I installed a beta version of the new Gnome Shell desktop environment on my Fedora Linux PC, and it seems to be very cool indeed! And it’s free, not only free in in the meaning of “freedom” but even free as in “free lunch.”

Gnome is the standard desktop graphical environment for many Linux distributions, including Fedora, the Linux distribution I’ve been using on my PC since February 2005. Another popular Linux desktop environment is KDE. Some people like it better than Gnome, because it looks a bit more like Windows®, but I found KDE buggy and unstable, at least it was 5 years ago, and stuck with Gnome. There are even more desktop environments besides these two.

The first screenshot shows my normal Gnome desktop using a top bar to show open applications, and a bottom toolbar showing the standard Gnome toolbar. The wallpaper contains a not so subliminal message.

By default the Gnome toolbars are on the opposite sides, but like to change them because it’s more what I was used to when I worked in Windows®. Click any of the pictures to see an enlargement.

This screenshot is of the Gnome Shell after first running it. Notice the Gnome applets are now missing with the bottom toolbar gone. Maybe later I’ll figure out how to add them again. Or possibly that feature is still not available in this beta version of Gnome Shell.

Here’s how it looks like after clicking on “Activities” in the top left corner!!

All open applications are in the right side of the screen. Just clicking on one of the icons show the application to a full screen! The area on the left shows all the folders I have for easily finding files.

When I click on the time display on the top bar, a calendar drops down and stays down until I click on the time display a second time. Cool! Click on the graphic below to see it more clearly.

Eat your hearts out, Windows® lovers!