LMDE blog post.

[viking777]

If you have a look at this post:
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1949
And scan down to the Faq section, the last post here is in regard to new LMDE iso's. I was surprised and not a little disturbed to find out that according to that post the only desktops available in the new iso's will be Xfce, Mate and Cinnamon.

Is this a typo or a policy?

The way it reads to me is if you upgrade via up4 you can keep gnome-shell, but if you reinstall you can't.

[zerozero]

for the good and the bad i think it's pretty clear:

The main LMDE edition featuring MATE 1.2 as the default desktop and Cinnamon 1.4 as a secondary desktop. MATE will work with Compiz (also installed by default) and Cinnamon will work in Virtualbox, so you’ll be able to enjoy both desktops and see which one you like best.

[viking777]

Oh dear!

I wonder where I will go next then?

[zerozero]

i think it was bad choice of words: see http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1949#comment-61141 and http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1949#comment-61133

[viking777]

Sorry zerozero, I can't see anything there that suggests that gnome-shell is part of the new lmde iso. What am I missing? I know that Clem thinks that Cinnamon is a gnome-shell replacement, but it isn't, not for me anyway, and for somebody that has spent the best part of a decade trying to avoid ever using gnome2 and its predecessors, Mate is 'not' an alternative, Xfce is certainly better than Mate, but not by enough to make it something I would choose. Of course at the moment my LMDE install doesn't need to be replaced, that is the beauty of a rolling release, but eventually it will need to be done I guess and the idea of downloading a dvd full of desktops I don't want to use is not an appealing one.

[zerozero]

viking,
cinnamon needs gnome3.2 (atm) will be made compatible with 3.4 shortly, so it really seems that the shell (the real one ) won't be installed by default (only the necessary libs to make cinnamon work) but an apt install gnome-shell won't bring then that many dep.

my first concern (when i first read the blog post) was that the new isos would be mate-only like Clem suggests it can happen in the future

It’s probable both of these desktops will eventually get their own separate editions going forward.

[viking777]

Yes, that is a good point zz, as a gnome-shell fork it is going to need an awful lot of gnome-shell to make it work. But still I am exceedingly disappointed by this news, it is easy enough of course to install gnome-shell, but what disappoints me is that my ability to 'help out' around here is likely to be severely compromised by the fact that LMDE at least will no longer support my DE of choice, so whilst everyone else is using Mate, Cinnamon and Xfce, and of course asking questions on those three, I will only have answers relevant to gnome-shell - which makes me pretty useless potentially (even more useless than now ).

It is not a big deal, I have moved on so many times before that once more won't make that much difference, but I like gnome-shell and I will continue to use it no matter what happens here.

[bimsebasse]

Viking, you can set up Cinnamon to work pretty much like Gnome Shell in a few minutes.What do you miss in Cinnamon?

[zerozero]

i can answer that one bim, i think, the same i miss, the overview and the search (and to a lesser extend the dynamic workspaces)

[viking777]

i can answer that one bim, i think, the same i miss, the overview and the search (and to a lesser extend the dynamic workspaces)

Yes, yes and no.

I have static the workspaces extension. But 100% for the other two. The other thing is I don't want a desktop menu, or desktop switchers or shortcuts on my panel any more the gnome-shell way is better.

[bimsebasse]

I like the Gnome shell overview too but think the new workspace expo is the best solution so far, very easy to navigate and quickly gives you and overview of workspaces + windows. Cinnamon has search the same way GS has (super + type letters)? The only thing I still miss from Gnome Shell is the extensions site.

[bimsebasse]

i can answer that one bim, i think, the same i miss, the overview and the search (and to a lesser extend the dynamic workspaces)

Yes, yes and no.

I have static the workspaces extension. But 100% for the other two. The other thing is I don't want a desktop menu, or desktop switchers or shortcuts on my panel any more the gnome-shell way is better.

You can disable all those, you can have an empty panel if you want.

[zerozero]

If you have a look at this post:
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1949
And scan down to the Faq section, the last post here is in regard to new LMDE iso's. I was surprised and not a little disturbed to find out that according to that post the only desktops available in the new iso's will be Xfce, Mate and Cinnamon.

Is this a typo or a policy?

The way it reads to me is if you upgrade via up4 you can keep gnome-shell, but if you reinstall you can't.

and this is wishful thinking or ...

Edit by Clem: You can actually install Cinnamon and run it without most of Gnome 3 or even Nautilus.. so technically we could make it more independent going forward, it just doesn’t really make sense right now to do so. Cinnamon handles the interface, the layer of the desktop you interact with.. except the background, desktop icons and the file browser which are handled by Nautilus. Going forward, it’s hard to say… it really depends on the direction taken by Gnome 3. At the moment Gnome 3 is a good base for Cinnamon and the resulting desktop is something we’re happy with. If tomorrow Gnome 3 lose critical features we need, or if they deviate in a way that only suits Gnome Shell we’d either use another desktop underneath Cinnamon, or we’d fork Gnome itself or we would make our own. Whatever happens we’ll always do what makes the most sense for us in terms of what we want to achieve and the quality we expect from the desktops we support/develop within Linux Mint.

