And that Easter Egg qualifies as discoverable how? GNOME developers have repeatedly said that laptops are their focus. I think we should believe them. Then again, they also say that discoverability is important and then you look at bug reports. My issues with GNOME run much farther than this, but I think it appropriately illustrates the narrow vision of GNOME "designers."

As I get older I find I have less desire and time to shop Desktops. KDE 3 was (and probably still is) my preferred Desktop. I followed KDE 4 for quite a while but two years in it was still a huge regression for me. At that point I am done. I'm not going to try every 6 months, I'm going to cut my losses. At this point, I am thinking about trying KDE again. The thought that users will smile about not having something usable for two plus years and then will happily and immediately come back might be a fallacy. However, I have just as much evidence for my point of view as you do. :-) At this point, having been on Windows 7 (because I thought GNOME 2 was too limiting) I will give MATE, Cinnamon and KDE each a short audition and then make my choice for the next few years.

The better SystemD integration is a bit rich as it feels like the reason Debian went to SystemD was as a favor/benefit to GNOME. GNOME needs SystemD lets default to it, now we need to default to GNOME because it has the best SystemD integration.

Extensions suck: http://soylentnews.org/comment...

That said, I really dislike a DE that relies on an overview mode as the flashing really aggravates my ADHD. I use minimize to move windows to the back of alt-tab (hey I need to edit a conf file and install another extension), but that is now broken because McCann thought something else looked ugly, so broken by design, a blocker. And I want a file manager that hasn't been neutered. And what I miss most on Linux is Kasbar (the best taskbar ever) and I don't get any taskbar in GNOME. I am not a prospective GNOME user.

In forums and bug reports people have asked how to suspend and are always told that the preferred way is to close the lid. See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/sh... for one example. But GNOME developers have said the primary target is laptops so I guess I should be surprised.

Then why are lusers told to shut the lid to their monitor to suspend? I know that isn't going to work on my workstation.

GNOME most popular desktop, needs a citation. GNOME marketshare _really_ needs a citation as I am guessing that there is no dominant desktop on Linux at the moment.

I don't care if it is designed by Hipsters or not. Minimize no longer moves a window to the back of alt-tab, a blocker issue. And anyone with a hint of ADHD can't use a desktop with an overview mode. Sequence of flashes is seriously distracting. Closing my two monitor, large tower in order to suspend is also fricking hilarious (albite not a blocker).

There is a huge difference between allowed and done by default. The it is only a line or two in the configuration file isn't exactly what I am looking for, I just want it to work. Maybe I'm just at an odd spot where I am technical enough to read the logs and get an idea of what is going on if things break and yet not having the desire to google the configuration and setting it up. Yes I _can_ do it, but I just want to be a user and have my computer work. I suppose that truly nontechnical people wouldn't know about the logs and couldn't use them anyway, and truly technical people just edit the configuration file; I might just be an outlier. That said, there is a reason text is so beautiful and so often used in Unix and Linux and I have not seen a single reason for binary logging.

The students I have seen using Linux are mostly running Cinnamon or KDE. One loves Unity. None are on GNOME. Not a random sample but apparently Cinnamon and KDE are the clear winners in their tech classes at a Career Center (pulls students for part of the day from around the area).

Apparently it depends a great deal on where you are at. Would be interesting if LinuxCounter or something ran a survey as we know how worthless internet polls are. A random sampling from lwn.net or LinuxCounter would carry a lot more weight but probably never happen.

Most users could care less about running GNOME. We will see if Cinnamon, Mate and KDE make SystemD a hard requirement.

I know I do not have enough knowledge to critique SystemD, SysV or UselessD. That said, I want text logging to disk with no configuration. If I need to learn new commands to read the logs, I'm just not going to do it. At most I will have one Linux box running at home. Pushing 40 with a kid and another on the way configuring my computer has become a hassle and a headache that I don't need. Was there a time when I compiled kernels for fun? Yup, but that ship said over a decade ago. The few times I've needed the logs it is simple just to less or vi and just read the thing. Hopefully Mint will default to giving me my text files. I'm actually about to install Linux again after a multiyear break related entirely to desktop unusability.

Given the size of text logs I am guessing this isn't the actual reason. But the best I can come up with is: "Oh, Shiny!"

I know next to nothing about systemd. I can't argue for or against. However, at most I will have one system at home running linux. Before on the rare occasion I had a problem I could type "less log" and look at the log. With systemd I have to do something more complicated. It might be better for an admin but I just don't have the time or inclination to learn syntax for reading a log, even assuming a shallow learning curve. It isn't my occupation, vocation or interest; especially as I hope to be looking at the logs no more often than once every year or two. Possibly the text logs are propagated automagically and most of my argument happily goes up in smoke; however, why the hell is it a binary log in the first place?

Actually Common Core was an initiative started by States, not the Federal Government. http://www.usnews.com/news/spe....

But absolutely agree with the rest of your post.

A book, a worksheet, etc. are not common core. Common core is a set of standards. Things like: "being able to solve a two step equation." Your school bought a crap book. This happened before common core and will happen after common core. And there is no way that is a common core rubric (I have yet to see a common core rubric), that's your teacher.

Bite me. I came to teaching after 7 years in the private sector. I work harder now, including the summers.