Gnome3 for the experienced (FUN Stuff!!!)

[GregE]

I have been thinking and a possible approach might be to create a temporary linuxmint gnome3 repository. I would not know how to do it, but it would be along the lines of a PPA. Identify all the packages needed for Gonme Shell and it's addons like evince and evolution and brasero etc and bung them in a repository. Then from a testing install add the repository and do an install of gnome-shell. A meta package that installs the minimum packages for a working system would be nice. It would require Clem to allow the creation of the repo on the mint servers and someone with the knowledge to maintain it. It would need periodic updating of packages from sid and experimental. An iso could then be created pre-configured with Mint LMDE and Gnome3 and the repo active - with a default theme and minty extensions. Such a system would remain a base LMDE install and never require opening sid or experimental.

Eventually it would no longer be necessary, or just contain Mint specific packages. I accept that it might be a bit early for such a setup, but worth thinking about.

[cbowman57]

While I prefer using aptitude for maintaining my installations I purposely worked out the method I posted using apt-get because more people are comfortable using that.

@GregE, that's a good idea & suggestion.

[zerozero]

just an heads-up (i don't know if is just my setup or the fact i didn't update the shell for the last couple days:
- today doing the apt-get upgrade, it breaks half-way though because of gstreamer plugins-bad;
- my workaround atm was

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sudo dpkg --configure -a

to finish the rest of the update, but that didn't took care of gstreamer yet;
- and then

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sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad_0.10.22-3_amd64.deb

to force-install the bugger

[drewkeller]

Apparently, the only issue was evince. I forced it to remove, then installed the new one. After rebooting, Gnome started in fallback mode. To fix this, you have to enable 3D acceleration in the VBox display settings (I believe it's unchecked by default). I already had the display memory set to the max and the guest additions installed.

After rebooting again, I'm in Gnome shell. All I have is a blue desktop, which I suppose would be fixed by applying a theme. Also, seamless mode doesn't seem to be working (Windows 7 x64 host). I'll have to research that a bit more later.

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[samriggs]

I had the same issue with libevince3-3. I just deleted in synaptics and it went away, not sure if I needed it but I got rid of it anyhow.
I also had an issue where I could not use ctl + h to show hidden files (had to fix that) so i deleted dolphin also and I got my normal stuff back and the ability to use ctl + h at least I think it was dolphin creating that issue, either way I got it back again. Evolution upgraded also and it all works nicely now.
Had one issue with eclipse not loading the workspace projects but I went into the woprkspace that was not loading the projects I had in there and deleted the (workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.root/tree file) then refreshed and imported files and they came back, just in case anyone was having that issue because it happend to me twice and this fixed it.
Might try some extensions today to see how that works especially the one to read from .themes
Sam

[karashata]

Been doing a little bit of tinkering, trying to polish up my desktop a little more. Finally found a fix for the missing degree sign in the temperature for the weather plugin, found out there are unicode codes for both degrees Fahrenheit and degrees Celsius from another weather plugin, so I made the appropriate changes to FP Murphy's extension...

For anyone else using FP Murphy's weather extension who'd like to see the degree sign in place, here are the changes to make:

Replace all instances of 'C' with '/u2103'
Replace all instances of 'F' with '/u2109'

There should be four of each to replace, I just used the Replace... function of Gedit to save time hunting for them all separately.

I also installed AWN, decided I needed better access to my running applications and it fit pretty nicely, so...

Here's an updated screenshot of my desktop as it currently stands, with the altered Weather extension in view:


Click the pic for full(ish) size screenshot.

[drewkeller]

Not sure what I did, but I tried switching to seamless mode again... and it worked!

[samriggs]

Just tried to use themeselector changes the version in the meta file to 3.0.2 and did a alt + F2 and put r hit enter and wammo it created an error, I had to remove iit in fallback to get it to work again.
Guess I am not doing the extension thing right eh?
It does load themes from the .theme folder at least, which means I can finally try and make one since I can test it now
Sam

[cbowman57]

Just tried to use themeselector changes the version in the meta file to 3.0.2 and did a alt + F2 and put r hit enter and wammo it created an error, I had to remove iit in fallback to get it to work again.
Guess I am not doing the extension thing right eh?
It does load themes from the .theme folder at least, which means I can finally try and make one since I can test it now
Sam

Odd, try changing it to just 3.0. Did you pull the extension straight from the fpmurphy site?

