Do we need another desktop environment? There's already KDE Plasma, GNOME Shell, Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon and the list goes on for a while. System76 at least seem to think another is needed, one they control.
The news tip comes courtesy of System76 engineer Michael Murphy, who mentioned on Reddit their plans for it to be "its own desktop" and that it won't be based on GNOME like their most recent attempt with Cosmic but instead "it is its own thing written in Rust".
It's not a whole lot to go on right now but interesting regardless, because System76 are one of the biggest vendors of Linux hardware and they're the maker of their own Pop!_OS distribution based on Ubuntu. So they already supply the hardware, the distribution and later the desktop too. This will put them in quite a unique position, since they will have even more room to fully tailor the experience for their customers.
Pictured - the current Cosmic desktop in Pop!_OS
Not a huge surprise either, considering if you follow the System76 crew closely, you might have seen some friction between System76 engineers and GNOME recently with things like theming and customization. Seems there's some deeper technical problems that lead to this decision though.
Part of the problem appears to be the extensions system in GNOME, which many users of GNOME will know how twitchy it can be and how extensions often break with new GNOME releases. Discussing this Murphy mentioned "What are you expecting us to do? We have a desktop environment that is a collection of GNOME Shell extensions which break every GNOME Shell release. Either we move towards maintaining tens of thousands of lines of monkey patches, or we do it the right way and make the next step a fully fledged desktop environment equal to GNOME Shell.".
Murphy continued explaining some of the reasoning behind the decision, in reply to a user asking about what they plan to do versus GNOME to which Murphy replied "Significantly better stability over GNOME Shell, with much less resource usage, and more configurable out of the box. Achieving a modern software architecture for the desktop in Rust.".
What do you think to this? Let us know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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erik-reider Nov 9, 2021
If it includes good tiling (sway or bspwm like) and multimonitor workspaces I'll switch
6 Likes, Who?
This is the best thing that came recently to Linux world. System76 and Solus described it really well why GNOME devs decision is opposite to what you could expect from a open-soft desktop environment. Can't wait for both systems release. Both are strongly rust orientated so will be fun. At the moment GNOME isn't user friendly and workflow suck. I love Budgie from Solus team.
Last edited by WhiteWolf on 9 November 2021 at 10:23 am UTC
Last edited by WhiteWolf on 9 November 2021 at 10:23 am UTC
9 Likes, Who?
I'm keen for this. The decision by gnome to cut a bunch of features and then push everything to buggy, javascript extensions has made my desktop experience worse than it was 10 years ago. Sure, it looks a lot prettier, provided you don't break your experience with lots of extensions.
I want a slick, highly usable, modern DE, that preferably doesn't look like Windows. Gnome is the only decent contender at the moment, but it's not great. Canonical's Unity, once the bugs were fixed, was actually really good. We need something like this again.
I want a slick, highly usable, modern DE, that preferably doesn't look like Windows. Gnome is the only decent contender at the moment, but it's not great. Canonical's Unity, once the bugs were fixed, was actually really good. We need something like this again.
5 Likes, Who?
I don't know if this will succeed. Making a competent, feature rich DE is a massive job. I will not be surprised if they realize their "Blender Moment" (fine, I will make my own DE, with blackjack, and hookers), and simply start to work growing a smaller DE, like XFCE, based (or completing the port to) GTK3 and implementing Wayland support.
3 Likes, Who?
I'm keen for this. The decision by gnome to cut a bunch of features and then push everything to buggy, javascript extensions has made my desktop experience worse than it was 10 years ago. Sure, it looks a lot prettier, provided you don't break your experience with lots of extensions.
I want a slick, highly usable, modern DE, that preferably doesn't look like Windows. Gnome is the only decent contender at the moment, but it's not great. Canonical's Unity, once the bugs were fixed, was actually really good. We need something like this again.
It is shocking how much bridges the Gnome devs burned over the years. Canonical only went back to them after facing bankrupt and still their developers do have friction issues. I wonder who back them up inside Redhat to continue in this path of scorched earth.
6 Likes, Who?
If they can get other distros to help share the maintenance burden, that will make things a lot easier. The Ubuntu devs have also expressed dissatisfaction with Gnome's approach, and they're Pop's upstream, so they would be a good asset if they could be persuaded to join in. Of course, Ubuntu devs are going to be concentrating on their next LTS release right now and really won't want to swap out desktops just at the moment, and the Pop devs might be wanting to use their new DE to differentiate themselves from their upstream anyway. There was a third distro, too, that was grumpy with Gnome, but I can't remember which one right now.
