Gnome 3 experimentation

[michaelzap]

Just wondering if anyone here has successfully gotten Gnome 3 to run and be stable on a Debian base. I have it functioning pretty well, but I do get unmet dependency errors trying to install some software. I'm thinking that this may be because I started with a Crunchbang Xfce installation that I just happened to have on a testing partition, and I'm wondering if it's worth starting over from a Gnome Debian install (such as LMDE) or if the repos are still just too incomplete to get this working properly no matter what I do.

[JasonLG]

Just wondering if anyone here has successfully gotten Gnome 3 to run and be stable on a Debian base. I have it functioning pretty well, but I do get unmet dependency errors trying to install some software. I'm thinking that this may be because I started with a Crunchbang Xfce installation that I just happened to have on a testing partition, and I'm wondering if it's worth starting over from a Gnome Debian install (such as LMDE) or if the repos are still just too incomplete to get this working properly no matter what I do.

It doesn't matter, GNOME Debian and CrunchBang both have access to the same repos. GNOME 3 just hasn't made it all the way to even sid(unstable) yet.
http://www.0d.be/debian/debian-gnome-3.0-status.html

[michaelzap]

It doesn't matter, GNOME Debian and CrunchBang both have access to the same repos. GNOME 3 just hasn't made it all the way to even sid(unstable) yet.
http://www.0d.be/debian/debian-gnome-3.0-status.html

That's what I thought also, which is why I just used my #! install to test this out. But on the other hand I wonder if I had started with a working Gnome installation first if I wouldn't be having these particular dependency issues now (since I'd already have working Gnome apps like Empathy and Evolution installed, even if the library versions were a bit mixed up). What I'm running into now is being unable to install apps like this at all because they require older versions of some libraries than I have in my repos (which are sid + experimental). Maybe I just need to pin the Gnome 3 stuff and install these apps from the testing repos, but it was getting to be more work than I felt like putting into it. Like you pointed out, even the experimental repos don't have all the packages yet, so I probably just ought to be more patient.

[JasonLG]

It doesn't matter, GNOME Debian and CrunchBang both have access to the same repos. GNOME 3 just hasn't made it all the way to even sid(unstable) yet.
http://www.0d.be/debian/debian-gnome-3.0-status.html

That's what I thought also, which is why I just used my #! install to test this out. But on the other hand I wonder if I had started with a working Gnome installation first if I wouldn't be having these particular dependency issues now (since I'd already have working Gnome apps like Empathy and Evolution installed, even if the library versions were a bit mixed up). What I'm running into now is being unable to install apps like this at all because they require older versions of some libraries than I have in my repos (which are sid + experimental). Maybe I just need to pin the Gnome 3 stuff and install these apps from the testing repos, but it was getting to be more work than I felt like putting into it. Like you pointed out, even the experimental repos don't have all the packages yet, so I probably just ought to be more patient.

Experimental is not a complete package base like unstable, testing and stable. Everything that I've read said that you pretty much have to do some pinning with experimental. I'd wait it'll be a few months until it gets to testing. But a little FYI, IMHO GNOME pretty much sucks.

[michaelzap]

Experimental is not a complete package base like unstable, testing and stable. Everything that I've read said that you pretty much have to do some pinning with experimental. I'd wait it'll be a few months until it gets to testing. But a little FYI, IMHO GNOME pretty much sucks.

Right. I have been pinning the Gnome 3 packages to experimental, but I think that perhaps my problem is that I never should have installed anything from experimental until after I had a complete working Gnome installation. Probably more work to go backwards now in order to move forwards than it would be to start over.

I actually kinda like Gnome 3/Gnome Shell. I'm definitely going to give it a chance, anyway. I think they made a lot of the right decisions in terms of managing workspaces and applications intuitively, and I've used it enough to feel like it basically corresponds to my work flow and doesn't get in my way (much).

I won't be dumping #! Xfce for Gnome 3 on my main system any time soon, however - I have too much actual work to do and it gets done fast in Xfce.

[dencar]

I actually kinda like Gnome 3/Gnome Shell. I'm definitely going to give it a chance, anyway. I think they made a lot of the right decisions in terms of managing workspaces and applications intuitively, and I've used it enough to feel like it basically corresponds to my work flow and doesn't get in my way (much).

Don't know how you got gnome shell to install. I tried and kept running into insurmountable dependency problems. I was upset to discover it has been removed from repositories, too. How can Gnome 3 be "released' when the defining feature is not available? It took me a day to revert to fully functional Gnome 2, so I've learnt my lesson to wait for a genuine release.

[michaelzap]

Don't know how you got gnome shell to install. I tried and kept running into insurmountable dependency problems. I was upset to discover it has been removed from repositories, too. How can Gnome 3 be "released' when the defining feature is not available? It took me a day to revert to fully functional Gnome 2, so I've learnt my lesson to wait for a genuine release.

It can be installed from the experimental repositories, but even that doesn't have all of the packages yet. Basically you just add the experimental repo to your sources.lst and run

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install -t experimental gnome3-session gnome-themes-standard gnome-control-center gnome-keyring gnome-media libdconf0 dconf-tools gsettings-desktop-schemas

I had to do some futzing to get everything to install, but it eventually worked. Empathy would crash when I tried to chat, however. I think that the telepathy libraries are still a major mess.

As its not a complete repo, you can't do a dist-upgrade to get experimental packages - you have to install them explicitly with sudo apt-get install -t experimental packagenames.

More info - including how to pin Gnome 3 packages easily - here:
http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/04/18/st ... erimental/

[dencar]

I think that the telepathy libraries are still a major mess.

This was the obstacle that stopped me. I had done the pinning and still have it and the repositories ready to be reactivated. Much as I like to be at the bleeding edge, I think I'll wait this one out. Thanks for your tips and I know where to look if boredom becomes too much.

[bwat47]

Gnome 3 is alright, but I haven't been able to give it a proper test as its STILL broken with fglrx :/.

I still prefer Mint's gnome 2 implementation, can't wait to see what they do with gnome 3 (without the shell)