[HN Gopher] I ended up liking GNOME with the loss of one hand
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I ended up liking GNOME with the loss of one hand
Author : zdw
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-11-14 04:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (dataswamp.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (dataswamp.org)
| PKop wrote:
| Ended _up_ liking it? Or stopped liking it? I can 't understand
| the title given the text of the post was blank (and confusing
| when read in the comments here..)
| belval wrote:
| I read it as "ended up liking it", "ended liking it" does not
| make a whole lot of sense as a native speaker would most likely
| say "stopped liking it" instead.
| PKop wrote:
| >a native speaker would most likely say
|
| But you could also assume the title and post was written by a
| _non_ native speaker (which appears to be true), then you are
| still confused.
| Arnavion wrote:
| It is indeed the former.
| titaniumtown wrote:
| Gnome is pretty good. Started using it again after a while of
| using kde. I fell in love with it again. Really wish that the top
| bar was used as a global menu like in MacOS though.
| lights0123 wrote:
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4114/fildem-global-me...
| exists, but only kind of supports GNOME 40
| still_grokking wrote:
| But you know you can have a global menu out-of-the-box on KDE?
| anthk wrote:
| Mmmh...
|
| CWM with a custom ~/.cwmrc with Super+left hand keys makes the
| layout pretty usable.
|
| Anyway, I hope she gets better.
| tfolbrecht wrote:
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1jm-iL...
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _I like having an hostile (desktop /shell/computer) environment
| to stay sharp and not being stuck on ideas._
|
| I really like this idea, it reminds me of something my dad used
| to do, that I copied as much as I could. Whenever I drive
| somewhere regularly, I try not to go the same way twice in a row.
| As long as it doesn't add too much time, I will take a different
| major road, or if that's not an option I'll take different side
| roads.
| llimllib wrote:
| I recently fell and broke my right hand, and had to get screws in
| it, so it was out of commission for 4 months or so (it's fine
| now).
|
| It was a giant pain in the butt. The best thing I found for OS X
| was the `half-qwerty keyboard emulation (rev 2)`[1] Karabiner
| plugin, that let me type with one hand by holding the space bar
| to mirror the keyboard layout.
|
| I got OK at it, but I went from my normal 100ish wpm down to an
| error-filled 15wpm or so, which fundamentally changed the way I
| work. It was very unpleasant and I don't recommend it.
|
| I bet with more practice that I could have gotten up to 30ish wpm
| one-handed, but thankfully I didn't have to do it for too long.
|
| 1: https://ke-complex-modifications.pqrs.org/?q=qwerty
| chris_wot wrote:
| Strange... this makes it sound like they don't like Gnome, but
| actually they ended _up_ liking Gnome.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Title suggests she stopped liking gnome, but its the opposite?
| titaniumtown wrote:
| Yea. That was very confusing.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The author doesn't seem to be a native English speaker. She
| probably meant "ended _up_ liking GNOME " rather than "ended
| liking GNOME". Mistakes like these are easy to make as a non-
| native speaker.
|
| I don't know if the Gemini protocol (using which this article
| seems to have been published) has a way to correct the title,
| or if the author is even reading these comments.
| markstos wrote:
| It seems "ended _up_ liking Gnome " was intended, like "In the
| end, I liked Gnome".
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This doesn't load right for me on mobile (even with desktop
| mode). I am only getting the title.
| janeroe wrote:
| Same story on desktop. It shows all the stuff I didn't ask for
| (pronouns, hobbies, etc.) but no actual content.
| typon wrote:
| Does this post appear empty for everyone?
| marton78 wrote:
| Only for those with two hands.
| aerojoe23 wrote:
| Did the site get hugged to death?
| notRobot wrote:
| Text of post:
|
| How I ended liking GNOME Author: Solene
| Date: 10 November 2021 Tags: life unix gnome
|
| Introduction
|
| Hi! This was a while without much activity on my blog, the reason
| is that I stabbed through my right index with a knife by
| accident, the injury was so bad I can barely use my right hand
| because I couldn't move my index at all without pain. So I've
| been stuck with only my left hand for a month now. Good news,
| it's finally getting better :)
|
| Which leads me to the topic of this article, why I ended liking
| GNOME!
|
| Why I didn't use GNOME
|
| I will first start about why I didn't use it before. I like to
| try everything all the time, I like disruption, I like having an
| hostile (desktop/shell/computer) environment to stay sharp and
| not being stuck on ideas.
