Major changes in the next Trisquel release
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Trisquel 7 (or 6.5) will be based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and hopefully released a few months after. It was smart for the Trisquel team to bring stability by being LTS only and ensuring a rock solid libre distribution. With that in mind, I have some suggestions for the next release.
Make Cinnamon the default desktop for the main release:
* Available in Debian unstable, Ubuntu 13.04, and official PPAs
* Up to date and well supported
* Classic desktop look with modern enhancements
Replace LXDE with MATE for the Mini desktop:
* Can maintain the classic look of Trisquel 4-5
* Gnome 2 based, but with fixes to Gnome 2 codebase
* Like Cinnamon, has an active community
* Like Gnome 2, doesn't require hardware accelleration
* Official PPAs and on its way to Debian unstable: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783
Oh and one other thing with the default fonts: Make Roboto default instead of Droid Sans and keep it at the 10 range for the default, desktop, and window font sizes. This affects Cinnamon and MATE.
Le Fri, 7 Jun 2013 22:19:34 +0200 (CEST),
name at domain a écrit :
> Trisquel 7 (or 6.5) will be based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and hopefully
> released a few months after. It was smart for the Trisquel team to
> bring stability by being LTS only and ensuring a rock solid libre
> distribution. With that in mind, I have some suggestions for the next
> release.
>
> Make Cinnamon the default desktop for the main release:
> * Available in Debian unstable, Ubuntu 13.04, and official PPAs
> * Up to date and well supported
> * Classic desktop look with modern enhancements
>
> Replace LXDE with MATE for the Mini desktop:
> * Can maintain the classic look of Trisquel 4-5
> * Gnome 2 based, but with fixes to Gnome 2 codebase
> * Like Cinnamon, has an active community
> * Like Gnome 2, doesn't require hardware accelleration
> * Official PPAs and on its way to Debian unstable:
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783
>
> Oh and one other thing with the default fonts: Make Roboto default
> instead of Droid Sans and keep it at the 10 range for the default,
> desktop, and window font sizes. This affects Cinnamon and MATE.
>
I don't agree with your preference of MATE over LXDE. The LXDE
community is currently porting some applications to Qt (and keeping the
GTK version). So, if each application is ported to Qt, there wouldn't
be the problem of using a desktop based on GTK 2.
I am a member!
Mate and Cinnamon do not yet have support for universal accessibility.
If this is not changed by the release of Ubuntu 14.04, I cannot endorse
your suggestion of these as the default desktops. LXDE accessibility is
very close; some work neded on LXPanel and pcmanfm filemanager.
How is the current hacking of the Gnome Fallback helping? Its missing features, doesn't look where it should, Ruben cannot customize it fully, and in return has been causing huge delays with the last few releases.
Please specify on how Cinnamon doesn't address the universal accessibilty that you list. If it doesn't, have you tried the latest release?
I am a member!
Any system I use must have a working Orca screen reader. The GNOME
Fallback, as hacked by Rubin et al, works very well with Orca (at least
as well as does the un-hacked Fallback); I prefer Trisquel's layout to
Ubuntu's. If customizing Fallback is really the cause of some delays in
getting releases out, then the process may need improving? What is
happening with Consort Desktop? That seems, to me, like it has
possibilities. Unity-2D works with Orca, but Ubuntu supports no further
development there. I haven't tried GNOME Shell in Trisquel, but I have
done in other distros; It is quite usable with Orca. If Cinnamon is in
the Trisquel repos, I can try it; No Joy with Orca in two versions of
Mint I've tried. When last I tried a Trisquel Mate live dvd, Orca
either wasn't there or was non-functional.
Does this answer your questions?
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Hey t3g.
As a Fluxbox and Openbox user, I may not have as much experience as you do on these desktops. May I please ask a few questions?
Cinnamon: I believe Cinnamon is GTK3/Gnome3-based. Doesn't Cinnamon use 3D rendering? If so, isn't that the same problem as Gnome-Shell for those without free drivers? I've also heard that their compliance with the latest GTK has not been a priority. What do you think?
