Linux Mint Forums

Hello,
I recently dismissed Ubuntu Unity. I was following the development of LMDE for some time, so I installed it. But after doing updates and upgrades (via Terminal), the system was broken (freeze at GDM screen). Didn't know where to go from there so I played it safe and installed Linux Mint 11. That's fine, but with the new update-system, I'm really considering installing LMDE again when there's the new respin-ISO.

I would really like to have a rolling distribution with all the Mint-goodness. But I also want to use Gnome 3 with the Shell (sorry, am I weird?). As I read in some comments in the forums, Gnome 3-components are slowly coming into the repositories, eventually causing trouble, so the strategy (as I understand it) at the moment is to hold as much of G3 as possible.

OK, long story, here's the question:
So, does it make sense to install a distribution based on Gnome 2.X, that has a probably slow and painful transition to Gnome 3? Or should I wait until LMDE has a respin, when G3 is already implemented? Or does the combination of LMDE and Gnome-Shell make sense at all?

Would like to read your thoughts about that. Thank you!

I have Linux Mint 11 installed, and am planning to install LMDE also (in dual-boot) once the respin for that is available. You could do the same (keep a Linux Mint 11), so you always have a fallback if something goes horribly wrong with LMDE + GNOME Shell

As for when you should be installing GNOME Shell, depends on how much you want to experiment. It can already be done I think, but you could wait for it to be available in the standard repos.

GNOME Shell worked and looked a lot better than Unity, when I tried Fedora 15 recently. But GNOME Shell doesn't agree with my way of working yet

My main computer is a laptop, where I use only LMDE. Recently, I added the experimental repositories and installed the only packages related to Gnome-Shell (then i disabled the repo when everything were stable). So now I have LMDE Gnome-Shell, I must say it was a good move, since I really like the way Gnome-Shell offers me the desktop. But in the other hand, Gnome-Shell made thinks a little slower on my machine, that and the looong boot sequence of LMDE are the only big problems for laptop users. Other than this, the conjunction LMDE + Gnome-Shell makes a great desktop.


Regards.

@xenopeek:
You're right, dual-boot (or in my case multi-boot) is a considerable option. Maybe I should just give it a try.

@luis.nando:
Thanks for sharing your experiences, this made me a lot more confident in trying GS under LMDE. Performance is not my main issue, so I don't think that GS will be much slower.