Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
In the discussion over fallback mode at the Boston, we've talked about GNOME users who use fallback mode because they are used to certain elements and features of the GNOME 2 UX, such as task bars, minimization, etc. GNOME 3 has brought new patterns to replace these, such as overview and search. And while we certainly hope that many users will find the new ways comfortable and refreshing after a short learning phase, we should not fault people who prefer the old way. After all, these features were a selling point of GNOME 2 for ten years! So, what to do ? Thankfully, we have a pretty awesome extension mechanism in gnome-shell (extensions.gnome.org), and there are a ton of extensions out there which allow users to tweak gnome-shell in all kinds of ways. This also includes extensions which bring back many of the aforementioned 'classic' UX elements. The downsides of extensions are that (a) there is no guarantee that they will work with a new shell release - you often have to wait for your favourite extension to be ported and (b) there's so many of them, which often do very similar things - choice is always hard. As part of the planning for the DropOrFixFallbackMode feature[1], we've decided that we will compile a list of supported gnome-shell extensions. This will be a small list, focused on just bringing back some central 'classic' UX elements: classic alt tab, task bar, min/max buttons, main menu. To ensure that these extensions keep working, we will release them as a tarball, just like any other module. Giovanni already added an --enable-extensions=classic-mode configure option to the gnome-shell-extensions repository, which we will use for this work. We haven't made a final decision yet on how to let users turn on this 'classic mode' - it may be a switch in gnome-tweak-tool or something else. Some questions that I expect will be asked: Q: Why not just make gnome-shell itself more tweakable ? A: We still believe that there should be a single, well-defined UX for GNOME 3, and extensions provide a great mechanism to allow tweaks without giving up on this vision. That being said, there are examples like the a11y menu[2] or search[3], where the shell will become more configurable in the future. Q: Why not cinnamon ? A: Cinnamon is a complete fork of mutter/gnome-shell/nautilus - ie a completely separate desktop shell. Our aim with dropping fallback mode is to reduce the number of desktop shells we ship, not replace one by another. We've had a friendly discussion with clem about the reasons why they went from a set of extensions to an outright fork, and we don't think they apply in our situation. Q: Why isn't it enough to just have these 'classic mode' extensions on extensions.gnome.org ? A: We want to support these, ie make sure that they are available and work at the same time as the next major GNOME release. The most straightforward way to do that is to make them part of our traditional release mechanism - git repositories and tarballs. Q: Who is working on this ? A: Giovanni, Debarshi and Florian. Comments, questions, suggestions welcome. Matthias [1] https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode [2] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681528 [3] https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/IntegratedApplicationSearch ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 08:17 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: > So, what to do ? Thankfully, we have a pretty awesome extension > mechanism in gnome-shell (extensions.gnome.org), and there are a ton > of extensions out there which allow users to tweak gnome-shell in all > kinds of ways. This also includes extensions which bring back many of > the aforementioned 'classic' UX elements. The downsides of extensions > are that (a) there is no guarantee that they will work with a new > shell release - you often have to wait for your favourite extension to > be ported and (b) there's so many of them, which often do very similar > things - choice is always hard. Just throwing in questions on minimizing the problem of updates breaking gnome-shell extensions, obviously: Can we make testing beta versions (and porting extensions to the next major version of GNOME) more attractive / easier for extension authors? Have Shell maintainers published info on "Code changes which may affect extensions" in the past? Putting this into the release notes feels a bit too late. andre -- Andre Klapper | ak...@gmx.net http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 08:17:16AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: > We haven't made a final decision yet on how to let users turn on this > 'classic mode' - it may be a switch in gnome-tweak-tool or something > else. I'm wondering if we cannot just change the fallback mode switch into a "traditional" toggle (IMO "classical" is not the right word). I know it goes against the vision, etc, but I don't care. If this is supported it should be easily findable, not rely on gnome-tweak-tool. We should exactly define what it does though, not expand on that. Suggest to also include a small note that this mode is not what we designed things for, and as a result some things might work worse than intended. -- Regards, Olav ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 15:05 +0100, Olav Vitters wrote: > On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 08:17:16AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: > > We haven't made a final decision yet on how to let users turn on this > > 'classic mode' - it may be a switch in gnome-tweak-tool or something > > else. > > I'm wondering if we cannot just change the fallback mode switch into a > "traditional" toggle (IMO "classical" is not the right word). I know it > goes against the vision, etc, but I don't care. If this is supported it > should be easily findable, not rely on gnome-tweak-tool. It won't go in the Settings. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