Mate: I've never thought of Gnome2 as a "light" desktop environment. Perhaps it is compared to the latest KDE & Gnome-Shell. Also do you think it will begin developing incompatibilities with GTK3-based applications? (Not currently but moving forward?)
Is there a light DE which uses GTK3? I believe LXDE and XFCE use GTK2 as well.
Thanks for your time.
Cinnamon by default uses 3d, but there is also a 2d mode which uses up extra CPU. In that case if you cannot run it with libre drivers, is to go with the Mini or MATE route. Cinnamon uses GTK3 and is based on an older Gnome 3 while MATE is GTK2 based and based on Gnome 2.
Someone else here recommended Consort, but Cinnamon is much further along in its process. The inclusion in the official Debian (Jessie) and Ubuntu (13.04) is a start and the project is very much alive.
As for the Orca support, if someone has it installed, what is holding it back in Cinnamon? You spoke about Ruben hacking it to get in Gnome Fallback, but would it be much of an effort? How about getting Jonathan from the Sonar OS crowdfunding project to help out or give his feedback on Cinnamon?
Oh and with MATE and Orca support. What makes it suddenly "not work" even though it is basically Gnome 2 and it worked in Trisquel 4-5 with Gnome 2 codebase?
I am a member!
if Cinnamon is, as you say a more mature and vital project than is
Consort, maybe making it accessible is as simple as adding the at-spi
stack that already works with GTK3? It could just be that Linux Mint
doesn't include this stack? If, even with the at stack installed, an
instance of Cinnamon isn't accessible out fo the box, it may just be a
matter of getting Cinnamon to generate the system events Orca and
related apps listen for. Thanks for suggesting I contact Jonathan of
the Sonar Project; Enabling Cinnamon seems like something worthy of
their attention. Regarding Mate, getting it accessible may just be a
matter of adding the accessibility stack and applications from the
latest GNOME 2. Mate accessibility has come up on Orca forums. It has
been suggested that enabling Mate is as simple as renaming and
rebuilding a bunch of code. Again, a suggestion for the Sonar Project
folks. So far, they seem preoccupied with keeping up with Ubuntu's
releases.
Trisquel LTS 4 > 6 > 8 - release in 2014 or 2015.
I prefer GNOME 3.10 or 3.12 (4.0) release in March 2014.
And fallback can be Consort with GTK 3.
Trisquel Mini is for old computers or with small resources. It can run with 128MB of RAM. LXDE is better for this - but we have others options like icewm, enlightenment, etc...
And why not one version for Qt fans with KDE and Razor-qt for small resources?
How important are visually impaled persons? Is it a priority to be able to fully control your computer without actually seeing the screen? How usable are these different windowing systems?
I am a member!
I'm as important a human as anyone with working eyeballs! It follows
that I should have as much control of my computing as someone who
happens to be able to read a screen. Some sort of windowing environment
and the console must be accessible by means of alternate inputs and
outputs.
Yes you are, Dave, and you shouldn't have to say it for it to be true.
We're all impaired (not impaled, Telstar, for f's sake ... : ) ) and regardless of the flavor of our impairment, any project should take Real Accessibility seriously. From what I've read and watched, that's more true of Trisquel than it is of most. I'm sorry to say that I don't have a lot of expertise or evidence for that; it's just a casual perception.
Whatever DE is chosen, it should maintain the same high standard.
I'm pretty sure that almost everyone agrees with kernelKurtz and mostly with Dave_Hunt. I'm not here to put rocks in Trisquel's development path but, as long as the other desktop environments don't have full accessibility, I think it's wise to continue with GNOME, the fallback version if possible.
Also I'd like to suggest other things:
- I think that Compiz and 3D effects should not be present in the default Trisquel installation. Not every computer is capable of supporting it, which results in the system to go back to the login screen if set to start the user session automatically [1]. Also, not every user knows how to set the "nomodeset" kernel parameter to start the system without going back to the login screen, disable and uninstall Compiz, and remove the kernel parameter. (I know it's redundant, since a normal user doesn't install the operating system by his own wish, but for me, it's something that should be noted).
Remember: This is just a suggestion. To avoid problems, the community should discuss it further.
Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.
