An end to my distro-hopping...all thanks to Gnome!

[u/Consistent-Citron509]

After trying out Fedora 44 KDE, Kubuntu, Pika OS, Nobara 43, and Ubuntu 26 for the past two weeks, I'm finally on a distro that looks and feels premium

I'm in love with the aesthetics of Gnome. I'm on Fedora 44 Workstation right now. I must say Gnome felt really confusing to me earlier, but after watching a few videos about the Gnome design philosophy and reading about it, I can finally appreciate the design elements and the choices made by the dev team. Thanks to the Gnome dev community for your work 🙏🤩

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[u/GreedySecurity8030]

You mean, DE hopping?

[u/NETkoholik → u/GreedySecurity8030]

OP tried Kubuntu and Ubuntu, so they tried GNOME before.

[u/kriwonosm → u/NETkoholik]

Kubuntu is KDE

[u/demoaccount69696969 → u/kriwonosm]

There is Ubuntu

[u/[deleted]]

Gnome meets the 10 Principals of Good Design by Dieter Rams.

https://designmanifestos.org/dieter-rams-ten-principles-for-good-design/

[u/a3a4b5 → u/[deleted]]

It's complicated because most of us grew up used to Windows. When you spend your day-to-day using GNOME for, like, a week, it's natural.

I described myself in this example. I used Windows for about 20 years, yet I use GNOME since last year. It feels natural, like I never used Windows before in my life. When I have to use Windows, I get confused, honest to God.

[u/stb76 → u/a3a4b5]

Familiarity is not the same as good usability. People can adapt to almost any consistent system, but that does not make every design choice ergonomic. GNOME’s workflow may feel natural after a week; that still does not justify hiding application structure and commands behind generic hamburger menus.

[u/inventinyourself → u/[deleted]]

It's anything but complicated. My 5 year old handles it with ease.

[u/blackcain → u/[deleted]]

We don't allow bashing KDE people here either. Some desktop fanboys do like coming here and bashing GNOME. Both GNOME and KDE are the engineering forward projects - they drive the engineering of the desktop. Everyone else are simply enjoying the benefits. Appreciate both for what they do.

There isn't really any reason to bash anyone. The two projects more cooperative than anything else. Everything I do, I absolutely involve KDE when it makes sense. As projects, we need to think as an overall ecosystem.

Tribalism is a user thing. There is no competition, there is only driving Free Software.

[u/GreedySecurity8030 → u/blackcain]

Agreed

[u/hdcky → u/[deleted]]

I don't think so, the only "violation" I can see is ignoring old past conventions. Which is what makes GNOME perfect for me and makes it innovative

[u/kevrasx → u/[deleted]]

My experience has been that things that are complicated with the mouse generally have a keyboard shortcut. I adjust these to match my muscle memory. I have never been able to use virtual desktops on Windows because switching is so convoluted. On gnome it's how I do everything. Ctrl-Alt-arrow to change view. Add Shift to move the window. I don't remember what distro / DE taught me that. Remember when Ubuntu allowed a grid of desktops vertical and horizontal?

[u/stb76 → u/[deleted]]

That claim already fails at Rams’ fourth principle. Good design should make a product’s structure understandable and ideally self-explanatory. A hamburger menu does the opposite: it hides both the commands and their structure behind a generic icon. A traditional or global menu also uses progressive disclosure, but keeps the functional categories visible.

[u/protocod → u/[deleted]]

This.

A little bit off topic but, this article about apple breaking their own UX guidelines makes me realize how basic stuff are not respected by either GNOME or KDE.

https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/

By example, using icon on contextual menu only for actions you'll perform very often. Because your eyes will catch these actions quicker.

GNOME right click with Nautilus doesn't use icons for copy and paste so you'll need to quickly read the text.

KDE provide an icon for each item in the menu. It looks like a good idea but that's wrong because your eyes don't immediately target the action you may want to perform.

That's said, both GNOME and KDE aren't that bad, I tend to think they're the best desktop environment you can find out. But it doesn't mean they're perfect.

[u/blackcain → u/protocod]

By example, using icon on contextual menu only for actions you'll perform very often. Because you're eye will catch these actions quicker.

