Will mint stop using gnome 2.32 in next release?

[craig10x]

I am just in the process of casting off from Ubuntu because of V11.04 and Unity. What a stupid name to pick, it has caused dis-unity among Ubuntu users. I am mooring up with Mint, but it looks like being temporary if the same thing happens here.

Not necessarily, Gnome 3 provides a "fallback mode" and i'd think likely that Clem will use it (it makes the desktop like classic ubuntu style) and then customize to the standard mint desktop of one panel on the bottom and the mint menu of course...this way, he can have gnome 3 (which will be necessary now that there is no more support for gnome2) and have a mint desktop...so i wouldn't assume that one must go kde, lxde or some other desktop to "escape" unity or the shell

[farnaby]

Hmmm... actually I'd like to see Gnome 3 in the next version of Linux Mint. It was probably a wise decision to delay it for one release (Mint 11), but I believe the time has come.

[DeMus]

It's either Gnome 2 or move to KDE because Gnome 3 and Unity are for kids who use smartphones, not for desktop computers.

[craig10x]

Again...though Clem will likely have to implement gnome 3 (since gnome 2 is no longer supported) Mint would likely continue with the default classic mint desktop with the option available to use shell or unity...unlike ubuntu, he will not force you to use it, only provide it as an option....

Many here seem to think gnome 3 automatically means unity or the gnome shell....it does not...you can have gnome 3 WITHOUT unity or shell...

[proxima_centauri]

Clem has been experimenting with mintMenu in gnome-shell - so it is very possible Linux Mint 12 could feature GNOME3 w/ gnome-shell instead of fallback mode.
Of course this is mere speculation, who knows

[linuxviolin]

Many here seem to think gnome 3 automatically means unity or the gnome shell....it does not...you can have gnome 3 WITHOUT unity or shell...

And use the fallback mode which sucks too and which may not be there in the future GNOME releases... Fallback mode is not something on which base a distro for the future. But OK, I go out.

[craig10x]

so sure that fallback mode won't stay around in the long run? Remember that is the Gnome3 teams decision...not ubuntu's (if it was ubuntu's they probably would knock it on in short order)...But if the Gnome3 people see that is an option that is being used by a percentage of the gnome community, they very well might continue to offer it in the long run....

speculation on my part...but a "reasonable" one i think

[craig10x]

Clem has been experimenting with mintMenu in gnome-shell - so it is very possible Linux Mint 12 could feature GNOME3 w/ gnome-shell instead of fallback mode.
Of course this is mere speculation, who knows

mint menu with gnome shell...sounds like a "strange" combination
would like to see what that would look like....

[linuxviolin]

Remember that is the Gnome3 teams decision...

To ease the transition maybe... But about the Shell and the MintMenu, yes, and although I don't like it, it could be fun to see the result.

[michaelzap]

It's either Gnome 2 or move to KDE because Gnome 3 and Unity are for kids who use smartphones, not for desktop computers.

You should probably give GNOME Shell a try. It's definitely *not* a smartphone or tablet OS (that's Unity). You pretty much need a mouse and keyboard to use GNOME Shell (and I prefer a mouse and keyboard to a touchscreen for doing "real" work).

[zerozero]

And use the fallback mode which sucks too and which may not be there in the future GNOME releases...

once i asked you for the citation well, today i went looking for it
gnome panel3 by Vincent Vuntz
and it starts like this

Sure, the fallback mode is not our target in terms of design, but that doesn't mean it's unloved

and

The fallback mode is made of the same components as your GNOME 2 session. Except that they got boosted with love! Let me tell you about the changes in gnome-panel for GNOME 3.0 to give you an idea of what kind of love I'm talking about.

then a boring list of technicalities to show how gnome-panel3 is superior and more stable than gnome-panel2.x, resumed in this

That's a lot of changes, and if you have any doubts about that, here are some stats: 174 files changed, 12699 insertions(+), 19364 deletions(-) (this is just for code, and it doesn't include translations, schemas, etc.). It's actually the second most active development cycle in terms of lines changed since 2.0 (the first one being the one from 2.2 to 2.4, which included a nearly complete rewrite of a good part of the code).

then to answer your question directly, in the comments

@T_U: I don't think there's any plan to make gnome-panel go away since we'll keep the fallback mode for quite some time, I guess. It might be less actively developed, but it won't just disappear in, say, 3.2 or 3.4.

