Should future releases have Modern (Gnome 3/Unity) and Classic desktops?
Seeing that Ubuntu 11.10 is around the corner with full support for Gnome 3 and GTK3 in its default programs and its repositories, where will the Trisquel team move forward? Obviously the future of the OS will use GTK3 based programs, but how about the look of the OS? I know this question has been asked many times, but Gnome 3 and Unity have been tweaked over the past half year.
I've been testing out both Gnome 3 and Unity over the last half year and at this point with the Ubuntu 11.10 beta, Unity (in my opinion) has matured more than Gnome 3. I know that Unity is backed by an actual company (Canonical) so I do not know where the grey areas lie in it being a true "free" desktop environment in comparison to Gnome 3.
Many desktop users in general are stubborn to change and the with Trisquel team having a loyal userbase, will the Trisquel team maintain two desktop options for the user with the more modern Gnome 3 or Unity in addition to a Classic desktop? That way users who prefer to stick with "what they know" can stick with a look that mimics Trisquel 4/5 and be content. I understand that it will take work getting Gnome 3 in classic (fallback) mode but I'm not the leader of this team.
Either way if the Trisquel team does not consider their future, there could be a risk of someone using Trisquel as a base and then making their own Gnome 3 or Unity based distro based on it.
As you write, this question has been discussed several times during the past months. The next Trisquel 5.0 Dagda will use Gnome 2.32 (like the last Ubuntu). Then, assuming that quidam has not changed his mind since April ( https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/which-desktop-next-trisquel#comment-8957 ), Trisquel will use, by default, Gnome 3 but without Gnome Shell (because it requires a rather recent OpenGL support that currently is unavailable, via Free drivers, for those having ATI/AMD cards and unstable for those with nVidia cards).
Notice however that both the gnome-shell package and the unity package already are in Trisquel's repositories. Both being Free software, there is no reason not to copy them from Ubuntu's repositories.
Please don't have Gnome 3 and/or Unity standard. That's all I request.
On Sat, 2011-09-03 at 17:28 +0200, name at domain wrote:
> Please don't have Gnome 3 and/or Unity standard. That's all I request.
Don't you mean Gnome Shell? There is Gnome classic which is Gnome 3 but
looks like Gnome 2.
I think it'd be best if Triquel doesn't ship with Gnome shell as
standard, even though I plan to install it when I can.
I find it better to install stuff that I want, rather than removing
stuff I don't want.
A choice is always good. One can choose at login, yes?
I use the LTS version of Trisquel (4.1 after package updates) but I do admit that the speed of releasing Trisquel versions is a little slow. For example, Dagda, based off of Ubuntu 11.04, is being released around the time the next major Ubuntu release is about to come out and the code for the "new" Trisquel is based off of a codebase that is 5-6 months old.
If Trisquel released their new versions within a month or less of an Ubuntu release like Linux Mint, then that would be ideal. 5-6 months later is too long. Not to put down the Trisquel team because I respect their ideology and use their OS on my desktop, but the pace needs to be picked up.
EDIT: Magic Banana was talking about OpenGL support in Gnome 3 shell being an issue. The nice thing about Unity is that there's the QT based Unity 2D for those with weaker systems. Try the new 11.10 beta at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/beta-1/ if you are curious.
So you are complaining that Trisquel's releases arrive quite some time after Ubuntu's... but you are using the LTS versions?!
About unity-2d, it is in the repository of Trisquel 5.0 Dagda: http://packages.trisquel.info/dagda/unity-2d
Yes, it would definitely be ideal for releases to be a month or two after Ubuntu releases. However I don't believe this is realistic at the current time. If you look at the size of the Mint team (http://www.linuxmint.com/teams.php) it is significantly larger than ours (https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-team). They have different maintainers for KDE; Fluxbox; LXDE; ect. We have basically one guy doing most of the development for multiple versions (international;mini;regular;ect.) This isn't to mention the fact that they have sponsors as well (http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php). They recieve about $3000 a month in cash or equivalent services. If we had that our development rate would increase I'm sure.
