After a long wait finally onto a proper Gnome 3.X desktop openSUSE 12.1 GNOME 3.2.1

 After a long wait , i am finally onto a proper Gnome 3.X desktop which is openSUSE 12.1, GNOME 3.2.1. Man !!!!!! ,it took like ever before the 12.1 release came through. I was so exited when GOME 3.X came out through in openSUSE 11.4  . It really built up the hype for the 12.1 release which is supposed to be a full fledged GNOME 3.X desktop environment.

Gnome System Monitor showing  juicy items like openSUSE release version 12.1,Kernel version 3.1.x,GNOME version 3.2.1

Desktop with one amazing background{that too out of box}

 Application menu or Applications menu

Totem with a Nice and sleek Skin

Very Cool looking iphonesque onscreen keyboard

Cutest YaST yet,cool integration of YaST with GNOME 3.X interface

 I was itching for the first weekend to arrive after the 12.1 release,I was really raring to have a crack at the new OS . Unlike previous upgrades and installations of openSUSE this time I tried doing things a bit different.The first time I installed openSUSE which happens to be version 11.0 I installed it from a boxed DVD from which I obtained along with a computer magazine.
For the  transition from 11.0 to 11.2 I downloaded a DVD ISO and burned it and upgraded the OS.Then from 11.2==>11.3 and then from 11.3==>11.4
and from 11.4 , GNOME 2.x ==> 11.4 , GNOME 3.0.X I used YaST and zypper based upgrade.This time i tried  something different i.e. installed from a live image written on-to a flash drive.

The +ses of 12.1/GNOME 3.2 over 11.4/GNOME 3.0

==>Nasty bug in Nautilus 3.0 which did not allow users to copy paste files from one directory to another using commands ctrl+c and ctrl+v has been fixed in Nautilus 3.2
Nautilus 3.0 bug

==>Much better looking Totem media player

==>GNOME 3.2 has not even crashed once though GNOME 3.0 in early days crashed a lot of times

==>openSUSE 11.2/GNOME 3.2 has "gnome-tweak-tool" {lets you customise gnome 3.x} and "gnome-shell-extension-alt-status-menu" {which provides you a proper shutdown or Power off menu for GNOME 3.X desktops} are installed by default which is big relief as these two tool are more like "the most important tools" on GNOME 3.X desktops

==>As usual the interface is smooth and free flowing and beautiful like a river .The OS feels like a giant iphone ,special mention is required for the iphonesque ultra cool on-screen keyboard.

==>The icing on the cake is the installation was very fast unlike anything that I had experienced before.Probably the credit goes to the flash drive based installation instead of using an optical drive based installation.


==>Shutdown time/latency is vastly improved

The only minus I noticed so far is that sun/oracle jre is not included in the 12.1 repos / repositories .One can only install openJDK implementation from 12.1 repos.