@Longtime Gnome: the fallback mode was never an afterthought; since the beginning of the GNOME 3 planning, we mentioned gnome-panel would stay maintained for a long while...

@eRadical: the fallback mode is going to be maintained for the GNOME 3 lifecycle. That's the plan. This has been mentioned multiple times already...

so, it looks like it's staying at least for a while (one year?)

[craig10x]

the gnome3 cycle is only going to last a year zerozero? In that last comment he says it's going to last for the life cycle of gnome 3...
Which if i am reading that right would be a long long long time...or is there a gnome 4 on the boards already?

Wasn't gnome 2 around many (many) years?
And if i am reading it right, that should "relieve" our "resident pessimist" linuxviolin

[zerozero]

http://live.gnome.org/Hackfests/GTK2010 ... Discussion

GTK 4

toplevels only
window-less scrolling
input handling, ie propagate input events down through the container hierarchy (capture / bubble)
wayland backend
GLib 4

decruftify gobject
"QProperty" like property definition with setter+getter
"GstSimpleObject" like base type without signals and properties
generic marshaller ?
merge glib/gobject/gthread
turn hash tables, etc into simple objects
mainloop improvements
epoll
timerfd
monotonic clock
microsecond accuracy
Practical considerations

we want to have automatic builds
branches
master will be GTK3 for the time being
have a gtk4 integration branch that should stay working at some base level. temporary regressions are acceptable as long as there is a plan for putting things together again
use feature branches for experiments
aim for having many of the 4.0 items available in beta form at the end of 2011

it's just a roadmap, but...

[craig10x]

gnome 4 under development already
gnome 2 was around such a long time...what... are they traveling at "warp speed" now?
(thanks for the link)...

[AlbertP]

This is GTK 4. It isn't said that it will mean a new Gnome release too.

And if the fallback mode proves to be quite popular (when Mint uses it?) they'll probably maintain it even longer.

[zerozero]

gtk4 will most certainly be gnome4 http://live.gnome.org/GTK%2B/Roadmap
as for maintaining the fallback mode for longer, Vuntz clearly says that it will be transitory

[AlbertP]

Gnome 2 becomes unmaintained. Gnome 3 fallback mode will still be maintained for some longer. So I'd still prefer Gnome 3 fallback above Gnome 2.

[linuxviolin]

zerozero, if finally the fallback mode is maintained, well... good! But As I already said, if you really want using GNOME 3 you must go with the concept as thought and set up by its designers... If you must use a fallback mode and/or need for extensions and/or need to hack the stuff to have something about correct etc, then this stuff is just cr** and you should use another one. Period.

As said by someone else:

I doubt that the GNOME developers will fix the fundamental issues people have with GNOME 3 because "they're not bugs, they're features, and if you say otherwise, we'll shut you up".

BTW, KDE 4 has a "classic" mode quite integrated well in it...

they got boosted with love!

I prefer to say nothing here...

[zerozero]

linuxviolin,
one of the biggest annoyances with gtk3 is the loss of some functionalities (i will highlight as the most reported, probably, the lack of customization and applets of gnome-panel3)
this text shows (brilliantly imho) how that is not entirely true; it's an interesting reading and to sum it up extensions (no, it's not a dirty word ) are applets busted < with new technologies;

and you have to put things in perspective: when gnome2.0 was released (i wasn't around in the *nix world yet, don't know about you )how flexible was gnome-panel, how many applets it shipped with?