It's been a tumultuous year for the Linux desktop. Anno domini 2011 saw the release of not one, but two major new desktops, the GNOME project's GNOME 3 shell and Ubuntu's rival Unity desktop. By the time most distros hit their stride in 2011, the GNOME 2.x line had been replaced with GNOME 3.
Fans of the KDE desktop went through this same sort of transition several years ago with the move to KDE 4 and can content themselves with watching the current debate knowingly from afar, but for many GNOME users, 2011 meant re-learning not just how to use the desktop, but what the desktop ought to be.
Year of the Penguin - el Reg's 2011 Linux-land roundup - Register
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With change comes angst - especially in the open-source community - and the move away from GNOME 2 has certainly had some very vocal critics. To be fair it's never easy when something you rely on day in and day out suddenly changes, and the transition from the more traditional GNOME 2 desktop to the GNOME 3 shell or Unity has been a bumpy ride for many users.Fans of the KDE desktop went through this same sort of transition several years ago with the move to KDE 4 and can content themselves with watching the current debate knowingly from afar, but for many GNOME users, 2011 meant re-learning not just how to use the desktop, but what the desktop ought to be.
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Year of the Penguin - el Reg's 2011 Linux-land roundup - Register
