I’m going to try my best not to rant here even though I’ve been wanting to rant about gnome for years. But, there are things about gnome I really like.
The problem is, I’m seeing more and more people, as in prominent YouTubers and podcasters, saying that “gnome really is very customizable”. I only wish it were true.
What became the last straw as it were was Nick, of the Linux Experiment fame. I love Nick and I love his Linux Experiment channel. He has done great things there. But not long ago he released a video saying that gnome really is very customizable. My initial thought was, “yeah, if you install themes, extensions, and other add-ons”. In which Nick’s next comment was “if you install the right themes, extensions, and other add-ons”.
If I install a third party something to make a program do something I want it to do but that is not something the program was actually designed to do didn’t make the original software great, it makes the add-on great. In other words, if I install a flight simulator in Windows 11, I don’t say that Windows 11 is a great flight simulator. Also, nobody in the planet claims Macos or Windows has great customizability, but you can install software to do just that on both of those. But we would still never say that Windows or Macos “really is very customizable”.
Which brings me back to gnome. Gnome is just as customizable as Macos and Windows (it could even be argued that Windows is more customizable than gnome). In all the of theses environments you can install software to make them more customizable. But that doesn’t make any of these “really very customizable”.
Why do I care? Because noobs see posts and videos about gnome being very customizable and then you see post after post asking how do you do “x” in gnome. Well, by default you don’t/can’t. And then when they see the answer isn’t so easy or straightforward, because of gnome, they say “Linux sucks, that’s stupid”. Yep, thanks gnome.
The most common argument against this idea is that gnome implements and supports an API system to support third party themes, extensions, and plugins. My argument to that is if they support it why do they, themselves, break it so often?
The idea behind gnome is great. The actual implementation of that idea is lack luster at best.
Last but not least it’s these third party plugins are like the AUR, PPAs, and WordPress plugins. They’re all great until the developer abandons the project and that plugin hasn’t been updated in years.
