Raiden's Realm: Review: Gnome Shell

Review: Gnome Shell (Page 1 of 1)

Written by Rodrigo Gomes
Posted on: Nov 27, 2009 at 02:18pm
Section: Software
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Gnome Shell is a redesign to the way the gnome desktop looks and works. I find it very interesting, because it stops trying to base itself on windows' functionality and design (although gnome isn't exactly like windows' desktop, it had to many similarities to not have been based on it), and instead it consists of an original design and functionality.

The gnome shell desktop can be separated in two parts: the desktop view (where you see either your desktop, or one or more applications open where you can work on them), and the Activities overview (where you have a panel with several functions and an overview of you active workspaces and open applications organized so that you see each application equally inside a workspace, and where you can only drag them between workspaces and select one as the active one). There's innovation in both these parts, but I believe most of it comes in the Activities overview.

Personally, I love it. Getting to my intended application is much easier now, because of a search box, which allows me to quickly find an application or setting using related words, or the name of the application. Before I had to either memorize it's command and execute it, or dig through menus and categories, and hope I didn't miss it in the middle of all the names. Gnome Shell has this great advantage: it makes me use menus a lot less. Of course I could have used gnome do, but for some reason I don't like it very much on my Desktop (of course that's a matter of personal taste), and it's much easier to access the search future in gnome shell (you only have to tap the super key and start writing, or click in “Activities”).

However, this feature isn't all great. Unfortunately, it doesn't support searching for files. I still need to use a separate application for that, or browse through directories.

Still on the activities overview, we have shortcuts to certain applications, as well as the list of currently open apps, that work also as shortcuts to display their windows. I don't find myself using these alot, because I can type faster than I can move my mouse (I use the trackpad of my laptop most of the time), but they're useful some times.

Shortcuts to directories (which can be customized through nautilus) and shortcuts to the most recent documents can also be found on the panel. I use the directories alot, but not much the most recent documents. And the applications set to open those documents, have some problem, because, for example, it doesn't open .odt files with openoffice, instead it uses the file manager for some reason.

Besides the panel, on the Activities overview, the current workspaces and current applications, are organized so we can see them all, and their current status. This is very useful to switch apps (since there isn't a bar on the work desktop to switch through them – I find this to be an advantage, since I get to have more space for the open applications), and to have an organized view of what's happening with you open applications.

Adding workspaces is very easy, as is removing them. This can be useful to organize the applications on the activities overview (switch applications between workspaces is a simple matter of drag and drop).

Now I'm going to talk a bit about the Desktop.

The Gnome Shell Desktop doesn't have many differences from the present gnome Desktop. The biggest one is that it isn't customizable. You can only change the background image and the theme. There's only a top bar, which has the current day and time (when you click on it, it displays a calendar), the system tray, a link to the activities overview and the name of the currently open application. I actually like this Desktop, because there's a lot more space for the applications (although it may not seem like it, but one less bar does seem to make a noticeable difference), and I like it's design (it's kept simple).

Until now, I make it sound like I love gnome Shell, but I recognize it has some flaws (although they don't really bother me). Firstly, it doesn't support compiz at all. However, it has some effects (but they aren't as complete as compiz's and they aren't customizable). Next, it isn't customizable at all. You can only change the window theme, the rest is what you see is what you get, you can't tweak it. Another problem I find is that the performance in games drops a little bit, when compared to metacity. But since this desktop has some effects, and the drop is smaller when compared to metacity with compiz on, it's understandable. Besides, it works really well on my netbook, so the performance drop isn't gigantic.

However, gnome Shell is still in active development. Many changes are to be expected. I really hope it only gets better from now on.

In conclusion, I really like gnome Shell. It introduces an original design, which has great functionality, and it isn't based on windows! However, it still has it's flaws (in my opinion, the biggest one is the lack of customization), but it's a work in progress, so we may see many or all of them solved by the final version.

I recommend anyone to try it. For instructions on how to install it (both on new distributions and older ones) go to: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell

It's stable enough to be used as a primary desktop system if you wish. If you don't want to have to enter metacity and type the command to switch desktops every time you login, you can simply place this code as a startup script:

gnome-shell --replace

I noticed that in Ubuntu 9.10, the mouse seems to disappear if I do that on startup, and I have no idea why. However, I tried to make a script that sleeps for 2 seconds and then launches gnome-shell, and it worked. If you experience this problem, write this in a terminal:

echo “sleep 2; gnome-shell --replace” > ~/log.sh; chmod +x log.sh

And then add this as a startup script: ~/log.sh (if you want, you can add any other commands to this script if you want them to be executed on login).

Depending on the computer, you may have to adjust the number of seconds the script sleeps.

I hope this review is useful to you.
Rodrigo

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