Gnome Shell will destroy the scene

But not in a good way. Apparently, we're six months from Gnome Shell (the most user-facing component of the gnome 3.0 Desktop) going "live" this september with Ubuntu 10.10. Oh my. This will be the most controversial and hated moves of the open source desktop dramas.

Gnome shell is about as friendly as a bear with bees in it's mouth. Instead of categorized program menus (like every other desktop that uses program menus) Gnome Shell provides you with a 5x7 grid of icons and truncated names. This offers the user with such jems as "Uninstall" and in my case two identical icons, both labeled "Armegetro..." Ok, one is Armegetron Server, and one is simply Armegetron (both are cool Tron inspired lightcycle games). So, uh, gnome overlords, how am I supposed to know which is which? I guess just memorize, or click-and-pray.

Other highlights are "Configure ...," "Google ga...," and "Google ga...," "Manage Pr..." ok, you get the idea. I wonder, why didn't the gnome shell developers? You also probably thought to yourself by now, "Quit belly-aching, and just hover over the icon. I'm sure there's a pop-up notification." But, you'd be wrong! Probably violates some undergrad's idea of an HIG.

Always visible in the err... "Activities Overview Mode," is a list of 19 most recent items. There's no way to clear them. Not from the err... "Activities Overview Mode," menu anyway.

And about that "Activities Overview Mode," it is basically a start-menu that consumes about 1/5 of your screen, shrinking the rest down "OS X expose" style. Looks really neat, the first time. By about the 10,000th time you've seen "GNOME Shell take advantage of the capabilities of modern graphics hardware" you are sea-sick enough to have to go lay down for a bit. Another cool misfeature of the "Activities Overview Mode" is that you cannot simply click the desktop to exit the "Activities Overview Mode," rather, you must click an expose'ed window. Why? Dunno.


And that's the overall feel I get from using this beta version of GNOME Shell. Why? Dunno. And it seems like the whole thing was stitched together by people who will simply expect you not to ask "why?" But should you, and should you be granted an answer, I'll admit it likely won't be "dunno." But if the answer is given in a moment of honesty, it would probably be "because we say so."


I could go on. But it's just bumming me out too much. I'll just go back to using the very thoughtfully designed and innovative Google Chrome browser. I mean, the "desktop" is becoming more and more of an unwelcome necessity these days anyway. As I've said before, I've chosen GNOME as my (often abusive) partner, and I still hope for things to improve. Yeah, I'm a sucker. But I've got time: six months.


Six months to see what changes, and hopefully, six months to prove my prediction wrong: GNOME Shell will be the most ridiculed and reviled major desktop overhaul in the history of Open Source Desktops.