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I'm not really using "vanilla" GNOME since I have a number of extensions, but the only one that really modifies the workflow is Tray Icons: Reloaded.
That said, while it's definitely not for everyone, I'm very comfortable with it. I like that everything feels "out of my way" unless I need it, and I find the Activities view to be easier for finding a minimized program at a glance than a taskbar.
Same. I love it and I don’t know how I spent so much time not-using it :)
I do, except I always enable minimize and maximize because it seems foolish to me to have those disabled by default. It's really smooth and whenever I have too many windows open, the overview makes it easy to find what I'm looking for. Initially I was against hiding the dock in the overview but I decided to give it a try one day and I actually ended up enjoying it not being visible.
What's funny is that I actually end up using the overview instead of alt-tab most of the time because it's faster for my workflow, and the default window switcher for apps with different windows open is BAD.
I've gotten so used to the workflow that I find myself dragging my mouse to the top left corner of the screen on Windows lol and painfully wait the extra second it takes to open the Windows overview when swiping up with three fingers on a trackpad.
Kinda a tangent, but I've been using KDE plasma for a while and have really been enjoying it as a kinda in between of windows style desktop with some more gnome-like features (like workspaces, which tbh I've barely used). Of course both are super customizable, but it seems to me to maybe be a bit easier to customize Plasma? I'm not sure, I haven't used stock gnome as much.
Gnome does make it feel like I should have like 3 apps open and anything more is a mental burden. I personally really like the overview though! If I could get gnomes overview as my meta key in KDE it would be killer!
KDE Plasma has an overview. By default it's a topleft hotcorner thing. It's just awful cause it mashes all desktops into one. Absolutely useless
I like it, even though I'm not sure if I would call it the GNOME official workflow (is that even a thing?). I usually don't get close to having 10 applications open. I tend to work with about 1 to 3 workspaces with various applications based on my needs. Furthermore, I keep the windows non-maximized which helps me condense more information yone screen
I personally find Gnome works best on Laptops using the Touch pad with its Gesture controlls. But yeah there are things like the missing application tray that can be annoying which can only be added with extensions. Which is annoying again. So pure Gnome is the bare minimum and can work, but with extensions it can bekomm extremely good. In my opinion.
Yes, I love it! Really it's the MacOS-like "Expose" feature that I find to be essential.
I would advise against using workspaces though, I find those actually sort of go against the core idea of it IMO. There are a few things I'd really like added to it, but for the most-part when you get into it it's great.
My main desktop I have 4 monitors (I know, but once you start a monitor habit it's really hard to not push it to the limit - this is only the beginning!) It roughly breaks down into:
The key, literally, is you just press the Super key and boom, you can see everything and if you want to interact with something it's all available in just one click or a few of key presses away.
On my laptop with just one screen, I find it equally invaluable, and is actually where I started to use it the most - once again, just one press of Super and I can see all the applications I have open and quickly select one or launch something.
It's replaced Alt + Tab for me - and I know they've made that better, and added Super + Tab, but none of them are as good as just pressing Super.
The things I'd really love added to it are:
I would advise against using workspaces [...] My main desktop I have 4 monitors
Hahaha, figures. I mostly only use my laptop monitor, and absolutely depend on workspaces in everything I do. I rarely have more than four open, but I really like that it's flexible.
For me the default Gnome workflow is fantastic. I feel like there are always two quick ways of doing anything I want, either with touch pad gestures or with the keyboard depending on situation. I get frustrated trying to use anything else.
Yes. With many windows open but I don't use workspaces. Alt-Tab, and Alt-"above tab" is enough to me. And you can always super, first chars of the app name, enter.
I tried using it multiple times over the years, including for multiple months on my laptop at one point, but couldn’t get myself to accept it. Even with extensions, I couldn’t accept many of the weird design decisions.
It always felt to me like the Gnome designers wanted to create a combination of Windows 8 Metro and Mac OS: The shittiest Windows UI ever combined with the ergonomics of Mac OS (which is foreign to Windows users) and the lack of customizability of Apple products. Hyper optimized for touch screens even though most Linux users are on a mouse&keyboard or laptop. Even the Steam Deck’s desktop mode is perfectly usuable despite KDE not being as optimized for touch as Gnome.
The only change I make is rebinding mod+num keys to switch to a specific workspace instead of a specific application. It makes a lot more sense.
as a recent windows refugee, i love gnome. once i got used to the dock being my "taskbar", the entire thing just gets out of my way.
I like it quite a lot on my projector / media pc, but I wouldn't daily it over sway with custom hotkeys. Cosmic is definitely turning my head tho..
Yes I love Gnome workflow. Actually so much that if I am forced to use KDE for example, it feels really archaic and slow to use.
I don't like it, I use plasma. Workspaces are great through, I just have my system. Terminal is space 2, browser space 3, communication space 4 and so on
Workspaces are great through
Indeed. I think the best thing I got out of trying to fully commit to vanilla GNOME was getting used to workspaces, went from never touching them to actually using them now, even with dash to panel, they're alright.