> It won't go in the Settings. Why not? Why was the "forced fallback" in Settings instead of the Tweak Tool in the first place? Cheers, Debarshi -- There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors. pgpraCqiskS4Y.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 14:27 +0100, Andre Klapper wrote: > On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 08:17 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: > > So, what to do ? Thankfully, we have a pretty awesome extension > > mechanism in gnome-shell (extensions.gnome.org), and there are a ton > > of extensions out there which allow users to tweak gnome-shell in all > > kinds of ways. This also includes extensions which bring back many of > > the aforementioned 'classic' UX elements. The downsides of extensions > > are that (a) there is no guarantee that they will work with a new > > shell release - you often have to wait for your favourite extension to > > be ported and (b) there's so many of them, which often do very similar > > things - choice is always hard. > > Just throwing in questions on minimizing the problem of updates breaking > gnome-shell extensions, obviously: > > Can we make testing beta versions (and porting extensions to the next > major version of GNOME) more attractive / easier for extension authors? > Have Shell maintainers published info on "Code changes which may affect > extensions" in the past? Putting this into the release notes feels a bit > too late. That's part of the work that's been happening on GNOME OS, and on Boxes. One should just be able to grab an image from gnome.org, start Boxes with it, and do the changes to their extensions as development versions are released. (replace extensions with applications, or even core components, and you can see why it's a very important part of a QA effort). ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Debarshi Ray wrote: >> It won't go in the Settings. > > Why not? Why was the "forced fallback" in Settings instead of the Tweak Tool > in the first place? +1 > > Cheers, > Debarshi > > -- > There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming > things and off-by-one errors. > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list -- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 14:11 +, Debarshi Ray wrote: > > It won't go in the Settings. > > Why not? Why was the "forced fallback" in Settings instead of the Tweak Tool > in the first place? To work-around driver bugs. We might replace the "force fallback" setting with a "force software rendering" switch if it turns out to cause too many problems. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
hi; On 21 November 2012 14:05, Olav Vitters wrote: > On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 08:17:16AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: >> We haven't made a final decision yet on how to let users turn on this >> 'classic mode' - it may be a switch in gnome-tweak-tool or something >> else. > > I'm wondering if we cannot just change the fallback mode switch into a > "traditional" toggle (IMO "classical" is not the right word). I know it > goes against the vision, etc, but I don't care. I do care, and honestly if you care enough to toggle a switch to change a user interface, then System Settings or Tweak Tool are perfectly equivalent. to be fair, I'd envision this as a completely separate session that you need to install and select, similar to what Ubuntu does — especially if we want to call it "GNOME Classic". ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > to be fair, I'd envision this as a completely separate session that > you need to install and select, similar to what Ubuntu does — > especially if we want to call it "GNOME Classic". I don't think a separate session will work very well for this - for one thing, setting this up will require a number of settings to be tweaked (e.g. the one for the minimize button), and alternative sessions don't have the right infrastructure for that. The session chooser on the login screen is not the best designed part of the login experience either. And finally, if Ubuntu calls their pristine GNOME3 session 'GNOME Classic', what would we call this one, "GNOME Classic Plus" ?! ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Matthias Clasen wrote: > On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > >> to be fair, I'd envision this as a completely separate session that >> you need to install and select, similar to what Ubuntu does — >> especially if we want to call it "GNOME Classic". > > I don't think a separate session will work very well for this - for > one thing, setting this up will require a number of settings to be > tweaked (e.g. the one for the minimize button), and alternative > sessions don't have the right infrastructure for that. The session > chooser on the login screen is not the best designed part of the login > experience either. And finally, if Ubuntu calls their pristine GNOME3 > session 'GNOME Classic', what would we call this one, "GNOME Classic > Plus" ?! Ubuntu calls GNOME Shell session just "GNOME" for reference... GNOME Classic is fallback mode. Otherwise I agree - I don't think this should be a seperate session, but a simple change in settings, a button or toggle somewhere in settings to make gnome-shell a more traditional desktop. > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list -- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 09:56 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: > > I don't think a separate session will work very well for this - for > one thing, setting this up will require a number of settings to be > tweaked (e.g. the one for the minimize button), and alternative > sessions don't have the right infrastructure for that. The session > chooser on the login