Fedora 16 And GNOME Shell: Tested And Reviewed

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i agree that users hate gnome 3, but you seem to be attempting to spin unity as being better received? unity is loathed by users, and users are leaving ubuntu i droves because of unity. both shells are basically failures.
 

FiL

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I would really encourage you all to give Cinnamon on Fedora a go; it is very easy to install and have a look at this exciting new GUI.


I really hope Fedora makes a cinnamon spin, although as I said, just installing it is a 2 minute job.
 
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Your comments about Linus are obsolete. He was refering to Gnome 3.0. Once version 3.2 came out Linus saidf that he was liking he direction and improvement expecially with the incorporationb of extensions which are a breeze to install (just go to the extensions website, flip a switch to on on the extension page and voila, extension gets installed and activated. Version 3.4 coming out in a couple of weweks adds many improvements, speed and new features (boxes, documents, context menus on laucher bar, etc)
 
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Gnome 3 is absolute horrible. While I prefer Fedora over other popular distros, I had to enable the fallback UI mode to make 16 tolerable. Even then, I'm considering going back to 15.
 

mayne92

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[citation][nom]randomstring[/nom]I came here from Slashdot expecting a shallow review. Boy, was I dissapointed. Well played![/citation]
There are a few things that keep me coming back to Toms - and Adam et al reviews are really good and thorough! Always listening to the poster's suggestions to improve on later reviews and take criticism (whether positive or not) really well.

Great article Adam! Complemented my morning coffee well before work! :)
 
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I disagree with the point about broadcom wireless drivers. I started using Ubuntu three years back in Dell Inspiron E1505 as a replacement for Vista. Ever since I made the switch, each upgrade or re-installation, I have to spend some time in making the wireless work. The proprietary drivers that come with Ubuntu never worked for me out-of-the-box. With Ubuntu 11.10, I had some irritating sound problems, I decided to try OpenSUSE. I had the wireless problem with that also, but still the installation script that it provided overcome the problem easily. Just a matter of running a command. Even it rated better than the hours I spent with my Ubuntu system. Now I switched to Fedora 16, this is the first Linux that had a wireless system working without me doing anything. In my experience, if you hold drivers as an issue, I would say Fedora as the best. Ubuntu would be the last. Although I like Ubuntu a lot, the old dell hardware, I own freezes a lot with both Unity and Gnome shell in Ubuntu. However Fedora is better, my screen has no freezes anytime. I feel you are little biased in your review.
 
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Gnome3 does have a taskbar. It is an autohide taskbar. Move the pointer to the upper left corner, and there it is, together with a summary of all the open windows to make selecting one easy.
 
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Oh, these GNOME 3 haters. Sure, GNOME 3 is not customisable, even if you can get all the "lost" features (I see -- for some people it's essential to have trash on the desktop) in a few seconds and few clicks without even need of restart. The article is an example of bad journalism -- if the author don't like GNOME 3, it doesn't mean it's a failure. Huge amount of people love it and don't care about deprecated Win95-like DEs anymore. Poll on OMG Ubuntu showed that while 50% used stock Unity, ~30% switched to GNOME Shell, while other DEs got less than 20%.
 
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Well for mouse users i can understand it to be a little frustrating to move to the top left all the time. But for keyboard or keyboard+mouse users, i think gnome 3 is the most workable and visually appealing DE around only needing minor tweaks.
Agreed it will take some time to get used to, but after that its grants you with a very clear and clutter free system.
Overall i find it to be the biggest step forward compared to the other new DE's
 

gerchokas

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I'm glad Tom's started to review this great OS! I guess I saw this a bit late, but another important factor that could be taken into account for future comparisons is power consumption for each OS. Many of us use notebooks for work or studying where linux distros are quite suitable, and battery power is always an issue. It has been seen formerly how using different OS'es / graphical interfaces can greatly impact your battery power, and finding updated comparisons on the web is not easy... Could you look this up for the next review? Thank you!
 

bobschultz

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I find that the Gnome 3 interface is unacceptable for the way I like to manage my workstation. However, unless I missed it somewhere, there is the "fallback mode" available for all users, which provides the standard interface many of us prefer. The fallback mode is automatically selected on systems which can not support the video modes required by Gnome 3. HOWEVER, it can be manually selected by a user on any system! That is what I have done, and I'm thrilled with F16. To select fallback mode, simply open "System Settings", click on "System Info", then click on "Graphics", and then click "Forced Fallback Mode" to ON. Voila. Problem solved. This simple trick does not seem to have gained widespread publicity.
 

psiphi

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This style write-up is rare, it was extremely thorough and in-depth, thanks. I have never been an fan of Gnome 3, although it is my main Linux desktop environment. In fact I loath it and I loath that it won't let me customise it... easily. I have been using Linux and Gnome (70% of the time) for 14 years, I don't want to start over. I am in the movement of transitioning to Mint which will bring back Gnome 2.

However, your write-up gives me hope and I will look into the Gnome Tweak Tool.

I was great to see Linux challenging Windows in all areas, especially gaming.

Fantastic write up, thanks again.
 

Reek

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I've developed the only theory that makes sense to me: Open source developers are under attack by folks who are both feel threatened by open source and have deep pockets to bankroll slick con artists who are adept at manipulating naive technogeeks into going all-in on totally insane development paths: http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/game/gnome3-rant.html

I simply cannot make any of it make sense otherwise :).
 
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I should be excited about the community rallying around a OSS DE, that took you a MONTH to 'get into' ?
You must be kidding me!

