Trinity Desktop Environment on Linux Mint
Ubuntu Trinity Repository Installation Instructions
http://trinitydesktop.org/installation.php#ubuntu
1. Add these lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list
By either chosing the application Software Sources via the Gnome Application Menu, or via the terminal: sudo gksu --desktop /usr/share/applications/software-properties-gtk.desktop /usr/bin/software-properties-gtk
Chose 'Other Software' and add the additional repository's listed for the version of Ubuntu/Mint Linux Kernel you are using Lucid,Maverick,Natty or Oneiric as listed in the above trinitydesktop.org installation page.
2. Add the GPG signing key:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net --recv-keys 2B8638D0
3. Install Trinity:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-default-settings-trinity kubuntu-desktop-trinity
Configuring kdm-trinity
A display manager is a program that provides graphical login
capabilities for the X Window System.
Only one display manager can manage a given X server, but multiple
display manager packages are installed. Please select which display
manager should run by default.
Multiple display managers can run simultaneously if they are configured
to manage different servers; to achieve this, configure the display
managers accordingly, edit each of their init scripts in /etc/init.d,
and disable the check for a default display manager.
Configuring kdm-trinity
Default display manager:
gdm
kdm-trinity
You'll be prompted during the TDE Trinity Desktop installation which display manager you want as the default when you login on your Linux Mint system, make your preferred choice and continue the installation.
After the downloads and installation are finished via the apt-get terminal mode then shut-down (power-off) your computer and then power it back up. After choosing your login-name you'll have the option which desktop to load in TDE (Trinity) or Gnome etc.
Choosing TDE at User Login the first time opens a KDE Configuration Wizard which easily guides you thru 5 steps to optimise your desktop look and feel. Any time later you can simply choose the Control Panel to add or make different choices.
For Linux Mint 12 Standard users, the above instructions can be fully implemented and installed via the terminal CLI (ctrl-alt-T) which is infinitely helpful if the Gnome 3.x desktop disappears due to Video Chip conflicts preventing the Linux Mint 12 users from being able to easily access the Gnome App Menu.
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This fork of KDE 3.5 (Trinity) works out to be a outstanding alternative desktop on millions of computers whose video boards and graphic chips do not support the greater than 2048 pixel requirement that Gnome 3.x is seeking. In effect that means the wide ranging Intel Graphics chipset found on dozens of desktop and laptop manufacturers, ANY version up to i945 Chipsets will not fully work. That translates in Intel Graphics chips alone into i7xx,i8xx,i9xx up to and including the i945 series are a NO GO for Gnome 3.x, however the Trinity Desktop works fine on those chip sets.
This disappointing development is explained and explored in the Fedora Forum found at this link:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showth ... p?t=263733
(i7xx),i8xx (Intel) chipsets are blacklisted from ever running the Shell. i915 through i945 can run the Shell, but they do have this 2048-pixels-in-either-direction hardware limitation: if the total screen size in either X or Y axis exceeds 2048 pixels, the card won't do 3D acceleration or compositing any more, and Shell won't run. If you start off below the limit then plug in a monitor that takes you over the limit, Shell will keep running because it can't detect this change, but as soon as it tries to render something strenuous, it's liable to break in interesting ways (try activating the overview or something and see what happens). If you start up with a configuration that exceeds the limit, Shell will refuse to run and you'll get fallback mode.
Chips beyond i945 don't have the 2048 pixel limit and will basically run Shell just fine whatever you throw at them.
mariusz: so, it's actually pretty simple: what 'nomodeset' effectively does, these days, is force the system to use the vesa driver instead of the intel driver. The intel and nouveau drivers have no UMS (the counterpart to KMS) code any more; if you forcibly disable KMS, then when intel or nouveau kick in, they will notice that KMS is disabled, refuse to run, and X will fall back to vesa instead.
obviously, since vesa is a completely unaccelerated, generic, fallback driver, Shell is not going to work on it