Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" RC released!

[Monsta]

If this doesn't work you either have to force a power off or drop to a command prompt (ctrl-alt-F1) and reboot from there. I've found no way to restart the DE or Gnome-shell from the command prompt though.

An alternative way is to run "service lightdm restart" as root to restart the whole DM. It's done pretty fast. Replace "lightdm" with your favorite DM if you're using something else.

[swftech]

I've found no way to restart the DE or Gnome-shell from the command prompt though.

Restart Gnome Shell when needed

If Gnome starts to act slow, or if it crashes on you, be aware that you can restart it without closing your windows or logging out.

Simply do the following to restart Gnome Shell:

Press "Alt F2"
Type "r"
Press "Enter"

For more tips and tricks for Mint 12 visit http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/685

[kmb42vt]

If this doesn't work you either have to force a power off or drop to a command prompt (ctrl-alt-F1) and reboot from there. I've found no way to restart the DE or Gnome-shell from the command prompt though.

An alternative way is to run "service lightdm restart" as root to restart the whole DM. It's done pretty fast. Replace "lightdm" with your favorite DM if you're using something else.

Hallelujah!! Finally! A simple way to restart Gnome. Yeah, I know you could restart gdm and all that but half the time it failed. I usually can find answers to things like this but restarting lightdm from a command prompt must have been hiding under a bush somewhere. Thanks!

[kmb42vt]

I've found no way to restart the DE or Gnome-shell from the command prompt though.

Restart Gnome Shell when needed

If Gnome starts to act slow, or if it crashes on you, be aware that you can restart it without closing your windows or logging out.

Simply do the following to restart Gnome Shell:

Press "Alt F2"
Type "r"
Press "Enter"

For more tips and tricks for Mint 12 visit http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/685

Yup, I know that one but when gnome-shell crashes and does not recover, alt-F2 has always been disabled (ie: nothing happens when pressing the keys). The only thing that does work is ctrl-alt-delete half the time and ctrl-alt-F1 all the time. At least this is how it is for me when gnome-shell goes south. Thanks for the info anyway.

Note: Got the answer from Monsta btw.

[Monsta]

You're welcome.

Yeah, that's just for the case when Gnome Shell totally goes FUBAR. The global keys don't work (so no Alt-F2, sorry), the window borders, menus and other decorations are gone, the panel is gone too. Only the already opened windows (without borders and all that) remain, and you're lucky if one them happens to be a terminal. (If not, Ctrl-Alt-F1 still works, so it's not really a problem.)

[swftech]

Yeah if Gnome shell is totally unresponsive your right. ctrl-alt-backspace should do an instant reboot as well. Hopefully these Gnome issues are worked out soon for all Gnome 3 distros.

[wangbo]

To KMB42vt: just tried it again to verify that nothing had changed and still is the procedure if you don't have the extension that was mentioned later on (did not have to disable anything to do this). I have found that if the mouse is not directly on the panel when doing this or that if all they are done at the same time then no workee. but depress and hold the left alt key then depress and hold both the right and left mouse keys at the same time( if off by a second or millisecond on depressing the mouse keys in relationship to each other then nothing happens) . As far as adding icons to the panel Depress and hold the Left alt keyboard key then depress the 2 mouse keys and will see menu go to add to the panel while still depressing the keys and release the alt key the left mouse key should see the familiar old add to panel menu then the second selection that is (application launcher) select it using normal mouse clicks then forward (at lower right corner of selection box) then you should have a selection of all your menu icons and applications click the ones you want and they will be added to the panel. then close when done. The timing of the depressing of the mouse keys is what is critical in order to get these menus is what is so frustrating. All of this used to be done with a simple right click of the mouse button. To say that I'm disappointed in the Gnome3 desktop wold be a understatement but I know Clem and crew have so far done the best implementation and improvements to it and should be commended but you can only do so much with it kind of like dressing up a pig and expecting it to not be a pig anymore. These methods I described have so far worked on several different flavors of Linux utilizing Gnome3 (PinguyOS, PCtrends-Destined to name a few) Hopefully his helps.

[zerozero]

wangbo, as far as i know, the procedure you are describing is for gnome-fallback mode and not for gnome-shell.
in the first one, yes, you can with right-click alter the gnome-panel properties, in the latter you can't.

[Monsta]

Depress and hold the Left alt keyboard key then depress the 2 mouse keys and will see menu go to add to the panel while still depressing the keys and release the alt key the left mouse key should see the familiar old add to panel menu then the second selection that is (application launcher) select it using normal mouse clicks then forward (at lower right corner of selection box) then you should have a selection of all your menu icons and applications click the ones you want and they will be added to the panel. then close when done. The timing of the depressing of the mouse keys is what is critical in order to get these menus is what is so frustrating.

Looking at instructions like these I'm pondering over the fact that Gnome 3 is the first desktop environment where doing ordinary things looks like trying to perform a fatality in Mortal Kombat.

[SimonTS]

LOL

Hadn't thought of that comparison, but very, very apt.

