GTK2 GNOME in Trisquel6

Trisquel reuses the packaging work from Debian and Ubuntu. If none of those projects wishes to maintain a package for MATE, this desktop environment will not be easily available for Trisquel. It may happen though.

Notice that:

• your tastes on GNOME 3 are not universal: some people, including myself, like GNOME 3;
• Trisquel's configuration of the GNOME Shell (GNOME 3's interface) enables icons on the desktop;
• the Fedora project has worked on software rendering for GNOME Shell (no need of 3D acceleration) and it will hopefully end up in Ubuntu and then Trisquel;
• navigating between workspaces and windows can be pretty efficient if you know the shortcuts;
• GNOME Shell is fairly configurable through extensions that are a bliss to install and uninstall

That said, if you want to install MATE, the process is indicated here (Trisquel 5.5 Brigantia being based on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot).

I installed MATE as soon as I upgraded to 5.5 and haven't had any problems with it. I did it the way is explained in their wiki, in the link Magic Banana is providing.

As for the question of it is going to be in the official releases, well I would really like to see that (because I'm one of the Gnome3 hard haters), but if it doesn't happen, it'll be OK as long as development on MATE and interest on their side goes on.

I mean, there's no official MATE for 5.5, but I still run on it...

Gnome 3 sucks and even Debian 7 will use XFCE by default when it hits stable: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE1NTk

As for MATE, you can nab it at http://mate-desktop.org/install/#ubuntu (11.10 for Brigitania) and use older trisquel-gtk-theme and trisquel-icon-theme packages from Dagda to get the look.

I have a question:

I know Trisquel uses the "fallback mode" due to 3D driver issues. It looks and mostly acts like Gnome2 as far as I can tell with the limited time I've played with it.

I've heard that with the many extensions around, that you can make full-3D-Gnome-Shell look and act like Gnome2. Is that true?

If so, then why MATE? Why don't people just configure Gnome-Shell (If they have free 3D) and move on? Mate is Gnome2/GTK2, right?

(Please forgive if this question seems obvious or insulting. I don't spend a lot of time in Gnome/KDE, etc. I have used Fluxbox for years and recently Openbox due to it's copyleft goodness.)

I must say, I do find it a bit funny that there are so many flame wars over desktop environments/window managers.

"Install them all. Try them all. Pick the one you like." -Dave Yates

Afaik there are compatibility issues between Gnome 2 and Gnome 3 fallback mode. You can't do all you used to be able to do. I think a lot of plugins for the panel will be missing, etc.

If you were on Fluxbox, that's nice for you. Changes within Gnome will not affect you that much. But if you were on Gnome 2 all the time and suddenly it's Gnome 3, you are facing the neccessity of quickly adapting to a new environment, so you can go on with what you have been doing before. Be it because you want to switch from Gnome or because you want to stay.

I don't like the Gnome 3 environment and switched to KDE. After a long time I still can't do all the things I've used to be able to do, just because KDE is different and I have to "learn it's ways".

"KDE is different and you have to learn its ways", but isn't also Gnome3 different and you just have to learn its ways?

For me the problem is that I don't like either Gnome3's nor KDE's ways (in fact I think I hate more KDE than I do Gnome3). I like Gnome2's.

MATE is a fork of Gnome2 yes, but they plan on porting it to Gtk3.

Since the shift to Gnome 3 I have tested Xfce, LXDE and E17. I like E17 best despite it being a bit less stable.

Wow, a lot of GNOME 3 bashing...

You might want to try using the Clearwaita (Clearlooks) theme which has GTK+v2 and GTK+v3.

I'm using Trisquel 5.5 (and I have Xfce installed) and it works fine.

Clearlooks:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Clearlooks-Phenix?action=content&content=145210

There is a fork of GNOME Shell you might want to look at called Cinnamon. I'm not terribly familiar with it although I know one of the projects we are sponsoring has a heavy hand in its development. Unlike Mate it is based on GNOME 3 components. That might be a more sound direction to go in due to the financial and development resources being poured into it. Unlike MATE I don't think GNOME 3 is quite dead yet. For one not everybody hates it and two it has Red Hat behind it. Of course that is apparently part of the problem. Apparently Red Hat's involvement has/is heavily influencing the direction of the GNOME desktop environment.

I'll back up a minute too. I'm not saying MATE is dead. I'm just not sure if there is the developer base to maintain or improve it. Red Hat and Canonical though have a huge pool of money to fund the development of GNOME 3/Unity and comparison wise I'd be doubtful that MATE or Cinnamon can survive without piggybacking off a larger project.

XFCE and some others do exist as people have mentioned. As far as I know these other desktop environments don't have anywhere near the resources so it might be short sighted to say any of them will be dead tomorrow so long as there are a few dedicated individuals.

It seems to me the projects going places are the more community oriented ones with less corporate direction. Unity is Canonical, whereas GNOME is Red Hat. There may be a difference between GNOME 3 and Unity development wise although I think the money/development behind each says a lot.

Cinnamon and MATE are more community oriented.

:) If I got anything wrong here please feel free to correct.

For me Desktop environments are overrated. I like Trisquel 5.5 Gnome as much or as less as I like my XFCE desktop over at my Xubuntu Box.

All I need from a DE is:
- "Taskbar" which I can move either at the top or bottom of my screen
- Startmenu which integrates to the taskbar and all applications installed via package manager automagically appear in the startmenu
- Option to drop links for quickstart to the taskbar.
- Configurable symbols for stuff like mixer, network connection and such.

In my scenario LXDE, MATE, Gnome3 Fallback or XFCE will all do their job (more or less).

Much more important for me are features like a powerful terminal program and a good filemanager (multi-tabbed, menu for user-defined scripts / commands). With some cool icon sets, wallpapers and theme pretty much any WM / DE out there can be made looking cool.

For me Gnome 2 was nice and I got used to it but it is not mandatory.
Only those DE following a new UI paradigma (Unity, Gnome3 Shell) simply suck a big time.

Just my two cents,
Holger

Sorry, I forgot to mention a few things in my last post:

I think Trisquel 5.5 shows how nice Gnome 3.0 can look like although I rarely can see a benefit by using Gnome over another DE. With main focus on a fast, slim and reliable system I would rather choose something like XFCE or LXDE for Trisquel 6.X.

Speaking for the file manager I just wanted to highlight how much you can enhance your productivity once you got used to writing all those small helper scripts yourself and integrate them into a filemanager which supports custom user actions (e.g. SpacemanFMMod, SpaceFM, Nautilus or Thunar). I think it is pretty important that Trisquel 6.X provides an alternative filemanager for "Power Users". At least more important than considering switching to MATE :-)

@obibon it would be nice if you would write a small tutorial how to install MATE under trisquel 5.5/6.0 it might be very helpful for some users here in forum ;)
@kokomo_joe in my opinion there are worlds between gnome3 and gnome2/mate/xfce