Gnome Shell is the future window manager for UNIX-like operating systems running the Gnome desktop environment. It is slated to be part of the Gnome 3.0, which will probably be released sometime next year. However, this does not mean you cannot try Gnome Shell now and get the first impression of what it ought to be.

I've been using Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex as my desktop platform of choice for a few months now. As part of that changeover, I also switched to Gnome. I have to say, after my initial "ohh, look, this just works" with Gnome, the shine has certainly come off.

Many eons ago, GNOME 1.4 still lived, and it was good. It was extremely configurable and hackable. You could use either Enlightenment or Sawfish as the window manager, and could customize it to your heart's content. And then tragedy struck: GNOME 2.0 was born.

Ubuntu 11.04 doesn't come with GNOME 3 / GNOME Shell (in fact it's not even available in the repositories but only in a PPA) and instead it comes with an interface designed especially for Ubuntu called Unity (based on GNOME 2.x).

Although I regularly use KDE, Xfce, and other desktops for GNU/Linux, I keep returning to GNOME. Sometimes I use the default Metacity window manager, and other times the quicker Sawfish, but, with either choice, GNOME has an uncluttered look that allows me to focus on my work rather than my software.

Although I have some doubts that XFCE is "so very much lighter" than GNOME (GNOME 2.20 doesn't take too much memory if you don't start all kind of crap), it is still lighter, and in a few years there will be less and less antiquated computers who require extra-light window managers (Fluxbox, Openbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker, IceWM).

There’s been some grumbling among the Gnome community about if and when Gnome would have a major overhaul. Well with Gnome 3 we’ll have it in the form of Gnome Shell. It pretty much replaces the panel and window manager in a normal Gnome installation with a fully composited environment with some great new functionality.

Most free software users have long ago made their decision about whether they prefer the GNOME or KDE desktop. However, with the release of GNOME 3 this week, the choice requires a new answer. Now, both GNOME and KDE have versions that are radically different from those each had a few years ago.

"...As many know, Gentoo is about choice, and the default choice is to "opt-in". So if you install Gnome on Gentoo, you get a bare-bone Gnome experience, sometimes in stark contrast to what other distros do. So in order to level the playing field, I'll be writing about how to enable some of those cool features. Today's special : gnome-keyring's pam module...."