gnome 3 upgrade

[sportsallstars]

If i install linux mint debian edition, how can I upgrade to gnome 3, final. I don't want to use the stuff that was in repo's but is not fully the brand new release


thanks!

[headkase]

I'm also interested in seeing if it is possible to load GNOME 3 final into LMDE right now. Any "backport" repository available for it?

[Rifester]

It is in the experimental repository...

http://packages.debian.org/experimental/gnome/gnome3-session

[headkase]

It is in the experimental repository...

http://packages.debian.org/experimental/gnome/gnome3-session

Looks good, can you give "dummy" instructions to install it?

[ThistleWeb]

Gnome 3 is not even a week old yet, even I'm wary of trying it just yet. There's a reason it's in the "experimental" repos, I'd imagine it's there for people who want to risk it, and are knowledgeable enough to work with it if it fails on them. This would imply having the skill to know how to install it too. KDE 4.0 was a mess when it came out, although I do hear Gnome learned a lot from those mistakes.

[Halzen]

I think it's a waiting game - I wouldn't try something as major as a new desktop environment until it gets to Testing.

[autocrosser]

I've got a thread on Gnome3/G-S---just look thru the forum for it...I have been meaning to update it for the last couple of days....Experimental has not updated with the Gnome final yet (at least I have not seen it yet)---I will be sure to post with screenshots as soon as it is.

Here's the link: viewtopic.php?t=65745

[sportsallstars]

do you know when gnome 3 final will be put into the repo's?

[autocrosser]

do you know when gnome 3 final will be put into the repo's?

Very good question as it is not even in Experimental yet--I am expecting final any day now, so I would guess it will be quite a bit before it is available in Sid.....months at least to get into Testing.

[sportsallstars]

so if i install linux mint debian and add the experimental repo i will really soon be able to install gnome 3?

Will the rest of my packages stay using the stable repo (and only gnome3 packages use experimental? or will all packages automatically updated through experimental. Because i want to make sure that rest of system still uses reliable stuff.

thanks

[autocrosser]

Well---I would STRONGLY suggest you look up my Gnome3 thread.....you will need to go down the experimental path & Gnome3 needs so much that you will have a mostly unstable system......Right now it is not for the casual user---you will need to do good debug & know how to recover your system in case of a b0rk.....

Also be aware that only a few of us on this forum are tracking experimental, so "tech" support will be a bit spotty........

[sidneyk]

I have been playing around with Gnome 3 and Gnome-shell also for about 3 weeks now and autocrosser is correct, there are times when updates are being made that a system can get borked really quick. I just spent a couple of days over the weekend with a system that was only partially usable, but after that couple of days more updates came through that fixed the system back to a mostly working condition. If you are totally reliant upon your Linux install, then don't try it without a good and frequent backup solution. If you have some partitions or drives for experimenting then you may want to give it a try. There have been quite a few gnome3 and gnome-shell packages updated to version 3.0.1.* in the past couple of days. In general, there are still many packages that need to be updated for Debian that are not even in experimental yet. There are other distros that are quite a bit further along with this. I am posting this now as I use Gnome 3 session with Gnome-shell. I'm liking it more and more as I use it and as it stabilizes. If you do decide to try it out you will probably need to change your repos to include the unstable branch and do a dist-upgrade on that. Then you will need to add the experimental repos to your sources and just run: sudo aptitude update and then sudo aptitude -t experimental install gnome-shell. I have been running also sudo aptitude -t experimental upgrade gnome-shell every little bit to keep the bits and pieces updated. But, again, be forewarned, you can have a good working system one minute and then grab some updates and have a broken system the next. I've learned from some others here that I was being too impatient and just reinstalling everything when I didn't know any other way to fix it when if you just wait eventually the fixes will come along and you'll be back in business again. You also have to realize that Gnome 3 probably does break some things and functionality that worked fine with Gnome 2.* because it is using different systems and different configuration methods and settings. I have right now a non-working mintmenu that worked fine a couple days ago and now just gives errors. Also any menu related applets from the awn collection will crash when starting. I think these may have something to do with python and perhaps the fact that they store settings in gconf2 when gsettings is where things happen for gnome 3. It is still rough around the edges and things take a little getting used to, but all in all, it seems like it's headed in the right direction.

