Gnome3 for the experienced (FUN Stuff!!!)

[autocrosser]

Now all we need to do is talk to Clem about it.......

Note: I have contacted Clem to see what he thinks about this......

[autocrosser]

i believe i have a spare partition hanging around somewhere

Your "expermintal" (pun intended!!!!) install awaits!!!!!

[zerozero]

let's go for it in expermintal mode

and let's wait for Clem's opinion about GS

my fedora setup stills runs since late march/beginning of april, so it's time to spice things a bit

[GregE]

ZeroZero

If you want to play I would say that my system is pretty good. It has been reliable enough for some time that I now have it on three machines.

In your spare partition ....

Install LMDE Xfce Edition and update it and add your video driver. When is is set up and running activate sid and experimental in your sources.list, update but do not do an upgrade.

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60481

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

Then open Synaptic and search on Gnome and gtk and add anything that looks like it is for Gnome3 - version 3.0.x is a dead give away. It is a slow tedious process. Add Tweak Tool as it is vital, also gnome-common if you want to compile anything.

Restart and log into Gnome and you should have a running Gnome-Shell. Once you are happy edit sources.list and comment out sid and experimental and do an sudo apt-get clean, then do an update and always use this command for updates

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

I also added a few bits from KDE to cover some missing bits. Add Dolphin and kde-filesharing, plus K3b and Amarok.

Once my systems were stable I went in and removed Xfce, but that is unnecessary and it is handy to have as a backup if things go pear shaped. Gnome fallback is also available in the menus at the login screen.

Then add extensions in ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions just like in Fedora

If anyone else has a better or simpler way then speak up. That is how I approached it and it does the job until there is a real Mint Debain Gnome-Shell.

[autocrosser]

Hmmmmm---

I go the "whole" way & keep Experimental & Sid constantly updated...pinning things as need be, but letting Experimental install everything. Running the 3.0RC6 kernel (very shiny!!!) & the only things that are pinned right now are Perl & Python updates....System has been very solid except for the bit of a Nvidia/ATI driver thing a couple of weeks ago--that required a downgrade & pin until things settled out...

It's interesting that my Sid install has had more problems than my Experimental

[zerozero]

thank you both for the explanations
monday and tuesday will be hack days then i'll be back

[autocrosser]

thank you both for the explanations
monday and tuesday will be hack days then i'll be back

Yes---My way is more "hang it all out" Comes from being a 'buntu tester for over 5 years Not much that Debian can throw at me that Ubuntu has not tried many times before......I don't get caught many times & if I do I just reboot into one of my backup installs & chroot in to fix the problem.......

[GregE]

I think both approaches have their merits. Mine is simply designed to maintain the standard LMDE base as much as possible, so that as the Gnome3 packages drift down I will end up with a Debian Testing Mint system. The downside is that it is easy to miss some vital package. Weather apps would not work on two of my machines until I figured out I was missing some json stuff. If you are using a spare partition and not relying on it for work then Autocrosser's way is probably better for trying things out.

[autocrosser]

Good News!!!!!

A wallpaper changer now has Gnome3 support.....Cortina. Not very feature-rich, but I can verify that the 0.8.2 release works in G-S!!!!! Take a look here: https://launchpad.net/cortina & enjoy!

[artouk]

Quick question for anyone that might know.. How does Gnome 3 work with ATI drivers atm? Last time I tried it I had odd colours in the bar at the top and some flicking, would be interesting in knowing if this is fixed, did a quick search but couldn't find anything. Thanks.

[autocrosser]

Was that before it went final? I'm on Nvidia (SLI-dual 9800GTX cards) & 0 problems with it....there was a b0rk a couple of weeks ago with a Mesa update, but that was a quick-downgrade fix...And it was fixed about a couple of days later....

As of right now, Gnome-Shell is working very well (I'm in it right now)---I alternate once a day with G-S & then back Sid/Gnome2...I keep both updated without very many things pinned (Python & Perl have been pinned in my Experimental system for the last 2 weeks--waiting on several things to be rebuilt)....Current desktop (GLAD to have a real wallpaper rotater again!!!!)

[GregE]

Quick question for anyone that might know.. How does Gnome 3 work with ATI drivers atm? Last time I tried it I had odd colours in the bar at the top and some flicking, would be interesting in knowing if this is fixed, did a quick search but couldn't find anything. Thanks.

I do not know if the latest fglrx fixes the issue as I have switched to an Nvidia card for the time being. However the simple solution is to use the open source drivers. If you are willing to dip into SID and Experimental which you have to anyway to get Gnome3 you can install the latest xorg and xorg ati driver which will default to Gallium3D and it will run Gnome-Shell without errors. It just is not as good if you use it for gaming. You can make WebGL work in Chrome by over-riding the driver blacklist.

If you do this make sure FGLRX is un-installed first as the driver makes all sorts of symlinks that will sabotage the open source driver.

[zerozero]

and here it is: LMDE-shell



it's really a tedious task atm, and a lot can go wrong, if you miss a pkg;

took me a few hours (internet speed wasn't helping either ) just to get here: the system up and running, the rest, tomorrow

[GregE]

If, like me, you are sick to death of hitting the hotspot by accident every time you go for the back button in your browser then grab Finnbarr Murphy's move hotspot extension. This extension just moves the hotspot from the left to the right - where you are unlikely to hit it by accident.

http://www.fpmurphy.com/gnome-shell-extensions/

[zerozero]

thanks for the tip
there's a few extensions i'm using in fedora that i want to get to work here; that wasn't one, but is very handy endeed

[GregE]

For anyone wanting even more bling.

Screenlets works on LMDE Gnome-Shell Desktop

I compiled it from source and it installed without error, but did not work. I then added the Ubuntu PPA and it installs and runs and works.

http://screenlets.org/index.php/Download

You can add any widget to the desktop eg Google gadgets, Superkurumba widgets, etc etc. They can be made to stick to the desktop or float above running apps. Some widgets require other libs, so you have to work that out - eg system monitors.

EDIT:

Google Gadgets work natively.

[zerozero]

getting there



not much free time, but i'm getting used to the debian way of doing the shell

[autocrosser]

Looks Good!!!! Have you looked at some of the Murphy mods?

[autocrosser]

Well--nothing real new....a couple of themes on Gnomelook.org (DeltaShell Negative & several themes have had updates)...Expermintal continues to work better than my Sid install (go figure)...minor updates, but nothing earth-shaking....Everyone enjoying G-S???

[zerozero]

still running here
just a bit short of time to write a proper post about my experiments