Yes, I like the default workflow. I always have particular applications on the same workspaces, and I close them as I need to. Sometimes I have multiple, usually a maximum of two on one workspace, because I can ALT+TAB through them. I like that the top bar is uncluttered. I don't use the dock at all, but Activity Overview is sometimes useful. I can operate the desktop completely with my keyboard. It's also very minimal without too many options, and it looks pretty. I find it very usable.
The only annoying thing was needing to manually create shortcuts inside of dconf for workspaces 5-10. I really don't know why they force you to do that...
I love Gnome. But I have a pretty simple workflow where I don't use many applications. Generally I have a browser and terminal open and that's it.
I do all my window management inside of Tmux, which is effectively my actual window manager.
I've tried KDE in the past but I've never liked how it feels like a stepping stone for the Windows interface -- not a huge fan of pullout menus. I've been using Linux exclusively for almost twenty years so I don't have any love for that UX.
I used to use a lot of simple/tiling window managers when I was younger and more patient, Gnome feels similar to those in how it has very few bells and whistles to get in your way.
If only maintaining extensions was easier, it feels like every major release breaks every extension for something stupid like renaming a constant. The Gnome team seems to put very little consideration into making the JS extension API stable.
I use many extensions, but I also like this "keep the vanilla simple" approach of Gnome. Instead of trying to support many different workflows, it does only one, and it does it well. Everything is much more polished, compared to other DEs, simply because there's less stuff. And support for extensions seems to be excellent, since there's so many of them and they often work very well.
A qualified yes. I love the overview, which is, IMO, the most elegant way to launch applications and manage workspaces of any OS or DE. I also love the general look and fluidity of the environment and how it gets out out of your way when you don't need it. But I preferred the pre-GNOME 40 vertical workflow to the new horizontal workflow.
There are also three must-have extensions that make GNOME usable for me:
I use Dash to Panel to show taskbar icons for running applications, with the topbar moved to a sidebar to save valuable vertical real estate: https://imgur.com/tc0IbuM.png
I use the Workspaces Indicator extension to keep track of which one I'm in, but I use workspaces to focus on specific tasks using groups of applications... not an individual workspace for each application. I normally only have one or two workspaces in use.
I disable the Activities button and Overview completely, with the Super key opening the Applications View directly.
I previously used Arc Menu to replace the Applications View, but dropped that when they added folders to the Application View. It's still a bit clunky, but it's usable now that is supports some minimal organization.
I recently disabled Dash to Panel, and installed Pop Shell. I'm loving it so far, using my Trackpad gestures from switching between workspaces. Granted, I don't really need more than 3 or 4 desktops (Browser, Terminal, Messaging...) and it's not quite vanilla as I have Pop Shell managing tiling for me (but still pretty close!). I also need to try it with my "docked" workflow, using an external monitor and keyboard shortcuts (as opposed to trackpad gestures).
If no one used it, it would be the first piece of perfect software ever written. It isn't. So, yes, people use it.
I prefer GNOME to KDE and I understand that there's research and philosophy behind some of the decisions, but I just can't get around some of the quirks. "Workflow" itself is fine, with tiling on top, you can get by. But those window decorations. So much space is taken by a completely useless, fat bar at the top of each window even though it's not really aimed at being touchscreen native.
I grew up using Macs and so coming to Linux from that perspective, I like it. It has a similar feel to the Mac desktop environment.
I may take the plunge to a window manager at some point, but for now it works for me.
Using vanilla gnome and comparing about empty task bar is a bit strange.
When I used it, I mostly switched between the 9 apps in my favorites/dock with the Meta+digit shortcuts. I rarely used anything besides those 9, and then I just used alt tab. It worked really well, no complaining.
Today it's mostly the same, but with a tiling window manager and the same numbers: 3 is thunderbird, 5 is file browser for instance. It's muscle memory at this point, feels great.
I do. I guess it depends on your workflow though. Gnome tries to get out of the way and is quite minimal. I'm that way too, like to keep my desk uncluttered for example. I couldn't even imagine a task that requires me to have 10 programs open, but if I had to, I guess I would try to group them on workspaces and try to limit the amount. Would be far easier for me to remember that way.
I've tried other DE's and window managers, but they all feel like taking a huge step backwards to me. You should however try to find something that suits you the best, maybe KDE?
I loved kde when I tried it. But felt too buggy to use it on my main laptop.
Decided to try GNOME when i switched to fedora, it's good surface level but the ugliness is in the details
I personally love gnome. But I would not want to use it without my extensions even for a few hours. Yes upgrading they sometimes break with updates but most of the time the developers update for the new version in less than a week. Othr than that I just love the polished look and feel. Everything looks kneatly organized and clean. Ofcourse I have gripes here and there. For example the Software Center sucks even with its sleek look. It fails to get app information or check for updates too often and needs a restart. But I tried KDE too and it just doesn't feel as nice to use. And if you feel Gnome isn't for you than that's great too since with Linux you have so many options. But I will stick with Gnome for the time being.
