Thank you the detail. The philosophy is that Gnome is NOT configurable, really, just does a VERY limited and consistent desktop thing. It doesn't even have icons on the desktop (by default).
I find that it is "easy" for most users -- there is really nothing there! If you want icons on the desktop, add an extension for that. And, the idea of extensions is that they are small programs that are easy to manage. It is possible to turn them all off with a click! (if they are getting in the way).
I just counted -- I have 36 extensions on my Gnome 41. Note that icons on the desktop = extension, start menu for programs = extension. You can certainly start programs without a start menu -- that is the default "Gnome Way".
On the other hand -- being able to consistently customize is very nice (I particularly like "argos" extension, which makes it delightfully easy to
add buttons, gather and display information and more -- and as a bonus, is
fully compatible with the MacOS bitbar plugin.
Yes, I use a lot of extensions, but I do have 4 or 8GB of RAM is my laptops, and i3 or better processors, so this becomes a reasonable fit for me.
Thank you the detail. The philosophy is that Gnome is NOT configurable, really, just does a VERY limited and consistent desktop thing. It doesn't even have icons on the desktop (by default).
I find that it is "easy" for most users -- there is really nothing there! If you want icons on the desktop, add an extension for that. And, the idea of extensions is that they are small programs that are easy to manage. It is possible to turn them all off with a click! (if they are getting in the way).
I just counted -- I have 36 extensions on my Gnome 41. Note that icons on the desktop = extension, start menu for programs = extension. You can certainly start programs without a start menu -- that is the default "Gnome Way".
On the other hand -- being able to consistently customize is very nice (I particularly like "argos" extension, which makes it delightfully easy to add buttons, gather and display information and more -- and as a bonus, is fully compatible with the MacOS bitbar plugin.
Yes, I use a lot of extensions, but I do have 4 or 8GB of RAM is my laptops, and i3 or better processors, so this becomes a reasonable fit for me.