Gnome3 for the experienced (FUN Stuff!!!)

[zerozero]

well i just had to try it again now that the product is finished and i went the lazy way: installed the daily fedora's iso about 3 weeks ago;
has been very funny: until last week, each new big update would break GS and force me to reinstall, but then it went stable and with the 3.0 release is solid.

my first idea was just play a bit with it, see what it was, how it was, meet the new animal and sooner or later delete the partition or find something else to put on it, at the moment with about a week of stable GS and the new things that already came along, maybe i will keep it a little long

first impressions: it's a little claustrophobic, i'm used to tweak, mess around with every little detail, and in the beginning GS was to closed, you were presented with a setup and that's it, but...
...and here is GS winning point all is customizable, it's just css, and you can change GS appearance and behaviour completely: within days we already have a tweak tool and a bunch of small extensions: the ridiculous hidden power-off is solved, we can easily change fonts system-wide, icons and theme (this late one requires a extension not yet available in fedora), we can have nautilus drawing the desktop (so, icons there, right-click) - and this in a couple days!!

I really believe we missed the point, GS can be more flexible than GNOME2, and in an easier way: the devs are just leaving that task to the community; they are offering a solid, fast, modern product that can be adapted and extended to one's needs;

and we have compiz aswell in the login we have the option to choose between GNOME (GS) or Classic Gnome (with compiz)

overall, will it win me over KDE? nahh, i don't think so! KDE is there, GS may get there, but it's funny to see it grow

[ukbrian]

I bumped into this link http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2011/03/customizing-the-gnome-3-shell.html
which might be of interest to some, me I'll be sticking with Gnome 2 for the foreseeable future.

[autocrosser]

THANK YOU!!!!

VERY useful post---I've played with some of what he talked about, but a good half I didn't know...

[autocrosser]

Information for everyone testing Gnome3---It has come to my attention that Mint Menu is not working (see: viewtopic.php?f=141&t=70126&p=410066#p410066 ). We need as many people as possible to test in Gnome-Shell & Gnome3 (fallback mode) & report to the bug report (listed in the forum link)......You will need to manually add Mint Menu to Gnome3 Panel or you chosen Dock/Panel manager in Gnome-Shell.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!!

[sidneyk]

Not to discourage anyone from LMDE or Linux Mint, but just an observation as I do still have LMDE installed with the parts of Gnome 3 that are currently available from experimental. Today after reading a bit about it I decided to give Arch Linux a try on another partition. A different beast to be sure and not for the light-hearted, but after only a few hours of 'work' and waiting I now have a working Gnome 3 installation under Arch Linux with a 2.6.38 kernel. I am posting this now from there. Again, I'm not trying to pry anyone away from LMDE or Mint, but for the adventurous that may want to try there appeared to be a bunch more of the Gnome 3 packages under arch than currently in Debian with perhaps several apps that have been ported over to Gnome 3 already. Last I checked Debian only had about about 30 of the packages or so ready. Just a way to get a better glimpse perhaps of Gnome 3 and perhaps learn a little while at it.

[zerozero]

or probably, if arch scares you, try fedora
atm GS is fully functional, stable and we can easily have an idea how it gonna look like in the other distros;

[autocrosser]

I've not posted in a while--Gnome-Shell is running very stable these days. The big news is that I "stumbled" (THANK YOU ukbrian!!--I just got around to it) on a very good page to install a theme changer.. http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2011/04/gnome- ... eview.html

I have posted there & if you follow the instructions---you would need to also do as the Ubuntu-poster did to make it work...there is a couple of git items you need--a nice afternoons play with a very nice reward!!!

You will also need to install gnome-shell-extensions

Code: Select all

git clone http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-extensions
cd gnome-shell-extensions
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr
make && sudo make install

And Gnome-Tweak-Tool makes it a well-rounded "kit"

Code: Select all

git clone http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-tweak-tool
cd gnome-tweak-tool
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr
make && sudo make install


Enjoy!!!

[autocrosser]

A current screenshot---using the Elementary theme......

[michaelzap]

Howdy -

Running Gnome Shell with no major issues here. I have a test installation of #! Xfce on the sid repos, and I added the experimental repo and installed Gnome 3 a few days ago. It's running a whole lot better than the last time that I tried it (no crashes at all).

I added the theme switcher extension and some themes, but I can't get other extensions to work for me. In particular, I want the windowsNavigator extension, since the fact that you can't skip through windows and apps in the overlay window is a major issue for me (I don't want to have to mouse and click!). I'm assuming that there's a version conflict between Gnome Shell from the experimental repos and the extensions that I have. Anyone got extensions working in Gnome Shell from the Debian experimental repos? If so, how did you do it (or where did you get them)?

