After updating F14 to F15, my user account was automatically reconfigured to launch the new gnome shell.
I'd like to switch back to metacity, at least for a while, but I am unable to find any way to do it through any of the available GUIs.
How do I switch back to metacity?
My biggest culture shock is losing all of my desktop icons. The hack described at http://boubakr22.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/gnome-shell-show-icons-on-desktop/ is only a partial solution, as I still have to choose "Places → Desktop" to get my icons to go on the desktop after logging in.
Sam Varshavchik writes:
After updating F14 to F15, my user account was automatically reconfigured to launch the new gnome shell.
I'd like to switch back to metacity, at least for a while, but I am unable to find any way to do it through any of the available GUIs.
How do I switch back to metacity?
My biggest culture shock is losing all of my desktop icons. The hack described at http://boubakr22.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/gnome-shell-show-icons-on-desktop/ is only a partial solution, as I still have to choose "Places → Desktop" to get my icons to go on the desktop after logging in.
P.S.
I'm not talking about "fallback mode". I'd like to get something similar to my previous F14 desktop back, with a weather applet, CPU temperature applet, and shortcut icons on the desktop coming up automatically when I login.
On 05/28/2011 05:31 AM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
My biggest culture shock is losing all of my desktop icons.
Now this is something I just can't understand. I don't want to start an argument, but does anybody know why this decision was made?
On 05/28/2011 12:57 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 05/28/2011 05:31 AM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
My biggest culture shock is losing all of my desktop icons.
Now this is something I just can't understand. I don't want to start an argument, but does anybody know why this decision was made?
Install gnome-tweak-tool and select "Have the File Manager handle the desktop".
Steven Stern writes:
On 05/28/2011 12:57 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 05/28/2011 05:31 AM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
My biggest culture shock is losing all of my desktop icons.
Now this is something I just can't understand. I don't want to start an argument, but does anybody know why this decision was made?
Install gnome-tweak-tool and select "Have the File Manager handle the desktop".
That's only a partial solution. I still get a blank screen when I log in. Its necessary to manually open the file manager before the desktop icons show up.
And I still find no equivalent settings for having my input focus follow the mouse pointer, and for windows to autoraise upon gaining focus.
And I still lost all my panel applets; my weather applet, and my hardware health sensors monitoring applet.
And looks like I've heard the last of my startup sound.
The fallback mode is not much of a fallback. It does not restore any of that functionality.
I do detect a rather consistent pattern through all of this, though.
P.S. I can't find a single bit's worth of difference after installing gnome- shell-extensions-user-theme. I can't find any UI component that will supposedly offer me to set a UI scheme, even if the list of available choices is an empty list. I have "gnome-shell-extensions-user-theme" installed, yet tweaks still claims that "user theme extension not enabled". I'm ready to give up.
On Sat, 28 May 2011 14:54:16 -0400, SV wrote:
And I still find no equivalent settings for having my input focus follow the mouse pointer, and for windows to autoraise upon gaining focus.
Ironically, these old settings do still work in GNOME Shell, too:
gconftool-2 --set -t bool /apps/metacity/general/auto_raise true gconftool-2 --set -t int /apps/metacity/general/auto_raise_delay 700 gconftool-2 --set -t string /apps/metacity/general/focus_mode mouse
And no, it's not (!) fallback mode here.
Michael Schwendt writes:
On Sat, 28 May 2011 14:54:16 -0400, SV wrote:
And I still find no equivalent settings for having my input focus follow
the
mouse pointer, and for windows to autoraise upon gaining focus.
Ironically, these old settings do still work in GNOME Shell, too:
gconftool-2 --set -t bool /apps/metacity/general/auto_raise true gconftool-2 --set -t int /apps/metacity/general/auto_raise_delay 700 gconftool-2 --set -t string /apps/metacity/general/focus_mode mouse
And no, it's not (!) fallback mode here.
That worked.
Need to figure out what's more likely, that the missing UI for this, for battery power alert thresholds, for sound themes, and others, will eventually be restored, or whether the shark has been jumped, and the underlying functionality will be removed instead.