[samriggs]

Yes I pulled it from murphys site it was fine until I read somewhere you were supposed to change the version, when I did that it went nuts on me I couldnt even log in. It just said it encountered an error and log out.
I'll try again with just version 3.0
but it does not show up in the activities either so I take it I have to create a schema file or something, just attempting this today so its a first attempt.
Sam

[cbowman57]

@Sam; try the extension pack here https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32ec6e89 ... AA803B!201

Everything in those packs seems to work in LMDE Gnome.

[samriggs]

@Sam; try the extension pack here https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32ec6e89 ... AA803B!201

Everything in those packs seems to work in LMDE Gnome.

I seen your code on one place and did that, do I have to install the shema file to get it working?
If so how do you confguire it.
Thanks for the link also I'll download them all.
Thanks for all the help, new to this and I'm sure I'll bork it few more times till I get the hang of things
Sam

[cbowman57]

@Sam, no, shouldn't have to mess with the schema. Since you can access themes (I presume with gnome-tweak-tool) then the user theme extension is doing what it should.

Did you install the ubuntu deb from launchpad? If so make sure it was the natty version, not the oneiric. Oneiric is using shell 3.1.3, so if you did that I would think that it would screw up all extension support but I don't know. Just taking shots in the dark.

[samriggs]

Had to remove the theme extension again it keeps giving me errors
I did this

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git clone http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-extensions
cd gnome-shell-extensions
./autogen.sh –prefix=/usr
make && sudo make install

Like you said on the site, tried to add it and no go again.
Just tried that for the weather one also and no go, I guess I am doing something wrong but will keep at it till I get it working
Remeber I did not put any xml file for the theme selector maybe thats the issue I have no idea .

[cbowman57]

@Sam, ok. Go to /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions and look at the metadata.json to see what version it shows.

Pretty sure gnome.org is using 3.1.3, if it is just change the version to match your shell.

Oh, you don't need to add an xml file to get the theme selector to work. (when you get to that stage)

[samriggs]

alrighty then I checked, quite a few folders in there but I checked all the files and they all had 3.1.4 which threw me my system info says 3.0.2 soo I changed it to 3.1.4 and refreshed it and volia this time it didn't die at least but it didn't do anything actually, just sitting there kicking back I put some themes into the .theme folder in the home drive and tried to see if tweak tool would pick them up and nope they don't, the only they pick up at all is autocrossers, he must have the magical touch or something thats why I thought they were picking it up because his shows in interface and in windows in the tweak tool but the rest do not.
Well we got that far maybe adding the scheme file my make it work or maybe I killed it somehow who knows.
I'll keep going with it tonight to see if anything works, spending to much time trying to get one extension to work or any for that matter.
I got to be missing something, one thing I know this is way to much work to tweak your desktop, its got to get easier then this, the tweak tool is somewhat ok but nothing like the appearance tool in mint thats for sure, I seen in the new tweak tool it has install extensions but it dont work for me either.
Somewhere I missed a step I guess.
Thanks for all the help
Sam

EDIT ok just applied a patch hopefully that will help, I also noticed in the tweak tool (dont know why I mmissed this before) it says
Shell Theme User Theme extension not enabled

[cbowman57]

You need to install gnome-shell-extensions-common & gnome-shell-extensions-user-theme, you can use the natty packages https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+arc ... hive-extra or build them from source if you can find it. Another alternative is to convert it from a Fedora rpm with alien, might be other methods but I haven't tried them.

[GregE]

You can change the themes manually, without using any extensions. As sudo just rename /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme to something else to save it, and then make a new blank theme folder. Then just copy in the contents of any theme and restart. Then just keep deleting contents of theme folder and adding new ones until you find the one you like. Not as elegant as a theme changer, but not that hard either.

I am using DeviantArt and have altered the frippery bottom toolbar colors to match. I use mint-x icons and it all looks fabulous. In Google Chrome I have switched to Earthy in Themes -> by Google. In Gmail I use Green Sky. The result is that everything is shades of green with a few brown bits and it all matches and gives an overall Minty look.

[samriggs]

I did something and got the extesions in my home directory now, I made user-theme it is in the extension folder the and sheme xml it created is in the glb folder all in the .local folder I put the theme selector in there also did the atl F2 r and went in to check things, it all seems good, but when I did a alt F2 lg it says no extensions are installed very strange indeed now I also have a gnome-shell folder in /user/share/gnome-shell similar to the one on the desktop and it has different extensions in it which I did not make and the user-theme is not in that one, so it seems like I have two different things going on here but it is not reading the .local folder at all, although when I put the wrong gnome version it did read that and froze it up on me and told me to log out.
Scratching my head on this one. I got extensions in two different folders and nothing seems to read the ones I got installed.
Oh well back to the drawing board

[cbowman57]

@Greg, Very nice looking theme.