I think GS is going to be the bee's knees in about six months (especially if the Mint team gets busy creating extensions and a kick-ass theme for it).

[autocrosser]

P/M me with your info & the extensions you have/want to use (git links..etc)....I'll try to see what is going on & if I can help....

[dencar]

I note that gnome-shell is in synaptic with experimental repositories selected, but attempting to install it results in the following broken dependencies;

gnome-shell:
Depends: gir1.2-telepathyglib-0.12 but it is not installable
Depends: gir1.2-telepathylogger-0.2 but it is not installable
Depends: gnome-bluetooth (>=3.0.0) but 2.30.0-2 is to be installed
Depends: libtelepathy-glib0 (>=0.13.12) but 0.11.11-2 is to be installed
Depends: libtelepathy-logger2 (>=0.2.0) but it is not installable
Depends: libxfixes3 (>=1:5.0) but 1:4.0.5-1 is to be installed
Depends: gnome-settings-daemon (>=2.91.5.1) but 2.30.2-3 is to be installed

Attempting to install gir1.2-telepathyglib-0.12 as a .deb shows dependencies for it, which then prove to be all installed, but it still won't install because of other unknown broken dependecies.
I have put the following in /etc/apt/preferences:

Package: *gnome* libglib2.0* *vte* *pulse* *peas* libgtk* *gjs* *gconf* *gstreamer* alacarte *brasero* cheese ekiga empathy* gdm3 gcalctool baobab *gucharmap* gvfs* hamster-applet *nautilus* seahorse* sound-juicer *totem* remmina vino gksu xdg-user-dirs-gtk dmz-cursor-theme eog epiphany* evince* evolution* file-roller gedit* metacity *mutter* yelp* rhythmbox* banshee* system-config-printer transmission-* tomboy network-manager* libnm-* update-notifier shotwell liferea *software-properties* libunique-3.0-0 libseed-gtk3-0 libnotify* libpanel-applet-4-0 libgdata11 libcamel* libcanberra* libchamplain* libebackend* libebook* libecal* libedata* libegroupwise* libevent* gir1.2-*
Pin: release experimental
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: *
Pin: release experimental
Pin-Priority: 150

Has anyone managed to install gnome-shell using synaptic and, if so, how? Has anyone a solution to the general gnome-shell dependency issue, please?

[autocrosser]

I've been using aptitude to keep my install up to date---you might try a 'aptitude update' & aptitude upgrade' or 'safe-upgrade' to see if that works better--I've got 35 packages held back right now (xorg updates), so don't do any xorg items---make sure you have apt-listbugs installed first.

[dencar]

Thanks, autocrosser, I've decided to give your method a go. I have installed apt-listbugs and went for the 'aptitude safe-upgrade' option. There were no xorg items listed. Fingers crossed for the next hour or so.

[michaelzap]

Has anyone managed to install gnome-shell using synaptic and, if so, how? Has anyone a solution to the general gnome-shell dependency issue, please?

I used the pinning method described here:
http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/04/18/st ... erimental/
and apt-get to install GNOME Shell. If you pin like that, you can just use "apt-get dist-upgrade" to install the GNOME 3/Shell packages. I had a lot less trouble doing it that way than I did the first time that I did it (when I used apt-get install commands with the experimental repo specified).

One thing that might be important: I suggest that you first upgrade to sid and install absolutely every GNOME package that you can from sid. If you already have empathy, evolution, etc., then they will be updated with the command above. If not, then you can end up with broken dependencies that can be a real headache to resolve (that's what happened to me the first time, when I was starting from an Xfce desktop).

The Debian GNOME 3 packages are still not 100%, so be prepared for some difficulty (although I haven't had any crashes once I got it installed).

[dencar]

Thanks, michaelzap, I have the same pinning method in use. I tried autocrosser's method and ended up with a bunch of 'grave' and 'critical' errors which deterred me from continuing. I'll try your suggestion.

Edit: Ended up with the same endless cycle of broken dependencies and a system in need of repair. For the moment I envy those with Gnome3 working.

[autocrosser]

Just keep trying--there are some days that everything updates very smooth & then there are days like yesterday with libc6 I'm just VERY glad that I upgrade my Sid install before my Experimental one---My Sid b0rked up in flames.......Looks like I'm cloning my Testing install to have a current base for a "RE" built Sid.....Sid was a very bad boy last night......

[sahilshinesalways]

linux as a whole is a fun and productive stuff not just gnome3

[autocrosser]

Very good news--the new xorg just got released this evening....enjoy everyone!!!!

[autocrosser]

Some fun stuff for today's update.....

I'm posting all the gtk3 stuff I've found to date...not a large selection, but at least it gives choices....

[autocrosser]

If anyone wants all the themes I've collected---just P/M me--they have various licenses, so I'm not posting them.