On 05/28/2011 11:08 AM, Steven Stern wrote:
Install gnome-tweak-tool and select "Have the File Manager handle the desktop".
Thank you, but that doesn't answer my question. And, as I now use XFCE not Gnome, I have no need of gnome-tweak-tool. Still, it may help those of you using Gnome 3.
Joe Zeff wrote:
On 05/28/2011 05:31 AM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
My biggest culture shock is losing all of my desktop icons.
Now this is something I just can't understand. I don't want to start an argument, but does anybody know why this decision was made?
Hubris? Developers infected with a "Windows Mentality" virus which causes them to feel that providing a consistent user interface the user can't change is morally superior to the "Have it your way" approach.
I am not too surprised about GNOME3, but I thought the Fedora decision making group were better people than that and would offer GNOME2 for some length of time rather than offer no option at all but retrain. That might make sense for developers who learn new stuff all the time,and hobby users who are just playing or learning, but for people using Fedora to do things important to them, there is a huge time cost and no gain.
Retraining users to use GNOME3 and finding new tools to do old tasks is as productive as a decision to change from left hand to right hand drive cars while learning a from an instruction manual written in a language they have to learn first. Learning new things is good, having to learn a new way to do the old things, not so much.
On 05/28/2011 02:27 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
Hubris? Developers infected with a "Windows Mentality" virus which causes them to feel that providing a consistent user interface the user can't change is morally superior to the "Have it your way" approach.
You may be right in general. I don't know, and I'd rather stay away from that aspect of the issue, TYVM, because that way leads to flame-wars. And, in any case it doesn't explain their decision to do away with desktop icons, and that's all I'm interested in.
Bill Davidsen writes:
Retraining users to use GNOME3 and finding new tools to do old tasks is as productive as a decision to change from left hand to right hand drive cars while learning a from an instruction manual written in a language they have to learn first. Learning new things is good, having to learn a new way to do the old things, not so much.
The analogy is not quite right. What's the new way for sticking a bunch of applets off to the side of the screen, so they can flash their icons at you whenever something important happens? If this is supposed to be all about productivity, I think it's very much productive to be able to constantly monitor the status of half a dozen apps in realtime, with a minimum of real- estate and without having a bunch of annoying windows constantly popping up.
Even Gnome3 recognizes the value of this concept, because it still does that with NetworkManager, the battery monitor, and a few other things. So, what's so special about those, that doesn't apply to the weather applet, the sensors applet, and all the other applets? I reject the argument that applets are passé.
Or, perhaps, I misread the list archives and there's nothing wrong with having applets around, except that most of them haven't been converted to gnome3 yet. Ok then, but perhaps it would've made more sense until most applets have been converted to gnome3, before removing gnome2 entirely.
The new way also allows you to have multiple app windows open on a desktop, so what's the new way equivalent of switching to the application merely by moving the pointer into a window, and have it gain focus and raise to the top of the window stack, automatically, without requiring an extra click? This is a very good way to flip back and forth between multiple windows, without extra pounding on your wrist. So, what's the new way of doing that?
Am Samstag, den 28.05.2011, 17:27 -0400 schrieb Bill Davidsen:
Learning new things is good, having to learn a new way to do the old things, not so much.
That is exactly my problem as well. Unfortunately I couldn't spent the time over the last months to make my own experiences using the betas but just followed closely the discussion here and was concerned. Yesterday I downloaded the live image and made my experiences. Now I'm simply horrified. I use Fedora for my daily work and just can't spend the time to reorganize all my working habits and routines.
So my question, perhaps slightly OT for this thread: Did you find a way to handle the situation?
Is there some kind of "Fedora survival guide for unteachable Gnome2 users" around?
Thanks in advance Peter
On Sat, 28 May 2011 17:27:36 -0400 Bill Davidsen davidsen@tmr.com wrote:
...snip...
I am not too surprised about GNOME3, but I thought the Fedora decision making group were better people than that and would offer GNOME2 for some length of time rather than offer no option at all but retrain. That might make sense for developers who learn new stuff all the time,and hobby users who are just playing or learning, but for people using Fedora to do things important to them, there is a huge time cost and no gain.
