Gnome 3 -The switch!

[viking60]

Yes Mint has profited from that and above all from the resistance towards Unity. But you are not on the Bleeding edge any more I am, with Arch - and I sometimes cut myself
By the time Mint gets Gnome 3.4 many bugs will have been fixed.
But the "feature" of hitting prt scr and wondering what happened will be yours to enjoy - the Gnome guys have decided that you do not need to see it or to give the file a name.
On one hand they want the help of tech minded people to iron out bugs and on the other hand they take the Apple approach of; "no one wants to fiddle around with the system settings - it should just work, don't worry how".

[dedanna1029]

And then it doesn't. It always works that way (or in this case, doesn't).

[viking60]

On the Acer Aspire 5250 AMD Radeon where the Systemsettings menu did not work. I put

Code: Select all

export MALLOC_CHECK_=1


in ~/.xprofile (.xprofile did not exist so I had to create it).
This makes it work as intended.
Now I was going to install Boxes and give it a try - but Gnome3.4 is challenging enough as it is so I'll wait.
Overall impression is: just the same with added extra work to get back to where you were before the update.
Gnome3.4 does shine with the search function as it did before - this is the best search in the Linux world. Even if it hasn't improved it is the best.
There is supposedly a better DE integration with online accounts like Facebook etc. I will never be able to test that because I am not willing to serve my life on a Facebook plate. Maybe this is where the big improvement is - I would not know

[dedanna1029]

Yeah, I'm getting quite "impatient" with WMs that are gearing towards the social things such as Facebook, MSN, Twitter, what-have-you.

Whatever happened to using a computer for.... well, y'know... COMPUTING???

[viking60]

Ill give it some time after I have finished tweaking it could become my baby again. But on major updates that triples the work. It kinda works now so I'll use it for some days just to calm down
Also the "turn of the Touchpad" extension is great.

[viking60]

Ok I have calmed down and now that I have everything working (again) I can start testing. Mostly I check out extensions to make Gnome-shell flexible again. And there are some very good ones:
Shellshape is such an extension. It lets you handle you windows mostly with a combination of the <SUPER> button. Or from a menu.

Now I can snap the active window to one side with <SUPER> ("Windows key") + -> or <-
Lots and lots of ways to organize the workflow there.
The Panel Docklet v13 is also great. As usual you install it as addon from https://extensions.gnome.org/
Much like Firefox addons.
This will give you a panel where you can drag and drop + a lot of tweak options available by right-clicking the panel.
Now this really brings some flexibility to the table:

This extention represents all opened windows as Icons. There are lots of possibilities for customization. It can be used as a docklet, panel or as anything else you create. It also supports multiple screens, workspaces, window-titles, favorites, dragging...

[dedanna1029]

You see these?




That's all the more I want to see of Gnome 3 ever again, and I've decided to keep Linux Mint because of it.

[viking60]

Linus Torvalds still does not like Gnome 3.

But with F17 comes gnome3. And I knew I'd have trouble, but also knew that most of the worst crap could be fixed with extensions, and I'd used 3.4 on my laptop enough to know it should be all somewhat usable.

But christ, it's a "one step forward, one step back" kind of thing. Change the font sizes? No can do - until you install the tweak tool, because the standard settings panel still doesn't do something as fundamental as that. Ok, I knew it used to be broken, I knew the work-around, but it's still broken?

So I go to extensions.gnome.org, and install the panel favorites extension that not only obviates the need for the stupid dual "first go to activities, then go to favorites", but also fixes it so that I can get multiple terminals without doing the whole "three times widdershins and left-click" dance. That gets things usable.

He knows what he is talking about - we must give him that....
Only after a lot of extension work is it usable - That is my experience too.

[dedanna1029]

Yup. GO LINUS!!!

[viking60]

I Just installed the Extension list from https://extensions.gnome.org This gives a very useful overview directly in the shell and above all an information about which extensions that need an update.

[dedanna1029]

Wonderful. So, it shows you which ones are going to break again in the next five minutes.

But you are not on the Bleeding edge any more I am, with Arch - and I sometimes cut myself
By the time Mint gets Gnome 3.4 many bugs will have been fixed.

Damn straight. Quite happy not to be on the bleeding edge of this - I'd rather test a toilet out.

[viking60]

Well you tell me when the Toilet is out of the Beta stage - That is an area where I demand absolute stability

I must admit that Gnome3 works better and better; nothing to shout about so it is coming along.