# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Ubuntu Specialised Support > Ubuntu Development Version > [gnome] GNOME Classic & Flashback sessions

## kansasnoob

This thread is for the discussion of the GNOME Classic and GNOME Flashback sessions in development only. Please refer to my Precise notes for released versions. Support questions for released versions should be posted in the Desktop Environments section of the forums.

*My personal focus is on the Flashback w/Metacity session* but I welcome comments regarding the new GNOME Classic and Flashback w/Compiz sessions. No PPA is needed to test the new GNOME Classic session since Ubuntu GNOME Saucy but WebUpD8 still has the best description I've found.

By now most Ubuntu users know that beginning with Oneiric (11.10) Ubuntu switched to GNOME 3/GTK+ 3 as it's base with Unity as the default desktop environment using the Compiz window manager whereas GNOME themselves used the new GnomeShell DE with the Mutter window manager. As a "fallback mode" for hardware that wouldn't support the Compiz window manager Ubuntu offered the Unity-2D session using the Metacity window manager in both Ubuntu Oneiric and Precise but they dropped Unity-2D in Quantal.

GNOME themselves offered a "fallback" session that was presented as "GNOME Classic" which used the Compiz window manager or "GNOME Classic (no effects)" which used the Metacity window manager at login in Ubuntu Oneiric, Precise, and Quantal if the package 'gnome-panel' was installed and, while the GNOME devs never intended to provide long term support for their "fallback session", Edubuntu will continue to maintain the "flashback w/metacity" session in order to support their LTSP installs.

There has however been continued session renaming to facilitate GNOME's new Classic session that runs on top of the Mutter window manager, but *the safest and sanest way to install the "GNOME Flashback" sessions in Ubuntu or Ubuntu GNOME is still to* *install the package 'gnome-panel'* which has a very light footprint. Of course if you want to run the Compiz session in Ubuntu GNOME you'll additionally need to install the packages 'compiz' and presumably 'compizconfig-settings-manager'.

There have been a number of changes/improvements since Precise, most notably I had not recommended installing 'gnome-tweak-tool' because it had a very heavy footprint but that's improved greatly, and there have been many changes due to the deprecation of gconf.  So after installing 'gnome-panel', logging out, selecting the desired session, and logging back in *you may wish to install any of the following packages*:

'*indicator-applet*' and/or '*indicator-applet-session*' - as an alternative to 'indicator-applet-complete'

'*gnome-tweak-tool*' - because it's quite convenient for general theming tweaks such as having the old-style icons appear on the desktop, setting the key sequence for killing X, and changing themes.

'*shiki-colors-metacity-theme*' - because it provides a rather retro window management button theme

'*sensors-applet*' - to display system temps

Update notifications now show up in the "window list" applet so no tweak is needed in that regard.

With the ability to add 'gnome-tweak-tool' w/o a bunch of bloat that leaves very few "tweaks" that actually require the use of the CLI:

#1: Moving the window-management buttons back to the right:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout :minimize,maximize,close
```

#2: Disabling the overlay-scrollbars:



```
gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
```

#3: Possibly disabling the Firefox and/or Thunderbird global menu add-ons???????????? I'm unsure about this. I need to play around with fresh profiles and check that out. 

#4: Possibly disabling the Unity webapps:

http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...6&d=1386605099



```
gsettings set com.canonical.unity.webapps integration-allowed false
```

#5: Restoring the missing menu icons:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface menus-have-icons true
```



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface buttons-have-icons true
```

*Known Issues*:

The most troubling thing I've encountered is the inability to backup or restore configurations:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post12986410

***********************************************

Edit: I wanted to add a couple of valuable links:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-flashback-list/

----------


## grahammechanical

@kansasnoob

Can I make a few points?

1) Plenty of people are installing or upgrading to the latest Ubuntu release (13.10)
2) Plenty of people want what they call "Gnome Classic."
3) Gnome 3 DE and Gnome 3 Shell are under continued development.
4) Ubuntu is under continued development and is becoming less of a Gnome respin and more of a Linux distribution with its own code base as well as its own design.

I conclude that there is a need for Ubuntu+1 testers to pioneer the way into Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 to help bridge the gulf that could possibly form between Ubuntu and those distributions based upon Ubuntu whose developers have their own map into the future. I would say that you have identified a valid Ubuntu+1 testing/research project.

Regards.

----------


## kansasnoob

> @kansasnoob
> 
> Can I make a few points?
> 
> 1) Plenty of people are installing or upgrading to the latest Ubuntu release (13.10)
> 2) Plenty of people want what they call "Gnome Classic."
> 3) Gnome 3 DE and Gnome 3 Shell are under continued development.
> 4) Ubuntu is under continued development and is becoming less of a Gnome respin and more of a Linux distribution with its own code base as well as its own design.
> 
> ...


It's all a bit daunting actually  :Wink: 

When I originally pursued that "fallback" thing I fully expected that session to die when Precise reached it's EOL, but it now looks like Edubuntu is going to keep it alive so I need to get on the ball  :Smile: 

I've been spending a lot of time in Ubuntu GNOME using the standard gnome-shell DE with no PPA's simply because I like it, but I maintain 43 other PC's within a 50 mile radius and many of the users prefer a truly "classic" desktop paradigm. To further complicate things some of those PC's have multiple users and one user may prefer Unity while another may prefer "fallback" or even 'lubuntu-core'.

And I'm kicking myself for overlooking bugs like these during the Saucy dev cycle:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...s/+bug/1245209

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...r/+bug/1245915

Both still effect Trusty at this point, although I'm unsure about converting/blending Ubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME ATM since they use different default settings.

Regardless there is plenty of work to do  :Very Happy:

----------


## kansasnoob

Many thanks to whoever approved this. My step #1 is to clear up any confusion about the sessions  :Smile: 

So I'm thinking about posting a thread in Desktop Environments titled:

*Confusion surrounding GNOME classic/fallback/flashback sessions*

_Then I'll continue with text somewhat like this:_

I've noticed a few posts lately indicating some confusion surrounding the new GNOME session options available at login so I hope to clear that up a little bit if possible. A brief history lesson is needed so bear with me.

Beginning with Oneiric (11.10) Ubuntu switched to using GNOME 3 as it's base and Unity as the default desktop environment using the Compiz window manager whereas GNOME themselves used the new GnomeShell DE with the Mutter window manager. 

As a "fallback mode" for hardware that wouldn't support the Compiz window manager Ubuntu offered the Unity-2D session using the Metacity window manager whereas GNOME themselves offered a "fallback" session that was presented as "GNOME Classic" or "GNOME Classic (no effects)" at login in Ubuntu if the package 'gnome-panel' was installed.

The GNOME devs had never intended to provide long term support for their "fallback session" so during Ubuntu's Raring dev cycle they sounded the death knoll for the "fallback" session, but then Edubuntu dev announced their intent to keep it alive in order to support their LTSP installs:

http://jonathancarter.org/2013/02/05...anel-is-alive/

In the meanwhile Red Hat put some pressure on the GNOME devs to create a new Classic session that runs on top of the Mutter window manager. It should in no way be confused with the earlier "fallback" that Ubuntu called "classic" though. You can get a glimpse of the new "Classic" here:

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/02/a-qui...e-classic.html

In order to make the new Gnome Classic mode distinguishable from the the older "classic" mode during the Raring dev cycle the name "classic" was replaced with "fallback", then in Saucy the name was changed from "fallback" to "flashback".

Are you confused yet? I'm almost dizzy just trying to explain it.

----------


## grahammechanical

I have noticed one difference between Ubuntu Gnome and Ubuntu and the other flavours. And that difference maybe affecting things. May be not. GDM and not lightdm.

When I was testing running with Xmir on Ubuntu and all the flavours Ubuntu Gnome was the only one that did not use Lighdm and Ubuntu Gnome was the only one I could not run with Xmir. 

I also found out that Lightdm does more than manage the login screen. It manages the display from quite early one. I guess that GDM does the same. Anyway by switching to Lightdm I was able to get Ubuntu Gnome running on Xmir. I lost the fine Ubuntu Gnome login screen in the process and I gave up trying to get it back. It did my head in searching for stuff.

So, if flashback (no effects) works in Edubuntu and Ubuntu but not in Ubuntu Gnome there has to be a reason.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183871

Regards.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I have noticed one difference between Ubuntu Gnome and Ubuntu and the other flavours. And that difference maybe affecting things. May be not. GDM and not lightdm.
> 
> When I was testing running with Xmir on Ubuntu and all the flavours Ubuntu Gnome was the only one that did not use Lighdm and Ubuntu Gnome was the only one I could not run with Xmir. 
> 
> I also found out that Lightdm does more than manage the login screen. It manages the display from quite early one. I guess that GDM does the same. Anyway by switching to Lightdm I was able to get Ubuntu Gnome running on Xmir. I lost the fine Ubuntu Gnome login screen in the process and I gave up trying to get it back. It did my head in searching for stuff.
> 
> So, if flashback (no effects) works in Edubuntu and Ubuntu but not in Ubuntu Gnome there has to be a reason.
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183871
> ...


Thanks, that gives me cool idea to try  :Very Happy: 

I mean regarding this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...s/+bug/1245209

It does look like the X-session is not starting properly so I should try lightdm with all available greeters. Now I need to pull up my notes on lightdm  :Smile:

----------


## ventrical

> I have noticed one difference between Ubuntu Gnome and Ubuntu and the other flavours. And that difference maybe affecting things. May be not. GDM and not lightdm.
> 
> When I was testing running with Xmir on Ubuntu and all the flavours Ubuntu Gnome was the only one that did not use Lighdm and Ubuntu Gnome was the only one I could not run with Xmir. 
> 
> I also found out that Lightdm does more than manage the login screen. It manages the display from quite early one. I guess that GDM does the same. Anyway by switching to Lightdm I was able to get Ubuntu Gnome running on Xmir. I lost the fine Ubuntu Gnome login screen in the process and I gave up trying to get it back. It did my head in searching for stuff.
> 
> So, if flashback (no effects) works in Edubuntu and Ubuntu but not in Ubuntu Gnome there has to be a reason.
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183871
> ...


@graham,

 Could you clarify please. Are you talking about the Edubuntu Desktop (downloadable from the repos) or the Edubuntu.iso? because these two are horses of a different colour, the prior bringing in problems and the latter being an extremeley large .iso.

regards..

----------


## ventrical

> @kansasnoob
> 
> Can I make a few points?
> 
> 1) Plenty of people are installing or upgrading to the latest Ubuntu release (13.10)
> 2) Plenty of people want what they call "Gnome Classic."
> 3) Gnome 3 DE and Gnome 3 Shell are under continued development.
> 4) Ubuntu is under continued development and is becoming less of a Gnome respin and more of a Linux distribution with its own code base as well as its own design.
> 
> ...


  I have gnome-flashback working flawlessly in Trusty. Of course it is a higher end machine but I may try it on lower end form factors. There is a need for gnome (no -effects) and thats good news about Edubuntu because some teachers who are transitioning from Windows to Ubuntu (Ed) need the (no-effects) while teaching young children, otherwise it it too complex.

regards..

----------


## kansasnoob

How factually correct do you think this is:




> I've noticed a few posts lately indicating some confusion surrounding the new GNOME session options available at login so I hope to clear that up a little bit if possible. A brief history lesson is needed so bear with me.
> 
> Beginning with Oneiric (11.10) Ubuntu switched to using GNOME 3 as it's base and Unity as the default desktop environment using the Compiz window manager whereas GNOME themselves used the new GnomeShell DE with the Mutter window manager. 
> 
> As a "fallback mode" for hardware that wouldn't support the Compiz window manager Ubuntu offered the Unity-2D session using the Metacity window manager whereas GNOME themselves offered a "fallback" session that was presented as "GNOME Classic" or "GNOME Classic (no effects)" at login in Ubuntu if the package 'gnome-panel' was installed.
> 
> The GNOME devs had never intended to provide long term support for their "fallback session" so during Ubuntu's Raring dev cycle they sounded the death knoll for the "fallback" session, but then Edubuntu dev announced their intent to keep it alive in order to support their LTSP installs:
> 
> http://jonathancarter.org/2013/02/05...anel-is-alive/
> ...


I'm particularly concerned with saying, "The new GNOME Classic session runs on top of the Mutter window manager and could be best described as a 'gnome-shell' session using a popular collection of GNOME Shell Extensions". Do you think that's accurate and truthful?

----------


## kansasnoob

> I have gnome-flashback working flawlessly in Trusty. Of course it is a higher end machine but I may try it on lower end form factors. There is a need for gnome (no -effects) and thats good news about Edubuntu because some teachers who are transitioning from Windows to Ubuntu (Ed) need the (no-effects) while teaching young children, otherwise it it too complex.
> 
> regards..


Ditto here. I started with the Oct 21 iso image and other than a slight hiccup with the "extras" repo things are now pretty much OK  :Very Happy: 

But the reason I asked permission to do this thread is that I also need to follow up on some Saucy bugs with "classic/fallback/flashback" because I didn't even try it until Saucy was released  :Sad: 

The beauty of having an Ubuntu +1 thread is that we can test continuously from one cycle to another so this thread should hopefully allow us to record the changes as they occur, I just got lazy about testing the Metacity session so now I have to catch up before the release of Trusty  :Smile:

----------


## zika

Continuity is a benefit, by no means a hindrance...
Eagerly (a)waiting to see development of promised thread...

----------


## philinux

> But the reason I asked permission to do this thread is that I also need to follow up on some Saucy bugs with "classic/fallback/flashback" because I didn't even try it until Saucy was released


Just for others. The new package is gnome-session-flashback https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeFlashback
gnome-session-fallback just installs the above package.

Any Saucy related bugs and fixes needs to go in here > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2182038

----------


## Elfy

> I think it belongs here because we clearly say that this is not a standard support forum.


The notice in this forum is to try and forestall some of those coming here after searching and finding threads started during the dev period.

For example - we've got 6 months worth of Raring followed by 6 of Saucy - shortly we'll have 6 months of Trusty - we don't want people dragging Saucy threads up once we are into Trusty.

This forum is not really the right place for Tutorials of any sort - for one thing just as we made a change and kept the forum open - we could in future decide it doesn't work and go back to previous procedure and close forum at dev end. 

If you want to actually run with a Tutorial for it - and keep it up to date then I'm happy enough to move the thread to the correct place and clean it up a bit.

----------


## QDR06VV9

> Ditto here. I started with the Oct 21 iso image and other than a slight hiccup with the "extras" repo things are now pretty much OK 
> 
> But the reason I asked permission to do this thread is that I also need to follow up on some Saucy bugs with "classic/fallback/flashback" because I didn't even try it until Saucy was released 
> 
> The beauty of having an Ubuntu +1 thread is that we can test continuously from one cycle to another so this thread should hopefully allow us to record the changes as they occur, I just got lazy about testing the Metacity session so now I have to catch up before the release of Trusty


Much needed! and many thanks kansasnoob.

----------


## kansasnoob

> The notice in this forum is to try and forestall some of those coming here after searching and finding threads started during the dev period.
> 
> For example - we've got 6 months worth of Raring followed by 6 of Saucy - shortly we'll have 6 months of Trusty - we don't want people dragging Saucy threads up once we are into Trusty.
> 
> This forum is not really the right place for Tutorials of any sort - for one thing just as we made a change and kept the forum open - we could in future decide it doesn't work and go back to previous procedure and close forum at dev end. 
> 
> If you want to actually run with a Tutorial for it - and keep it up to date then I'm happy enough to move the thread to the correct place and clean it up a bit.


NO! I have nothing worthy of a How To ATM  :Sad: 

Repeating myself;  I expected the "fallback" session to die when Precise reached EOL in April 2017, but many things have changed  :Smile: 

If I can't discuss the changes here please move this thread to "recurring" so almost no one will see it and users can remain uninformed.

Another huge reason for having this thread where it's at is that I need feedback from other active testers, but I have no choice other than to live with the forum mods decisions.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Just for others. The new package is gnome-session-flashback https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeFlashback
> gnome-session-fallback just installs the above package.
> 
> Any Saucy related bugs and fixes needs to go in here > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2182038


I understand the difference between Saucy and Trusty .............. at this point Trusty is little more than Saucy with some cherry-picked packages  :Wink: 

There are no official daily's for the flavors so a user can only upgrade from Saucy to Trusty, but this thread has to do with the evolution of the various gnome sessions available in the repos!

Like it or not 'gnome-panel' is in the repos and Edubuntu uses it:

edubuntu_fallback.jpg

But the changes are not well documented and unless the next UDS results in killing this session we need to work on improving both the session itself and the documentation.

It's also impossible to NOT mention any previous releases when working on documentation or bugs.

It's also worth mentioning that 12.04.4 is coming soon - probably with a Saucy hardware-enablement-stack  :Smile:

----------


## ventrical

> NO! I have nothing worthy of a How To ATM 
> 
> Repeating myself;  I expected the "fallback" session to die when Precise reached EOL in April 2017, but many things have changed 
> 
> If I can't discuss the changes here please move this thread to "recurring" so almost no one will see it and users can remain uninformed.
> 
> Another huge reason for having this thread where it's at is that I need feedback from other active testers, but I have no choice other than to live with the forum mods decisions.



 I am just suggesting in kind, that , perhaps you could ask the mods to drop the  {evolution of gnome classic} and try for somthing like 'Edubuntu/gnome classic/fallback/flashback session Trusty'. This way I think the moderating powers that be may find it more palatable for U+1, it would be a real plug for Edubuntu (which is a diamond in the rough) and you could interject your hypothesis and work with bug fixes without fragmenting the echo.

  You said  "I need feedback".  Please do not take offence at my words. I am hoping to be a helper here.  :Smile: 

regards..

----------


## ventrical

@kansasnoob,

 I am currently downloading 13.10 Edubuntu.iso, then will attempt to upgrade that to trusty tahr and run it on gnome flashback .. etc.  Just in case if your thread gets moved I'll start another thread on Edubuntu/Gnome/Flashback (which should get a little more recognition) but I do not want to supersede the moderators either.

regards..

----------


## ventrical

I see where they are going now .. absolutely awesome.

I am in live session now about to install.

----------


## ventrical

Install went great. Now in gnome flashback (no effects). Now to upgrade it to trusty. if possible ??

----------


## kansasnoob

> I am just suggesting in kind, that , perhaps you could ask the mods to drop the  {evolution of gnome classic} and try for somthing like 'Edubuntu/gnome classic/fallback/flashback session Trusty'. This way I think the moderating powers that be may find it more palatable for U+1, it would be a real plug for Edubuntu (which is a diamond in the rough) and you could interject your hypothesis and work with bug fixes without fragmenting the echo.
> 
>   You said  "I need feedback".  Please do not take offence at my words. I am hoping to be a helper here. 
> 
> regards..


No offense taken ... ever  :Smile: 

The reason I want to work on this here is because we true testers are critics by nature, and only well reasoned criticism results in a good outcome  :Smile: 

I don't remember the exact words I used to open this thread, but it was something like "May I pursue the 'evolution of gnome classic/fallback/flashback sessions' here?

Then one of the mods shortened the title so I took that as acceptance of pursuing my goals  :Smile: 

Will we sometimes get off-topic? Absolutely!

Once again look at:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1873765

Had we been Ubuntu +1 then that thread could still be alive, but time rolls on so we have to adapt and as testers it's beneficial to the entire Ubuntu community to share what we know in the most appropriate manner possible.

Appropriate is the key word there. If I'm providing inappropriate or misleading info that's NO GOOD to anyone, and certainly harmful to the project. So I need to share what I plan on doing or saying with a trusted community ............... Ubuntu +1 is that trusted community.

Does that make sense?

----------


## ventrical

> No offense taken ... ever 
> 
> The reason I want to work on this here is because we true testers are critics by nature, and only well reasoned criticism results in a good outcome 
> 
> I don't remember the exact words I used to open this thread, but it was something like "May I pursue the 'evolution of gnome classic/fallback/flashback sessions' here?
> 
> Then one of the mods shortened the title so I took that as acceptance of pursuing my goals 
> 
> Will we sometimes get off-topic? Absolutely!
> ...


Absolutely and it is also of great importance in the next 6 months to have Gnome_flashback working properly and effectively because there are several million people who just do not have the economic  means to throw out their old computers at this time and buy new ones. It is imperative that gnome-flashback be effective across a wide spread of legacy form-factors.  Iv'e been able to use most recent kernels on Lucid very effectively . I don't see why it (gnome-flashback) cannot be given the same amount of attention as Unity.

  I will re-read some of your reports and try to get a better handle on it because you spent so much personal time on the project previously.

  I am an experimenter that likes to try exploratory testing and some people get frustrated with my method and understandably so, so I will try to keep on topic as best as I can while still having fun !  :Smile: 

Regards..

edit..

Oy ..I basically said the same thing back then in the old thread   :Smile: 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...9#post11418769

----------


## grahammechanical

> Absolutely and it is also of great importance in the next 6 months to have Gnome_flashback working properly and effectively because there are several million people who just do not have the economic means to throw out their old computers at this time and buy new ones.


I will agree with that but we should go further, right into 14.10 because that is where the big, big, changes to Ubuntu are going to come. Perhaps we should say that this is Testing Flashback on Ubuntu+1. Does that cover all the bases, as they say in baseball?

I would also limit this Flashback testing to: a) Ubuntu, because it is the base code for the flavours. b) Ubuntu Gnome, because Gnome shell is the natural home of Gnome Flashback. c) Edubuntu, because? Well, Ventrical said: _it would be a real plug for Edubuntu (which is a diamond in the rough)
_

----------


## philinux

> I will agree with that but we should go further, right into 14.10 because that is where the big, big, changes to Ubuntu are going to come. Perhaps we should say that this is Testing Flashback on Ubuntu+1. Does that cover all the bases, as they say in baseball?
> 
> I would also limit this Flashback testing to: a) Ubuntu, because it is the base code for the flavours. b) Ubuntu Gnome, because Gnome shell is the natural home of Gnome Flashback. c) Edubuntu, because? Well, Ventrical said: _it would be a real plug for Edubuntu (which is a diamond in the rough)
> _


kansasnoob can change the title of the thread by editing the original post then choosing advanced.

----------


## kansasnoob

This is not even half-baked but I've been keeping some notes while testing Trusty and Saucy. Remember it's only a work in progress and some of it could be incomplete or even inaccurate  :Smile: 

*GETTING STARTED*

*This applies to all supported versions
*


```
sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
```

Note: There is a reason to simply install 'gnome-panel' rather than a specific "gnome" or "session" package, specifically the session and package names have changed frequently to accomodate the addition of GNOME's new classic session. This becomes obvious when you log into the new session.

*LOG INTO THE APPROPRIATE NEW (no effects) SESSION*

*In versions 12.04, 12.04.1, 12.04.2, 12.04.3 and 12.10:*

Log out, click on the Ubuntu emblem next to your username, select the "classic (no effects)" session, and then enter your password.

*In version 13.04:*

Log out, click on the GNOME emblem next to your username, select the "fallback (no effects)" session, and then enter your password.

*In versions 13.10 and 14.04:*

Log out, click on the GNOME emblem next to your username, select the "flashback (no effects)" session, and then enter your password.

*CHANGE TERMINAL THEME*

*Applies to all supported versions*

If you find the default terminal theme (white text on a purple background) as atrocious as I do just open the Terminal, click on Edit > Profile Preferences. Then click on the Colors tab and uncheck "Use colors from system theme", then select "Black on white" from the Built-in schemes.

*ADDING ADDITIONAL "indicator-applet" OPTIONS
*
*This applies to all supported versions
*
You may want to install these so they'll be available for placement in the panel (only 'indicator-applet-complete' is installed by default):



```
sudo apt-get install indicator-applet indicator-applet-session
```

You can compare the difference between the three indicator applets here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...7#post11900657

*RESTORE THE "Run Command Prompt" FUNCTION*

*This applies to version 12.04 only
*
I wanted to get the "Run Command Prompt" back by pressing Alt+F2 just as it was in Gnome 2. This can be quite useful if you should ever do something silly like remove both panels and need to launch the terminal or another application without being able to access the menu(s).

It really couldn't be much simpler, just go to System Tools > System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > System and highlight the line that says "Show the run command prompt". Then just follow the instructions at the bottom of that window.

This can also be done using the CLI:



```
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/metacity/global_keybindings/panel_run_dialog" --type string "<Alt>F2"
```

To revert that to the default setting run:



```
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/metacity/global_keybindings/panel_run_dialog" --type string "disabled"
```

*I think this was the default setting in 12.10 and 13.04, but it changed again in 13.10 and 14.04 due to the further depraction of gconf.
*
*DISABLE THE SCREEN LOCK
*
*This applies to all supported versions
*
I find the screen lock very annoying, I live alone and don't like having to enter my password everytime the screensaver acivates. So you can just go to System Tools > System Settings > Brightness & Lock and select Lock = Off.

This can also be done using the CLI:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.screensaver lock-enabled false
```

To revert that to the default setting run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.screensaver lock-enabled true
```

*DISPLAY UPDATE-NOTIFICATIONS IN PANEL*

*This applies to 12.04, 12.10, and 13.04 only:*

In Unity the update-notifications now show up in the Launcher but without the Launcher we now get no persistent update notifications. Still no worries, I got it to show up in either 'indicator-applet' or 'indicator-applet-complete' in gnome-panel by running the command:



```
gsettings set com.ubuntu.update-notifier auto-launch false
```

You can revert that by running:



```
gsettings set com.ubuntu.update-notifier auto-launch true
```

*In 13.10 and 14.04 the update notifications now appear in the "window list" when using flashback so no change is required.
*
*MOVE WINDOW-MANAGEMENT BUTTONS TO THE RIGHT*

*In version 12.04 only:*



```
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/metacity/general/button_layout" --type string ":minimize,maximize,close"
```

Note: to restore the defaults run:



```
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/metacity/general/button_layout" --type string "close,minimize,maximize:"
```

In versions 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, and 14.04:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout :minimize,maximize,close
```

To move them back to the left:
﻿


```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout close,minimize,maximize:
```

*IMPROVE WINDOW-MANAGEMENT BUTTON APPEARANCE*

*In version 12.04 only:*



```
sudo apt-get install shiki-colors-metacity-theme
```



```
gconftool-2 -s --type string /apps/metacity/general/theme Shiki-Colors-Metacity
```

To restore the default theme just run:



```
gconftool-2 -s --type string /apps/metacity/general/theme Ambiance
```

*In versions 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, and 14.04:*



```
sudo apt-get install shiki-colors-metacity-theme
```



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme Shiki-Colors-Metacity
```

Or to restore the Ambiance theme:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme Ambiance
```

*DISABLE OR REMOVE THE OVERLAY-SCROLLBARS*

*This applies to all supported versions, and there are two options:*

*Option #1*, safest:

I found the overlay-scrollbars to be inconsistent and annoying in the classic DE and I'd previously recommended just removing them altogether but I believe I've found a much better way to disable them on a per-user basis. Simply run one command:



```
echo export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 >> ~/.xprofile
```

Then just log out and log back in for that change to take effect.