No wonder linux, has zero market share to speak of, and no wonder Windows maintains it so amazingly well. Im all for OSS, but your final comments make it clear , why the linux community has no clue whatsoever, when it comes to users needs, and given that clarity, its no wonder the windows world is where it is.

I therefore am glad I made the decision when I did, to leave linux in the dust as my main stay, because I grew weary, short of being glad oss has something for those who can't or wont afford windows, of fixing things daily and tweaking and dealing with a unstable, non useable product, in part imho, due to the ridiculous short devel cycle, that is linux.

Nope, don't miss it, and this review cements that my decision, and those of all my friends, were spot on, to say, we pass,- maybe later on linux.

The lack of games and important apps for linux, atm, makes it a expensive toy. By expensive, I mean the tweaking I/we needed to do, to get somewhere usable.

Remind me again, why linux needs so many 'distros', and why windows has ONE and maintains its solid market share ?
 

Christopher1

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[citation][nom]puddleglum[/nom]Linux isn't the only one going to this DBI (Ditz Blond Interface). I understand Win8 will force it on the rest of the world as well, and we all know this came from Apple (Thanx for nothing). At least with Linux we have other choices, even if they aren't as appealing as what we had in Gnome2.[/citation]

Guess again. Microsoft has already said that there will be an easy registry setting change to get back to the classic, non-Metro interface. Though speaking as a regular person who uses lots of OS's as a system builder, I love Metro. It's not a 'dumb interface'.
 
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I don't know what to tell you. I actually switched to Fedora precisely because of Gnome 3. I think its a very elegant desktop environment.
 

armistas55

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I used the extensions to get back the gnome2 functionality in gnome-shell but over time I'm finding I use the baseline gnome-shell features more and more and the gnome2 functionality extensions less and less.

Maybe they were onto something when they developed gnome-shell.
 

akula2

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I love Fedora and do lot of work on it. Perhaps people can STOP whining about GNOME 3 and have a look at the Fedora spins:

KDE Plasma Desktop: https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde

Fedora is a great distro for the people who aren't lazy. Kubuntu is very nice, but I love PCLinuxOS over Ubuntu distros (Desktop looks and thrills). No disrespect, Mint is kinda girlie :) And, to beat the common people I install Sabayon on my dedicated Linux distro PC, and tease them :p

Anyway, Fedora is a great distro if ONE is tuned towards it like myself (since Redhat 5.0 days, before that Solaris).
 
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I happen to love Gnome 3 and have been using it for months now under Fedora 16. It does take a little bit to get used to but once you do it rocks! I'm running it on an 8 yr old PC without any issues.
People hate change and 90% of the population are sheep. They will follow their idols rather than thinking for themselves. I would be sad if Gnome 3 was scrapped. I used to support Windows machines at work, used a Macbook Pro and Gnome 3 kicks the hell out of all of them when it comes to multi-tasking and ease of use. I love the overlay when I just hit the 'Windows' key on the keyboard and start typing the name of an application, file or contact in Gmail. I use it all the time and even my friends and family that use Windows are extremely impressed.

Yes, I would agree that Gnome might not be as customizable as it once was, but I don't really care! My only complaint is that 'GnomeTweak Tool' wasn't availabe right from the install.
 
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To switch between apps in Gnome Shell, you must use the keyboard shortcuts of Alt + Tab and Alt + `. The similar as on OSX. That will cut down on the amount of cursor movement. Also use the Super key to get to Activities. And CTRL + ALT + Up/Down to move between workspaces. The keyboard shortcuts could be better, but they are enough. I wasn't the biggest fan of Gnome Shell and soon resorted to Gnome Classic, but I've been having metacity lockup issues on the desktop and have subsequently resorted to trying Gnome Shell again - and it's not that bad. The best tip I can give is to hit Super and start typing to get to Apps rather than try and get to applications with the pointer.

Agree that the dock is rather pointless. Don't see why they don't just include the Application menu as it used to be for completeness.

I'm slowly getting used to it.
 
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Gnome 3 is definitely the most stupid GUI already made for Linux...
 
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Fedora 14 was wonderful o/s with GNOME. The UI does not emit any extra light. It is quite suffecient and balanced.
Fedora 16 looks more awkward than Microsoft windows, its UI emits more light into eyes, it distracts the user for staying long. Unnecessary flashy and extra bright images. Say open a Gedit vs MS notepad. (both are similar, or Gedit is worse , as it flashes with unusual celestial kind of light , shown in movies for heavenly objects, creatures.

Anything more and out of control is always bad. It loses its balance. eg. if you add more white into "red', it evenutaully becomes orange, pink, and finally becomes white itself.

Usability is not about creating extra special effects, usability is about how it accomplishes or supports user's needs.

Even features like Calender, streaming time-stamp, everything looks changed.
This Fedora 16 with GNOME3 is not an upgrade, but an downgrade. (an imitation of windows )
It does's look like Linux anymore.
 
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f16 is very tiring to use. lots of mouse clicking ang moving to a complish a simple stuff.
- so hard to minimize a window....
- so hard to select different open applications
- i hate it when my mouse drifts on the upper left corner of the desktop
 
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Yesterday we upgraded our Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6.2 and the desktop functionality has been changed as in Gnome 3...If we minimize..it will not be seen unless we click Alt_Tab....Are these guys mad????Seems like some crazy people in Red hat is trying to kill linux desktops...they sponsor Gnome 3 and the Fedora crap....
 
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