|
| My current setup was using Fvwm or Stumpwm, mostly keyboard
| driven, with many virtual desktop to spatially regroup different
| activities. However, with an injured hand, I've been facing a big
| issue, most of my key binding were for two hands and it seemed
| too weird for me to change the bindings to work with one hand.
|
| I tried to adapt using only one hand, but I got poor results and
| using the cursor was not very efficient because stumpwm is
| hostile to cursor and fvwm is not really great for this either.
|
| The road to GNOME
|
| With only one hand to use my computer, I found the awesome
| program ibus-typing-booster to help me typing by auto completing
| words (a bit like on touchscreen phones), it worked out of the
| box with GNOME due to the ibus integration working well. I used
| GNOME to debug the package but ended liking it in my current
| condition.
|
| How do I like it now, while I was pestling about it a few months
| ago as I found it very confusing? Because it's easy to use and
| spared me movements with my hands, absolutely.
| The activity menu is easy to browse, icons are big, dock is big.
| I've been using a trackball with my left hand instead of the
| usual right hand, aiming at a small task bar was super hard so I
| was happy to have big icons everywhere, only when I wanted them
| I actually always liked the alt+tab for windows and alt+2 (on my
| keyboard the key up to TAB is 2, must be ~ for qwerty keyboards)
| for switching into same kind of window alt+tab actually
| display everything available (it's not per virtual desktop)
| I can easily view windows or move them between virtual desktop
| when pressing "super" key
|
| This is certainly doing in MATE or Xfce too without much work,
| but it's out of the box with GNOME. It's perfectly usable without
| knowing any keyboard shortcut.
|
| Mixed feelings
|
| I'm pretty sure I'll return to my previous environment once my
| finger/hand because I have a better feeling with it and I find it
| more usable. But I have to thanks the GNOME project to work on
| this desktop environment that is easy to use and quite
| accessible.
|
| It's important to put into perspective when dealing with desktop
| environment. GNOME may not be the most performing and ergonomic
| desktop, but it's accessible, easy to use and forgiving people
| who doesn't want to learn tons of key bindings or can't do them.
|
| Conclusion
|
| There is a very recurrent question I see on IRC or forums: what's
| the best desktop environment/window manager? What are YOU using?
| I stopped having a bold opinion about this topic, I simply reply
| there are many desktop environments because they are many kind of
| people and the person asking the question need to find the right
| one to suiting them.
|
| Update (2021-11-11)
|
| Using the xfdashboard program and assigning it to Super key
| allows to mimic the GNOME "activity" view in your favorite window
| manager: choosing windows, moving them between desktops, running
| applications. I think this can easily turn any window manager
| into something more accessible, or at least "GNOME like".
| Macha wrote:
| Seems the content is broken on the web version, found you can
| view the gemini version with a gemini to web proxy (e.g.
| https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/perso.pw/blog/articles/how-I-e... )
| drewg123 wrote:
| I got a gateway timeout... If you have the text, can you post
| it?
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Here's the original markdown, hosted as a Gist. The original
| markdown came from thier RSS feed which seems to contain the
| original markdown instead of HTML.
|
| Gist of the contents: https://gist.github.com/lelandbatey/0d6
| 99715405d9f1b61991f09...
|
| RSS feed which contained the Markdown of the original:
| https://dataswamp.org/~solene/rss.xml
| notRobot wrote:
| How I ended liking GNOME Author: Solene
| Date: 10 November 2021 Tags: life unix gnome
|
| Introduction
|
| Hi! This was a while without much activity on my blog, the
| reason is that I stabbed through my right index with a knife
| by accident, the injury was so bad I can barely use my right
| hand because I couldn't move my index at all without pain. So
| I've been stuck with only my left hand for a month now. Good
| news, it's finally getting better :)
|
| Which leads me to the topic of this article, why I ended
| liking GNOME!
|
| Why I didn't use GNOME
|
| I will first start about why I didn't use it before. I like
| to try everything all the time, I like disruption, I like
| having an hostile (desktop/shell/computer) environment to
| stay sharp and not being stuck on ideas.
|
| My current setup was using Fvwm or Stumpwm, mostly keyboard
| driven, with many virtual desktop to spatially regroup
| different activities. However, with an injured hand, I've
| been facing a big issue, most of my key binding were for two
| hands and it seemed too weird for me to change the bindings
| to work with one hand.