If you should later wish to revert that just run:



```
sed -i 's/^export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR.*/#&/' ~/.xprofile
```

*Option #2*, more permanent, possibly very permanent, so proceed with caution:

*Should you wish to remove them permanently you can run the following command, but be warned - just reinstalling those packages does NOT restore them correctly - so you may never be able to get them back if you change your mind*:



```
sudo apt-get purge liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0 overlay-scrollbar
```

*RESTORE THE MISSING MENU AND BUTTON ICONS*

*This applies to all supported versions*

I also dislike the missing menu and button icons so I run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface menus-have-icons true
```



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface buttons-have-icons true
```

*HAVE FILE MANAGER HANDLE THE DESKTOP*

*This applies to all supported versions*

This one is the hardest for me to explain. By default the GNOME 3 desktop is set to NOT display any icons, but it's possible for the desktop to display any combination of these icons/"actors":

Computer...........(computer-icon-visible)
Home...............(home-icon-visible)
Network............(network-icon-visible)
Trash..............(trash-icon-visible)
Mounted volumes....(volumes-visible)

But to do so you must first set the "stage" by running:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true
```

But that only sets the "stage" for the "actors", now you must decide which actors you want on the stage. You're now the director.

After running that command either reboot or log out and log back in. When you get back to a blank DE background decide what you want displayed. (Hint, the "true" or "false" at the end of these commands is the key):

To show the Computer icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop computer-icon-visible true
```

To hide the Computer icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop computer-icon-visible false
```

To show the Home icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop home-icon-visible true
```

To hide the Home icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop home-icon-visible false
```

To show the Network icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop network-icon-visible true
```

To hide the Network icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop network-icon-visible false
```

To show the Trash icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop trash-icon-visible true
```

To hide the Trash icon run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop trash-icon-visible false
```

To show Mounted Volumes run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop volumes-visible true
```

To hide Mounted Volumes run:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop volumes-visible false
```

*DISABLE THE FIREFOX AND THUNDERBIRD GLOBAL MENU ADD-ONS:*

*This applies to all supported versions*

You may or may not find that you need to disable the Firefox and/or Thunderbird global menu add-ons. To do so in Firefox just go to Tools > Add-ons > Global Menu Bar integration and select Disable. You'll then be prompted to restart Firefox. I don't use Thunderbird so I can't be sure of the specific procedure with it, but I'd think it's similar.

----------


## kansasnoob

> kansasnoob can change the title of the thread by editing the original post then choosing advanced.


Thanks for the hint  :Very Happy:

----------


## ventrical

> I will agree with that but we should go further, right into 14.10 because that is where the big, big, changes to Ubuntu are going to come. Perhaps we should say that this is Testing Flashback on Ubuntu+1. Does that cover all the bases, as they say in baseball?
> 
> I would also limit this Flashback testing to: a) Ubuntu, because it is the base code for the flavours. b) Ubuntu Gnome, because Gnome shell is the natural home of Gnome Flashback. c) Edubuntu, because? Well, Ventrical said: _it would be a real plug for Edubuntu (which is a diamond in the rough)
> _


   Well said....and you know how hard polishing diamonds can be.   :Smile:

----------


## ventrical

> T...



 No offence but this is where I get lost in following the theme of the thread.  First I have to admit that I had experiemented with gnome-shell .etc.. and I know how many are endeared to it.. but I am a Unity man and gnome-flashback type geek.   :Smile:  

  I am going to just keep reading and working on Edubuntu Trusty Gnome Flashback and if I have anything significant to add, I will.

 Also ... I need to ask a question.  Would you like us to test some of the above ideas you are documenting for this project.?

thanks in advance

edit..

Ok .. I had a second read and understand your meanings now. Most of all those things are in Edubuntu Trusty by default (gnome-no-effects).

Also .. just to make a side note.. I run another machine for Overclocking purpose that uses Gnome-Flashback (with effects) Trusty Tahr, and that was installed on an original Ubuntu (Unity) install and it works seamlessly.

----------


## mörgæs

> Then one of the mods shortened the title so I took that as acceptance of pursuing my goals


I was the one pruning as I often do in order to get a short and precise title. Especially when a growing part of the audience is using mobile devices it's important to be brief. 

There's no hidden interpretation in that.

----------


## ventrical

With a lot of fanagaling I was able to get gnome (noeffects) to work in 32bit but Ubuntu Trusty on THIS  graphics card:



```

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV34GL [Quadro FX 500/600 PCI] (rev a1)
ventrical@ventrical-P25G:~$
```

----------


## Elfy

Closed for staff review.

----------


## Elfy

Re-opened.

While this forum is a 'rolling' one at present - it is for the dev version and we want to keep it as that. 

We would rather that this thread deals with the development version only, if it needs to be about more than one then it will need to be moved elsewhere - at which point no discussion of trusty in it until next year.

I've not edited this post to remove references to released versions, preferring to keep it as it is. But please make sure to keep ontopic for the forum going forward.

Thanks for understanding.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Re-opened.
> 
> While this forum is a 'rolling' one at present - it is for the dev version and we want to keep it as that. 
> 
> We would rather that this thread deals with the development version only, if it needs to be about more than one then it will need to be moved elsewhere - at which point no discussion of trusty in it until next year.
> 
> I've not edited this post to remove references to released versions, preferring to keep it as it is. But please make sure to keep ontopic for the forum going forward.
> 
> Thanks for understanding.


Many thanks  :Smile: 

Do the mods agree with my renaming?

----------


## Elfy

That's fine  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

BTW I'll prune my OP to reflect the change once I know the mods approve of my title change  :Smile:

----------


## grahammechanical

@ventrical

I am sorry that I failed to reply to a question you asked of me. I have only just seen it. This comment was based upon the results that you and kansasnoob had declared. I was just thinking aloud.




> So, if flashback (no effects) works in Edubuntu and Ubuntu but not in Ubuntu Gnome there has to be a reason.


I have now done a little testing of my own. I have just installed Ubuntu Gnome (Trusty) from yesterday's QA ISO image. Things seemed to go well. I get an option for Gnome Classic but no option for Gnome classic (no effects). Which is not consistent with what I found on Edubuntu (saucy converted to trusty - no trusty iso image as of yesterday). I have not yet installed gnome-panel on Ubuntu (trusty).

Now here is a weird thing. The Gnome classic session looks classic enough as I remember it all those years ago.  :Smile:  But when I move the mouse into the top left corner of the screen the Gnome 3 shell appears as if I had done that action in a Gnome 3 shell session. I suppose that is because Gnome Classic on Gnome 3 shell is a set of Gnome 3 extensions.

So, I am guessing that there are code differences between Ubuntu Gnome - Gnome Classic and Edubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome Flashback. I would also guess that as far as the Gnome Devs are concerned Gnome Classic (no effects) is dead and gone.

I do not use alternative desktops. They bring in more than the User Interface. I am of the opinion that they have reached a point to be too top heavy to be practical.

Regards.

----------


## kansasnoob

> @ventrical
> 
> I am sorry that I failed to reply to a question you asked of me. I have only just seen it. This comment was based upon the results that you and kansasnoob had declared. I was just thinking aloud.
> 
> 
> 
> I have now done a little testing of my own. I have just installed Ubuntu Gnome (Trusty) from yesterday's QA ISO image. Things seemed to go well. I get an option for Gnome Classic but no option for Gnome classic (no effects). Which is not consistent with what I found on Edubuntu (saucy converted to trusty - no trusty iso image as of yesterday). I have not yet installed gnome-panel on Ubuntu (trusty).
> 
> Now here is a weird thing. The Gnome classic session looks classic enough as I remember it all those years ago.  But when I move the mouse into the top left corner of the screen the Gnome 3 shell appears as if I had done that action in a Gnome 3 shell session. I suppose that is because Gnome Classic on Gnome 3 shell is a set of Gnome 3 extensions.
> ...


That is exactly what I've been trying to address  :Very Happy: 

Classic is now 'gnome-shell' with some cherry picked extensions to make it look like gnome 2, but it's truly gnome-shell running on top of Mutter.

The new "classic" is in no way related to the fallback/flashback sessions  :Wink:

----------


## philinux

> BTW I'll prune my OP to reflect the change once I know the mods approve of my title change


Title fine as elfy said. Dont forget to post any saucy bugs with workarounds in here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2182038

Cheers. Now back on topic.  :Wink:

----------


## cariboo

> BTW I'll prune my OP to reflect the change once I know the mods approve of my title change


Several of the staff discussed the thread, and we all give our approval.

----------


## ventrical

> @ventrical
> 
> I am sorry that I failed to reply to a question you asked of me. I have only just seen it. This comment was based upon the results that you and kansasnoob had declared. I was just thinking aloud.
> 
> So, I am guessing that there are code differences between Ubuntu Gnome - Gnome Classic and Edubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome Flashback. I would also guess that as far as the Gnome Devs are concerned Gnome Classic (no effects) is dead and gone.
> 
> I do not use alternative desktops. They bring in more than the User Interface. I am of the opinion that they have reached a point to be too top heavy to be practical.
> 
> Regards.


@graham

OK.. Thank you grahammechanical for replying to my question. The reason I asked is so that I can better synchronize my responses while doing a duplicate proceedure. Also .. I just wanted to note that  the alternative desktops (xubuntu-desktop,kubuntu-desktop, lubuntu-desktop..etc..) are not officially supported by Canonical (although they may have modules and components that are).

Regards..

----------


## ventrical

> BTW I'll prune my OP to reflect the change once I know the mods approve of my title change


Thats a lot better title kansasnoob.!  :Smile:

----------


## grahammechanical

Ok, I am moving on. I have just installed gnome-session-flashback through the software centre. I now get the option of Gnome Flash back and Gnome Flashback (no effects) as well as Ubuntu. And the Launcher does not make an appearance. So, apart from the Unity type notifications Gnome Flashback seems to be insulated from Unity. 

I noted that software centre describes gnome-session-flashback as built on Gnome Panel 3. And also that Gnome Shell is a separate package as is Gnome Shell Classic. I see that the actual package for Gnome Shell Classic is gnome-shell-extensions.

So, Gnome Shell Classic is for Gnome Shell and is different from Gnome Flashback (gnome-session-flashback) which is for Unity based versions of Ubuntu. Which Edubuntu now is. This is my thinking.

Regards.

----------


## ventrical

Most recent update for Edubuntu wiped gnome-flashback (no effects) . Will not come up.

----------


## kansasnoob

I'm running Ubuntu Trusty here and all is well so far  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

Something cool I discovered is that since Precise 'gnome-tweak-tool' now has much lighter demands:




> Commandline: /usr/sbin/synaptic
> Install: gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0:i386 (3.8.0-1ubuntu1, automatic), gnome-tweak-tool:i386 (3.8.1-0ubuntu1), gnome-shell-common:i386 (3.8.4-0ubuntu5, automatic), gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0:i386 (3.8.4-0ubuntu1, automatic)


So when I redo that guide I think I'll include it. It looks like that actually changed sometime in Quantal and I didn't even notice  :Sad:

----------


## ventrical

> I'm running Ubuntu Trusty here and all is well so far



Ok.. after a 'hardboot'  it came up.

false alarm..

edit .. with exception that no indicators came up on right side top panel.

.. i know there is another thread.. :Smile: 

regards..

----------


## ventrical

Just to update here:

 I am using Edubuntu and testing gnome-flashback (both). Gnome-flashback (both) work fine on Ubuntu. The current problem is with Edubuntu. I removed unity-system-compositor, but, to no avail. Apport will not send internal error report flagging unity-system-compositor.

  I will use the method of creating a new user and see what happens there.

edit:

Nope .. no go, no indicators on top right panel.(Edubuntu 64bit).

----------


## grahammechanical

Edubuntu fine here, even after to day's update (13th) which brought in a kernel update.

I ran a little memory usage experiment using System Monitor right after loading. Ubuntu = 389 MiB; Flaskback = 335 MiB and Flashback (no effects) = 316 MiB. Total RAM = 1GB.

I have also noticed that when using the flashback session the screen lock log back in screen has a top panel like the one in Gnome 3 Shell. And another thing, Flashback has a Background utility similar to the one in gnome 3 shell but Ubuntu presents the normal Ubuntu Appearance utility. Also this Edubuntu has Ubuntu Web Browser (Browser) as well as Firefox.

Edubuntu is quite a remix! Now, a combination of Edubuntu and Ubuntu Studio would be something. Imagine how long it would take to install that remix.

----------


## ventrical

For some reason  I decided to use synaptic to download gnome-core, which , of course, is gnome-shell... so.. I'll be looking at fixing this one .. umm.. soon  :Smile:  lol

----------


## kansasnoob

I hope the mods are OK with the latest title change.

It's clear to me now that step #1 in this endeavor needs to be defining the difference between what is now "classic" and the "flashback" sessions.

My personal focus will remain on "Flashback (no effects)" but I welcome comments about the other sessions  :Smile:

----------


## cariboo

> I hope the mods are OK with the latest title change.
> 
> It's clear to me now that step #1 in this endeavor needs to be defining the difference between what is now "classic" and the "flashback" sessions.
> 
> My personal focus will remain on "Flashback (no effects)" but I welcome comments about the other sessions


No problems here with the title change.  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

Something I had not noticed until Trusty is how much they've improved the dependencies for 'gnome-tweak-tool'.

In Precise it required installing all of this:




> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   gir1.2-accountsservice-1.0 gir1.2-caribou-1.0 gir1.2-clutter-1.0
>   gir1.2-cogl-1.0 gir1.2-coglpango-1.0 gir1.2-folks-0.6
>   gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 gir1.2-gee-1.0 gir1.2-gjsdbus-1.0 gir1.2-gkbd-3.0
>   gir1.2-json-1.0 gir1.2-mutter-3.0 gir1.2-networkmanager-1.0
>   gir1.2-telepathyglib-0.12 gir1.2-telepathylogger-0.2 gir1.2-upowerglib-1.0
>   gir1.2-xkl-1.0 gjs gnome-contacts gnome-icon-theme-full gnome-shell
>   gnome-shell-common gnome-themes-standard gnome-tweak-tool libcaribou-common
>   libcaribou0 libclutter-1.0-0 libclutter-1.0-common libcogl-common
> ...


In Trusty 'gnome-tweak-tool' only installs this:




> Installed the following packages:
> gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 (3.8.0-1ubuntu1)
> gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 (3.8.4-0ubuntu1)
> gnome-shell-common (3.8.4-0ubuntu5)
> gnome-tweak-tool (3.8.1-0ubuntu1)


So I definitely need to add 'gnome-tweak-tool' as an optional package to install  :Smile: 

That makes many of the general theming tweaks much easier for those who prefer using the GUI  :Very Happy: 

Just installing 'gnome-panel' is the easiest and lightest way to get started:




> Installed the following packages:
> alacarte (3.10.0-1)
> gir1.2-gconf-2.0 (3.2.6-0ubuntu1)
> gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
> gnome-applets (3.5.92-0ubuntu3)
> gnome-applets-data (3.5.92-0ubuntu3)
> gnome-media (3.4.0-1ubuntu1)
> gnome-panel (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
> gnome-panel-data (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
> ...


Then optionally 'indicator-applet', 'indicator-applet-session', 'gnome-tweak-tool', or 'shiki-colors-metacity-theme' as desired.

Update notifications now show up in the "window list" applet so no tweak is needed in that regard.

With the ability to add 'gnome-tweak-tool' w/o a bunch of bloat that leaves very few "tweaks" that actually require the use of the CLI:

#1: Moving the window-management buttons back to the right:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout :minimize,maximize,close
```

#2: Disabling the overlay-scrollbars:



```
echo export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 >> ~/.xprofile
```

#3: Possibly disabling the Firefox and/or Thunderbird global menu add-ons???????????? I'm unsure about this. I need to play around with fresh profiles and check that out.

----------


## zika

> #2: Disabling the overlay-scrollbars:
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> echo export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 >> ~/.xprofile
> ```




```
gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
```

----------


## kansasnoob

> ```
> gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
> ```


Thanks, I'll check that out  :Very Happy:

----------


## zika

> Thanks, I'll check that out


If You go with dconf-editor on that address You can choose from 3 different settings, or You can list that switch with the same tool as above.

----------


## kansasnoob

> If You go with dconf-editor on that address You can choose from 3 different settings, or You can list that switch with the same tool as above.


Right, I need all the help I can get  :Smile: 

I've just been trying to document the deprecation of gconf:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...4#post12850034

It may seem anal to look backwards but users will ask silly questions and it's beneficial to have a well documented answer easily at hand  :Very Happy: 

BTW once I'm satisfied that documentation of the history of the "gnome-panel + metacity" GNOME 3 session is complete enough I need to do some house-keeping on my test box so I can move ahead effectively in Trusty testing. I could really use a couple of new hard drives and some other new hardware, but dental bills and vet bills make that impossible ATM.

----------


## kansasnoob

I've been searching w/o success, is anyone aware of an upstream bug report requesting that window management buttons be movable in 'gnome-tweak-tool'?

----------


## kansasnoob

As compared to the past metacity settings have now been totally deprecated from gconf:

no_apps_metacity_trusty.png

I think that's a good thing  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> If You go with dconf-editor on that address You can choose from 3 different settings, or You can list that switch with the same tool as above.


Found it:

found_it.png

Time to play  :Smile: 

Many thanks again.

----------


## Cavsfan

Since *gnome-session-flashback* is dependant on *gnome-screensaver* being installed there is no way to get a working screensaver (*xscreensaver*) in Saucy 13.10 or Trusty 14.04.
I came up with a little work around that leaves *gnome-screensaver* installed while using *xscreensaver*.

I entered this in a text editor and saved it as *killscreensaver* in my home directory.


```

#! /bin/bashsleep 60killall gnome-screensaver 


```

Made it executable via *sudo chmod +x /home/cavsfan/killscreensaver*.
Then added */home/cavsfan/killscreensaver* to my startup applications as well as *xscreensaver*.

It seems to like 60 seconds. I tried 20 and less and that didn't work. But 60 seconds will work every time.                 

It is mentioned here.

----------


## zika

Wild thought:
OK, GSF needs GS to be installed as a dependency for GSF-install. But You do not need it for DM to run, don't You? 
So, editing /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-screensaver.desktop, or renaming GS, making a symlink or similar is also a possibility...
Editing /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-screensaver.desktop looks like a simplest way of all. Just one line to be edited.
Take a look also in ~/.config/autostart ...
It is better not to let GS to wake up, then to kill it...  :Wink:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Wild thought:
> OK, GSF needs GS to be installed as a dependency for GSF-install. But You do not need it for D to run, don't You? So, renaming it, making a symlink or similar is also a possibility...


Another way that did work is Mc4man's method of editing the control file for GSF and removing the dependancy, saving the deb file and dpkging it. That worked for me on 13.10.
It is also in the 13.10 work around link at the bottom of my previous post. 
But this is much easier and it works every time. Nothing else I've tried worked.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Wild thought:
> OK, GSF needs GS to be installed as a dependency for GSF-install. But You do not need it for DM to run, don't You? 
> So, editing /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-screensaver.desktop, or renaming GS, making a symlink or similar is also a possibility...
> Editing /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-screensaver.desktop looks like a simplest way of all. Just one line to be edited.
> Take a look also in ~/.config/autostart ...
> It is better not to let GS to wake up, then to kill it...


I'm not quite sure I understand, but if GSF = the flashback session, and if GS = gnome-shell, then that's not quite true ATM  :Smile: 

On my Trusty if I install 'gnome-panel' I get a working flashback (no effects) session w/o 'gnome-shell':



```
Commit Log for Wed Oct 30 00:15:43 2013


Installed the following packages:
alacarte (3.10.0-1)
gir1.2-gconf-2.0 (3.2.6-0ubuntu1)
gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
gnome-applets (3.5.92-0ubuntu3)
gnome-applets-data (3.5.92-0ubuntu3)
gnome-media (3.4.0-1ubuntu1)
gnome-panel (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
gnome-panel-data (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
gnome-session-flashback (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
gstreamer0.10-gconf (0.10.31-3+nmu1ubuntu3)
indicator-applet (12.10.2+13.10.20130924.2-0ubuntu1)
indicator-applet-complete (12.10.2+13.10.20130924.2-0ubuntu1)
libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 (3.0.0-1ubuntu1)
libpanel-applet-4-0 (1:3.6.2-0ubuntu15)
metacity (1:2.34.13-0ubuntu2)
notification-daemon (0.7.6-1)
shiki-colors-metacity-theme (4.6-1ubuntu2)
```

Even installing 'gnome-tweak-tool' no longer installs 'gnome-shell':



```
Commit Log for Sun Nov 10 12:08:56 2013


Installed the following packages:
gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 (3.8.0-1ubuntu1)
gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 (3.8.4-0ubuntu1)
gnome-shell-common (3.8.4-0ubuntu5)
gnome-tweak-tool (3.8.1-0ubuntu1)
```

----------


## kansasnoob

> Since *gnome-session-flashback* is dependant on *gnome-screensaver* being installed there is no way to get a working screensaver (*xscreensaver*) in Saucy 13.10 or Trusty 14.04.
> I came up with a little work around that leaves *gnome-screensaver* installed while using *xscreensaver*.
> 
> I entered this in a text editor and saved it as *killscreensaver* in my home directory.
> 
> 
> ```
> 
> #! /bin/bash
sleep 60
killall gnome-screensaver 
> ...


I personally wonder why anyone wants an actual screensaver running ATM  :Confused: 

I disliked the change to just a blank screen initially but with few CRT monitors left in the world a blank screen makes sense to me now  :Smile:

----------


## Alan F

> I'm not quite sure I understand, but if GSF = the flashback session, and if GS = gnome-shell, then that's not quite true ATM


I'm sure that you have realised by now that GS = gnome-screensaver, not gnome-shell.

I agree with you that a blank screen now makes a lot more sense than a 'traditional' screensaver

----------


## kansasnoob

> I'm sure that you have realised by now that GS = gnome-screensaver, not gnome-shell.
> 
> I agree with you that a blank screen now makes a lot more sense than a 'traditional' screensaver


No I didn't  :Redface: 

If you google "thick" you'll find a link to "thick minded" with a picture of me  :Smile:

----------


## Cavsfan

> I personally wonder why anyone wants an actual screensaver running ATM 
> 
> I disliked the change to just a blank screen initially but with few CRT monitors left in the world a blank screen makes sense to me now


You want no screensaver? Well I do and that is the only way to accomplish having Xscreensaver work.
I tried killing gnome-screensaver via system monitor but it would re-spawn on it's own. I didn't want to have to do anything manually any way.

Besides it is not a blank screen, at least not on any of my installs. It displays date and time.

This works for those that wish to have a _working_ screensaver.  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

> You want no screensaver? Well I do and that is the only way to accomplish having Xscreensaver work.
> I tried killing gnome-screensaver via system monitor but it would re-spawn on it's own. I didn't want to have to do anything manually any way.
> 
> Besides it is not a blank screen, at least not on any of my installs. It displays date and time.
> 
> This works for those that wish to have a _working_ screensaver.


Just "wanting it" *is* a valid enough reason for me  :Very Happy: 

So when I do this Trusty "retro" thread I will try to include a link to "how to enable xcreensaver"  :Guitar: 

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how I should do this. ATM I'm thinking "bite-size" instead of a huge thing like this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370

Right now I'm still in "figuring out what to do" mode  :Wink:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Just "wanting it" *is* a valid enough reason for me 
> 
> So when I do this Trusty "retro" thread I will try to include a link to "how to enable xcreensaver" 
> 
> I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how I should do this. ATM I'm thinking "bite-size" instead of a huge thing like this:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370
> 
> Right now I'm still in "figuring out what to do" mode


+1 on that there.  :Wink: 
I'm still puzzled by the lack of interest in having a working screensaver in Gnome Flashback. It seems fairly simple to remove the requirement for *gnome-screensaver* as a dependency of *gnome-session-flashback*. 
I opened this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2160563
and *mc4man* showed me how to edit the deb file and remove the dependency and I'll admit I was pretty slow about understanding how to do it but, I did finally manage it. That is how my Saucy install is right now and it works well.
Jeremy Bicha also mentioned on that thread that it wouldn't be that hard to do. But, since the fix was never put into production I just edited the deb file on Saucy after final release.

I just experimented with the script idea and that seemed like a more simple solution.
Here is the bug with me and 2 others https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1199074

----------


## kansasnoob

> +1 on that there. 
> I'm still puzzled by the lack of interest in having a working screensaver in Gnome Flashback. It seems fairly simple to remove the requirement for *gnome-screensaver* as a dependency of *gnome-session-flashback*. 
> I opened this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2160563
> and *mc4man* showed me how to edit the deb file and remove the dependency and I'll admit I was pretty slow about understanding how to do it but, I did finally manage it. That is how my Saucy install is right now and it works well.
> Jeremy Bicha also mentioned on that thread that it wouldn't be that hard to do. But, since the fix was never put into production I just edited the deb file on Saucy after final release.
> 
> I just experimented with the script idea and that seemed like a more simple solution.
> Here is the bug with me and 2 others https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1199074


I'm glad we're on the same page  :Very Happy: 

While having a working screensaver is not important to me it is important to you. So I think I'll try and link to each individual "tweak" rather than lumping it all into one thread.

That should also make it easier for someone to wikify this.

Right now my biggest challenges are:

(a) Documenting the deprecation of gconf:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...4#post12850034

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...7#post12851127

(b) The renaming of sessions:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2185161

(c) What was (c) ............... oh yeah, my mind ain't so sharp  :Sad:

----------


## muktupavels

> I'm still puzzled by the lack of interest in having a working screensaver in Gnome Flashback. It seems fairly simple to remove the requirement for *gnome-screensaver* as a dependency of *gnome-session-flashback*.


gnome-screensaver is needed for screen lock functionality. If dependency will be removed than gnome-screensaver wont install when installing gnome-session-flashback. This will make new bug/regression. 

So I am pretty sure gnome-screensaver won't be removed as dependency for gnome-session-flashback.

And I think Jeremy Bicha solution probably wont work. Checked gnome-panel code. Gnome screensaver provides dbus service which is required in gnome-panel for lock functionality. In this case it does not matter that XScreenSaver provides lock functionality too.

----------


## Cavsfan

> (c) What was (c) ............... oh yeah, my mind ain't so sharp


LoL I'm right there with you on that point! I've had this neurological disorder for the last 12+ years and take some heavy anti-seizure medication which takes a lot out of me.
I don't like to get out but when I do I get wore out fairly easy. I've been messing with computers since I was 19 and that is probably what keeps me alive today. Always messing with something on here.  :Smile: 
I can't drive which is frustrating but I ride a bike for exercise and am wore plum out after that.  :Very Happy: 

On top of that in a couple months I'll be elgible for a senior citizens discount.  :Surprised:  So, I know exactly where you're coming from. The only thing that could be worse is if I had OCD. And I am not absolutely sure I don't.

Good luck on your goals!  :Smile:

----------


## Cavsfan

> gnome-screensaver is needed for screen lock functionality. If dependency will be removed than gnome-screensaver wont install when installing gnome-session-flashback. This will make new bug/regression. 
> 
> So I am pretty sure gnome-screensaver won't be removed as dependency for gnome-session-flashback.
> 
> And I think Jeremy Bicha solution probably wont work. Checked gnome-panel code. Gnome screensaver provides dbus service which is required in gnome-panel for lock functionality. In this case it does not matter that XScreenSaver provides lock functionality too.


Gnome-screensaver is worthless IMO. It only provides a lock and I don't like having time and date displayed on my monitor forever when I could have Xscreensaver and many of it's addons displaying a working screensaverr.
Besides that Xscreensaver is being maintained while Gnome-screensaver is not. If it were this would not be a problem.
When I want my screen to lock I can just check the box on Xscreensaver. It locks just fine here.

Tell that to Jeremy Bicha. I am not sure what happened I never heard back from him. But Xscreensaver, which works can be used on Unity, Flashback, etc. and it actually works. So taking out that dependency is simple and will cause no harm that I see.
My saucy install has had the dependency removed and it works well. On Trusty I just have the script to kill gnome screensaver and they both work to my satisfaction.

----------


## muktupavels

> Tell that to Jeremy Bicha. I am not sure what happened I never heard back from him. But Xscreensaver, which works can be used on Unity, Flashback, etc. and it actually works. So taking out that dependency is simple and will cause no harm that I see.
> My saucy install has had the dependency removed and it works well. On Trusty I just have the script to kill gnome screensaver and they both work to my satisfaction.


Removing dependency will make part of gnome-panel to not work. If I am not wrong than lock button applet will not work, Lock/Switch Account probably too. If it is not problem for you, it may be for others.

----------


## grahammechanical

Jeremy Bicha is no longer doing development work on Ubuntu Gnome. Or very little. Personal reasons.

http://jeremy.bicha.net/




> I’m sad to announce that due to immense personal and family responsibilities, I simply won’t have the time or ability to contribute to the Ubuntu GNOME effort much longer.


Regards.

----------


## Cavsfan

> Removing dependency will make part of gnome-panel to not work. If I am not wrong than lock button applet will not work, Lock/Switch Account probably too. If it is not problem for you, it may be for others.


Maybe there are reasons but, there _is_ a solution. The lock on Xscreensaver works just fine.




> Jeremy Bicha is no longer doing development work on Ubuntu Gnome. Or very little. Personal reasons.
> 
> http://jeremy.bicha.net/
> 
> 
> 
> Regards.


Yes, I remember seeing that some time ago. 

Regards.

----------


## muktupavels

> Maybe there are reasons but, there _is_ a solution. The lock on Xscreensaver works just fine.


Best solution without much work could be moving gnome-screensaver from Depends to Recommends. This way screensaver will be installed for most users and will allow to remove it without removing flashback session. I created branch with this change and proposed for merging.

----------


## Cavsfan

> Best solution without much work could be moving gnome-screensaver from Depends to Recommends. This way screensaver will be installed for most users and will allow to remove it without removing flashback session. I created branch with this change and proposed for merging.