[1] https://trisquel.info/en/forum/mouse-pointer-and-graphical-issues-trisquel-60
On 11/06/13 03:05, adfeno wrote:
> - I think that Compiz and 3D effects should not be present in the
> default Trisquel installation.
+1. It would be better if there was only one window manager in use,
consistent across all Trisquel desktops. It makes support a lot easier
if the system is more consistent.
At the moment there's a lot of differences between Metacity and Compiz
desktops, e.g. for accessing panel options it's ALT+right-click for
Metacity and ALT+super+right-click for Compiz. There are also
differences in workspace switching, window behaviour (e.g. dragging
window up to the top of the screen), and probably more that I'm missing.
It's also easier if there's consistency for documentation purposes.
Andrew.
Whoops, sorry for my wordings. I'm no native English. Ofcourse every user must be treated equally. I temporarily lost clear sight of my right eye few years ago, and using orca+braille was kind'a hard for me. Do you prefer console or windowing environment? So, whats your experience of Trisquel, Dave? Is it usable, and how could it be improved?
I am a member!
Hi,
I almost always use the windowing environment, though console access
would be nice if it were easy to set up. I would like to see the
Trisquel network install with an accessible console option, like the new
Debian Net Install has. In the Wheezy net installer, the user types a
single 's' at the boot prompt, and the speakup console screen reader
comes up. Furthermore, the resulting installation has both console and
GNOME accessibility. I can't speak to Trisquel's braille support; I
only use speech. I find Trisquel's implementation, based on the GNOME
fallback, to be very easy to use with Orca. I tried GNOME Shell and
found its accessibility lacking. In other distros, GNOME Shell does
work, so I'm not sure what may be missing here; it might just be a
setting not having been enabled.
In my installation, I deviate from some of Trisquel's default
applications. Thunderbird mail and exaile music player are more
accessible with Orca than are evolution and rhythmbox, for instance. As
an added convenience, it would be nice to have qt-at-spi as part of the
default Trisquel windowing environment; this would expand the set of
accessible applications, without effecting performance on systems in
which the accessibility is not used. QT-AT-SPI is in the repos, and
I've installed it for use with the mumble client.
I've tried a lot of desktop environments. I don't like MATE, Cinnamon or anything else except Gnome 2.x. Scientific Linux for example still uses Gnome 2.x and they are supported until 2017 I believe as an OS for CERN. Trisquel 6.0 looks great like it is. I did however notice that in the Privacy section there is a box about sending data to Canonical (from the Ubuntu derivation obviously) and I unchecked that. I want NOTHING to do with Canonical. So I think it'd be best to base Trisquel more like gNewSense, on Debian. Just my 2 cents. I think a big move to something like Cinnamon or MATE or LXDE or XFCE (which are both just fine but not so hot on graphic appeal) would not be a good strategic move. Go with Debian!
>I did however notice that in the Privacy section there is a box about sending data to Canonical (from the Ubuntu derivation obviously)
Where exactly so it can be removed?
I am a member!
I've tried lots of distros; let's go with Debian as the basis for
future releases.
Debian? Trisquel is already low on resources and taking on Debian is a whole beast on itself. Linux Mint has a Debian edition, but it is VERY behind and a bitch to maintain. If you thought Trisquel releases were slow, double or triple that with a Debian move.
A benefit of an Ubuntu base is the support for the code and Canonical and its contributers supporting LTS releases for 5 years. Very effective for servers and companies when Canonical does the tough work for you.
Nothing's stopping you from switching to Debian. Its just that Trisquel shouldn't.
Well, I think Trisquel is great and I just want it to switch to debian for its own sake.
Staying with ubuntu is risky and maybe it leads to a dead end for free software lovers one day.
I agree with you saying ubuntu is the best choice at the moment (!) but we should consider future times.
On the other hand, I don't know how much effort it is to switch from ubuntu to debian when it's really needed.
I totally agree with you quantumgravity. I started using Ubuntu in 2006 and thought it was really a great idea. But when they recently made the corporate/fascist type changes, I was outta there. It'd be nice if companies could be ethical and have values but the US law precludes that, they have to make profit or the CEO is outta there. So we have codified unethical behaviors into everything from foreign policy, relations with Iran for example, and on and on.