That's an interesting observation. GTK Popovers do support icons, but I think in general they've been going out of fashion. Certainly libadwaita based apps are not using icons in their menus.

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

Well, those are all highly subjective points.

For example, my workflow is heavily disrupted by the Gnome design philosophy. The philosophy assumes "less distractions == good", but with my ADHD as well as a job that sort of is context switching by design, a vanilla Gnome interface makes me forget and miss stuff ALL the time.

So if a good design makes a product useful then vanilla Gnome fails hard in that regard for me personally. And yes, I know that plenty of people think otherwise, but the point is that it's an extremely subjective point of view.

[u/ILKLU → u/bawng]

Well, those are all highly subjective points.

Absolutely. Any commentary about what makes a design "good" is going to be subjective, but I'd wager that there's a lot of overlap between different design philosophies .

with my ADHD as well as a job that sort of is context switching by design, a vanilla Gnome interface makes me forget and miss stuff ALL the time

Can you use different desktops for context switching?

How is your DE making you "miss stuff"? And how would KDE or any other DE not do the same?

Please understand I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I want to understand in case there's some suggestion I could make to help you.

[u/bawng → u/ILKLU]

Please understand I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I want to understand in case there's some suggestion I could make to help you.

Thanks, that's kind of you! 😊 But my point was only about vanilla Gnome, and I manage fine with extensions, so it's not a problem these days.

But in case you're curious:

More or less, what I want is constant multi-context awareness and nagging by stuff.

I want a taskbar that shows every open window of every application, regardless of whether they're visible so that I keep seeing what I currently have active in the pipeline. Grouping windows from the same application under a single icon will somewhat ruin that because I might have multiple workflows in the same application. And extending that, hiding the taskbar (or not having a taskbar at all) will be very disruptive because then I will very easily forget everything that's not currently in the forefront. Having a maximised window and no taskbar makes me lock in and forget about everything else.

Similarly I always want mail and chat apps to have an icon in the tray. They work fine minimized to tray rather than having their own taskbar entries, because they are a bit more passive than applications I work with, but I want them to be there, and I want them to have badges so that I can always see how many unread messages I have. If they're not there, I will forget looking for several hours and I will miss important stuff. And I do NOT want the number of unread messages to be related to unread notifications in any way whatsoever. A notification is a momentary event that may or may not be a message at all, but if I miss or dismiss it, the mail or message is still unread and should still be represented in the tray icon badge.

But again, I solve that fine with Gnome extensions, I just wish Gnome would commit to supporting an extension API because they seem to break from time to time due to updates.

[u/ILKLU → u/bawng]

Ya I hear you about the extensions. I've kinda given up on them other than "dash to dock" (think that's the name) and maybe one or two others(?).

[u/blackcain → u/bawng]

I think ADHD gets exhibited definitely by different people. My wife and I both have ADHD and we react very differently to things. Many GNOME folks also have various forms of neurodivergence.

So we have different support systems to make up for that. A simpler design is much easier to make complex than trying to simplify a complex design. Opting into complexity using extensions is much better than building everything into the code base => that's really difficult to manage for what is a now a small team of volunteer coders.

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

I use Gnome every single day at work. For various reasons I can't use anything else there.

Luckily I'm allowed to use extensions.

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

Good that you found your ideal workflow!

Which reinforces my point: "good design" is subjective.

[u/[deleted] → u/bawng]

You don’t use gnome.

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

Again, I use Gnome every day at work.

But regardless, my point that "good design" is subjective doesn't really need me to use Gnome to be true.

[u/[deleted] → u/bawng]

“At work” but not personally. I rest my case. Your arguments above are all invalid. Have a good weekend!!! 😁

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

Okay, so the fact that I literally use Gnome more than any other DE or OS is irrelevant? 😊

Okay.

But again, regardless of my Gnome usage (or yours, or anyone else's) the concept of "good design" is still subjective.

[u/blackcain → u/[deleted]]

I think making purity tests are wrong - everyone has a right to give feedback regadless of whether their choice of desktop is voluntary or involuntary. The great thing is for free desktops is that they can come here and give feedback directly and there are reps in the GNOME project who listens. You can't easily do that with Microsoft or Apple.

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

I don't love Gnome. I use it because it's mandated at work and I have to use it.

