvements, they called it -- my arse.)

    If you make Gnome 4 go back to Gnome 2 then life will be good. However, no doubt we will all be forced to move to this at some point, just like we have been forced to use that pile of poo called systemd. (But I'm seeing a therapist about that...)

    To just repeat the title: Gnome 3 is shit. I'm not holding my breath.

    1. AMBxx Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Gnome 3 is shit

      Somewhere, there's a UI design course that's preaching that scroll bars are no longer needed. Loads of websites hide them now. Windows 10 hides them by default. For some reason, Windows no longer allows you to set the width properly (don't get me started on the absent window borders).

      I'm using pgAdmin now to write SQL queries. That makes the bars narrower than the default and it's a pain to scroll.

      Rant over.

      1. NATTtrash

        Re: Gnome 3 is shit

        "Somewhere, there's a UI design course that's preaching that scroll bars are no longer needed."

        Nope, no course needed. That's just a world of phone and tablet users for you who don't need scroll bars any more because they can scroll with (fat finger) touch...

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Gnome 3 is shit

          It seems mobile/tablet GUI designers responsible for that amazing idea never had to read anything more than a couple of swipes depth because they never thought that knowing where you were in the text was useful.

    2. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Gnome 3 is shit

      "Have they made the windows slide bar (or whatever you call it) wider? And stopped it from disappearing? Have they put the ticks back on the top and bottom of it again (try just sliding your window a little when it has 30,000 lines of code)?"

      As another poster says, this is not just GNOME, but as UI paradigms go, this has to be one of the most frustrating to emerge in the history of interface design. Can UI designers please give us back the old scroll bar model?

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Gnome 3 is shit

        "Can UI designers please give us back the old scroll bar model?"

        I think the ones you mean call themselves "UX" designers.

        Forget the "Interface", it's the eXperience.

        Anyway, have one of these to dull the pain -->

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've got questions...

    So I'll wait for version 42 that's the answer to them all. *Grin*

  4. keithpeter Silver badge
    Windows

    Keyboard nav and hide apps...

    BBC balance time...

    It has to be said that my workflow is quite simple - the graph has few nodes, I'm your typical document/Web browser/end user sort.

    I used the dwm window manager with dmenu on Debian for some time. You hit a (configurable) keyboard short cut and typed the name of a program to run. You moved to different workspaces using another shortcut. Most apps were full screened on my smallish monitor but a few needed floating windows. There was a small top bar that lists the workspaces and gives time/date (and other information if you wanted to set up some scripts). I could focus on tasks and applications.

    Gnome 3 has always seemed quite familiar from that dwm/dmenu experience. It can be a nice quiet interface (if you switch off the notifications). I could live with it if Gnome was on (say) a computer supplied by an employer. I usually use xfce4 on my own machines, but with the whisker menu bound to the same keyboard shortcut as above and windows maximised.

    Downloading this beta iso (all 2.4Gb) to see what it looks like...

    1. keithpeter Silver badge

      Re: Keyboard nav and hide apps...

      Seems like you need a special flatpack version of gnome-boxes which has some efi gubbins in it to actually run the iso. Investigation continues...

      https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-boxes/-/issues/617

  5. pdebarra
    Devil

    Obligatory link...

    ...to David Bowie's finest work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SQdBxVjZx4

  6. sharpwolverine

    Meh

    Double down on what made GNOME 3 bad isn't going to get me to switch to GNOME 4

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Meh

      ... but what it might do is drive me back to FreeBSD.

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