[ubuntu-studio-devel] testing other DEs

[erich at ericheickmeyer.com]

Great write-up, Len!

>I was told there was a way I could run plain gnome shell from vanilla, but I could not find it and there does not seem to be a Ubuntu flavour that runs >gnome shell anymore. If someone knows how I can do that... I will try that also, but in all honesty, if there is not a flavour there to borrow from I do not >know that is a good idea anyway.

There are no more Ubuntu GNOME (per se) ISOs, but if you install Ubuntu proper and install the "gnome-session" package you'll have a vanilla gnome shell after selecting it from GDM (Gnome Session as opposed to Ubuntu Session).

According to my sources, it is a struggle to package extensions without forking them (has to do with conflicts when using the https://extensions.gnome.org website) so the best we could do with our manpower is a custom theme and let the user customize Gnome Shell to their liking, much like we are currently doing with Xfce. Now, whether we base it on ubuntu-session or gnome-session remains up in the air.

Keep in mind that Studio is its own flavor (Ubuntu Studio is based on Ubuntu, not Xubuntu though a lot of packages are shared), and that it doesn't necessarily need to be tied-down to one desktop environment. Sure, there's a default, but giving people the option to tailor it to their own liking is the overall goal. Yes, this will take a lot of metapackage building, but we don't have to do it all at once. For instance, we could release one option with 18.10 (in addition to Xfce) and grow from there.

That's just the way I see this headed. Either way, it's great we're having this discussion! I absolutely love that we're giving this a go. Personally, I'm going to look at LXQt (remember, LXDM will be deprecated in 18.10) on Simon Quigley's tip, and see what awaits.

I highly  recommend we all keep tabs on Ubuntu news websites, particularily https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk, and see what the other flavors are doing. There's a wealth of knowledge out there, and interacting with the other flavor developers is key.


Erich