A Quick Look At The New GNOME Classic Session (Now Available In The GNOME Testing PPA)

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jueCVjigxKo6vKX9wSq_LIJbC6HmcprFsAaAjRt6gWxH1CPPW9Dop1zOtzpHlIf46DSjLWEYFDdzdujBJkpMvUNFNUqt2ka7FG3AZStC0yj4W5PtGj6av4lK2WmFLpdvi3IABUAgBDlq/s1600/gnome-classic_1.png" imageanchor="1" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="New GNOME Classic Shell session"><img alt="New GNOME Classic Shell session" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jueCVjigxKo6vKX9wSq_LIJbC6HmcprFsAaAjRt6gWxH1CPPW9Dop1zOtzpHlIf46DSjLWEYFDdzdujBJkpMvUNFNUqt2ka7FG3AZStC0yj4W5PtGj6av4lK2WmFLpdvi3IABUAgBDlq/s320/gnome-classic_1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>As you probably know, <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/fallback-mode-classic-session-to-be.html">the fallback mode will be dropped with GNOME 3.8</a> and instead, users will be able to use a set of GNOME Shell extensions that provide a GNOME2-like layout. Recently, these changes have landed in the GNOME Testing PPA for Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04.</b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">After some recent updates to the GNOME Testing PPA, a new "GNOME Classic" session has showed up in the login screen:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-gdm.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic Shell login screen"><img alt="GNOME Classic Shell login screen" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-gdm_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>This isn't the old fallback session</b> (which used to be called 'Classic GNOME Session' in Ubuntu), <b>but a new session in which you're still using GNOME Shell</b>, but with some extensions enabled by default that try to provide a GNOME2-like layout.<br /><br />The first thing you'll notice when using the new GNOME Classic session is that it comes with a <b>light theme</b>, as opposed to the standard GNOME Shell session which uses a dark theme by default. <b>Using this session, you'll get:</b><br /><ul><li>a window list on a panel at the bottom of the screen, with a notification counter at the right;</li><li>an application menu and a places drop-down on the top panel;</li><li>minimize, maximize and close buttons by default (the standard GNOME Shell only uses a close button);</li><li>classic ALT + TAB;</li><li>the clock / calendar has been moved to the right.</li></ul></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The extensions used by the new GNOME Classic session</b> are: AlternateTab, Places Status Indicator, Applications Menu, Static workspaces, Window List, Default Minimize and Maximize and Launch New Instance.</div><br />Here are some screenshots:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_2.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: menu"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: menu" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_2_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_3.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: Places"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: Places" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_3_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_4.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: user menu"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: user menu" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_4_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_5.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: Activities Overview (black background probably because I'm using it in VirtualBox)"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: Activities Overview (black background probably because I'm using it in VirtualBox)" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_5_thumb.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(black background probably because I'm using it in VirtualBox)</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-alt-tab.png" rel="image_group" title="Classic ALT + Tab"><img alt="Classic ALT + Tab" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-alt-tab_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Since these are just extensions on top of GNOME Shell, <b>there are some advantages over the old fallback mode: you'll be able to use GNOME Shell's features </b>such as the <b>Activities Overview</b>, get <b>GNOME Shell notifications</b>, <b>use other extensions</b> and so on. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="GNOME Classic: notifications"><img alt="GNOME Classic: notifications" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notifications</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications_2.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="GNOME Classic: notifications and message tray"><img alt="GNOME Classic: notifications and message tray" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications_2_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notifications / message tray</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But there are some <b>disadvantages </b>too: the extensions bundled with the new GNOME Classic session are very simple and with only some basic features so users coming from the old fallback session will probably miss some of its features. For instance, right clicking an item on the bottom panel doesn't do anything, you can't right click a panel to add new applets (and there are no applets), there are no tray icons on the top panel and so on. </div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Further more, while the notification count is displayed at the right of the bottom panel which is nice, the actual notifications are displayed at the bottom (center) just like in the standard GNOME Shell session, so they show up on top of the window list which is pretty annoying, as you can see in the screenshots above.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>GNOME Shell 3.8 is still under development, so the GNOME Classic session extensions will probably be polished further,</b> but even so, they still won't get all the features that were available in the old classic / fallback session so I wonder if this will be enough to please all those users who were using the old fallback session. What do you think?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you want to test these changes in Ubuntu 12.10* or 13.04, you'll have to add the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3">GNOME 3 PPA</a> as well as the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~ricotz/+archive/testing/+packages">GNOME Testing PPA</a> (but the GNOME Testing PPA is highly unstable so I advise you to only use it in a virtual machine), then run a "dist-upgrade". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">* In my test, the new GNOME Classic session didn't show up in the login screen for Ubuntu 12.10 for some reason, but it was available for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>thanks to deusmetallum @ <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/184sgx/gnomeclassic_now_available_in_the_gnometesting/">Reddit</a></i></div>

A Quick Look At The New GNOME Classic Session (Now Available In The GNOME Testing PPA)

As you probably know, the fallback mode will be dropped with GNOME 3.8 and instead, users will be able to use a set of GNOME Shell extensio...

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