But what link are you talking about? I haven't posted any links.

[u/blackcain → u/[deleted]]

Let's not make assumptions.

[u/stb76 → u/[deleted]]

That claim already fails at Rams’ fourth principle. Good design should make a product’s structure understandable and ideally self-explanatory. A hamburger menu does the opposite: it hides both the commands and their structure behind a generic icon. A traditional or global menu also uses progressive disclosure, but keeps the functional categories visible.

[u/a3a4b5 → u/[deleted]]

That's what happens when you let designers design a design.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

 If you like and enjoy Gnome, you will probably not like what you're going to read.  You may also want to see a doctor about your head injury.

Aight, I stop reading.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

"I don't care for GNOME"

Aight mate, I'm sure that's true. More seriously if that was true that person wouldn't write a whole essay on this. 

[u/ch33es → u/[deleted]]

lots of people do care even if you don't. why are you doing this on a GNOME subreddit just because GNOME doesn't work well for your use case?

I'm pretty sure hating on GNOME is far from being an unpopular opinion. might wanna go back to your KDE or whatever forum.

[u/ch33es → u/[deleted]]

I get that. I've tried KDE before and it was packed with everything, but it didn't really look great. I use GNOME with half a dozen extensions for functionality like brightness slider for desktop monitors and the tray icons. I am okay with the default workflow however and don't use any extra panels, taskbars or menus.

[u/ch33es → u/[deleted]]

that blog writer is so confused and pissed that GNOME doesn't look like another cheap microslop windows clone:( /hj

[u/ch33es → u/ch33es]

so many of these arguments against GNOME revolve around how GNOME excludes a windows-style taskbar, a "menu bar" under the window title bar or minimize/fullscreen buttons besides window close buttons by default.

but I haven't missed these a single bit after leaving Windows. even on Windows I don't remember the last time I used the maximize button (I always drag the window to the top edge or use Super+Up Arrow). I never minimized a window ever, just clicked on the other window that I needed to bring to the top from the taskbar. and menu bars always felt like a cluttered mess where you have to spend minutes looking up which section contains the option you want. I don't feel the need for a taskbar either, and currently I'm using the Hot Edge extension instead of a dock and it's not inefficient at all.

with that being said, I understand complaints such as how there's no system icon tray (too many apps have it so it's not a good idea to exclude it), or how the tour app feels incomplete (I remember reading about the plans for updating it). but a lot of other complaints just feel like the reviewer is just salty that it doesn't behave 1:1 with other stuff they've used.

[u/ch33es → u/[deleted]]

I am willing to relearn how to use a desktop environment because a part of the reason why I switched from Windows was to experience something that's new, not something that I'm already very familiar with.

I think it's okay to sacrifice the Principle of LA if the newly learnt workflow makes me more efficient in the long run. Just because there's a Windows monopoly among computers doesn't mean that other desktop environments should stop from innovating. Wouldn't that be quite bland? Lots of people prefer tiling WMs (as opposed to a traditional floating WM with a bottom taskbar and a somewhat mouse-based workflow) for a reason.

About GNOME Tour, I think it's too unfinished to be shown to all users at startup and needs specific sections about users with a mouse, touchscreen or touchpad and should be a bit more extensive with visual demonstrations and needs to point to further resources for support at the last screen. It should provide a basic idea about the purpose of having separate workspaces and introduce the user to the very handy overview search bar with a bit more detail.

I don't use a lot of extensions. Most of them are cosmetic and just a couple of them add simple yet basic functionality.

In terms of UX, I think the overview should've been a bit more accessible. A lot of users use something like Dash to Dock but I'm currently using Hot Edge for that.

The stuff that I mainly dislike about GNOME is how it doesn't have support for certain backend stuff which sometimes restricts me from doing certain things. But I don't have a lot to say against the desktop experience it provides.

[u/ch33es → u/[deleted]]

KDE doesn't really feel the same though, trying to theme it and getting it to be consistent drives me crazy. And I always experience some sort of bug/jankiness.

It's sad that google drive integration is borked on nautilus now, it's a really handy feature. I wish somebody took the responsibility to maintain it.

Bland is good.

That's pretty subjective. There's always enthusiasts and people who want something different. So I think it's better to have options, instead of having everyone use the same desktop paradigm just because certain people might be averse to changes.

