Next Trisquel LTS
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Some discussion and suggestion regarding the next release, which I assume will be an LTS based on 12.04....
Rather than using Gnome 3, I think Trisquel should move towards the most stable and usable MATE desktop environment, similar to Linux Mint's latest release. Anybody else agree?
I am a member!
What advantage would Mate offer that Gnome does not?
-Dave H.
On 06/25/2012 04:27 PM, name at domain wrote:
>
> Rather than using Gnome 3, I think Trisquel should move towards the most
> stable and usable MATE desktop environment, similar to Linux Mint's
> latest release. Anybody else agree?
I have installed MATE on Trisquel 5.5 and I love it. Very thankful to have this simple, well-tried GUI back.
For anyone curious about what it's like ... if you remember Ubuntu 10.10 and older versions, it had the menu bar in the upper-left with "Applications, Places, System" menu options.
That's what MATE is. It's the Ubuntu 10.10 and older UI (which I had used since Ubuntu 7.04 when I first switched from Windows to Linux).
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
--- On Mon, 6/25/12, Dave Hunt <name at domain> wrote:
> From: Dave Hunt <name at domain>
> Subject: Re: [Trisquel-users] Next Trisquel LTS
> To: name at domain
> Date: Monday, June 25, 2012, 5:14 PM
> What advantage would Mate offer that
> Gnome does not?
>
>
> -Dave H.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 06/25/2012 04:27 PM, name at domain
> wrote:
> >
> > Rather than using Gnome 3, I think Trisquel should move
> towards the most
> > stable and usable MATE desktop environment, similar to
> Linux Mint's
> > latest release. Anybody else agree?
>
On 06/25/2012 04:27 PM, name at domain wrote:
> Some discussion and suggestion regarding the next release, which I
> assume will be an LTS based on 12.04....
>
> Rather than using Gnome 3, I think Trisquel should move towards the
> most stable and usable MATE desktop environment, similar to Linux
> Mint's latest release. Anybody else agree?
>
Well, I truly hate Gnome 3 if only because its Gnome 2 compatibility
layer is not even close to the real Gnome 2. I also hate Gnome 3 as a
UI in general, and am no fan of Unity either. Gnome 3 has kept me from
moving from Trisquel 5.0 to 5.5 (because the Gnome 2 compatibility layer
is horrid).
I've never used MATE. I'll download Linux Mint, give it a try and see
what it looks like. At this point, would welcome just about anything
other than Gnome.
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
MATE = Gnome 2.32 sources renamed.
I'm in. :-)
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
On 06/25/2012 06:09 PM, name at domain wrote:
> MATE = Gnome 2.32 sources renamed.
>
There is some work on this desktop environment. If it sticks to GTK 2, I do not see much future in it because that would mean the versions of the GNOME applications, which MATE ships, will never be updated (what may include some security leaks that may never be fixed). Notice also that no distribution ships MATE as the default environment. Mint now prefers Cinnamon, which is based on GNOME 3.
I think you are mistaken, MATE does have very vibrant and development and does have active updates, yes all the programs will stay the same feature wise, but why fix what isn't broke?
And Linux Mint does ship with MATE as default, in fact they RECOMMEND it and do active development on it.
http://linuxmint.com/rel_maya_whatsnew.php - MATE is even listed before the Cinnamon desktop on their release page.
"Both the MATE and the Cinnamon edition were built with the highest quality of integration and will be supported until April 2017."
I actually wrote that "there is some work on this desktop environment" to correct you writing that "MATE = Gnome 2.32 sources renamed". So, yes, there is some development. My point is that sticking with GTK 2 would mean maintaining older versions of the GNOME applications and, although there is a community behind MATE, that is a lot of work. It is unclear whether it is the plan.
You are right that both MATE and Cinnamon are proposed in the latest Mint. Given that Cinnamon is their latest development and is based on more recent technology, I tend to think Mint will, at some point, drop MATE as a default desktop environment (but I may be wrong). If no other major distribution adopts it, the community behind MATE will vanish.
