It is no secret that many people do not like GNOME 3. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, has joined that list of people who dislike GNOME 3.

In Google+, Torvalds wrote criticized the direction that GNOME has taken with GNOME 3. He called GNOME 3 an "unholy mess" and said that the user experience in GNOME 3 is unacceptable. He said that because of GNOME 3, he has ditched GNOME for Xfce. He said that Xfce is a step down from GNOME 2 - but a huge step up from GNOME 3.

This is what he wrote on Google+ :

I used to be upset when gnome developers decided it was "too complicated" for the user to remap some mouse buttons. In gnome3, the developers have apparently decided that it's "too complicated" to actually do real work on your desktop, and have decided to make it really annoying to do.

Here's an example of "the crazy": you want a new terminal window. So you go to "activities" and press the "terminal" thing that you've made part of your normal desktop thing (but why can't I just have it on the desktop, instead of in that insane "activities" mode?). What happens? Nothing. It brings your existing terminal to the forefront.

That's just crazy crap. Now I need to use Shift-Control-N in an old terminal to bring up a new one. Yeah, that's a real user experience improvement. Sure.

I'm sure there are other ways, but that's just an example of the kind of "head up the arse" behavior of gnome3. Seriously. I have been asking other developers about gnome3, they all think it's crazy.

I'm using Xfce. I think it's a step down from gnome2, but it's a huge step up from gnome3. Really.

What Torvalds wrote is a sentiment shared among many power users. Sure, it seems like a lot of normal users like GNOME 3. I have showed it to many people, who could be described as normal users. Most of them like it.

In an attempt to reinvent the desktop, it looks like GNOME has abandoned a portion of its user base.

Replying to Dave Jones of Red Hat, Torvalds also called for Fedora/Red Hat to fork GNOME.

While you are at it, could you also fork gnome, and support a gnome-2 environment?

I want my sane interfaces back. I have yet to meet anybody who likes the unholy mess that is gnome-3.

It is worth remembering that Linus Torvalds was a KDE user before KDE 4 happened. After KDE 4, he ditched KDE for GNOME.

What do you think about GNOME 3?