Cinnamon proposed to replace GNOME Shell as default DE on Fedora 19

in fedora, news & announcements / on January 24, 2013 at 2:36 am /

It was lobbying by the GNOME devs that made GNOME 3 the default on Fedora, but now it seems that somebody has had enough. That somebody has proposed making the Cinnamon the default desktop environment on Fedora 19.

I don’t blame him.

I’ve always been of the opinion that as far a desktop computing goes, and how people interface or interact with their desktop, that there’s something fundamentally wrong with GNOME Shell. It sits atop beautiful technology, but that UI just doesn’t compute. And the problem is that the GNOME devs are not willing to accept that simple fact.

But if this proposal is accepted, they will lose a major distro and, hopefully, will be forced to rethink the GNOME Shell.

According to Eric Smith, the guy behind this proposal:

The Gnome 3 interface is substantially different that the traditional desktop interfaces on both Linux and Windows. While it is good that there is research into new user interface concepts, many users prefer to have a traditional interface that they are accustomed to. … I’m not trying to start (or continue) a flame war here, so I won’t state any of my own criticisms of Gnome Shell here, but I will observe that a number of very high profile people in the Linux community, such as Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, have publicly announce that due to problems with Gnome Shell they are switching to a different desktop and/or Linux distribution.

I submit the proposition that it is easier for a user doing a new Fedora install to start with a traditional desktop, and switch to the Gnome Shell if they prefer that, than to start with Gnome Shell and switch to a traditional desktop.

His proposal gets my vote.

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40 Comments

  1. Ruben says:
    January 26, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    I suggest that GNOME 3 becomes the standard on distros that aims to be user-friendly and easy to understand. The experienced users (like Linus and Alan) have no trouble configuring their own desktops to suite their taste anyway.

    After the initial shock of experiencing the GNOME3 interface, I found it to be the best choice for me personally (beeing a designer and web developer). I hated it at first – now I can’t live without it :)

    I have also tested GNOME3 distros for family and friends, and they understand it intuitively – much more so than OS X and Windows. If we aim to make a complete experience for non-technical users, GNOME3 is the way to go!

    Reply
    • Darton Williams says:
      February 17, 2013 at 11:43 am

      Ruben, I completely agree. I saw the potential of GNOME 3 from the start of GNOME-Shell, and it has continued to address the concerns of users with updates and improvements. I could never switch back to the “classic” desktop after using it for the past couple of years.

      Reply
  2. Mike says:
    January 25, 2013 at 2:49 pm

    This is just plain silly. If you’re going to switch default desktops, switch to one that is mature: KDE4.

    Reply
  3. djf says:
    January 25, 2013 at 9:48 am

    1. gnome2 is for large and/or multiple displays – it is simply productive

    2. gnome3 and unity are for tablets and smartphones – they are fun – and can be productive.

    Prediction: gnome3 will never ever be the default for RHEL

    Reply
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