I'm in favor of shipping Trisquel with something other than MATE enabled
by default, just so long as MATE is there too and can be easily enabled
(like through the login screen).
I'm 42 yrs old and both Unity and GNOME3 make me cry like a baby with
their UIs. They just aren't right. :-)
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
On 06/25/2012 06:20 PM, name at domain wrote:
> There is some work on this desktop environment. If it sticks to GTK 2,
> I do not see much future in it because that would mean the versions of
> the GNOME applications, which MATE ships, will never be updated (what
> may include some security leaks that may never be fixed). Notice also
> that no distribution ships MATE as the default environment. Mint now
> prefers Cinnamon, which is based on GNOME 3.
>
Before using GNOME Shell, I strongly advise to first read this page.
And, of course, you can easily switch to any other free desktop environment (KDE, Xfce, etc.) available in Trisquel's repository: just select it in the Synaptic package manager, apply, disconnect and, at the login screen, choose the other environment.
>I'll download Linux Mint, give it a try
Mint comes with proprietary software, caveat emptor.
I personally love GNOME 3 and its GNOME Shell interface. I believe Trisquel will soon (although maybe not for Trisquel 6) ship GNOME Shell as the default interface thanks to the work of the Fedora project to make it available through software rendering (no need for 3D acceleration).
Honestly though, we're at the point where all free drivers can do 3d acceleration. I haven't come across any free driver that could not yet.
Nevertheless, Gnome 3 and its shell interface is counterintuitive and hides EVERY single customization option, something that Gnome 2> was outstanding for.
People were saying the same thing when GNOME 2 replaced GNOME. Notice also that Trisquel includes GNOME tweaks. Many cool customizations can be obtained through extensions, a really cool feature of GNOME Shell.
As for 3D acceleration, I believe you do not have an AMD/ATI video card.
I have an AMD card in my Elitebook, works fine out of the box when I used Linux mint for 3d acceleration. Why single out AMD when they actually relase hardware specifications to the community, unlike NVIDIA?
I don't think AMD released all their hardware specs. Their drivers are
still proprietary.
Trisquel 5.x will not use the card in my Toshiba notebook in native
resolutions (1600 x 1200). It will only boot up in something like 1280
x 960. Trisquel 5.x does use the motherboard-card on my desktop machine
just fine.
I was hoping the 3.4 kernel would fix the notebook issue, but it didn't.
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
On 06/25/2012 06:33 PM, name at domain wrote:
> I have an AMD card in my Elitebook, works fine out of the box when I
> used Linux mint for 3d acceleration. Why single out AMD when they
> actually relase hardware specifications to the community, unlike NVIDIA?
>
I am a member!
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In Brigantia I did not choose Gnome 3 neither Trisquel-Mini but rather
the nice and stable XFCE and I´m as happy as I can be.
- --
Roberto Rodríguez
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Robert,
Didn't know such a thing was possible! Will try XFCE.
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
On 06/25/2012 06:28 PM, Roberto Rodríguez wrote:
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> In Brigantia I did not choose Gnome 3 neither Trisquel-Mini but rather
> the nice and stable XFCE and I´m as happy as I can be.
> - --
> Roberto Rodríguez
>
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I like Gnome 3 and wish that Gnome-shell was the default for Trisquel. There are still a few issues with Gnome-shell, but over all I like it and find it very usable.
Why so much hate for Gnome 3?
I am a member!
Good question!
I don't see any problems with Gnome 3's classic or shell mode, and
switch between the two often.
-Dave H.
On 06/25/2012 08:17 PM, name at domain wrote:
>
> Why so much hate for Gnome 3?
>Why so much hate for Gnome 3?
Mostly because Gnome 3 requires 3D acceleration which is not available on all hardware with free software. The fallback mode is lacking in features.
I am a member!
I for one love Gnome-Shell and use it in Trisquel. Trisquel's approach of 'fallback' and 'shell if your computer can handle it' is a good one IMO and should continue.
