Installing Gnome Shell in Ubuntu Natty 11.04
Open a terminal and type the following command:(only applicable for Ubuntu Natty 11.04.) Restart your computer. At the login screen, select Gnome as the desktop session.
What will change
- If you are using the Unity desktop, some of the stuff might break.
- The font will change.
Additional software to install
If you plan to use Gnome Shell as your main desktop manager, the following applications will be useful for you.
1. Gnome Tweak Tool
To install, you can use the following command:
2. Gnome-shell-frippery
This application is a Gnome 3 extension and it allows you to disable automatic workspace and several other tweaks. To install, download the Gnome-shell-frippery tar file and extract it to the “~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions” folder. Restart Gnome-shell.
3. Gnome Shell extensions
There are several other Gnome-shell extensions that you might be interested. You can open your Ubuntu Software Center (or synaptic Package Manager) and search for “gnome-shell-extension“
Uninstalling Gnome-shell
If you decided that Gnome 3 (or Gnome shell) is not for you, here’s the way to remove it from your system.
Conclusion
Gnome 3 is radically different from Gnome 2 and Unity. If you are using it for the first time, be prepared to unlearn what you know about Gnome and pick up from scratch again. There is a high probability that you will hate it the first time you use it, because it doesn’t come with most of the stuff that you are familiar with. Try it out for a few days and I am sure you will appreciate some of its features.