That sounds like a good idea. I look forward to seeing it in Trusty.  :Smile:

----------


## stoneguy

Had the bright (?) idea of using Flashback as my desktop in a Lubuntu Trusty base. Appeared to have installed OK, but choosing Flashback No Effects at logon, ended up with a desktop with solid empty black panels (see att). Alt-T into a terminal got kbd operation, but nothing changed the panel contents.

Piggybacked onto Launchpad #1245209. Don't really care whether this gets fixed or disallowed. It was just another way to provide a lighter Trusty.

----------


## kansasnoob

I was searching for something else and stumbled upon this:

https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeFlashback

Really good info so I wanted to share it  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Had the bright (?) idea of using Flashback as my desktop in a Lubuntu Trusty base. Appeared to have installed OK, but choosing Flashback No Effects at logon, ended up with a desktop with solid empty black panels (see att). Alt-T into a terminal got kbd operation, but nothing changed the panel contents.
> 
> Piggybacked onto Launchpad #1245209. Don't really care whether this gets fixed or disallowed. It was just another way to provide a lighter Trusty.


Mixing desktop environments has become more and more problematic over the past few cycles  :Sad:

----------


## grahammechanical

> I was searching for something else and stumbled upon this:
> 
> https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeFlashback
> 
> Really good info so I wanted to share it


Interesting. And last edited an month ago. Software centre says of gnome-session-flashback - "doesn't have specific hardware requirements." Installing gnome-session-flashback also installs Metacity. Which I guess would make it kind of independent of what happens with LightDM/Compiz/Unity. Although I am curious about its reaction when it sits on top of full Mir. We wait and see.

Regards.

----------


## ventrical

> Interesting. And last edited an month ago. Software centre says of gnome-session-flashback - "doesn't have specific hardware requirements." Installing gnome-session-flashback also installs Metacity. Which I guess would make it kind of independent of what happens with LightDM/Compiz/Unity. Although I am curious about its reaction when it sits on top of full Mir. We wait and see.
> 
> Regards.


However , with gnome-session-flashback (with effects) one can still utilize Compiz/ccsm but there is some fanaggaling that has to be done.  One cannot have Ubuntu-desktop (Unity 3D that is not supported by graphics adapter) and gnome-session-flashback (with effects) on the same machine where Unity 3D graphics is not supported. How I was able to solve some of this quagmire was to install (fvwm-crystal) desktop and use it as an intermediary desktop to try to attempt gnome-session-flashback desktop rips. It works sometimes . It has worked on Trusty and all prior releases.

  There are also stability problems with this method and kernels that used to work on older machines are now outfitted that they shut them (previously working graphical adapters) out. I had thought that it would not be that time consuming to fork flip-back-wise so as to make the newer kernels backwards compatible with older graphics hardware and be able to insert a jockey routine to detect this so as a possible patch can be inserted from an array in the repositories for a lower version X session , or at least be provided while still running on the new release, hypothetically speaking of course. That would be real unity if that were pulled off.  :Smile: 

Regards..

----------


## Cavsfan

> However , with gnome-session-flashback (with effects) one can still utilize Compiz/ccsm but there is some fanaggaling that has to be done.  One cannot have Ubuntu-desktop (Unity 3D that is not supported by graphics adapter) and gnome-session-flashback (with effects) on the same machine where Unity 3D graphics is not supported. How I was able to solve some of this quagmire was to install (fvwm-crystal) desktop and use it as an intermediary desktop to try to attempt gnome-session-flashback desktop rips. It works sometimes . It has worked on Trusty and all prior releases.
> 
>   There are also stability problems with this method and kernels that used to work on older machines are now outfitted that they shut them (previously working graphical adapters) out. I had thought that it would not be that time consuming to fork flip-back-wise so as to make the newer kernels backwards compatible with older graphics hardware and be able to insert a jockey routine to detect this so as a possible patch can be inserted from an array in the repositories for a lower version X session , or at least be provided while still running on the new release, hypothetically speaking of course. That would be real unity if that were pulled off. 
> 
> Regards..


How ironic! From this latest install of Trusty I was only in Unity long enough to install everything I needed before going to gnome-flashback with effects. This time I didn't install gnome-flashback with Synaptic, I used apt-get in terminal. I remember it did not install a few things I forget now what the next thing I had to install but I remember gnome was not installed so I installed that and everything has been working fine. I have CCSM all setup and the cube rotating, etc.

I just checked and I do not have ubuntu-desktop installed.  :Smile:  I think I did on my first install and maybe that is what messed it up. I don't know but from what you are saying that sounds probable.
I have an Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT 1TB with the 331.20 driver which was updated from what was initially on here.

----------


## kansasnoob

> However , with gnome-session-flashback (with effects) one can still utilize Compiz/ccsm but there is some fanaggaling that has to be done.  One cannot have Ubuntu-desktop (Unity 3D that is not supported by graphics adapter) and gnome-session-flashback (with effects) on the same machine where Unity 3D graphics is not supported. How I was able to solve some of this quagmire was to install (fvwm-crystal) desktop and use it as an intermediary desktop to try to attempt gnome-session-flashback desktop rips. It works sometimes . It has worked on Trusty and all prior releases.
> 
>   There are also stability problems with this method and kernels that used to work on older machines are now outfitted that they shut them (previously working graphical adapters) out. I had thought that it would not be that time consuming to fork flip-back-wise so as to make the newer kernels backwards compatible with older graphics hardware and be able to insert a jockey routine to detect this so as a possible patch can be inserted from an array in the repositories for a lower version X session , or at least be provided while still running on the new release, hypothetically speaking of course. That would be real unity if that were pulled off. 
> 
> Regards..


I've personally never cared much for Compiz but I have found that getting it working somewhat properly is easier if I begin with an installation of Ubuntu GNOME and then install both 'gnome-panel' & 'compiz'.

----------


## ventrical

> How ironic! From this latest install of Trusty I was only in Unity long enough to install everything I needed before going to gnome-flashback with effects. This time I didn't install gnome-flashback with Synaptic, I used apt-get in terminal. I remember it did not install a few things I forget now what the next thing I had to install but I remember gnome was not installed so I installed that and everything has been working fine. I have CCSM all setup and the cube rotating, etc.
> 
> I just checked and I do not have ubuntu-desktop installed.  I think I did on my first install and maybe that is what messed it up. I don't know but from what you are saying that sounds probable.
> I have an Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT 1TB with the 331.20 driver which was updated from what was initially on here.


  I just can't belive this..  I have:



```
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1)
ventrical@ventrical-P4M266A-8237:~$
```

which I could only get to work with Unity 2D in Precise. Yesterday I zsynced trusty daily i386 and then installed it on this old machine. For reasons unbeknownst to me I was able to get Unity 3D!! It was a little slow but I wanted to install gnome-session-fallback and i did so from terminal after first loading fvwm-crystal. Gnome-session (no-effects) is just snapping fast!!! on this old machine. The only bug is a white-out at start-up with Plymouth.. but after a few seconds it goes right to lightdm. gnome-session-flashback (with effects) is a little slow , probably because of the driver, but I think the convergence and hardware open-stack endeavour is underway!  :Smile: 

Thanks for your advice. I think it may be unity that is slowing down the gmone-flashback (with effects) and I'll see if I can try your way.

----------


## ventrical

> I've personally never cared much for Compiz but I have found that getting it working somewhat properly is easier if I begin with an installation of Ubuntu GNOME and then install both 'gnome-panel' & 'compiz'.



  I zsynced my trusty ubuntu daily and am running gnome-session (no effects) and it is super fast.

WOW! Absolutely awesome.

  Like I say .. it takes  some fanaggaling but mabey UbuntuGnome is the better way.  :Smile:

----------


## ventrical

Oh yeah .. this funny driver..

----------


## ventrical

Running unity8 on top of gnome-session-flashback (no effects) . Should we not be able to do this ?

----------


## Cavsfan

Not sure what I have now. I opened that thread about getting an error insalling this kernel:


```
cavsfan@cavsfan-GTO-1969:~$ uname -a
Linux cavsfan-GTO-1969 3.12.0-4-generic #10-Ubuntu SMP Thu Nov 21 22:07:26 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
```

I have no option to select which session to login to for either that kernel or the previous one. It goes straight to the last session which is flashback and have nothing but a blue screen with no wallpaper and the icons are all messed up.
Might be re-install time. But, I'll play around with it first I guess.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Running unity8 on top of gnome-session-flashback (no effects) . Should we not be able to do this ?


I would think NOT! Why would you expect such a session to run on top of Metacity?

----------


## kansasnoob

> Not sure what I have now. I opened that thread about getting an error insalling this kernel:
> 
> 
> ```
> cavsfan@cavsfan-GTO-1969:~$ uname -a
> Linux cavsfan-GTO-1969 3.12.0-4-generic #10-Ubuntu SMP Thu Nov 21 22:07:26 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> ```
> 
> I have no option to select which session to login to for either that kernel or the previous one. It goes straight to the last session which is flashback and have nothing but a blue screen with no wallpaper and the icons are all messed up.
> Might be re-install time. But, I'll play around with it first I guess.


I don't understand what you're saying  :Sad: 

If you can't change the auto-login option to "off" this might be helpful:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183871

----------


## Cavsfan

> I don't understand what you're saying 
> 
> If you can't change the auto-login option to "off" this might be helpful:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183871


Sorry, I guess that was pretty unclear. When I got the 3.12.0-4-generic kernel in an update yesterday it borked my system and I could not do anything because it got this error:
(below is output from re-installing 3.12.0-3-generic but, both of them got the error.)
The screen was blue and the icons were all hosed.



```
Setting up linux-image-extra-3.12.0-3-generic (3.12.0-3.9) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: deferring update (hook will be called later)
initrd.img(/boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-3-generic
) points to /boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-3-generic
 (/boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-3-generic) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-3-generic.postinst line 491.
vmlinuz(/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
) points to /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
 (/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-3-generic.postinst line 491.
Examining /etc/kernel/postinst.d.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 3.12.0-3-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.12.0-3-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.12.0-3-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-3-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/pm-utils 3.12.0-3-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/update-notifier 3.12.0-3-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 3.12.0-3-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-3-generic
```

I tried re-installing both the 3 and 4 kernels and realized nothing but a clean install would fix it.
I opened up this thread and apparently I'm not the only one:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2189720

Everything is back running perfectly in Gnome Flashback with effects, Compiz the cube and the whole nine yards.  :Smile: 

I noticed that gnome-desktop did get installed by installing gnome this time around. This was after I installed gnome-session-flashback.

----------


## ventrical

> I would think NOT! Why would you expect such a session to run on top of Metacity?


  I didn't expect it to work. I just tired it and it did. (work).

----------


## Cavsfan

You guys didn't bomb on the 3.12.0-4-generic kernel because you've created your own custom kernel right? That's way above my pay grade.  :Wink:

----------


## ventrical

> You guys didn't bomb on the 3.12.0-4-generic kernel because you've created your own custom kernel right? That's way above my pay grade.



Nope . Not here . I let those geniuses Paul_in_London and VinDSL  do that !  :Smile:  lol

Regards..

----------


## Cavsfan

> Nope . Not here . I let those geniuses Paul_in_London and VinDSL  do that !  lol
> 
> Regards..


Ha!  Thanks for the laugh! You are right lol  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

Things are working fairly well here. I occasionally have an app just freeze causing me to either logout and log back in (or reboot) which is inconvenient, but somewhat expected at this point in the game  :Smile: 

In fact I used Trusty to produce the Quantal, Raring, and Saucy updates to this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370

I quickly learned to "save" frequently due to those app freezes. I imagine that's on the kernel level because the moue and keyboard are still functional.

I'd love to know how we can REISUB now though  :Confused:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Things are working fairly well here. I occasionally have an app just freeze causing me to either logout and log back in (or reboot) which is inconvenient, but somewhat expected at this point in the game 
> 
> In fact I used Trusty to produce the Quantal, Raring, and Saucy updates to this thread:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370
> 
> I quickly learned to "save" frequently due to those app freezes. I imagine that's on the kernel level because the moue and keyboard are still functional.
> 
> I'd love to know how we can REISUB now though


You might benefit from a new install. The ISO I got yesterday is working way better. Philinux was going to do a clean install today he said as he was also having problems with the latest kernel.
I'm not seeing any freezing of anything currently. I realize we are way early but I've installed twice and this is the best so far.  :Smile:

----------


## ventrical

> You might benefit from a new install. The ISO I got yesterday is working way better. Philinux was going to do a clean install today he said as he was also having problems with the latest kernel.
> I'm not seeing any freezing of anything currently. I realize we are way early but I've installed twice and this is the best so far.


 Honest .. Gnome(no effects) hasn't worked better than this. And even on legacy machines and graphics adapters. Thats why I was surprised that Unity8 from the archives would even work on gnome-no-effects. I am not being of topic here .. but what I am trying to say is that the Unity8 shell will run this tablet/phone/unity 2D like session from terminal while I am in gnome-flashback-no-effects. Perhaps it is just an anomoly in passing .. but I thought I would report it in this forum.

Regards..

----------


## kansasnoob

> I was searching for something else and stumbled upon this:
> 
> https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeFlashback
> 
> Really good info so I wanted to share it


I'm finding this mailing list hard to follow:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-flashback-list/

But it is certainly active  :Smile: 

Anyway I noticed that we may be in for another session renaming:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00013.html




> today installed trusty in virtualbox to test flashback session. Enabled proposed. After upgrade I was able to login in both sessions - flashback with metacity and flashback with compiz. Only session names seems too long for lightdm. Maybe session names can be GNOME Flashback (Metacity) and GNOME Flashback (Compiz)?


I personally think it would be better to just drop GNOME from the name  :Wink: 

Compare the length of the session names:

GNOME Flashback (no effects)
GNOME Flashback (Metacity)

Duh, it's one freaking character!

But it seems that's been approved:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00014.html

 :Brick wall: 

Also worried about Jonathan Carter:

http://jonathancarter.org/2013/08/25/still-alive/




> Ive been really quiet on the blogging front the last few months. Theres been a lot happening in my life. In short, I moved back to South Africa and started working for another company.  I have around 10 blog drafts that I will probably never finish, so Im just declaring post bankruptcy and starting from scratch (who wants read my old notes from Ubuntu VUDS from March anyway?)
> 
> For what its worth, Im still alive and doing very well, possibly better than ever. Over the next few months I want to focus my free software time on the Edubuntu project, my Debian ITPs (which Ive neglected so badly theyve been turned into RFPs) and Flashback. Once Ive caught up theres plenty of other projects where Id like to focus some energy as well (LTSP, Debian-Edu, just to name a few).


Anyway I have zero dev skills (+ a bum right arm on top of my brain damage) so I'd love to see someone from Ubuntu jump into the fray and try to create some focus on making this work with the Ubuntu base. If no one else steps up I'll try my best  :Very Happy: 

In other news, there was a mention regarding 'gnome-screensaver':

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00015.html

----------


## Cavsfan

> In other news, there was a mention regarding 'gnome-screensaver':
> 
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00015.html


Glad to see they are at least looking at that. Why could they not add xscreensaver as a dependency as it does indeed include a locking feature; probably due to who owns it I expect. 
They could add both gnome-screensaver and xscreensaver as recommends.

BTW I noticed that my xscreensaver didn't start up a while ago after 10 minutes I looked and it was not running.
I added the startup command to the script, logged out and back in and it worked perfectly.



```

#! /bin/bashsleep 60killall gnome-screensaversleep 10xscreensaver -nosplash 


```

----------


## muktupavels

> Anyway I noticed that we may be in for another session renaming:
> 
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00013.html
> 
> I personally think it would be better to just drop GNOME from the name 
> 
> Compare the length of the session names:
> 
> GNOME Flashback (no effects)
> ...


We have gnome-panel 3.8 in -proposed. Session names: GNOME Flashback (with Metacity) and GNOME Flashback (with Compiz). So it is more than one freaking character.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Glad to see they are at least looking at that. Why could they not add xscreensaver as a dependency as it does indeed include a locking feature; probably due to who owns it I expect. 
> They could add both gnome-screensaver and xscreensaver as recommends.
> 
> BTW I noticed that my xscreensaver didn't start up a while ago after 10 minutes I looked and it was not running.
> I added the startup command to the script, logged out and back in and it worked perfectly.
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


That I would hate!!!!!

Why would I want Xscreensaver as a dependency when I hate it with a passion!

It makes much more sense to have the default gnome-screensaver moved to "recommends" so those who don't want it can remove it w/o forcing a personal choice on all users  :Very Happy:

----------


## kansasnoob

> We have gnome-panel 3.8 in -proposed. Session names: GNOME Flashback (with Metacity) and GNOME Flashback (with Compiz). So it is more than one freaking character.


But, if I can still read, the original complaint was:




> today installed trusty in virtualbox to test flashback session. Enabled proposed. After upgrade I was able to login in both sessions - flashback with metacity and flashback with compiz. *Only session names seems too long for lightdm.* Maybe session names can be GNOME Flashback (Metacity) and GNOME Flashback (Compiz)?


So you're now going from:

GNOME Flashback (no effects) 

to:

GNOME Flashback (with Metacity)

And from:

GNOME Flashback

to:

GNOME Flashback (with Compiz)

Compare those:

GNOME Flashback (no effects) 
GNOME Flashback (with Metacity)

GNOME Flashback
GNOME Flashback (with Compiz)

How does that even remotely address the issue of "session names seems too long for lightdm" when you're actually increasing the length of the names?

It will only serve to create more confusion:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2185161

----------


## muktupavels

> But, if I can still read, the original complaint was:
> 
> 
> 
> So you're now going from:
> 
> GNOME Flashback (no effects) 
> 
> to:
> ...


You are wrong...

Now (current version 3.6.2):
GNOME Flashback (no effects)
GNOME Flashback

In -proposed (version 3.8.0)
GNOME Flashback (with Metacity)
GNOME Flashback (with Compiz)

And I suggested to rename to:
GNOME Flashback (Metacity)
GNOME Flashback (Compiz)

----------


## kansasnoob

I'm not going to apply proposed changes right now but here's what the changelog says:




> gnome-panel (1:3.8.0-1ubuntu1) trusty; urgency=low
> 
>   * Merge with Debian unstable, remaining changes:
>     - Use an epoch in version number.
>     - Recommend indicator-applet-complete.
>     - Adjust Breaks/Replaces for Ubuntu versioning.
>     - Drop 14_revert_timedate_change.patch, we are using timedated.
>     - Add patches:
>       + 40_unset_menuproxy.patch
> ...


Those new names are longer than the old names!

----------


## kansasnoob

> I'm not going to apply proposed changes right now but here's what the changelog says:
> 
> 
> 
> Those new names are longer than the old names!


Oh, and Ubuntu GNOME may have to apply some tweaks to NOT display the Compiz session if Compiz is not installed  :Very Happy:

----------


## Hazzabin

Trusty Flashback, I've got compiz working really well, either with 'wall' or 'cube'

Only downside I've got nothing showing in top or bottom 'task-bar' or 'panels' whatever they is called both top and bottom completely black, lucky I got cairo-dock.

ideas how to fix please

----------


## kansasnoob

> You are wrong...
> 
> Now (current version 3.6.2):
> GNOME Flashback (no effects)
> GNOME Flashback
> 
> In -proposed (version 3.8.0)
> GNOME Flashback (with Metacity)
> GNOME Flashback (with Compiz)
> ...


I see now, you were referring to the change that's coming in proposed.

----------


## zika

Why is the name of the session (so) important?
In how many occasions do You see that name?

----------


## kansasnoob

> Why is the name of the session (so) important?
> In how many occasions do You see that name?


Eeerm, it's just the matter of constant renaming creating confusion. I know we had to rename from "classic" to "fallback" to accommodate the new gnome-shell/mutter based classic session, but I never understood the need for the rename to flashback. We need to settle on a sensible session name at some point and stick with it  :Smile:

----------


## zika

> Eeerm, it's just the matter of constant renaming creating confusion. I know we had to rename from "classic" to "fallback" to accommodate the new gnome-shell/mutter based classic session, but I never understood the need for the rename to flashback. We need to settle on a sensible session name at some point and stick with it


I'm a guy interested (only) in substance... You could call it (random sequence of symbols) and I would not care as long as it works as it should or better...  :Wink:

----------


## PJs Ronin

Not that I know squat....

But the naming issue is important to me because the last time I tried to use a 'gnome' I couldn't make it do what I wanted it to do and what I believed it could do.   Turns out I was making changes in Compiz that were not being reflected in gnome because the gnome I was using relied on metacity.   As a noob I thought CCSM would make changes across any 'gnome' (wrong!) and at the end of it I don't even know which gnome I was using so I gave the whole thing away and relied on Unity.   I fully admit my inexperience was a major cause of my problems, but the gnome name changes, especially where there is a similarity for different flavors, didn't help.

I'd really like to try gnome again, but until I can get a definitive "who's who in the gnome zoo" I won't touch it with a barge pole.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I'm a guy interested (only) in substance... You could call it (random sequence of symbols) and I would not care as long as it works as it should or better...


It becomes substantive because you have to be able to explain to the uninformed end user what the different session names mean  :Wink: 

A few people had posted about confusion with the new GNOME classic session not being "editable" as the older "classic" and "classic (no effects)" sessions were.

Now that I understand what's going on I agree with _albertsmuktupavels_, just dropping the word "with" from the session names in Trusty-proposed makes sense, I was simply confused by what the names are in Trusty-now and who was proposing what  :Very Happy: 

Sometimes I'm thick like that  :Redface:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Trusty Flashback, I've got compiz working really well, either with 'wall' or 'cube'
> 
> Only downside I've got nothing showing in top or bottom 'task-bar' or 'panels' whatever they is called both top and bottom completely black, lucky I got cairo-dock.
> 
> ideas how to fix please


I've been focusing solely on Flashback (Metacity) so I'm clueless, but I wanted to bump this so it's not lost in the session name chatter  :Very Happy:

----------


## muktupavels

> Trusty Flashback, I've got compiz working really well, either with 'wall' or 'cube'
> 
> Only downside I've got nothing showing in top or bottom 'task-bar' or 'panels' whatever they is called both top and bottom completely black, lucky I got cairo-dock.
> 
> ideas how to fix please


1) Are you only one with black panels or there are other users with same problem?
2) Black panels with both session? metacity and compiz.
3) Can you access panel properties? Alt + Right click on panel.

----------


## zika

> 1) Are you only one with black panels or there are other users with same problem?


Saucy:zika:super-latestGnome:No, he is not the only one.



> 2) Black panels with both session? metacity and compiz.


Saucy:zika:super-latestGnome:Yes, partly...



> 3) Can you access panel properties? Alt + Right click on panel.


Saucy:zika:super-latestGnome:No.

Not to mention that yesterday I think GnomeClassic showed itself as GnomeShell. No time to go and see what is going on, will do that as soon as I get free man/machine minute.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Not that I know squat....
> 
> But the naming issue is important to me because the last time I tried to use a 'gnome' I couldn't make it do what I wanted it to do and what I believed it could do.   Turns out I was making changes in Compiz that were not being reflected in gnome because the gnome I was using relied on metacity.   As a noob I thought CCSM would make changes across any 'gnome' (wrong!) and at the end of it I don't even know which gnome I was using so I gave the whole thing away and relied on Unity.   I fully admit my inexperience was a major cause of my problems, but the gnome name changes, especially where there is a similarity for different flavors, didn't help.
> 
> I'd really like to try gnome again, but until I can get a definitive "who's who in the gnome zoo" I won't touch it with a barge pole.


I appreciate your concerns, they are shared by me  :Smile: 

While I try to stay somewhat up-to-date on the changes as they pour in I find that it becomes more and more complicated to explain these changes to others  :Sad: 

In order to keep this thread on topic I posted a response here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...3#post12859103

But it's certainly worth following up on here at Ubuntu +1, lets just try to keep it related to Trusty here so the mods don't shut me down.

*Who's who in the GNOME zoo* is a valid question for sure  :Guitar: 

And I hope I began to answer that.

----------


## Hazzabin

I've only just gotten the choice of 'Metacity' and 'Compiz' for "Flashback"
Metacity totally just doesn't want to work, Compiz is ok-ish but still no nothing in either top or bottom bars, cannot even do a right click for bar properties

I did try and install nvidia drivers thinking that maybe causing some of my issues, it completely crashed.......new install using 26th Nov ISO

Sure is looking like for now staying with the basic 'Gnome' for "Trusty"

ok pass my bedtime, will catch up with this in my tomorrow

----------


## muktupavels

One more question...

You all get black panel with clean install without adding additional ppa's?

On my main install gnome flashback works with metacity, compiz and even with mutter. I have installed all updates. I have not added any additional ppa's. I have installed nvidia drivers from nvidia.com. I also tried trusty daily iso in virtualbox to test gnome panel 3.8.0 version. I had no problems.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I've only just gotten the choice of 'Metacity' and 'Compiz' for "Flashback"
> Metacity totally just doesn't want to work, Compiz is ok-ish but still no nothing in either top or bottom bars, cannot even do a right click for bar properties
> 
> I did try and install nvidia drivers thinking that maybe causing some of my issues, it completely crashed.......new install using 26th Nov ISO
> 
> Sure is looking like for now staying with the basic 'Gnome' for "Trusty"
> 
> ok pass my bedtime, will catch up with this in my tomorrow


If your login options are already showing Classic (with Metacity) and Classic (with Compiz) then you're using Trusty-proposed.  In that case you should read here what it says about using the proposed repos in testing:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2181769

Actually just noticed that it says:




> Warning: Unless you are willing to have a broken system, please make sure that that *Pre-released updates* are disabled in Software & Updates, as this repository is now used as a holding area while packages are waiting for dependencies to be built.


I'll ask about that  :Smile:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Glad to see they are at least looking at that. Why could they not add xscreensaver as a dependency as it does indeed include a locking feature; probably due to who owns it I expect. 
> They could add both gnome-screensaver and xscreensaver as recommends.
> 
> BTW I noticed that my xscreensaver didn't start up a while ago after 10 minutes I looked and it was not running.
> I added the startup command to the script, logged out and back in and it worked perfectly.
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> ...





> That I would hate!!!!!
> 
> Why would I want Xscreensaver as a dependency when I hate it with a passion!
> 
> It makes much more sense to have the default gnome-screensaver moved to "recommends" so those who don't want it can remove it w/o forcing a personal choice on all users


I did say they could add either as recommends just get it out of dependency. 
Oh yeah I forgot you don't use screensavers.

----------


## Hazzabin

> One more question...
> 
> You all get black panel with clean install without adding additional ppa's?
> 
> On my main install gnome flashback works with metacity, compiz and even with mutter. I have installed all updates. I have not added any additional ppa's. I have installed nvidia drivers from nvidia.com. I also tried trusty daily iso in virtualbox to test gnome panel 3.8.0 version. I had no problems.


Correct, least that's what is happening to me

I've got a spare partition and am going to try another fresh install, will report on the outcome of that later

----------


## kansasnoob

Now that the upstream flashback updates were moved up from proposed I totally see what Alberts was saying. The new session name is too long for 'unity-greeter':

unity_greeter.JPG

But it's OK in both 'gdm' and the 'gtk-greeter':

gdm.JPG

gtk_greeter.JPG

Should I file a bug at Launchpad?

----------


## muktupavels

> Now that the upstream flashback updates were moved up from proposed I totally see what Alberts was saying. The new session name is too long for 'unity-greeter':
> 
> unity_greeter.JPG
> 
> But it's OK in both 'gdm' and the 'gtk-greeter':
> 
> gdm.JPG
> 
> gtk_greeter.JPG
> ...


No.

If it will be approved than upstream will provide 3 session - GNOME Flashback (Metacity), GNOME Flashback (Compiz) and GNOME Flashback (Mutter). There are patches for this already.

My idea for ubuntu was to provide two extra packages for flashback - gnome-session-flashback (default, installs only metacity session), gnome-session-flashback-compiz (new) and gnome-session-flashback-mutter (new).

----------


## kansasnoob

> I did say they could add either as recommends just get it out of dependency. 
> Oh yeah I forgot you don't use screensavers.


I happened to think about this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/988290

I mentioned it on the forums:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2036864

So I knew that I could swap 'xscreensaver' for 'gnome-screensaver' at that time and I checked in Precise again and that's still true.

