GNOME 3 Desktop - First Impressions

GNOME 3 has been a radical departure from the traditionnal "desktop / windows / task bar" paradigm of most other desktop environments. Instead of using dual panels like GNOME 2 did in its day, or a single panel on the bottom like KDE or Windows, or even a top bar + dock combo like Mac OS X, GNOME 3 only displays a top bar with an "Activities" button.

2 - Managing applications
Since you don't have a regular menu or dock, how do you start apps ? Well, through the activities. Just click the activities button, or hit the super key. You can either start typing the name of the app you need, open it from the favorites dock that appears on the left side of the screen, or open the "all apps" view, by clicking the "9 squares" icon. You can also search for folders, files websites, even applications ! The search is pretty powerful and returns results quickly.

I find the "all apps" view a bit cumbersome, since it requires one more click to get to your apps list, and they are not sorted by category, neither does it support apps flders, compared to a traditional menu, but it works well enough.
My main gripe with this setup is that you don't have a quick launcher that is always visible. It feels more natural to me to just move my mouse and click on the app's icon I need, than to open a separate view and open my favorite app.

3 - Your Windows
GNOME 3 still uses the paradigm of good old application windows. Each app opens in a window, with a header bar integrating title bar and toolbar (on regular GNOME apps anyway). You still get your close button, on the right side of the window, but no minimize or maximize buttons. You can maximize a window by dragging it to the top, or tile it left and right, with a nice preview of the space the window will occupy. You can also press "ALT" while dragging from anywhere on a window, to move it.

To switch windows, you can use ALT/TAB, or go to the activities view and see them spread out like exposé on Mac OS X.

4 - Virtual Desktops
GNOME implements the virtual desktops in a very natural way: you get to them from the Activities view, or with "SUper + Page Up, or SUPER + Page down". By default, you have two, and a new one is created as soon as you have at least one window in each virtual desktop. you can simply drag a window from that overview to place it on the selected virtual desktop. Switching applications will automatically bring you to the virtual desktop where you dragged it. Customization ends here, with no possibility to change wallpapers on virtual desktops, which is a shame, since I feel it helps making sense of where you are.

5 - Desktop customization
There isn't much to change here: you can switch the desktop wallpaper by right clicking ont the desktop, annnnnd that's about it. You can tweak which results will appear while searching in the activites view, and adjust notifications preferences, but that's all.
GNOME 3, by default, does not offer any theme options: you are stuck with the default look: black top bar, Adwaita theme, and icons. I must say, the black bar an the GNOME Shell theme look pretty good, and Adwaita is not bad to look at, except for all the padding : title bars and buttons are pretty huge. The icons, on the other hand, look very muted to me, lacking color and generally feeling pretty dated. GNOME is working on a redesign of most of these icons, which should improve things a bit.

6 - Conclusion
GNOME 3's metaphor is a bit unsettling by default. The way to get to your open or minimized windows is not immediately obvious, and the use of a full screen "Activities" view, serving as an overview to manage your apps, desktops, and windows, was not familiar to me, so it took a bit of time to get to grips with it an re-learn the desktop, something I didn't have to do with KDE or elementary OS, for example, which use more traditional desktop metaphors.

This metaphor is very well suited to monotasking: open one app full screen on each virtual desktop, and the shell will work perfectly for you. Multitaskers, on the other hand, better learn the keyboard shortcuts and get used to alt / tabbing quite a bit.

My final first impression is one of a desktop that provides simplicity, for mouse users, and lets you multitask efficiently IF you get used to using keyboard shortcuts.

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Also Watch my Experience with Manjaro Budgie on a Full AMD Linux Build:
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[PMK]

I've been a fan of GNOME since I first started using Linux ~2 years ago. Seeing a video with GNOME in action was what finally got me to try Linux in the first place; it was so different than what I was used to (i.e. Windows), but that's exactly why it got me interested.

To this day, GNOME is easily one of my favorite DEs to use. My only real complaint is performance.

[JoshBagwell]

I've been using Fedora on Gnome 3 since Fedora 16. I've become very efficient with the default layout with minimal tweaks. Gnome 3 is by far my favorite DE,

[qwrasw]

Ahh i have a Love/Hate relationship with gnome! Many might agree..

[SriHarshaChilakapati]

Liked for that depressing document at 7:11. "I'm pretending to work on a document here. Let's not say anything about this". Hehe!

