Upgraded F14 -> F15, now how do I use this?

[Michael Ekstrand]

On 06/08/2011 10:18 AM, Oliver Ruebenacker wrote:
>      Hello again,
> 
>   Also, I had a desktop full of stuff and now my desktop looks
> completely empty, although the folder "Desktop" and its contents still
> exist.

Gnome 3, which is used by Fedora 15, no longer displays desktop icons by
default. You can re-enable them with gnome-tweak-tool if you want.

>   Plus i had a number of icons on the top toolbar, like a few
> applications to start and a temperature display, and they are all
> gone. In F14, I knew how to add things, but I don't know in F15.

Gnome 3 does not support the same kinds of panel applets as Gnome 2 did.
 The new extensions system is far more capable; however, equivalents to
most extensions have not yet been developed for it.  There are a few
extensions included in Fedora, mostly to enable some old-style behavior
(such as the old window-based alt-tab switcher).  You can also search
around for extensions to do other things; I found, for instance, the
Weather extension here:

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/gnome-shell-weather-extension.html

>   Help! What is going on? Is my F15 severely crippled, and if so, how
> can I fix it? Otherwise, how can I use this to do anything?

It's not crippled, in that it is working as intended.  Gnome 3 brings
along substantial changes, and some things that had been developed for
Gnome 2 have not yet been updated/rewritten, or their functionality has
been subsumed elsewhere.  Also, Gnome 3 is designed to have fewer
gadgets on the screen, preferring a model where you focus on the
application(s) you are using and the sysem (mostly) takes care of
itself.  If you do not like this model, other environments such as KDE
and Xfce (both available in Fedora) still provide a user experience more
similar to the one you had with the old version of Gnome.

- Michael