[viking777]

I think this is almost inevitable in the long run - that is why I am running Debian Testing now as well as LMDE.

Playing devil's advocate for a minute, I can understand that perhaps Cinnamon is a better base for the core audience of Linux MInt which is basically the 'new adopters' market. Cinnamon is usable 'out of the box' and has a lot of familiar features, whereas gnome-shell certainly isn't, when you first install it, it is verging on terrible - look at the 'suspend/shutdown' issue that we have discussed before, and as you pointed out to Bim, gnome-devs show no sign of changing this despite universal howls of derision. However once you have configured gnome-shell with the extensions that you want it is better than Cinnamon (imo - ok!), but despite the gnome shell extensions site being ridiculously easy to use, the 'shell' is not out of the box ready (unless you have very low expectations ). You can also argue that if you are technically competent enough to configure gnome-shell then you are probably technically competent enough to install it for yourself as well, so why confuse people by including it in a default installtion that already has two or three other choices?

In the long run then I can see Mint with Cinnamon running on a different base and bye-bye gnome3. Clem is certainly not going to drop Cinnamon given the acclaim it has received and the work he has put into it.

But as I said, from my point of view although I have nothing against Cinnamon and would happily use it if gnome-shell didn't exist, I still find it (and any other desktop that you care to name) inferior to my customized shell. I then go on to reason that as Mint is not likely to be supporting my DE of choice and I don't use any of the Mint tools/customizations (in fact I usually have to work to get rid of some of them), why am I still running MInt? There is only one reason really - this forum.

There are plenty of contributors to the forum that don't actually use MInt any more, but I have a feeling that they all know an awful lot more than me and don't have to 'test out' their solutions before posting them as I do. So for the moment at least I will continue to use Mint simply so I can participate here, but my idea is to replace LMDE with Mint 13 when it comes along and get my Debian fix from pure Debian Testing, that way I will never have to worry about losing support for gnome3 and the shell.

[MALsPa]

viking, if you run Ubuntu and/or Debian, much of what you know will still be applicable here.

And if you run LMDE with GNOME Shell instead of with Cinnamon or whatever, I'm thinking that you'd still be able to help people with LOTS of LMDE-related questions that have little to do with the desktop itself.

Can you have both GNOME Shell and Cinnamon installed, and log into one or the other (like I do if I add Xfce to a KDE distro, for example)?

By the way, I've continued to pop in at these forums even though I stopped running Mint here quite some time ago. My reasons for dropping Mint were unrelated to GNOME Shell. But I ran Mint for a long time, so I still like to follow the project, and I still enjoy these forums. My thinking is, who knows, I might learn something here, or still be able to post something that helps someone; and I might even see something here that prompts me to download a Mint .iso.

[gavinhc]

But as I said, from my point of view although I have nothing against Cinnamon and would happily use it if gnome-shell didn't exist, I still find it (and any other desktop that you care to name) inferior to my customized shell. I then go on to reason that as Mint is not likely to be supporting my DE of choice and I don't use any of the Mint tools/customizations (in fact I usually have to work to get rid of some of them), why am I still running MInt? There is only one reason really - this forum.

I just wanted to say that I fully agree with these comments. Although I love Mint, especially LMDE, and the Mint community, as time goes on, it feels that the project is moving in a different direction than I am with Linux.

I have been happily rolling along with testing since before Squeeze became stable. I fully understand the reasoning behind the introduction of the update packs, however they just aren't for me. I'd rather have the constant flow of updates that comes from tracking testing. Additionally, I find Gnome Shell to be the ideal workflow for me. I never really liked the Gnome 2.x way of doing things and have loved the Shell since installing the Fedora 15 beta to my testing partition nearly a year ago. Although I understand that a great many Linux users are sad to see Gnome 2.x disappear (a look at the comments of any site discussing the Shell tells you that much), I have never looked back since my first install of the shell. Therefore, with the recent announcement that going forward LMDE would officially support MATE, Cinnamon, and xfce, I am left wondering where I stand with this distro I have grown to love so much. I know I could continue doing what I've been doing, tracking testing and using Gnome Shell, but how much can I contribute to the community doing that? Conversely, in the event I need to look for help from the community, how much can someone using packages weeks or months older than me and a DE that emulates the Gnmone 2.x experience help me?

Going forward, I do hope to remain a part of this community, I'm just not sure where I fit into it right now.

