How can I add gnome-shell to the regular Ubuntu Natty login screen along with “Ubuntu” “Ubuntu Classic”, maybe as “User defined”?

Question

How can I add gnome-shell to the regular Ubuntu Natty login screen along with "Ubuntu" "Ubuntu Classic", maybe as "User defined"?
When I pick the user name on login screen, at the bottom there is a drop-down to pick the session I want to start, I would like to add the gnome-shell I compiled myself to that list of options. Thanks

Answer 1

Ubuntu 11.04 includes most of what you need to do this. All you need to do is create a new file named /usr/share/xsessions/gnome-shell.desktop with this content:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Ubuntu GNOME Shell Desktop
Comment=This session logs you into GNOME with GNOME Shell
Exec=gnome-session --session=gnome
TryExec=gnome-session
Icon=
Type=Application

Answer 2

Please be aware, if you install gnome-shell from the gnome3-team/gnome3 ppa, you will not be able to use Unity. You will have a profile called Gnome-shell which will enable you to login to the shell. So please think before you install from ppa. However, there are tutorials on this site on how to compile it from source, so that you can use both.

Hope this helps.