[geoffm]

Thank you so much sidneyk, alle that information is very welcome, exactly what I was looking for.
I just installed gnome-shell et gnome-session and loged it in...
so far kinda unstable and don't kknow how to use the system but I think the approach is awesome and what I'm looking for in an OS. Think I will try the suse and/or redhat install next

[vrkalak]

Read this link for updates on the status of Gnome3 in Debian. And how long it might be before Gnome3 clears unstable/experimental and is released into testing.

http://www.0d.be/debian/debian-gnome-3.0-status.html

Apparently, Gnome3 still has a lot of major 'bugs' that need to be fixed first.

In Gnome3 ... 28 out of 117 packages are up-to-date.

Sounds like it will be awhile yet.

[autocrosser]

Yes--I had to do some downgrades before I could upgrade to GnomeShell3, then re-upgrade after..all in all a "bit" of fun. It's all in flux right now & I expect a fair amount of breakage before it settles. Very good time to be current in CLI---it is needed

[sidneyk]

Yes--I had to do some downgrades before I could upgrade to GnomeShell3, then re-upgrade after..all in all a "bit" of fun. It's all in flux right now & I expect a fair amount of breakage before it settles. Very good time to be current in CLI---it is needed

Maybe you wouldn't mind chiming in on this. Did you have a working mintmenu that you could access either through search or manually starting it or from a launcher shortcut you created before last weekend? And, if so, is it still working for you now? After one of the batches of updates, I believe on the morning of 4/12, my mintmenu stopped working - gives me a list of error messages in a popup window when I try to start it and, in fact, any older menu apps, i.e. Debian menu, main menu, etc. don't work now. Also, the menu applets from the awn dock now just crash at even trying to place them on the dock. Just curious if anyone else using Gnome 3/Gnome-shell was having the same issue. It appeared that some updates came through for different mint items over the weekend and also quite a few gnome 3 related items. I think it has something to do with the old gconf2 settings or something not being carried over to the new system, but I don't really know. I just reinstalled mint menu after completely removing it, I even searched for everything with mintmenu in the name and manually deleted it all before reinstalling mintmenu to come to the same results. I'm going to try to switch to fallback mode to see if it works there and let you all know what I find out. Definitely something the mint guys will want to take care of even if they never plan on supporting gnome-shell.


UPDATE: No difference with the above items in Gnome 3 fallback mode. Funny that the Gnome 3 menus work fine. So it's definitely some change that occurred this weekend that relates to how Gnome 3 is storing it's settings or something or maybe the menuing system.

[autocrosser]

Hmmm--I'm running AWN with Gnome-Shell & it's running well at the moment---I've not enabled Mint Menu in AWN--I'll try that in a bit to see what it is doing....Right now I'm in my sid install, so I can't check versions---will reboot Experimental tomorrow & get all the version numbers for you. Try starting AWN in a term & post the output when it b0rks......

[sidneyk]

Hmmm--I'm running AWN with Gnome-Shell & it's running well at the moment---I've not enabled Mint Menu in AWN--I'll try that in a bit to see what it is doing....Right now I'm in my sid install, so I can't check versions---will reboot Experimental tomorrow & get all the version numbers for you. Try starting AWN in a term & post the output when it b0rks......

AWN itself is running fine, just that either of the 2 or 3 menu applets that were working before now crash as soon as you add them to the dock. I had added my own link for mintmenu to the dock, which was also working, but now isn't. I did see some updates come through relating to gnome menu around Tuesday morning or so. Anyway I was mostly just curious if anyone else had the same issue. I asked you because you had stated at one point that you were using the AWN dock and I followed your lead as it seemed like a good idea with Gnome shell.

[autocrosser]

AWN itself is running fine, just that either of the 2 or 3 menu applets that were working before now crash as soon as you add them to the dock. I had added my own link for mintmenu to the dock, which was also working, but now isn't. I did see some updates come through relating to gnome menu around Tuesday morning or so. Anyway I was mostly just curious if anyone else had the same issue. I asked you because you had stated at one point that you were using the AWN dock and I followed your lead as it seemed like a good idea with Gnome shell.

I don't have Mint Menu in my AWN applets list---guessing that it won't work with the version I'm using (0.4.1+bzr829-0.1) It was a fresh update from a day or so ago.

UPDATE NOTE: I just tried it & get all kinds of plugin errors...I'll file a bug report on Mint Menu about it.....

MORE INFO: I have made a bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mintmenu/+bug/763197

Try using Mint Menu in Gnome3 (fallback) as a panel plugin to see if it works there......

[sidneyk]

The mintmenu currently doesn't work in fallback mode either. It produces the same thing as you posted in either place. Unfortunately I don't know python yet to be able to trouble shoot it much further. Looks to be some differences with parsing or something. Thanks for verifying.