I don't know the difference between Gnome 2, Gnome 3 and Gnome shell, or Mate. I am familiar with Unity, on Ubuntu 12.04. A lot of work went into it. I think we should stick with what is released in Ubuntu and reap the benefit of all the development work that goes on there.
Unity is fine by me. It is meant to work well with touch screens.
I am a translator!
Unity is absolutely not acceptable, since it is proprietary. Before they started using a proprietary, self-developed desktop environment, everything was simple: stick with the upstream, change the theme, done. If Trisquel would use Unity it would stop being the 100% free distro that it is. Why not use the blobs for Linux as well and preinstall software like Skype then?
Personally, I find Unity and Gnome Shell quite confusing and wasn't able to understand what the hell was going on when watching other people work with them. I didn't have the chance to try Gnome 3 out though.
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On 06/26/2012 08:10 AM, name at domain wrote:
> Unity is absolutely not acceptable, since it is proprietary. Before
they started using a proprietary, self-developed desktop environment,
everything was simple: stick with the upstream, change the theme, done.
If Trisquel would use Unity it would stop being the 100% free distro
that it is. Why not use the blobs for Linux as well and preinstall
software like Skype then?
>
When you make such statements, could you provide a clear, concise
source/reference? I am not aware that Unity is not free, open source
software.
For your information the "self-developed desktop environment" model is
what also makes Trisquel possible, as it's based on Ubuntu.
If you're asking Ubuntu users to eventually switch to Trisquel, it has
some value to keep Unity around at least as an option so the migration
is easier for such users.
[..]
Another importants factor to consider is the longevity of upstream
projects and their support. If the next Trisquel has packages that go
unmaintained/away in 2-3 years, it won't be so LTS anymore.
Fabian Rodriguez
http://trisquel.magicfab.ca
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I am a translator!
A friend who uses Ubuntu and is quite proficient with GNU/Linux and a programmer as well, told me Unity was proprietary. So I never looked it up, now I see it's under the GPL. I was absolutely sure that Unity is proprietary.
"Unity is absolutely not acceptable, since it is proprietary"
I do not believe this to be true, firstly the Wikipedia page for Unity states that is uses these licenses:
GNU General Public License (GPLv3), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv3)
Some developers are paid to work on Unity, which if I remember correctly Stallman encourages developers getting paid as long as the resulting code is free software.
>Some developers are paid to work on Unity, which if I remember correctly Stallman encourages developers getting paid as long as the resulting code is free software.
Certainly true. Stated e.g. at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
According to launchpad, unity is released under GNU GPL v3 and GNU LGPL v3 licenses, so it's free software.
I heard Cinnamon is coming out with a fallback option like Ubuntu 2D that doesn't require potentially non-free video drivers. Someone also mentioned MATE but that is seen as a temporary solution.
I'm still itchin for that trisquel-unity package though with Unity 2D :-)
I am a member!
I think the next lts should have fallback as default, with unity 2d,
unity 3d, and shell available. Maybe the installer can be made such
that it offers to install these other desktops and set one as default
for the installed system and user?
-Dave
On 06/27/2012 07:38 PM, name at domain wrote:
> I heard Cinnamon is coming out with a fallback option like Ubuntu 2D
> that doesn't require potentially non-free video drivers. Someone also
> mentioned MATE but that is seen as a temporary solution.
>
> I'm still itchin for that trisquel-unity package though with Unity 2D :-)
I am a member!
Unity is not non-free. The problem is most users have NVidia/ATI graphics and the free drivers don't have any/good enough 3d acceleration for it. You should be able to run Unity with Intel graphics though and free drivers since they have 3d acceleration support.
While I'm not saying MATE does not have an active development community I think Cinnamon is where Linux Mint is going. That was the impression I got from Clem (the lead developer of that project) when I spoke with him a short while back.
