#+TITLE: Gnome-shell in Ubuntu 9.10
#+DATE: 2009-12-11 10:35
#+TAGS: gconf gnome gnome-panel gnome-shell linux ubuntu

Even though ~gnome-shell~ is really only a preview of what is to come
for gnome 3.0 and it's still buggy and sometimes not completely stable
perhaps, I really like it.

When I first saw the screenshots I was less then impressed, I thought
it didn't at all look like anything new or innovative, but rather
messy and confusing. But me being ever interested in new things and
all I just had to give it a try (the ~gnome-panel~ look was starting to
bore me).

Installing was easy

#+BEGIN_SRC sh
  sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
#+END_SRC

and starting it afterwards was easy too

#+BEGIN_SRC sh
  gnome-shell -r
#+END_SRC

Though first I had to disable compiz, which I don't really use anyway.
I was also using ~avant-window-navigator~, which disappeared on me but
still kept part of my notification area to itself. So the time after
that I first closed AWN and all was as it should be.

I didn't feel like having to manually start ~gnome-shell~ every time I
logged in so I started looking into a way to replace ~metacity~ and
~gnome-panel~ with ~gnome-shell~ and found that this could be done by
editing your ~gconf~ (with, for example, ~gconf-editor~) and setting the
~/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager~ key from
~metacity~ to ~gnome-shell~.

Of course, since it is a composited window manager you need a video
card and driver that can handle screen compositing.