It's no secret that full reimagining of desktop environments in Linux/Unix can make people unhappy. It happened with KDE 4, and it's happening with GNOME 3, too. I wasn't around, but I've been told that the transition from GNOME 1 to 2 wasn't without its bumps and lumps.

Read 'An opinion on the future of GNOME' at Fewt.com, and don't skip the comments. It'll give you a bit of an idea about what users think.

As for what I'm doing about GNOME 3, I'm still in the evaluating it, not committed yet stage. I recently upgrade my Debian Squeeze laptop (with GNOME 2.3x as the only desktop environment) to Wheezy, the current (yet frozen) Testing branch. It upgraded to GNOME 3.4.x, and I added Xfce 4.8.

I'm switching between the two environments -- GNOME and Xfce -- and I haven't decided to stick with one or the other. I've run both for years on various systems, and it's been nice to seen the improvements in Xfce over that time.

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Though I'm very much a fan of the "traditional" menu, I had an inkling that I'd enjoy using the "type to search" box to start applications in GNOME 3 (or, more specifically, GNOME 3.4 in the just-frozen, still-Testing Debian Wheezy).

You see, even though I really like the "discoverability" of a traditional desktop menu system, when I know what I want, it's easier to either click an icon (like the long row of them I had on my upper panel in GNOME 2, or the many I now have in the GNOME 3 icon area on the left side of the screen) or start typing in what you want, getting it as soon as what you type is unique enough to give it to you.

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GNOME 3.4 is making its way to Debian Wheezy. But getting it there is not so easy.

I'm not jumping headlong into GNOME 3's GNOME Shell, though I see the day coming very soon when I'll leave GNOME 2 and Debian Squeeze behind.

I don't know who said, "The current desktop environment and its actual menus aren't working. Let's blow that stuff up and try something totally new with fewer features and little configurability." I'm neither totally against it, nor excited about making the transition.

With that in mind, I've tried lots of other desktop environments, including Xfce, LXDE, Openbox with Xfce's Thunar, Enlightenment (with PCManFM), etc.

No, I haven't given KDE a shot recently. I may.

But right now there are features and polish in GNOME's Nautilus file manager, Gedit text editor, and many other helper applications, that I would miss were I to leave GNOME entirely.

I could mix/match, bringing Nautilus, Gedit, Rhythmbox, NetworkManager and more into a different DE. Or I could close my eyes and leap ... into GNOME Shell.