GNOME 3.36 "Gresik" released with a 'Do Not Disturb' mode, NVIDIA dGPU launch options

How does the 'do not disturb' mode work though? I presume it uninstalls GNOME altogether?

If you have Intel with AMD dGPU then how do you select your AMD gpu?

If you have Intel with AMD dGPU then how do you select your AMD gpu?

Seems to work the same way as with Nvidia. You just need to have the switcheroo-control service running and then you can right-click an application from Activities and click "Launch with Dedicated Graphics". All it seemingly does is set the DRI_PRIME environment variable.

As a GNOME user for *a lot* of years now, I'm very happy to see these improvements! GNOME is really getting better and better. YMMV, but from what I've seen, most of the time, people disliking GNOME tries to use it with the same Windows paradigms in mind (all the apps must be visible on the desktop in a taskbar, using the mouse a lot, prefer a menu of apps instead of using the global search).

At some point in my career, I had to use OSX and, though I hate Apple for a lot of things, their UX is very often on point. And this is especially true for Spotlight: one shortcut to pop it (Cmd+Space) and search EVERYTHING from here. As you get used to it, you could almost don't care where you put your files (I can't though.. it disturbs my OCDs ;)).

GNOME simplifies that even more: hit the Win key, and start searching. Apps are sorted by most recently used, so if you hit <Win> then "f", you'll get firefox. It's become such a habit that I don't even wait for the animations to finish, it take literally less than half a second to launch an app, how awesome is that?


Last edited by Creak on 31 March 2020 at 12:22 pm UTC

And so GNOME is ever inching closer to feature parity with KDE. Maybe they'll get there sometime this side of 5-digit years.

basically nothing

For what it's worth, the 'Launch with dedicated graphics card' has been there for years, you just had to set up the bumblebee or primus or whatever the hell it has been called in the past.
I think it just works more out of the box now due to nvidia have more 'native' support for it with their PRIME stuff.

And so GNOME is ever inching closer to feature parity with KDE. Maybe they'll get there sometime this side of 5-digit years.

God, I hope not. KDE's interface needs some serious streamlining.
Too bad we don't have something more in the middle, instead we have KDE with an overabundance of options, and Gnome that stripped them all out and then started adding them back in.
KDE still hasn't fixed their email client either so it can properly work with Office365/Exchange.

And so GNOME is ever inching closer to feature parity with KDE. Maybe they'll get there sometime this side of 5-digit years.

God, I hope not. KDE's interface needs some serious streamlining.
Too bad we don't have something more in the middle, instead we have KDE with an overabundance of options, and Gnome that stripped them all out and then started adding them back in.
KDE still hasn't fixed their email client either so it can properly work with Office365/Exchange.

And this is a gnome release, so the real question is: Which features did they remove? :D

Personally, I use gnome just for the gnome shell. The window overlay when pressing the "super" button has become second nature for me. Gnomes productivity applications on the other side are just not made for me. So I frankenstein my system with Thunar, Firefox and quite a lot of other applications that are :)
My main wish for Gnome would be to remove Evolution from their dependencies and replace it with interfaces, so one can plug in the calendar/mail of choice.

Haven't tried KDE for years. The problem with KDE for me has always been that the options/application preferences were never where I expected them to be .
Options I want to switch regularly were usually in a separate wizard dialogue while basic personal taste preferences that I only need to adjust once were accessible directly in the toolbar. Also, there are lots of GTK applications I couldn't find adequate alternatives for and using KDE with 90% GTK applications is kind of meh.


Last edited by const on 12 March 2020 at 3:41 pm UTC

As a GNOME user for *a lot* of years now, I'm very happy to see these improvements! GNOME is really getting better and better. YMMV, but from what I've seen, most of the time, people disliking GNOME tries to use it with the same Windows paradigms in mind (all the apps must be visible on the desktop in a taskbar, using the mouse a lot, prefer a menu of apps instead of using the global search).

At some point in my career, I had to use OSX and, though I hate Apple for a lot of things, their UX is very often on point. And this is especially true for Spotlight: one shortcut to pop it (Cmd+Space) and search EVERYTHING from here. As you get used to it, you could almost don't care where you put your files (I can't though.. it disturbs my OCDs ;)).

GNOME simplifies that even more: hit then Win key, and start searching. Apps are sorted by most recently used, so if you hit <Win> then "f", you'll get firefox. It's become such a habit that I don't even wait for the animations to finish, it take literally less than half a second to launch an app, how awesome is that?