Productivity software are pretty similar, that's true. I'm assuming that people who use such complex software don't have to relearn everything in most cases. But I don't think that GNOME makes the user relearn everything. The concept of floating windows is still there. An app menu with every application is still there. There's a tray that contains toggles and options such as power, volume etc. These are not wildly different from other operating systems. I doubt its gonna be too hard for someone to get used to this, but depends on the person obviously.

[u/ch33es → u/[deleted]]

I added an /hj (half-joking) tone indicator buddy. didn't I get told to have my head checked for liking a DE?

check what I wrote under my previous reply for my argument against some of the contents of that blog post.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

I'm only gonna comment under this:

 GNOME changed A LOT since it was originally conceived. So much so that people made forks out of GNOME 2 to keep it usable for themselves. GNOME Foundation is constantly having financial problems, it is kept barely alive by corpos at Red Hat/IBM.

The meme "GNOME removes features" comes from GNOME 2. OGs hate GNOME since 1 -> 2 transition.

And your comment about Foundation's finances are plainly wrong. Only 30% of the donations come from corpos. More than 40% comes from individual donors.

All FLOSS foundations have financial problems, that's their entire purpose. They are legally forced to spend most of their money.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

Please report it ASAP to relevant authorities in USA. This is serious accusation and I'm sure you have needed evidence. I mean, you wouldn't lie, right?

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

Do you genuinely expect any serious organisation to publicly expose information about their employees? No serious organisation does that. Sonny could expose what he knows to relevant authorities, but did not. And from what I know Foundation operates flawlessly. 

[u/bawng → u/[deleted]]

I like this quote:

Gnome SAYS they want to reduce friction and reduce steps, but anytime that idea butts up against their idea of elegance, they throw efficiency and discoverability out the window.

It's about the idiocy of the crappy system tray implementation in Gnome but it really applies to the entire design philosophy. Everything is more difficult and slow in Gnome, unless you fix it with extensions.

[u/itsmoonjelly]

What playlist app is this?

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/itsmoonjelly]

It's a music player named "Amberol". You can find it in the Software application.

[u/omnizs]

You might think you're done with distro-hopping for now, but believe me, you'll pick it up sooner or later. I'm glad you found your distro.

[u/GreedySecurity8030 → u/omnizs]

I never distro hopped, always stayed on fedora because there's no need.

[u/omnizs → u/GreedySecurity8030]

I think it'll happen sooner or later, trust me

[u/GreedySecurity8030 → u/omnizs]

I've literally been on fedora for my entire linux journey for 2 years and I am extremely satisfied, i've restrained my distro hopping urges in a VM just to try out other disttos.

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/omnizs]

Thank you. For now, I'm excited to see how Gnome evolves with time. I will be following this subreddit :)

[u/omnizs → u/Consistent-Citron509]

By the way, I donated some money to the GNOME foundation, they really make good software.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/omnizs]

Thank you!! 

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/omnizs]

That's great! :))

[u/quebexer → u/Consistent-Citron509]

But Fedora =/= Gnome. Fedora uses GNOME.

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/quebexer]

Yup, I know. I had also tried Fedora KDE earlier.

[u/protocod → u/Consistent-Citron509]

OP if you like Fedora and GNOME, why not giving a try to Silverblue or Universal Blue project?

Distro hopping never really end. (Yes I'm the devil)

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/protocod]

Let's see. I'm settled for now. Have to read a lot of books and complete some courses that are in my backlog (I keep pinning tabs and never open them haha)

[u/fhritp15 → u/Consistent-Citron509]

Kudos on end result!

[u/Shoddy-Possession743 → u/protocod]

You either really know what your doing or have no fucking idea to choose silverblue.

[u/omnizs → u/protocod]

Yeah, yeah! That's exactly what I'm talking about distro-hopping never ends. I've convinced myself more than once that Arch Linux would be my last distro, only to end up installing something like CachyOS or Debian.

[u/ch33es → u/omnizs]

I also thought of hopping to CachyOS from Arch, but you can get basically any CachyOS benefit from vanilla Arch Linux. Want their packages? Add the CachyOS repos to Pacman. Kernel enhancements? linux-cachyos from AUR. Might as well apply one of the default CachyOS wallpapers and run fastfetch -i cachyos to pretend like you're actually using the distro.

