> I really think GNOME is good at making an interface that works well on both,
I agree with the comment from @zak on this.
I have to disagree.
I have used GNOME (both GNOME Mobile and Phosh) on phones, and it makes more sense there, but it's still a bit clunky and fiddly.
Example: you only get half the tiny screen for your app launcher. So it fills up fast. So, you put apps in groups. BUT you can't pin groups to the fast-launch bar thing.
On the desktop, IMHO it does not work well. It works minimally, in a way that's only acceptable if you don't know your way around a more full-featured desktop. It feels like trying to use a computer with one hand tied behind my back. Yes, it's there, it's usable, but it breaks lots of assumptions and is missing commonplace core features.
Simple features: desktop icons are handy.
GNOME: ew, how ugly and untidy! We're taking them off you.
Obvious but complex features: menu bars go back to the 1970s and by the mid-1980s were standardised, with standard shortcut keys, with standardised entries in standardised places. They work well with a mouse, they work well with a keyboard, they work well with screenreaders for people with vision disabilities.
GNOME: Yeah, screw all those guys. Rips them out.
Non-obvious but core features: for over 30 years in Linux GUIs, you could middle-click on a title bar to send it to the back of the window stack.
GNOME: screw those guys. Eliminates title bars.
No, GNOME does not work _well_ on both. It is sort of minimally usable.
On both, it's minimally functional if you are not fussy, don't want to customise, don't have ingrained habits, and don't use keyboards and keyboard shortcuts much.
I actually think GNOME works best with the keyboard, they put a lot of effort into ensuring you can do everything without a mouse do to accessibility reasons. Even with a mouse, I don't hate the larger buttons. It means I don't have to be as precise with my mouse clicks.
I also think it breaking traditions is a good thing. It feels weird at first but without someone trying something new we won't see any progress. I do think they're a bit fast to do away with things they see as outdated but GNOME has a very particular design anyway that lets you get shit done when you learn it
It worked in Windows 2 and 3 and everything since. It worked in DOS since about 1990. It worked in OS/2. It works in Xfce, and up to a point in LXDE, LXQt, GNOME 1/2, MATE, Cinnamon, EDE, XPde, and lots of other Linux and xBSD GUIs. A form of it works on MacOS.
But GNOME ripped the whole UI out and has re-invented a worse version of its own. (KDE has partially kept something like it but changed half the keystrokes, which is almost worse.)
If you're blind or have some disability that stops you using a mouse, say, this makes it a TONNE more work.
Yeah. I'm actually planning on making a qwidgets based CUA desktop for BSD (and /Linux too I suppose). Despite not hating GNOME and being able to defend it we need a good unixy (IE, do one thing and do it well) desktop that doesn't try to do everything or pull in that many dependencies (it won't be based on KDEs libraries for example)
> Except everything that runs on electricity has a CPU nowadays
This is true but it totally misses the real point.
The point is that most "smart" devices could be perfectly functional and usable with a Z80 or a 6502 or some other simple 8-bit chip controlling them, if the code were kept very small and simple.
The bigger point is that we in the modern Western world don't do this, because we've got lazy and it's easier to stick in an Arm core and do it in very inefficient software. Such as something running in Javascript on an entire embedded Web browser, such as all electron apps, which embed Chromium.
Worse still, these days, quite possibly vibe coded so even the person who nominally wrote it doesn't know how it works.
There are 2 logical corollaries to this:
1. We can make computer-controlled devices without tiny fast 64-bit chips and GPUs, but we are ill-prepared for it. The world will be able to make chips without TSMC, but it will hurt, because we have got slack and lazy.
2. China can make its own chips now, and thanks to FOSS, China has state-of-the-art software stacks that the rest of the world developed it and gave to it for free. It has x86 chips, such as Zhaoxin, but it also has Loongson and so on, and GCC can generate code for them.
So China can make its own computers without the aid of the global chip market. But the rest of the world can't so easily.
Taiwan is also one of the world's major sources of passive components. They're not as irreplaceable there, but even devices without "tiny fast chips" would be affected by a war there.
> In Gnome, can I move the UI elements to locations I want them in?
No.
> Or are we still in a situation where it's opinionated and you have to seek plugins to get an experience that you actually want?
Yes, 100%.
COSMIC feels like GNOME but done right to me. It's not as pretty but while it looks and works pretty much the same by default, you can choose what goes where.
Just in case anyone out there was in any doubt whatsoever.
I've read a little of his stuff, but more to the point seen him speak live, and that was enough to quickly tell me he is nothing more than a fantasist and complete fraud.
I agree with the comment from @zak on this.
I have to disagree.
I have used GNOME (both GNOME Mobile and Phosh) on phones, and it makes more sense there, but it's still a bit clunky and fiddly.
Example: you only get half the tiny screen for your app launcher. So it fills up fast. So, you put apps in groups. BUT you can't pin groups to the fast-launch bar thing.
On the desktop, IMHO it does not work well. It works minimally, in a way that's only acceptable if you don't know your way around a more full-featured desktop. It feels like trying to use a computer with one hand tied behind my back. Yes, it's there, it's usable, but it breaks lots of assumptions and is missing commonplace core features.
Simple features: desktop icons are handy.
GNOME: ew, how ugly and untidy! We're taking them off you.
Obvious but complex features: menu bars go back to the 1970s and by the mid-1980s were standardised, with standard shortcut keys, with standardised entries in standardised places. They work well with a mouse, they work well with a keyboard, they work well with screenreaders for people with vision disabilities.
GNOME: Yeah, screw all those guys. Rips them out.
Non-obvious but core features: for over 30 years in Linux GUIs, you could middle-click on a title bar to send it to the back of the window stack.
GNOME: screw those guys. Eliminates title bars.
No, GNOME does not work _well_ on both. It is sort of minimally usable.
On both, it's minimally functional if you are not fussy, don't want to customise, don't have ingrained habits, and don't use keyboards and keyboard shortcuts much.
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