Get classic Mint desktop in Gnome shell

[esteban1uy]

Most people will dislike your way of removing Unity. When I tried, it completely crashed and/ or crippled my Unity-based *untu distros.

Wrong thread dude. This is not about removing Unity (there is not a single mention) but tweaking Gnome-shell.

[Daniel4lm]

After some time I managed to "convey" mintMenu extension(for Cinnamon) in the Gnome shell version of the LM12. Since Cinnamon version did not work (bug https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/11) I think I found the solution, so that the mintMenu is now functional (for Gnome shell).

[esteban1uy]

After some time I managed to "convey" mintMenu extension(for Cinnamon) in the Gnome shell version of the LM12. Since Cinnamon version did not work (bug https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/11) I think I found the solution, so that the mintMenu is now functional (for Gnome shell).

Awesome Daniel, you're such a smart ***!!!

Please pm bimsebasse to let him know.

[Daniel4lm]

After some time I managed to "convey" mintMenu extension(for Cinnamon) in the Gnome shell version of the LM12. Since Cinnamon version did not work (bug https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/11) I think I found the solution, so that the mintMenu is now functional (for Gnome shell).

Awesome Daniel, you're such a smart ***!!!

Please pm bimsebasse to let him know.

Thanks in any case, though perhaps I'm not so smart he he. Tomorrow I will upload windowlist extension which I rewrote a bit (tooltips font bug https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/12).

[esteban1uy]

Here my little contribution to your discovery:

To make the ilussion complete, you can use the old menu icon simply editing line 281 of the new menu extension to:

Code: Select all

        let icon_file = icon_path + "menu.png";

And if you use a MGSE compatible theme, you can also edit its stylesheet (gnome-shell.css) to add support to the new menu button. For example, you can edit Minty's at line 2259 to:

Code: Select all

.application-button-selected, .category-button-selected,.mmenu-button:hover,.mmenu-button:active,.mmenu-button:active:hover {


By the way... did you noticed that the new menu supports reflections extension (line 883)?
So reflections will be a part of Mint's default configuration!

[Daniel4lm]

Here my little contribution to your discovery:

To make the ilussion complete, you can use the old menu icon simply editing line 281 of the new menu extension to:

Code: Select all

        let icon_file = icon_path + "menu.png";

And if you use a MGSE compatible theme, you can also edit its stylesheet (gnome-shell.css) to add support to the new menu button. For example, you can edit Minty's at line 2259 to:

Code: Select all

.application-button-selected, .category-button-selected,.mmenu-button:hover,.mmenu-button:active,.mmenu-button:active:hover {


By the way... did you noticed that the new menu supports reflections extension (line 883)?
So reflections will be a part of Mint's default configuration!

You're right about this, anyone can change these parameters (icons, themes, etc.) to please yourself. Clem was able to fix mintMenu for Cinnamon (memory leak and freezing), so also the Gnome shell may launch a new menu. I've added support for reflection extension because I use it (just like you), and LM team has managed to achieve something similar in Cinnamon(probably).

[bimsebasse]

Nice work! But i think the goal of this thread is being fulfilled with cinnamon. Not yet convinced myself forking the shell was the way to go but for the majority of mint users it probably is. Six months from now our new pet project will be porting shell extensions to cinnamon

[Daniel4lm]

Nice work! But i think the goal of this thread is being fulfilled with cinnamon. Not yet convinced myself forking the shell was the way to go but for the majority of mint users it probably is. Six months from now our new pet project will be porting shell extensions to cinnamon

Yesterday I installed Cinnamon 1.2 and can say it works quite well. I miss a tool (such as Gnome tweak tool) that can easily change themes and extensions. With time things will improve.

[mintgirl]

Please can someone just put the steps or lines comands to do it please, to get the classic mint desktop =/... or how to install it, could be nice... thx a lot....

[esteban1uy]

Please can someone just put the steps or lines comands to do it please, to get the classic mint desktop =/... or how to install it, could be nice... thx a lot....

For the moment, the best way to get the classic mint desktop (in Gnome3) is installing cinnamon:

Code: Select all

apt update
apt install cinnamon-session

[milhamy]

I managed to install Cinnamon. So I logout, choose Cinnamon and then login, then I get blank screen. Well, not totally blank, I got the desktop wallpaper but I lost the top and bottom toolbar. Is there something I didn't do right?

[esteban1uy]

I managed to install Cinnamon. So I logout, choose Cinnamon and then login, then I get blank screen. Well, not totally blank, I got the desktop wallpaper but I lost the top and bottom toolbar. Is there something I didn't do right?

What happens when you login in Gnome (full, not classic nor mate) mode?
If your system doesn't support Gnome shell, it won't support Cinnamon either.

[c-m]

I followed the guide on the first page, and all is well apart from the fact that my mint menu does not open. I now have no access to my applications

[bimsebasse]

Sorry, the first post is outdated now, there are updated solutions later in the thread. We have also sort of abandoned the project as Cinnamon basically is "get classic Mint desktop in Gnome Shell".

[Sonja]

There's 12 pages of posts here. What's the latest how-to for a single bottom bar in Gnome classic on Mint Lisa?

Edit: Nevermind. Cinnamon.