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Old 01-14-2014, 08:07 AM   #1
punchy71
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GNOME desktops seem to be the wave of the future, why so many varaiants?


Greetings,
I have been interested in GNOME desktops and it's variants lately. I have found out that the new "Cinnamon" and "MATE" desktop environments are both based on the same abondoned GNOME 2 project. But I don't see the differences in the desktops themselves. What's the point and purpose of having two indistinguishable desktop environments based on the same abandoned project? Have a look at the Korora projects lastest desktop selection here: https://kororaproject.org/about
Besides all of Korora's desktops all looking almost identical. I just recently found out that the Xfce desktop environment is a also based on some early GNOME fork. I was wondering if someone knows which version of GNOME it is based upon (I would be curious to know)?
I also know that Ubuntu's Unity desktop is also based upon GNOME (again, I'm not sure which version). And the Elementary OS's Mac OS X knock-off clone desktop environment is also an extremely customized GNOME desktop environment (once again, I don't know which version).
I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why we need so many GNOME desktops and derivatives. Their all basically the same anyway, so what's the point? This especially becomes apparent when you look at some currently active Linux distro project such as the Korora projects desktops selection. It also seems like GNOME is kind of dominating the Linux desktop environement scene anymore and it would be interesting to figure out why that is.

Thanks
 
Old 01-14-2014, 08:48 AM   #2
Zyblin
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XFCE- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfce#Early_versions
It started as a clone of CDE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common...op_Environment


As fas as Mate and Cinnamon goes. Why not fork? Mate was a fork based on Gnome 2, Cinnamon a fork of Gnome 3. Gnome 3 is not the whole future. I won't use it, Unity or even MS Metro. They are fine for Mobile devices but not for my desktop PC. I would rather use KDE4 with Search and Launch.

http://i1007.photobucket.com/albums/...ps898c4adb.png

http://i1007.photobucket.com/albums/...psbdfb1ce9.png

Last edited by Zyblin; 01-14-2014 at 09:10 AM.
 
Old 01-14-2014, 08:55 AM   #3
JWJones
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MATE is a fork of Gnome 2, and Cinnamon did start as a fork of Gnome 3, but as of v.2, it is shedding its dependencies of Gnome 3. Xfce is not a fork of Gnome.

The reason there are so many options is because many people are not happy with Gnome 3, and this is Linux, so they are free to do as they please. Just like I am free to avoid all of that bloat altogether, and use a nice, lightweight WM, or just framebuffer + tmux.
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:01 AM   #4
Zyblin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JWJones View Post
MATE is a fork of Gnome 2, and Cinnamon did start as a fork of Gnome 3, but as of v.2, it is shedding its dependencies of Gnome 3. Xfce is not a fork of Gnome.

The reason there are so many options is because many people are not happy with Gnome 3, and this is Linux, so they are free to do as they please. Just like I am free to avoid all of that bloat altogether, and use a nice, lightweight WM, or just framebuffer + tmux.
You are correct about Cinnamon. I should have added that to my reply above. It is now a fork and its own DE, but it didn't start that way. That is what I love as well about Linux. The choices and freedoms.

Last edited by Zyblin; 01-14-2014 at 09:13 AM.
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:32 AM   #5
TobiSGD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by punchy71 View Post
Greetings,
I have been interested in GNOME desktops and it's variants lately. I have found out that the new "Cinnamon" and "MATE" desktop environments are both based on the same abondoned GNOME 2 project.
As already mentioned, Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3. It was forked from Gnome 3 because the developers were not happy with the direction Gnome has taken with Gnome 3/Gnome Shell. MATE is a fork of Gnome 2, because the MATE developers didn't want to abandon Gnome 2.
Quote:
I just recently found out that the Xfce desktop environment is a also based on some early GNOME fork.
Actually, the XFCE project is older than Gnome.
Quote:
I also know that Ubuntu's Unity desktop is also based upon GNOME (again, I'm not sure which version).
It is not. Unity is a plugin for the Compiz window manager. While there are some Gnome components in use in the Unity DE, they are (like Cinnamon does it) replaced with their own versions, to that extent that Unity is slowly switching to use the Qt framework instead of Gnome's GTK.
Quote:
It also seems like GNOME is kind of dominating the Linux desktop environement scene anymore and it would be interesting to figure out why that is.
It is not. If you look at projects like Cinnamon and Unity, they are switching away from their Gnome base, for reasons obvious to anyone reading articles about Gnome. In the Gnome 2 era Gnome was indeed the dominant desktop, but this changed with the release of Gnome 3, which totally changed the way it sees the desktop, to somewhat incompatible with many of their previous users views. If you look at last years Member Choice Awards (which is a bit skewed towards KDE and XFCE due to the number of Slackware users here, but the trend is there) you will see that Gnome is far from dominating.
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:16 PM   #6
frankbell
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There are so many forks and variants based on Gnome because Gnome is not the wave of the future.

Users are looking for ways to replace Gnome without abandoning the Gnome applications that they are used to.
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:44 PM   #7
jamison20000e
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I personally always feel too limited in Gnome so never use it but worse would be only one Linux choice...
 
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Old 01-15-2014, 02:50 AM   #8
kooru
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I was a great fan of Gnome, but with the entry of Gnome 3 I began to appraise XFCE.
Open(Flux)box is great too.

Anyway I don't think Gnome is the wave of the future. It sounds more like a sea storm.
 
Old 01-15-2014, 09:32 AM   #9
sundialsvcs
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"There are so many forks and variants" of everything, that IMHO none of them are "the wave of the future."

On the one hand, it's way-cool that Linux "gives you a choice," but on the other hand, there are far too many "choices."
 
Old 01-15-2014, 11:39 PM   #10
jamison20000e
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Infinity gives "too many choices,,," Linux rocks!
 
  


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