Who was talking about Yaru? Who’d use the so-called default themes?
Anyway, “vanilla” gnome can be achieved by deleting those extensions. Read Didirock’s blogs from the beginning!
Ehmmm, the poll in this very thread?
And again thank you for pointing me to the blog post once again.
It would be good for others to read that blog too. From Day 1 to Day 16.
I disagree… Mimicking Unity can only be good, at least on the perspective of someone like me that still sees Unity as a superior more polished experience.
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Thank you for your response. In my original post, I forgot to acknowledge the fact that the community has indeed been able to propose nice features to GNOME successfully, like over-amplification. I hope we will continue to be able to do that.
I haven’t voted in my own poll yet, but my personal hope is that we can have nice branding (theming) on the one hand, like Solus and Pop!OS are doing, but on the other hand an experience that doesn’t feel like two experiences thrown together. Even with the Yaru theme, that is what Ubuntu feels like to me. Right now, the GNOME top bar with its ‘Actvities’, in combination with the dock, plus the dynamic desktops … It all looks and feels too much cobbled together, in my personal opinion. I would rather have a pure GNOME workflow, or a Unity one, instead of a hybrid of both.
Looks like most people voting are in favour of a modified GNOME experience, an Ubuntu session. So I’m in the minority. 
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I like default Gnome experience. But a lot of people got used to what Ubuntu used to be. Forcing them to something new won’t be productive. If someone wants to use Vanilla Gnome experience, I am sure there are ways for it.
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It’s not just about being used to Ubuntu/Unity, which I’m, but I’ve also used plain GNOME on other distros for some years, that’s not the only issue. The issue is that GNOME is really way less polished than Unity was, and if you have very high definition screens and multi-screen setups the difference is really very noticeable, and I really don’t want to search for extensions, risk to break something on upgrade, and make the desktop way more unstable (that is insane for someone like me that changes very few default configurations and hates to do even that), and it gets worst because often it’s to be able to do basic things that “every other” desktop does by default (or at least the big ones in GNU/Linux and other OS).
That said I really like GNOME, it has some really interesting ideas, but also some that feel crazy for a modern desktop that everybody can really use.
To me Unity is almost perfect, and MATE is really sane (specially on Ubuntu MATE).
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Extensions are just like the ppas (unstable, untrusted, etc), even the official ones. It’d be a running fight to keep up with D2D. It might be interesting to put vanilla gnome shell on Debian Sid.
as well as open source, so basically under the eyes of everyone, and involved in a review process
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I also avoid PPAs and don’t use external repositories. That’s partially why I think snaps are a blessing.
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Oops, I misclicked. Change one of the votes (mine) to “Keep a distinctive Ubuntu Session, with Yaru theme(s), extensions and adapted core apps (like Nautilus).” or tell me how to change mine.
I see Vanilla Gnome very unintuitive and poorly discoverable for new users, so I think some easier setup like that provided by Ubuntu really improves the situation.
I think Vanilla Gnome can be a good desktop, but not so good for new user who try a new system for the first time. You begin with no apps, an empty desktop and no tray (libappindicator). This is in sharp contrast to any popular system of today, including mobile ones. Then, if you want something very focused, zero distractions and using keyboard shortcuts, it’s likely what you’re looking for.
Nevertheless, the average John Doe grew accustomed to using mostly the mouse/touchpad, with buttons to click (apps, minimise, maximise, etc…), background apps that show in a tray and similar things. The Ubuntu session offers an option much more in line with the average user’s expectations.
Personally, I like the Adwaita theme better than Yaru (especially there’s too orange for my taste, even if it’s the branding colour), so I use the Ubuntu session, but I customise it with Adwaita and replacing the Dock with Dash-to-panel, which I feel to have better use of the available space.
Ubuntu Session with Adwaita theme and using Dash-to-panel
In fact, the top bar is almost completely unused, especially the left side (both on Vanilla and Ubuntu’s). On Mac such portion is used for menus, but not on Gnome. Also, if you don’t have a hi-dpi screen, the high header-bars together with the top panel, reach a considerable amount of wasted space, both on Vanilla Gnome and on Ubuntu (even if Yaru at least reduces the header-bars’ size).
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You can turn it off.
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I preferred the Unity desktop, but I am satisfied with the current Ubuntu desktop. It is pleasing to the eye, and functional. Vanilla GNOME would make the user experience worse. It would also be bad for Ubuntu branding/marketing. You have a very attractive look that people instantly recognize as Ubuntu. Why would you throw that value away for a default GNOME look that any Linux distro can have?
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I have tried vanilla GNOME many times, and the conclusion that I finally came to is that I just cannot get comfortable with it. Honestly Cinnamon and Unity are the best two desktops I have had the pleasure of using (for fun and actual day-to-day work).
I was on the “BOO-UNITY” boat for the first year or two and then quickly learned my lesson. It was a wonderful DE. I miss it very much now. The level of polish and smart design put it in a class by itself.
I do agree that with at least the dock and a functional desktop icon extension, the current desktop has been fine.
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I also cannot get comfortable with vanilla GNOME. I was using Clear Linux until they abandoned the desktop environment and defaulted to vanilla GNOME. Huge mistake. Would hate to see Canonical do the same thing.
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