Ubuntu and Mint don't want it; Linus called it an “unholy mess.” While most other distros are passing up or postponing GNOME Shell, Fedora is full steam ahead. Does Red Hat know something the rest of us don't? Or is GNOME 3 really as bad as everyone says?

We've been covering Ubuntu for more than two years, receiving lots of great feedback on our work. Many of you asked us to expand our Linux coverage to include other distributions. Here's the result of those requests: Fedora 16 (code-named Verne) is our first step outside of Ubuntu/Linux.
We chose to cover Fedora because it's the first top-tier Linux distro to adopt GNOME 3 as its default desktop. Far from a mere upgrade to GNOME 2, GNOME 3 introduces the radical new GNOME Shell graphical user interface (GUI). This article is just as much about GNOME 3 and its controversial new GNOME Shell than it is about Fedora. Even more so, actually.
If you've kept up with our Ubuntu coverage, you know that Canonical (the corporate sponsor of Ubuntu) was originally slated to ship GNOME 3, along with GNOME Shell, last October. Instead, the world's most popular desktop Linux distro developed its own Unity user interface.
The Ubuntu 11.10 Unity Desktop
Like Unity, GNOME Shell is the victim of polarizing extremes. Both new interfaces seem to be met with either adoration or outright hostility. Ubuntu took a pass on GNOME Shell, and so did Linux Mint. Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, called it an “unholy mess” on Google+. And thus, the aggregate opinion of GNOME 3 seems to be pretty negative so far (even more so than Unity).
Is the harsh criticism justified? If it is, could Red Hat really consider this shell for future versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)? How efficient is the design of the new GNOME 3 desktop? How does it fare against Unity? Is the latest Fedora a leaner, meaner incarnation of Linux than Ubuntu? How does it stack up against Windows 7? Is Fedora 16 even fit for the average end-user desktop scenario?
We're answering all of those questions today. But because this is Tom's Hardware's first in-depth look at Fedora, we first have to cover the basics. Read on for a full primer on using Fedora 16, a complete guide to GNOME 3, and the cross-platform benchmarks.
- A First Look At Fedora And GNOME Shell
- Fedora 16 At A Glance
- Fedora 16 Installation: Phase One
- Fedora 16 Installation: Phase Two
- Repos, Flash, Java, And Codecs
- Graphics, Wi-Fi, And 32-bit Libs
- GNOME 3 And GNOME Shell Basics
- GNOME Shell Desktop, Panel, And Notifications
- GNOME Shell Activities/Overview
- Input Shortcuts, Tips, And Tricks
- GNOME 3 Pros And Cons
- GNOME 3 Tweaks
- GNOME Shell Extensions A-L
- GNOME Shell Extensions M-Z
- Fixing GNOME 3
- Mimicking GNOME 2
- Test System Specs And Setup
- Benchmark Results: Start And Stop Times
- Benchmark Results: File Copy Time
- Benchmark Results: Archiving
- Benchmark Results: Multimedia
- Benchmark Results: System
- Benchmark Results: Unigine, AMD And Nvidia
- Benchmark Results: Games, AMD And Nvidia
- Benchmark Analysis: Fedora Versus Ubuntu And Windows
- Fedora 16: Conclusion
- GNOME 3: Why It Failed
- GNOME 3: Conclusion

Unity, Metro, GNOME 3, Etc.
Alas, I must suffer each day for the Wacom preferences panel in GNOME settings. Ties me to GNOME 3 (or a derivative). How silly.
In the end, I'm downgrading to a much older distro of Ubuntu, and supplementing it with Windows 7. I'll be keeping an eye in the coming years to see how these rusty GUI releases turn out-- hopefully for the better. But for now, linux has lost a lot of its useability and it's flare. I'll miss the days when upgrading to a newer distro actually felt like an upgrade, but maybe after all these mistakes, developers will learn and make Linux exciting again. I'll be waiting to see.
Nobody, IMHO, who actually uses a computer for anything of value wastes their time with Fedora. You can't upgrade it, so your own personal enhancements and bug fixes are lost. Features you like are abandoned for broken replacements. Fedora is a nightmare and has been since it began. I began the adventure years ago with Red Hat 5 and finally gave up and moved to more useful distros after Fedora 8. Fedora is now for the masochistic.
On the other hand, if you like superficiality, as in wallpaper and clock positions, and enjoy the animated struggle that comes with installing something new all the time and reporting bugs then Fedora is a good thing.
With that Fedora is also made for workstations and Ubuntu made for end user support 2 differnet applications so why only show benchmarks of end user things and not anything on network support, domain support, VM thin client viability, accessing files from the network, etc. like that things which Fedora is good at not just things which Ubuntu is I think this article was basised and another should be made with more benchmarks to not be as basised towards one or the other.
Unity, Metro, GNOME 3, Etc.
Alas, I must suffer each day for the Wacom preferences panel in GNOME settings. Ties me to GNOME 3 (or a derivative). How silly.
Now, I admit that neither of these configuration options are immediately visible to a new user. Despite that, your review is bad, and you should feel bad.
See pages 12 through 16.
Thanks, good catch. The words are wrong, not the chart. Fixed it.
KDE has quad-snap, which rocks on a large monitor
"I use Fedora, but recommend Ubuntu".
I wonder what RPM stands for.
It isn't explained in the article, but it happens to stand for Red Hat Package Manager.
Perhaps that is why fedora uses it.
The is no special reason why 'parent distributions' are 100% free software, it is simply red hat's corporate policy.
You might want to fix the typo on page 2, in the header which says 'whats new in fedora 15'.
I happen to use fedora 15 and recently upgraded to fedora 16.
It is buggy at the moment, it crashes but never have I lost any work due to the shell crashing, you can kill it and it will relaunch itself without any problems. At first I thought that the interface is stupid, and I still use gnome2 on my 10.04 ubuntu desktop. BUT, I have to say, I am almost used to dragging my mouse to the top left corner of the screen when I want to switch workspaces/apps on my desktop as well
I'm now using Unity, while far from perfect provides me with a better usability than Gnome3 and the features I really don't like (global menu, overlay scroll bars, placement of window buttons) can be uninstalled or tweaked away with Unity.
Gnome3 made me feel as if I'm forced to use the desktop in the very specific way the devs feel is right for me, not the way I feel is right - this problem exists to a certain degree with Unity, too, but for now I still prefer the direction Unity is taking and I feel I still have much more freedom for adjusting it.
Eventually I might look into Mint and Cinnamon, which looks very interesting.