Gnome 3 postponed untill 2011

The long awaited Gnome 3 desktop environment for Linux has been postponed yet another year because it was deemed not ready for mass public use, Gnome developers say. The decision was made at the annual GUADEC conference in the Netherlands.

Altough the news might dissapoint some diehard Linux users, the delay would give gnome developers more time to iron out bugs and prevent a premature, bug-filled launch like KDE 4 went through. By trying to learn from history, they’re probably also saving a steep loss in Gnome’s market share compared to other desktop environments (this is what happened to KDE).

For a more “hands on” review, I decided to download and install Gnome 3 on my Ubuntu box, and I really think the idea to postpone the launch was a good one. There are still a lot of bugs in the interface, as well as lags, freezez and so on.

After those bugs are fixed, I have to admit Gnome 3 is a pretty interesting concept. As you can see, the desktop looks nice and clean, the main focus of it is trying to change the way people “interact ” with their computers and to make things like desktop clutter and folder missorganization a thing of the past.

Gnome 3 also takes care of compositing, meaning that it has it’s own compositing engine, and programs such as Compiz, Compiz Fusion or Beryl are no longer required. This changed proved very difficult for me, because altough it provides a multi-desktop environment, a lot of effects are still absent in Gnome 3. So once popular distributions such as Ubuntu make the switch to Gnome 3, we can say goodbye to fancy things such as wobbly windows or fire on our screen.

The built-in search tool was garbage however. Pure garbage. In previous Gnome 3 builds it didn’t even work at all. At least now it’s working, but I couldn’t find most of my stuff with it, not even basic programs such as Ubuntu Tweak. Apparently for some unknown reason, the built-in search tool refused to index my files. But that’s ok I guess, I wouldn’t have used anyway.

Final thoughts: If they would have released Gnome 3  in 2 months like it was planned, it would have been a riot amongst Gnome fans. Gnome 3 in its state right now is utter garbage. There are still many bugs to be ironed out and untill they do, I wouldn’t recommend anyone using it. Gnome 2 and KDE 4.5 still do their jobs.