But somewhere between Precise and Saucy they screwed the dependencies  :Sad:

----------


## kansasnoob

> No.
> 
> If it will be approved than upstream will provide 3 session - GNOME Flashback (Metacity), GNOME Flashback (Compiz) and GNOME Flashback (Mutter). There are patches for this already.
> 
> My idea for ubuntu was to provide two extra packages for flashback - gnome-session-flashback (default, installs only metacity session), gnome-session-flashback-compiz (new) and gnome-session-flashback-mutter (new).


Now you're misunderstanding me  :Smile: 

Those screenshots are what things look like right now with the current Trusty updates in place using the US d/l mirror.

I understand that you want to shorten them by removing the word "with", which is fine  :Very Happy: 

Are we on the same page now  :Confused: 

EDIT: Just jumped over to the mailing list and I see what you mean now. Would it be OK for me to subscribe to that mailing list so I can stay up to date better?

I'm not a dev by any means but the Metacity session is important to me.

----------


## muktupavels

> Would it be OK for me to subscribe to that mailing list so I can stay up to date better?


Why are you asking this? I think that you can freely subscribe to any mailing list you want. They are not restricted to devs only.




> I'm not a dev by any means but the Metacity session is important to me.


Why Metacity? Have you tried to use mutter? If you have time you could install mutter to test it. Than from terminal run:


```
mutter --replace
```

For me mutter session works, but I have no time to actively test it.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Why are you asking this? I think that you can freely subscribe to any mailing list you want. They are not restricted to devs only.
> 
> 
> 
> Why Metacity? Have you tried to use mutter? If you have time you could install mutter to test it. Than from terminal run:
> 
> 
> ```
> mutter --replace
> ...


I maintain a lot of low-end hardware so I'm always looking at options that use the least resources.

I'll just subscribe I guess but I'm a real dummy  :Sad:

----------


## grahammechanical

I was out and about yesterday so I did not get the change from flashback and flashback (no effects) to flashback (compiz) and flashback (metacity) until just now (early afternoon - UK). This is what I have found in my very unscientific experimentation using System Monitor.

1) there is a long delay for the app indicators (network, sound, calendar, power cog) to appear both with flashback (compiz ) and with flashback (metacity)

2) memory footprint is greatest with Ubuntu+Unity then with either flashback and flashback (metacity) has the lower memory footprint.

3) to have the lowest memory footprint remove (if possible) any app indicators that are useful but not necessary. The app indicators push flashback memory footprint from just over 200 MiB to well over 300 Mib.

Regards.

----------


## ventrical

> I was out and about yesterday so I did not get the change from flashback and flashback (no effects) to flashback (compiz) and flashback (metacity) until just now (early afternoon - UK). This is what I have found in my very unscientific experimentation using System Monitor.
> 
> 1) there is a long delay for the app indicators (network, sound, calendar, power cog) to appear both with flashback (compiz ) and with flashback (metacity)
> 
> Regards.


+1..

Yeah .. really weird .. I thought the desktop was busted , but it came up after while.

----------


## kansasnoob

> +1..
> 
> Yeah .. really weird .. I thought the desktop was busted , but it came up after while.


Very, very slowly ........... perhaps two to three minutes.

----------


## mc4man

> I was out and about yesterday so I did not get the change from flashback and flashback (no effects) to flashback (compiz) and flashback (metacity) until just now (early afternoon - UK). This is what I have found in my very unscientific experimentation using System Monitor.
> 
> 1) there is a long delay for the app indicators (network, sound, calendar, power cog) to appear both with flashback (compiz ) and with flashback (metacity)


On a fresh install with decent hardware see no delay, Desktop loads with indicators in place (& all fully functional

So maybe old install and or older hardware?

Do see a possible upcoming issue with some possible changes in xorg-xserver that could appear when using a usb mouse but have to wait & see what/if xorg is upgraded to.

----------


## ventrical

> On a fresh install with decent hardware see no delay, Desktop loads with indicators in place (& all fully functional
> 
> So maybe old install and or older hardware?


nVidia Ge210/218 a@ 4.167GHz .. very slow to load desktop..




```
Linux ventrical-System-Product-Name 3.12.0-4-generic #12-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 26 22:41:11 UTC 2013 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux
ventrical@ventrical-System-Product-Name:~$
```

edit::   Seems to be isolated to nVidia graphics. Works really snappy on Intel Core2Duo, Intel(R) 965Q .

----------


## ventrical

> Very, very slowly ........... perhaps two to three minutes.



Ran it on an AMD Athlon 6000 2X Dual with nVidia GeForce 210/218 and it took over a minute for the desktop to show up after recent updates. So thats 2 nVidia adaptors emulating this behaviour.

 Looks like nVidia problem with nouveau ?

Gallium 0.4 on NVA8

----------


## mc4man

> Ran it on an AMD Athlon 6000 2X Dual with nVidia GeForce 210/218 and it took over a minute for the desktop to show up after recent updates. So thats 2 nVidia adaptors emulating this behaviour.
> 
>  Looks like nVidia problem with nouveau ?
> 
> Gallium 0.4 on NVA8


I can't ck. nouveau on this machine, it's either Intel or Nvidia thru nvidia-prime. 
The former works great, while the later works there are certainly issues, mainly with gnome-settings-daemon which always crashes. 
In the case of gnome-flashback session,  g-s-d crashing causes all sorts of issues including missing indicators & wrong theming for gtk2 apps

(likely no real comparison between Nvidia or nouveau & nvidia-prime.., but you could check your various logs, probably in .cache/upstart

----------


## Alan F

Its not just Nvidia that is causing the problem. I am getting the same thing with Intel graphics.

If you watch System Monitor processes you will see that Compiz and Unity-system-compositor come to life when the problem clears (Flashback with compiz)

----------


## kansasnoob

OK, my Ubuntu install is getting a bit long in the tooth:




> Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release i386 (20131021.1)


But I get the same results from this Ubuntu GNOME install:




> Ubuntu-GNOME 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha i386 (20131126)


I should maybe note that I'm sure it's not due to the display manager because Ubuntu uses lightdm with the unity-greeter, while Ubuntu GNOME uses gdm, and I've tried lightdm with the gtk-greeter in Ubuntu GNOME with the same results.

I'm using bare metal:




> Intel Atom CPU  230 @ 1.60GHz
> *Intel 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)*
> Intel N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
> Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
> 2GB DDR2 RAM


And when I initially boot into Trusty Flashback using either Metacity or Compiz I get a basically blank screen other than gnome-panel:

IMG_4634.JPG

Then I must wait between 2 to 3 minutes for the rest of the desktop to load and for the menus and apps to respond  :Sad: 

Edit: I just decided to try the standard Ubuntu/Unity DE and it also loads very slowly on a full reboot.

----------


## mc4man

Well I resurrected an older laptop (core2duo, nvidia 8400m, 6-7 year old hdd, ect.

On login both the gnome panels show immediately but -
The sound, datetime & session indicators take about 1 min to appear
nautilus is not handling the Desktop until either clicking on anything in Places or waiting until the 3 missing indicators load

----------


## Cavsfan

Same here. Nvidia driver 319.32 in flashback. The panels appear quickly but, it takes 2-3 minutes (it seems) for the wallpaper, Cairo Dock, etc. to come up.
Compiz also uses a lot of CPU as well. Because of this I haven't been staying in Trusty for all that long at a time.

----------


## mc4man

The issue with the slow loading indicators & nautilus is likely from the new glib source.
At least here downgrading to previous version & they load up fine (libglib2.0-0 (2.38.1-1) 

So that's repairable, look for new flashback builds down the road

----------


## kansasnoob

> The issue with the slow loading indicators & nautilus is likely from the new glib source.
> At least here downgrading to previous version & they load up fine (libglib2.0-0 (2.38.1-1) 
> 
> So that's repairable, look for new flashback builds down the road


In deed, I've reminded two people in recent days that we're still really pre-alpha  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

> I was searching for something else and stumbled upon this:
> 
> https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeFlashback
> 
> Really good info so I wanted to share it


Address change:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback

----------


## ventrical

> Well I resurrected an older laptop (core2duo, nvidia 8400m, 6-7 year old hdd, ect.
> 
> On login both the gnome panels show immediately but -
> The sound, datetime & session indicators take about 1 min to appear
> nautilus is not handling the Desktop until either clicking on anything in Places or waiting until the 3 missing indicators load



Thats exactly it on my nVidia based machines.

----------


## QDR06VV9

> Thats exactly it on my nVidia based machines.


Well I guess i'll make it unanimous. :Very Happy:

----------


## Hazzabin

> The issue with the slow loading indicators & nautilus is likely from the new glib source.
> At least here downgrading to previous version & they load up fine (libglib2.0-0 (2.38.1-1) 
> 
> So that's repairable, look for new flashback builds down the road


thanks for that info

I can't seem to downgrade as it's only showing the latest libclib (2.39 something) any ideas how to find and re-install that older one

----------


## ventrical

> Well I guess i'll make it unanimous.


+1  :Smile:

----------


## mc4man

> thanks for that info
> 
> I can't seem to downgrade as it's only showing the latest libclib (2.39 something) any ideas how to find and re-install that older one


Well you go here for i386 
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...+build/5135941

 amd64 users need 2 i386 packages from above  in addition to whichever amd64 ones they need from below link
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...+build/5135938

To see what packages you can either search libglib2 in synaptic or this in terminal, look for 'Installed: 2.39.....'
apt-cache policy libglib2.0*

Download all needed, put in a created folder, cd to in a terminal & run this. If any error then read, fix & rerun command till good
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

typical 4 packages for amd64 shown in screen, the 2 all.debs are from i386 link

----------


## Cavsfan

> Well you go here for i386 
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...+build/5135941
> 
>  amd64 users need 2 i386 packages from above  in addition to whichever amd64 ones they need from below link
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...+build/5135938
> 
> To see what packages you can either search libglib2 in synaptic or this in terminal, look for 'Installed: 2.39.....'
> apt-cache policy libglib2.0*
> 
> ...


Kewl mon! That fixed it up for me! Back in the thick of it.  :Smile:  Thanks!

----------


## Cavsfan

One question though. How do you prevent it from upgrading back to the 2.39.1 version.
After setting it back to 2.38.1, this is waiting:



```
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-bin libglib2.0-data libglib2.0-doc libnautilus-extension1a nautilus nautilus-data
7 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 3,206 kB of archives.
After this operation, 937 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
```



```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ apt-cache policy libglib2.0-0
libglib2.0-0:
  Installed: 2.38.1-1
  Candidate: 2.39.1-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
     2.39.1-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://ubuntu.wikimedia.org/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
 *** 2.38.1-1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
```

----------


## Cavsfan

Never mind I may have stumbled upon the answer:

*Using apt*
_you can hold a package using_
  sudo apt-mark hold package_name
_and remove the hold with_
  sudo apt-mark unhold package_name



```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ sudo apt-mark hold libglib2.0-0
[sudo] password for cavsfan: 
libglib2.0-0 set on hold.
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ sudo apt-mark hold libglib2.0-bin
libglib2.0-bin set on hold.
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ sudo apt-mark hold libglib2.0-data
libglib2.0-data set on hold.
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ sudo apt-mark hold libglib2.0-doc
libglib2.0-doc set on hold.
```

----------


## ventrical

> Well you go here for i386 
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...+build/5135941
> 
>  amd64 users need 2 i386 packages from above  in addition to whichever amd64 ones they need from below link
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...+build/5135938
> 
> To see what packages you can either search libglib2 in synaptic or this in terminal, look for 'Installed: 2.39.....'
> apt-cache policy libglib2.0*



 I checked it out in synaptic and it wants to remove several depends and other programs if one tries to use the >force Version option from Packages.

----------


## zika

> Never mind I may have stumbled upon the answer:
> 
> *Using apt*
> _you can hold a package using_
>   sudo apt-mark hold package_name
> _and remove the hold with_
>   sudo apt-mark unhold package_name
> 
> 
> ...


Beware: hold (i.e. lock on package version) is not always transferable/honored between frontends (synaptic, aptiptude etc...) There was a detailed thread about that in which I've showed certain exceptions.

----------


## Cavsfan

> Never mind I may have stumbled upon the answer:
> 
> *Using apt*
> _you can hold a package using_
>   sudo apt-mark hold package_name
> _and remove the hold with_
>   sudo apt-mark unhold package_name
> 
> 
> ...





> Beware: hold (i.e. lock on package version) is not always transferable/honored between frontends (synaptic, aptiptude etc...) There was a detailed thread about that in which I've showed certain exceptions.


I don't have a clue about where this goes from here but it sure did fix the problem. Trusty works in Flashback like a new one. *mc4man* helped the situation tremendously. I'll take my chances with this versus what I had before. 



```
Fetched 27.0 MB in 23s (1,137 kB/s)                                                                                                                                                                               
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-bin libglib2.0-data libglib2.0-doc
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$
```

Plus I always use terminal to get my updates and it seems to be doing well.

----------


## ventrical

> I don't have a clue about where this goes from here but it sure did fix the problem. Trusty works in Flashback like a new one. *mc4man* helped the situation tremendously. I'll take my chances with this versus what I had before. 
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> Fetched 27.0 MB in 23s (1,137 kB/s)                                                                                                                                                                               
> Reading package lists... Done
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree       
> ...


 But when the fix/upgrade comes in and the old libglib2.0-0 gets obsoleted and the depends also get upgraded then does not the kernel/OS look for the upgraded libglib and not finding it, it breaks the depends eventually? I'm just asking.

Regards..

----------


## zika

> I don't have a clue about where this goes from here but it sure did fix the problem. Trusty works in Flashback like a new one. *mc4man* helped the situation tremendously. I'll take my chances with this versus what I had before. 
> ...Plus I always use terminal to get my updates and it seems to be doing well.


I did not object to the solution to Your problem You've found.I've just wanted to caution You that Your lock could open if Yuo would use another fontend to try to upgrade. Since You do use only CLI and, probably, only the same frontend all the time, You're safe.

----------


## kansasnoob

I personally prefer just waiting for the fix to drop  :Wink: 

The more I tweak the less I end up knowing about actual existing bugs, and we are pre-alpha  :Smile:

----------


## Cavsfan

I have no idea what I'm doing lol. I just thought I would try *mc4man*'s solution. *Zika* it's not my solution. Look back at post #149. I'm willing to admit that I'm not smart enough to come up with this solution.  :Laughing: 

I just checked what is in the updates and there is a kernel and some other stuff. I guess I'll take the hold off those 4 and let it happen. I don't have the slightest clue as to what *libglib* is or does. I was just glad that I found *mc4man*'s post and fix because it made it usable again. If it's still screwed up after these updates I'll probably repeat the fix from post #149. I still have the debs and the folder. 

So, here goes. *holds breath*  :Laughing:

----------


## ventrical

> I have no idea what I'm doing lol. I just thought I would try *mc4man*'s solution. *Zika* it's not my solution. Look back at post #149. I'm willing to admit that I'm not smart enough to come up with this solution. 
> 
> I just checked what is in the updates and there is a kernel and some other stuff. I guess I'll take the hold off those 4 and let it happen. I don't have the slightest clue as to what *libglib* is or does. I was just glad that I found *mc4man*'s post and fix because it made it usable again. If it's still screwed up after these updates I'll probably repeat the fix from post #149. I still have the debs and the folder. 
> 
> So, here goes. *holds breath*



At least you're  having fun :Smile:    Explore away !!!!   :Smile:  It's amazing  how things get discovered when we do proceedures ie; as mac4man has suggested.

Regards..

----------


## Cavsfan

> I personally prefer just waiting for the fix to drop 
> 
> The more I tweak the less I end up knowing about actual existing bugs, and we are pre-alpha


Yes, I am aware we are pre-alpha and letting those 4 files upgrade made it go back like it was slooooooooooooooow after the panels appear.

 Is everyone getting this error when a kernel gets installed as I just did on the 3.12.0-5-generic kernel:


```
Setting up linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic (3.12.0-5.13) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: deferring update (hook will be called later)
initrd.img(/boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-5-generic
) points to /boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-5-generic
 (/boot/initrd.img-3.12.0-5-generic) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic.postinst line 491.
vmlinuz(/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-5-generic
) points to /boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-5-generic
 (/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.0-5-generic) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic.postinst line 491.
```

I don't see the CPU being used excessively like before though.

It's a good thing I have VinDSL's conky so I can see what is happening in real time.



I wonder what *mc4man*'s take is on this. He must have performed the steps he mentioned in post #149.

----------


## mc4man

I looked for a current bug the other other day, didn't find so filed here &  for the moment  may be applicable -
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961

(- I never pin anything, if I don't want something upgraded then I simply don't upgrade it. This can be done easily in synaptic or thru sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade packagename(s) though both are not without potential pitfalls

----------


## Cavsfan

> At least you're  having fun   Explore away !!!!   It's amazing  how things get discovered when we do proceedures ie; as mac4man has suggested.
> 
> Regards..


Indeed I am having fun!  :Laughing: 




> I looked for a current bug the other other day, didn't find so filed here &  for the moment  may be applicable -
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961
> 
> (- I never pin anything, if I don't want something upgraded then I simply don't upgrade it. This can be done easily in synaptic or thru sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade packagename(s) though both are not without potential pitfalls


Thanks and I'll do that with the upgrading but it seems a bit tedious when many files need updated. I added my name to the bug. Are you all getting the error I mentioned?
*doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic.postinst line 491.*

But I can see doing it with Synaptic pretty easily.

Thanks for the replies.  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> I looked for a current bug the other other day, didn't find so filed here &  for the moment  may be applicable -
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961
> 
> (- I never pin anything, if I don't want something upgraded then I simply don't upgrade it. This can be done easily in synaptic or thru sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade packagename(s) though both are not without potential pitfalls


Me-too'ed & subscribed  :Smile: 

I suspect at this point we just need to wait for the various teams to get into sync.

----------


## mc4man

> Are you all getting the error I mentioned?
> *doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic.postinst line 491.*


I don't believe that's an error, while I can't profess to really understand I take "doing nothing" as a message that nothing needs to be done in 'whatever' regard (already properly linked?

So if interested take a look at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic.postinst line 491 & see. (as said I don't really understand it, just looking at logically



```
489    }
490    else {                  # already have proper link
491      warn "$kimage($vmlinuz_target) points to $target ($real_target) -- doing nothing";
492      $force_move = 0;
493     }
494     return $force_move;
```

----------


## ventrical

Looks like the libglib2.0-0 is in the upgrade.

Here goes..

edit:

Wrong machine. Belay my last..

----------


## ventrical

Ok .. got the latest kernel update and it knocked out my 'Ring Switcher' function from ccsm and set it to 'Shift Switcher'. Also reset number of desktops to 1. Now cannot get ring switcher to work  on Trusty gnome-flashback (with compiz).

----------


## Cavsfan

> Me-too'ed & subscribed 
> 
> I suspect at this point we just need to wait for the various teams to get into sync.


Good deal. I went ahead and downgraded the packages, rebooted and it's back to being very fast. Man it was as slow as my windows 7 booting up. Can't have none of that.  :Wink: 
But, this time as suggested I will not lock the packages. I will just selectively upgrade all but those 4 packages.




> I don't believe that's an error, while I can't profess to really understand I take "doing nothing" as a message that nothing needs to be done in 'whatever' regard (already properly linked?
> 
> So if interested take a look at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-extra-3.12.0-5-generic.postinst line 491 & see. (as said I don't really understand it, just looking at logically
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> 489    }
> 490    else {                  # already have proper link
> ...


So, I take it you're getting the same thing and if you say so I will not worry about it. Looking at the red on the else it does look like it's already linked.
Thanks for showing that.




> Looks like the libglib2.0-0 is in the upgrade.
> 
> Here goes..
> 
> edit:
> 
> Wrong machine. Belay my last..


Man are we having fun or what?  :Laughing:  Thanks to all of you for helping me learn this stuff. I love learning new things.

So, I guess when the new fixed libglib comes down the pipe it will only install the latest version. Would that be correct? What will become of the bad packages when that happens?

----------


## Cavsfan

> Ok .. got the latest kernel update and it knocked out my 'Ring Switcher' function from ccsm and set it to 'Shift Switcher'. Also reset number of desktops to 1. Now cannot get ring switcher to work  on Trusty gnome-flashback (with compiz).


I always for the past three or four versions have used Application Switcher in Flashback and have never had a problem. I have had the same problems you mention with any of the other ones so I stick with this one in the top left of CCSM Window Management.
It's not perfect and it appears confusing but it works every time.

----------


## Cavsfan

> I looked for a current bug the other other day, didn't find so filed here &  for the moment  may be applicable -
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961
> 
> (- I never pin anything, if I don't want something upgraded then I simply don't upgrade it. This can be done easily in synaptic or thru sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade packagename(s) though both are not without potential pitfalls


I see what you mean about the potential pitfalls. I had 51 updates this morning and used the sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade command to install just 47 of them. That went fine.
I just checked for updates again and it installed gir1.2-gmenu-3.0 gnome-menus gnome-session gnome-session-bin gnome-session-common libaudit-common libaudit1 libgnome-menu-3-0 libplymouth2 libselinux1 libssl1.0.0 openssl plymouth plymouth-label plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo plymouth-theme-ubuntu-text python3-software-properties rsyslog software-properties-common software-properties-gtk xserver-common xserver-xephyr xserver-xorg-core.

But the recommends were rsyslog-mysql rsyslog-pgsql rsyslog-doc rsyslog-gnutls rsyslog-gssapi rsyslog-relp xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi
And when I attempted to install those here's what I got:



```
The following extra packages will be installed:
  dbconfig-common libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysqlclient18 libpq5 librelp0 libterm-readkey-perl mysql-client mysql-client-5.5 mysql-client-core-5.5 mysql-common postgresql-client postgresql-client-9.3
  postgresql-client-common
Suggested packages:
  libmldbm-perl libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl libsql-statement-perl postgresql-9.3 postgresql-doc-9.3 gnutls-bin krb5-user mysql-server postgresql
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  dbconfig-common libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysqlclient18 libpq5 librelp0 libterm-readkey-perl mysql-client mysql-client-5.5 mysql-client-core-5.5 mysql-common postgresql-client postgresql-client-9.3
  postgresql-client-common rsyslog-doc rsyslog-gnutls rsyslog-gssapi rsyslog-mysql rsyslog-pgsql rsyslog-relp xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi
0 upgraded, 22 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
Need to get 13.8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 62.3 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
```

I aborted that operation not knowing what the heck I was doing  :Laughing: 

And what about the libglib files when the good ones come down the pipe?

----------


## kansasnoob

Just thinking out loud here  :Idea: 

Since the new GNOME Classic session is in no way related to the "Flashback" sessions I think I should rename this thread once again.

My thought is that the new GNOME Classic session is no more closely related to the "Flashback" sessions than MATE or Cinnamon. So I'm thinking of changing the name to "Trusty GNOME Flashback sessions".

To take things a step further, _once again just thinking out loud_, I wonder why we Flashback devotees are relying on GNOME dev in any way?

Consider this example (read the replies from Matthias Clasen):

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=695088

It's almost apparent that GNOME dev not only dropped internal support for 'gnome-panel' and 'metacity', but that they're more than willing to set up roadblocks to prevent Debian and Ubuntu dev from achieving that goal  :Sad: 

So I'm thinking that we should move our entire movement away from GNOME and onto either Ubuntu or Debian resources .............. including the mailing list!

Please share your thoughts  :Smile:

----------


## oldfred

I thought gnome decided to drop fallback/flashback or whatever, as your link above discusses with 3.7, but then with gnome 3.8 they added it back in.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback

But the naming and the underlying tools have me totally confused.

All I really know is 12.04 with kansasnoob's directions for fallback and that has worked well for me.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I thought gnome decided to drop fallback/flashback or whatever, as your link above discusses with 3.7, but then with gnome 3.8 they added it back in.
> 
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback
> 
> But the naming and the underlying tools have me totally confused.
> 
> All I really know is 12.04 with kansasnoob's directions for fallback and that has worked well for me.


This might be helpful:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2185161

Basically Debian and Edubuntu want to keep it alive for LTSP installs, and development is ongoing - albeit somewhat slow.

----------


## muktupavels

How many of this thread readers are using flashback session with trusty? I would love if you could check something for me. Please open panel properties and try change all properties - orientation, size, expand, show hide buttons. Does it work for you?

P.S. Fallback mode is dropped from gnome as official part and it is not added back.

----------


## PJs Ronin

> How many of this thread readers are using flashback session with trusty?


I am trying to do this, I really am... but I'm having no luck at all getting Gnome-Compiz or Gnome-Metacity to play nice.



> I would love if you could check something for me. Please open panel properties and try change all properties - orientation, size, expand, show hide buttons. Does it work for you?


I, for one, can't even do that.   My top panel is blank and no amount CTRL-ALT left/right mouse on the panel does anything.

I'm really forming the opinion that Gnome-dodo is just that.

----------


## kansasnoob

> How many of this thread readers are using flashback session with trusty? I would love if you could check something for me. Please open panel properties and try change all properties - orientation, size, expand, show hide buttons. Does it work for you?
> 
> P.S. Fallback mode is dropped from gnome as official part and it is not added back.


I've been testing Flashback w/ Metacity in Trusty at least once daily, but things have been quite a mess lately. Not all of the mess is related only to the Flashback sessions however. In fact Lubuntu totally blew up on me  :Smile: 

I typically use only a bottom panel so I created a top panel just for testing purposes, and I notice when I add hide buttons w/o arrows it looks OK, but when I add arrows to the buttons I just get a "white bar" directly below the panel:

top_panel_buttons.jpg

Rather off-topic but I'm sure you're aware of this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961

----------


## kansasnoob

BTW I'm posting in "bits-n-pieces" because Firefox frequently crashes, but that also happens in a standard 'gnome-shell' session so it's not a "flashback" only thing  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

> How many of this thread readers are using flashback session with trusty? I would love if you could check something for me. Please open panel properties and try change all properties - orientation, size, expand, show hide buttons. Does it work for you?
> 
> P.S. Fallback mode is dropped from gnome as official part and it is not added back.


Top and bottom orientation work fine (in a metacity session), but left and right just display a blank white panel.

If I had my druthers we'd eliminate left/right orientation altogether  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

Still in a metacity session expand works fine, but increasing the size results in the same white border as adding arrows to the buttons.

----------


## kansasnoob

Something I should perhaps mention is that the Saucy version of  Hardware Sensors Indicator stopped appearing and working in Trusty, but I notice some updates coming for the 'sensors-applet' in Trusty-proposed so maybe at some point that will not be needed any longer.

----------


## kansasnoob

Oh, both delete and add panel still work as expected in a metacity session.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I am trying to do this, I really am... but I'm having no luck at all getting Gnome-Compiz or Gnome-Metacity to play nice.
> I, for one, can't even do that.   My top panel is blank and no amount CTRL-ALT left/right mouse on the panel does anything.
> 
> I'm really forming the opinion that Gnome-dodo is just that.


This won't make much sense right now so bear with me through a couple of edits  :Smile: 

The configurability of the "panels" is quite dependent on what session and window manager you're running.

You can run this command to see what session you're running:



```
echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
```

Or you can install 'wmctrl' and then run this command:



```
wmctrl -m
```

For instance I'm currently running a flashback/metacity session so I get this output:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install wmctrl
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.11.0-12 linux-headers-3.11.0-12-generic
  linux-headers-3.12.0-1 linux-headers-3.12.0-1-generic linux-headers-3.12.0-2
  linux-headers-3.12.0-2-generic linux-image-3.11.0-12-generic
  linux-image-3.12.0-1-generic linux-image-3.12.0-2-generic
  linux-image-extra-3.11.0-12-generic linux-image-extra-3.12.0-1-generic
  linux-image-extra-3.12.0-2-generic linux-image-extra-3.12.0-3-generic
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  wmctrl
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 21.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 79.9 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe wmctrl i386 1.07-7 [21.3 kB]
Fetched 21.3 kB in 0s (69.5 kB/s) 
Selecting previously unselected package wmctrl.
(Reading database ... 319957 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking wmctrl (from .../wmctrl_1.07-7_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up wmctrl (1.07-7) ...
lance@lance-desktop:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
gnome-fallback
lance@lance-desktop:~$ wmctrl -m
Name: Metacity
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: N/A
```

I'll follow up with more info later  :Very Happy: 

More info #1:

As you seemed to imply nothing works in a flashback/compiz session right now as far as editing 'gnome-panel', but I've never focused on Compiz because I find it too "heavy" for most of my hardware anyway. OTOH I've found Metacity to run just as "light" as both Xfwm and Openbox in real-time with as little as an 1100Mhz CPU and 500MB of RAM, although 1GB of RAM is preferable for installation.

Anyway, these are the outputs of those two commands in a Trusty flashback/compiz session:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
gnome-fallback-compiz
lance@lance-desktop:~$ wmctrl -m
Name: Compiz
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: OFF
```

----------


## kansasnoob

Thinking out loud again  :Redface: 

Why does the small team of Debian/Edubuntu devs interested in the flashback session need to even support a flashback/compiz session? Only Metacity would be needed to support LTSP installs  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

Something odd and interesting, after trying a flashback/compiz session logging out and logging back into a metacity session seems to still display a compiz session for a minute and a half (maybe almost two minutes), so maybe the aforementioned bug has something to do with determining which session should be initiated  :Confused:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Why are you asking this? I think that you can freely subscribe to any mailing list you want. They are not restricted to devs only.
> 
> 
> 
> Why Metacity? Have you tried to use mutter? If you have time you could install mutter to test it. Than from terminal run:
> 
> 
> ```
> mutter --replace
> ...


