Coming from MacOS into Linux and landing on Debian/Gnome encouraged me into the world of keyboard-driven navigation.
I got into customising keybindings and moved to a split programmable mech keyboard not too long after. Three years ago I made the switch to Sway and now on Niri (all transitions switched off) on my laptop. My desktop workstation still is on Gnome and I switch between the two machines (with full keyboard-driven navigation) seamlessly.
Yes, some extensions do break on updates but I use extensions very minimally and they get patched relatively quickly. For the experience Gnome provides, I dont mind the couple of days that “blur my shell” is broken. The DE remains stable and the keyboard-driven workflow is fast.
Now that I daily drive a WM (on my laptop) I am thankful I started on Gnome upon landing in Linux. It still remains the best keyboard-driven DE out of the box for Linux first-timers. Perhaps Cosmic will be the other DE in a few years.
I hope Gnome sticks to its phislosphy as it truly provides something unique, stable and a great entry point into the world of keyboard-driven workflows out of the box.
I don’t really see how GNOME is any more keyboard focused than, say, KDE. If anything, other DEs give you much more freedom for a keyboard workflow.
I think their point was that MacOS -> GNOME was a smoother transition than a diffetent desktop environment would have been, which led to them naturally discovering more keyboard-oriented workflows. Not that GNOME is any more keyboard oriented than other DEs.
