Recently (within the past year) I commented to them who had given a chance to gnome-shell from Ubuntu 11.04 and I promised you a kind of tutorial on how to install it and customize it a bit. Well, here I bring you what I promised.
(Many thanks to all the users who have corrected some errors when writing the name of the packages)
Installation.
The first thing to clarify is that once we do this, at least in Nattysay goodbye to Unity and it is possible that in Gnome2 have a problem. If they use ubuntu u oneric can make use of a PPA dedicated to Gnome3. To do this, we add the following lines to our /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu natty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu natty main
Later we update by opening a terminal and putting:
$ sudo apt-get update
and then
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 3B1510FD
Once this process is finished, a:
$ sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get install gnome-shell dconf-tools gnome-themes-standard gnome-session-fallback gnome-tweak-tool
If they notice after updating all packages, I also install dconf-tools y gnome-themes-standart. This is necessary for proper operation of the gnome-shell and for the theme to be displayed correctly gtk default.
This should be enough, we restart and if everything goes well (which should go well), we will be able to access our desktop.
Customizing a bit.
Default gnome-shell it should look something like this:
But the idea is to leave it like this:
or this way:
First of all I must tell you that one thing is the subject of Shell and the subject is very different gtk of applications. They are things that are configured separately. Fortunately, there are already many topics to gnome-shell which include the same style for the theme gtk. We can find them in ArtsDesktop or nourish ourselves with a extensive gallery on Deviantart.
Now how do we change the appearance of gnome-shell? Let's try the theme zukitwo, For example.
1- We go down this file and we unzip it.
2- We copy the folders zukitwo, Zukitwo-Dark y Zukitwo-Resonance a / usr / share / themes.
$ sudo cp -R / path / Zukitwo * / usr / share / themes /
3- Inside the folder zukitwo there is a call gnome-shell which we have to rename to theme and copy it inside / usr / share / gnome-shell but first, we must make a backup copy of the default theme.
$ sudo mv / usr / share / gnome-shell / theme / usr / share / gnome-shell / theme_default $ sudo cp / path / Zukitwo / gnome-shell / usr / share / gnome-shell / theme
To see the changes we execute Alt + F2 and we write «R» without the quotes and press Enter.
Whenever we want to change a topic from Shell we must repeat this process.
With this we change the subject of Shell but not the appearance of the applications. For that we have to use gnome-tweak-tool which we can execute by writing that same name when we press Alt + F2. Once open we go to the section Interface and there we can choose the topic gtk that we want, the icon theme and the cursor theme.
Using Extensions.
We can also make use of Extensions en gnome-shell y Andrew our friend from WebUpd8 our has left some very interesting and how to install them. 
One of the extensions that I use for example, is to display the list of open windows in the panel. 
Let's install this as an example. For this we will use git. In case we do not have the necessary packages installed, we open a terminal and put:
$ sudo apt-get install git-core
And subsequently:
$ cd $ git clone https://github.com/ahdiaz/gnome-shell-windowslist.git $ cp -r gnome-shell-windowslist/[email protected] ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ $ rm -rf gnome-shell-windowslist
We restart the Shell
Modifying the window buttons.
Since I use the buttons Close, Minimize and Maximize windows on the left, no one can make me put them on the right. By default in gnome-shell they come in the classic way, but we can easily change it by making use of gconf-editor and editing the parameter in: desktop »gnome» shell »windows» button_layout leaving it as in the image below.
Also, in the Windows section of gnome-tweak-tool we can choose which theme we want for the buttons. Luckily, this tool allows us to use Mother o metacity.
Conclusions.
gnome-shell it is having new advances and improvements every day. Although there are still things that need to be done "by hand" it is true that it is no longer that first version that did not allow to do anything. The use of Extensions will launch this desktop in style as happened with FirefoxEven very soon we will be able to install them just by accessing extension.gnome.org and click on a button.
It is a pity that the packages have not already entered Debian Testing