A confession

[Neil Bird]

   My name is Neil, and I have found that I actually quite like GNOME Shell.


   I had to update my box from Fedora 14 a fortnight ago, and was dreading 
having to move from a GNOME (+ compiz) environment, including persuading the 
family.  I'd updated my laptop a while ago, and was just about getting on 
with GNOME Shell, but it's a completely different use case for me than the 
desktop.  I'd tried and been deeply unimpressed by the preview versions 
available on F14, and had an every increasing list of worries (lack of 
configurability [I like to be able to use the mouse wheel over the window 
title to shade/unshade - I still can't do this on GNOME Shell], and I had 
come to *hate* metacity (hence compiz, and openbox at work).

   I'd prepared by installing XFCE and even Cinnamon (which I might try 
again a little down the line should it get Google-calendar integration). 
But I thought I'd do the Right Thing™ and give GNOME Shell a proper try.


   So I updated my box (which was a minor horror story all of its own, 
trying to sort out a stuffed grub2 configuration and then an RPM d/b broken 
by anaconda).  And [finally] managed to log in using GNOME Shell.


   And, actually, ... it's quite nice (now I've re-themed it).  There are 
some things I still miss, mouse bindings being a big one (although I have my 
extra thumb button doing the overview mode using xbindkeys and xdotool), and 
I'm half-way to re-implementing the sticky-notes applet as an extension (I 
wrote a MythTV monitor extension over the weekend, which I'm quite chuffed 
with).

   But all the things I *though* might annoy me ... haven't.


   So, I'm come out now:  I was a GNOME Shell doubter, but I'm (almost) 
converted.  And I just thought I ought to say so.



   Although we shall see how I feel when our application toolbars disappear 
up into the main panel ...

-- 
[neil at fnx ~]# rm -f .signature
[neil at fnx ~]# ls -l .signature
ls: .signature: No such file or directory
[neil at fnx ~]# exit