This is mostly a reminder to myself  :Wink: 

I've not forgotten about trying Mutter but I've found Ubuntu GNOME Trusty to be incredibly unstable out-of-box ATM so I'm just waiting for their Alpha 1.

----------


## PJs Ronin

Ok, not sure where all this is going, but here's my story.   I rsync'd my saucy partition (has only unity with no xfce/ldx/gnome wizzbangery) into a new partition... then did an insitu upgrade of this new partition to trusty... I then saw a post explaining how to bring in the 'right' gnome so I did a _sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback gdm_... at the GDM login I now have 5 options, Ubuntu, Gnome with Compiz, Gnome with Metacity, Gnome and Default Session.   Delete reference to that last option for the remainder of this post.

So, I tried each method, took a screenie and applied the script mentioned above.   Here are the results:

Unity


```
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION && echo "-------------------" && wmctrl -m 
ubuntu
-------------------
Name: Compiz
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: OFF
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$
```



Gnome (Compiz) - top panel totally unresponsive


```
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION && echo "-------------------" && wmctrl -m 
gnome-fallback-compiz
-------------------
Name: Compiz
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: OFF
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$
```



Gnome (Metacity) - top panel totally unresponsive


```
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION && echo "-------------------" && wmctrl -m
gnome-fallback
-------------------
Name: Metacity
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: N/A
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$
```



Gnome - everything pretty much works


```
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION && echo "-------------------" && wmctrl -m 
gnome
-------------------
Name: GNOME Shell
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: N/A
wayne@trusty-gnome:~$
```



I really don't want to hijack this thread and would prefer you pursue your original thoughts.   Just letting folks know that atm noobs like me are probably going to have problems with gnome-session-flashback installs.

----------


## muktupavels

> Ok, not sure where all this is going, but here's my story.   I rsync'd my saucy partition (has only unity with no xfce/ldx/gnome wizzbangery) into a new partition... then did an insitu upgrade of this new partition to trusty... I then saw a post explaining how to bring in the 'right' gnome so I did a _sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback gdm_... at the GDM login I now have 5 options, Ubuntu, Gnome with Compiz, Gnome with Metacity, Gnome and Default Session.   Delete reference to that last option for the remainder of this post.
> 
> So, I tried each method, took a screenie and applied the script mentioned above.   Here are the results:
> 
> Unity
> 
> 
> ```
> wayne@trusty-gnome:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION && echo "-------------------" && wmctrl -m 
> ...


Do you have installed indicator-applet-appmenu? If so uninstall it and try again compiz and/or metacity sessions.

I know that at least on x64 indicator-applet-appmenu is broken causing all other applets to not show. If you can open system monitor, you can try kill that process to see if applets shows on top panel.

----------


## PJs Ronin

> Do you have installed indicator-applet-appmenu? If so uninstall it and try again compiz and/or metacity sessions.
> 
> I know that at least on x64 indicator-applet-appmenu is broken causing all other applets to not show. If you can open system monitor, you can try kill that process to see if applets shows on top panel.


Ty... I'll try that today.

----------


## PJs Ronin

indicator-applet-appmenu was NOT installed.   After I installed it there was no change to not being able to access the top panel in gnome-compiz, however in gnome-metacity I could now access the top panel... briefly.  I managed to install the clock app before indicator-applet-appmenu crashed.

----------


## kansasnoob

> indicator-applet-appmenu was NOT installed.   After I installed it there was no change to not being able to access the top panel in gnome-compiz, however in gnome-metacity I could now access the top panel... briefly.  I managed to install the clock app before indicator-applet-appmenu crashed.


I also found it was not installed.

----------


## ventrical

It's not installed here either and it still doesn't work after most recent updates. 1  and 1/2 minute before panel and desktop show up. I tried to adjust some compiz settings , but to no avail.

----------


## Cavsfan

> It's not installed here either and it still doesn't work after most recent updates. 1  and 1/2 minute before panel and desktop show up. I tried to adjust some compiz settings , but to no avail.


Same here: it wasn't installed but after it was installed it had little effect. Also 1 and 1/2 minutes here for the desktop to show up but after that it's pretty smooth.

----------


## ventrical

Metacity is affected also. never seen it so bad. Usually we get this long delay before plymouth or before login screen.

 Looks like a traffic cop somewhere in the code. I remember we had something like this during 11.10 or during Precise beta testing . It was just awful.. and it turned out to be one of the devs put a 'wait' command for 2 minutes on a line that should not have been there.  I forget the bug. Hmmmm..

----------


## Hazzabin

Hey guys

Is there any signs that this is getting a fix sometime soon

----------


## ventrical

I just zsynced todays daily 386.iso <ubuntu>, fresh installed downloaded gnome-session-flashback and the delay now is worse than before. 2 minutes...

Also .. Ubiquity is showing a 'wide-out' horizontal screen and the automatic partitioner slider is not visible (yet it still partitions the half average size of disk.

----------


## Cavsfan

Thanks I was just going to ask the same question. I guess I'll stick with what I have for now.

----------


## kansasnoob

Jonathan Carter is still on board:

http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/m...s/1300/results

So wipe the sweat from your brow  :Very Happy: 

We'll be fine, we just need to remember that people have lives, families, and careers as well as their involvement in **buntu  :Very Happy:

----------


## kansasnoob

GNOME Sensors Applet works again:

sensors-applet.png

That should mean we can live w/o this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~alexmurray/+a...icator-sensors

So hats off to Alex Murray for his great work  :Very Happy:

----------


## Hazzabin

Using Trusty Gnome 14.04 behaves for me as it should, attempting to switch into 'with compiz' is a 3 to 4 minute wait and no nothing in either top or bottom bars, 'with metacity' total disaster.

My install is from the iso dated 16.12.2013 with the updates as per synaptic manager.

Trusty Unity works beautifully.

----------


## kansasnoob

One of the Edubuntu devs posted a workaround for that desktop-loading-slowly bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...961/comments/8

I gave it a try:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo -i
[sudo] password for lance: 
root@lance-desktop:~#  echo '#!/bin/sh
>  /usr/bin/gnome-panel &' > /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
root@lance-desktop:~#  chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
root@lance-desktop:~#
```

And it does work in a metacity session  :Guitar: 

So hopefully that will help find a true fix  :Smile:

----------


## tista

Hi kansasnoob  :Wink: 

I've also living with this dirty workaround:

*1. Remove the gnome-panel entry within gome-session kicking sequence*
In /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome-flashback.session, Those components would be defined like this:


```
RequiredComponents=gnome-settings-daemon;gnome-screensaver;nautilus-classic;metacity;gnome-panel;
```

So remove this red part to avoid kicking gnome-panel within session init. 

*2. Add autostart desktop file for gnome-panel with some "Delay"*
Something like this named 'gnome-panel.desktop' in $HOME/.config/autostart/:


```
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=gnome-panel
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=2
Name[en_US]=Gnome-Panel
Name=Gnome-Panel
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=
```

This could work for my flashback session...  :Capital Razz: 
I suppose gnome-setting-daemon in trusty might need a bit more time to load their plugins, or indicators-applet would need some tricks to load into gnome-panel?

Regards,
Tista

----------


## ventrical

> One of the Edubuntu devs posted a workaround for that desktop-loading-slowly bug:
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...961/comments/8
> 
> I gave it a try:
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


Works in compiz session +1!  :Smile:

----------


## grahammechanical

Would somebody like to help this uneducated peasant and explain what those commands do?

My first guess was that they create a script. But I could not see what was to be put in the script. My second guess, after a little research (including that Launchpad link), is that they change the permissions of a bin/executable file called gnome-panel. I am now guessing that the plus sign ( + ) in front of the x = execute sign causes a delay in the executing of gnome-panel.

Oh, I do already know what the echo command does.

Regards.

----------


## zika

Create folder (it did not exist on my machine) (it is included in the PATH env.var. before /usr/bin so it is OK) and open file for editing

```
sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin
sudo nano /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
```

Put into that file:


```
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/gnome-panel &
```

Make it executable

```
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
```

All this makes easy get-back path:

```
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
```

with possible addition of erasing even folder if iw was not there before this operation...
For the sake of security I will not give code for that erasure since (if it was there before and had some files) that could make certain problems to someone who does copy&paste blindly...

----------


## kansasnoob

> Would somebody like to help this uneducated peasant and explain what those commands do?
> 
> My first guess was that they create a script. But I could not see what was to be put in the script. My second guess, after a little research (including that Launchpad link), is that they change the permissions of a bin/executable file called gnome-panel. I am now guessing that the plus sign ( + ) in front of the x = execute sign causes a delay in the executing of gnome-panel.
> 
> Oh, I do already know what the echo command does.
> 
> Regards.


I really didn't bother trying to figure it out, I just considered the source:

https://launchpad.net/~alkisg

But if I blow up a test install I don't care a whole bunch  :Very Happy:

----------


## Cavsfan

> One of the Edubuntu devs posted a workaround for that desktop-loading-slowly bug:
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...961/comments/8
> 
> I gave it a try:
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


+1 That worked great on my compiz session. I just logged out and back in and it worked.  :Popcorn:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Create folder (it did not exist on my machine) (it is included in the PATH env.var. before /usr/bin so it is OK) and open file for editing
> 
> ```
> sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin
> sudo nano /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
> ```
> 
> Put into that file:
> 
> ...


Thanks for clarifying that  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Hi kansasnoob 
> 
> I've also living with this dirty workaround:
> 
> *1. Remove the gnome-panel entry within gome-session kicking sequence*
> In /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome-flashback.session, Those components would be defined like this:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


I'll try that soon on a fresh install.

----------


## kansasnoob

I've finally begun updating post #1 for the benefit of those new to Ubuntu +1, please let me know if you see any missing parts  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

> If You go with dconf-editor on that address You can choose from 3 different settings, or You can list that switch with the same tool as above.


Referring to the scrollbar settings in dconf described here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...3#post12850773

Hmmm, one of three is obviously the default, and another is "normal", but what is the third?

----------


## zika

> Referring to the scrollbar settings in dconf described here:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...3#post12850773
> 
> Hmmm, one of three is obviously the default, and another is "normal", but what is the third?


1. normal
2. overlay-auto
3. overlay-pointer
4. overlay-touch
(at least on my machine...)
It is not difficult to open dconf-editor on that „address“ and check...

----------


## kansasnoob

> 1. normal
> 2. overlay-auto
> 3. overlay-pointer
> 4. overlay-touch
> (at least on my machine...)
> It is not difficult to open dconf-editor on that address and check...


OK, displaying my stupidity here  :Redface: 

How exactly do I check the available options in dconf-editor?

Sorry to be a pain  :Smile:

----------


## mc4man

> How exactly do I check the available options in dconf-editor?


click in the Value column to expose the dropdown list (ie. right on 'overlay-auto'

----------


## kansasnoob

> click in the Value column to expose the dropdown list (ie. right on 'overlay-auto'


Cool, I honestly never knew that  :Biggrin:

----------


## Hazzabin

you were not the only one kansasnoob

As per the image in
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...3#post12850773

I do not get canonical/desktop, mine only shows canonical/indicator

how can I get canonical desktop   to show

I'm using the Gnome Trusty  not a derivative

----------


## mc4man

> you were not the only one kansasnoob
> 
> As per the image in
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...3#post12850773
> 
> I do not get canonical/desktop, mine only shows canonical/indicator
> 
> how can I get canonical desktop   to show
> 
> I'm using the Gnome Trusty  not a derivative


I don't use trusty 'gnome' but it's likely it doesn't install those  gschema files, as in 
/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/com.canonical.desktop.interface.gschema.xml  & com.canonical.desktop.interface.enums.xml

----------


## Hazzabin

> I don't use trusty 'gnome' but it's likely it doesn't install those  gschema files, as in 
> /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/com.canonical.desktop.interface.gschema.xml  & com.canonical.desktop.interface.enums.xml


Thanks mate, just curious which 'Trusty' are you using
correct that gschema files are not there, any suggestions on how to get/install

thanks in advance

note: think I'll change my 'name' to Aussienoob

----------


## kansasnoob

> Thanks mate, just curious which 'Trusty' are you using
> correct that gschema files are not there, any suggestions on how to get/install
> 
> thanks in advance
> 
> note: think I'll change my 'name' to Aussienoob


What exactly are you trying to do, add the overlay scrollbars to the gnome-shell DE?

----------


## Hazzabin

No mate

I was hoping that with adding that schema I might just be lucking and get top and bottom panels/taskbar working in gnome flashback

as nothing else seems to be working, it appears that some 'fixes' have worked with other os'es xubuntu, lubuntu and maybe others

----------


## kansasnoob

> No mate
> 
> I was hoping that with adding that schema I might just be lucking and get top and bottom panels/taskbar working in gnome flashback
> 
> as nothing else seems to be working, it appears that some 'fixes' have worked with other os'es xubuntu, lubuntu and maybe others


In Ubuntu GNOME I encountered this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...m/+bug/1245209

Maybe look at the screenshots to see if you are encountering a similar problem. If so try installing 'lightdm-gtk-greeter' which also installs 'lightdm'. Then when prompted select to use the lightdm display manager rather than gdm. Then reboot to complete the change.

Note that if you have selected "auto-login" you'll boot into the same session you were using so you'll want to logout and select the Flashback (no effects) session from the drop-down menu in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

And in Ubuntu, Edubuntu, and Ubuntu GNOME there is this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961

There is a workaround in post #8 that worked for me, and there is another workaround I've not yet tested here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...8#post12881058

If your problem is with the Compiz session I'm clueless.

If any of this is confusing please ask questions before jumping in  :Very Happy:

----------


## zika

> OK, displaying my stupidity here 
> 
> How exactly do I check the available options in dconf-editor?
> 
> Sorry to be a pain


Click on field for that entry...

----------


## kansasnoob

> Click on field for that entry...


Thanks, I truly never knew that until now  :Very Happy:

----------


## grahammechanical

Not too long ago this thread got on to the subject of gnome-screen saver. I am not wishing to take this thread off topic but this link might be interesting for those who care about screen savers and that stuff.

http://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/wake-f...gin-screen/923

Regards.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Not too long ago this thread got on to the subject of gnome-screen saver. I am not wishing to take this thread off topic but this link might be interesting for those who care about screen savers and that stuff.
> 
> http://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/wake-f...gin-screen/923
> 
> Regards.


Very, very much welcome  :Very Happy: 

In the past few  days I've begun updating my OP, please have a look and feel free to be critical:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...9#post12833089

I had planned on asking about that because some people do still want an actual screensaver.

----------


## Hazzabin

Thanks kansasnoob for your reply, a couple of things worked as in booting into 'flashback with compiz', followed some instructions and boots in way faster, tho still no nothing in top and bottom panels

yes I am using Ubuntu-Gnome with 'Compiz-flashback', it is weird as Classic and base Gnome works fine with top panels etc all working

no matter something will get fixed sometime soon

again thanks

----------


## kansasnoob

> Thanks kansasnoob for your reply, a couple of things worked as in booting into 'flashback with compiz', followed some instructions and boots in way faster, tho still no nothing in top and bottom panels
> 
> yes I am using Ubuntu-Gnome with 'Compiz-flashback', it is weird as Classic and base Gnome works fine with top panels etc all working
> 
> no matter something will get fixed sometime soon
> 
> again thanks


I recall this being discussed several days ago. Is anyone aware of a bug report? I'd like to add it to the known issues in post #1  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

I need to post a couple of screenshots of 'gnome-tweak-tool' in order to make my OP make sense  :Smile: 

tweak_tool_theme.png

tweak_tool_desktop.png

----------


## kansasnoob

Looks like I need to learn some new tricks  :Smile: 

The past few days I've been testing gnome 3.10 packages from the gnome 3 ppa, some of which will hopefully make it into the repos soon.

On one installation of Ubuntu GNOME Trusty gnome-panel broke badly in the flashback w/metacity session, but I cross-tested with Ubuntu, Edubuntu, and finally another installation of Ubuntu GNOME which worked OK with my typical layout:

Screenshot from 2014-01-03 03:50:29.jpg

So I booted back into the broken OS and tried all of the old tricks to restore the defaults but to no avail  :Sad: 

What finally did work was totally purging these using synaptic:




> Commit Log for Wed Jan  1 21:39:54 2014
> 
> 
> Completely removed the following packages:
> gnome-applets
> gnome-panel
> gnome-session-flashback


Then I rebooted into the default gnome-shell session, reinstalled those three packages, logged out, then logged back into a flashback w/metacity session and all was well.

So I need to develop a decent approach to restoring a default config when things get totally borked.

----------


## ventrical

Ok.. after yesterdays update it appears that the Gnome Panel bug (delay) has been fixed in Gnome-Flashback-Compiz).

Who-ever fixed it .. Thanks !  :Smile: 

Regards..

----------


## QDR06VV9

> Ok.. after yesterdays update it appears that the Gnome Panel bug (delay) has been fixed in Gnome-Flashback-Compiz).
> 
> Who-ever fixed it .. Thanks ! 
> 
> Regards..


Might have to give this a Go now! Thanks
Vent its been a while, Hope the Holidays went well for you!

----------


## ventrical

> Might have to give this a Go now! Thanks
> Vent its been a while, Hope the Holidays went well for you!



Sure did and hope the same for you and yours  :Smile: 

Ummm... as for this problem being fixed ... I'll have to double check on another PC .

brb

----------


## QDR06VV9

> Sure did and hope the same for you and yours 
> 
> Ummm... as for this problem being fixed ... I'll have to double check on another PC .
> 
> brb


Very Nice Thank You my Friend!
I know what you mean checking from another machine, Since I got back into testing seems like I have a least 2 Machines or more running.lol

----------


## ventrical

> Very Nice Thank You my Friend!
> I know what you mean checking from another machine, Since I got back into testing seems like I have a least 2 Machines or more running.lol



My apologies.  It has been a while since I had checked other systems. The machine I used was one that had the |edited| file. So the fix is not in as of yet.  So... belay my last.   :Smile: 

Regards..

|edited file|

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...7#post12881077

----------


## Cavsfan

I guess I should have read further before trying it. I made it unexecutable and logged out.


```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ sudo chmod -x /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel
```

 Still the delay. Rebooted and same thing.

So I just made it executable again logged out and back in business. No harm done. 

I'm _sure_ they will fix it eventually.  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

Still testing the gnome 3.10 packages from the gnome 3 PPA and I found that the new gnome-tweak-tool fails to launch if gnome-shell is not installed:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/+bug/1266307

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721613

----------


## Cavsfan

> One of the Edubuntu devs posted a workaround for that desktop-loading-slowly bug:
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...961/comments/8
> 
> I gave it a try:
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


When the 3.13.0-1-generic kernel dropped in yesterday it made my system unbootable. I guess it had something to do with the nvidia driver 331-20 not working with the kernel.
I got the daily ISO and am now almost back in business.

But, the fix above no longer works. With /usr/local/bin/gnome-panel executable you get the same 1 1/2 minute delay but the top and bottom panels never appear up in Flashback (with Compiz).
If you make it unexecutable the initial problem is back: the panels immediately appear with a 1 1/2 minute delay before everything comes up.

I am living with the delay without the above fix for now.

Here's what I now have for Nvidia drivers to work with the new kernel:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...7#post12895677

----------


## Alan F

Gnome-panel fix still works for me OK. (3.13.0-1 kernel and Intel graphics)

----------


## Cavsfan

> Gnome-panel fix still works for me OK. (3.13.0-1 kernel and Intel graphics)


So, you do not have the 331.20 Nvidia driver installed right?

----------


## Alan F

> So, you do not have the 331.20 Nvidia driver installed right?


Correct

----------


## psfal

As an exclusively Gnome Classic user, 12.04 is the last release I can move the min, max, close buttons to the right, where they belong. The inability to install my personal choice of desktop and have it function perfectly in any newer versions of Ubuntu is a deal-killer for me. I've tried the Ubuntu Gnome version and their excuse for "Classic" is very poor indeed. Unless I can find a way to move the buttons to the right where they belong 12.04 will be the very last version of Ubuntu that I use... Don't bother commenting about Gnome Classic no longer being supported, that's bull. I use Debian w/Gnome Classic the majority of the time already as I find ways to get my Netflix Desktop and various other things up and running, preparatory to dumping Ubuntu altogether... All they had to do was leave the original Gnome 2.0 alone and available but they chose to "force" people to move to less appealing DEs... I like my simple and exquisite Gnome Classic 2.0 and my available applets in the top panel and I will keep it as long as it is available in whatever distribution I have to use to have it... There is simply no other DE that I find pleasing... Yes, I've tried them all (MATE sucks, IMHO it's hideous)

----------


## Cavsfan

> As an exclusively Gnome Classic user, 12.04 is the last release I can move the min, max, close buttons to the right, where they belong. The inability to install my personal choice of desktop and have it function perfectly in any newer versions of Ubuntu is a deal-killer for me. I've tried the Ubuntu Gnome version and their excuse for "Classic" is very poor indeed. Unless I can find a way to move the buttons to the right where they belong 12.04 will be the very last version of Ubuntu that I use... Don't bother commenting about Gnome Classic no longer being supported, that's bull. I use Debian w/Gnome Classic the majority of the time already as I find ways to get my Netflix Desktop and various other things up and running, preparatory to dumping Ubuntu altogether... All they had to do was leave the original Gnome 2.0 alone and available but they chose to "force" people to move to less appealing DEs... I like my simple and exquisite Gnome Classic 2.0 and my available applets in the top panel and I will keep it as long as it is available in whatever distribution I have to use to have it... There is simply no other DE that I find pleasing... Yes, I've tried them all (MATE sucks, IMHO it's hideous)


In terminal enter 


