I’m currently writing this on the MATE desktop. I started with linux on the gnome 2 desktop, so it only makes sense. A long time ago I used Xmonad (a tiling window manager) but tiling has less appeal for me now. If I need/want a lightweight solution, I use CWM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwm_(window_manager), which was originally developed on OpenBSD, but is usually available across different Linux distros and BSD’s.
I’ve tried pretty much every DE/WM under the sun at this point, and would be interested to know what you use and why
yeah, it was actually my first experience with linux. I could never get used to gnome3, although I like it more now than when it first changed.
GNOME 3 brought a desktop paradigm shift, replacing the traditional GNOME 2 workspaces. Apart from that, it had performance problems that GNOME 2 didn’t have, and this was GNOME Shell’s fault (memory leaks and very high resource consumption, basically).
So yeah, it’s normal that you didn’t like it. But nowadays, using GNOME 42, I’m very happy with it and I think I’m more efficient and productive in this environment than in other more traditional environments like Windows or KDE Plasma.
yeah i remember experiencing some of those performance issues on older hardware when gnome first made the change. Even now, I appreciate it for what it is, but just don’t see the need for it.