Please stop complaining about Unity and install Gnome Shell

[sktsee]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:38:00 -0500, Jim Byrnes wrote:

> On 10/26/2011 06:45 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On 26 October 2011 23:17, Jim Byrnes<jf_byrnes at comcast.net>  wrote:
>>> On 10/26/2011 03:46 PM, sktsee wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:32:45 -0500, Jim Byrnes wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 10/26/2011 03:21 PM, sktsee wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:29:23 -0500, Jim Byrnes wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [snip]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> +1 for Xubuntu.  I've been running it in VBox for a couple of days
>>>>>>> and so far it seems to be the closest thing to Gnome2 in 10.04
>>>>>>> I've found.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You guys just aren't exploring your options enough.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://tinypic.com/r/2qxbzao/5
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I got this desktop by installing/removing some packages from the
>>>>>> Ubuntu repos, making some config changes with gnome-tweak and
>>>>>> dconf-editor, and then adding few applets.  Save for the theme,
>>>>>> it's pretty much how my 10.10 Gnome2 desktop looks layout-wise.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Looks pretty good, much better than anything I have been able to do
>>>>> with Unity.  One thing I don't see that is important to the way I
>>>>> work is workspaces that display the icons of the apps you have open
>>>>> in them and can be switched to by clinking on them. Unless that is
>>>>> in the right hand corner of the bottom panel and my eyes aren't good
>>>>> enough to make it out.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for sharing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Yes, its the same workspace switcher currently with 4 workspaces and
>>>> number open apps on each of them.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> OK, you have my attention and probable a lot of others that are
>>> uncomfortable with Unity right out of the box.  Is there a how-to
>>> somewhere that would give some guidance on accomplishing what you did?
>>
>> I believe I've already posted this 2 or 3 times, at least, but:
>>
>> http://blog.poggs.com/2011/10/ubuntu-11-10-for-productive-people/
>>
>> However, note, this is configuring GNOME 3's Fallback Mode and the
>> expectation is that this will be removed from GNOME 3 before very long.
>> It is a /lot/ less customisable than GNOME 2 was, anyway.
>>
>> Honestly, I think you're better off with Xubuntu and Xfce.
>>
>>
>>
> Was that a picture of a gnome fallback installation?  Maybe I jumped to
> the wrong conclusion but I thought it was a tweaked and customized
> Unity.  I tried the gnome fallback mode and couldn't get it to work very
> well.  Even if that is the fallback mode it looks like sktsee was able
> to do more with it than I was.
> 
Yes, it's the fallback mode, but the fallback isn't base on gtk2/gnome2 
tech, but new gtk3/gnome3. The next version of Ubuntu, Precise 
Pangosomething is slated to be a 5 year LTS and it includes gnome-
fallback-session. Fallback isn't going anywhere soon.

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of how I got my desktop configured.

The first two steps affect Unity, which is what I started off looking how 
to configure. I applied these changes before configuring gnome, so I 
don't know if they would have been an issue or not. If you like the 
overlay-scrollbar and global appmenu in Unity, skip these steps.

1. Remove overlay-scrollbars package
sudo apt-get purge overlay-scrollbars

2. Turn off global appmenus
sudo sh -c 'echo "export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0" > /etc/X11/
Xsession.d/81ubuntumenuproxy'

3. Install gnome-shell, gnome-tweak, dconf-tools, gconf-editor
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell gnome-tweak dconf-tools gconf-editor

Logout of your session and then log back in selecting Gnome Classic (I 
chose the "No Effects" version) from the session chooser.

Upon login you should have the familiar gnome-panel on the top and bottom 
of the screen. From there you configure the panels pretty much like you 
did in Gnome2. The thing you have to remember with this version of gnome-
panel is to hold the ALT key down while right-clicking on a panel area to 
add/remove/move applets and configure preferences for the panel itself.

The applets I added were
show desktop
force-kill application
trash
notification area

Another thing that's different the absence of the System menu on the 
menubar (Applications Places). These items are now found in the "Other" 
menu category under Applications. Like before, you can right-click the 
menubar and choose to edit the menus to your preference.

The remaining items like home and computer icons on the desktop, metacity 
window decorator button layout, etc. can be set with the configuration 
tools. Start with gnome-tweak (Advanced Settings in the Other menu) then 
gconf-editor, and then dconf-editor. Most gnome core stuff will have 
their settings in dconf, but there will still be some things that have 
not transitioned yet from gconf, so if you don't find one setting under 
there, then look to dconf. 

-- 
sktsee