```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'
```

Problem solved.

----------


## kansasnoob

> As an exclusively Gnome Classic user, 12.04 is the last release I can move the min, max, close buttons to the right, where they belong. The inability to install my personal choice of desktop and have it function perfectly in any newer versions of Ubuntu is a deal-killer for me. I've tried the Ubuntu Gnome version and their excuse for "Classic" is very poor indeed. Unless I can find a way to move the buttons to the right where they belong 12.04 will be the very last version of Ubuntu that I use... Don't bother commenting about Gnome Classic no longer being supported, that's bull. I use Debian w/Gnome Classic the majority of the time already as I find ways to get my Netflix Desktop and various other things up and running, preparatory to dumping Ubuntu altogether... All they had to do was leave the original Gnome 2.0 alone and available but they chose to "force" people to move to less appealing DEs... I like my simple and exquisite Gnome Classic 2.0 and my available applets in the top panel and I will keep it as long as it is available in whatever distribution I have to use to have it... There is simply no other DE that I find pleasing... Yes, I've tried them all (MATE sucks, IMHO it's hideous)


Not a good way to request help my friend!

Have you even read my OP and followed the links:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...9#post12833089

Buttons still can be moved to the right, the method has just changed due to the deprecation of gconf.

Calm down and request help rather than ranting or the mods will undoubtedly just start moving your posts to some place where you'll be less likely to get help  :Smile: 

EDIT: You should know this already:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2169915

Just ask for help instead of ranting and raving.

----------


## Cavsfan

I now see what you all have been saying about gnome-screensaver. I believe with this recent update it now functions as a lock. My screen goes black and turns off after 10 minutes. Although there is no "screensaver" functionality to it.
Maybe they should call it gnome-lock instead. I would still rather have a screensaver versus a black screen.

On my windows 7 setup, the screensaver kicks in after 10 minutes, the monitor turns off after 30 minutes and the PC goes to sleep after 60 minutes. I would like that in Ubuntu as well but have not seen a way to do it.
Precise goes to sleep mode after 30 minutes but all of the rest of my 'Buntus never go to sleep. But, I can suspend them as needed.

I'll take Xscreensaver  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

@ Alberts,

I hope your still reading here  :Smile: 

I signed up for the mailing list and I'm receiving messages OK but not able to send to list yet, I've PMed Jonathan about that so hopefully I can get it straightened out soon. Anyway, after reading this:




> 1) The Applications menu is now a mess. Applications that were previously in the Accessories menu now appear in Accessories, Utilities, Sundry and Other. The System Settings submenu was moved under Applications instead of System Tools. Etc etc, the changes don't make much sense except maybe only for gnome-shell.
>     Is it possible to somehow ship/use the previous version of /etc/xdg/menus/gnome-applications.menu ?
> 
> 
> Can you fill bug for this? I agree with you, I don't like new menu too...
> 
> 1) Lets ship old applications.menu with gnome-panel. This is simple, I already can upload patch for this. I added applications.menu from gnome-menus 3.4.0. In this case ubuntu should make new patch to add Software center to applications menu.
> 
> 2) Install old applications.menu file only in ubuntu. I can create merge proposal for this if needed, but I would prefer first solution.


I filed this bug report:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1267787

----------


## muktupavels

> @ Alberts,
> 
> I hope your still reading here 
> 
> I signed up for the mailing list and I'm receiving messages OK but not able to send to list yet, I've PMed Jonathan about that so hopefully I can get it straightened out soon. Anyway, after reading this:
> 
> 
> 
> I filed this bug report:
> ...


I am reading here and i will continue to do it.

Why you are not able to send to mailing list? Just reply to received e-mail.

----------


## Cavsfan

> @ Alberts,
> 
> I hope your still reading here 
> 
> I signed up for the mailing list and I'm receiving messages OK but not able to send to list yet, I've PMed Jonathan about that so hopefully I can get it straightened out soon. Anyway, after reading this:
> 
> 
> 
> I filed this bug report:
> ...


I me too'ed it. I wondered about how convoluted it had gotten. I believe you can go into Main Menu, which ironically happens to under Applications >Sundry. Well I guess that makes the point well.  :Laughing:

----------


## kansasnoob

> I am reading here and i will continue to do it.
> 
> Why you are not able to send to mailing list? Just reply to received e-mail.


Sort of complicated. The sign up process rejected my yahoo mail acct, the same account I use for everything Ubuntu related:

https://launchpad.net/~lbsolost

So I used an old sbcglobal.net address that still dumps mail to my yahoo account to complete the sign up process, so I'm receiving mail from the list but when I reply it still shows it's coming from yahoo so I always get messages like this:




> Your mail to 'gnome-flashback-list' with the subject
> 
>     Re: [gnome-flashback] Regressions from previous gnome-panel
> releases
> 
> Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.
> 
> The reason it is being held:
> 
>     Post by non-member to a members-only list


I'm not at all interested in creating a new email acct since I use that for Launchpad, Ubuntu QA, and all of my Ubuntu GNOME communications so I'm just waiting for a reply from Jonathan  :Wink: 

BTW Bugzilla had no problem with my email when I created an account to file my first bug report there:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721613

----------


## kansasnoob

As expected more info has been requested here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1267787

So I'm going to use this as a "whiteboard" to document what I consider to be the most egregious of the changes. The questions are rhetorical ATM, I'll keep rebooting until I'm satisfied that my list is fairly complete  :Smile: 

(1) System Settings tree view added, but certainly not needed.

(2) Other added - only contains Personal File Sharing in Ubuntu GNOME, not sure how to describe Ubuntu:

Screenshot from 2014-01-11 04:21:35.jpg

(3) Sundry added. Orca Screen Reader moved to Sundry, but Onboard is still in Universal Access. Main Menu was moved from System Tools > Preferences to Sundry.

(4) Utilities added.

(5) It appears to me that we tried to copy the GNOME Classic "Applications Menu" extension, but flashback is not Classic and they're not us  :Smile: 

*******************************************

I'm thinking I could summarize this along these lines:

It appears to me that an effort was made to copy the appearance of the GNOME Classic "Applications Menu" extension. In so doing the following categories were added:

Other - *This requires some serious thought!* It looks like this needs to stay as not to break Unity because it displays shopping lenses and web-apps!

I'm gaining slowly here. The Other category was added in Quantal to accommodate Unity lenses and web apps were added later:

quantal_menu.jpg 

Sundry - Orca Screen Reader moved to Sundry, but Onboard is still in Universal Access. Main Menu was moved from System Tools > Preferences to Sundry.

System Settings tree view - just totally unnecessary. 

Utilities

##############################

I want to see what this addendum to the bug report looks like before I post it there:

To explain in greater detail, the sub-menu "Other" was added beginning with Quantal to display shopping lenses and later to also display web-apps which is arguably fine. I personally have no problem with that.

But in Saucy it appears an effort was made to copy the appearance of the GNOME Classic "Applications Menu" extension. In so doing the following sub-menus were added to 'gnome-panel':

(1) System Settings tree view added, but certainly not needed since System Settings also appears in System Tools as well as under the username.

(2) Sundry added, but sparsely populated. Orca Screen Reader moved to Sundry from Universal Access, but Onboard is still in Universal Access (being legally blind myself I refer to such changes as rearranging the furniture while I'm not home). Main Menu was also moved from System Tools > Preferences to Sundry which makes it a bit more difficult to eliminate Sundry if one so wishes.

(3) Utilities added, but also not really needed as all it accomplishes is relocating a large number of apps from Accessories and System Tools to a new location. Again just rearranging furniture.

In summary I'd add that 'gnome-session-flashback' need not mimic the new GNOME Classic session nor vice versa.

Two potential fixes, one upstream and the other at the Ubuntu level, have already been proposed here:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00011.html

----------


## Cavsfan

I can't find the post on here but, I was able to once again add the patch from this bug to get Flashback (with compiz) loading quicker. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1256961

When I tried it before it only started fast but the top and bottom panels would never appear, but since the new kernel installed today it works again.  :Guitar: 

Fantastic!!! I'll leave the times in killscreensaver.sh alone because for now it doesn't matter as long as they get executed prior to 10 minutes passing.
But, at least I can get my conky do appear a lot faster.  :Smile: 

Things are looking up. Glome-flashback dependency of gnome-screensaver has been changed to a depends. Although          albertsmuktupavels mentioned not to remove gnome-screensaver just yet because it will break gnome-flashback.
But, the future is looking brighter.  :Smile:

----------


## Hazzabin

Gnome 14.04 'Flashback with compiz'

As said by Cavsfan "But, the future is looking brighter.  :Smile: "

For the very first time I've got top and bottom panel, and I can't add my normal indicators/apps to the top panel, even time....can't add date to it

meant to mention, right-click top or bottom panels don't do anything either

any help appreciated

----------


## kansasnoob

@ Alberts,

I was a bit confused about the "Other" section of the menu and since we're focusing mostly on Edubuntu, Ubuntu, etc I spent the time to really dig into this  :Smile: 

I know that you'd suggested here that we roll back to "gnome-menus 3.4.0" but I think in order to NOT break Unity protocol we should only roll back to "3.6.0-0ubuntu1" as it was in Quantal because "Other" needs to be present to display lenses and webapps I guess  :Confused: 

But the "System Settings tree view" is an absolute waste of space as are "Sundry" and "Utilities" since they only served to mimic the GNOME Classic "Applications Menu" extension.

Would you agree?

----------


## Alan F

> Gnome 14.04 'Flashback with compiz'
> 
> As said by Cavsfan "But, the future is looking brighter. "
> 
> For the very first time I've got top and bottom panel, and I can't add my normal indicators/apps to the top panel, even time....can't add date to it
> 
> meant to mention, right-click top or bottom panels don't do anything either
> 
> any help appreciated



Hold down the Windows (Super) Key + alt, then right click on the top/bottom panel

----------


## muktupavels

> @ Alberts,
> 
> I was a bit confused about the "Other" section of the menu and since we're focusing mostly on Edubuntu, Ubuntu, etc I spent the time to really dig into this 
> 
> I know that you'd suggested here that we roll back to "gnome-menus 3.4.0" but I think in order to NOT break Unity protocol we should only roll back to "3.6.0-0ubuntu1" as it was in Quantal because "Other" needs to be present to display lenses and webapps I guess 
> 
> But the "System Settings tree view" is an absolute waste of space as are "Sundry" and "Utilities" since they only served to mimic the GNOME Classic "Applications Menu" extension.
> 
> Would you agree?


I have never installed Edubuntu or any other ubuntu version. I am using only Ubuntu.

In way I would do it, it won't break anything. My idea is to ship new file with gnome-panel - just take menu file from older gnome-menus version (https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-menus) and rename it to for example flashback-applications.menu and use this file with flashback session / gnome-panel.

----------


## Hazzabin

AlanF, thanks so much for that info

Hazz

----------


## PJs Ronin

I'm with Hazzabin... I've finally managed to get top and bottom panels that look like top and bottom panels... and with AlanF's input I'm slowly building some functionality into those panels.   If I can just remember why I wanted to do this I'll be batting 1000... oh yeah, random masochistic tendencies.

----------


## Hazzabin

PJs Ronin, thank you, was starting to think it was only me with those issues

If a solution for "indicator-applet-complete" not wanting to go into the panel I could not find it, and/or is this a bug?

----------


## kansasnoob

I guess I should try a Compiz session sometime but I'm mostly concerned about the Metacity session  :Sad: 

If someone does figure out how to get a sweet GNOME Flashback (Compiz) session working I'd love to include a link to it in my OP  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> I'm with Hazzabin... I've finally managed to get top and bottom panels that look like top and bottom panels... and with AlanF's input I'm slowly building some functionality into those panels.   If I can just remember why I wanted to do this I'll be batting 1000... oh yeah, random masochistic tendencies.


I think I must also suffer from *random masochistic tendencies*  :LOL: 

I'm personally very happy with gnome-shell (used to be happy with Unity) but it's not just about me  :Smile: 

Some people want an older style DE and sometimes you have two or more users in the same household that want different DE's on the same puter. That's why I focus on installing as little as possible, and removing NOTHING!

Keeping as many changes as possible at the user level is a major focus  :Wink:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Gnome 14.04 'Flashback with compiz'
> 
> As said by Cavsfan "But, the future is looking brighter. "
> 
> For the very first time I've got top and bottom panel, and I can't add my normal indicators/apps to the top panel, even time....can't add date to it
> 
> meant to mention, right-click top or bottom panels don't do anything either
> 
> any help appreciated


It look some serious searching. I found it on about page 4 or 5 of the google results but, I finally got the date, time and even the seconds to work.  :Smile: 

If you don't already have dconf Editor - *sudo apt-get install dconf-tools*. It will be under Applications > Sundry.

I'm pretty sure I had entered this in the top in custom-time-format *%m-%d-%Y %l:%M %p*. (month day year hour:minute AM/PM)
It doesn't show that now but I think it took effect judging by my desktop below.

Screenshot from 2014-01-13 14:33:59.png

----------


## ventrical

> I guess I should try a Compiz session sometime but I'm mostly concerned about the Metacity session 
> 
> If someone does figure out how to get a sweet GNOME Flashback (Compiz) session working I'd love to include a link to it in my OP


Here is a brief test session with compiz and ccsm.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbXt...ature=youtu.be

----------


## grahammechanical

Here is my 2 cents worth.

Ubuntu+Unity+gnome-session-flashback+with Compiz+4 workspaces

1) Click on a workspace icon and the top and bottom panels disappear.
2) Wait for app indicator icons to appear. Click on workspace icon and top and bottom panels disappear. Open a utility - Ctrl+Alt+T (terminal) and top and bottom panels reappear. Click on app indicator icon and top and bottom panels disappear.
3) Wait for app indicator icons to appear. Click on app indicator icon - work as normal. Click on workspace icon and top and bottom panels disappear. See item 2.

Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys do not switch workspaces.

I have not tested this on with Metacity. I first need to work out how to increase the number of workspaces.

Regards.

----------


## Hazzabin

grahammechanical

Open CompizConfig Settting Manager

goto 'General Options'

find 'Desktop size'  (far right in General Options)

Horizontal Virtual Size, make it '4'   just also make sure the other 2 listed have no numbers entered

Least I should say this works for me as far as 'workspaces', hope it helps

And check this link out, it may help, tho it does apply to 13.04 I see no reason why it be different

http://askubuntu.com/questions/30097...ade-to-13-04-h

----------


## PJs Ronin

> Here is my 2 cents worth.
> Ubuntu+Unity+gnome-session-flashback+with Compiz+4 workspaces
> ...
> I first need to work out how to increase the number of workspaces.


For all intents and purposes I can replicate this to a 'T', but I also have xfce and kde installed into the same partition.

Anyway, Hazzabin then said:



> grahammechanical
> Open CompizConfig Settting Manager
> goto 'General Options'
> find 'Desktop size'  (far right in General Options)
> Horizontal Virtual Size, make it '4'   just also make sure the other 2 listed have no numbers entered
> <snip>


Ahah !!!!!

I have almost the exact same experience as graham and when I try to adjust the number of workspaces using CCSM, the changes don't stick... keeps reverting to '1'.   Have had this b4 here.

----------


## grahammechanical

Oh, I found out how to increase the number of workspaces when in either of the two Gnome flashback sessions. Right click the single workspace icon (bottom panel). Select Preferences and increase the number from one upwards in the dialog. I have no problems switching workspaces in the "with Metacity" flashback session. 

I was out all day yesterday so I could update my post.

@hazzabin

I have made a note of your suggestion. I will test if it works. Workarounds like this will be useful when 14.04 is released and people come on the forum wanting to know how to do this and that.

UPDATE: In the "with Compiz" session we must set the number of workspaces using CCSM. Then we can switch workspaces using either Ctrl+Alt+arrow or by clicking a workspace. The right click workspace icon>Preferences>Increase number from 1 upwards does not work correctly. Do not suggest that way of doing it.

Regards.

----------


## psfal

> In terminal enter 
> 
> 
> ```
> gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'
> ```
> 
> Problem solved.


Thank you  :Smile:  This was the missing piece for me, I've installed 13.10 to a VM and gotten my Gnome Classic back almost the way it should be. The only thing missing now is my weather applets. If this carries through to 14.04 I'll replace 12.04 on one of my machines and see how efficiently 14.04 uses my hardware. I would like to have my weather applets back too though... Any idea why I have them in 12.04 but not the 13.10 running in VM?

----------


## psfal

> Not a good way to request help my friend!
> 
> Have you even read my OP and followed the links:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...9#post12833089
> 
> Buttons still can be moved to the right, the method has just changed due to the deprecation of gconf.
> 
> Calm down and request help rather than ranting or the mods will undoubtedly just start moving your posts to some place where you'll be less likely to get help 
> ...


Thanks for your post  :Smile:  I had actually given up on the issue, I've mentioned it before and gotten no usable info, I was actually sending a message to Ubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome devs, so yeah, it was a rant (I may have been off my meds). I'm a 1 DE kind of guy, and I'm not likely to change my outlook. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who loves Gnome Classic, admittedly I was perhaps not paying enough attention and missed pertinent info from your OP, my apologies for that...

----------


## kansasnoob

> Thanks for your post  I had actually given up on the issue, I've mentioned it before and gotten no usable info, I was actually sending a message to Ubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome devs, so yeah, it was a rant (I may have been off my meds). I'm a 1 DE kind of guy, and I'm not likely to change my outlook. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who loves Gnome Classic, admittedly I was perhaps not paying enough attention and missed pertinent info from your OP, my apologies for that...


Welcome aboard  :Smile: 

We all have moments where a rant feels like the best response, but I can assure you that the "flashback" session is under active development. Some things get confusing due to the deprecation of gconf in favor of dconf but IMHO most of the changes have been positive  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

There seems to be some confusion surrounding how to select sessions using the various display managers in Trusty so I wanted to post some brief instructions along with pics. Regardless of which dm is used you must first log out, then before logging back in select the desired session as described below.

*With gdm*, which is the default Ubuntu GNOME display manager, after clicking on the user name you must click on the "gear" next to "Sign In" and choose the desired session:

gdm.JPG

*With lightdm using unity-greeter* you must first click on the GNOME foot next to the user name:

lightdm_unity_greeter_1.JPG

Then select the desired session:

lightdm_unity_greeter_2.JPG

*With lightdm using the gtk-greeter* the session selection is made in the upper right-hand corner of the screen:

lightdm_gtk_greeter.JPG

I hope that clears up any confusion.

----------


## psfal

One thing that bothers me a great deal is the fact that my weather applets are gone in 13.10, while I still have them in 12.04. Any explanation for this or means of getting them back? Still got my cpu scaling applets and system monitor applet, but no weather applets available in the menu

----------


## kansasnoob

> One thing that bothers me a great deal is the fact that my weather applets are gone in 13.10, while I still have them in 12.04. Any explanation for this or means of getting them back? Still got my cpu scaling applets and system monitor applet, but no weather applets available in the menu


I've never used the "weather applet" so I'm clueless  :Redface:

----------


## kansasnoob

Something I found interesting while corresponding with a dev concerning changes to GNOME 3.10 that effected keyboard shortcuts and a disappearing mouse pointer:




> I suspect they will be broken either way, we pass off key grabs to gnome-shell when XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME, this is one of the reasons *flashback is switching to use Unity profile*


So hold on tight  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Something I found interesting while corresponding with a dev concerning changes to GNOME 3.10 that effected keyboard shortcuts and a disappearing mouse pointer:
> 
> 
> 
> So hold on tight


That was a bad representation of what was said, this is more correct:




> On 18/02/14 19:39, Erick Brunzell wrote:
> > On 02/17/2014 06:11 PM, Tim wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi Lance,
> >> On 18/02/14 11:02, Lance wrote:
> >>> Rough going. It seems that X is broken in Edubuntu flashback-metacity with those packages, at least both the keyboard and mouse are non functional.
> >>>
> >> in the flashback session do you have a process called display-config-daemon running?
> ...


So, as soon as I catch a few winks, I need to do some more testing  :Wink:

----------


## cedric5

hello, I am also interested in flashback gnome panel.

As I also want to use the latest gnome color daemon and wacom panel features, I wanted to ask if it is possible to do that with flashback.

So: Newest wacom panel settings (3.10+) is now dependent on a plugin in gnome-settings manager AND one in gnome-settings-daemeon; I read elsewere that flashback does have to use it's own settings-daemon, which would render that functionality unuseable - is that true? Can this functionality be backported to 3.8, as 3.10 seems to get skipped in flashback?

Colord also acts as a plugin of gnome-settings-daemon, so same issue here... I would really like to have full support for these tools - How difficult could it be to port these new versions of the plugins over?

Also, could it be made possible to add and option to display the system menu again as in gnome2? So that we have applications / places /system . Right now, I use classic-panel , a fallback fork of stefan glasenhardt, in 12.04, which provides this.

----------


## kansasnoob

> hello, I am also interested in flashback gnome panel.
> 
> As I also want to use the latest gnome color daemon and wacom panel features, I wanted to ask if it is possible to do that with flashback.
> 
> So: Newest wacom panel settings (3.10+) is now dependent on a plugin in gnome-settings manager AND one in gnome-settings-daemeon; I read elsewere that flashback does have to use it's own settings-daemon, which would render that functionality unuseable - is that true? Can this functionality be backported to 3.8, as 3.10 seems to get skipped in flashback?
> 
> Colord also acts as a plugin of gnome-settings-daemon, so same issue here... I would really like to have full support for these tools - How difficult could it be to port these new versions of the plugins over?
> 
> Also, could it be made possible to add and option to display the system menu again as in gnome2? So that we have applications / places /system . Right now, I use classic-panel , a fallback fork of stefan glasenhardt, in 12.04, which provides this.


That's way over my head  :Redface: 

Maybe Alberts has an idea  :Confused: 

My personal concern is just making sure "flashback w/metacity" is working well enough for Edubuntu.

----------


## cedric5

The only thing I think that is necessary is that flashback works with the default gnome-settings-daemon of the targeted gnome release.  I hope its realistic to assume that this is possible. Backporting the plugins is a whole other issue.

 I read up about g-s-d and fallback and found that support for fallback was removed from g-s-d recently, but as flashback is at least partly gnome-coupled project now, I thought things could have already changed and someone knows more about this issue...

----------


## kansasnoob

It's certainly a bit different installing 'gnome-panel' in Ubuntu GNOME Trusty now:




> Commit Log for Fri Feb 28 14:04:47 2014
> 
> 
> Installed the following packages:
> alacarte (3.10.0-1ubuntu1)
> geoclue-ubuntu-geoip (1.0.2+14.04.20131125-0ubuntu1)
> gir1.2-gconf-2.0 (3.2.6-0ubuntu1)
> gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 (1:3.8.0-1ubuntu8)
> gnome-applets (3.5.92-0ubuntu3)
> ...

----------


## cedric5

ok..You have not installed with --no-install-recommends  - much less dependencies then





> sudo apt-get install gnome-panel  gnome-applets gnome-session-flashback --no-install-recommends
> 
> gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session-flashback libmetacity-private0a libpanel-applet-4-0 metacity metacity-common


I took a look and it looks like right now there is the default g-s-d (which is 3.8 right now - shouldn't be there  a version bump to 3.10 in final? I guess not because of feature freeze time) in as dependency in which is good.
 gnome control-center is still 3.6?!? and I know canonical is doing a quick fork just for LTS..


have to try around if that works out as expected, but I hope so.
only thing which bothers me is dependency on nautilus 3.8+, which is a bit harsh, 3.4 minimum and  nemo  (so nautilus (>=3.4) | nemo) would  be a wiser choice nowadays, because not everyone likes crippled filebrowsers

----------


## kansasnoob

> ok..You have not installed with --no-install-recommends  - much less dependencies then
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I took a look and it looks like right now there is the default g-s-d (which is 3.8 right now - shouldn't be there  a version bump to 3.10 in final? I guess not because of feature freeze time) in as dependency in which is good.
>  gnome control-center is still 3.6?!? and I know canonical is doing a quick fork just for LTS..
> 
> 
> ...


I performed some testing with these additional packages:

https://launchpad.net/~darkxst/+arch...series_filter=

But there were bumps in the road  :Sad: 

You can read starting here:

https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntugn.../msg00320.html

A few things got ugly though, like an invisible mouse pointer and broken keyboard shortcuts.

I'm not sure where Tim is on getting those last changes into Trusty ATM. He had indicated that he'd need to request an exception at this point in development.

Things are a bit on the ugly side ATM though.

----------


## cedric5

already found  that in gnome-flashback-list.... looks not too bad, but shurely someone capable has to fix it.

----------


## kansasnoob

> already found  that in gnome-flashback-list.... looks not too bad, but shurely someone capable has to fix it.


I'm Erick there  :Very Happy: 

If I were to guess I'd say they're waiting for the last shoe to drop in this transition from g-s-d to u-s-d, but that's only a guess!

----------


## Cavsfan

Any one else using flashback (with compiz) and experiencing the problem with the CCSM Windows Decoration is unchecked at startup or after logging out and back in.
It even becomes unchecked when you open CCSM and you have to re-check the box.

I thought with the compiz updates lately that this would be fixed but it is definitely not. I installed Emerald.

I opened a bug on the issue but I am the only one on it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...z/+bug/1284266

Maybe if more people signed onto the bug it might stand a better chance of being fixed.

Regards

----------


## xc3RnbFO8P

I cant start CCSM anymore.
But Compiz works fine in Flashback sessions,
no problem at all  :Smile: 




> rig@rig-Aspire-R3600:~$ ccsm
> Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module"
> 
> (ccsm:5183): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",
> 
> (ccsm:5183): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",
> 
> (ccsm:5183): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",
> 
> ...



Screenshot from 2014-03-06 12:04:22 by ringi_is, on Flickr

----------


## mc4man

> Any one else using flashback (with compiz) and experiencing the problem with the CCSM Windows Decoration is unchecked at startup or after logging out and back in.
> It even becomes unchecked when you open CCSM and you have to re-check the box.


On a testing install (Ubuntu) with flashback added can't say I see this, the decor plugin is always enabled in a flashback/compiz session, either on fresh boot or via a login. Could be some local issue to you
Create a new user account & see how it fares.

(only issue I see is nautilus can't be resized from cursor grab which is too bad considering the current shrinking window bug in compiz

----------


## mc4man

> I cant start CCSM anymore.


likely self inflicted, seg faults should produce a crash report, open it up maybe you can glean some useful info

----------


## xc3RnbFO8P

> likely self inflicted, seg faults should produce a crash report, open it up maybe you can glean some useful info


I dont get any crash report, compiz works fine ( cube etc, ), its just ccsm that will not open.

Edit: this has nothing to do with Gnome Flashback sessions.

Solution was to remove *compizconfig-backend-kconfig*

----------


## mc4man

> I dont get any crash report, compiz works fine ( cube etc, ), its just ccsm that will not open.
> 
> Edit: this has nothing to do with Gnome Flashback sessions.
> 
> Solution was to remove *compizconfig-backend-kconfig*


for any future use - usually worth checking /var/crash after a segfault if no popup

----------


## xc3RnbFO8P

> for any future use - usually worth checking /var/crash after a segfault if no popup


Yes I do that thanks

----------


## Cavsfan

> On a testing install (Ubuntu) with flashback added can't say I see this, the decor plugin is always enabled in a flashback/compiz session, either on fresh boot or via a login. Could be some local issue to you
> Create a new user account & see how it fares.
> 
> (only issue I see is nautilus can't be resized from cursor grab which is too bad considering the current shrinking window bug in compiz


Indeed you were right. I created another user and windows decorator was checked. I pointed it to /usr/bin/emerald and it worked like a charm. Would you have any idea why my other userid doesn't work?

Thanks

----------


## mc4man

> Indeed you were right. I created another user and windows decorator was checked. I pointed it to /usr/bin/emerald and it worked like a charm. Would you have any idea why my other userid doesn't work?
> 
> Thanks


1st thing to check would be what profile, should be "Default"
(start ccsm from terminal

----------


## Cavsfan

> 1st thing to check would be what profile, should be "Default"
> (start ccsm from terminal


LOL! I'm pretty stunned!

This is my initial login which I use.


```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ ccsm
compizconfig - Info: Backend     : gsettings
compizconfig - Info: Integration : true
compizconfig - Info: Profile     : unity
Loading icons...
```


This is the test one I created and it says "Default"


```
test1@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ ccsm
compizconfig - Info: Backend     : gsettings
compizconfig - Info: Integration : true
compizconfig - Info: Profile     : Default
Loading icons...
```

You are good! Is there a way to make my first one default?
Thanks!

----------


## mc4man

> Is there a way to make my first one default?
> Thanks!


Best case scenario - 
open ccsm > Preferences
In the Profiles box expand & pick Default. (there may be 2, choose the 'middle' one.
Then  enable deco if it isn't, close ccsm & do a log out in & see

----------


## Cavsfan

> Best case scenario - 
> open ccsm > Preferences
> In the Profiles box expand & pick Default. (there may be 2, choose the 'middle' one.
> Then  enable deco if it isn't, close ccsm & do a log out in & see


I tried that a few times and it keeps going back to Unity. I've logged off and rebooted and still the same results.
This morning I purged compizconfig-settings-manager, rebooted and logged into the test uid and installed it there.

Logged back out and into my regular account and it still defaults to Unity. I can change it and set the checkmark in window decoration.
Then just by opening CCSM up it removes the checkmark and the window decoration disappears and it goes back to Unity.

Any other possibilities?

----------


## xc3RnbFO8P

Have you try this:

----------


## mc4man

If what Ringi suugested doesn't work then a sledgehammer approach - 
Open  ~/.config/dconf
Rename user file to user.bak
You then need to do a restart *without* logging out, either use some means to kill X or otherwise kill your session
If a log out or normal restart is done then the new user file will be the same as the .bak (at least this is what happens in an ubuntu/unity session

Another alternative to above is to access the above location from another install or user, then you 'should' get a new default user file
or
maybe there is a command to reset dconf settings to default for your session, haven't paid attention...

----------


## Cavsfan

I tried Ringi's approach and it still defaulted back to Unity.

I found this about how to reset the configuration for Compiz:



```
cd /home/cavsfan/; rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity .compiz-1 .config/compiz-1 .config/dconf
```

I don't have a .gnome folder or a .metacity folder and have .compiz and not .compiz-1. I also have .config/compiz-1 and .config/dconf

Would that be worth a shot or should I do as you said Mc4man?

----------


## mc4man

> I tried Ringi's approach and it still defaulted back to Unity.
> 
> I found this about how to reset the configuration for Compiz:
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> cd /home/cavsfan/; rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity .compiz-1 .config/compiz-1 .config/dconf
> ```
> ...


Me - I'd just whack the user file & see
So - 
if you don't have any easy means to kill x other than holding power button till pc shuts down you can re-enable ctrl+alt+backspace to 'kill xserver' like this



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options  "['terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp']"
```

The either delete that user file or rename to a .bak
As soon as that's done kill X, then see what shakes out when you log back in

----------


## Cavsfan

> If what Ringi suugested doesn't work then a sledgehammer approach - 
> Open  ~/.config/dconf
> Rename user file to user.bak
> You then need to do a restart *without* logging out, either use some means to kill X or otherwise kill your session
> If a log out or normal restart is done then the new user file will be the same as the .bak (at least this is what happens in an ubuntu/unity session
> 
> Another alternative to above is to access the above location from another install or user, then you 'should' get a new default user file
> or
> maybe there is a command to reset dconf settings to default for your session, haven't paid attention...


I tried this renaming user to user.bak. Then pressed Cntl+Alt+F1, and logged in then issued *sudo service lightdm stop* and it stopped. I pressed Cntl+Alt+F7 and got a blank screen.
Then entered *sudo service lightdm start* and it brought up the login screen.
Checked CSM and it was still set to Unity without windows deco. 
Is there anything I did wrong? This stops X doesn't it?

This is just after logging in:


```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ dconf dump /org/compiz/
[/]
existing-profiles=['Default', 'unity']
current-profile='unity'

[profiles/Default/plugins/thumbnail]
thumb-color='#0000007f'
font-background-color='#0000007f'

[profiles/Default/plugins/wall]
thumb-highlight-gradient-shadow-color='#dfdfdfff'
arrow-base-color='#e6e6e6d9'
arrow-shadow-color='#dcdcdcd9'

[profiles/Default/plugins/composite]
refresh-rate=50

[profiles/Default/plugins/cube]
top-color='#17855aff'
bottom-color='#fe4f4dff'
skydome=true
skydome-gradient-start-color='#0050ffff'
skydome-image='/home/cavsfan/Pictures/The-Sea_1920x1200_cool_twitter_backgrounds1.jpg'
skydome-gradient-end-color='#ff0061ff'

[profiles/Default/plugins/decor]
command='/usr/bin/emerald'
```



```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ dconf dump /org/compiz/
[/]
existing-profiles=['Default', 'unity']
current-profile='Default'

[profiles/Default/plugins/thumbnail]
thumb-color='#0000007f'
font-background-color='#0000007f'

[profiles/Default/plugins/wall]
thumb-highlight-gradient-shadow-color='#dfdfdfff'
arrow-base-color='#e6e6e6d9'
arrow-shadow-color='#dcdcdcd9'

[profiles/Default/plugins/composite]
refresh-rate=50

[profiles/Default/plugins/cube]
top-color='#17855aff'
bottom-color='#fe4f4dff'
skydome=true
skydome-gradient-start-color='#0050ffff'
skydome-image='/home/cavsfan/Pictures/The-Sea_1920x1200_cool_twitter_backgrounds1.jpg'
skydome-gradient-end-color='#ff0061ff'

[profiles/Default/plugins/decor]
command='/usr/bin/emerald'
```

So the only issue is current-profile which will not stay at Default.

----------


## Cavsfan

> Me - I'd just whack the user file & see
> So - 
> if you don't have any easy means to kill x other than holding power button till pc shuts down you can re-enable ctrl+alt+backspace to 'kill xserver' like this
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options  "['terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp']"
> ```
> ...


I renamed the user file and pressed cntl+alt+backspace and it brought me to the login screen.
When I logged in Unity was still in control not default.

----------


## mc4man

true but not helpful

----------


## mc4man

looks like I'll need to install flashback as if I change in a unity session to Default profile, log out then in it stays on Default
 If I then remove the user file, log out then back to unity normally  it switches to unity profile. 
Have you tried switching to Default, then delete the user file & do a normal log out/in?

