Ubuntu Future Interface: Gnome-Shell vs. Unity!

Since its first release in 2004, Ubuntu has always adopted the idea of “Linux for human beings”. Ubuntu was the first Linux distribution to introduce “user experince” to the Linux arena. However, other open-source projects never feared engaging this competition! Ubuntu and the Gnome Desktop Environment have always formed Ubuntu's unique brown appearance. However, things are changing and the completion is getting more intense, Ubuntu has decided to ship with Unity as its default interface since ubuntu 10.04, and the Gnome project has released Gnome 3 with its totally new brand, Gnome-shell. In the days of Ubuntu 10.04 it was impossible to have both Gnome shells, which depend on Gnome 3, along with Unity, which depended on Gnome 2 then. However, as Ubuntu 10.10 was released, we are now able to easily choose and install either one or both. so, let’s dive into the comparison between them!

1- Doc on the sidebar

both interfaces have a Doc on the sidebar which is pretty much similar, except the fact that the sidebar of unity does resize icons and allows you to scroll to see extra icons, and it is generally more interactive and allows the applications to use docs to  give a  feedback to the user (think, copy progress, or timer programs...)

2- Search on Super (windows) key press and a new menu system

When you click the “Windows” key known as “Super” in the Linux world! you can just start typing to search for Files, Music or applications, but in Gnome-Shell, if your search term doesn’t meet any of the files or applications you will get the ability to search Google or Wikipedia

3- Daemons Area, and notifications

While Unity still supports the default notifications popup of Gnome, one of its biggest pitfalls is that it changes the daemons area (the area at which programs add icons on the top bar) which deprived many users of their preferred applications , However, Gnome-Shell has developed an amazing bottom-sliding notification system that notifies you about everything on your system from applications that have already loaded and partitions mounted to normal chat or RSS notifications, while still being compatible with the old daemons!
 

4- The global menu bar of Unity

Ubuntu Unity is moving “more mac-like” as we go, but I can’t deny that I like that tiny, well-organized, global menu bar... in fact this is one of the things you will really miss in Gnome-Shell, but we hope it will come to Gnome-shell at some future release!

5- Window Switching