Gnome 3

Gnome 3 arrived about a month ago and has been constantly updated as users reported bugs on their bug tracker.
Even though the developers thought it was funny announcing on 1 April that Gnome is closing because of programming problems and low budget, after one day announcing that it was a joke – it’s true, Gnome 3 has major problems.

Of course we can help though, reporting the bugs. We’re not here to bash Gnome or anything, but there are major flaws encountered by me that should be addressed: you need to enable numlock manually, delete sometimes doesn’t work, networking notifications don’t fade out, wallpaper can’t be changed from the desktop, etc.

These problems could not exist for others, but on my Ubuntu 11.4 + Gnome 3 machine they exist.

Gnome 3 now comes in 2 flavours, one based on openSUSE (with 32 bit version and 64 bit version) and one based on Fedora (only 32 bit version at the moment). Both are available for a free download on Gnome 3′s dedicated website called “ThreePointZero”.

Gnome 3 Features with Gnome Shell

Comparison between Unity and Gnome 3

It is true that it looks awesome, it has a crisp design with a OS X-esque interface including bigger window control buttons.

It might be possible that the reason why Ubuntu decided to go with Unity instead of Gnome 3 is the wide range of bugs, because most of the people would choose the Gnome 3′s interface over the one of Unity.

In this version of Gnome they managed to make a design that’s both modern and professional – the right thing that a desktop manager would need to get included in various linux distributions.

If you decide to download it from their website, you can run it as a LiveCD or install it – it comes with a suite of applications: Browser, Instant Messenger, Document Editor & Viewer, Music Player, Webcam Capturer, Video Player, and pretty much anything that endusers need.

Gnome 3 Video Review

To help this project, if you are interested, get at least a copy of Gnome 3 and run it in a Virtual Machine, and if you encounter any bug, report it.

This is the way Gnome was chosen in Ubuntu previously, and this is the way we can migrate it’s shell to future Ubuntu releases – by making it stable.

Another option would be the along-side installation of Gnome 3 with your current desktop manager, if you are running linux, and from time to time to login to the Gnome 3 one and report the bugs.

If any experienced users would like to spend their times, they should put Gnome 3 on a tablet device (I’m not speaking of Galaxy Tab or iPad, I am speaking about the tablets made to run on unofficial or modified versions of Android) and see how it works there, because some of the current Linux users out there would prefer a Linux based tablet rather than learning how to use a new operating system.
Also Gnome is very well known for resource handling, so this would be a plus, concentrating the small tablet memory where it is really needed.