----------


## mc4man

First - something doesn't quite add up as you've described
When in a flashback compiz session here & the profile is 'unity' then I get a unity launcher & no panel indicators, you don't seem to have that?

Anyway, the only way I found to switch back to Default profile other than doing in ccsm (though again here the switch back in ccsm sticks thru a log out/in

In ~/.local/share there are some files, delete  - 
session_migration-gnome-fallback-compiz
and for good measure - 
gsettings-data-convert

Then do a restart (because I had nothing else  used sudo reboot in a terminal

----------


## Cavsfan

> Have you tried switching to Default, then delete the user file & do a normal log out/in?


I just did and got the same results: Unity instead of Default.

Thanks for your help!

----------


## mc4man

> I just did and got the same results: Unity instead of Default.
> 
> Thanks for your help!


Did you try post 301?

----------


## Cavsfan

> Did you try post 301?


No I missed that. Trying it now.

----------


## Cavsfan

> First - something doesn't quite add up as you've described
> When in a flashback compiz session here & the profile is 'unity' then I get a unity launcher & no panel indicators, you don't seem to have that?
> 
> Anyway, the only way I found to switch back to Default profile other than doing in ccsm (though again here the switch back in ccsm sticks thru a log out/in
> 
> In ~/.local/share there are some files, delete  - 
> session_migration-gnome-fallback-compiz
> and for good measure - 
> gsettings-data-convert
> ...


I tried deleting those files and restarted and same thing Preferences is Unity with no Unity laucher and no panel indicators. I cannot click on the top of any window to move it without Windows decoration being checked. Terminal I can drag around but there is no deco and CCSM is unmovable without deco.
I cannot resize anything without window deco and the only way I can close windows is by clicking on it in the bottom bar and right clicking then close.

Here's a pic with terminal, desktop in nemo and CCSM open:

----------


## Hazzabin

I'm a little confused here guys

No where in any of my Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 with compiz flashback do I have the 'unity' showing in ccsm, is it possibly that you guys are running
Ubuntu 14.04 'Unity' with compiz flashback.

A re-install of 14.04 Unity with compiz flashback (latest one dated 6th March) now doesn't have any of those issues, least ways I'm not getting them now

Should also mention a fresh install of Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 with compiz flashback is behaving way better too, tho not as good as with Unity installs

Only thing I did find out that having Gnome with Unity installed and with compiz flashback simiply doesnt work least not for me

----------


## Cavsfan

> I'm a little confused here guys
> 
> No where in any of my Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 with compiz flashback do I have the 'unity' showing in ccsm, is it possibly that you guys are running
> Ubuntu 14.04 'Unity' with compiz flashback.
> 
> A re-install of 14.04 Unity with compiz flashback (latest one dated 6th March) now doesn't have any of those issues, least ways I'm not getting them now
> 
> Should also mention a fresh install of Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 with compiz flashback is behaving way better too, tho not as good as with Unity installs
> 
> Only thing I did find out that having Gnome with Unity installed and with compiz flashback simply doesnt work least not for me


That's what I'm thinking: a new install but think I'll hold out a little longer since I can make this one work with a little fiddling. The question is which one to install.
Don't the blue lines in your reply contradict each other? Not sure if I go with the regular Ubuntu ISO and install flashback or the UbuntuGnome ISO and install flashback. I'm confused.

----------


## grahammechanical

My early testing of Flashback in Trusty Tahr (not to be confused with Fallback) I learnt that in Ubuntu Gnome it is better to install Gnome Classic as it is a Gnome shell extension than to install gnome-session-flashback.

I also learnt that in Ubuntu+Unity it is best to install gnome-session-flashback and not the old gnome classic or Fallback. Or whatever you want to call it. The technology (software libraries) has moved on. What worked in 12.04 is not necessarily good for 14.04.

I also noticed that in Ubuntu+Unity+Flashback (with Compiz) that CCSM collides with Appearance settings and can mess things up with plain Ubuntu+Unity.

It seems that the delay in putting the app indicators in the top panel bug has been solved. At least on my machine as of yesterday.

As a side issue because of having the proposed repository enabled and the Unity 8 preview session installed I now have both the Standard network app indicator and the mobile app indicator and also the standard System Settings and the mobile System Settings. This is not much of a problem until we switch into Gnome Flashback with Compiz or with Metacity it makes no differences.

1) The network indicator icon does not appear in the top panel but Ubuntu still connects to the router and Internet.

2) The System Settings that loads from the menu structure is the mobile system settings.

There is a confusion due to having the same names but in Ubuntu+Unity this problem does not happen. It is something to watch out for as we move into U<code name> development cycle and further convergence.

Regards.

----------


## Cavsfan

> My early testing of Flashback in Trusty Tahr (not to be confused with Fallback) I learnt that in Ubuntu Gnome it is better to install Gnome Classic as it is a Gnome shell extension than to install gnome-session-flashback.
> 
> I also learnt that in Ubuntu+Unity it is best to install gnome-session-flashback and not the old gnome classic or Fallback. Or whatever you want to call it. The technology (software libraries) has moved on. What worked in 12.04 is not necessarily good for 14.04.
> 
> I also noticed that in Ubuntu+Unity+Flashback (with Compiz) that CCSM collides with Appearance settings and can mess things up with plain Ubuntu+Unity.
> 
> It seems that the delay in putting the app indicators in the top panel bug has been solved. At least on my machine as of yesterday.
> 
> As a side issue because of having the proposed repository enabled and the Unity 8 preview session installed I now have both the Standard network app indicator and the mobile app indicator and also the standard System Settings and the mobile System Settings. This is not much of a problem until we switch into Gnome Flashback with Compiz or with Metacity it makes no differences.
> ...


Thanks for the reply. I gave up and am downloading a new Ubuntu ISO. I already backed everything up so just have to wait for the DVD to finish formatting and the download to complete.
This is an install from January 9th I have and it's probably time to get a fresh copy anyway. I'm currently in Precise (what I consider my main install) and am loving it!  :Very Happy: 

Compiz had the burn deco and the beam me up deco. I'm going to miss those. But I will hang on until the very end.

----------


## Cavsfan

> My early testing of Flashback in Trusty Tahr (not to be confused with Fallback) I learnt that in Ubuntu Gnome it is better to install Gnome Classic as it is a Gnome shell extension than to install gnome-session-flashback.
> 
> I also learnt that in Ubuntu+Unity it is best to install gnome-session-flashback and not the old gnome classic or Fallback. Or whatever you want to call it. The technology (software libraries) has moved on. What worked in 12.04 is not necessarily good for 14.04.
> 
> I also noticed that in Ubuntu+Unity+Flashback (with Compiz) that CCSM collides with Appearance settings and can mess things up with plain Ubuntu+Unity.
> 
> It seems that the delay in putting the app indicators in the top panel bug has been solved. At least on my machine as of yesterday.
> 
> As a side issue because of having the proposed repository enabled and the Unity 8 preview session installed I now have both the Standard network app indicator and the mobile app indicator and also the standard System Settings and the mobile System Settings. This is not much of a problem until we switch into Gnome Flashback with Compiz or with Metacity it makes no differences.
> ...


Got it going pretty smooth at this point. I installed the Ubuntu+Unity ISO and am getting ready to install gnome-session-flashback all by itself as you mentioned. I'd like to give Unity more of a chance but I cannot get the buttons to move to the right as I am used to. I keep pressing the wrong window buttons. Here goes..... What could go wrong right?  :Smile:

----------


## Hazzabin

> Got it going pretty smooth at this point. I installed the Ubuntu+Unity ISO and am getting ready to install gnome-session-flashback all by itself as you mentioned. I'd like to give Unity more of a chance but I cannot get the buttons to move to the right as I am used to. I keep pressing the wrong window buttons. Here goes..... What could go wrong right?


The above is what I did and found the Ubuntu Unity with gnome session flashback to be almost perfect, and I also did it for same reasons buttons on the right side.
3 days and still going strong, well least mine is  :Capital Razz:

----------


## Cavsfan

> The above is what I did and found the Ubuntu Unity with gnome session flashback to be almost perfect, and I also did it for same reasons buttons on the right side.
> 3 days and still going strong, well least mine is


Unity is working pretty well is seems like while flashback is semi ok but not perfect. My conky won't run in flashback but it will in Unity which is odd.
It seemed that the gear button at the top right would logout and restart before I installed flashback but, now those 2 items do not work in either flashback or unity.
Here is exactly what installed and I didn't install any suggested packages:



```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7259:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback
[sudo] password for cavsfan: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  alacarte gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data gnome-media gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-screensaver gnome-session
  gnome-settings-daemon gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libpanel-applet-4-0 metacity notification-daemon
Suggested packages:
  tomboy gnome-netstatus-applet deskbar-applet cpufrequtils desktop-base gnome-themes-standard
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  alacarte gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data gnome-media gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-screensaver gnome-session
  gnome-session-flashback gnome-settings-daemon gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libpanel-applet-4-0 metacity notification-daemon
0 upgraded, 21 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.5 MB of archives.
After this operation, 51.4 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
```

----------


## Cavsfan

It would seem that when you install Ubuntu+Unity alone everything seems to work pretty well.
But once you throw gnome flashback in the mix, a lot of things break.

IMO the developers have their job cut out for them to get them working together.

Which is why I was thinking that the plain Ubuntu ISO with Unity should not allow gnome flashback to be added.
While the UbuntuGnome ISO should not have Unity on it and just gnome flashback and gnome classic. 
I wonder if that is the way it will pan out.

----------


## kansasnoob

> It would seem that when you install Ubuntu+Unity alone everything seems to work pretty well.
> But once you throw gnome flashback in the mix, a lot of things break.
> 
> IMO the developers have their job cut out for them to get them working together.
> 
> Which is why I was thinking that the plain Ubuntu ISO with Unity should not allow gnome flashback to be added.
> While the UbuntuGnome ISO should not have Unity on it and just gnome flashback and gnome classic. 
> *I wonder if that is the way it will pan out.*


Not a chance in the world  :Smile: 

Ubuntu GNOME's focus is on being as close to pure GNOME as possible using Ubuntu as it's base. The GNOME devs have no interest in supporting either the flashback session or compiz.

OTOH Edubuntu, which does receive a lot of internal support from Canonical, does rely on flashback w/metacity for it's LTSP installs so by the time 14.04.1 drops you should be able to expect the flashback w/metacity session to work fairly well.

If I had my druthers I'd prefer we stop offering the flashback w/compiz session altogether because it doesn't really get any love at the *buntu level  :Very Happy:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Not a chance in the world 
> 
> Ubuntu GNOME's focus is on being as close to pure GNOME as possible using Ubuntu as it's base. The GNOME devs have no interest in supporting either the flashback session or compiz.
> 
> OTOH Edubuntu, which does receive a lot of internal support from Canonical, does rely on flashback w/metacity for it's LTSP installs so by the time 14.04.1 drops you should be able to expect the flashback w/metacity session to work fairly well.
> 
> If I had my druthers I'd prefer we stop offering the flashback w/compiz session altogether because it doesn't really get any love at the *buntu level


Thanks for that inspiring information!  :Smile:

----------


## Cavsfan

> If I had my druthers I'd prefer we stop offering the flashback w/compiz session altogether because it doesn't really get any love at the *buntu level


If compiz is so unloved by the developers, then why does compiz come installed on a basic Ubuntu+Unity ISO?

IMHO flashback w/compiz is way more popular than flashback w/metacity. I have heard many, many people say they are running flashback w/compiz.

If you got your druthers, there would probably be many jump from Ubuntu to another disto.

Just sayin...  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

> If compiz is so unloved by the developers, then why does compiz come installed on a basic Ubuntu+Unity ISO?
> 
> IMHO flashback w/compiz is way more popular than flashback w/metacity. I have heard many, many people say they are running flashback w/compiz.
> 
> If you got your druthers, there would probably be many jump from Ubuntu to another disto.
> 
> Just sayin...


My point is that none of the official Ubuntu flavors focus on, or devote any resources to flashback w/compiz, whereas Edubuntu dev does provide support for flashback w/metacity. Don't worry about me getting my druthers - it seldom happens  :Smile:

----------


## philinux

> If compiz is so unloved by the developers, then why does compiz come installed on a basic Ubuntu+Unity ISO?


Simples. Unity is a compiz plugin.  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Simples. Unity is a compiz plugin.


Isn't there a planned change in that regard?

I don't mean in Trusty, but in the future getting away from compiz altogether?

----------


## philinux

http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/08/27/...d-convergence/ 
I think that would be unity 8.

Aka unity next.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/u...ject-announced

----------


## Cavsfan

> My point is that none of the official Ubuntu flavors focus on, or devote any resources to flashback w/compiz, whereas Edubuntu dev does provide support for flashback w/metacity. Don't worry about me getting my druthers - it seldom happens


I have never been able to get flashback w/metacity to work even slightly. Therefore I will not bother with it.  :Smile:  I have however gotten flashback w/compiz to work.
Right now though it will not allow my conky to run so I am in Unity with conky working just fine. I don't understand why there would be a difference.




> Simples. Unity is a compiz plugin.


Ironic.  :Smile: 

I re-installed again today and I think I'm worse off than I was a week ago. *sigh*
Guess I'll just ride this puppy out for a while.  :Smile: 

Screenshot came installed with no functionality. There is no button to click to take a screenie. 
Cairo Dock is a beta version and there is no text to go with the things in the dock so it's hard to tell what is what unless you can tell by the icon like Firefox.
There may be a setting somewhere but you'd think it would come on by default.  :Anxious:

----------


## Cavsfan

> http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/08/27/...d-convergence/ 
> I think that would be unity 8.
> 
> Aka unity next.
> 
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/u...ject-announced


I did a find on that page and didn't see compiz mentioned. FWIW

EDIT: Nevermind I see it on the 2nd link. Got ahead of myself.  :Smile:

----------


## Cavsfan

> http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/08/27/...d-convergence/ 
> I think that would be unity 8.
> 
> Aka unity next.
> 
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/u...ject-announced


I did notice this on the 2nd link: *Notice:* This post is more than a year old. It may be outdated.

----------


## philinux

> I did notice this on the 2nd link: *Notice:* This post is more than a year old. It may be outdated.


Yep indeed. There was a lot of stuff intended for 14.04 that got pushed back to the future.

----------


## kansasnoob

> http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/08/27/...d-convergence/ 
> I think that would be unity 8.
> 
> Aka unity next.
> 
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/u...ject-announced


That's what I thought  :Smile: 

I must say though that I'm impressed at how well Gallium/w llvmpipe works on really crappy hardware:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...8#post12952358

Sadly I blew it up dinking with resolution changes, but that's how we learn  :Very Happy:

----------


## mc4man

> Screenshot came installed with no functionality. There is no button to click to take a screenie. 
> [


Edit: all below plus one on mpv will be fixed in next compiz

known issue, click on title bar of any such window that's missing it's bottom (or move the window, whatever
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...t/+bug/1288408
related to - 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/compiz/+bug/1287472
which came from fixing this - 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...z/+bug/1282304

----------


## kansasnoob

The flashback w/metacity session is working quite well for me in both Ubuntu and Edubuntu ATM, it's a bit problematic in Ubuntu GNOME though.

I do wish we could correct the menu:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1267787

I think Alberts has a patch  :Confused:

----------


## Cavsfan

> Yep indeed. There was a lot of stuff intended for 14.04 that got pushed back to the future.


That in red reminds me of a movie.  :Laughing: 




> Edit: all below plus one on mpv will be fixed in next compiz
> 
> known issue, click on title bar of any such window that's missing it's bottom (or move the window, whatever
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...t/+bug/1288408
> related to - 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/compiz/+bug/1287472
> which came from fixing this - 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...z/+bug/1282304


Thanks! I signed on to all of them as affected. 
I have one more issue with flashback w/compiz: my conky won't run. It runs fine in Unity. In flashback w/metacity it works but there is a black background and Cairo Dock is all messed up.

It gets some sort of X server error but only in flashback w/compiz.



```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7259:~$ conky -c /home/cavsfan/.conkyrc.vindsl
Conky: unknown variable 
Conky: forked to background, pid is 30059
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7259:~$ 
Conky: desktop window (160000b) is subwindow of root window (26e)
Conky: window type - normal
Conky: drawing to created window (0x3800002)
Conky: drawing to double buffer
X Error of failed request:  BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request:  55 (X_CreateGC)
  Resource id in failed request:  0x3800003
  Serial number of failed request:  184
  Current serial number in output stream:  186
```

And it only happens on new ISOs within the past week. I installed twice and no bueno. I am just using the 331.38 nvidia driver in the repositories:


```
cavsfan@cavsfan-MS-7529:~$ dpkg -l | grep nvidia
ii  nvidia-331                                            331.38-0ubuntu4                                       amd64        NVIDIA binary driver - version 331.38
ii  nvidia-libopencl1-331                                 331.38-0ubuntu4                                       amd64        NVIDIA OpenCL Driver and ICD Loader library
ii  nvidia-opencl-icd-331                                 331.38-0ubuntu4                                       amd64        NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
ii  nvidia-prime                                          0.6                                                   amd64        Tools to enable NVIDIA's Prime
ii  nvidia-settings                                       331.20-0ubuntu8                                       amd64        Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
```

Any clue to why this is happening? Am I missing a component?  I surely can't be the only one.

----------


## Cavsfan

I no more than posted the above and checked for updates:


```
The following packages will be upgraded:
  compiz compiz-core compiz-gnome compiz-plugins compiz-plugins-default compizconfig-settings-manager gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session-flashback libcompizconfig0 libdecoration0
  libnautilus-extension1a libpanel-applet-4-0 libthumbnailer0 libunity-gtk2-parser0 libunity-gtk3-parser0 libupstart1 nautilus nautilus-data python-compizconfig unity-gtk-module-common unity-gtk2-module
  unity-gtk3-module upstart
25 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
```

That fixed both the screenshot buttons and now my conky runs in flashback w/compliz. Cooking with gas!  :Popcorn:

----------


## mc4man

> I no more than posted the above and checked for updates:
> That fixed both the screenshot buttons and now my conky runs in flashback w/compliz. Cooking with gas!


In addition to compiz fixes there was this for gnome-panel (flashback
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1224217
So hopefully the experience is omproved (only have unity here atm

----------


## kansasnoob

Hat tip to Alberts  :Very Happy: 

We may get a sensible menu back:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1267787

I had an opportunity to raise the issue on the Ubuntu GNOME mailing list:

https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntugn.../msg00403.html

Thanks Alberts.

----------


## muktupavels

Old menu should be back now.  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Old menu should be back now.


Looks great  :Guitar: 

Many, many thanks.

----------


## Cavsfan

Yeah I got in updates this morning. It's a huge improvement! 

Thanks Alberts!  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

@ Alberts,

Now that we're in the final stretch of the race toward Trusty final I decided to do some fine tuning to the Main Menu  :Smile: 

Main Menu appears both in System Tools > Preferences and Accessories and I've tried opening it from both menu items with the same results.

You can open Main Menu but it displays the "old" menu - including Sundry and Utilities - and making changes have no effect at all on the menus  :Sad: 

Do you want me to file a new bug report?

If so should I file against 'gnome-panel', 'gnome-session-flashback', or 'gnome-menus'?

----------


## kansasnoob

Well it's crunch time again  :Wink: 

In order that others can follow what I'm doing I'll start posting a lot of "thinking out loud" stuff here. In this case I have a fresh install of Ubuntu Trusty final Beta and I want to record what happens when I install 'gnome-panel':



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  alacarte gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets
  gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data
  gnome-media gnome-panel-data gnome-session gnome-session-flashback
  gnome-settings-daemon gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete
  libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libpanel-applet-4-0
  metacity notification-daemon
Suggested packages:
  tomboy gnome-netstatus-applet deskbar-applet cpufrequtils desktop-base
  gnome-themes-standard
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  alacarte gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets
  gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data
  gnome-media gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session
  gnome-session-flashback gnome-settings-daemon gstreamer0.10-gconf
  indicator-applet-complete libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgoa-backend-1.0-1
  libpanel-applet-4-0 metacity notification-daemon
0 upgraded, 20 newly installed, 0 to remove and 117 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 50.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
```

Stay tuned  :Guitar: 

Edit #1: First flashback w/metacity login looks good:

first_metacity_login.jpg

Edit #2: Flashback w/compiz is broken in many ways, but my focus is on the metacity session anyway. Someone else will have to deal with the complexities of compiz. Sorry but that's just the way it is  :Sad: 

Edit #3: I know I'm going to want some additional packages and I'm going to list them one by one:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install dconf-tools
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  dconf-editor
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  dconf-editor dconf-tools
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 113 kB of archives.
After this operation, 528 kB of additional disk space will be used.
```



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 gnome-shell-common
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 gnome-shell-common
  gnome-tweak-tool
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,001 kB of archives.
After this operation, 7,561 kB of additional disk space will be used.
```



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install indicator-applet
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  indicator-applet
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 77.0 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,197 kB of additional disk space will be used.
```



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install shiki-colors-metacity-theme
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  shiki-colors-metacity-theme
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 22.0 kB of archives.
After this operation, 266 kB of additional disk space will be used.
```



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install sensors-applet
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  hddtemp libsensors-applet-plugin0
Suggested packages:
  ksensors
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  hddtemp libsensors-applet-plugin0 sensors-applet
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 159 kB of archives.
After this operation, 898 kB of additional disk space will be used.
```

I'll probably want to install more but lets see what happens.

Edit #4: Moving the window management buttons to the right has not changed since my OP:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout :minimize,maximize,close
```

Edit #5: Applying the Shiki-Colors-Metacity theme is the same as Saucy:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme Shiki-Colors-Metacity
```

Edit #6: Disabling the overlay-scrollbars seems to still work the same:



```
gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
```

But I need to rinse-n-repeat because I think an additional option has been added?

Edit #7: I disabled the webapps:



```
gsettings set com.canonical.unity.webapps integration-allowed false
```

Edit #8: I used 'gnome-tweak-tool' to set the desktop to display mounted volumes:

gnome_tweak_desktop.png

And to set the key sequence for killing X:

gnome_tweak_typing.png

It can also be used for changing themes:

gnome_tweak_theme.png

But I had to use the CLI to restore the missing menu icons:



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface menus-have-icons true
```



```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface buttons-have-icons true
```

----------


## muktupavels

I did not understand.  :Sad: 

Where are you getting Sundry and Utilities?

----------


## kansasnoob

> I did not understand. 
> 
> Where are you getting Sundry and Utilities?


Main Menu appears in two places:

main_menu_one.jpg

main_menu_two.jpg

And both display the same menu:

main_menu_display.jpg

And edits to the menu(s) do not work  :Sad:

----------


## muktupavels

This is because menu editor by default uses default applications.menu file.

Workaround to this is to open menu editor from terminal:


```
alacarte gnome-flashback-applications.menu
```

That way you will see correct menu, but there is probably other bug too. I was able to hide/show whole group (for example Accessories), but I was not able to hide applications.

----------


## kansasnoob

> This is because menu editor by default uses default applications.menu file.
> 
> Workaround to this is to open menu editor from terminal:
> 
> 
> ```
> alacarte gnome-flashback-applications.menu
> ```
> 
> That way you will see correct menu, but there is probably other bug too. I was able to hide/show whole group (for example Accessories), but I was not able to hide applications.


Let me know if I should file a bug report.

It's not a high priority  :Very Happy:

----------


## cedric5

ok, now I have tried to upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04, and using flashback with metacity:

1) the indicator-applet crashs constantly (paste.ubuntu.com/7206916) - while I do not rely on them, it would be nice if these worked. I have also xfce installed, and the indicators work flawlessly there with the xfce-indicator panel plugin... I will provide more info if needed

2) the system menu as I knew it is gone (I have used classic-panel in 12.04, which was a fork of fallback, which had restored the system menu) - Is the the settings.menu file is not used any more? An option (dconf key or so) to get that back would be great.
I do not understand how this new system tools menu works, it is hardcoded? I wanted to get some launchers into it, but I just could place them into the Administration or settings submenus...

3) the tooltips are not word-warped any more, meaning that if you write more text then usual in a .desktops Comment= tag, it spreads text over the whole screen, instead of being warped into a nice formfactor. I also experienced that when I try to alter a value in dconf editor, if tha value has a dropdown menu, it also spreads to the whole width of the screen

4) the size of the menu is not any more controllable? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1285683
gtk-icon-sizes, panel-menu-bar  panel-menu  set to 16,16 does not work any more... :Sad:  I really hate these gnome devs :Brick wall: 

5) custom keybindings are not possible? the metacity ones do not work anymore, the mutter ones neither...

----------


## pfeiffep

Installed Trusty from a daily bulid (4.04.14), then immediately installed gnome-session-flashback. :KDE Star: 
My preference is Metacity. System is pretty responsive for such an old laptop originally purchased with Windows XP.
System details included in my signature.

----------


## kansasnoob

> ok, now I have tried to upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04, and using flashback with metacity:
> 
> 1) the indicator-applet crashs constantly (paste.ubuntu.com/7206916) - while I do not rely on them, it would be nice if these worked. I have also xfce installed, and the indicators work flawlessly there with the xfce-indicator panel plugin... I will provide more info if needed
> 
> 2) the system menu as I knew it is gone (I have used classic-panel in 12.04, which was a fork of fallback, which had restored the system menu) - Is the the settings.menu file is not used any more? An option (dconf key or so) to get that back would be great.
> I do not understand how this new system tools menu works, it is hardcoded? I wanted to get some launchers into it, but I just could place them into the Administration or settings submenus...
> 
> 3) the tooltips are not word-warped any more, meaning that if you write more text then usual in a .desktops Comment= tag, it spreads text over the whole screen, instead of being warped into a nice formfactor. I also experienced that when I try to alter a value in dconf editor, if tha value has a dropdown menu, it also spreads to the whole width of the screen
> 
> ...


I refuse to respond to posts that include comments like, "I really hate these gnome devs"  :Mad: 

The devs are people just like you and I.

If you'd care to rephrase and ask questions instead of spewing hate some of us may be able to help.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Installed Trusty from a daily bulid (4.04.14), then immediately installed gnome-session-flashback.
> My preference is Metacity. System is pretty responsive for such an old laptop originally purchased with Windows XP.
> System details included in my signature.


+1!

The Edubuntu flashback + metacity session is fairly solid.

I'm not totally happy with the menu changes but it's good enough  :Smile:

----------


## pfeiffep

> +1!
> 
> The Edubuntu flashback + metacity session is fairly solid.
> 
> I'm not totally happy with the menu changes but it's good enough


Thanks to you I was able to execute a simple command to move my window control to the right.....Keep up the good work!

----------


## Daniel_Pomietlasz

It appears that the WINE menu no longer shows up as a seperate menu entry in the Applications menu under Gnome Flashback in 14.04. 

All the installed WINE applications are showing up under the "Other" Menu Item.

Is this a new behaviour in this version or is something not configured correctly?

The ony thing I found that worked was to manually edit the  gnome-flashback-applications.menu to include a WINE entry but that did  not pickup any of the installed applications even when they were reinstalled.

It seems that all local menu configurations are not used any longer correct?

Any help on what to look at would be appreciated.

----------


## cedric5

thats not hate I feel, it's being in despair, hence the  :Brick wall: .  Sorry if I acted too harsh. At least I know how to patch gtk, so I can  fix this for me, but the extra work is getting more and more,  specifically in things where they remove functionality without  considering that people use the software for many different purposes...




> It appears that the WINE menu no longer shows up


try the MainMenu applet, and see if wine gets shown there

----------


## Daniel_Pomietlasz

When I look at the main menu editor it shows the WINE entry including all the applicable programs as available and checked as active. But the WINE menu item is not showing in the applications menu.

----------


## kansasnoob

I don't use Wine but wanted to be sure you're aware that after we got this bug fixed we can no longer edit the menus using the Main Menu buttons, but the command here does work:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...6#post12971626

wine_menu_two.jpg

wine_menu_one.jpg

----------


## kansasnoob

> thats not hate I feel, it's being in despair, hence the .  Sorry if I acted too harsh. At least I know how to patch gtk, so I can  fix this for me, but the extra work is getting more and more,  specifically in things where they remove functionality without  considering that people use the software for many different purposes...
> 
> 
> try the MainMenu applet, and see if wine gets shown there


I've forced myself to use Trusty since March 27th and I share in your frustrations  :Sad: 

Those frustrations are not just limited to the flashback + metacity session though - I definitely plan on using Precise until at least 14.04.1 unless something huge changes within the next several days.

I'm glad Ubuntu Precise is supported until April 2017  :Smile: 

But hating devs in not acceptable, they are just people after-all.

----------


## frank18

> Well it's crunch time again 
> 
> In order that others can follow what I'm doing I'll start posting a lot of "thinking out loud" stuff here. In this case I have a fresh install of Ubuntu Trusty final Beta and I want to record what happens when I install 'gnome-panel':
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
> [sudo] password for lance: 
> ...



Hi KansasKoob isn't all that software comes with the install of Gnome-session metacity desktop out of the box?

----------


## kansasnoob

> Hi KansasKoob isn't all that software comes with the install of Gnome-session metacity desktop out of the box?


The package 'gnome-session' does not include the 'flashback' sessions.

Installing the package 'gnome-session-flashback' does exactly the same thing as installing the package 'gnome-panel'.

Those additional packages are not direct dependencies or even recommends so they require separate installation if they're desired.

----------


## kansasnoob

> This is because menu editor by default uses default applications.menu file.
> 
> Workaround to this is to open menu editor from terminal:
> 
> 
> ```
> alacarte gnome-flashback-applications.menu
> ```
> 
> That way you will see correct menu, but there is probably other bug too. I was able to hide/show whole group (for example Accessories), but I was not able to hide applications.


Hi Alberts. Things have been hectic here but I finally had a chance to give this some serious play-time and opening either of the existing Main Menu listings after using that command I can then select Properties and change the Command from "alacarte" to "alacarte gnome-flashback-applications.menu" and I can then edit all of the menus just as I wish  :Smile: 

I do have two stupid questions though:

(1) What's the proper path to "gnome-flashback-applications.menu"?

(2) What file would I back-up to restore my custom config? Or how would I restore the default if I totally broke things?

----------


## muktupavels

1. /etc/xdg/menus/gnome-flashback-applications.menu
2. Your edited files might be stored in ~/.local/share. To restore to default you need just delete your custom config. I am currently writing from mac so I can not check where exactly files are stored.

----------


## kansasnoob

> 1. /etc/xdg/menus/gnome-flashback-applications.menu
> 2. Your edited files might be stored in ~/.local/share. To restore to default you need just delete your custom config. I am currently writing from mac so I can not check where exactly files are stored.


Many, many thanks  :Smile: 

Restoring most defaults used to be this easy:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post11968600

But the changes between Precise and Trusty are fairly extreme  :Sad: 

I certainly wish that GNOME dev would have chosen to use 'gnome-panel' + 'mutter' to produce their new Classic session instead of choosing the path they did  :Wink:

----------


## kansasnoob

I went ahead and filed a bug report using a fresh Edubuntu install:

Can't edit drop down applications menus in Edubuntu Trusty flashback session

Please confirm if it effects you too  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

Caffeine is now working but may cause the panel to load a bit more slowly.

----------


## Smask

> Well it's crunch time again 
> 
> Edit #6: Disabling the overlay-scrollbars seems to still work the same:
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
> ```
> ...


org.gnome.desktop.interface ubuntu-overlay-scrollbars?

Found that with dconf-editor.

----------


## kansasnoob

> org.gnome.desktop.interface ubuntu-overlay-scrollbars?
> 
> Found that with dconf-editor.


Is that from an Ubuntu GNOME installation, or Ubuntu?

----------


## kansasnoob

> I went ahead and filed a bug report using a fresh Edubuntu install:
> 
> Can't edit drop down applications menus in Edubuntu Trusty flashback session
> 
> Please confirm if it effects you too


I'm getting ready to wipe some old installs to prepare for the final round of Trusty testing so I'm going to post some stuff here that doesn't even make total sense to me.

This is from an Ubuntu GNOME install w/o flashback installed running the new GNOME Classic:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ ls /etc/xdg/menus
gnome-applications.menu  gnomecc.menu  gnome-flashback-applications.menu
```

