GNOME 3

GNOME 3 code named ToPaZ(Three Point Zero) was released on April 6th.The release of Gnome 3 has raised many questions. Can gnome 3 maintain its dominance in the Linux world as a preferred desktop environment? Will users learn gnome 3 quickly as it has a complete revamped interface? Can Gnome 3 challenge KDE 4.6?,lets find out.
Gnome,one of the easy to use desktop environment,is going to teach you how simple a Linux OS is in reality with its new gnome shell. Gnome 3 can also be used without using gnome shell as the interface. I tried GNOME 3 preview in my openSUSE 11.4 system. This review is based on openSUSE(might have slight changes in other distros).
Appearance
In GNOME shell the top panel has one button on the left called Activities. This replaces the old application,system and places buttons. The right top corner has indication applets similar to the previous versions but with the addition of social networking applets using empathy. This is a concept already implemented in Ubuntu called Ubuntu messaging menu. There is an entry for system settings in the right top corner menu where you have the shutdown and restart options. The clock is placed in the center of the top panel. Clicking the clock will display the calendar along with an attractive event scheduler. If you choose to open the calendar you are redirected to evolution. Clicking the activities button displays two tabs Windows and Applications. The window switcher displays all the open windows in an efficient way. The user gets a preview of all the open windows which is preferred. When the activities icon is clicked,you also get a application launcher dock on the left,where you can pin your most used apps by right clicking the app in its active state and choosing the add to favorite option. The Applications tab is the place where you can find your desired apps. The Application tab initially displays all the apps,but the category list is present on the right. There is a search bar included above the category list where you can type the name of the app or file that you are looking for. However,the search bar failed to work in the GNOME 3 preview shell displays error messages and status messages in a pop up screen which does not interfere with the application that the user is currently using. In the bottom right corner I get a gnome-settings-daemon icon used to change the screen resolution which I believe is a feature of openSUSE. The app that is currently active has its icon placed adjacent to Activities button.

Hardware Integration
Deeper integration with the hardware was a key feature of GNOME 3,as mentioned by its developers. When tested in my laptop,it automatically added the suspend option but failed to start the battery indicator applet. It even started compiz detecting the graphics card. When a device is plugged in it immediately detects the device displays a status message in the bottom. The system settings option in the menu can be used to configure the devices. GNOME 3 displays the configuration icon for devices in the system settings only for devices that were detected. GNOME 3 makes full use of the hardware but there is always a room for improvement.


Social Networking From The Desktop
Social networking is built on empathy which uses the telepathy framework. You can add your Google,Facebook and other chat accounts by entering the details in empathy. The My account option on the right top corner menu is only for adding user details and not for adding chat accounts. In case you are using some application and your friend types a chat message,empathy will not interfere with the active application but it displays the message in a dialog box that rises from the bottom of the display and allows you to reply without minimizing or closing the active app.

Unity vs GNOME 3
Unity,developed in a very short time,is preferred by most people to use in their laptops and net-books. GNOME 3 provides an interface suitable for both laptops and desktops. GNOME 3 development started 2 years back,hence it ensures stability. Unity pushes the title bar and the menu bar of a application’s window to the top panel which provides more space to work in small screens(net-book).GNOME 3 must detect the screen size of the system and introduce this feature in the later versions. GNOME was the most preferred desktop environment because of Ubuntu’s previous versions including GNOME but from 11.04,Ubuntu replaces GNOME with unity,this leads to a decrease in GNOME’s popularity. There is still little hope as Linux mint,a distro based on Ubuntu plans to ship mint 11 with GNOME 3 without GNOME shell.

Trying GNOME 3
GNOME 3 preview can be tried in openSUSE 11.4.After installing openSUSE,you just have to update the system to try GNOME 3 preview(or install GNOME shell from the package manager).To try the actual GNOME 3 in openSUSE you need to upgrade the OS to its Tumbleweed version which is a rolling release of the OS.
zypper ar –refresh http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tumbleweed/standard/ Tumbleweed
zypper dup –from Tumbleweed
Installing GNOME 3 in ubuntu 10.10
Applications->Accessories->Terminal
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
Hit ALT + F2, and run the following command
gnome-shell –replace
Installing GNOME 3 in Natty
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop3
Fedora 15 alpha ships with GNOME 3.I tried GNOME 3 in Debian,the display crashed and I was left in a shell environment. Yielding to its stability Debian might not support GNOME 3 at present. The credit for the best integration of GNOME 3 with GNOME shell goes to Fedora 15.Although the stable version is scheduled to release in the month of may,their alpha version has the best integration. openSUSE 11.4 provides GNOME 3 preview but still has lot of glitches in the integration. Experiment GNOME 3,improve GNOME 3,Spread the use of GNOME 3 based distros to others and for the questions in the beginning of the article can only be answered by those who have tried GNOME 3. Do check out the new GNOME 3 website which has a lot more information on GNOME 3 www.gnome.org/gnome-3