Customising Gnome 3 - Making it Work

v 0.41

19 Jun 12

After playing with a fresh Xfce on a new install of Debian, I had one of those rare crash and freeze episodes, such that the window manager settings were all screwed up and the settings panel was blank.  There were a couple of other things I wasn't quite happy with so I decided to bite the bullet and do a complete re-install, correcting the mistakes I'd noted I'd made along the way.

Whilst I was having a think before this surgery (I learn something from every install, and it is really not a huge problem performing it) I was reminded of a thought I had when I was considering whether to undertake an Airbus A380 conversion from my Beloved Boeing 747-400.  I had been quite skeptical of the Airbus up until that time and I decided it was time I re-visited my "I ain't flying one of those new-fangled monoplanes!" prejudice.  Such was my thought process last night, as to the Gnome 3 desktop that was to be the standard on the next Debian Stable release. 

My first experience with Gnome 3 was a few months ago now - and whilst I recognised there was something to it, I just couldn't get into it.  So I moved to Xfce and thought about it as a "background process".  In the meantime, I kept hearing how extensible and flexible Gnome 3 was, but I just couldn't see the obvious way that it could be made more friendly.  One of the "Linux Action Show" podcasts put things into perspective, where they admitted that whilst it wasn't for them, it was a good piece of software.  Their main criticism was the need to continually move from left to right with the mouse to make a selection, and that it seemed as if Gnome was being placed to be efficient for touch-screen use.

Finally I thought, Gnome 3 is going to be with us from now on, and it is going to be the default desktop for Debian.  It has a lot of great stuff in it and if I'm going to be any help to friends, I better get in and see what we can do with it.

With that, I performed a standard Debian desktop install giving me Gnome 3 .

Standard Desktop

The first start-up gives you the standard Debian starry wallpaper (which I dislike) and along the top line, a black bar.

The Top Menu Bar
To the left is a button called "Activities", in the centre the day/date and on the right four button / menus.  There is an "accessibility menu of selections that can be made to improve things, then a volume and sound settings control, Network Settings, and then on the far right, a menu under the username that lets you adjust system settings or log out or to lock the screen.

The Desktop
There are no icons on the Desktop.  It is a straight backdrop of whatever wallpaper you wish to load.

The Activities Button
I guess you could think of the "Activities" button as the MS "Start" button on steroids.  When you click on it, there are three main areas of the screen that appear and one large area that depends upon your selection of "Windows / Applications".

• On the left is a vertical stack of favourite applications.  It functions similarly to the "Dock" in OSX.  Right click and you can delete an application.  Any running applications you have started also appear temporarily in the "favourites" stack and you can add these permanently by right-click on the icon.
• On the top right, a search entry box appears.
• On the top towards the left, a two-choice button appears - Windows or Applications.

Windows / Applications

• When "Windows" is selected, a vertical stack of active workspaces appears, and the selected workspace is reflected with an array of windows in that workspace, placed in the main part of the desktop.  As you cycle through the workspaces, you can see the windows in each workspace.
• When "Applications"is selected, on the right you get the standard menu categories, and when each is selected, this is reflected by all the applications in that category appearing as icons in the main desktop area.

Window Decoration
By default, there is only a "close" button on the window - however - this can be easily fixed.

Logic
Now that I run through the logic flow of the standard desktop, it seems far better than I first thought.  Certainly the shock of transition puts one off.  The first reaction is "Not another thing I have to learn again!!"  Once you learn how this new system is just like the old, then it is not as much of a problem as it initially seems.

Customising the Gnome Desktop - a Start

The first thing you can do is visit "System Settings" and change the background and in "Details" set the default applications.

Next, install the " gnome-tweak-tool " package.  This appears as " Advanced Settings " in the application list. Here, you can:

• Have icons on the desktop by having the filemanager handle the desktop.
• Modify the "shell" (desktop) appearance, notably "Arrangement of buttons on the titlebar".
• Install shell extensions from http://extensions.gnome.org .  Once you have found the extension you like, then click the on/off button to "on" and the extension will be downloaded and installed for you.  There are two menu extensions you may like that install a menu a'la Gome 2 - Axe Menu and Applications Menu.

Install the " Docky " package.  This lets you have a dock just like OSX.  Whilst Docky does give you a nice dock, it drags in a lot of dependencies, but more importantly, kills one of the significant keyboard shortcuts - the Windows key, or Alt-F1 to change from overview to details view.

Another problem I found, was when I removed Docky with Synaptic, it only removed the application, not the libraries (which aptitude would have done).  Deborphan would be a good idea here, as I found that on reboot, Gnome froze and only became free when I had re-installed Docky (though not started it).

From what I've seen, whilst Docky seems a good application, it tells me to only install Gnome Extensions, rather than extra programs.

gnome-system-tools

The standard system settings tools are lacking the old "users and groups" gui administration.  You need to install " gnome-system-tools " .

Thoughts

I must say that I'm far more comfortable with Gnome 3 now than I was before, and that maybe it isn't the disaster it first appeared.  With some extra reading I can see that it is no use trying to turn Gnome 3 into Gnome 2.  It won't work.  Like any new system, you just need to think about it.

In a way, you can compare Gnome 3 to the vi editor.  It has two main modes - an "overall viewing" mode where you get to see what you have, and a "doing" mode where you do the work.  Taking the time to read about this, and in particular the keyboard shortcuts and you can get to what you want in a couple of key-presses rather than tediously moving the mouse around.

So, even though I've installed some extensions that give a more "Gnome 2 - like" experience, I can see myself getting rid of them back to the original intent of Gnome 3 (and I'm already doing this).  Like a lot of things in life - Gnome 3 works best of you learn the basics and then perhaps carefully add some extensions from the Gnome site.







Later ......