CozyNet Blog

My experience with Ubuntu 25.04 and the GNOME desktop

As some of you probably know, I like my desktops very traditional. You know the layout, think taskbar with individual tasks for each application, quick launch shortcuts, a start button, system tray icons with a clock, title bars with floating movable windows, menu bars.

I tend to lean in heavily on the maximalist side of a personal computing desktop environment because I want everything to be readily accessible and visible at all times.

Recently I’ve changed my habits and usage of my computer to spend less time on it. I used the program “ActivityWatch” to learn what I was spending most of my time doing, thinking I had an internet addiction or something, but found out that I was actually blowing all my time tinkering with stupid configurations and settings to better “improve” my “workflow.” Outside of that, I probably spent like 30 minutes out of the day doing anything else at all on the computer.

After realizing this, I decided to put all that away since it became a self perpetuating dilemma with no actual benefit. I have things to do around the house that need to get done so sitting at my computer tinkering with it all day is really not a good use of my time. In my quest to make an efficient workflow, the activity in and of itself became the hindrance it was supposed to resolve.

For awhile there I just kept with what I had and didn’t bother to change anything, but couldn’t help getting distracted by little things that would either get in the way or not quite look or work right, and before I knew it there I was back at it. So I had an idea to reduce the amount of visual clutter, pinned launchers, and strewn about files on my system that were making it a slog to get thru and focus on just the application I need at hand rather than trying to do too many things all at once.

I know this sounds like the opposite of what I should be doing and that perhaps I should throw the computer out of the window and be done with it, but I do need it after all, so this is where I decided to do something I haven’t done in a long time. Go back to default Ubuntu and leave it at that!

Yup...

It turns out I don’t really need all the programs and workflow scripts I use to tinker around with anymore and I suppose became less of a power user for it. GNOME desktop ain’t so bad, and actually I’ve come to find that it works best with a touchpad and gestures too! I don’t need my trackball or mouse anymore and bought an Apple magic trackpad for when I use my laptop at my desk. Instead of a start menu with pinned application shortcuts and folders, I just use a dock bar that’s hidden most of the time. I can swipe down with three fingers on the touchpad to reveal an overview of my workspace and jump between opened applications quite easily. I’ve also found this to be a lot quicker than selecting tasks from a task bar or stacked windows in a dock bar (which was why I never liked dock bars in the first place.)

Wild tangent:

I believe there are three (technically four) types of environments that optimize for a particular input.

• Traditional desktops like Plasma, Mate, XFCE, and Cinnamon are primarily optimized for the pointer (mouse) while keyboard functionality is secondary and often complimentary. Ideally, everything is visible and accessible all at once. Hiding important UI elements behind menu stacks or hover / activation points is counterproductive and non-intuitive for this setup since it would require exhaustive arbitrary use of the mouse despite attempting to appear “minimal.”
• Hybrid desktops like GNOME (which is actually the only one I know of aside from maybe COSMIC desktop) and the macOS desktop which GNOME seems to copy from in some regard, are optimized for touchpads and gestures. They can be a chore to slog thru with a traditional mouse because the loss of gesture controls that enhance functionality.
• Tiling window managers like DWM, i3WM, and Hyperland are optimized for the keyboard while a pointing device seems secondary and sometimes even seen as a necessary evil.
• Then lastly I guess you have android tablets and ipads that are optimized for touchscreens. I don’t really know anything in this space for the Linux ecosystem except maybe the Ubuntu phone? I don’t like touchscreens at all.

I’m coming from the traditional desktop paradigm stepping into the hybrid desktop optimized for touchpads and gesture controls because it’s actually quite decent now and seems to blend well with the minimalist approach to graphical UI’s of modern desktop applications. In my endeavors to reduce wasting time on the computer, I’ve come to appreciate applications that get out of the way both visually and functionally now.

My Dell dock station finally works without a hitch now since I’m on a newer kernel version, so I guess that wasn’t $200 wasted afterall! Dare I say that everything just werks?

I actually like the snap version of Firefox and Thunderbird too because the file picker dialogue portal for snap apps supports icon thumbnails and an icon grid view, which is very nice! I went with the minimal Ubuntu install since I don’t really care about a lot of the additional fluff, and as a result of keeping things basic, I now spend less time tinkering with my computer because I no longer have an excuse to.

A funny thing I’ve noticed is that I’ll wake up my computer in the morning before getting breakfast started which is my usual routine, then when I come back to sit down with my breakfast, I have absolutely nothing to do but stare at my wallpaper or read a short email. I now just eat my breakfast in the kitchen with the cats.

Here are a few screenshots of the desktop, which is all quite standard stuff.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Date: 2025-09-17