I think Linux Mint has potential and while it isn't a free distribution today Clem doesn't seem to be hostile to freedom either. Lets keep working on Trisquel and one day Linux Mint will have a free version or being only free software. It's where I'd like to think GNU/Linux in general is going. We are certainly going to push it wherever feasible (mostly on the back end, free drivers, free firmware, OGG Theora based video streaming services, etc).
Unity 2D can be installed standalone and the user wouldn't be forced to have potentially non free video drivers. That is why the push for the trisquel-unity package would stick to the 2D version only with the necessary theme tweaks.
I am a member!
Rubén actually did that already with Trisquel 5.5. I think it was a hack of Gnome pieces though for the fallback. I'm not involved in the development aspect of Trisquel and haven't done development really for a long time (well, I occasionally file bug reports, and work on customising a particular distribution for mostly personal use, but that hardly counts, and occasionally a little coding).
All in all I'm not sure this fallback design choice is the best way to continue forward. I understand the problem and and see why it was done though. A combination of factors. It would require more work to support two versions basically (fallback and 3d). The project doesn't really have the resources to maintain two versions.
I think ultimately we shouldn't sacrifice features just because some users haven't got the supported hardware. What matters is that the 3d Unity is free (and other similar components we can use) and that there do exist graphics chipsets with free drivers that we can use.
Moving forward means telling users that there bad choices have caught up with them and a hardware upgrade is now required to continue using Trisquel. This will have a positive impact on future support as it increases the demand for free software compatible hardware. It gives people a reason to support free software who might otherwise not (people who are using it for "open source" philosophical reasons rather than free software ones). This is a perfect example of why "open source" is an undesirable / less desirable position to take.
It is actually kind of humorous. I'll leave the names unlisted to avoid an argument here although the people advocating open source or who say they just don't care get mad at those who follow the open source movement's position.
As far as I'm concerned the only question about the transition to 3d is when will the appropriate time is to institute such a major change. I think that change should be made within the next two years probably. Ultimately people will have had a 3-6 year time span in which they could have purchased a free software compatible system. If we assume 4-6 is average very few people should be forced to upgrade who had no-choice at the time they purchased their system.
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On 06/30/2012 06:39 AM, name at domain wrote:
> Rubén actually did that already with Trisquel 5.5. I think it was a hack of Gnome pieces though for the
fallback. I'm not involved in the development aspect of Trisquel and
haven't done development really for a long time (well, I occasionally
file bug reports, and work on customising a particular distribution for
mostly personal use, but that hardly counts, and occasionally a little
coding).
>
> All in all I'm not sure this fallback design choice is the best way to
continue forward. I understand the problem and and see why it was done
though. A combination of factors. It would require more work to support
two versions basically (fallback and 3d). The project doesn't really
have the resources to maintain two versions.
That's the whole point. Canonical + the Ubuntu community already support
Gnome fallback in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Why reinvent that given the limited
resources?
[...]
F.
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Ruben didn't include Unity with the 5.5 ISO and when we tried to install it manually, it would not show up in LightDM or GDM selections. Kinda odd and when someone of us asked for a fix, there were crickets.
I do know what you mean though by including both Unity 2D and Unity 3D with the install and if 3D works fine with free drivers, then cool. If not, the user can always change to 2D. We shouldn't be denied choice.
I've tested having both Gnome Fallback and Unity 2D/3D on the standard Ubuntu 12.04 install and it works fine. Since Gnome Fallback's look is independent from Unity, there should be no problem having both. Especially with the 12.04 codebase being improved over the 11.10 codebase.
Come on Ruben... at least give it a shot.
I am a member!
I just remembered something that I believe Rubén said (I'm not sure who else I might have talked to about this issue, and this would have been a while back). Basically I think the issue with Unity is not a freedom issue. It's got to do with tracking/privacy. Unity or at least Ubuntu is well integrated / tied into Ubuntu's services. They let you store data remotely for instance. It may be this or something related to this. Although I wouldn't think that was tied to Unity. The back end being proprietary might explain why it isn't really a good fit for Trisquel or other distributions. Does anybody know of a distribution other than Ubuntu using Unity? My perception is there aren't any although the reason I thought most were not using it (probably right about this) is that a large percentage of users don't like it.
