This is a guest post written by David Gómez de the world according to Linux.
Yesterday he was released Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, the first official version of Ubuntu for desktops to bring Unity as the default visual interface for all users.
Much has been said about the good or bad that Unity could be in comparison Gnome Shell, the interface that tries to implement Gnome 3 by default and that some distributions such as Fedora will adopt for Fedora 15 Lovelock, which is expected by the end of May.
I've been using Fedora 15 with Gnome Shell, and although it is still in Beta state, the distribution is stable and functional enough to give an opinion about the performance of Gnome Shell, always keeping in mind that in a month many things can happen.
On the other hand, Ubuntu 11.04 I've been using it for almost a week, and yesterday I installed the last final version released by Canonical of this distribution.
As of today I have configured it as I need it, modified some behaviors of Unity and am ready to give an initial opinion about the experience in both environments.
Training
This is probably the most important feature when choosing one of the two environments, that although they are based on Gnome, one makes use of Mother to handle the graphical desktop and the other makes use of Compiz.
Gnome Shell with Mutter has always received strong criticism for its poor performance and slowness. From my point of view, these are completely unfair criticisms, since Mutter's performance with Gnome Shell on Fedora 15 is quite good, the effects are fluid, the general behavior of the desktop feels smooth, although there are still some graphical problems, as are some windows that leave lines drawn on the desktop after being closed or minimized.
In terms of performance, Compiz surpasses Mutter, in general the whole desktop feels more fluid and lighter, the animations are faster and clearer, although it still has some problems when using the proprietary drivers for the video cards ATI.
Design
Design is always a subjective issue, since it is linked to the tastes of each person, even so, several aspects can be highlighted in both environments.
For my taste, Gnome Shell has a much more attractive and integrated design than Unity, the colors are better used, giving a cooler appearance, with excellent contrast, rendering of fonts that give it a smooth appearance, all this makes Gnome look Shell as a XNUMXst century environment.
On the other hand, the Unity design is a bit more practical, using the eternal colors of Ubuntu that make it look like a birthday cake, Ubuntu continues to look like always but with a dock on the left side and glasses to find the applications.
Regarding the design, I blindly believe that Gnome Shell surpasses Unity, beyond the personal tastes of each one.
User experience
In this regard, both desks have interesting new features and important weaknesses, for example in Gnome Shell the difficulty in modifying both the appearance and the functioning of the desktop makes us feel trapped, as if sitting in front of a beautiful rock that only allows us to write on it.
The top bar only serves to show the time and date, it is completely useless and all it does is take up valuable space that we could use in another way, the truth, I do not need ornaments on my desk.
On the Unity side, the way the lens is designed is a bit confusing, it is not easy to find the applications, it has a menu in the upper left side that you cannot see and when you find it, it shows you a lot of options that have nothing inside, only the advertising of the possible applications that you can install.
The lack of back buttons is annoying, if you click wrong, you have to close and reopen the lens to start the search again. Regarding the pitcher, it is almost a useless accessory since it does not make recommendations when typing, so you have to know the exact command to use or it will simply be of no use to you.
Gnome Shell handles desktops better than Unity and has an exceptional launcher (simple and functional), but Unity provides a top bar that meets all expectations and becomes even more useful than previous versions of Gnome.
Both have good and bad things, here it is already a matter of getting around the problems that arise. Some will prefer Gnome Shell and another Unity, why, it is everyone's problem, I at least stay with Unity at least for the moment.
David Gómez is a systems technician specialized in networks and servers, he currently resides in Medellín (Colombia) and is a fairly critical student of free software, you can follow David on his profile Twitter or read his blog, the world according to Linux.