2011 m. birželio 19 d., sekmadienis

Unity vs. GNOME Shell

As opinions on both Unity and Gnome Shell are contraversal, I'd like to state mine.
I already blogged about Gnome Shell, however it has changed a lot since then.
In short, I used Unity for about an hour using live CD and my impressions were mostly negative - I found Gnome 2 being better for me. In case of Gnome Shell, I used it for some time in the past and am using the final release for some time now. I also tried final version of Gnome Shell via live CD before upgrading to Fedora 15 and impressions were mostly positive.


Unity impressions:


  • Positive things

    • Looks like more of screen space is used for usefull part of window compared to Gnome Shell



  • Drawbacks

    • Too much stuff in dash

    • Not completely clear, what the button in top left corner is supposed to do

    • Application launcher is not comfortable: it appears to be based on search function, browsing categories via drop down is usability drawback

    • Places: same issues as with application launcher

    • Workspace switcher based on window movement, I like GNOME Shell version better - I use this for moving window to other workspace, not for changing it's coordinates

    • Not sure I like the single menu at the top panel

    • Alt+Tab is not very usefull with all windows from all workspaces being there




Gnome shell impressions:

  • Positive things

    • Overview mode is great

    • Alt+Tab is awsome

    • Workspace management is great

    • Notifications at the bottom of screen are very comfortable



  • Drawbacks

    • All application view is bloated and takes long to load

    • Pressing Alt to shut down is both unintuitive and unuseful




To summarise, I like Gnome Shell and certainly believe it's better than Gnome 2. Although I have used Unity for only about one hour, but that was enough for me.