I saw some recent screenshots of the latest version of GNOME, which apparently is in contention for being an early version of GNOME 3.0. I hate it.
I see a very nasty trend in GUI design lately. That trend is all about eye candy. Eye candy and the need to cater to stupid people who can’t keep track of where they save files. Gnome 3.0 will come with something called Gnome Shell. This is basically an attempt to copy Windows 7. And as if that wasn’t a step far enough backward, the whole trend in GNOME, like Windows 7, is to make “search” the centerpiece of the GUI.
This means getting rid of icons and menus. You have to then type what you’re looking for into a search box. This means you have to have the search software running CONSTANTLY and eating up system resources.
Fuck that.
Also, Fuck Apple.
But FUCK THAT. I like icons and menus. I like icons in menus. I love the organized nature of menus, and I don’t need to search for files because I TAKE TWO FUCKING SECONDS BEFORE I SAVE THEM TO PUT THEM WHERE I KNOW I WILL FIND THEM LATER.
Sorry for the allcaps, but the makers of our Linux distros, our desktop environments and our file managers are catering to the lowest common denominator. They’re welcoming the dumbest motherfuckers among us who are only concerned with gawking at shiny things. They don’t want to have to learn what a file is, or what the difference is between a browser and an operating system is. They just want to be able to point to stupid pictures in Flickr and tell their friends on Twitter “i <3 miley cyrus OMG CHEK OUT AMERICN IDAL lol 4ever, u lyk me 2?”
Sorry about the nonsensical ranting there… but I do hate the dumbing-down of anything.
So here’s my plan. I’m going to switch to Debian when I need to upgrade my current Ubuntu/Xubuntu systems. I’m going to bypass GNOME completely, because I don’t want any of that eye candy garbage or search box tomfoolery. I wants my icons, and I wants my menus, and I know I can get them from LXDE.
And I don’t want some “social networking” functionality built into my desktop. I don’t use social networking websites because I use my time for productive things. I don’t use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any other of those time-wasting, privacy-destroying shenanigans.
Speaking (however loosely) of the latest version of Ubuntu, I just downloaded the 10.4 beta so I could try it out in VirtualBox on my fast computer. That didn’t work. I think the download might have gotten corrupted because I couldn’t boot a virtual machine from it. I wanted to see how well replacing GNOME and Nautilus with LXDE and PCManFM would work. I guess that experiment will have to wait until next weekend, if I still care to try it.