I am still using GNOME 3 and, to my suprise, I really like not having the taskbar. But, I know a lot of you do want a taskbar and so, here are 3 bottom panel taskbars that you can add to GNOME 3.2.
Linux Mint GNOME Shell Extensions (MGSE)
Linux Mint is a popular Linux distribution known for
usability. They package
GNOME 3 in their distro with a collection of GNOME Shell extensions which are
available in their MGSE Github Repository.
Even if you are not running Linux Mint (I'm running Fedora 16) you can simply
download the whole repository and drop the extensions you want to use into
~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/.
There are actually 3 Linux Mint GNOME Shell Extensions that make a pretty slick
taskbar for GNOME 3.2 in that repository: mgse-bottompanel, mgse-menu, and
mgse-windowlist. In my opinion, these GNOME Shell extensions do the best job
of creating a taskbar that fits in with the look and feel of GNOME 3.
Those 3 extensions, shown in the screenshot above, can be installed by running the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/linuxmint/MGSE.git
cd MGSE
cp -R mgse-bottompanel/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/* ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
cp -R mgse-windowlist/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/* ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
cp -R mgse-menu/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/* ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
You can then enable the extensions using the Gnome Tweak Tool
(Gnome Tweak Tool should be available in your distributions software repository). You
may need to restart the GNOME Shell first with ALT+F2 and then r.
Frippery Bottom Panel Extension
The "Frippery" extensions by Ron Yorston
includes the Frippery Bottom Panel which is very similar to the Linux Mint verison,
however, it also changes the CTRL+ALT+Up/Down workspace navigation to the
CTRL+ALT+Left/Right used in GNOME 2.
The Frippery Bottom Panel extension shown in the screenshot above can be installed
directly from extensions.gnome.org
website. However, extensions.gnome.org is still in Alpha and you'll have to be using
Firefox to install the extensions directly from the website. If you don't have
Firefox you can just download the extensions and copy them to ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/
You can enable the extension using the Gnome Tweak Tool
(Gnome Tweak Tool should be available in your distributions software repository). You
may need to restart the GNOME Shell first with ALT+F2 and then r.
Tint2 Taskbar
As I pointed out in my blog post Adding a Taskbar or Dock to GNOME 3 / GNOME Shell, a little program tint2 adds a bottom panel taskbar works pretty well with GNOME 3.
As this is an application and not a GNOME Shell extension, the integration isn't quite as smooth as the previous two taskbars. For example, notifications overlap the taskbar. But, it's a pretty solid and lightweight taskbar.