There are two issues with such a option:
1) It would be a great deal of work to get gnome2 and gnome3 to co-exist side by side, as they share a lot of things that would need to be made to work for both.
2) There are no people (or very few) willing to maintain it. Upstream is working on gnome3, all the fedora gnome maintainers are working on gnome3. If a group of interested and qualified folks wanted to work on providing gnome2 I would think it would be possible, but I know of no such group.
The "Fedora decision making group" has no power to hire a team to work on gnome2. ;)
kevin
Kevin Fenzi wrote:
On Sat, 28 May 2011 17:27:36 -0400 Bill Davidsendavidsen@tmr.com wrote:
...snip...
I am not too surprised about GNOME3, but I thought the Fedora decision making group were better people than that and would offer GNOME2 for some length of time rather than offer no option at all but retrain. That might make sense for developers who learn new stuff all the time,and hobby users who are just playing or learning, but for people using Fedora to do things important to them, there is a huge time cost and no gain.
There are two issues with such a option:
- It would be a great deal of work to get gnome2 and gnome3 to
co-exist side by side, as they share a lot of things that would need to be made to work for both.
- There are no people (or very few) willing to maintain it. Upstream
is working on gnome3, all the fedora gnome maintainers are working on gnome3. If a group of interested and qualified folks wanted to work on providing gnome2 I would think it would be possible, but I know of no such group.
The "Fedora decision making group" has no power to hire a team to work on gnome2. ;)
They have the power to say "not ready" though. And the alpha of fc15 shipped with a GNOME3 which runs in a VM and doesn't require a magic video card. Was that capability deliberately removed from the final fc15, or was it part of the official GNOME3 release and absolutely unfixable? Because running a GNOME3 desktop in a VM would be a low impact teaching tool, users could get their feet wet without a full install on bare iron.
On 05/29/2011 08:25 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
They have the power to say "not ready" though. And the alpha of fc15 shipped with a GNOME3 which runs in a VM and doesn't require a magic video card. Was that capability deliberately removed from the final fc15, or was it part of the official GNOME3 release and absolutely unfixable? Because running a GNOME3 desktop in a VM would be a low impact teaching tool, users could get their feet wet without a full install on bare iron.
GNOME 3 runs fine on a VM including the fallback mode. GNOME Shell also runs on a VM if you look at the latest version of VirtualBox. Work is being done by Adam Jackson from Red Hat to include support for software rendering of GNOME Shell or more accurately, Clutter, the toolkit used by GNOME Shell. This is not done yet and it is not clear how efficient it would be
Rahul
being done by Adam Jackson from Red Hat to include support for software rendering of GNOME Shell or more accurately, Clutter, the toolkit used by GNOME Shell. This is not done yet and it is not clear how efficient it would be
Is this pure software or using 2D acceleration where possible. For a lot of "using GL for windowing" cases the surfaces, textured or otherwise are generally flat on and usually 1:1 scaled which are 2D fast paths on a lot of older non 3D (or non good 3D) cards ?
Alan
On Sun, 2011-05-29 at 20:34 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
GNOME 3 runs fine on a VM including the fallback mode. GNOME Shell also runs on a VM if you look at the latest version of VirtualBox.
I have been unable to get this to work. I am using Vbox 4.0.8 (latest version) and the Nvidia proprietary drivers. I have checked "enable 3D acceleration" in the Vbox settings for this VM. But Gnome 3 still starts in fallback mode. What else is needed to make this work?
--Greg
On 05/29/2011 09:05 PM, Greg Woods wrote:
I have been unable to get this to work. I am using Vbox 4.0.8 (latest version) and the Nvidia proprietary drivers. I have checked "enable 3D acceleration" in the Vbox settings for this VM. But Gnome 3 still starts in fallback mode. What else is needed to make this work?