|
| I tried to adapt using only one hand, but I got poor results
| and using the cursor was not very efficient because stumpwm
| is hostile to cursor and fvwm is not really great for this
| either.
|
| The road to GNOME
|
| With only one hand to use my computer, I found the awesome
| program ibus-typing-booster to help me typing by auto
| completing words (a bit like on touchscreen phones), it
| worked out of the box with GNOME due to the ibus integration
| working well. I used GNOME to debug the package but ended
| liking it in my current condition.
|
| How do I like it now, while I was pestling about it a few
| months ago as I found it very confusing? Because it's easy to
| use and spared me movements with my hands, absolutely.
| The activity menu is easy to browse, icons are big, dock is
| big. I've been using a trackball with my left hand instead of
| the usual right hand, aiming at a small task bar was super
| hard so I was happy to have big icons everywhere, only when I
| wanted them I actually always liked the alt+tab for
| windows and alt+2 (on my keyboard the key up to TAB is 2,
| must be ~ for qwerty keyboards) for switching into same kind
| of window alt+tab actually display everything
| available (it's not per virtual desktop) I can easily
| view windows or move them between virtual desktop when
| pressing "super" key
|
| This is certainly doing in MATE or Xfce too without much
| work, but it's out of the box with GNOME. It's perfectly
| usable without knowing any keyboard shortcut.
|
| Mixed feelings
|
| I'm pretty sure I'll return to my previous environment once
| my finger/hand because I have a better feeling with it and I
| find it more usable. But I have to thanks the GNOME project
| to work on this desktop environment that is easy to use and
| quite accessible.
|
| It's important to put into perspective when dealing with
| desktop environment. GNOME may not be the most performing and
| ergonomic desktop, but it's accessible, easy to use and
| forgiving people who doesn't want to learn tons of key
| bindings or can't do them.
|
| Conclusion
|
| There is a very recurrent question I see on IRC or forums:
| what's the best desktop environment/window manager? What are
| YOU using? I stopped having a bold opinion about this topic,
| I simply reply there are many desktop environments because
| they are many kind of people and the person asking the
| question need to find the right one to suiting them.
|
| Update (2021-11-11)
|
| Using the xfdashboard program and assigning it to Super key
| allows to mimic the GNOME "activity" view in your favorite
| window manager: choosing windows, moving them between
| desktops, running applications. I think this can easily turn
| any window manager into something more accessible, or at
| least "GNOME like".
| _def wrote:
| I like gnome 3 and use it for some years now. I sort of depend on
| some extensions for my work flow of choice but I'm happy with it.
| tombert wrote:
| GNOME 3/Shell was something I hated with every fiber in my body
| until someone told me to actually give it a chance. They said
| "don't compare it to Windows, don't compare it to macOS, don't
| compare it to Gnome 2, just try and learn its idioms and go from
| there".
|
| It turns out, at least for me, he was 100% right. I grew to
| _really_ like Gnome after I dropped all preconceived notions
| about what it was supposed to be. I ended up loving the fact that
| the number of virtual desktops is dynamic, I ended up really
| liking how much could be done without a mouse, and I ended up
| being kind of surprised how it was both pretty _and_ fast on my
| (admittedly fairly beefy) laptop.
|
| I use macOS right now dude to the fact that I got it at a
| discount, but the next computer I buy will probably be a Linux
| machine, and it will probably be running Gnome.
| smoldesu wrote:
| GNOME 3 is truly phenomenal, not enough people give it credit
| for being a nearly perfect touchscreen OS with powerful desktop
| options front-and-center. By comparison, the new GNOME 40
| release feels like a lazy attempt at trying to be MacOS, which
| is _definitely_ not what GNOME meant to me. Now that the
| majority of extensions are broken again, it 's even harder to
| tune it for my personal workflow. I had to ditch it for KDE,
| unfortunately. I hope they head in a more interface-agnostic
| approach, for the future.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Generally I find this to be a rewarding strategy for
| approaching digital interfaces: try to understand what the
| designer was going for, and go with the flow. Often it works
| quite well, and while a small deviation might be more similar
| to what you are used to, the friction it causes with other
| parts of the interface can offset those benefits.
| dEnigma wrote:
| For people with Gemini clients, this URL works:
|
| gemini://perso.pw/blog/articles/how-I-ended-liking-gnome.gmi
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(page generated 2021-11-15 23:00 UTC)