[zerozero]

ok guys, i hate you with much love.
and why? this topic made me realize (i guess i knew it already) that i'm deprecated. the lmde we adopted and came to love doesn't exist anymore; i know ofc the rationale behind the UP introduction (and i was(and)am a defender of such innovation), but that leaves me in a crossroad.

my DE of choice doesn't have much love around here (not complaining, stating the fact) no problem; my second DE is as we see now superseded by cinnamon, ok.

about cinnamon, if there wasn't gnome-shell, i could use it and be happy with it, i do use it sometimes, although i feel that (for me) doesn't match the experience i have with the shell.
like gavinhc, i was one of the early adopters that grabbed a fedora15 beta one year ago and there's a lot to like about it: the overview, the dinamic-workspaces, the search, the amazing chameleonic behavior that the extensions and a few css tweaks can do (cinnamon can get there, isn't there yet in most of these things); after kde (where i feel home) the shell is the one other place where my computing time is more relaxed (things are in the right place and everything flows as it should).

but now we have to "explain" that the repos we use are not sanctioned, the DE we use is not supported.

so why mint? why lmde?
- it runs great. i tried several times debian proper, and it doesn't run better than my zz-tweaked lmde (and maybe my install is not lmde anymore )
- these fora; i'm not registered in that many (actually just a couple) but there's names here and friends that i would like to keep in touch with;
- the mint project as a whole, Clem does an amazing job (even if that means that his priorities are going in a different way than mine).

think it's enough (how i hate these moments )

[GeneC]

''''''''''''''''''''''''
so why mint? why lmde?
- it runs great. i tried several times debian proper, and it doesn't run better than my zz-tweaked lmde

Same here.

(and maybe my install is not lmde anymore )

None of my three LMDE installs are stock. Two tracking SID (Gnome and XFCE), and a Stable/Debian Backports Hybrid.

- these fora; i'm not registered in that many (actually just a couple) but there's names here and friends that i would like to keep in touch with;

That is exactly IT... Actually this most excellent forum is the main reason I use Mint. Almost everything I know about Linux. I learned here. Lots of good people willing to share knowledge and help.

- the mint project as a whole, Clem does an amazing job (even if that means that his priorities are going in a different way than mine).

Clem does do a great job. He tries to give us what we want. But, we don't all get it. Like you. My favorite DE seems to be getting less and less love. XFCE.
But, I guess to be fair, the Mint team is pretty darn small for such a big distro (still #1 on DistroWatch). Right now all the resources seem to be dedicated to Cinnamon which I at first did not like too much, I also preferred the Shell, but over the last couple of weeks, with Cinnamon 1.4, and many new fine applets. I have it where I prefer it.

...think it's enough (how i hate these moments )

Nice job..

[tdockery97]

Same sentiments as ZZ and GeneC above. Been running my own tweaked KDE version of LMDE a while now, pointed to Testing. Guess I'm not truly within support parameters anymore either. But it's nice to keep current on what is going on with the official Mints.

[rhodry]

Same sentiments as ZZ and GeneC above. Been running my own tweaked KDE version of LMDE a while now, pointed to Testing. Guess I'm not truly within support parameters anymore either. But it's nice to keep current on what is going on with the official Mints.

I think it says a lot for the quality of these forums that there seems to be more & more of us in this boat.

I really like most (not all) of the additions & tweaks that Clem has value added in Mint but I refuse to run Ubuntu based systems here ( personal choice) and so LMDE was just made for me. The biggest gripe I had from day 1 was that it was not a "true" rolling release; firstly because it tracked Testing and more so once the UP's came along. I am pleased to see that finally acknowledged in the release advertising this time round by calling it a "semi-rolling" release.

The Packs are fine for "stable" oriented newbies but they cripple more advanced users; so more and more "tweakers" find themselves in this customized LMDE land. Just yesterday I finished an install from the latest Xfce iso with KDE added & tweaked and then updated to Sid/Unstable. A true rolling release, Debian-based with some Clem enhancement and 2 rock-solid DE options. But the LMDE components of that are getting quite minimal. Maybe we should just have two forum categories; LMDE Tweaked & LMDE Standard ?

I agree Cinnamon seems to be where the dev efforts seem to be going - and that's ok, but I have a query about WHY Cinnamon came about? There already existed a DE that was close in usage to Gnome2, will shortly be based on Gtk3 ( which after all was why Gnome had to change) and was settled, stable and fast - Xfce. Why Clem et al went the way of developing a whole new DE is a puzzle to me. Why not simply join and help build an even better Xfce. Doesn't this seem to be the way though in Linux development? Everyone wants to be in charge of their own project, rather than work on someone else's?

Anyway, it's all interesting navel gazing stuff hey!?

rhodry.