Hi Albert,

As your email focuses very much on gnome, I'm CC'ing this reply to the opensuse-gnome mailinglist so my fellow gnomers can read your feedback.

1. Differences: In my opinion, the responsibility of a project like ours, producing Linux distributions, is to provide a solid, stable, integrated collection of current/cutting edge FOSS software, tweaked and tuned for our users. We shouldn't be changing things just for the sake of changing things.

I believe, our implementation of GNOME 3 improves on the current status of the upstream project. It's good to start with, but we made a number of improvements that you don't find in other GNOME3's - For example the Shutdown menu was changed to make Power Off/Restarting and Hibernation easier to access. We install the gnome-tweak-tool by default, and YaST is smoothly integrated into the System Settings

Yes, we could do more, we on the openSUSE gnome team are always looking for new ideas and new people to help out implementing them. It's easy, and if you're interested in helping out, please join the opensuse-gnome mailing list and/or #opensuse-gnome IRC channel and say hello

2. gnome2-like environment This is actually called 'fallback mode' It's intended to provide a basic, working environment for when 3D acceleration is not available. As you've noticed, it currently looks like 'vanilla' gnome2, but it is not really intended as an alternative to the gnome-shell mode for those who don't like it - there are efforts to get gnome-shell working without 3D acceleration, and I would not be surprised if fallback mode disappears if these efforts bear fruit.

Again, offering my opinion - I personally believe it would be stupid for SUSE/openSUSE to throw good development time behind an effort to enhance fallback mode when it is clearly not the direction of upstream GNOME That said, I do know there was someone working on porting the SLAB menu to gtk3 so it could work in fallback mode

And you might be interested in http://extensions.gnome.org - a recently launched service from upstream GNOME that provides a large collection of gnome shell extensions that let you customise the gnome3 environment (not fallback mode). Several of the extensions provide features and functionality which used to be in gnome2.

3. Progress

GNOME 3 is progress. gnome-shell is a very different desktop environment, and your certainly not the first to express their dislike for it - but if you want a traditional taskbar/start menu orientated environment, there are great alternatives out there (KDE, xfce, lxde) all supported by openSUSE - we're a distro of choice for precisely this kind of scenario.

But please keep in mind that there are also many keen users and keen developers spending a lot of time on GNOME 3. I don't think calling our chosen desktop environment and efforts to improve it 'stupid' is a very productive way forward. Helping out in our gnome team with constructive ideas (you don't need to be a developer for that) or packaging and code would be a much bigger help.

So if you truly are a SUSE lover and want our gnome installation to better suit your tastes, I look forward to seeing your contributions soon :)

Regards

A fellow SUSE lover

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Albert 12/21/11 10:00 AM >>>

I've used SUSE for more than six years and each new version coming out always give me surprising more or less. However, I found the most recent 12.1 is really disappointed, especially the gnome desktop:

1. I don't find any difference and surprise with this gnome3 while comparing with other linux distribution.

2. When I switch to gnome2-like environment, I am getting very angry. How can SUSE become as stupid as Ubuntu? The gnome2-like environment is almost the same as Ubuntu..... The menu, the task bar color and so on. Why can't SUSE keep its own uniques? The SUSE menu in 10.0 till 11.4 is quit nice and creative. Why did this 12.1 switch to stupid Ubuntu like style?

3. What's worse. The workspace switcher in gnome2-like environment is the same as 10.0 version: when we use "only show current workspace", it can only show ONE workspace, and others are all gone......

12.1, Progress or backwards?

To be honest as a Linux user, the stupid gnome3 don't have even a little tinny tiny attraction to me. I do hope the SUSE developer can design SUSE from the aspects of users. If I were a SUSE developer, I will pay more attention to the stability and general interface of SUSE.

May SUSE a bright future.

A SUSE Lover