Yet another Unity question - shell for what again?

[Copper Bezel]

Folks,

I'm getting terribly confused now. I understand that Unity and Gnome Shell are "shells" for Gnome desktops. I also understand that Gnome 2 or "Classic" Gnome is being phased out.

So let me see if I understand this - in the move from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3, Ubuntu will be using Unity in place of Gnome Shell, but they're both using Gnome 3 underneath, correct?

Does this mean that the things actually being phased out are the Nautilus-rendered desktop and the Gnome Panel, and everything else is just upgrading along?

And if I'm understanding all of this correctly so far, does that mean that one could run Gnome 3, Compiz, and Avant Window Navigator or another similar panel app and have a complete DE without Gnome Shell or Unity?

[coffeecat]

I'm getting terribly confused now.

You're not the only one. :wink:


I understand that Unity and Gnome Shell are "shells" for Gnome desktops. I also understand that Gnome 2 or "Classic" Gnome is being phased out.

So let me see if I understand this - in the move from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3, Ubuntu will be using Unity in place of Gnome Shell, but they're both using Gnome 3 underneath, correct?

I'm posting from the Unity desktop in Natty Alpha. It's running on top of gnome 2.32 and I can log into the classic gnome desktop from the login screen if I wish. My understanding - and I'm happy to be corrected - is that Ubuntu will offer Unity as the default shell instead of Gnome Shell when the transition to gnome 3 is made, but that gnome 3 won't come before the release after Natty, which will be 11.00 - name to be decided. Oswald the Owl perhaps.


And if I'm understanding all of this correctly so far, does that mean that one could run Gnome 3, Compiz, and Avant Window Navigator or another similar panel app and have a complete DE without Gnome Shell or Unity?

Some people are running gnome shell from a PPA in Natty but what happens in the release after with gnome 3, I don't know. Perhaps gnome shell, AWN and all that will be available in the repositories or at least in PPA repositories. Whether you will be able to run a classic desktop in gnome 3 without gnome shell or Unity, I don't know, but I should think you would be able to. But that would be up to upstream gnome, not Ubuntu.

You might want to follow discussions in the Natty subforum:

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=394

This sticky was really to answer questions in the early stage of Natty testing, but it might have something for you:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1611490

[Copper Bezel]

Okay, cool. Thanks! That clarifies quite a bit. So 3 isn't really a huge shift for either Unity or Shell, which can run on 2.x, and it probably will still be possible to build up a "classic" desktop when 3 rolls around. Cool.

(I just can't bear the thought of having to have a top panel. Even on Windows machines, I have to set the taskbar to autohide.) = )