It is probably Unity and not GNOME Shell. GNOME Shell is available, but not
installed by default.

GNOME Shell is not compatible with standard GNOME and it is a new GNOME
backend with a java-based front end. It is just being released as alpha and
should come out around the time Natty is released. Natty will ship with
Unity and either Compiz or Metacity as window manager, depending on what
your graphics card can handle. It's defining feature is a ribbon style
launcher down the left side and a panel with a global menu across the top.
GNOME Shell has similar features, but they look and work differently. GNOME
Shell does not use Compiz and Compiz does not work with it.

One of the things I wish they would do with the changes on how the upgraded
OS works, new or replaced apps, is have a introduction tutorial that shows
you what they are and/or how to use them. Some of the hidden apps and
features may be there but if you don't know about them you may never use
them even though they would help you out quite a bit. If one of the
developers would take the time to put this tutorial together. It would save
the end user time. Considering the multitude that uses Ubuntu that would
amount to a lot of time. There could be two items added to the System
pulldown. Something like "Added to this Release Tutorial" and "Overall
Tutorial". I feel the first the Ubuntu Old Timers, the second would help the
Ubuntu Newbie. This would in return help the acceptance and use of Ubuntu.
After all that is what Mark Shuttleworth whats. Users fighting the changes
and addition is not what he wants and hurts the acceptance and growth of
Ubuntu.

There are many good tutorials on the net and many websites that tell you how
to get more from Ubuntu, such as Ubuntugeek and OMGUbuntu.

I agree with the last statement, but he has a vision and deserves the chance
to implement it. He has given a lot to Ubuntu and basically bankrolls it.
Whatever changes that they make need not be as traumatic as we sometimes
make it. Nobody needs to upgrade to Natty. 10.10 has a year past April of
support and 10.04 has a year more than that. Plus you can install GNOME or
GNOME Shell if Unity is not to your liking. There is some inherent risk, but
the bottom line is that Ubuntu is still free and it still has the biggest
community and the largest repositories, so Ubuntu will always have lots of
users. I like it that Shuttleworth and Canoncial are taking risks. Some body
has to blaze the trail or we will get nowhere. There are too many
distributions that rest on their laurels and become stagnant.

you'll always get moaners even when it's FREE.
if they had to buy it then they'd moan no pleasing some people.

being 100% free of MS the only problem I have is with Adobe flash but that is
sparatic.

I didn't intend for that to be a moan or a condisending post, just trying to
voice my thoughts on making the changes to Ubuntu easier to know about,
implement and use.

I do appreciate the efforts in both time and treasure Mark Shuttleworth has
made in making Ubuntu what it is today. It's the best operating system I
know of.

I think that we need lots more information and some experience with Unity in
Natty because it takes time to get used to a new way of working before we
judge. Change is unavoidable. GNOME 2.x has been around for over a decade
and it is near the end of its life. You therefore can choose between Unity
and GNOME Shell. Both are radically different, but GNOME Shell is more
different because Unity has been around for a couple of years in UNE. Unity
gives users a of Ubuntu a choice that users of other distributions do not
have. They must accept GNOME Shell or seek another DE such as KDE or XFCE.
So however, we look at it we have to acknowledge that Ubuntu users are ahead
and not behind.

Unity gives Canonical the control that it wanted. When Ubuntu came along
GNOME was well established and under the control of Novell. It has never
been a happy relationship. As Ubuntu grew in popularity there was always
lots of whining that Ubuntu should be giving more back. Breaking with GNOME
was inevitable for those who have followed this soap opera. Now Ubuntu is
free of GNOME and can rise or fall on its own merits. They still need to
work with Debian and things are much better between the two distributions,
although not perfect.

We need to be mindful when judging decisions made that things are more
complicated than just change for change's sake. The change part was
inevitable. It is just a question of which direction to go. They chose
something that is theirs and something that nobody else has and that can't
be bad.

Maybe there will be yet another *buntu. Ubuntu with GNOME Shell. Lots of
this depends on acceptance of Unity which I feel will be performance based
and not feature based. Will Unity be fast enough? There is a side issue to
this discussion as well. Until Ubuntu announced plans to use Unity, Compiz
had not place to go because it does not work with GNOME Shell. So Unity is
keeping Compiz alive and Canonical is paying its developers.

The other big story is that of Wayland. With Natty, Wayland will appear in
the repositories for the first time, although Natty will not use it, so
users can play around with the next big thing.