gnome classic

Story: Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' Beta 1 Released, Screenshot Tour and Recent ChangesTotal Replies: 12
Author Content
montezuma

Sep 03, 2011
1:08 PM EDT
So I tried this out using a livecd iso on a usb stick. It is obvious that most of the effort is going into unity 3D and it is definitely slicker now. I installed the gnome fallback package and the login screen gives the option of gnome classic. The classic desktop is however a major regression compared to gnome 2 in 11.04. The menus are still there but there are no applets for the panel and the icons in the indicator part of the panel are broken. So it really is a fallback and not a classic version.

Linux Mint has some hard decisions to make for their next release I suspect.
jimbauwens

Sep 03, 2011
1:46 PM EDT
The only way I think out of this is to make a new shell for gnome 3 that looks like gnome 2. First of all I wouldn't just port stuff over, but reprogram stuff as the panel (In my opinion the Gnome 2 panel is quite bugged) and nautilus.

If Mint does this, it would be a great success.
DrGeoffrey

Sep 03, 2011
3:10 PM EDT
Or, they could switch to XFCE.
jimbauwens

Sep 03, 2011
3:26 PM EDT
Well, xfce lacks lots of nice stuff that gnome has (although its not bad at all :)
DrGeoffrey

Sep 03, 2011
3:41 PM EDT
I am just a simple college prof. What does gnome have that xfce does not?
Fettoosh

Sep 03, 2011
4:51 PM EDT
I just tried Unity and I really have mixed feelings about its interface. It is definitely made for the average computer users. Too may click to do little things, and I am a KDE 4 user. I haven't seen any configurations, but may be, I hope, there will some in future releases.

Personally, I am not sure if I can adjust to it, but I believe it does have potential with others.

There are some nice things that are active by default and very fast but still have some issues since it is still beta, Like Window Tabs, Window Tiling.

The one thing I am sure I will not get used to is having the menu of any application to be apart from its window when minimized. For some reason It seems awkward. Another is having the window options on the left instead of the upper right corner.

It still has ways to go but I will try the new releases as they come out.

montezuma

Sep 03, 2011
6:26 PM EDT
Here are Clem's thoughts on where Mint will go:

"R&D started on Gnome 3. Although the new desktop is extremely different than what we're aiming for, it looks extremely promising from a technical point of view and easy to modify and improve upon. We're planning to do some R&D on Gnome 2 as well in order to assess the work involved in maintaining it within Linux Mint. Of course, all you probably want to know is whether Mint 12 will come with Gnome 3, Gnome 2 or something else.. and I'm afraid you'll need to wait a little more before we can tell you for sure. At this stage it might go either way, or it's possible we might support both versions of Gnome going forward. We're aware of what the community wants, we've got a precise idea of what we want to achieve, and based on the technicalities, and confidence we have in these two technologies, not only now, but for the future, we'll take our time and make the right decision."

If they carry through, I will be very seriously thinking of switching to Mint from Ubuntu.
jdixon

Sep 03, 2011
6:29 PM EDT
> What does gnome have that xfce does not?

The most obvious thing is Nautilus with all its bell's and whistles. There are others, but I haven't used Gnome enough to speak to them.
helios

Sep 03, 2011
9:45 PM EDT
Agreed with jdixon. I want to like Xfce, and I do until I try to use Thunar to do my work. I have adapted to Nautilus and I spend inordinate amounts of time in my file manager. Thunar simply lacks the power of Nautilus. I like moving files with one click and I like stability and speed. While every Linux system I've ever use has real challenges in transferring large files, Nautilus is the fastest and most stable I've used. It is not uncommon for Thunar to lock up on me when doing large or multiple file transfers. Nautilus has been a work horse in this respect.
tracyanne

Sep 04, 2011
3:27 AM EDT
jdixon and helios, agreed, I can't live without my nautilus
DrGeoffrey

Sep 04, 2011
8:08 AM EDT
Ok. Sorry to press this further, but I am interested.

As Nautilus can be installed (and both LMDE (XFCE) and #! appear to install it by default), there must be more. Does Nautilus and/or XFCE become more unstable when married? Is it the lack of integration between Nautilus and XFCE? Or, something else?

FWIW, my interest stems from a desire to raise the visibility of linux among my students. And the Ubuntu/Unity and Gnome3 disasters have led me to be quite reticent as of late. To put it bluntly, if I am to become a more vocal proponent, I must have a distribution & DE that is reliable and easier to learn. Ubuntu has self-destructed, LMDE (XFCE) is too raw, Mint appears destined for a radical rewrite of their DE, and my experiences with the non-debian based distributions are not encouraging (i.e., I cannot get Fedora etc. to boot on my ASUS). If I focus only on desktop interface, Unity is a complete nonstarter, GNOME needs much more development (and a reminder that some users actually need to get work done), and it's difficult to recommend KDE when it crushes my lightweight laptop and is subject to change based on developer whim (the user be d****ed).

XFCE, for all it's limitations, from my perspective appears to be the best alernative. But it lacks the backing of a truly nooby-friendly distribution. And, there are the issues I see alluded to here.

The result? While I may run all class presentations on my linux lappy, I can no longer point to one distribution as the ideal starting point. So I tend to keep my mouth shut.

Much to the relief of the MS evangelicals in the audience.

number6x

Sep 04, 2011
10:34 AM EDT
funny,

When I use gnome 2.x, I replace Nautilus with Thunar. I don't need the extra feature Nautilus has. I just want a file manager. Thunar is much quicker and has a much smaller footprint. There are a few settings changes to get Thunar to open by default but after that, I don't have to put up with the long load time for Nautilus (older hardware makes some decisions easy).

Try a live CD of Wolvix or Zenwalk(formerly minislack) for a distro that has committed to XFCE. The Brazillian distro dreamlinux is pretty impressive as well, but getting long in the tooth. Dreamlinux is debian based, so keeping it up to date is easy.

Try one of these XFCE distros live to get a feel for XFCE. The Ubuntu implementation seems hobbled in comparison.
helios

Sep 04, 2011
10:45 AM EDT
There will be those that disagree with me but I base my statements on personal experience....I can't speak for everyone...although, some would have accused me in the past of doing so. ;-)

I try hard not to marry in libraries and apps from other DE's into whatever I am using. It has been my experience that at first, things work swimmingly, but then subsequent upgrades begin to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of system errors. Of course, my experience is between KDE and Gnome apps and libs. Crossing Xfce and Gnome might be perfectly safe but once burned, is twice shy.

As far as Thunar being qucker, I cannot speak to that. I am fortunate in that I run a dual core quad 6600 with 4 gigs of RAM. Given the lack of features in Thunar, I can see where it might be a better choice for resource-challenged machines.

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