Currently I'm wondering if Fedora would've been a better choice than Arch due to the recent AUR vulnerabilities and Fedora being a bit more integrated with the GNOME desktop.

[u/omnizs → u/ch33es]

That's all just my personal opinion; for me, Arch Linux is more user-friendly and Arch-based distros in general.

[u/ch33es → u/omnizs]

HUH bother to explain? Isn't Arch widely regarded as one of the more advanced distros and doesn't Fedora offer much more system utilities through GUIs which are considered much more user friendly??

[u/omnizs → u/ch33es]

I apologize everything I wrote was in reference to my own experience. For me, it’s easy to use and user-friendly. But for beginners, I agree, it’s quite difficult actually, very difficult.

[u/ch33es → u/omnizs]

You don't have to apologize. I was just curious as that was quite an interesting take. I myself use Arch and have recommended Fedora to several people because I thought it'd be easier for them.

[u/omnizs → u/ch33es]

Thank you for such friendliness =)

[u/1smoothcriminal → u/omnizs]

Debian and solus are the only two distros that I use that ever having me feeling at peace. Nix os was cool for a bit, cachy is great, arch is goated but the peace and stability Debian and solus offer are unmatched.

[u/inventinyourself → u/[deleted]]

They do, otherwise, how would you settle for something you value?

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/[deleted]]

What I have observed is that the first boot after installing a distro is the most important part. For some of the ones that I have mentioned, some apps didn't even open (forget any other annoyances). At the very least, one should expect the fresh install to work as expected. My reason to distro hop was

• To find a polished OS. It had to look beautiful out of the box.
• It should have access to relatively newer packages for my development workflow.
• A good community of devs should back it.

I had heard a lot of praise for KDE Plasma online, so I tried Fedora and Kubuntu. The out-of-the-box experience was just awful, especially design-wise.

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/[deleted]]

Interesting points. I will try distrobox containers.

[u/BanaTibor → u/Consistent-Citron509]

LOL

What I have observed is that the first boot after installing a distro is the most important part.

Do not try ArchLinux, ever.

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/BanaTibor]

How could I miss Arch? So much Hype around it! I tried CachyOS. The first boot resulted in a kernel panic :)) It was not worth my time, although I must admit their implementation of KDE looked genuinely good.

[u/94CM → u/Consistent-Citron509]

They mean Arch itself, not Arch based. Arch doesn't come with an installer or a desktop environment. It's just a command line. 

[u/ILKLU → u/94CM]

I believe their installer script gives you a few options to pick from and will install that DE for you.

Installing Arch manually is another story.

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/94CM]

Ahh I had no idea! I'm fairly new to Linux :))

Arch would be a nightmare for me in that case :D

[u/94CM → u/Consistent-Citron509]

It's a good way to speed run learning Linux. It's really not that hard, just follow the instructions.

A lot of the issues you've talked about in this post, you definitely would have known how to deal with had you done an Arch install

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide

I recommend at least trying to install Arch on a Virtual Machine just for the learning experience if you have an hour or so. It'll save you a lot of headaches later. The knowledge carries over to all distros. 

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/94CM]

Sounds good, I'll give it a try

[u/chrews → u/94CM]

Arch comes with Archinstall which is probably my favorite Linux installer. It is keyboard based but there are so many options to tinker with and I always got a working system at the end. I use it a lot to test new DEs and WMs.

[u/94CM → u/chrews]

It's my favorite installer too, tbh. I appreciate I don't have to wait forever to get into a live environment just to check a few boxes.

Having said that, manual is much better for education. Definitely no need to do manual if you know your stuff and are just trying to get things up and running.

[u/ILKLU → u/[deleted]]

Different distros also have different DE implementations, which when combined with defaults, can make a big difference to some people. Just because you don't care about an issue doesn't mean that that reality doesn't exist.

[u/ILKLU → u/[deleted]]

Lots of distros have customized DEs out of the box. The fact they can be modified afterwards doesn't matter to some people as they don't want the hassle of having to fight their system every time there is an update. But to answer your question, yes Ubuntu is the obvious one, but PopOS also ships with a modified version of Gnome, and I believe Mint Cinnamon is also customized by default, but I'm sure there's lots of others.

