Clement Lefebvre, head developer of the Linux Mint project, has given a detailed overview what the Gnome 3 based desktop of Linux Mint 12 will look like. It is an interesting read with lots of insights into the current state of desktop Linux and what seems to be an interesting solution from Mint.

I would like to apologize to the community, the media, and the journalists who wrote to us to know more about our upcoming release. We’ve been extremely secretive and 3 weeks past the Ubuntu release it’s still unclear for most people exactly what the next Linux Mint will look like. The reason we’ve been so silent is because we didn’t want to promise something we could not guarantee. Today we’re finally ready to give you an in-depth preview of Linux Mint 12, codename “Lisa”. As other distributions adopted new desktops such as Unity and Gnome 3, many users felt alienated and consequently migrated to Linux Mint. We recorded a 40% increase in a single month and we’re now quickly catching up with Ubuntu for the number #1 spot within the Linux desktop market.

As much as we’d like to keep Gnome 2.32 a little while longer we need to look forward and embrace new technologies. This doesn’t mean we need to change the way people use their desktops, not at all, it means we need to try and do our best for people to feel at home again, but on top of a brand new base, a new layer of technology, one that is actively supported upstream and that can be maintained properly going forward.

We’ve been using application menus, window lists and other traditional desktop features for as far as I can remember. It looked different in KDE, Xfce, or even Windows and Mac OS, but it was similar. Gnome 3 is changing all that and is developing a better way for us to interact with our computer. From our point of view here at Linux Mint, we’re not sure they’re right, and we’re not sure they’re wrong either. What we’re sure of, is that if people aren’t given the choice they will be frustrated and our vision of an Operating System is that your computer should work for you and make you feel comfortable. So with this in mind, Gnome 3 in Linux Mint 12 needs to let you interact with your computer in two different ways: the traditional way, and the new way, and it’s up to you to decide which way you want to use.

For this, we developed “MGSE” (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions), which is a desktop layer on top of Gnome 3 that makes it possible for you to use Gnome 3 in a traditional way. You can disable all components within MGSE to get a pure Gnome 3 experience, or you can enable all of them to get a Gnome 3 desktop that is similar to what you’ve been using before. Of course you can also pick and only enable the components you like to design your own desktop.

The main features in MGSE are:

• The bottom panel
• The application menu
• The window list
• A task-centric desktop (i.e. you switch between windows, not applications)
• Visible system tray icons

As you can see it’s a mix of old and new. It’s a brand new desktop but with traditional components. We’re excited about the new technology but it’s important everyone feels at home. So a Mint desktop looks and behaves like a Mint desktop and this one feels both like Gnome 3 and the traditional Linux Mint desktops that preceded it.

Going forward, we won’t be using a custom search engine anymore. Linux Mint is the 4th most popular desktop OS in the World, with millions of users, and possibly outgrowing Ubuntu this year. The revenue Mint users generate when they see and click on ads within search engines is quite significant. So far this revenue’s entirely gone towards search engines and browsers. Our goal is to give users a good search experience while funding ourselves by receiving a share of this income. Search engines who do not share the income generated by our users, are removed from Linux Mint and might get their ads blocked. In Linux Mint 12 and upcoming releases we’re hoping to provide users with the following commercial search engines: Ask.com, Google, Amazon, eBay, and the non-commercial Wikipedia. It won’t only be down to donations and sponsorships anymore, your activity on the web, every search query you make and product you buy will help fund our project.