Re: Module Proposal: GNOME Shell

[Jamie McCracken <jamie mccrack googlemail com>]

On Fri, 2010-04-02 at 14:20 +0200, Johannes Schmid wrote:
> Hi Naba!
> 
> > Does gnome-shell work without graphics capabilities? 
> 
> No, you need a hardware accelerated graphic card.
> 
> > So, basically my question is do you have official plan to support
> > non-accelerated machines, or is it just a bug? I guess there are still
> > legitimate use of non-accelerated machines still valid.
> 
> The gnome-panel will still be available in GNOME 3.0 and will still be
> maintained for people without the correct hardware support. As of now,
> all intel, amd/ati and nvidia cards sold in the last five years should
> be enough to run gnome-shell though you might need a binary driver for
> nvidia or a rather new radeon driver with 3D support.
> 

This leads to some important questions: 

1) Will Gnome have the ability, by default, to auto-detect which
panel/shell to use based on the available hardware?

2) Will the new shell significantly affect power consumption compared to
the panel? Should panel be default if it does for battery powered
devices?

3) Given that gnome-panel will be around for a long time, will there be
any possibility of sharing applets between gnome-shell and gnome-panel? 

Please note none of the above are objections to inclusion of the shell,
just queries

jamie