What Makes GNOME So Appealing?

The Linux desktop offers so many options, ranging from the overly simple to the very complex. You could go with Cinnamon, the default desktop for Linux Mint, which is about as simple as they come, to i3, a tiling window manager that is very efficient but has a pretty steep learning curve.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, you’ll find a plethora of desktop environments, each of which offers a different take on usage.

One of those desktop environments is GNOME, which stands for GNU Object Modeling Environment. GNOME has been around for a long time. I was lucky enough to hop on board the GNOME train way back during its beta stages, and I’ve used every iteration since (as well as desktops that are based on GNOME), and if there’s one way I would describe GNOME it would be:

Minimal but highly efficient.

Back in the earlier days of GNOME, it very much followed the traditional desktop path. There was a bottom panel, a menu, clickable desktop icons … essentially, all the trappings of a standard desktop. When GNOME 3 arrived (aka GNOME Shell), everything changed, and the Linux community was up in arms because they saw the change as unnecessary.

From my perspective, I welcomed the change. I felt GNOME (and many of the desktop environments) had become stale, and evolution was the only way forward. When GNOME 3 arrived on the scene, I was thrilled because it gave me exactly the desktop I wanted. On the surface, GNOME was the bare minimum, but very quickly I realized the truth: GNOME was a full-fledged desktop environment that simply got out of the way.

That last bit is important because it meant I could focus on the work and not the desktop. Yes, GNOME was minimal, but at the same time, it wasn’t. The GNOME desktop had all the parts necessary; they were just displayed and used in a way most people weren’t accustomed to.

• Instead of a desktop menu, there was the application overview.
• Instead of a panel, there was the Dash (looks like a dock when you open the overview).
• Instead of the traditional Linux virtual desktops, there were Workspaces.

Instead of seeing GNOME as a radical change, it was better to look at it as a logical evolution, the next phase in the desktop environment. On top of all that, it became apparent that the developers had touchscreen devices in mind when they made these changes. The old-school versions of GNOME couldn’t possibly function well with a touchscreen and GNOME 3 went a long way to prove that.

Touch screen or not, GNOME 3 arrived, and it changed things.

With the dust long settled over the change, what makes GNOME so appealing now? Let’s chat.

1. The Simplicity

Right out of the box, GNOME is ready to go. There’s no need to take care of any configurations (simple or complicated) because everything just works. On top of that, the workflow the developers have created is one of the most efficient you’ll ever find.

For example, open the Workspaces overview, and you’ll see a horizontal row of workspaces. You can then drag an application from the Dash to whatever workspace you want to hold that application (Figure 1).

Even better, you’ll start out with two workspaces. If you drag an app to the second workspace, GNOME automatically creates a third. That makes for a very efficient workflow.

As far as the Dash, you can add as many apps as you need to it by right-clicking an app in the App Overview and selecting Pin to Dash (Figure 2).

Another very handy feature of the Overview is the search, which not only allows you to search for applications, but also for files (Figure 3).

The search feature is fast and accurate and will show results for files, applications, installable applications and more.

2. The Expandability

This one has been hotly debated for years. Out of the box, GNOME seems as though it’s not very flexible, and that’s basically true. The default configuration options are pretty limited. However, there’s a little thing called GNOME Extensions, which are add-ons to extend the feature set of GNOME.

For example, you could install Dash to Dock to move the GNOME Dash to a more traditional dock (Figure 4).

There are tons of GNOME Shell extensions that change the way GNOME looks, functions and even connects to third-party services. You’ll find an extension for just about anything you need on the official GNOME Extensions site, but do keep in mind that you have to use Firefox to install them.

3. The Performance

When GNOME 3 first arrived on the scene, it was doggedly slow, and it’s taken the developers several years to iron out the issues. Modern GNOME, however, is as fast and stable as any desktop environment on the market. Applications open almost immediately, animations are smooth, and you never feel as if GNOME is going to crash… because it doesn’t. GNOME is rock solid, and I haven’t had an issue with crashes in years.

In the end, there’s a lot to love about GNOME. And even though you might think, at first blush, that GNOME has little to offer, it only takes a few minutes to understand how wrong that assumption is.

If you want to give GNOME a try, I would suggest downloading an ISO of the latest (main) Fedora or Debian release, as both of them default to the GNOME desktop and give you a fairly stock experience.