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Gnome 3 has virtual desktops; they're created and destroyed on demand. You can also configure static desktops using Gnome Tweak tool.



But you get a list of all apps via Alt-Tab. There is no isolation, so I end up with OSX-like mess of apps. Each desktop must have its own list of apps.

I submitted that as a bug to Gnome bugzilla and they told me that's "by design". I later found a 3rd party shell extension to fix it, but it was ugly as hell and kept breaking after each version bump. So I gave up. Besides, I do not want to rely on 3rd party extensions for core functionality, like switching between applications.

There is a 2nd reason why their dynamic workspaces cannot be used as a replacement for proper virtual desktops: the desktop numbers (index) keep changing: if I have desktops #1, #2 and #3 (and I use shortcuts for them, like Win+1, Win+2, etc), and I close the last window in desktop #2, Gnome3 immediately kills #3 and moves all its windows to #2. That's insane. It won't allow me to have an empty desktop in the middle.


You can fix the Alt Tab behavior by using AlternateTab extension[1]. It works perfectly fine for me in Ubuntu 12.10 with Gnome 3.6.2

[1]: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/


I made a decision to leave OS "tweak" utils behind when I got rid of Windows. The existence of these utils is a smell, and a signal to look elsewhere.




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