I’ve been playing around with Gnome-shell on Ubuntu over the past week or so and am still trying to decide if I like it. It’s going to replace Compiz in the next generation of the Gnome desktop and the idea is that it’s supposed to enhance productivity by creating an innovative user interface that more easily exposes the day-to-day tasks of the user. But besides some pretty cool transitions between virtual desktops, an “overview” of the running tasks, and some additional shortcuts in the Activities panel, I’m not sure what else it adds.
I know that it’s going to improve with time and I’m hoping the developers include more features that actually challenge the current desktop paradigm like KDE has done with their 4.x release. I do like my desktops shiny so I’m happy to see Gnome finally moving in that direction, which is why I’m not going to get all upset about the fact that the developers are breaking with tradition to try something new.
Check out this tour of Gnome-shell for details of the features and screenshots. If you like to play with bleeding edge tools, I’d recommend installing it and playing around for a while. It’s stable enough to get an idea of how it’s supposed to work and you might just like it enough to keep it.