1 Likes, Who?
So why are they not switching to KDE? Creating a good DE is no easy task and I don't think they have the means to do that or are they prepared to support it in the long run. I have zero expectations on this.
8 Likes, Who?
rustybroomhandle Nov 9, 2021
I don't like this. Already if you use Gnome, but maybe you like Ark, you cannot drag files from Ark to Nautilus. We love all the choice, but we're half forced to use "pure" desktop environments to ensure a consistent experience. Mixing apps from different desktops mean loads of additional bloat and applications that look like they do not belong together.
0 Likes
From a VR perspective, I like my XRoverlay, so I'm stuck on either Gnome or KDE. I changed to KDE a couple of months ago and it's a pretty much near-perfect replica of what I had under Gnome, so I'm also surprised that the Pop devs are choosing to roll their own.
Exciting, but I don't hold out much hope for their success. If a company like Canonical couldn't justify making 10 years worth of Unity development stick, I doubt System76 will somehow make it work either.
I'm still happy to use Pop as a base for KDE though. It's a really slick foundation. The Pop shop is superb and I've never experienced a crash since using them.
Also, edit to query:
Only contender? You're joking, right!? KDE is superb, XFCE was excellent last I tried. Budgie is slick as hell. Cinnamon? Mate? We're tripping over DE's that absolutely rock - functional, beautiful, varied desktops that only look as much like Windows as you actually want.
Last edited by scaine on 9 November 2021 at 1:04 pm UTC
Exciting, but I don't hold out much hope for their success. If a company like Canonical couldn't justify making 10 years worth of Unity development stick, I doubt System76 will somehow make it work either.
I'm still happy to use Pop as a base for KDE though. It's a really slick foundation. The Pop shop is superb and I've never experienced a crash since using them.
Also, edit to query:
I want a slick, highly usable, modern DE, that preferably doesn't look like Windows. Gnome is the only decent contender at the moment, but it's not great.
Only contender? You're joking, right!? KDE is superb, XFCE was excellent last I tried. Budgie is slick as hell. Cinnamon? Mate? We're tripping over DE's that absolutely rock - functional, beautiful, varied desktops that only look as much like Windows as you actually want.
Last edited by scaine on 9 November 2021 at 1:04 pm UTC
7 Likes, Who?
So why are they not switching to KDE? Creating a good DE is no easy task and I don't think they have the means to do that or are they prepared to support it in the long run. I have zero expectations on this.
Arguably, making KDE stable is a heoric task and Wayland support is still meh. Plus KDE is based on Qt which uses C++ and they want to move away from that.
From what I know/assume/guess, they won't be going for a "full" GNOME replacement. They are fine with the GNOME apps, GTK as well (kind-of), the GNOME PIM integration etc. My bet is they will replace Mutter, the compositor/wm. And since Mutter is a hot mess of garbage anyway, this isn't too unreasonable. Plus, they got the talent and rumours are, they are hiring more talent every day.
6 Likes, Who?
Feel free to join the Pop community on Facebook. Ben opened a Q&A and you could ask System76 about the new DE:
Pop!_OS Facebook
Pop!_OS Facebook
0 Likes
What UI library are they going with would be interesting. Rust certainly is a good choice, I do not know of a lot of UI libraries or bindings which are reall well maintained at the moment.
1 Likes, Who?
What UI library are they going with would be interesting. Rust certainly is a good choice, I do not know of a lot of UI libraries or bindings which are reall well maintained at the moment.gtk-rs seems to be further along (and more official) than the available Qt bindings, but I couldn't say if it's quite production ready yet. That's no reason not to use either in an open source project of course. Nothing better to push these bindings along than actual projects using them.
3 Likes, Who?
On one hand, this is bad.
Linux fragmentation is already one of the primary downsides of the entire ecosystem vs a system that gathers and focuses developers on improving only a few alternatives.
On the other hand, I can't say that I'm particularly happy with Gnome and have switched away from it on every single OS installation I have at home.
Either towards KDE or Cinnamon (which, I know, is technically still based on Gnome but splitt off quite some time ago).
Don't really care much about another one written in Rust, but whatever works in the end is fine, and Rust can still support C/C++ libraries, so all should be well in that department.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 9 November 2021 at 2:56 pm UTC
Linux fragmentation is already one of the primary downsides of the entire ecosystem vs a system that gathers and focuses developers on improving only a few alternatives.
