I used to change themes a lot back in the day ; now I just wish for a usable desktop that doesn't get in my way, and Gnome / KDE are awful from that point of view.
That's the reason why I'm developing software on Linux, but dual-boot in a Windows 7 partition for design-related work, as that requires mouse-based interactions, and in Gnome I can't even rely on copy/paste to work properly.
Changing themes and fonts is nice, but shouldn't be a priority. For me priorities would be having basic functionality, like copy/paste, working properly; or how about a task-switching applet (activated on alt-tab) that can use the mouse to select the window you want; or desktop notification windows that you can close (those notifications in Ubuntu are really obnoxious) ... this has always been the story of the Linux desktop for me, i.e. death by a thousand cuts.
For me priorities would be having basic
functionality, like copy/paste, working properly
It really should work. Since ages. Care to elaborate where copy and paste doesn't work in Gnome? Cause that's really a bug.
or how about a task-switching applet (activated
on alt-tab) that can use the mouse to select the
window you want;
You can do that with Gnome 3. Press Alt-Tab, hold down Alt and click around to your app. Works like a charm here.
or desktop notification windows that you can
close (those notifications in Ubuntu are really
obnoxious)
In Gnome 3 (and also Gnome 2 fwiw) you can close the notifications by clicking on them. But even better, in Gnome 3 you can set yourself as busy (click on your name in the top-right corner and select "Busy") so notifications will stay silent in the hidden notification area and won't disturb you.
It really should work. Since ages. Care
to elaborate where copy and paste doesn't
work in Gnome?
Copy something in one app, close it, then try pasting in another app -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on the app or on its mood, and this behavior has been going on for ages, up until Ubuntu 10.10, which I'm using.
I'm happy to find that Gnome 3 has usability improvements. I'll definitely try it out.
I don't know what I'm confused about, and I don't really care about technical details -- the behavior of copy/paste has been inconsistent to me.
Reading that article, if it really is the reason for what is happening, it kind of makes sense, but that's no comfort to me when I'm losing my selection because I have closed the origin; behavior that isn't even consistent across apps.
I understand. I only use a Mac because I get a simple, consistent desktop that works right out of the box. Still, the user should have the ability to at least change the default fonts and UI color. Some people might prefer larger fonts, others might find too many colors in the UI distracting.
Winkey+w or winkey+e allows you to choose a window or desktop by mouse clicking. Copy/paste used to suck, but with newer ubuntu versions it works well for me. Notifications are not nice, I agree with you.
Unfortunately I have disabled Compiz because for some reason the NVidia drivers are hanging my computer when I'm shutting down -- and now after I switched to Nouveau, my screen doesn't light up when waking up from sleep.
And without those effects enabled, the show-all-windows shortcuts won't work.
And some would like to change the way the OS stacks windows, et cetera, et cetera. Picking great defaults is good enough for the vast majority of users, you don't have to waste your time implemnting ever more preferences and can focus on the important stuff.