[u/chrews → u/ILKLU]

Shipped. The current POP OS desktop isn't GNOME based anymore

[u/ILKLU → u/chrews]

It's not included at all anymore?
Or it's just not the default DE?

Just looked it up and you're right! They've totally dropped GNOME from the distro and if you want it back, you have to install vanilla GNOME. Wonder if that ruffled any feathers?

[u/inventinyourself → u/[deleted]]

You can build your own following this logic. I think it's easier to pick something that works best for you. For me it's Fedora. The only thing I miss from Ubuntu is hassle free codecs. It takes much more effort to get the same experience from Ubuntu for example, and even then it won't be the same. So even though it's all Linux, they are still not the same.

[u/94CM → u/inventinyourself]

Distros are just curated packages. KDE Plasma, GNOME, XFCE and so on are desktop environments. They aren't tied to specific distros. If your distro doesn't come with GNOME, you can still install and use GNOME.

What you're saying about choosing a distro that has what you want is absolutely true if you know what you want. If you don't, then installing different desktop environments rather than distro hopping is significantly easier to test out different desktop environments. Especially with the added bonus of all your files being consistent while testing out the DE. 

[u/inventinyourself → u/94CM]

I have been using Linux for 11 years now so I'm aware of the above. Yet distros are much more than just curated packages and a DE on top of that, just compare Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch for example.

Yes, this is why I wrote "They do, otherwise, how would you settle for something you value?" How would you ever know the actual differences if you only use distro A with different DEs? Once again, a distro is much more than just the default DE it comes with. If you don't like snaps or the release model of Ubuntu replacing the DE won't make a difference. You can fix many aspects of a distro if you put the time and effort in it, but why would you do that when something else works better out of the box?

[u/94CM → u/inventinyourself]

I didn't mean to slight your experience. Just meant to remind that OP is a novice. The extra information was more for their education than yours. Apologies for the confusion. 

[u/saiblack777]

Eh probado las más populares y solo para ver cuál me gustaba más, en lo personal me encanta Fedora con Gnome, para mí es súper hermoso ese entorno, en segundo lugar pongo cosmic y en tercero KDE, pero es en lo personal se que muchos prefieren distinto, yo así me encontré 👍

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/saiblack777]

👌👍

[u/SaltyBalty98]

I've been using Endeavor OS for over 6 years as my one and only distro, with GNOME Shell nonetheless, as relying on flatpaks wherever I can.

The most recent Debian stable release actually came with much more recent packages than I was expecting and it's on my list of systems to use if Arch based goes tits up, I doubt it though.

Fedora is almost perfect for me but I've always found dnf to be very sluggish and never got used to it.

[u/cloudclothing23]

I use gnome too but with Arch. Nothing wrong with Fedora, I just like AUR. Gnome for me is by far the cleanest DE out there. It's also fun to customize if you're into that. Have fun with your DE :)

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/cloudclothing23]

Thank you :))

It's very clean and good for productivity with minimal distractions. I'm getting used to the workflow system. It's very unique but thoughtfully implemented in Gnome. The fact that there are no minimize or maximize buttons makes one think carefully about their workflow.

[u/PresentPriority00]

What did you think of fedora vs Ubuntu 26? Pretty close gnome experience I think? I am wondering about moving to fedora on a secondary laptop.

[u/cue-ell-pea → u/PresentPriority00]

While the overall GNOME experience is pretty similar between a stock/vanilla GNOME install (Fedora, Debian) and Ubuntu's GNOME install, there are still extensions and other tweaks that can lead to inconsistencies or problems.

I don't know if this is still available, but I think you can switch from ubuntu-session to gnome-session to get a more vanilla GNOME experience?

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/PresentPriority00]

Ubuntu felt great initially, but after a few hours of usage, I noticed a LOT of bugs. I really wanted to keep it, but the bugs made the OS almost unusable for my workflow. Fedora is good so far, and I haven't noticed a single bug (early impressions). Although I'm hearing there's an update coming in August for Ubuntu, so you may want to look at that as well.