On the other hand, I can't say that I'm particularly happy with Gnome and have switched away from it on every single OS installation I have at home.
Either towards KDE or Cinnamon (which, I know, is technically still based on Gnome but splitt off quite some time ago).
Don't really care much about another one written in Rust, but whatever works in the end is fine, and Rust can still support C/C++ libraries, so all should be well in that department.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 9 November 2021 at 2:56 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
I absolutely love Pop!_os (writing this from it right now) so I see this as a good thing, as long as they can give it the proper support it deserves. I'm not sure a small hardware company like that can, but good on them for trying.
1 Likes, Who?
soulsource Nov 9, 2021
Canonical's Unity, once the bugs were fixed, was actually really good.
Canonical's Unity was basically the Gnome desktop environment with Compiz as Window Manager (and some hacks to GTK). It only worked as long as you didn't dare to even think about opening CompizConfig. Once you even remotely considered changing any Compiz setting away from the
As unhappy as I am with recent Gnome, Unity was imho even worse...
2 Likes, Who?
morgancoxuk Nov 9, 2021
Notice how many distro/desktop that tries to do anything other than have vanilla Gnome (Mint/Cinnamon, Solus/Budgie, Elementary/Pantheon, Ubuntu/Unity ) ends up having to write their own desktop... Which is proof than Gnome is a bad design (otherwise there would be no need for forks/re-writes).
Not many people have forked KDE for example as you are treated like an adult and can configure it how you want (usually easily)
Last edited by morgancoxuk on 9 November 2021 at 3:05 pm UTC
Not many people have forked KDE for example as you are treated like an adult and can configure it how you want (usually easily)
Last edited by morgancoxuk on 9 November 2021 at 3:05 pm UTC
7 Likes, Who?
EagleDelta Nov 9, 2021
Exciting, but I don't hold out much hope for their success. If a company like Canonical couldn't justify making 10 years worth of Unity development stick, I doubt System76 will somehow make it work either.
Unlike Canonical, who had to split their team between Desktop and Server, System76 has the capability to focus purely on the Desktop experience. Additionally, System76's primary revenue doesn't come from support contracts for software, but from Hardware sales, so Pop!_OS also isn't the revenue driver, but supports the revenue generating hardware sales.
I'm still happy to use Pop as a base for KDE though. It's a really slick foundation. The Pop shop is superb and I've never experienced a crash since using them.They have already note they will be using GTK for the DE. Simply because there is more GTK tooling available and it's easier to find developers that have experience with GTK.
Only contender? You're joking, right!? KDE is superb, XFCE was excellent last I tried. Budgie is slick as hell. Cinnamon? Mate? We're tripping over DE's that absolutely rock - functional, beautiful, varied desktops that only look as much like Windows as you actually want.
Cinnamon (and Mint) has many issues unique to that DE. So much so that the Lutris project has dropped community support for Linux Mint and Cinnamon due to the amount of issues they were having to monkey patch just for them (I.E. they won't fix issues specifically related to that distro or DE).
Last edited by EagleDelta on 9 November 2021 at 3:08 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Canonical's Unity, once the bugs were fixed, was actually really good.
Canonical's Unity was basically the Gnome desktop environment with Compiz as Window Manager (and some hacks to GTK). It only worked as long as you didn't dare to even think about opening CompizConfig. Once you even remotely considered changing any Compiz setting away from theGodCanonical-given default, your desktop was messed up beyond repair and your only option to get it working again was to nuke your compiz config files from orbit.
As unhappy as I am with recent Gnome, Unity was imho even worse...
As someone who frequently messed about with ccsm while using Unity, I do have to wonder what on earth you were changing to cause desktop instability!
To be honest, I frequently hear people talk about "desktop stability", and I just don't get it. I've very occasionally seen desktop crashes after heavy AAA gaming - I suspect some DEs are sensitive to compositing changes. But outside of that, how on earth do you crash your DE?? Honestly, if I saw my DE crash as a result of user-driven changes, I'd have to question using that DE. But I've used Mate, KDE, Gnome3/shell, and Cinnamon over the past two or three years while trying to find a new "home" and this just isn't a thing. I can't be that lucky??
As I say, Unity was rock solid too. I miss it, but I'm kind of happy that I ended up on a viable KDE desktop as a result of Canonical's decision to ditch it.
1 Likes, Who?
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