I don't use VirtualBox. I just know of reports of it working with the latest version. For instance
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/virtualbox-408-released-with-gnome.html
Rahul
On Sun, 2011-05-29 at 21:16 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
I just know of reports of it working with the latest version. For instance
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/virtualbox-408-released-with-gnome.html
Seems to be a very delicate thing. In that case, they are talking about Vbox running with F15 as the host OS and an Ubuntu 11.04 guest running Gnome Shell. What I am trying to do (basically following those instructions) is to run an F15 guest with Vbox running on an F14 host desktop. That has not worked other than in fallback mode, even with "3D acceleration" checked.
--Greg
On 5/29/2011 2:26 PM, Greg Woods wrote:
On Sun, 2011-05-29 at 21:16 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
I just know of reports of it working with the latest version. For instance
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/virtualbox-408-released-with-gnome.html
Seems to be a very delicate thing. In that case, they are talking about Vbox running with F15 as the host OS and an Ubuntu 11.04 guest running Gnome Shell. What I am trying to do (basically following those instructions) is to run an F15 guest with Vbox running on an F14 host desktop. That has not worked other than in fallback mode, even with "3D acceleration" checked.
Did you install the Guest Additions and run the script to compile the Vbox drivers?
Did you install the Guest Additions and run the script to compile the Vbox drivers?
I could have sworn that I had, but I went through this process again anyway, and sure enough, the install of guest additions behaved very differently this time. Last time, I had not yet run the guest on a system that actually let me check the "3D acceleration" button (the other desktop uses nouveau instead of nvidia), so obviously this causes the guest additions installer to behave very differently. After going through this, it now works (I see the "Activities" menu instead of "Applications" and "Places", so I'm not in fallback mode any more), and I will have a chance to see what all the fuss is about. After all I've read about GNOME 3, I don't want to assume "it sucks" without trying it first, but I have certainly heard enough to make me want to try it in a VM before it becomes my default desktop. If I end up deciding to switch to KDE, then I will probably do that before upgrading my main desktop to F15.
--Greg
On 5/29/2011 4:05 PM, Greg Woods wrote:
Did you install the Guest Additions and run the script to compile the Vbox drivers?
I could have sworn that I had, but I went through this process again anyway, and sure enough, the install of guest additions behaved very differently this time. Last time, I had not yet run the guest on a system that actually let me check the "3D acceleration" button (the other desktop uses nouveau instead of nvidia), so obviously this causes the guest additions installer to behave very differently. After going through this, it now works (I see the "Activities" menu instead of "Applications" and "Places", so I'm not in fallback mode any more), and I will have a chance to see what all the fuss is about. After all I've read about GNOME 3, I don't want to assume "it sucks" without trying it first, but I have certainly heard enough to make me want to try it in a VM before it becomes my default desktop. If I end up deciding to switch to KDE, then I will probably do that before upgrading my main desktop to F15.
Vbox compiles its own drivers. One of them is a special video driver and *that one* is the one that you use. It is used automatically after compiling by Vbox. Each time that F 15 kernel updates you will have to run the script to build new drivers for that kernel and reboot to use that kernel and new drivers. Currently DKMS is broken so you will have to do that by hand. I do not know of, might be one, a akmod for this.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702483
The 3D feature is still work in progress and only somewhat runs in a Windows guest. 3D is not needed for the 3D Gnome 3 in Fedora 15.
OT The Xorg that is now in Rawhide *does not* work with the Vbox video driver.
On 05/29/2011 11:26 AM, Greg Woods wrote:
Seems to be a very delicate thing. In that case, they are talking about Vbox running with F15 as the host OS and an Ubuntu 11.04 guest running Gnome Shell
Am I the only person on this list that finds it odd that not one of the posts in this thread has even tried to address the question I posed in the subject line: why did the Gnome devs decide that there shouldn't be any icons in the Gnome Shell?
On 05/29/2011 01:42 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 05/29/2011 11:26 AM, Greg Woods wrote:
Seems to be a very delicate thing. In that case, they are talking about Vbox running with F15 as the host OS and an Ubuntu 11.04 guest running Gnome Shell
Am I the only person on this list that finds it odd that not one of the posts in this thread has even tried to address the question I posed in the subject line: why did the Gnome devs decide that there shouldn't be any icons in the Gnome Shell?
