A crashed disk and its replacement gave me the opportunity to do a fresh install of Fedora 28. As I am usually wont to do, I tried to incorporate the default options for most things, and some changes (at least for me) I wanted to try included the following:
- Trying out GNOME again
- No password for root user (like Ubuntu)
- Default partitioning using LVM
- Fresh installs of all apps and their own configuration
Now, there are usually some things that I change almost as soon as I get on a new system. Amongst those are my preferences for Bash, including an “unlimited” Bash history (e.g., HISTSIZE=HISTFILESIZE=1000000), etckeeper for managing my /etc, and several other things I don’t intend to go into.
The biggest change, as usual, was giving GNOME one more chance. I loved GNOME 2.x and its interface, and I was amongst those that grumbled when GNOME Shell was introduced with version 3. However, I always felt I should give it a fair shake, but unfortunately, it always convinces me to return back to its spiritual successor, MATE (which is a fork of GNOME 2).
In this case, the turning point for me was the fact that within the first couple of days I experienced several crashes to the login screen and progressively slowing performance as I got the system configured the way I like. Yes, I have some extensions installed, but I had my first crash before any of them were there.
Long story short, I don’t remember the last time MATE crashed on me, and given that it’s relatively lightweight, it never felt so sluggish for me. I am back at that point once again, but it’s not for trying.
Will I never try GNOME again? Probably not. But right now, I want to know that just invoking the overview mode or unlocking my screen isn’t going to crash my environment and lose my running state. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
P.S. If this sounds overly negative, I understand. I had a rough day and came home kind of frustrated, to being greeted by a non-cooperative DE probably pushed me over the line and drove me back into the comfort of the familiar. Please take this all in that context.