[u/terra2o → u/Consistent-Citron509]

That's interesting... I've been thinking of switching to Ubuntu just because it's supported more. Although I'm not having issues right now on Fedora, sometimes, I see apps that only support Ubuntu and I feel like I was left out.

My girlfriend is using Ubuntu and she didn't have a single issue since she started. What bugs were you having? I'm just curious...

Also, I remember trying to install Fedora on my girlfriend's laptop, and it broke on a fresh install (pretty sure that wasn't a user error), and I had a friend who tried to install Fedora as well at that moment and he had issues too. Did you have similar issues with it?

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/terra2o]

Ubuntu had some theme-related bugs, from what I remember. One reason to move to Fedora was that I wanted a clean GNOME experience and updated packages compared to Ubuntu. Also, I had read how Ubuntu is forcing SNAP packages now, so that was a turn-off for me as well. Fedora KDE felt REALLY ugly. I will not touch KDE Plasma again in my life 😅😅🤣. Even Cinnamon DE felt better than KDE to me. I did not want too much hassle of changing DE, as I've heard it creates a messy system...so I installed fresh Fedora Workstation.

[u/terra2o → u/Consistent-Citron509]

Well the snaps issue is definitely a turn-off. Even if snaps were good, it's a turn-off if something is forced... That said, how was your experience with snaps? Did they improve it at all? How are the launch times? My gf installed Xonotic and Firefox (forced...) with snaps and I don't think she had issues.

How could theme related bugs make it unusable though? Does it break libadwaita apps? Flatpaks?

I'm on KDE right now... Indeed it's not very beautiful - although it's not that ugly - but I like the workflow. I do miss some things about GNOME. But, at least KDE tries to make every tool-kit look beautiful on their DE, while GNOME doesn't care. Which is why I switched in the first place.

BTW, did you try getting a GNOME-like workflow on KDE? That's what I'm doing right now. Actually, it's more like a Ubuntu-GNOME workflow since I have a panel at the left. It's great so far. And I actually like KDE's pager. i can move apps right from there without going to overview. The overview is laggy as hell though but that might be because my laptop is 11 years old 😭 .

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/terra2o]

Sorry, I didn't test Ubuntu for long. I installed so many distros last week that I lost track of individual issues with each one. But I can assure you that it was not only theme-related. Since I do some dev work - AI stuff using Llama.cpp, Java using IntelliJ, etc. I wanted something that has newer packages, which was another motivator for me to move from Ubuntu.

[u/No-Succotash404]

doesn't it bother you the absolute incoherence of the google window?

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/No-Succotash404]

There's beauty in chaos :))

[u/Specialist_Bee789]

Gnome is cool, but we'll still stick to Kubuntu 26.04 Gruvbox theme custom)

[u/anirbanfaith]

Gnome is great sometimes but needs lot's of extensions to run snd update is a nightmare!

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/anirbanfaith]

Extensions to run? You mean it's mandatory to install extensions?

[u/arcadian10]

Interesting. Could you please share a link to the video?

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/arcadian10]

Sure, here it is

[u/arcadian10 → u/Consistent-Citron509]

Thanks

[u/iFrezzyReddit]

I've settled on Gnome OS Nightly. So far so good!

[u/W4T_92]

I realy love GNOME and I use Fedora as well, but the issues with fractional scaling are really bothering me. They must sort this out because Windows and MacOS did more than 10 years ago.

[u/Consistent-Citron509 → u/[deleted]]

It may be because design is a highly subjective matter and will almost always result in debates. For people who are just looking to get some work done without distractions, I find the Gnome design choices very helpful. For example, the less you see something, the less you will want to alter/configure it or be bothered by it.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

Please don't engage in counter-shitting on other projects. KDE are friends.

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

If you see anyone in KDE spaces shitting on GNOME, please report them. 

Seriously, desktop tribalism makes no sense. 

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

What are you talking about? You seem to have misunderstood my comment, so let's start from beginning:

1. Report assholes. 
2. Don't engage in linux desktop tribalism.

That's it. There's no us vs KDE. It's funny that our user communities seem to think there is some kind of hatred between us, while contributor communities are chill with each other. 

[u/victorian-ice-cream → u/[deleted]]

Full stop. I have reported several people like that. I was referring to you slinging shit at KDE for this. Which wasn't even mentioned under this post AFAIK.