Why the changes to the 18.04 desktop?

[Liam Proven]

On Sun, 18 Oct 2020 at 23:32, Owen Thomas <owen.paul.thomas at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Nup... something's really screwy this morning.
>
> I try to Alt-tab through my list of opened windows and for some very strange reason, Alt-tab has reverted to toggling window maximise as it was for 18.04. This is utterly frustrating!
>
> Really, Ubuntu should be mindful of how it can alienate people with some of the insanity that prevails around its desktop.

It's *not* Ubuntu's desktop. Ubuntu killed off their own desktop and
adopted Red Hat's.

GNOME 2 had won the desktop wars -- basically everyone used it. It was
even on Solaris. But then the GNOME development team decided it was
"stagnant" (direct quote when I personally interviewed one of the team
leads) and they threw the whole thing out and started over. I still
don't know what "stagnant" means of a successful FOSS project. I
suspect it might mean "it works too well and we're bored".

They adamantly insist that this is a *complete coincidence* and it is
*nothing at all* to do with the fact that Microsoft had just that year
threatened legal action against Linux vendors copying the Windows 95
desktop (Start menu, task bar, system tray, Explorer windows with a
tree view to the left, etc.)

This is what I wrote about it soon afterwards:
https://www.theregister.com/Print/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft_for_linux_desktop_fail/

Here is a short list of things that the GNOME dev team do not use and
have decided are legacy technologies to eliminate:
• window title bars
• title bar window control buttons and window menus
• the minimize function
• in-window menu bars
• top-of-the-screen global menu bars
• desktop icons
... and lots more.

They want to get rid of these things, in favour of things like "client
side decorations" and hamburger menus.

It sounds to me like you are very frustrated with GNOME 3, and I share
that. I would urge you to consider alternatives. There are 3 main
ones:
• Cinnamon is the Mint fork, making GNOME 3 over into something Win95-like
• MATE is a fork of GNOME 2 and works well -- it's better than GNOME 2 ever was
• XFCE is still Gtk-based and works seamlessly with Gtk apps,
accessories, etc., but is more Windows-like, including keystrokes,
vertical taskbars, etc. It also takes the least memory of any of the 4
and it's the fastest.


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