I like multiple desktops. I used to keep 4, then I expanded to 6. I liked compiz and the fancy rotating cube. If you are a Linux power user you know what I’m talking about.
People have moved away from Gnome (pronounced “Ga-Nome” not “Nome”) when Gnome went from version 2 to version 3. That’s when Mate and Cinnamon were born, even Ubuntu’s Unity shell.
I’ve come back to Gnome.
As you can see from the image, my desktop looks very similar to any other desktop environment. I even have a rotating wallpaper image.
What I like, and I’m getting use to it and finding it very productive, is the “expand as you go” desktop model. You start with one. If your computer screen gets too cluttered, press ctrl-alt-down-arrow and you go to the next one. (Note in Gnome we go up and down instead of side to side with most other desktop enviornments).
The desktops are dynamically allocated. That’s cool. Then I just watched some YouTube videos (there’s tons) how to customize your Gnome desktop, and you wind up with what you see above. Icons on the desktop, a taskbar (with a shadow!) along the top, some icons I can click on the bottom, and the whole desktop wallpaper changes once a minute (or once every however long you want it to be) with a little tweaking.
I have it all set up now. I spent two days on it. I will probably spend more days on it in the future, but all day I’ve been inside Gnome, using it, whizzing around, no loss of productivity what-so-ever. In fact, I hardly notice most of the time what desktop environment I’m in. Gnome stays out of my way except when I need it.
You’ll read some negative reviews of Gnome 3. As stated, a lot of people migrated away from it when Gnome 3 moved further away from Gnome 2. I was one of those people. I stayed away for years.
Now I’m back. I like what I see. I’m going to stay with it.
Don’t be proud! Watch some cool YouTube videos about how to set up Gnome Shell to give you all kinds of wizard tricks, bells and whistles.