I really like Debian and I love Gnome 2.x. It sounds like too much effort, time and money to switch to Debian but it'd be wonderful if it could be done. Couldn't I make my own Debian FSF distro with all proprietary blobs taken out? How long would that take one person who types over 120 wpm? Ubuntu will never have my trust again, I guess I'm too hardcore about it. I'm never going back to them. Kubuntu is owned by a different company now, but it still isn't freedom 100%. The gNewSense 3.0 beta is exciting, but it's kinda clunky & slow on my machine, and no IceCat by default! That really is silly IMO. A new Debian install has IceCat pre-installed.
I'm still somewhat new to linux systems, but I've found that ppas work well with Trisquel and are a painless way to install software not in the repositories (sage, lightspark, etc) or get needed updates for outdated software in the repositories. I figured these work flawlessly strictly because Trisquel is such a close derivative of Ubuntu. Would the ppas still work if Trisquel switched to being a Debian derivative?
Another note is that the installer for Ubuntu/Trisquel is much much more straightforward than the current Debian installer. It may sound trivial to you guys, but it's another thing that can scare away inexperienced users.
One of the benefits of Ubuntu is it caters to extremely naive users like myself, I understand why we don't like Ubuntu itself, but I don't see what's so bad about using it as a base and continuing to take the dirty parts out. Trisquel feels like the free OS for dummies, and the free software community needs something like that. We need an OS that people sweitching directly from windows (as I did) can slip into without a lot of trouble.
I am a member!
The ppas could still be added, though with a bit more manual work; it's
not as easy as, for instance,
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sparkers
You'd have to go to the launchpad page, locate the 'deb' and 'deb src'
lines for the ppa of interest, add them to '/etc/sources.list', and add
the gpg fingerprint with a command (I forget what that is). I like the
Debian network installer, but have not tried the one from the live
Wheezy cd; don't know how it compares to Ubiquity. I once installed a
distro that used the utility called remastersys-installer, and getting
dumped into gparted when it came time to set up the disk, was a little
intimidating. If not Ubiquity, then something just as easy to use is
nice.
Trisquel used to be based on Debian GNU/Linux. It had even less work power (quidam alone) at that time.
Trisquel is "based on Ubuntu" in the sense that most of its packages are copied from Ubuntu's main and universe repositories. Ubuntu's default install is not taken into account to make Trisquel. I doubt it would be harder to base Trisquel back on Debian given that the applications in Trisquel's default install are all available in Debian GNU/Linux (and not significantly modified by Ubuntu that has Debian as a base). The installer may be an exception.
Privacy section? Where is it?
icarolongo: It's in my Systems Settings under the "System" section at the bottom. If you don't see it in your install, it's probably because I checked a box to make it visible to me somewhere after my fresh install of Trisquel 6.0. It's the exact same privacy section feature Ubuntu has had since I think the last couple of releases since 2011, and it lets you turn off/on "Record Activity." If you go to the Diagnostics tab, it is already checked to "Send Error Reports to Canonical." That is what I meant by I want nothing to do with Canonical ever in any form, even sending bug or error reports, etc.
I understand about the Debian thing. If Trisquel's staff was tripled, wouldn't that make it easier to implement Debian in the future? How much money and people would be needed? After the last few years, I see more & more the inherent value of the FSF and GNU movement. I'm very much supportive and would like to do more to get involved. I am a very fast typist and want to learn to code, so let me know if I can be of help to the Trisquel team in some way that involves typing or learning! I'm not overly attached to any one particular type of Gnome, KDE, or XFCE or LXDE, if it looks good and functions about the same as Trisquel 6.0 then that's cool with me. Cinnamon is the better of the other alternatives, I just didn't like it so much but hey it's better than nothing.
Blue J:
I think there's a lot of people around here that share your feelings about a Debian-based Trisquel being the best thing ever ... I'm certainly one of them.
But it's clear that this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon, and it seems to be mostly related to the workload involved from what I gather.
In the meantime there is gnewSense. Also basically a one-man show, and therefore very slow in coming--the current beta is the first in four years, and it's still based on Squeeze. Or just Deb itself, and taking on the responsibility for purity yourself.
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