The default desktop environment in OEL 7 is Gnome 3 (gnome-session and gnome-classic-session). Working with Gnome 3 however is very frustrating and distracting. Putting aside the fact that Linux is more and more windowizing every day, to me Gnome 3 looks like a sadistic spartan edition of Windows 8. Unbelievable! They changed everything what worked before. Unless I am badly missing something, it can be said that Gnome 3 is almost useless for any serious work on OEL 7 server and it shouldn't have taken the place in RHEL 7 and RHEL 7 based server distributions anyway.
Is there any way to customize and setup one decent, usable and functional desktop? How to create application launchers on desktop without writing .desktop files manually? How to create application launchers on menu and taskbar panels? How to create additional panels?
I would like to make this clear before getting rid of Gnome 3 from the system and installing MATE-Desktop instead.
Thanks a lot in advance.