I use Gnome as my main driver, have for the last 7-ish years, and on and off before that, so I’m no Gnome hater by any means, but I’ve been using Linux since 1996. Part of what I LOVED was absolute control. I used 1990’s themeable Gnome and then VTWM as my primary window manager because you could script EVERY aspect of your experience (I got rid of title bars for example). Modern Gnome meets my daily driver needs best, but I use KDE where I can elsewhere because it’s just fighting against me less for ideological reasons. I get you need a like philosophy for a project like Gnome to not go crazy, but like… I’d honestly be fine if you could reliably have your basic extensions survive updates, but a random set of extensions that make your desktop how you like die for x months (or maybe permanently) with EVERY new version, and yes, eventually an equivalent or better extension will come along, but a lot of why I like open source is NOT having my preferred windowing settings killed by committee whim with updates. I lag behind updating which helps, but it’s no panacea. If the extensions for basic window manager features that should be there like theming and such, it would be a better user experience because you would have things you can rely on not changing per release.
ya i also use gnome and kinda just wish the customizations were built in. but i have to say idk what it is but gnome just seems to feel so much smoother. Like its animations, and app switching experience. I think its way of doing things is perfect for a laptop, and i prefer closer to the typical windows layout for a desktop. On a laptop the screens a bit small so i auto hide the dock, and hide the top bar and just run everything in full screen. If i wanna check the time or access top bar menus i just tap the super key real quick then tap it again when im done. I use pretty few extensions, but i do worry sometimes ill get fucked by an update lol. So far so good tho for me.
I use Gnome as my main driver, have for the last 7-ish years, and on and off before that, so I’m no Gnome hater by any means, but I’ve been using Linux since 1996. Part of what I LOVED was absolute control. I used 1990’s themeable Gnome and then VTWM as my primary window manager because you could script EVERY aspect of your experience (I got rid of title bars for example). Modern Gnome meets my daily driver needs best, but I use KDE where I can elsewhere because it’s just fighting against me less for ideological reasons. I get you need a like philosophy for a project like Gnome to not go crazy, but like… I’d honestly be fine if you could reliably have your basic extensions survive updates, but a random set of extensions that make your desktop how you like die for x months (or maybe permanently) with EVERY new version, and yes, eventually an equivalent or better extension will come along, but a lot of why I like open source is NOT having my preferred windowing settings killed by committee whim with updates. I lag behind updating which helps, but it’s no panacea. If the extensions for basic window manager features that should be there like theming and such, it would be a better user experience because you would have things you can rely on not changing per release.
ya i also use gnome and kinda just wish the customizations were built in. but i have to say idk what it is but gnome just seems to feel so much smoother. Like its animations, and app switching experience. I think its way of doing things is perfect for a laptop, and i prefer closer to the typical windows layout for a desktop. On a laptop the screens a bit small so i auto hide the dock, and hide the top bar and just run everything in full screen. If i wanna check the time or access top bar menus i just tap the super key real quick then tap it again when im done. I use pretty few extensions, but i do worry sometimes ill get fucked by an update lol. So far so good tho for me.