[SOLVED] New mintdesktop attempts to install MATE packages

[Lippy]

This is a heads-up and I've got a query too.

The new mintdesktop 3.2.6 appears to depend on a few MATE packages, while the version I currently have installed, 3.2.4, does not.

I'm running LMDE pointing to Testing, but this problem seems to be a more general LMDE issue. I have both Gnome Shell and Cinnamon installed. I know Gnome Shell isn't officially supported by Mint (at least not like the DEs/shells that are bundled in the ISOs), but I expect that Cinnamon users will also have this problem.

I'm just wondering if I should keep mintdesktop or not. It could well be an old package that used to work with Gnome 2 and has since been ported to MATE (such as mintmenu) and therefore I wouldn't need it now. If that isn't the case then I'll just hold on to the old version for now until a fix comes down the line. Just need to be sure before I push the big red button.

[squeezy]

I got the mintdesktop update today but I am using MATE so I didn't notice the dependancies. Nothing else was added during the update.

From what I see they've removed all the functions except for setting terminal fortunes. None of the others worked for MATE so I suspect they have been removed until they can get ported properly.

[Lippy]

I only have the terminal fortunes option with 3.2.4 too. If that's all it does then it's probably safe for me to remove it. I've put the package 'on hold' for now in case the MATE dependencies were a mistake. Looking at the changelog, there's a chance that it might be.

[squeezy]

There's an update to mintdesktop today (3.2.7) that restores functionality for MATE. It works great, just tried it. I couldn't get fortune cookies to work, but I never turn it on personally. All the other stuff works fine.

[zerozero]

why (the inter-deps are a funny thing)

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amadeu@amadeu ~ $ apt depends mintdesktop
mintdesktop
  Depends: python
  Depends: python
  Depends: python-gtk2
  Depends: python-glade2
  Depends: python-mate
  Depends: python-corba
  Depends: <mint-info>
    mint-info-debian
    mint-info-xfce
amadeu@amadeu ~ $ apt depends python-mate
python-mate
  Depends: libart-2.0-2
  Depends: libatk1.0-0
  Depends: libc6
  Depends: libcairo2
  Depends: libfontconfig1
  Depends: libfreetype6
  Depends: libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0
  Depends: libglib2.0-0
  Depends: libgtk2.0-0
  Depends: libice6
  Depends: libmate
  Depends: libmatecanvas
  Depends: libmatecomponent
  Depends: libmatecomponentui
  Depends: libmateconf
  Depends: libmatecorba
  Depends: libmateui
  Depends: libmatevfs
  Depends: libpango1.0-0
  Depends: libpopt0
  Depends: libpython2.7
  Depends: libsm6
  Depends: python-gtk2
  Depends: python-corba
  Depends: python-gobject
amadeu@amadeu ~ $ apt depends python-corba
python-corba
  Depends: libc6
  Depends: libglib2.0-0
  Depends: libidl0
  Depends: libmatecorba
amadeu@amadeu ~ $


unless you are using MATE, this new mintdesktop is, well, kinda useless, in gnome3 the only available function is the on/off switch for the terminal fortunes, for xfce we have mintdesktop-xfce.

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amadeu@amadeu ~ $ apt purge mintdesktop
[sudo] password for amadeu:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  xdg-user-dirs-gtk libkeybinder0 mate-image-viewer libmagickcore4
  python-keybinder libv8-3.7.12.22 libglew1.6 libmagickwand4 libncurses5-dev
  libmagickcore4-extra libmagick++4 liborbit2-dev libtinfo-dev
  gir1.2-sushi-1.0 mint-backgrounds-debian libsushi-1.0-0 libidl-dev
  libtracker-sparql-0.12-0 orbit2
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  mintdesktop*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 131 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

[Lippy]

Ah, that makes sense then. Thanks! My install of LMDE came from an old ISO so maybe that was the reason I still had the package installed.

So if Cinnamon / Gnome Shell users encounter this issue and don't want MATE installed, then it looks like the solution is to remove mintdesktop. I'll mark the thread as solved.