The search stuff is fine for things whose name you remember. But, the stuff whose name I remember I mostly don't start from the menu, I start from a launcher--either a launcher I stuck on a taskbar or a launcher I leave sitting on the screen somewhere (In my case, perennial applications like browser and word processing go on taskbar, games, whose launcher I will be stuffing in a folder after I finish playing them, go on the screen). Point is, I'm used to launchers, which let me start my habitual stuff with one click. Search can't match that speed and simplicity. So I dropped Gnome 3 when it first came along because it didn't at the time support that kind of thing, and this was apparently deliberate UI policy so I didn't expect them to come along soon. Maybe they have 'em now, I dunno.

But for the other use case, things I only use now and then, I often don't remember exactly what they are, so I want a menu that will let me browse categories and look at titles and say "Yeah, that looks like it might do what I want." Search can't do that for me either. So for both of my major use cases, search is not a good way to access applications. For habitual applications it's slightly slower, and for non-habitual applications it just doesn't work. Other people's mileage may vary. Early Gnome 3 -- and I did try it for a while, before I heard about Mint, Cinnamon and Mate -- also was annoying in that I found myself accidentally activating those hotspot things all the time. I think that's probably long gone, but hey--I like Mate, so I don't really have a motivation to find out.

In general, I get the impression that Gnome 3 isn't bad if you install a whole bunch of tweaks designed to completely counteract the designers' UI intentions . . . but again, I like Mate without doing that, so.

I can't help it... What I look for in a DE is either just one panel at the bottom or maybe one on the left., because closing windows by simply moving the mouse to the upper right corner while leftclicking is a die hard natural gesture for me.
I also need a window list that lets me see what's running by a simple look.
I don't know if it's possible to tweak Gnome to give me that, but because of those prefereces my DE right now is Cinnamon (and Mint is somewhat naturally a good solution to me ;-)).


Last edited by Nevertheless on 12 March 2020 at 5:30 pm UTC

I, for one, welcome our productivity-focused minimalist overlords.

Too bad it completely breaks and crashes when using with an NVidia GPU and 4K monitors with scaling.

I have to use mine at either 100% scaling which is unusable, or 1080p which is usable but looks blurry and is very cramped.

From my point of view, this is the worst update yet, regardless of how many improvements it might have got. This bug spoiled it completely for me, and left a very bad taste.

thanks for this.
i just wanted to test gnome (using cinnamon for now) and your comment saved me from that experience.

... Some of the comments here are why I refrain from interacting with large parts of the Linux community.

It's fine to voice criticism, but don't be a twat about it, yeah?

As always. A new Gnome or systemd or whatever release surfaces and some just people just have to flame. If you don't like Gnome - fine. Don't use it. But those comments in the "my KDE is soo much cooler" vein... Come on, grow up. Just a little bit. That said: Grown ups can be productive with pretty much any DE. I was that with Gnome 2, with Unity, even briefly with KDE3 - hell, even with Windows and now with Gnome 3. After all I work with applications - not with the thing to start those applications.

The search stuff is fine for things whose name you remember. But, the stuff whose name I remember I mostly don't start from the menu, I start from a launcher--either a launcher I stuck on a taskbar or a launcher I leave sitting on the screen somewhere

If it works anything like the search function on MATE (and I believe it does), you don't have to remember the exact name. I can hit Win then "word processor" and AbiWord, FocusWriter and LibreOffice Writer all come up, and only one of those even has "word" in the name.

The search stuff is fine for things whose name you remember. But, the stuff whose name I remember I mostly don't start from the menu, I start from a launcher--either a launcher I stuck on a taskbar or a launcher I leave sitting on the screen somewhere

If it works anything like the search function on MATE (and I believe it does), you don't have to remember the exact name. I can hit Win then "word processor" and AbiWord, FocusWriter and LibreOffice Writer all come up, and only one of those even has "word" in the name.

Well, I have to admit that's pretty decent. To be honest, I didn't even know Mate had that function--just goes to show, you don't need to dump the menus to do it.

It's too late to put this in the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa"), right?

Do you reckon they'll provide an update to this version of GNOME in the near future, for users of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa")? Some of that new functionality looks mighty handy...


Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 13 March 2020 at 7:28 am UTC

It's be too late to put this in the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa"), right?

Do you reckon they'll provide an update to this version of GNOME in the near future, for users of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa")? Some of that new functionality looks mighty handy...

If you install a 20.04 Ubuntu ISO right now, you'll have 3.35.91 or higher (beta release) with 3.36 due in the next week or so. I have 20.04 installed right now, and wow, it's a game changer.

If you install a 20.04 Ubuntu ISO right now, you'll have 3.35.91 or higher (beta release) with 3.36 due in the next week or so. I have 20.04 installed right now, and wow, it's a game changer.

So it looks like we might get GNOME 3.36+ in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa")... Nice!