this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Unless you're writing ruby on rails on a 13" macbook, you'll run into Gnome's limitations when working.
Gnome is in many ways so focused that it makes a lot of productivity use impossible. You always have to open the menu to launch software, you've got no system tray, and worst of all, Gnome apps are so simplified that you constantly run into the limitations when using it productively.
When working with dozens of windows open at the same time across multiple monitors, I'm a fan of KDE. And KDE apps tend to also have all the extra features I need to handle weird situations, files, and edge cases.
Might I ask what you do for work? I do software development stuff at my job and I’ve found gnome lets me be like 3x as productive as other desktops. The simple desktop experience coupled with the robust app ecosystem simply can’t be found anywhere else. I use like 3 monitors with dozens of apps open as well.
I'm a software dev as well.
But I often layer multiple windows in the same tile of the screen. e.g. I may have the IDE with the software I'm working on in one tile, the IDE with the library source code I'm working with in the second tile, and a live build of the app in the third tile. But I've also got documentation, as a website, in the same tile as the IDE with the lib's source.
Now when I switch between the IDE with the lib's source, and the browser with the lib's documentation, I only want that tile to change. No problem, with KDEs taskbar and window switcher I can quickly do that.
But when using the applications menu on Gnome I get a disrupting UI across all screens that immediately rips me out of whatever I was doing.
I guess that’s fair, I rarely need to switch between windows that heavily so workspaces setup with what I need when I need to switch makes vanilla gnome work perfectly for me. Especially since hitting the super key let’s me see everything at a glance. I also hate tiled setups since they make me super unproductive as the windows are more cumbersome when they aren’t maximized or floating.
Something about whitespace and negatives I guess. Same thing that makes libadwaita the nicest ui toolkit to me. Kde was just too busy while libadwaita and gnome struck the best balance between usability and visuals.
I think it’s just a case of different people enjoying different things.
So how do you juggle having to see dozens of windows at the same time then?
I kinda just do, I press super maybe once every 10 minutes or so and just see all my windows. It takes me maybe half a second to find what I want and that’s it. Less time if I’ve already setup my workspaces as I can just three finger swipe or super plus scroll to get to what I want. Pretty simple.
Why'd you have to use TC? KDEs dolphin can do all that natively.
Personally, configuring KDE was much simpler and more robust compared to the dozen addons I needed for Gnome, which also broke every now and then after updates.
Maybe you should try out some of the most popular Gnome extensions that address those situations?
I tried that, but IMO it's much simpler and more robust to just configure KDE than to install a dozen Gnome extensions that end up broken after updates anyway.
To each their own, the point is that for people that like Gnome there are options to customize it for many workflows