[Solved] Can't put anything on my CentOS 8 GNOME desktop?

[oceanjeremy]

First, my apologies for what I am sure is a stupid question. This is my first Linux machine with a GUI (I'm running a VPS on CentOS 8, but obviously there's no desktop there).

Second, I have in fact tried to search all over for answers about this and nothing pops up anywhere. It doesn't help that I can't search this very CentOS forum because every attempt is met with "Sorry but you cannot use search at this time. Please try again in ### seconds," so I'll again apologize because I'm sure this is answered elsewhere.

So here's my issue: I've installed CentOS 8 on a virtual machine with the GNOME 3.32.2 desktop. The desktop is completely blank — I can't put shortcuts on it. I have moved files to the ~/Desktop directory, but they don't show up on the actual desktop. I've clicked on "Activities" and noticed that I can have as many desktops as I want in the bar on the right side of the screen, but that just helps me juggle open windows. I can't actually put anything on the desktop.

Is this just how GNOME 3.32.2 functions?

[Thraex]

Pretty much how GNOME functions. On login when you are prompted for you password, trying clicking the gear next to "Sign In" and select Gnome Classic. I haven't used 8 too much but I'm pretty sure that version works similar to gnome in 7

[user132413242]

Anything you want to do you can probably do, even if it doesn't work out of the box.

Take a look at this guide. I assume you'll need to enable icons on the desktop, and then add the shortcuts you want. This guide is for Ubuntu Gnome, but it should be similar in the menu selections.

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... 0Tweaks%20(if,application%20shortcut%20to%20the%20desktop.

[oceanjeremy]

Thank you, user132413242!

There is indeed a GNOME Tweaks for Centos 8, I was able to get it from Software, and I did manage to get the icons on my desktop.

Thanks for your help!

[dke]

Seriously?
This behavior has to be fixed.
I would even classify this is a serious bug.

My company is actively looking for a replacement for windows. as we have determined that windows 10 is generally not acceptable and while windows 8 barely meets the grade and its days are numbered.

I was looking at Centos 8 as a good candidate but if a 'mere mortal' cant fairly easily create desktop short cuts.... thats going to be a hard sell.

Dont get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy to recompile kernels and such so *I* could follow this - but people coming over from windows-land to the world to Linux? Thats going to be real pain point.
Is there some tool to make this very easy for my windows users?
If not I'll never hear the end of it or many people just wont use Centos 8 unless they absolutely have to (in my organization)

[oceanjeremy]

Seriously?
This behavior has to be fixed.
I would even classify this is a serious bug.

My company is actively looking for a replacement for windows. as we have determined that windows 10 is generally not acceptable and while windows 8 barely meets the grade and its days are numbered.

I was looking at Centos 8 as a good candidate but if a 'mere mortal' cant fairly easily create desktop short cuts.... thats going to be a hard sell.

Dont get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy to recompile kernels and such so *I* could follow this - but people coming over from windows-land to the world to Linux? Thats going to be real pain point.
Is there some tool to make this very easy for my windows users?
If not I'll never hear the end of it or many people just wont use Centos 8 unless they absolutely have to (in my organization)

You obviously didn't follow the link, @dke.

Here's anther link, this one specifically for CentOS 8: https://linuxhint.com/tweaking_gnome_desktop_centos8/

It's a very easy fix. It doesn't even require terminal command line, let alone recompiling kernels. You download GNOME Tweaks from Software (which is similar to App Store on Mac OS X). Then you open it in settings and do whatever you want.

On another note, if you're looking for a good GUI desktop for the whole organization you may want to look beyond CentOS. I'm using CentOS because I'm taking classes in Linux server administration. I almost never use the GUI at all — I pretty much just drop to terminal and enter full screen as soon as I boot up the machine, every time.

I haven't used any other distributions yet, but from what I've read you might be better off with Fedora, or a Debian fork (Mint, Ubuntu, etc, etc). Other distributions have much larger communities that use them specifically for desktop personal computers, and with larger communities come easier access to support boards and a wider selection of applications.

There are plenty of guides online for which Linux distributions are best for what purposes, just a google search away. Or you could go to https://www.reddit.com/r/FindMeADistro/ and ask the Redditors what they think.

[KernelOops]

Unfortunately, gnome3 has a horrible user interface, based on android and mac. More suitable for a mobile device than a working desktop.

Once the started loosing their entire user base, they realized they needed to provide an alternative, the "gnome classic" option and the tweaks tool. Obviously, they are not a real solution, gnome3 needs significant modifications to make it usable.

Fortunately, you can just dump gnome3 and use a better environment, like the Cinnamon desktop, and many many others. Fedora comes prepared in various editions called "spins", which you can find here: https://spins.fedoraproject.org/

Even redhat employees hate gnome3... but someone high up in the food chain has decided to push gnome3 down everyones throat... sad...