Having said that, the thought of using SubZero to freeze GNOME at version 2 sounds like a good idea

[wangbo]

zerozero I think you are right because on my desktop with a Nvidia card didn't realize it was in fallback mode until tried it on my HP laptop and noticed the difference between the two after I posted the previous comments. evidently My setup is one of those that doesn't play nice with Gnome 3 never had that problem with 2.32 or earlier. the Nvidia card is a GEforce GT430 just bought 2 months ago on a home built system so sometimes I forget that the video drivers are a little tempermental. At any rate I'm most likely going to use Mate and may play around with Trinity just to be retro. Have always liked the new cutting edge stuff until now, but guess old age is setting in. At this age anything that requires more than one action at a time is difficult because of the muscle twitches and jerky uncontrolled movements of extremities and or bowels LOL.

[buntu]

need mint LXDE to evangelize niubis...

[kmb42vt]

zerozero I think you are right because on my desktop with a Nvidia card didn't realize it was in fallback mode until tried it on my HP laptop and noticed the difference between the two after I posted the previous comments. evidently My setup is one of those that doesn't play nice with Gnome 3 never had that problem with 2.32 or earlier. the Nvidia card is a GEforce GT430 just bought 2 months ago on a home built system so sometimes I forget that the video drivers are a little tempermental. At any rate I'm most likely going to use Mate and may play around with Trinity just to be retro. Have always liked the new cutting edge stuff until now, but guess old age is setting in. At this age anything that requires more than one action at a time is difficult because of the muscle twitches and jerky uncontrolled movements of extremities and or bowels LOL.

I have a GT 430 as well and I'm not experiencing any glitches or at least not any glitches that aren't Gnome 3/shell bugs which are not related to video drivers. Always found Nvidia proprietary drivers to very stable. Anyhow, your instructions work in fallback mode but I only have to hold down 'alt' and right-click the panel (top or bottom) to get the right-click context menu to show. And at first glance fallback mode looks a lot like gnome-shell with MGSE installed especially when the Nvidia driver is installed. I noticed that right off the bat.

[KBD47]

need mint LXDE to evangelize niubis...

+1 for LXDE. Really like that desktop. Any idea when we might see the next LXDE Mint?

[buntu]

Any idea when we might see the next LXDE Mint?

[kmb42vt]

Any idea when we might see the next LXDE Mint?

None whatsoever. But keep your eye on the LM Blog of course as well as the iso testing page:

http://community.linuxmint.com/iso

According to Clem's latest update, LMDE KDE is the next one up and is going to worked on during December but keep in mind that (I believe) LXDE still has a different developer and the proper place to put these questions is the Linux Mint LXDE forum:

viewforum.php?f=175

[wangbo]

KMB42vt: as far as LXDE goes I like it but it doesn't quite have the applets i want like Gnome 2.32 does Ie. the weather applet with its forecast and radar picture and is so easy to set up with out having to go look up codes etc. ,glipper comes in handy as well, plus numerous other applets for the panel. If LXDE ever does then it to me is a good alternative to gnome . So guess will wait and watch. In reference to the statement I made regarding Nvidia drivers. they have been pretty stable for me as well just sometimes a pain to install and with noveau installed really fun to install something that in the future will be rectified I'm sure but for now fun. Haven't installed 12 yet but have it live on a usb drive for some reason the livedvd version won't boot on my setup.took the same iso and works perfectly on a thumb drive however. I checked the mirror and am holding my mouth right so must be something else. Odd. Have a good un.

[bluedevil678]

SO SEXY !!!

[houndhen]

Slow is the word.

I have MInt 12 32 bit installed on a quad core intel pc. It is so slow that I will look for something else. Slower than any version of KDE that I have seen. Firefox 8.0 just crawls.

My day-to-day production distro is Ubuntu 10.10. I also keep updated Mepis 11 kde, and crunchbang statler. Mint 12, which I wanted to like, gets lost in the dust of any one of the three mentioned.

[kmb42vt]

Slow is the word.

I have MInt 12 32 bit installed on a quad core intel pc. It is so slow that I will look for something else. Slower than any version of KDE that I have seen. Firefox 8.0 just crawls.

My day-to-day production distro is Ubuntu 10.10. I also keep updated Mepis 11 kde, and crunchbang statler. Mint 12, which I wanted to like, gets lost in the dust of any one of the three mentioned.

I also have it loaded on a quad core PC (LM 12 64-bit rather than the 32-bit) and my experience with it is stable, quick and responsive, not slow at all. Firefox 8.0 is as fast if not faster than any previous version of Firefox I've used (all the way back to 1.0) even using my ages old FX profile that I drag around from distro to distro. That being said, here are my basic system specs:

Gateway Intel Core2-Quad Q8400/4MB L2 Cache, 8GB DDR2, 1 TB HDD, Nvidia GT-430 w/1GB DDR3

Since you did not post your system specs in your comment with the exception that you mentioned a quad core processor (and I have to assume that the PC is less than 4 years old?) I have to ask, why are you running a 32-bit version of Linux Mint 12 on a 64 bit system? If you have more than 3.0 GB of memory installed you're certainly not using it nor are you utilizing the full potential of your quad core CPU. Would you mind posting your basic system specs? Your experience tells me something is amiss and it's not Linux Mint 12.