screen is not the best designed part of the login > experience either. And finally, if Ubuntu calls their pristine GNOME3 > session 'GNOME Classic', what would we call this one, "GNOME Classic > Plus" ?! I'm open to including the enabling and configuration of this "GNOME Classic" mode in tweak tool. Just provide me with some UI mockups etc. related aside: can we please put include the user-theme extension in this list, or possibly fold its functionality into gnome-shell proper. It would be easier in tweak-tool if I could always assume it was there. John ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 5:27 AM, Andre Klapper wrote: > On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 08:17 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote: > > So, what to do ? Thankfully, we have a pretty awesome extension > > mechanism in gnome-shell (extensions.gnome.org), and there are a ton > > of extensions out there which allow users to tweak gnome-shell in all > > kinds of ways. This also includes extensions which bring back many of > > the aforementioned 'classic' UX elements. The downsides of extensions > > are that (a) there is no guarantee that they will work with a new > > shell release - you often have to wait for your favourite extension to > > be ported and (b) there's so many of them, which often do very similar > > things - choice is always hard. > > Just throwing in questions on minimizing the problem of updates breaking > gnome-shell extensions, obviously: > > Can we make testing beta versions (and porting extensions to the next > major version of GNOME) more attractive / easier for extension authors? > Have Shell maintainers published info on "Code changes which may affect > extensions" in the past? Putting this into the release notes feels a bit > too late. > > Yes, you need daily images or some way to make images so that you can grab them off of images.gnome.org or something and then test it. I've been looking at this from a sysadmin perspective. What walters want will take some time though as we need to do some clean up. Of course, I think that would mean that we will be a lot more conservative about build breakages. But that's a discussion for another time. andre > -- > Andre Klapper | ak...@gmx.net > http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
hi Andre; On 21 November 2012 13:27, Andre Klapper wrote: > Can we make testing beta versions (and porting extensions to the next > major version of GNOME) more attractive / easier for extension authors? > Have Shell maintainers published info on "Code changes which may affect > extensions" in the past? Putting this into the release notes feels a bit > too late. you're definitely correct. we should have some form of limited QA for the most highly rated extensions. Firefox has the same issue, and a lot of grief has been eliminated by working closely, during the development process, with the extension authors whenever a change was scheduled. nothing's perfect, obviously, but it helped in having extensions working right after a new release. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Fallback mode is going away - what now ?
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > hi Andre; > > On 21 November 2012 13:27, Andre Klapper wrote: > > > Can we make testing beta versions (and porting extensions to the next > > major version of GNOME) more attractive / easier for extension authors? > > Have Shell maintainers published info on "Code changes which may affect > > extensions" in the past? Putting this into the release notes feels a bit > > too late. > > you're definitely correct. we should have some form of limited QA for > the most highly rated extensions. > > Firefox has the same issue, and a lot of grief has been eliminated by > working closely, during the development process, with the extension > authors whenever a change was scheduled. nothing's perfect, obviously, > but it helped in having extensions working right after a new release. > > Right, and especially if you're changing extension API, extension authors should know and be able to test what is broken so that they can fix. Otherwise, I suspect most extensions can be fixed by doing a version change in the json file. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On 9 nov. 2012, at 16:56, Matthias Clasen wrote: > Hi, > > last weekend, the release team met and discussed (among other things) > the DropOrFixFallbackMode [1] feature. We've come to the conclusion > that we can't maintain fallback mode in reasonable quality, and are > better off dropping it. We're now working on organizing this so that > it does not create more unnecessary fallout. I don't talk often on this list, for lack of available time, but have the following to say : The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that don't have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to something else. most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. now the REAL question is : Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware Upgrades ? ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Raphaël Jacquot wrote: > > On 9 nov. 2012, at 16:56, Matthias Clasen > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > last weekend, the release team met and discussed (among other things) > > the DropOrFixFallbackMode [1] feature. We've come to the conclusion > > that we can't maintain fallback mode in reasonable quality, and are > > better off dropping it. We're now working on organizing this so that > > it does not create more unnecessary fallout. > > I don't talk often on this list, for lack of available time, but have the > following to say : > > The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that > don't have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to > something else. > most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. > > now the REAL question is : > Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware > Upgrades ? > Hey! Long time no talk, hope all is well. GNOME shell should work on any graphics card 5 years or older. We should have good data backing this up as I know that Fedora has done QA on a number of hardware to test gnome-shell in order to know what hardware profiles shell will work on. I read many testimonials where shell has worked nicely on netbooks which don't have good 3D hardware. A the very least, llvmpipe makes software rendering work fairly well on older hardware without a 3D card. sri ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
