Does Gnome look like Unity now?

[jcoles]

On a VirtualBox VM, I have installed the Gnome variant of Ubuntu 13.04 (64-bit), but it looks like Unity:


There's no menu, just an Activities button on the top left that switches to a screen with a panel on the left and a search box at the top. Running apps appear in the center as small screencaps.
Applications default to full screen. You can Alt-Tab between apps, but starting another app requires a trip to the Activities screen.

Is this Unity? Or has Gnome evolved in a similar direction?

At the login screen, there is a Session menu: "System default" or "GNOME". I've tried both. There is no difference that I can see.

[ibjsb4]

What do you want it to look like? There is always gnome classic.

[Frogs Hair]

The Gnome Shell has a favorites sidebar.

https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Tour


http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/03/gnome-classic-in-ubuntu-12-04-its-like-nothing-ever-changed

Dated:https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet

[grahammechanical]

What you are seeing with Ubuntu Gnome is Gnome Shell 3 and it gives you an idea of what Ubuntu would look like if Canonical had not decided to develop its own user interface called Unity but instead stay with what the Gnome developers were bringing out.

Gnome 3 desktop environment and its user interface Gnome 3 Shell are the work of the Gnome organisation developers. Most of the utilities that come with Ubuntu even with Unity are Gnome projects. People often blame Ubuntu for things that they do not like but the responsibility is often at the door of Gnome. People forget that Ubuntu is a distribution and has to take what it gets from what is called Upstream and the moment Ubuntu starts to bring in its own stuff people complain even louder.

Unity is able to do what it does because of the "hooks" that are present in Gnome 3 DE. Fedora has Gnome 3 Shell as its default desktop. Check it out and see what Ubuntu would have looked like.

Regards.

[fantab]

You can try gnome-shell Extensions (https://extensions.gnome.org/) to get back some of the old gnome2 features: you should consider; Applications Menu, Places Menu, TopIcons, etc. You can install these extension from the Website itself.

[jcoles]

So this is the new Gnome. My system's functionality is hard to find. Multitasking is cumbersome and it's slow as hell. I'll stick with Xfce. Thanks, guys.

[kurt18947]

Gnome 3 has irritants as installed. The extensions site referred to by fantab goes quite a ways to address shortcomings. Gnome 3 makes it easy to add "after-market" add-ons to address shortcomings, I don't know that Unity does. Both philosophies have their strengths and weaknesses. I prefer gnome 3, nothing wrong with xfce though I prefer to add xfce-desktop over installing xubuntu. It's great to have a choice over taking what I'm given and liking it.