Gnome 3 with Gnome-Shell – early days but tonnes of promise

NOTE: As I have moved my blog from elsewhere, this is simply a re-post and hence this was originally dated May 14th, 2011

So after a year or so of using KDE 4.5-4.6 on my Arch Linux install, I decided to format and do a totally clean re-installation of Arch…and then Gnome 3/Shell.

There wasn’t too much wrong with my previous install, indeed KDE was a sweet beast and surprisingly fast. I still love KDE and would recommend it wholeheartedly; especially for those who want a more conventional almost Windows like default desktop layout. Then there’s the widgets. Everyone likes widgets, right?

Nevertheless, I was intrigued to try this new beast from the Gnome guys
. I’d tried the older testing versions of Gnome-Shell on top of the old Gnome 2 desktop, though of course it had many parts of it missing and incomplete as well as the fact the very design and layout of the Shell was quite different at that stage.

Here is my current Gnome-Shell powered desktop. It’s worth noting I have already made some tweaks and customizations so this is not truly the default beast, but it’s close (thumbnails, click for full view).

For anyone that is curious, I’m using the Dark Glass theme by Half-Left http://half-left.deviantart.com/art/GNOME-Shell-Dark-Glass-178782280. It’s a wonderful theme and I think, personally, much better than the default. But that’s just me. As you can see in Half-Left’s link, it was originally a theme for the older (early dev.) version of Gnome-Shell, but it’s been updated and works very nicely in the current version.

Now, what’s that dock on the normal desktop view, those who are experienced with Gnome-Shell already, ask? It’s actually just Avant-Window-Navigator  I wanted to have a dock at all times that would be flexible and autohide for when I wasn’t in the Activities menu. For those unfamiliar, the Activities view is what you see in the above screenshot. You get an “expose” like view of your current windows along with the dock, or rather, the “Dash”. You can also view your applications and search for apps, folders etc (as below). It can be accessed either by mousing over the Activities button, either by hitting the corner with your wrist motion (the so called “hot spot”) or by clicking. Or without the mouse at all, you can just press the “Windows” key on your keyboard. Which is my preferred method.

A quite nice feature as you can see, is the Wikipedia and Google functions in the search . Simply click on either of those and they will bring up your browser and input your search word(s) into those sites. It’s a nice thing to have at least. In the bottom right corner is your systems applications tray, as in where the likes of your Rhythmbox or screen recording software and the like goes instead of at the top mixed in with the main system icons like the sound applet and Bluetooth etc. You might think it odd at first but works quite well is very nicely kept out of the way, but easily accessed.

Another nice feature is, for example, when you click on an About tab in an application, it folds out from within the app’s window bar (see below)

It may not look like a whole lot in the screenshot but when using it, especially with the smooth folding out animation it provides, it not only looks slick but is nicer IMO than popping up in a separate window.

Speaking of slick, Gnome-Shell in general is pretty slick. Say goodbye to unattractive authentication boxes:

Admittedly these boxes will always look the same now and won’t change as you change GTK themes like they used to, but they are pretty enough IMO and at least are consistent now.

Anyway, this is probably just sounding like just a puff piece at the moment, but I have to admit, even though I didn’t expect to, I’m really enjoying the experience so far.

Is it more limiting? Absolutely, at least in it’s current stage. I don’t mean productivity wise either. As someone who has come from the previous iterations of Gnome and especially the latest KDE, I’m used to customizations and being able to do them more or less out of the box. At the moment, Gnome 3 and the Shell require you to get your hands dirty to really get your customizing gear on, but it is easier if you install “Gnome-Tweak-Tool”, which should be available in most distributions. It allows you to easily change window border themes and the like, icons etc. It’s really handy. Nevertheless, extensions are available for the Shell and will in time hopefully become a standard inclusion which you can mix and match to your liking, with an easy interface.  http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Extensions

I recommend at least trying Gnome-Shell. Even if you’ve tried Unity on Ubuntu and haven’t been very impressed (as I wasn’t) it’s worth trying as they are very different to use. Once you get used to it, Gnome-Shell is fast and easy to use. Most things make sense. On that note, the window manager which provides it’s effects and compositing is “Mutter“, which has far less effects and customization than Compiz right now, but it’s being worked on hard and more effects will come. At the moment, it is fast and snappy and elegant and I can’t fault that.

You’ll either love or hate the Shell I reckon. But give it a chance and get used to how things work and how it’s designed and it might grow on you. There are bugs and seemingly incomplete parts of it at the moment, but it’s largely been very stable for me. Though you would expect the latter of a fully released product. It’s fully usable but at least currently is let down by a lack of features and some bugs, which might turn off users who try it for that very reason alone. Which is a shame, I think it just needs time and has a lot of potential especially once more of the features hit that are planned.

Just give it a shot I say, if you’re curious and want to try something new. You can download a Fedora or Opensuse based live CD off the site Gnome3 if you wish to do so without harming your current installed operating system. http://gnome3.org/