Fedora 16 And GNOME Shell: Tested And Reviewed

By Adam Overa
published

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?

GNOME Shell Extensions M-Z

Monitor Status Indicator

Adds a monitor indicator to the Panel for quick access to monitor settings.

Native Window Placement

The Native Window Placement extension arranges the Windows section of the Overview in a less symmetrical fashion that takes window size into account.

The screen shots below display the placement of three windows in the Windows section of the Overview, before and after turning on the Native Window Placement extension.

Fedora 16 Default Window Placement

Natural Window Placement Extension

Pidgin IM Integration

Allows Pidgin to utilize the Status Menu like Empathy.

Places Status Indicator

The Places Status Indicator extension adds a Places menu to the upper panel. Clicking on the Places indicator produces a pop-out menu listing the places in the sidebar of the Nautilus file manager. New places can be added by bookmarking them in Nautilus.

The Places list is located on the right side among the indicators, instead of the left, next to the Applications menu, as it was in GNOME 2.

Presentation mode

Adds the option to disable automatic power saving features and the screen saver in the Panel's Battery indicator (mobile systems only).

Removable Drive Menu

The Removable Devices extension adds a removable devices indicator/menu to the top panel. Like the Places Status Indicator, clicking on the Removable Drive Menu yields a pop-out menu listing all of the removable devices currently attached to the system.

Devices include external disk drives, USB thumb drives, CDs, DVDs, and more. To save Panel space, this indicator does not appear if no removable devices are attached to the system.

remove-X-icon

There are separate extensions to remove the Accessibility, Bluetooth, and Volume indicators from the Panel.

SystemMonitor

Adds CPU and memory graph to the left side of the Messaging Tray.

User Themes 

The User Themes extension allows for the GNOME 3 shell theme to be changed. Most theme files remain in their archived format and are added via the (None) button on the Shell page in the GNOME Tweak Tool. After themes are added to the list, they're applied by selecting them from the drop-down in the Shell Theme section.

GNOME Tweak Tool - User Themes

The image below shows the Fedora 16 desktop with the malys Gnome Shell theme.

Image 1 of 3
Mayls Shell Theme

windowNavigator 

The windowNavigator extension adds a keyboard shortcut. It places a number in the upper-left corner of windows in the Overview when holding one of the Alt keys. Pressing the corresponding number key switches to that window.

WindowOverlay Icons

Adds application icons to the bottom right corner of windows in the Activities Overview.

Workspace Indicator

Adds a workspace switcher to the Panel indicators.

Other Sources of Extensions

That concludes the tour of GNOME Shell extensions available via the software repos, but that is just one source of GNOME Shell extensions. GNOME also has an official website for extensions.

GNOME Shell Extensions Website

At the time of writing, there were nearly 150 different GNOME Shell Extensions available through the official site. Most of them support on-click installation directly from the site, just like for Firefox Add-Ons.

But that's still not all; extensions can be found elsewhere. Some developers host extensions on their own sites, or places like GNOME-Look.org.

Adam Overa
Topics
Linux
Software
85 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gz3ro
    I think the akmod graphics drivers (also found in the rpmfusion repository) would be better than simply the proprietary drivers because they also work after kernel updates.
    Reply
  • Verrin
    I'm really disappointed with the direction Linux has taken in its user interfaces. I was a big fan of Ubuntu until they switched to Unity, and since then I've been jumping from distro-to-distro trying to find a desktop environment that feels comfortable, isn't terribly difficult to wrap my head around, and that is still powerful. I was using GNOME3 for a while with Linux Mint, but even with the heavy extensions, there are certain functions that I can't quite replicate from the GNOME2 heyday. I wasn't able to get into KDE or XFCE either. They feel aged and aren't quite as sleek as other modern desktop environments, even if you try to fix that by adding customs skins.

    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.
    Reply
  • Good grief. What I wouldn't have done years ago for a job that would ask me to write a review on something that would obsolete itself in six months.

    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.
    Reply
  • yumri
    one thing which i would have liked to see on the comparesion would be open time of a Libre Word Processing file, close time of that file, open time of a database file, close time of it, open time of Firefox, close time of Firefox, open time of a typical website like this one, close time of it, install time of the OS, how fast does it run a batch file or equivalent in the OS, and etc. like that things which we actually do a lot besides gaming.
    Reply
  • yumri
    It also seemed like they had a basis towards the GUI way of doing things and thought all users had forsaken CLI scripting for their installs and updates. as if you are getting Fedora you most likely know it was command line based in the start and really is still easier to do everything from command line then from any other route well Ubuntu is made with the GUI interface in mind so things are easier to do with that then with command line mainly because they hid the terminal screen in the newer versions of it.
    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.
    Reply
  • amdfangirl
    One of these days, developers of GUIs will realise going "forward" doesn't equate to an increase of ease of use and functionality.

    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.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    Now I'm waiting for them to do a Solaris 10 or 11 review. Their both available on x86 so they don't even need to purchase new hardware. Come on it's a "real mans" OS.
    Reply
  • You've completely missed extensions.gnome.org and gnome-tweak-tool, and as a result your review is not an accurate reflection of gnome-shell. Gnome-tweak-tool gives things like "Have file manager handle the desktop" and "Trash icon visible on desktop", plus shell, window, and gtk theme selection, font configuration, and gnome-shell extension management. Extensions.gnome.org provides, well, gnome-shell extensions. Things like "Static Workspaces", which gives you a fixed number of workspaces. Or "Alternative Status Menu", which puts power, reboot, suspend, and hibernate on your status menu. Or "Applications Menu", which provides a Gnome2-like list of windows on the current workspace.

    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.
    Reply
  • zhihao50
    graph for POV-Ray is wrong, you said both of linux finished 4min before windows yet the graph show the other way around.
    Reply
  • adamovera
    Cowardly AnonYou've completely missed extensions.gnome.org and gnome-tweak-tool, and as a result your review is not an accurate reflection of gnome-shell. Gnome-tweak-tool gives things like "Have file manager handle the desktop" and "Trash icon visible on desktop", plus shell, window, and gtk theme selection, font configuration, and gnome-shell extension management. Extensions.gnome.org provides, well, gnome-shell extensions. Things like "Static Workspaces", which gives you a fixed number of workspaces. Or "Alternative Status Menu", which puts power, reboot, suspend, and hibernate on your status menu. Or "Applications Menu", which provides a Gnome2-like list of windows on the current workspace.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.
    Reply