Desktop environment(s) in LMDE beyond UP4

[cdysthe]

Hi,

With UP4 LMDE will have Gnome Shell available. In addition there's Cinnamon for those who do not like Gnome Shell. Personally I like Gnome Shell a lot and have been waiting patiently for UP4 instead of jumping to a Gnome Shell based distro or point directly to Debian. I now wonder how much effort will go into working on Gnome Shell giving it that little Mint-extra that made me choose Linux Mint in the first place. Right now I'm testing UP4 and Mint Update resides in the hidden "systray" bar on the bottom named "mintUpdate.py", and not in the top bar where it naturally would belong in Gnome Shell. There's no unifued Mint look to the DE either at this point. I know that UP4 currently is in testing, so I'm hoping that Gnome Shell will get "Mintified" before UP4 is released for the masses. All in all, I would really like to know where LMDE is headed as far as desktop environment(s) go.

[viking777]

My personal opinion is that Clem will concentrate on Cinnamon at the expense of Gnome-Shell, but only time will tell. That needn't necessarily be all bad though because gnome-shell is really what you personally make it and your friend there is https://extensions.gnome.org/?page=1 rather than Clem. For your problem with mintupdate the extension you want is this:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/ ... -forerver/

It is probably the best extension I run, although it is a little difficult to configure, you really need to read the how-to on the home page, and finding the correct name to type into the config file can be difficult as well.

With the help of that site you can turn gnome-shell into almost exactly what you want.

[cdysthe]

My personal opinion is that Clem will concentrate on Cinnamon at the expense of Gnome-Shell, but only time will tell. That needn't necessarily be all bad though because gnome-shell is really what you personally make it and your friend there is https://extensions.gnome.org/?page=1 rather than Clem. For your problem with mintupdate the extension you want is this:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/ ... -forerver/

It is probably the best extension I run, although it is a little difficult to configure, you really need to read the how-to on the home page, and finding the correct name to type into the config file can be difficult as well.

With the help of that site you can turn gnome-shell into almost exactly what you want.

Thanks! I will look at that extensions. I have already built and configured some extensions which have been pretty complicated, so I can probably figure this one out also!

As for Gnome Shell, the problem I have is finding a reason to run LMDE and not straight Debian if there aren't any work put into Gnome Shell to make it more Mint specific. I'll stick around for a while to find out what' will happen, but I've already put Debian on a laptop with Gnome Shell, and it's for all practical purposes identical to my LMDE UP4 with Gnome Shell. What made Mint special was the work put into Gnome 2 making it Linux Mint. I use Linux for work and do not have time for endless tweaking of my DE, so I need an environment that is ready for use.

[viking777]

As for Gnome Shell, the problem I have is finding a reason to run LMDE and not straight Debian if there aren't any work put into Gnome Shell

I absolutely see your point. I guess from my point of view I have been around here for so long that it just sort of feels like home, whereas straight Debian wouldn't. But if straight Debian supported gnome-shell better than Mint I would install it, although probably as part of a multi boot system including Mint (which is what I have already really). The thing is that Mint started out - and prospered - as a distro with an alternative slant on gnome2, so it is not surprising that it continues as a distro with an alternative slant on gnome3, that is its heritage and maybe its strength. The difference for me is that I could never stand gnome2, so anything that altered it was more then welcome. With gnome3 though things are different, I really like it so I don't see any need to vary it. Having said that I appear to be in a minority around here, though certainly not alone.

The only tiny argument I could offer against your stance is taken from here:

but I've already put Debian on a laptop with Gnome Shell, and it's for all practical purposes identical to my LMDE UP4 with Gnome Shell

So if Debian with gnome-shell is identical to LMDE with gnome-shell why not stick with LMDE? If you had said that Debian with gnome-shell was better than LMDE then I could see a reason to switch and I probably would do so myself, but if it is only identical then I see no reason to do so.

Interesting talking about it anyway.

Thanks for sharing your ideas.