Because that was hashed out a long time ago in the F15 alpha days and on the Gnome mailing lists. Now, it is what it it is.
I'm using Avant Windows Navigator to make a more Mac-like look and feel for Gnome 3 -- and I've never been one to put files on my desktop.
http://www.sterndata.com/content/gnome-3-and-awn-new-desktop
On 05/29/2011 11:51 AM, Steven Stern wrote:
Because that was hashed out a long time ago in the F15 alpha days and on the Gnome mailing lists. Now, it is what it it is.
Please understand that my interest is only academic; I don't use Gnome any more. Gnome can go in whatever direction it wants without any argument or complaint from me because what Gnome does no longer affects me. I am, however, curious about the reasoning behind the decision. If you know, and your reply implies that you do, please explain. I'm quite willing to believe that they had what they consider to be good reasons to do something like this but they're not obvious to me and I'm always willing to listen to "the other side" and try to understand their POV.
On Sun, 29 May 2011 12:01:51 -0700 Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 05/29/2011 11:51 AM, Steven Stern wrote:
Because that was hashed out a long time ago in the F15 alpha days and on the Gnome mailing lists. Now, it is what it it is.
Please understand that my interest is only academic; I don't use Gnome any more. Gnome can go in whatever direction it wants without any argument or complaint from me because what Gnome does no longer affects me. I am, however, curious about the reasoning behind the decision. If you know, and your reply implies that you do, please explain. I'm quite willing to believe that they had what they consider to be good reasons to do something like this but they're not obvious to me and I'm always willing to listen to "the other side" and try to understand their POV.
I would suggest there are better places to ask that and look for that info. ;)
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/FAQ
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
There's a much longer pdf design doc off the first link as well, I glanced at it, but wasn't able to find anything that specifically answered your question.
HTH
kevin
On 05/29/2011 12:37 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design
All I could find on any of these sites that seemed relevant (I didn't take the time to go hunting through the archives.) was a comment about eliminating distraction and promoting "a consistent look and feel." If that's what you're referring to, thank you. I have my own opinions about what's distracting and how important that "consistent look and feel" are but this isn't the right place to bring them up. Unless I've missed something, my question is asked and answered. Even if there's something I missed, thanx for a good effort.
On 2011/05/29 16:39, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 05/29/2011 12:37 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design
All I could find on any of these sites that seemed relevant (I didn't take the time to go hunting through the archives.) was a comment about eliminating distraction and promoting "a consistent look and feel." If that's what you're referring to, thank you. I have my own opinions about what's distracting and how important that "consistent look and feel" are but this isn't the right place to bring them up. Unless I've missed something, my question is asked and answered. Even if there's something I missed, thanx for a good effort.
This may be informative and may help.
"https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=643457"
{^_^}
On 05/29/2011 08:26 PM, jdow wrote:
This may be informative and may help.
That bug has to do with the hidden Power Off button, but I think I can extrapolate from it. Thanx.
On 05/30/2011 12:33 AM, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 05/29/2011 08:26 PM, jdow wrote:
This may be informative and may help.
That bug has to do with the hidden Power Off button, but I think I can extrapolate from it. Thanx.
When it comes to 'way' .. there's : your, high, my and no ..
gnome devs have def picked one or more of those .. :-)
Greg Woods <woods <at> ucar.edu> writes:
Seems to be a very delicate thing. In that case, they are talking about Vbox running with F15 as the host OS and an Ubuntu 11.04 guest running Gnome Shell. What I am trying to do (basically following those instructions) is to run an F15 guest with Vbox running on an F14 host desktop. That has not worked other than in fallback mode, even with "3D acceleration" checked.
AIUI, the host needs to be Gnome Shell capable as well for this to work, since VirtualBox is trying to use 3D passthrough (someone correct me if this is wrong, I haven't tried it on a non-3D capable host). You could test the host by using a F15 live image to see if it comes up in Gnome Shell or fallback mode.
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