00:58 If you're going to talk about the activities view feature, then open more than one window. Just showing a single window sitting in the middle of the screen doesn't say anything. It looks no different from the regular view.

[edd]

beautiful desktop but on optimization is horrendous ...

[eddieoconnor]

I love GNome. Its my default desktop on my Fedora laptop and desktop. I like the way it stays out of my way as I conduct my workflow. Being someone who's trying to learn programming (C++ / Python) this desktop rocks! I can have NotepadQQ open on one desktop....Ninja-IDE open in another...Firefox or GNome Web open on another...and listen to smooth jazz whilst I study a400+ page C++ PDF with Clementine Music Player on yet another desktop!...to me?...THIS is what an ideal desktop environment should be! I hope they continue to improve it and that it continues to work as flawlessly as it does.


*One note: If you have less than 8GB of RAM?...you might have slow performance....but seeing as how I have this installed on both a Dell XPS with an i7 and 16GB of RAM...and a Lenovo ThinkPad (T450) with an i5 and 16GB of RAM...I have no problems whatsoever!!!

[jamesscholey]

I like to use my mouse as little as possible and gnome works nicely for me in this respect. It's uncluttered and gnome tweaks gives me everything I need to theme gnome to my liking. Adapta Color pack and paper icons boom...looks great

[Dubfiance]

Gnome 3 seems like the perfect desktop for tablet devices.

[GroudFrank]

Adwaita needs a refresh and the default Gnome icons are just embarrassing but Gnome absolutely nails the padding around elements! Elements have breathing room and it looks nice. elementary could learn a thing or two from Gnome in that department. The left menu for Pantheon files and the top bar calendar in particular look especially clustered and crude.

[Techonsapevole]

Completly agree, GNOME by default is unusable, but with dash-to-dock it ha more sense, I did a video on that

[Arcadn]

I love using Gnome with several extensions turned on. Vanilla Gnome is just annoying however. Why do I have to press the Activities button every time I want to switch applications? I use tons of apps at once on my computer, so it’s extremely cumbersome to use.

[madsen]

I can't stand stock gnome. I find the constant context switching that happens when you open activity overview takes you out of your workflow.

[artmcteagle]

Good review. I can see that once you become accustomed to Gnome 3 and use the keyboard, workflow would be good. Nowadays, it seems everyone is fixated on fancy effects like 'wobbly' windows, bright pulsating icons etc. -pimp my DT. Seems to be missing the point of using a PC. A DT environment should be fast, stable, unobtrusive, when you're working.

[saaransh]

It's hard for me to put it into words, but for some reason, I keep coming back to gnome. I've used KDE Neon, Solus Budgie and Elementary OS as well but for some reason, Ubuntu + Gnome ends up as my daily driver. It's true that Gnome puts a lot of emphasis on Keyboard and once one is familiar with it, everything else on the Gnome-shell is just a canvas to improve your productivity. It has a sufficient degree of customization available through shell extensions that enables one to modify it to one's liking.

My only complain with Gnome isn't with the shell in particular but with the Apps. All Gnome apps are borderline unusable. In that, I admire KDE a lot, but Plasma desktop isn't my cup of tea.

[Weazelmania]

I've found myself here looking for a Window alternative. People suggested GNOME as a close rival for simplicity. Would you suggest something else, or run with this? I tried Ubuntu years ago but it wasn't point and click and that was a big no for me. I'm not after running commands either. But I would like an operating system that can support apps and programs that iOS and Win could.

[aceofsticks]

I love GNOME, but there are two things that drive me crazy. The All Apps view, too much "phoney" and slow and performance. It starts to lag after a few minutes of usage.

[harshphysik]

When I used Ubuntu, they had unity. On pressing super key, I could go to app grid which wasn't possible in gnome so I left it. Also gnome is quite resource heavy. My old laptop faces issues.

The wallpapers on your machine are good. Is it elementary os?

[saidbakr]

Based on my experience with Ubuntu 18.04. Don't try to use Gnome Tweaks, it will introduce you to some issues, you may find solutions for it or you may not. Best practice for productivity is to use it as it is, forget the customization.

[chrisuk]

I do like Gnome but, for me, personally I think Gnome is aimed more at consuming media etc than it is at actual productition. Gnome feels more like a DE for day to day web browsing, Youtube, email and watching videos etc. My favourite DE is Cinnamon by a longshot. For me Cinnamon is is what Gnome 3 should have been, it's modern, fast and stays out of my way.