Liked Gnome2? Enter Budgie!
Posted: 03 Jan 2017, 14:36
I was a Gnome2 user for years and then...Gnome 3 came along...
I really tried to like it. I tweaked it (and some of those tweaks even made it to the Arch Wiki) and then came an update to break it so I could start from scratch.
There were alternatives like Mate and Cinnamon but they were built on Gnome 3 or based on unmaintained code etc so they were OK but not good enough for me.
The closest thing for me was XFCE4 with the Whisker menu that I use today.
Then I discovered a new approach where "Gnome 2" was written from scratch.
This effort is called Budgie desktop and is a part of the Solus project.
So I installed it on Manjaro with:
Picked it in my display manager and there it was....
(In Debian you have to add a repo and the rpm works out of the box on Centos - from the download page).
I always liked to have my panel on the bottom and I could change that in Gnome 2 so let's see ig Budgie has that flexibility.
....
And indeed it does it can be set on the control panel that you can activate with SUPER + n or from the menu.
I cannot drag stuff from the menu to the panel - like I could in Gnome 2 (I think - in Xfce4 it works too) but adding a wallpaper went fine,
Right clicking on the desktop does not work either.
The panel has some slick notification apps and can be extended with more apps.
This thing works pretty well and might satisfy old Gnome 2 fans - it does have the look and almost the feel of Gnome2.
If I will use it?
No - after giving up on Gnome 3 I discovered Xfce4 that has more flexibility. also more than Budgie; but this is a fresh project so it will only improve in the future.
I really tried to like it. I tweaked it (and some of those tweaks even made it to the Arch Wiki) and then came an update to break it so I could start from scratch.
There were alternatives like Mate and Cinnamon but they were built on Gnome 3 or based on unmaintained code etc so they were OK but not good enough for me.
The closest thing for me was XFCE4 with the Whisker menu that I use today.
Then I discovered a new approach where "Gnome 2" was written from scratch.
This effort is called Budgie desktop and is a part of the Solus project.So I installed it on Manjaro with:
Code: Select all
pacman -S budgie-desktopPicked it in my display manager and there it was....
(In Debian you have to add a repo and the rpm works out of the box on Centos - from the download page).
I always liked to have my panel on the bottom and I could change that in Gnome 2 so let's see ig Budgie has that flexibility.
....
And indeed it does it can be set on the control panel that you can activate with SUPER + n or from the menu.
I cannot drag stuff from the menu to the panel - like I could in Gnome 2 (I think - in Xfce4 it works too) but adding a wallpaper went fine,
Right clicking on the desktop does not work either.
The panel has some slick notification apps and can be extended with more apps.
This thing works pretty well and might satisfy old Gnome 2 fans - it does have the look and almost the feel of Gnome2.
If I will use it?
No - after giving up on Gnome 3 I discovered Xfce4 that has more flexibility. also more than Budgie; but this is a fresh project so it will only improve in the future.