Gnome 3

Liam Proven lproven at gmail.com
Fri Dec 2 14:53:16 UTC 2011


On 2 December 2011 12:58, Ioannis Vranos <ioannis.vranos at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Mike <lake.wind77 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/02/2011 07:38 AM, Mike wrote:
>>>
>>> On 12/01/2011 12:32 PM, Jeffrey Gray wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Anyone messed with gnome3? I tried it on my netbook and it
>>>> chocked
>>>> the living crap out of it. I am now using it on my work PC
>>>> as well as
>>>> the wife's box at home and find it fairly slick.
>>>>
>>>> Anyone with any thoughts?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'm using Gnome 3 (Mint 12 with the Mint Gnome Shell
>>> Extensions) and I like it a lot. I like the fact that there
>>> are extensions that allow you to customize your desktop. Mine
>>> is customized to resemble a classic Mint Gnome 2 desktop (one
>>> panel on the bottom), however I'm also finding that I use the
>>> infinity button (activities menu) quite often. I'm also liking
>>> the alt f2 feature that brings up the run command prompt.
>>>
>>> My prediction is that Gnome 3 will be very customizable in the
>>> near future thanks to the Gnome Extensions that are
>>> continually being developed. Unity will most likely be more
>>> customizable as time goes on as well.
>>>
>>> The more I use Gnome 3 the more I'm liking it.
>>>
>>> HTH
>>>
>>
>> I forgot to mention that I also added the Cairo Dock to the top of my
>> traditional looking (Gnome 2 style) desktop with additional customized
>> launchers. I have it set to auto hide unless I mouse over. As you said,
>> Gnome 3 is "fairly slick". :)
>
>
> I have to note here, that GNOME 3.2 comes with its Classic UI, along
> with GNOME Shell.
>
> For example in Fedora, GNOME 3.2 Classic UI gets installed by default,
> when installing GNOME 3.2.
>
> Classic UI can also be installed in Ubuntu, by installing the
> gnome-panel metapackage (but it isn't polished by Canonical, it comes
> in its vanilla GNOME 3.2 form).
>
>
> So I can't understand what Mint is supposed to do with its extensions
> that make "GNOME Shell look like Classic UI". They could provide GNOME
> 3.2 Classic UI polished.
>
> Actually they have been making GNOME look like Windows Vista/7, which
> I do not like.
>
> Also Mint is a hobbyist distribution, not an Enterprise Linux
> distribution like Ubuntu -
> http://www.ubuntu.com/business/desktop/overview.
>
> Myself found inconsistencies in Mint 11. For example, the graphical
> update manager showed no updates available, while apt-get upgrade
> showed updates available.
>
> Myself prefer only Enterprise Linux distributions like Ubuntu and
> Scientific Linux (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux; NOT CentOS,
> because it is also a hobbyist distribution).
>
> Now, if you do your work OK with Mint, you may keep using it, I just
> said my thoughts.

Ioannis, you are giving some confusing and incorrect information in
your posts about the new GUIs and I would respectfully suggest that
you need to do some more background reading and research.

Unity is *not* touch-centric.

Unity is inspired by the Mac OS X desktop, with its Dock, its single
central Applications folder and its single global menu bar across the
top of the screen.

Note that Apple *does not sell* any touchscreen devices running Mac OS
X. Mac OS X is a /desktop/ and /laptop/ interface and has been since
its appearance 11y ago.

The touchscreen devices, the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch run a totally
different interface on top of a totally different OS: iOS, which is
based on the same Unix kernel as Mac OS X but is not the same OS.

Please stop spreading this disinformation.

Yes, Unity is designed to be a stepping-stone /towards/ an interface
that will be suitable for touchscreens /as well as/ mouse/keyboard
users but it is not there yet.
Reference on this from the SABDFL: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/820

Read about Shuttleworth's design plans for Unity here:
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383
Note that it is *not* about touch, it is about using the space on
widescreens most effectively.

As for why Mint uses GNOME Shell and not "Fallback mode", this too is
well-documented. Mint's creator says:

«
@Craig: Gnome 2 + GTK+ is not being developped anymore, so you won’t
see it get any new features, but it’s amongst the most stable desktop
environments out there. As such, it’s not going anywhere. GTK3 and
Gnome 3 are more promising technologies of course, but they’re far
from reaching the same level of maturity Gnome 2 has. “Gnome 3 without
Gnome-Shell” is called “Gnome Fallback Mode” and it’s nothing to do
with Gnome 2.

Gnome 2 is a stable GTK+ desktop which no longer evolves in terms of features.
Gnome Fallback Mode is basically an adaptation of gnome-panel, which
looks like Gnome 2 but is based on GTK3 and is incompatible with
Bonobo and panel applets.

So the first thing to consider is this: Panel applets need a rewrite
to work in Gnome Fallback Mode. MintMenu for instance works in Gnome
2, but it doesn’t work in Gnome Fallback or in Gnome Shell. We can
make it work in Gnome Fallback and we can make it work in Gnome Shell,
but we then need a rewrite.
The second thing to consider is that Gnome Fallback isn’t here to
stay. The Gnome devs don’t want it there and people who like Gnome 2
don’t like it anyway. Eventually you’ll see Gnome Shell gain
compatibility with less powerful graphics card and Shell will be the
only way to run Gnome 3. It’s not a bad thing, since Gnome Fallback
Mode, from a usability point of view, really isn’t an interesting
desktop. So going forward, we’ve got Gnome3/GTK3 being actively
developed and improved, we’ve got Gnome2/GTK still there for us to use
but not gaining new features, and we’ve got something called Gnome
Fallback Mode which is just that, a 2D fallback mode, and which is
going to disappear.
»

Souce: Clem Lefevbre himself, here: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1845

You are coming out with completely unsupported speculation about how
and why Mint are doing what they are doing, as well as about Unity,
when I am afraid you are *wrong*, the facts are different and they are
right there for you to read and learn if you just make the small
effort.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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