hi; On 21 November 2012 19:53, Raphaël Jacquot wrote: > The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that don't > have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to something else. > most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. this is incorrect. hardware acceleration is available, using free software drivers, on hardware that is 5 years old (945-class hardware, release by Intel in 2005/2006). writing modern software for old and underpowered hardware is not really an option. if you want to use really old hardware there are better projects that can benefit from contributions. > now the REAL question is : > Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware Upgrades ? let's not resort to out of place hyperboles, please. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On 2012-11-21 20:53, Raphaël Jacquot wrote: I don't talk often on this list, for lack of available time, but have the following to say : The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that don't have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to something else. most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. This was covered in the ‘Description’ section of the DropOrFixFallbackMode page that Matthias linked to: https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode “Since the release of 3.0, a technology called llvmpipe has allowed for fast software rendering, lowering the need for the fallback mode. However llvmpipe doesn't currently work on some architectures (ppc, s390, arm?--ARM (hf) works-shawnl) and might not work in some non-Linux-based OS (OpenBSD support is not there, for instance).” If you would care to test llvmpipe with GNOME Shell and report back on the performance, I am sure that would be a useful data point for the discussion. Personally, I use GNOME Shell on some hardware from 3 years ago and the (accelerated) performance seems fine. -- http://amigadave.com/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
Le mercredi 21 novembre 2012 à 20:53 +0100, Raphaël Jacquot a écrit : > On 9 nov. 2012, at 16:56, Matthias Clasen > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > last weekend, the release team met and discussed (among other > things) > > the DropOrFixFallbackMode [1] feature. We've come to the conclusion > > that we can't maintain fallback mode in reasonable quality, and are > > better off dropping it. We're now working on organizing this so that > > it does not create more unnecessary fallout. > > I don't talk often on this list, for lack of available time, but have > the following to say : > > The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that > don't have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to > something else. > most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. > > now the REAL question is : > Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware > Upgrades ? I really don't think this is a matter of recent hardware or not. I used GNOME Shell for several years on a laptop that I bought in 2006. So definitely not a recent machine. But it had an Intel GPU with a good support. Today, the question is more whether you have a good free driver for your card or not, which mostly depends on the hardware vendor. (And guess what, the paradox is that bleeding edge GPUs are often not supported as well as relatively older ones.) And of course, for people with poor driver support for they GPU, llvmpipe should work with reasonably recent CPUs. This is not a very strong requirement at all. My two cents ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
Hi Raphael, Just for the record. You don't need the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to run GNOME Shell. I've done GNOME 3.0 presentations on an aspire one netbook from circa 2007 and it's lightning fast. You can run GNOME Shell on any 10 year old GPU as far as the drivers are in a decent shape. In those cases there's the software renderer: llvmpipe. A "classic mode" for GNOME Shell could make use of less expensive effects that could relieve the software rendenrer making the experience a lot nicer on machines with driver problems (or other cases where native GL could not be provided). 2012/11/21 Raphaël Jacquot > > On 9 nov. 2012, at 16:56, Matthias Clasen > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > last weekend, the release team met and discussed (among other things) > > the DropOrFixFallbackMode [1] feature. We've come to the conclusion > > that we can't maintain fallback mode in reasonable quality, and are > > better off dropping it. We're now working on organizing this so that > > it does not create more unnecessary fallout. > > I don't talk often on this list, for lack of available time, but have the > following to say : > > The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that > don't have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to > something else. > most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. > > now the REAL question is : > Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware > Upgrades ? > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:12, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote: > > Hey! Long time no talk, hope all is well. > > GNOME shell should work on any graphics card 5 years