:) I think we need some people with more solid facts that bad recollections. No time to look though.
For the Trisquel project to thrive (and everybody here hopes it will!), it needs *new* users, i.e., most people who will use Trisquel in 4-6 do not even know about it now (they may not even know about the GNU/Linux operating system). By imposing specific hardware to run the default Trisquel, the project would "shoot itself in the foot" ("French" but maybe not "international" expression).
I agree that this argument has limits: the system must remain useful and attractive for people who purposefully buy freedom-friendly hardware. Trisquel will never choose a terminal-only default to have the best hardware compatibility!
Unless I have completely misunderstood something, Fedora developers have made GNOME Shell work the same with or without 3D acceleration (in the latter case, the work is carried out by the CPU, which is, today, powerful enough). As a consequence, from the perspective of hardware compatibility, GNOME Shell looks perfect.
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If that was referring to my comment I'll repeat the part about the future. The last I checked even recycling centers which refurbish systems with GNU/Linux for kids / and other organisations are not taking systems that terribly old. I'd think it could easily be done with 3d acceleration as many of these systems are already low end and utilise intel graphics. Ultimately they get more systems than they can actually utilise.
If Trisquel 6 (the LTS release) ships with 2d graphics then I think even with 6.5 it would be fairly safe to go 3d-only. The non-technical user base is most likely on 4.01 and will move to 6. Then that leaves 3+ years. If you are moving to 6 then it's already an old system. Chances are good the next system that gets recycled for use with Trisquel will already have to exclude components that are not compatible with GNU/Linux. Simply add the components that are dependent on non-free drivers for 3d acceleration to the exclude list.
What about llvmpipe? Is that free software? I heard that with 12.10 that they are trying to get rid of Unity 2D and have standard Unity work without accelleration by using llvmpipe.
Regarding the next LTS, I think we should do what Ultimate Edition did and make it a jampacked release with many different desktop environments to choose from. KDE/Gnome3/MATE/Razor-QT/XFCE/LXDE/S3D, etc.
I hadn't had a look at MATE. I think it looks quite interesting, certainly more userfriendly than Gnome 3 in my personal opinion.
If we have to stick with the flow and use Unity, I think this would help considerably:
http://www.unixmen.com/move-unity-launcher-to-the-bottom-with-unity-bottom-launcher-ppa-ubuntu/
Simply moving it to the bottom makes me feel MUCH more at home. Even a little WindowsSevenSins-ish... :P
I am a member!
You may be able to install other desktops already. The problem is they aren't supported because there aren't the resources to do so. If something breaks it's not going to be fixed (most likely). There isn't even a single full time developer for Trisquel. You can help fix that by becoming a member:
http://trisquel.info/en/member
There is also the Trisquel gift store:
And accessories/hardware/CDs/support/etc:
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/
* Trisquel gets a percentage from the sales of each.
The reasoning behind putting the Unity launcher on the side is that vertical screen real estate is at a premium in modern displays, which are much wider than higher. It seems logical to me, therefore, to put the launcher on the side and I have got used to it there without much effort.
Regarding adding alternative Desktop Environments, bodhi linux Enlightenment is quite well supported by its users and is meant to be quite beautiful.
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Is Enlightenment free software? I forget if it was a distribution I was looking at once which had it that wasn't free or the desktop environment or both. About all I recall was it sure looked pretty from the scree shots.
Enlightenment is a window manager, some libraries and a few other things. It is not a "distribution". No even a desktop environment. It seems to be distributed under the terms of a permissive license (à la MIT)... but starts with "All rights reserved". How should it be interpreted?
Yeah, that seems crazy* but people do that. The all rights reserved is redundant, as it is the default in any case. So just read what the license says.
*as in Schödinger's cat
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