After about 2 weeks of testing it out; I've come to some conclusions about GNOME3 on Debian.
1) The Installation is a Pain. Actually, this is probably the least of my complaints, but it comes first because it was encountered first. Debian prides itself on being stable, almost to a fault. In fact, the default "stable" installation (6.0.2 Squeeze at this writing) gets security updates and that's about it. It's designed to just work. Not surprisingly, GNOME3 isn't available on Squeeze (not enough time to test it before the last release). It's not in the "testing" (Wheezy) set, either. It's in "experimental"; along with all the other stuff that Debian maintainers don't figure is stable enough for Testing. That said, it is in experimental, and you can get it if you are careful and know what you're doing.
2) Things are Locked Down. Again, I can see the upsides and the downsides to this. On the upside, locking down things like title bars and panel guarantees a consistent experience. On the other hand, if the user doesn't like the design -- and is used to being able to change it -- it can lead to frustration. That said, there was a semi-official UI/system tweaking tool available, but as it isn't built-in to the command center where you'd expect it to be, it doesn't get full marks.
3) The "Desktop" is more like a work area. This is where we run into one of those "paradigm shifts", I think. Since Windows XP (likely since Windows NT, but since it didn't have as wide a release as the 98/XP line, we'll say XP), users have come to use the desktop as part storage space, part launcher. Not in GNOME 3, though. Unless you use the tweak tool to "allow [Nautilus] to manage Desktop", the only thing you can do with the desktop is look at it. There's no left-click, no middle-click, no context menu on the right click that lets you set the desktop background. If you click on the desktop, you've exercised your clicking finger, but that's about it. Again, it's not a bad thing or a good thing; it's just different than what you're probably used to.
So, what do I think about it?
1) I'm not blind, guys I don't need the huge title bars and menu icons that come with the default (and unchangeable via GUI) interface. I can see where they might be useful for touchscreen interfaces, giving users a bit more leeway on where they tap, but on a laptop, it seems like wasted space.
2) What will it take to convince people hot corners are a bad idea? If your mouse wanders into the top left of the screen, the activities pane takes over. While that sounds like a good idea, it's also a bit distracting if you accidentally bump your mouse, or if you like to shuffle your pointer into a corner out of the way.
3) The Activity Pane is a good idea. Two things about how they implemented the Activity Pane/Menu. First, dynamically spawning work areas are a great idea. If you want a clean "surface" to work on, you open the activity pane and either click on a blank work space or drag an open window to a new surface. Once you clean up the surface, it disappears until you need a new one. Second, the search as you type function. If you pop the activity pane and start typing, you'll get a shrinking list of programs and recent documents that match your search. And though I haven't double-checked, it appeared to be pulling additional info about the programs from somewhere (probably .desktop files) so you didn't have to search by name alone.
4) Network Manager didn't like me. I don't know if it was something I did while setting it up; but network-manager-gnome did not like my wifi setup, rejecting saved passphrases, and not even displaying the BSSID for my home network until I was right on top of the router. Which was odd, because after reinstalling GNOME2, I automatically connected (after entering the passphrases) from halfway across the house (around 45-50 feet).
I've switched back to GNOME2 for now; at least until 3 drops into testing instead of experimental. It shows a lot of promise, and feels like something I'm willing to use; but I'd rather have the guys more experienced than me go over it a little longer before I jump in head first.
Links
Update:
The Network Manager deal isn't a Gnome3 thing. From everything I've read, it appears to be a kernel issue -- which makes sense: when I upgraded to Gnome3, the new kernel came along with it. However, the same change in frequency/connection ability happened with Ubuntu 10.10 vs 11.04 as well. Smarter people than I seem to have narrowed it down to a kernel patch for Acer hardware. I didn't go diving that directly.