or older. We should > have good data backing this up as I know that Fedora has done QA on a number > of hardware to test gnome-shell in order to know what hardware profiles shell > will work on. > > I read many testimonials where shell has worked nicely on netbooks which > don't have good 3D hardware. A the very least, llvmpipe makes software > rendering work fairly well on older hardware without a 3D card. > I do use, daily, an ACER aspire D257 that I bought just last year containing the following : * N570 2 core 2 threads CPU * Pineview GM graphics * 1024 * 600 screen * 2G of ram (system maximum) * system useability - NOT snappy : start from a rebooted debian sid system (just to be fair) from the logging screen to usable desktop: about 30 seconds pressing anything (activities, calendar, user name), takes about 1s to show the appropriate window clicking the applications tab, 6 seconds for stuff to appear searching takes about 1s per keypress advanced setting app is SLOW to react to clicks in the categories list (about 2 to 3 seconds) * system useability - UI issues some windows are way too large (and can't be resized or scrolled), for instance, system settings My mother, 70 years old, worked on various versions of windows for 20 years or so. when she retired, she looked at my linux desktop (at the time gnome 2 on some ubuntu), and requested that I install it on her machine instead of the windows she had come ubuntu unity... she called in despair "I can't find anything anymore, where is my solitaire game ?" so, I installed debian instead... suddently, gnome updates, she calls again "I don't understand, everything is changed, can't find $game anymore" so I setup the "Gnome (classic)" as default. guess gnome 3.8, when it shows up on said debian will leave me no choice but move her to some other desktop again. as an alternative, Emmanuele is invited to come over to her place and give her private courses in "the new Gnome" (ouch, that felt like an Apple keynote conclusion) On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:17, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > writing modern software for old and > underpowered hardware is not really an option. if you want to use > really old hardware there are better projects that can benefit from > contributions. I'm not talking about OLD hardware, but even recent hardware that's sold to run windows 7 (ok, starter edition, but that's besides the point) >> now the REAL question is : >> Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware Upgrades >> ? > > let's not resort to out of place hyperboles, please. it is not an hyperbole, but a real question, coming from the heart... ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:11, David King wrote: > > “Since the release of 3.0, a technology called llvmpipe has allowed for fast > software rendering, lowering the need for the fallback mode. However llvmpipe > doesn't currently work on some architectures (ppc, s390, arm?--ARM (hf) > works-shawnl) and might not work in some non-Linux-based OS (OpenBSD support > is not there, for instance).” > > If you would care to test llvmpipe with GNOME Shell and report back on the > performance, I am sure that would be a useful data point for the > discussion. Personally, I use GNOME Shell on some hardware from 3 years ago > and the (accelerated) performance seems fine. sure, I have a raspberry pi to try to use it on (the model with 256Mb of ram) ! ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:31, Alberto Ruiz wrote: > A "classic mode" for GNOME Shell could make use of less expensive effects > that could relieve the software rendenrer making the experience a lot nicer > on machines with driver problems (or other cases where native GL could not be > provided). sounds like a rather good option, how about asking on firstboot, when detecting hardware that could be rather slow, an option to cut all the nice bling, so as to save cpu/gpu cycles... ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
> GNOME shell should work on any graphics card 5 years or older. We should > have good data backing this up as I know that Fedora has done QA on a > number of hardware to test gnome-shell in order to know what hardware > profiles shell will work on. Its passably usable (lot of laggy movement) on a dirt cheap ATI 54x0 driving three monitors with 1080p. With a single monitor configuration I'm sure it would be fine. Ditto with single/dual on most intel setups. Equally its near unusable on a brand new netbook which has Imagination graphics and a relatively low end CPU. LLVMpipe only seems to really be usable if you have a decent processor and a lot of memory bandwidth to the video Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:50:37 +0100 Raphaël Jacquot wrote: > > On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:31, Alberto Ruiz wrote: > > > A "classic mode" for GNOME Shell could make use of less expensive effects > > that could relieve the software rendenrer making the experience a lot nicer > > on machines with driver problems (or other cases where native GL could not > > be provided). > > sounds like a rather good option, how about asking on firstboot, when > detecting hardware that could be rather slow, an option to cut all the nice > bling, so as to save cpu/gpu cycles... That ought to be happening automatically based upon timing the effects and also on things like battery life. 3D compositing is a video memory hog and that has material power impact. Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
