[HOWTO] Fix common Gnome 3 install issues in 11.04

[Visceral Monkey]

I can't read your link, I'm not on facebook

Fedora will support Gnome officially in the next release due by th end of the month, while Ubuntu will not support it before october...

Fedora fully supports Gnome 3 in the current Fedora 15 beta. It's 100% working and feature complete. I switched to Fedora when I saw the Ubuntu Gnome 3 ppa falling further and further behind on updates and functionality. It's a little different, but Fedora does have some things going for it. The biggest complaint I had was the default fonts which SUCK. Installed the better font hinter and then the Ubuntu fonts and it's good to go. Gnome 3 is awesome, after trying both it and Unity there really is no comparison.

As a side note, SuSE also has full Gnome 3 support and software installation is even easier on SuSE than Fedora. Really hard to choose between the two.

If you're more interested in Gnome 3 than the Distro it's running on, Ubuntu really isn't where you need to be right now, sadly. There is a sizable number of people switching to Fedora right now from Ubuntu which is the main reason I choose Fedora over SuSE.

[cbowman57]

Visceral Monkey, I have considered that, and I try out different distros all the time but I've just become too accustomed to Ubuntu.

Might be old age creeping up on me.

However, I might just have to install Fedora to compare it to what I'm using now. I know that most of the info I've gleaned on using & tweaking gnome 3 has come from Fedora users. Thanks.

[Durden]

My biggest complaint with Fedora is that it's rpm based, and thus slow to install. However, once things are installed and functional you won't have to deal with it often. The fedora community is a bit smaller too, harder to get questions answered.

Currently the Fedora 15 beta will not install on my machine so I haven't had the chance to switch, I may do so though when I can.

[slooksterpsv]

My biggest complaint with Fedora is that it's rpm based, and thus slow to install. However, once things are installed and functional you won't have to deal with it often. The fedora community is a bit smaller too, harder to get questions answered.

Currently the Fedora 15 beta will not install on my machine so I haven't had the chance to switch, I may do so though when I can.

Like installing Apache, could not figure out how to do that, a few google searches turned out I had to install httpd, ok I know that's a related service but the overall product is apache, not httpd, so label it as so, haha.

I'll see if I can get more info on for getting Evolution 3 up and going.

EDIT:

Trying this PPA, if it works I'll include instructions on the first page:
https://launchpad.net/~danilo/+archive/evolution
So that'd be: ppa:daniolo/evolution

[slooksterpsv]

Evolution 3.0 added on how to install

[grappler]

Running Natty I followed the instructions to the letter and got

$ gksudo apt-get install gnome-shell
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package gnome-shell is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source


As to email clients - try Zimbra - have to compile from source but works really well.

http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/zd-downloads.html

[Blakefreak]

If ever there was a version of a main distrobution that would forever kill Linux as an alternative to windows... THIS WOULD BE IT.

I have adored Ubuntu for many years now... Until now.

The worst version of Ubuntu to date... Can't wait to see how they make Linux less palatible in 11.10.

[lvalen18]

If I use this method would it be like regularly installing the ppa for gnome3 etc? If that made sense

I used Ubuntu Tweak and added the gnome3 ppa and installed it... At the login screen it looks gnome3 ish with the black bar at top but the themes is the one that gnome falls back on when there isn't another installed or crashes... Then when i attempt to login it gives me a gnome shell error that it failed to load/start the same with Ubuntu Classic... Only way to get it to login is to revert back to gnome2 with ppa-purge..

Same thing happen running the beta... Is there a hardware requirement that im missing? or just software bug

---Forget it... My crackpot laptop doesn't support OpenGL 1.4+ only has Direct3D 8/Open GL 1.3 ... Time for a new laptop no wounder---

[neopium]

Evolution 3.0 added on how to install

Thanks, it works like a charm. And I got rid of the memory leak I had with Evolution 2.32.

The user interface of evolution 3 is also more classy. Thanks a lot.

[dawbomb]

Installing Gnome 3.0
Flickering, GAHHHHHHHH
If you have flickering, tearing, etc. of the windows and HAVE installed the graphics drivers, you need to remove them. Unfortunately with some chipsets you will experience tearing with the graphic drivers - ATI for example.

If I remove the drivers, then won't I have no hardware acceleration?

Great post, thanks!