UP4 Issues

[aybesea]

I recently upgraded my XPS17 LMDE to UP4. The install was flawless (except for the need to understand and answer some config file choices) and I was amazed when the machine finally boot back up perfectly. Kudo's to the test team for this. Since the upgrade, I have experienced three issues that I need (or have) resolved. They are as follows:

1) Transmission 2.50-1 is broken (on two machines, not just one). The port forwarding no longer works. I have spent 2 days on it and posted to the Transmission web site with no response. I have always had the same port open and it worked fine. Now it reports as closed and even enabling UPNP Port Forwarding will not allow me to port forward. I finally gave up on this (at least for now) and installed Deluge (on the same port). It works perfectly. There is definitely a bug in 2.50-1.

2) My hardware support for my "intel corporation centrino wireless-N 1030 (REV 34)" no longer works properly. In particular, the card will not do WPA2 encryption (it works fine with WEP). This used to work proplerly. After a lot of Googling, I am finding a lot of others having this issue with kernel 3.2. I will try manually updating to the latest driver modules and see if that solves the problem.

3) This one is not so easy... and I don't want to appear to be a troll... but I had no idea of exactly how awful Gnome 3 really is. I mean, they have taken away virtually all ability to configure anything. I immediately loaded Cinnamon, but that kind of like giving pain pills to a lobotomy patient. This thing is just hopeless. It made me not even want to use my machine. So... I loaded KDE. I simply did:

sudo aptitude install kdm kde-plasma-desktop plasma-widget-networkmanagement

I was not looking forward to this, as my last outing with KDE4 was less than pleasant. Much to my surprise, KDE is working perfectly. It is MUCH faster than Gnome 3 and extremely smooth and configurable. I am quite happy with this move. With that said, I have a few questions:

1) Should I stick with this configuation, or should I install a fresh Wheezy with KDE4? I can't think of a reason that my current configuration should be a problem, but I'm asking if anyone knows of one. If you do recommend re-installing, can I use the LMDE repos to get codecs, Firefox, etc?

2) Should I stick with the LMDE Latest repository, or go back to Debian Testing? I believe that the goal of Latest is to get a good snapshot of a working Gnome... and I have dumped Gnome.

3) Is there any way to get some (or all) of the Gnome stuff gone that I don't need for supporting the Gnome apps that I will continue to use? Or am I just better off letting sleeping dogs lie (or installing a fresh Wheezy a la #1)?

I can tell you that I am unbelievably relieved that I can now use my machine again without cringing. I seriously can't believe that my beloved Gnome has been butchered so badly. Also, before someone recommends XFCE... I'm really not interested. It feels like a very dated environment to me... that's just my take.

Thanks for any constructive criticism.

[äxl]

I can't help you with much but what you definitely don't need from Gnome is gnome-panel, gnome-session and gnome-shell.

Have you tried MATE desktop?

[thomasmc]

Well, I have to agree with you. I broke down and installed Update Pack 4, and I can't even use Gnome 3. No panels, no way to access a menu or anything else, COMPLETELY useless. I installed Cinnamon. It works, but I HATE it. YUCK! I installed MATE. It's Gnome 2, but everything I liked about Gnome 2 no longer works.

As far as I'm concerned. Gnome is DEAD to me.

I've now installed LXDE and XFCE (both of which I've experimented with before.) I have XFCE configured to where I like it, and will now play around with LXDE. After reading your post, maybe I'll give KDE another shot, too.

I see no reason to even utter the word "Gnome", ever again.

[toomuchcoffee]

Well, I have to agree with you. I broke down and installed Update Pack 4, and I can't even use Gnome 3. No panels, no way to access a menu or anything else, COMPLETELY useless. I installed Cinnamon. It works, but I HATE it. YUCK!

My first impression of cinnamon wasn't that great but after fiddling around with it I love it now, much better than Unity, Gnome 3 or KDE..

[cajual]

Well, I have to agree with you. I broke down and installed Update Pack 4, and I can't even use Gnome 3. No panels, no way to access a menu or anything else, COMPLETELY useless. I installed Cinnamon. It works, but I HATE it. YUCK!

My first impression of cinnamon wasn't that great but after fiddling around with it I love it now, much better than Unity, Gnome 3 or KDE..

Eleganse