I installed Oneiric the day it was released, and was pretty pissed off to find that the Gnome 2 interface, now named “Gnome Shell” and hidden away deep in the Ubuntu Package Installer, is completely crippled and nothing like it’s previous releases.

I decided to take a leap of faith and go with “Unity” as my default window manager. I think it took me about an hour before I felt like my PC was about to go out the window.

I then installed “normal” Gnome 3 from the package manager and switched to this. It felt completely weird all over again, but somehow, slightly less annoying. It has a few really useful UI enhancements over Unity that I hadn’t realised I was using until I switched to my Netbook, which has XUbuntu installed (and obviously no Unity/Gnome).

On top of Gnome 3 I’ve added Docky, which satisfies my need for a “what the bloody hell is running” status at the bottom of my screen, although I’m finding myself using it less and less as I get used to Gnome 3.

So my message to the “haterz”…rather than writing it off as an “unholy mess” and give it a go – a proper go!