Best New Feature of Ubuntu Oneiric - GNOME Shell

I know many of you cringe at the mere mention of GNOME Shell or Unity. I don't have any reservations like that. As a matter of fact, I really like Unity a lot. But what about GNOME foundation's official GNOME Shell? I have never really used it except for once when I reviewed an early release of GNOME Shell in Fedora 15. But not with Ubuntu yet, not until now. 


Ubuntu 11.10 and GNOME Shell
If you are an Ubuntu 11.04 user and if you have tried to run GNOME Shell along with Unity in it, you know what I am talking about. Since Ubuntu Natty was based on GNOME 2.0 and GNOME Shell based on GNOME 3.0, it was not easy to install and run both together. I tried to install it once using GNOME3-Team with disastrous consequences.

But things are changing. Latest Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric is based on GNOME 3.0 and you can now safely install and run GNOME Shell in Ubuntu. I am running latest Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot beta and GNOME Shell along with it. Installation is very easy. Just search and install GNOME Shell from Ubuntu Software Center. Here are some random screenshots of latest Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot running GNOME Shell.

GNOME Shell Ubuntu 11.10

Install GNOME Shell Ubuntu 11.10

GNOME Shell

I am still a very novice user of GNOME Shell and hopes to get a feel of it gradually. Expect a full fledged review of GNOME Shell soon and other articles related to it as well. Stay tuned.