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Ubuntu has also switched to their own alternative. On the business side, I don't see RHEL adopting Gnome3 anytime soon either. Mind you, they are the biggest players in Linux world and (used to be or still are) large users of Gnome 2. So, ignoring Gnome 3 isn't just a grassroot movement.
Gnome 3 isn't only a problem for users. Linux desktop needs strong mainstream DEs or it will simply cease to exist. Gnome 2 was becoming a sort of a standard DE for Linux. It had its issues but they could have been resolved incrementally without throwing the whole thing away (porting to Gtk3 could have been a great opportunity for getting rid of some broken legacy stuff).
With Gnome Shell, we are looking at best at having a working Gnome DE again in 2-3 years. At worst, Gnome Shell will continue to go backward in terms of usability and user expectations.
I am not too worried about my own options - I've been using Xfce for years and couldn't be happier with it (yes, I considered it a better DE than Gnome even before Gnome 3). But Xfce isn't enough to stop eroding Linux user base and I don't want to be the last user of Linux desktop.




Member since:
2006-12-05
Again, in the face of new opportunity everybody is trying to bash GNOME. For those claiming silly high figures of 90% migration: only Mint switched to another DE after GNOME 3 was released. That is a wonderful proof that most users just stayed with GNOME3.
If you enjoyed GNOME 2 and don't like GNOME 3, you have two options:
∙ shut up and write code for MATE or
∙ shut up and write code for Cinnamon.
Running around the users waiting for 3.4 (3.6, 3.8, etc.) and shouting "Oh, this GNOME is shit, I left it" is too <s>torv</s>trollish to be acceptable.
Edited 2012-04-03 16:17 UTC