Gnome 3, is a complete Linux user interface evolution. Gnome 3 is a completely revamped user interface, a major change from the current Gnome shell which includes panels. The next generation of the Gnome desktop has done away with panels and introduced an activities menu which in essence is an intelligent user menu that houses the application menu’s, recent documents and system settings, further more it has integrated the multi desktop view that most Compiz users are accustomed to.

While Gnome 3 will unfortunately not be ready in time for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, it will most probably be included in Ubuntu’s 10.10 release later on this year.

If you are an early adopter and wish to test out this radical new desktop interface you can install the development packages and try it out first hand, bearing in mind that this is a development release, so expect bugs!

To install the Gnome the Shell:

1. Open a terminal and type the following command:

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-shell

This will install the required dependencies to run Gnome 3 on your desktop

2. Install Gnome

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

3. To activate Gnome 3

gnome-shell –replace

For user with an Intel graphics card, you may want to run the following to fix some issues with the Gnome 3 Interface:

export GNOME_SHELL_DISABLE_TFP=1

Remember that this a development release so it would probably be prudent to test this on a virtual machine, however it will give you a good idea of the innovation in store for mainstream Gnome based distributions.

The Gnome 3 Interface

Tags: Configuration, Customization, Gnome, GTK Theme, Installation, Interface, Packages, Software

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Tutorials. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.