> The decision is all nice and well. however this will force people that don't > have the latest and greatest accelerated hardware to switch to something > else. most PCs that are more that 2 years old are probably out of the game. I am typing this from a five and a half years old Macbook running GNOME 3.4. GNOME Shell runs just fine and has always been that way since I first installed it when GNOME 3.0 came out. I have never used anything else on this laptop. I used to try out the GNOME Shell snapshots during the pre-3.0 days on some cheap Intel netbook that the university gave us. Never used it for too long, but I recall that it ran reasonably well. I have also ran GNOME 3.x with GNOME Shell on a 2nd hand Thinkpad x60 that I have. Runs surprisingly well for such an old laptop. Cheers, Debarshi -- There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors. pgpUKp1U3SHNa.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
2012/11/21 Raphaël Jacquot > * system useability - UI issues > some windows are way too large (and can't be resized or scrolled), for > instance, system settings > My mother, 70 years old, worked on various versions of windows for 20 > years or so. > when she retired, she looked at my linux desktop (at the time gnome 2 on > some ubuntu), and requested that I install it on her machine instead of the > windows she had > come ubuntu unity... she called in despair "I can't find anything anymore, > where is my solitaire game ?" > so, I installed debian instead... suddently, gnome updates, she calls > again "I don't understand, everything is changed, can't find $game anymore" > so I setup the "Gnome (classic)" as default. > > guess gnome 3.8, when it shows up on said debian will leave me no choice > but move her to some other desktop again. > as an alternative, Emmanuele is invited to come over to her place and give > her private courses in "the new Gnome" > (ouch, that felt like an Apple keynote conclusion) > Why did you upgrade her setup then? My mom still uses GNOME 2 (Ubuntu 10.04, have not touched that machine ever since I installed it), I just don't upgrade her machine unless I'm ready to teach her the changes. People do not upgrade their desktop and apps constantly, that's something that only computer geeks do. This is how sysadmins deal with their users. Also in large organizations. You are blaming us for modernizing our software... I can't hardly see how that's a bad thing. If you want to keep using GNOME 2, just don' upgrade it! The software is there for you to use it. > > On 21 nov. 2012, at 21:17, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > writing modern software for old and > > underpowered hardware is not really an option. if you want to use > > really old hardware there are better projects that can benefit from > > contributions. > > I'm not talking about OLD hardware, but even recent hardware that's sold > to run windows 7 (ok, starter edition, but that's besides the point) > > >> now the REAL question is : > >> Is the Gnome community NO BETTER than Microsoft at forcing Hardware > Upgrades ? > > > > let's not resort to out of place hyperboles, please. > > it is not an hyperbole, but a real question, coming from the heart... > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
> advanced setting app is SLOW to react to clicks in the categories list (about > 2 to 3 seconds) > Meh, that is just my rubbish code*, not a statement by the GNOME that you must buy a new computer. Some combinations of bugs from you list might make things slower on your hardware. Anecdotes here suggest they don't do that for everyone. Software is made of bugs, it will continue to be made of bugs, and patches are always appreciated. It's a rude thing to say but it is the world we choose to live in. John * http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-tweak-tool/tree/gtweak/tweakview.py#n90 (showing and hiding lots of widgets is probably not the nicest thing to do here...) ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Dropping fallback mode in 3.8
Though it seems hopeless to change the decision, I find some tendency annoying. 1. I have a machine that works well. If you seriously believe they will work for most machines. Let me do a serious statistics to prove or disprove your claim. But my intuition is that it is generally harder to properly utilize graphic hardware on Linux than that of some years ago (I start messing with Linux since old Red Hat Linux 8.0). For example, the annoying switchable graphics. On the other hand, desktop environments are more dependent on OpenGL. So it's harder from both sides, so sad. 2. Folks can use LLVMpipe. It slow down the machine anyway, sometimes you can really measure it. What about laptop's battery life? An interesting observation is that Linux newbies sometimes try hard to increse battery life on Linux while Linux veteran sometimes just accept the fact running Linux means shorter battery life. 3. You can still use GNOME 2. If the user don't care about recent graphical apps, it's fine. Though Ubuntu 10.04 is going to EOL next year, we still have CentOS. If you do care, then I'd say it's a lot easier installing GIMP 2.8, Lib 3.6, ... on Redmond XP (EOL 2014) than remaining old distribution releases featuring GNOME 2. As Fedora already trying to package MATE, Debian/Ubuntu guys may follow up the track. Though I'm not sure will Fedora 18 ever release. 4. It's free software. You can contribute. I believe very very few people can ever become a develop and only few of them will spend time writing patch, try contacting developer, ... I think the most reasonable contribution a general user can make is that she can point out problems she met in various channels. Ever since the introduction of GNOME 3, I guess most common responses users get are "We know better." I don't want comment particular cases but I wonder have you ever tried informing users? Probably you made some decisions on a public IRC / mailing list so you think it is enough? On bugzilla, bugs just pile up. That's users' contribution also. But I haven't seen any major attempt to clean these bugs up and solving real problems. What's interesting about a new release that ports to Python 3 and drops Fallback mode? ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