I also don't know why you say the pace needs to be picked up. The project isn't on a deadline. As far as I'm concerned it is done when it done. However if you want to help the development go faster feel free to join the dev mailing list and IRC channel. Even if you don't have technical skills there are other ways to help out. The more others do the less quidam has to worry about and the more he can focus on development.
I just think it is an unfair expectation to expect us to deliver at the same pace as larger and better funded projects. I'm not saying those projects are better (I believe we have the better ethics) just that they are larger and better funded. However while I think it is unfair if you don't but you want to help that is great.
Your mention of "sponsoring" made me think of our "membering". t3g could become a member (like you and me): https://trisquel.info/member
Effectively their "sponsoring" is the very similar to our membership program. Mainly just the terminology is different. The only other difference I notice is that if an organization offers a service (e.g. hosting) they list the price for that service as a monetary amount.
My issue is that I may install Gnome 3 or Unity down the road in Trisquel to try it out but I'm not sure if the default theme carries over. I'm thinking of trying this with Trisquel 5.5 or 6 (Ubuntu 11.10 or greater codebase) with most of the stuff switched over to GTK3. I'm not sure if anyone on the team or in the community has thought about making a Trisquel Unity theme, but if someone did and it looked awesome, would you put it in the repositories?
I'm currently porting the default Trisquel theme to gtk3. I've been working on gtk3 for quite some time and I must say it'll be ready in a few das or so.
If you could point to some documentation to making unity themes, I could include that as well.
@grvrulz,
I was wondering if you saw http://www.webupd8.org/2011/09/radiamentary-is-beautiful-gtk2gtk3.html which talked about a GTK2 and GTK3 compatible Unity theme based on Elementary for Ubuntu 11.10 and greater. Since Trisquel uses Elementary, maybe this is something to use as a reference or possibly fork for future releases?
Thanks for the link.
Trisquel's default theme is built on equinox, and i've already nearly ported it to gtk3(only the scrollbars aren't done, coz it's not possible to replicate those using css only)
I'll add the required files for unity too.
Just look at this :P
http://ompldr.org/vYWJicg
Thankyou :)
I'll send it to the devel mailinglist as soon as its usable. Right now i'm fiddling with ever-changing unico engine :P
Is this work being based off of Ubuntu 11.10 betas? The reason I ask is that if you are, it is probably helpful in getting the themes ready ahead of time before Trisquel 5.5 is out. I know the code is still young and not final in the betas, but its a start.
If you get a solid Unity and Gnome Shell theme, I will be in greater heaven. I know a lot of people here are into Gnome Shell more, but can't hurt to have more options.
All gtk3 work that I do is done on Parabola GNU/Linux. It uses slightly older version of gtk3 and I can only compile a specific revision of the unico theme engine. The versions in 11.10 allow more features in the theme but underlying thing is the same.
I also considered installing Ubuntu 11.10 beta with linux-libre but it'll need a lot of time to compile the kernel and clean up the install (I'm a stubborn purist :P ). Maybe i'll go with 32 bit, I believe 32 bit binaries of linux-libre are available for ubuntu.
Whatever be the case, I'll deinitely do it soon, probably near this Ubuntu release.
P.S. I'm one of those GNOME-Shell people :D
Any chance of an XFCE version becoming prominent? After all, XFCE 4.8 is closer to GNOME 2.x than GNOME 3.x/Unity are. Also, XFCE popularity has been going up as a consequence of dissatisfaction of GNOME and Unity.
It could be very interresting to have Xfce for the next Trisquel release instead of Gnome shell... Or maybe something that looks like the original desktop.
I agree with this idea
Well, MATE may be the better option than XFCE and is already being used in Linux Mint 12 so the code is there if the Trisquel team wants to use it: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/mint-12-out-how-future-trisquel-releases-will-look
It would be a shame, I think, to make Trisquel as heavy as Ubuntu even though Mini is here. Would Trisquel with Gnome 3/Unity or a variation be heavy?
Unity is probably nice to use on laptops but it's a pain on desktop and big screens, I think.
Xfce is horribly heavy in Xubuntu (has been since Xubuntu Edgy) but I've read it's because of Ubuntu. Xfce looks interesting, as Ambassador points out.