Re: using Gnome-Shell with 90% of all applications is absolute garbage.

[jordan <triplesquarednine gmail com>]

> By "cairo's", do you mean http://cairo-compmgr.tuxfamily.org/ ?

yes, indeedy.

> Ssome simple hardware information would help: if you are using a proprietary
> driver like nvidia's, performance is slow, as was compiz was at first.
> nvidia eventually fixed their driver for compiz, and now it's blazing fast.
> Similarly, I've heard that the latest beta version of nvidia's proprietary
> driver supports gnome-shell much better.

2x Pentium (R) E6300 CPU 2.80GHz / 8gig RAM
Nvidia 9400GT  (using Latest driver 270.41)
ArchLinux (64bit) 2.6.38-4-ck / MacOSX

AMD Phenom II 965 black editon (quad-core) 8gig DDR3
Nvidia 9800GT (using 270.41)
Archlinux (64bit) / KxStudio 10.10 (ubuntu derived - minus default KDE)

Im definitely using the latest driver.. and as far as Archlinux is
concerned, i stay away from the "testing" repo,
and my system is rock solid stable (in gnome 2.32 anyway), more solid
than Ubuntu 10.10+, Fedora 14+ or any other distributionthat i have
used, that is as close, in the sense of being modern with the latest
software, etc.

> If we can get a bug with your software/hardware setup, and some hard numbers
> with  the included performance tool, that would be even better! See
> http://blog.fishsoup.net/2010/05/26/measuring-gnome-shell-performance/ for
> some details.

I'll look into this, i probably won't get a chance to do much until
the weekend, though.
thank you for the links.

> The big thing is that we shouldn't really write the same piece of code four
> or five times to handle alternative audio backends, so we chose PulseAudio,
> which was already a major component of every major gnome desktop, including
> the volume applet and control panel, so it seemed to be a sane choice for a
> dependency.

The problem with this logic is A:) PA sits on top of ALSA and PA is
NOT Linux's audio architexture, period.
it is a shotty attempt to deal with certain limitations in alsa - that
contrary to popular belief, does not affect everyone.

B)  PA is only the default on distro's like Ubuntu.  If i install
Gnome in Fedora, PA is an option (if i want to install it like that),
same with Arch.

Gnome-Shell should work the same way.  there should be an ALSAMIXER
applet option for those who know
the annoyance that PA can be. the fact PA seems to be required to have
proper sound in Gnome-shell, is short-sided.

> JACK is quite complicated to set up, so I doubt JACK would ever be
> supported.

If you mean by gnome having controls built in for Jack, of course not.
But remember Jack-audio-connection-kit
is one of Linux's "Killer applications" - just look at how many
distributions have been based around it.
and Jack is stupid simple to setup in most distributions:

1. install Jack
2. add username to "audio" group
3. edit /etc/security/limits.conf (in arch), and in most other
distro's it in another sub-folder under a name very similar.
    which depending on what distro you are using, it can be automatically added.
4. install a proper kernel, either trhough a binary, or compilation

Four steps is not simple enough?  (the only one that would give any
trouble is #4 - if you manually compile the kernel,
but that isn't even particularily difficult, in ANY distribution.

> ... and if PulseAudio has some problems with chipset support, file a bug!

That's already been done by other people. EDIT: and it would seem it
now has been fixed.
>From my perspective (and im not alone on this, PA is just an
annoyance, not something my desktop "depends" on)

> This is another performance complaint?

the xrun thing yes... You can't have xruns when your working on a
track. If i want to switch to a different window/desktop
to adjust something while recording, i may end up with clicks and
noises in my recording. that is completely unacceptable.

sort of, Gnome-shell is very reliant on all of it's flashiness, which
seems to get in Jack's way - that's a problem!
it means anyone using Jack - probably shouldn't be using gnome3.

> The biggest resource related to that I can find is the evas-based version of
> their Netbook Desktop Environment, which is a different beast entirely.

I don't know enough about Unity 2d to comment on that, other than to
say a friend of mine runs it on his laptop
because he as well uses a lot of applications with 3D acceleration, in
his case though - he is a gamer, both native/linux games and also
through Wine ~ Wine games play nicer without compiz, apparently too.
so where does that leave my friend?
it's a huge inconvience NOT present in Gnome2.

The main point here is that Gnome should be supporting both a 2d and
3d environment.  The current "fallback" mode
should be a focus in gnome.  While, yes it is supported and there.
fallback mode doesn't provide the kind of environment that Gnome2
does....

> We set a bunch of goals, and we were tight on time and needed to make a
> release. I think we did an excellent job managing the time and limitations
> we had, and hopefully it only gets better. gnome 3.0 is only the beginning,
> and hopefully every release should improve as much as gnome 3.0 did on 2.32!

yes, and i do understand with Ubuntu decision to drop Gnome-shell, and
make Unity and with Gnome3 being pushed back a few times. I totally
understand that. I'm quite sure you guys have had your hands full...
and don't get me wrong, i appreciate all the hard work that is being
done. Gnome3 is a big project, for sure... and i am hoping that it
shapes up. Like i said, i prefer a gnome environment.

Jordan