GNOME Shell in Trisquel 7
Hello!
(TL;DR at the end)
I have decided to get an external wi-fi card and start living a more free life! :)
I am currently running Ubuntu, but I'd like to switch to a completely libre system. After doing some DE research, I think I'd prefer using GNOME Shell. GNOME Shell is constantly being improved and they releasy a new version once in a while. The problem is that Ubuntu is usually one or two stable releases behind. I originally thought about getting Fedora so that I can have more recent packages, but I'd prefer using a completely free distribution, such as Trisquel. I'm just worried about the package versions. In this review of Trisquel 7 (http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20141201#trisquel) they say that GNOME Shell appears to be version 3.10. Therefore I want to ask whether it's possible to install GNOME Shell 3.14 on Trisquel 7, in a fairly simple way.
I'm okay with adding a ppa or two, or downloading some packages, but I'd rather not make hacks to the system, as it usually ends in a bad way.Alternatively, I could try some other distributions. I have used Arch before, but it broke, but that was my mistake. Has anyone tried Parabola GNU/Linux-libre? If it works as well as Arch, I could definitely give it a go!
TL;DR: Can I (without much hassle) install GNOME Shell 3.14 in Trisquel 7? Has anyone used Parabola GNU/Linux?
Can I (without much hassle) install GNOME Shell 3.14 in Trisquel 7? I don't think so.
Has anyone used Parabola GNU/Linux? Yes, it works nicely. Very nicely.
Ah, well, that's a shame. But good to know Parabola works well!
That said, the review I linked to says that there are different versions for GNOME packages. Is that by design of Trisquel? I might also settle for GNOME 3.12, because I know they have a ppa for Ubuntu 14.04 with that.
That said, how are Trisquel releases going to work, anyways? Will there be one every 2 years, will there be ones based on non-LTS releases, or will it be like Linux Mint and release LTS-based system with updates?
The report about Trisquel using GNOME 3.12 is inaccurate. The Ubuntu 14.04, and consequently Trisquel 7, GNOME packages are a mixture of mostly GNOME 3.10 and GNOME 3.8 packages. This is the usual case for Ubuntu: some GNOME packages get held back for reasons that have to do with compatibility or something.
Trisquel releases come approximately every two years, but it's not on a schedule the way Ubuntu releases are. The work is based on Ubuntu LTS, and they're released on a "when it's done" basis. Trisquel 6 was released about a year after Ubuntu 12.04, and Trisquel 7 was released about half a year after Ubuntu 14.04.
There's a GNOME 3.12 PPA, though. (And it works pretty much perfectly in my experience)
What isn't there is a GNOME 3.14 PPA.
Looks like that's what the Wikipedia article says. Of course, no source.
Right. If you actually look at the GNOME packages in Trisquel, you will see very clearly that it's GNOME 3.10. The updated Gedit from GNOME 3.12 isn't there, for example. In fact, many components are the GNOME 3.8 version, and the Details screen reports the version as "3.8.4".
I think it's probable that the misconception about Trisquel having GNOME 3.12 originated as a simple typo, and then was copied and pasted by various bloggers who were too lazy to check.
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Trisquel releases are based on Ubuntu LTS, and get updates.
Does that mean GNOME 3.14 will eventually come by in Trisquel 7?
No, it's going to be stuck with GNOME 3.10, or GNOME 3.12 if you use that PPA (which, of course, the maintainers of the PPA warn against, so do so at your own risk). Updates to Trisquel 7, other than Abrowser and IceCat, are going to be limited to security fixes and other important or distro-specific bug fixes. That's what it means for a distro to be "stable": a given release doesn't change too much during its support cycle, so you're not going to have your system suddenly breaking.
The best way to get the latest software is Parabola, which is a rolling-release system. Just keep in mind, though, that this also means that things are likely to break often, so you need to be prepared to deal with that.
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Is there something specific about GNOME 3.14 that you need? I'm running gnome shell without any PPAs (so it's basically 3.10) on Trisquel 7, and it works beautifully.
Kind of. There are some nice updates and improvements and UI polishing. I will probably just get Parabola :)
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onpon is right - it is 3.8.4
"Details" is just reporting the version of that particular component, which seems to be one of the components that was held back to the GNOME 3.8 version in Ubuntu 14.04. It's basically GNOME 3.10, and this is obvious if you install GNOME Shell and start using it. Only certain parts are older versions.