I guess I'm one. For some uses I want to be able to capture literally thousands of lines in a terminal session. I used to be able to do that with gnome-term. The "edit > select all" used to select the entire scrollback buffer. Now it just selects the visible portion. There is no option to change to the previous behavior. The value for providing that option is deemed not sufficient for the additional code complexity.
Yes, I know there are other ways to do this (e.g. screen), but they require planning in advance and I don't always know when I want to do that. There have been other things that I used that have also been removed over the time that I used Gnome.
I appreciate Gnome for the smooth experience they provide but have switched to KDE which better meets my needs and wants.
That’s an application, not a DE, problem. There is no reason to use the defaults if you have particular needs, or spend much time in some environment.
People don’t make much art in MS Paint, or code in Notepad, despite those being the default for most computer users.
I think GNOME is very explicit in pushing you towards using independent applications that best fit your needs, while also providing simple to use, but not very feature-rich, defaults. I appreciate that approach.
That was my point: I understand who power users of terminals are; I understand who power users of graphics software are; I understand who power users of CAD are. But a DE is a glorified application launcher; there really isn’t much there of which to be a power user.
> People don’t make much art in MS Paint, or code in Notepad, despite those being the default for most computer users.
This is very Windows-specific problem. macOS, iOS, Android, ChromeOS, KDE nowadays all include decent sets of apps, thankfully. I will not miss the days of installing PDF readers (half of them full of ads), ZIP decompressors, image viewers (IfranView), MP3 players, etc.
Sadly, last time I was daily-driving GNOME (~2 years ago), this was exactly my experience - Evince was extremely laggy on big PDFs compared to Okular, Eye of Gnome had little functionality compared to Gwenview, File Roller lacked drag-and-drop and some formats that Ark supported, Gnome Terminal lacked many keyboard shortcuts that Konsole had, Gnome Software looked like just a proof-of-concept, etc.
> I think GNOME is very explicit in pushing you towards using independent applications
I wasn't aware this is the case, but I could accept this philosophy and be happy... if the distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) shared this opinion and thus made their default flavor have GNOME WM with e.g. KDE apps. Sadly this is not the case, so I've started recommending my non-tech-savvy friends (that became curious to try out Linux since Windows got so bad) to go for full KDE experience.
> This is very Windows-specific problem. macOS, iOS, Android, ChromeOS, KDE nowadays all include decent sets of apps, thankfully.
My examples of a drawing app and a text editor stand, I think.
> if the distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) shared this opinion and thus made their default flavor have GNOME WM with e.g. KDE apps
A distribution, typically, does not have a better way to guess your preferences than a DE does. Pushing overloaded applications on everyone is not a solution.
> I've started recommending my non-tech-savvy friends (that became curious to try out Linux since Windows got so bad) to go for full KDE experience
The ones that want a DE that works exactly how they like it. I quickly lose my focus from having to deal with even the most minor annoyances and KDE lets me change the little things very easily.
Second part does not make any sense though because power users come in various forms and shapes. Not every power user need to customize the hell out of their desktop. Some prefer, just let me do my work and get out of my way kind of a desktop.
Which tend to break on every release... unless you're using an older version of Gnome... which you never want to do because there's always one core feature you need that is built into a later version of gnome.
No, they don't. Most of the time updating an extension for a new gnome version is simply a matter of adding a number in the manifest file, but even when it isn't, they all get updated very quickly. Gnome 45 changed some core APIs so basically every extension had to be updated, and yet from ~10 extensions I use only 1 was not supported immediately upon GNOME 45 release, and even it got updated less than a week later.
>Nah it's the most capable desktop on Linux these days.
I still haven't used anything more 'just works' and 'capable' than xfce, what has KDE added in the past decade or so since I used it that made it 'most capable'?
KDE is not even remotely a clusterfuck. It is stable and has been a reliable desktop for my job for years. KDE and Gnome are the two most popular desktop environments on Linux and both are stable and usable.