Now the content of each with NO edits:

First "/etc/xdg/menus/gnome-applications.menu":



```
<!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/1.0/menu.dtd">

<Menu>

  <Name>Applications</Name>
  <Directory>X-GNOME-Menu-Applications.directory</Directory>

  <!-- Scan legacy dirs first, as later items take priority -->
  <LegacyDir>/etc/X11/applnk</LegacyDir>
  <LegacyDir>/usr/share/gnome/apps</LegacyDir>

  <!-- Read standard .directory and .desktop file locations -->
  <DefaultAppDirs/>
  <DefaultDirectoryDirs/>

  <!-- Read in overrides and child menus from applications-merged/ -->
  <DefaultMergeDirs/>

  <!-- Accessories submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Accessories</Name>
    <Directory>Utility.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Utility</Category>
	<!-- Accessibility spec must have either the Utility or Settings
             category, and we display an accessibility submenu already for
             the ones that do not have Settings, so don't display accessibility
             applications here -->
        <Not><Category>Accessibility</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>System</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>X-GNOME-Utilities</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
    <Exclude>
      <!-- Exclude everything we put in the X-GNOME-Utilities whitelist.

           Please keep the list alphabetically sorted! -->
      <Filename>deja-dup-preferences.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>eog.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>evince.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>file-roller.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gcalctool.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-dictionary.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-disks.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-font-viewer.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-screenshot.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-terminal.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-tweak-tool.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gucharmap.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>seahorse.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>vinagre.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>yelp.desktop</Filename>

      <!-- Exclude Sundry items -->
      <Filename>alacarte.desktop</Filename>
    </Exclude>
  </Menu> <!-- End Accessories -->


  <!-- Accessibility submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Universal Access</Name>
    <Directory>Utility-Accessibility.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Accessibility</Category>
        <Not><Category>Settings</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>

    <Exclude>
      <!-- Sundry exclusions -->
      <Filename>orca.desktop</Filename>
    </Exclude>
  </Menu> <!-- End Accessibility -->

  <!-- Development Tools -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Development</Name>
    <Directory>Development.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Development</Category>
      </And>
      <Filename>emacs.desktop</Filename>
    </Include>

    <Exclude>
      <!-- Sundry exclusions -->
      <Filename>jhbuild.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-jconsole.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-policytool.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>log4j-chainsaw.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>log4j-logfactor5.desktop</Filename>
    </Exclude>
  </Menu> <!-- End Development Tools -->

  <!-- Education -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Education</Name>
    <Directory>Education.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Education</Category>
        <Not><Category>Science</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Education -->

  <!-- Science -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Science</Name>
    <Directory>GnomeScience.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Education</Category>
        <Category>Science</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Science -->

  <!-- Games -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Games</Name>
    <Directory>Game.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Game</Category>
        <Not><Category>ActionGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>AdventureGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>ArcadeGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>BoardGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>BlocksGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>CardGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>KidsGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>LogicGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>Simulation</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>SportsGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>StrategyGame</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
    <DefaultLayout inline="true" inline_limit="6" inline_header="false">
      <Merge type="menus"/>
      <Merge type="files"/>
    </DefaultLayout>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Action</Name>
      <Directory>ActionGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>ActionGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Adventure</Name>
      <Directory>AdventureGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>AdventureGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Arcade</Name>
      <Directory>ArcadeGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>ArcadeGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Board</Name>
      <Directory>BoardGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>BoardGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Blocks</Name>
      <Directory>BlocksGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>BlocksGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Cards</Name>
      <Directory>CardGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>CardGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Kids</Name>
      <Directory>KidsGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>KidsGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Logic</Name>
      <Directory>LogicGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>LogicGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Role Playing</Name>
      <Directory>RolePlayingGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>RolePlaying</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Simulation</Name>
      <Directory>SimulationGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>Simulation</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Sports</Name>
      <Directory>SportsGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>SportsGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Strategy</Name>
      <Directory>StrategyGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>StrategyGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
  </Menu> <!-- End Games -->

  <!-- Graphics -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Graphics</Name>
    <Directory>Graphics.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Graphics</Category>
        <Not><Filename>eog.desktop</Filename></Not>
        <Not><Filename>gnome-eog.desktop</Filename></Not>
        <Not><Filename>evince.desktop</Filename></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Graphics -->

  <!-- Internet -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Internet</Name>
    <Directory>Network.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Network</Category>
	<Not><Category>X-GNOME-WebApplication</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>

    <Exclude>
      <!-- Utilities exclusions -->
      <Filename>vinagre.desktop</Filename>

      <!-- Sundry exclusions -->
      <Filename>javaws.desktop</Filename>
    </Exclude>
  </Menu>   <!-- End Internet -->

  <!-- Web Applications -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Web Applications</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-WebApplications.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
	<Category>Network</Category>
	<Category>X-GNOME-WebApplication</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>

  <!-- Multimedia -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Multimedia</Name>
    <Directory>AudioVideo.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>AudioVideo</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>   <!-- End Multimedia -->

  <!-- Office -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Office</Name>
    <Directory>Office.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Office</Category>
        <Not><Filename>evince.desktop</Filename></Not>
        <Not><Filename>gnome-dictionary.desktop</Filename></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Office -->

  <!-- Sundry -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Sundry</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-Sundry.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <Filename>alacarte.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>authconfig.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>dconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>fedora-release-notes.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>firewall-config.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>flash-player-properties.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-abrt.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-power-statistics.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup-anthy.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup-hangul.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup-libbopomofo.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup-libpinyin.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup-m17n.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>ibus-setup-typing-booster.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>im-chooser.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>itweb-settings.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>jhbuild.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>javaws.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-jconsole.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-policytool.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>log4j-chainsaw.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>log4j-logfactor5.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>nm-connection-editor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>orca.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>setroubleshoot.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>system-config-date.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>system-config-firewall.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>system-config-keyboard.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>system-config-language.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>system-config-printer.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>system-config-users.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>vino-preferences.desktop</Filename>
    </Include>
  </Menu>

  <!-- System Tools-->
  <Menu>
    <Name>System</Name>
    <Directory>System-Tools.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>System</Category>
        <Not><Category>Settings</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>Game</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>X-GNOME-Utilities</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>

    <Exclude>
      <!-- Utilities exclusions -->
      <Filename>baobab.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-system-log.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-system-monitor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-terminal.desktop</Filename>

      <!-- Sundry exclusions -->
      <Filename>dconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>fedora-release-notes.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-abrt.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-power-statistics.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>dconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>setroubleshoot.desktop</Filename>
    </Exclude>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Preferences</Name>
      <Directory>Settings.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <And>
          <Category>Settings</Category>
          <Not>
            <Or>
              <Category>System</Category>
              <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
              <Filename>alacarte.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>caribou.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>dconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>fedora-im-chooser.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>fedora-release-notes.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>firewall-config.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>flash-player-properties.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-abrt.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>fedora-abrt.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-orca.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-power-statistics.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-user-share-properties.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-daemon.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-anthy.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-hangul.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-libbopomofo.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-libpinyin.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-m17n.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-typing-booster.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>im-chooser.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>itweb-settings.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>jhbuild.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>javaws.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-jconsole.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-policytool.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>log4j-chainsaw.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>log4j-logfactor5.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>nm-connection-editor.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>orca.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>setroubleshoot.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>authconfig.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-date.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-firewall.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-keyboard.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-language.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-printer.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-users.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>vino-preferences.desktop</Filename>
            </Or>
          </Not>
        </And>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Administration</Name>
      <Directory>Settings-System.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <And>
          <Category>Settings</Category>
          <Category>System</Category>
          <Not>
            <Or>
              <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
              <Filename>alacarte.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>caribou.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>dconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>fedora-im-chooser.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>fedora-release-notes.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>firewall-config.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>flash-player-properties.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gconf-editor.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-abrt.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>fedora-abrt.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-orca.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-power-statistics.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>gnome-user-share-properties.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-daemon.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-anthy.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-hangul.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-libbopomofo.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-libpinyin.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-m17n.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>ibus-setup-typing-booster.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>im-chooser.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>itweb-settings.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>jhbuild.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>javaws.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-jconsole.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>java-1.7.0-openjdk-policytool.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>log4j-chainsaw.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>log4j-logfactor5.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>nm-connection-editor.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>orca.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>setroubleshoot.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>authconfig.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-date.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-firewall.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-keyboard.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-language.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-printer.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>system-config-users.desktop</Filename>
              <Filename>vino-preferences.desktop</Filename>
            </Or>
          </Not>
        </And>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
  </Menu>   <!-- End System Tools -->

  <!-- System Settings -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>System Settings</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-SystemSettings.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
    </Include>
  </Menu>

  <!-- Utilities submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Utilities</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-Utilities.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <Category>X-GNOME-Utilities</Category>
      <Filename>baobab.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>deja-dup-preferences.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>eog.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>evince.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>file-roller.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gcalctool.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-dictionary.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-disks.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-font-viewer.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-screenshot.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-system-log.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-system-monitor.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-terminal.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gnome-tweak-tool.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>gucharmap.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>seahorse.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>vinagre.desktop</Filename>
      <Filename>yelp.desktop</Filename>
    </Include>
  </Menu>

  <!-- Other -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Other</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-Other.directory</Directory>
    <OnlyUnallocated/>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Not><Category>Core</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>Screensaver</Category></Not>

        <!-- Really Fedora ??? -->
        <Not><Filename>gnome-eog.desktop</Filename></Not>
        <Not><Filename>gnome-file-roller.desktop</Filename></Not>
        <Not><Filename>gnome-gucharmap.desktop</Filename></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Other -->

   <Layout>
     <Merge type="menus" />
     <Menuname>Other</Menuname>
     <Merge type="files" />
   </Layout>

<Include>
  <Filename>ubuntu-software-center.desktop</Filename>
</Include>

<!-- Separator between menus and gnome-app-install -->
<Layout>
  <Merge type="menus"/>
  <Merge type="files"/>
  <Separator/>
  <Filename>ubuntu-software-center.desktop</Filename>
</Layout>

</Menu> <!-- End Applications -->
```

And "/etc/xdg/menus/gnomecc.menu":



```
<!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/1.0/menu.dtd">

<Menu>
  <Name>Control Center</Name>
  <Directory>gnomecc.directory</Directory>

  <!-- Read standard .directory and .desktop file locations -->
  <AppDir>/usr/share/applications/</AppDir>
  <DefaultDirectoryDirs/>

  <!-- Read in overrides and child menus from gnomecc-merged/ -->
  <DefaultMergeDirs/>

   <!-- Sort the control center categories -->
   <Layout>
     <Menuname>Personal</Menuname>
     <Menuname>Hardware</Menuname>
     <Menuname>System</Menuname>
     <Menuname>Other</Menuname>
     <Merge type="all" />
   </Layout>

  <!-- Stuff in the toplevel (Other category) -->
  <Include>
    <And>
      <Category>Settings</Category>
      <Not>
        <Or>
          <Category>X-GNOME-PersonalSettings</Category>
          <Category>DesktopSettings</Category>
          <Category>HardwareSettings</Category>
          <Category>X-GNOME-SystemSettings</Category>
          <Category>System</Category>
        </Or>
      </Not>
    </And>
  </Include>

  <!-- Avoid the shell having a launcher for itself -->
  <Exclude>
    <Filename>gnome-control-center.desktop</Filename>
  </Exclude>

  <!-- Personal category -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Personal</Name>
    <Directory>Personal.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Settings</Category>
        <Category>X-GNOME-PersonalSettings</Category>
        <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Personal -->

  <!-- Hardware category -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Hardware</Name>
    <Directory>Hardware.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Settings</Category>
        <Category>HardwareSettings</Category>
        <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Hardware -->

  <!-- System category -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>System</Name>
    <Directory>System.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Settings</Category>
        <Category>X-GNOME-SystemSettings</Category>
        <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End System -->

  <!-- Other category -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Other</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-Other.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Settings</Category>
        <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
        <Not>
          <Or>
            <Category>X-GNOME-PersonalSettings</Category>
            <Category>X-GNOME-SystemSettings</Category>
            <Category>HardwareSettings</Category>
            <Filename>gnome-control-center.desktop</Filename>
          </Or>
        </Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Other -->

</Menu>     <!-- End CC -->
```

And finally "/etc/xdg/menus/gnome-flashback-applications.menu":



```
<!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/1.0/menu.dtd">

<Menu>

  <Name>Applications</Name>
  <Directory>X-GNOME-Menu-Applications.directory</Directory>

  <!-- Scan legacy dirs first, as later items take priority -->
  <LegacyDir>/etc/X11/applnk</LegacyDir>
  <LegacyDir>/usr/share/gnome/apps</LegacyDir>

  <!-- Read standard .directory and .desktop file locations -->
  <DefaultAppDirs/>
  <DefaultDirectoryDirs/>

  <!-- Read in overrides and child menus from applications-merged/ -->
  <DefaultMergeDirs/>

  <!-- Accessories submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Accessories</Name>
    <Directory>Utility.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Utility</Category>
	<!-- Accessibility spec must have either the Utility or Settings
	     category, and we display an accessibility submenu already for
	     the ones that do not have Settings, so don't display accessibility
	     applications here -->
        <Not><Category>Accessibility</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>System</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Accessories -->

  <!-- Accessibility submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Universal Access</Name>
    <Directory>Utility-Accessibility.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Accessibility</Category>
        <Not><Category>Settings</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Accessibility -->

  <!-- Development Tools -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Development</Name>
    <Directory>Development.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Development</Category>
      </And>
      <Filename>emacs.desktop</Filename>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Development Tools -->

  <!-- Education -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Education</Name>
    <Directory>Education.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Education</Category>
        <Not><Category>Science</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Education -->

  <!-- Science -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Science</Name>
    <Directory>GnomeScience.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Education</Category>
        <Category>Science</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Science -->

  <!-- Games -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Games</Name>
    <Directory>Game.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Game</Category>
        <Not><Category>ActionGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>AdventureGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>ArcadeGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>BoardGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>BlocksGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>CardGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>KidsGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>LogicGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>Simulation</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>SportsGame</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>StrategyGame</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
    <DefaultLayout inline="true" inline_limit="6" inline_header="false">
      <Merge type="menus"/>
      <Merge type="files"/>
    </DefaultLayout>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Action</Name>
      <Directory>ActionGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>ActionGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Adventure</Name>
      <Directory>AdventureGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>AdventureGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Arcade</Name>
      <Directory>ArcadeGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>ArcadeGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Board</Name>
      <Directory>BoardGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>BoardGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Blocks</Name>
      <Directory>BlocksGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>BlocksGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Cards</Name>
      <Directory>CardGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>CardGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Kids</Name>
      <Directory>KidsGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>KidsGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Logic</Name>
      <Directory>LogicGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>LogicGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Role Playing</Name>
      <Directory>RolePlayingGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>RolePlaying</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Simulation</Name>
      <Directory>SimulationGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>Simulation</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Sports</Name>
      <Directory>SportsGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>SportsGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Strategy</Name>
      <Directory>StrategyGames.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <Category>StrategyGame</Category>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
  </Menu> <!-- End Games -->

  <!-- Graphics -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Graphics</Name>
    <Directory>Graphics.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Graphics</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Graphics -->

  <!-- Internet -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Internet</Name>
    <Directory>Network.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Network</Category>
	<Not>
	  <Category>X-GNOME-WebApplication</Category>
	</Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>   <!-- End Internet -->

  <!-- Web Applications -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Web Applications</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-WebApplications.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
	<Category>Network</Category>
	<Category>X-GNOME-WebApplication</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>

  <!-- Multimedia -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Multimedia</Name>
    <Directory>AudioVideo.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>AudioVideo</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>   <!-- End Multimedia -->

  <!-- Office -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Office</Name>
    <Directory>Office.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Office</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Office -->

  <!-- System Tools-->
  <Menu>
    <Name>System</Name>
    <Directory>System-Tools.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>System</Category>
        <Not><Category>Settings</Category></Not>
	<Not><Category>Game</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Preferences</Name>
      <Directory>Settings.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <And>
          <Category>Settings</Category>
          <Not>
            <Or>
              <Category>System</Category>
              <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
            </Or>
          </Not>
        </And>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
    <Menu>
      <Name>Administration</Name>
      <Directory>Settings-System.directory</Directory>
      <Include>
        <And>
          <Category>Settings</Category>
          <Category>System</Category>
          <Not>
            <Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category>
          </Not>
        </And>
      </Include>
    </Menu>
  </Menu>   <!-- End System Tools -->

  <!-- Other -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Other</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-Other.directory</Directory>
    <OnlyUnallocated/>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Not><Category>Core</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>Screensaver</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>X-GNOME-Settings-Panel</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Other -->

   <Layout>
     <Merge type="menus" />
     <Menuname>Other</Menuname>
     <Merge type="files" />
   </Layout>

  <!-- The Debian menu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Debian</Name>
    <MergeFile>debian-menu.menu</MergeFile>
    <Directory>Debian.directory</Directory>
  </Menu>

<Include>
  <Filename>ubuntu-software-center.desktop</Filename>
</Include>

<!-- Separator between menus and gnome-app-install -->
<Layout>
  <Merge type="menus"/>
  <Merge type="files"/>
  <Separator/>
  <Filename>ubuntu-software-center.desktop</Filename>
</Layout>

</Menu> <!-- End Applications -->
```

I think using 'alacarte' directly breaks the new GNOME Classic menu but I'm NOT sure by any means  :Confused:

----------


## kansasnoob

I'm dropping Trusty from the title of this thread since we know that flashback will continue to be supported.

----------


## muktupavels

I created two merge proposals...

1) gnome-panel - https://code.launchpad.net/~albertsm.../+merge/215275. With this one alacarte will use correct menu file in gnome-flashback-session. You can manually apply this fix:


```
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/gnome-panel.desktop
```

Replace this line


```
Exec=gnome-panel
```

with this


```
Exec=env XDG_MENU_PREFIX="gnome-flashback-" gnome-panel
```

2) alacarte - https://code.launchpad.net/~albertsm.../+merge/215284. This will fix new menu and/or item creation. If you are using x64 I can upload deb package with this fix.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I created two merge proposals...
> 
> 1) gnome-panel - https://code.launchpad.net/~albertsm.../+merge/215275. With this one alacarte will use correct menu file in gnome-flashback-session. You can manually apply this fix:
> 
> 
> ```
> sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/gnome-panel.desktop
> ```
> 
> ...


Hi Alberts, I test both i386 and amd64 so a .deb would be great.

----------


## kansasnoob

> I created two merge proposals...
> 
> 1) gnome-panel - https://code.launchpad.net/~albertsm.../+merge/215275. With this one alacarte will use correct menu file in gnome-flashback-session. You can manually apply this fix:
> 
> 
> ```
> sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/gnome-panel.desktop
> ```
> 
> ...


Part #1 works nicely  :Very Happy: 

Will test part #2 when you get it built.

Many thanks.

----------


## muktupavels

alacarte_3.10.0-1ubuntu2_all.deb.zip

Seems this .deb is for both i386 and amd64 systems.

----------


## kansasnoob

> alacarte_3.10.0-1ubuntu2_all.deb.zip
> 
> Seems this .deb is for both i386 and amd64 systems.


That works fine. I tested it pretty thoroughly - restoring defaults, creating a Sundry Menu item & then creating a new gnome-terminal Item within it. The only thing I was not sure of was where to place an icon for a new menu item but I'm sure some googling would tell me.

----------


## muktupavels

Alacarte fix should be available now with apt-get.

To set icon you need click on icon (when creating new item and/or editing existing one) and than choose icon file.

----------


## kansasnoob

> Alacarte fix should be available now with apt-get.
> 
> To set icon you need click on icon (when creating new item and/or editing existing one) and than choose icon file.


I see that:




> alacarte (3.10.0-1ubuntu2) trusty; urgency=medium
> 
>   * Backport upstream patches to:
>     - fix creating new items.
>     - fix creating new menus.
>     - make the restore button work.
>  -- Alberts Muktupavels <alberts.muktupavels@gmail.com>   Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:28:53 +0300


What package updates apply to part #1?

----------


## muktupavels

> What package updates apply to part #1?


gnome-panel

----------


## Smask

> Is that from an Ubuntu GNOME installation, or Ubuntu?


Plain Ubuntu with Flashback

----------


## kansasnoob

> Plain Ubuntu with Flashback


I see what you mean:

Screenshot from 2014-04-12 08:24:06.jpg

But if I set this back to overlay-auto:

Screenshot from 2014-04-12 08:20:46.jpg

Then I still get the overlay-scrollbars even if change the setting there:

Screenshot from 2014-04-12 08:25:45.jpg

Probably something to do with flashback using unity-settings-daemon instead of gnome-settings-daemon  :Confused:

----------


## kansasnoob

> Well it's crunch time again 
> 
> In order that others can follow what I'm doing I'll start posting a lot of "thinking out loud" stuff here. In this case I have a fresh install of Ubuntu Trusty final Beta and I want to record what happens when I install 'gnome-panel':
> 
> 
> 
> ```
> lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
> [sudo] password for lance: 
> ...


The footprint is a bit larger installing 'gnome-panel' in Ubuntu GNOME:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  alacarte geoclue-ubuntu-geoip gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0
  gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-media gnome-panel-data
  gnome-power-manager gnome-screensaver gnome-session-flashback
  gsettings-ubuntu-schemas gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete
  indicator-bluetooth indicator-datetime indicator-keyboard indicator-messages
  indicator-power indicator-printers indicator-session indicator-sound
  libaccount-plugin-1.0-0 libaccount-plugin-generic-oauth
  libaccount-plugin-google libaccounts-qt5-1 libgee2 libgles2-mesa
  libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 liblightdm-gobject-1-0 libmetacity-private0a
  libpanel-applet-4-0 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 libqt5gui5 libqt5network5
  libqt5opengl5 libqt5positioning5 libqt5printsupport5 libqt5qml5 libqt5quick5
  libqt5sensors5 libqt5sql5 libqt5sql5-sqlite libqt5test5 libqt5webkit5
  libqt5widgets5 libqt5xml5 libsignon-extension1 libsignon-plugins-common1
  libsignon-qt5-1 libtimezonemap1 liburl-dispatcher1 libxcb-randr0
  libxcb-render-util0 libxcb-xkb1 metacity metacity-common
  signon-keyring-extension signon-plugin-oauth2 signon-ui signond
  unity-control-center unity-control-center-signon unity-settings-daemon
Suggested packages:
  tomboy gnome-netstatus-applet deskbar-applet cpufrequtils desktop-base click
  lightdm unity-greeter-session-broadcast url-dispatcher
Recommended packages:
  indicator-applet indicator-renderer
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  alacarte geoclue-ubuntu-geoip gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0
  gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-media gnome-panel gnome-panel-data
  gnome-power-manager gnome-screensaver gnome-session-flashback
  gsettings-ubuntu-schemas gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete
  indicator-bluetooth indicator-datetime indicator-keyboard indicator-messages
  indicator-power indicator-printers indicator-session indicator-sound
  libaccount-plugin-1.0-0 libaccount-plugin-generic-oauth
  libaccount-plugin-google libaccounts-qt5-1 libgee2 libgles2-mesa
  libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 liblightdm-gobject-1-0 libmetacity-private0a
  libpanel-applet-4-0 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 libqt5gui5 libqt5network5
  libqt5opengl5 libqt5positioning5 libqt5printsupport5 libqt5qml5 libqt5quick5
  libqt5sensors5 libqt5sql5 libqt5sql5-sqlite libqt5test5 libqt5webkit5
  libqt5widgets5 libqt5xml5 libsignon-extension1 libsignon-plugins-common1
  libsignon-qt5-1 libtimezonemap1 liburl-dispatcher1 libxcb-randr0
  libxcb-render-util0 libxcb-xkb1 metacity metacity-common
  signon-keyring-extension signon-plugin-oauth2 signon-ui signond
  unity-control-center unity-control-center-signon unity-settings-daemon
0 upgraded, 66 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 30.0 MB of archives.
After this operation, 126 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
```

And for now I want to use the Ambiance theme so:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install light-themes
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gtk2-engines-murrine gtk3-engines-unico ubuntu-mono
Suggested packages:
  murrine-themes
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gtk2-engines-murrine gtk3-engines-unico light-themes ubuntu-mono
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 443 kB of archives.
After this operation, 6,043 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
```

And a bit more:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install shiki-colors-metacity-theme dmz-cursor-theme
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  dmz-cursor-theme shiki-colors-metacity-theme
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 215 kB of archives.
After this operation, 3,811 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main dmz-cursor-theme all 0.4.4ubuntu1 [193 kB]
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe shiki-colors-metacity-theme all 4.6-1ubuntu2 [22.0 kB]
Fetched 215 kB in 0s (366 kB/s)                       
Selecting previously unselected package dmz-cursor-theme.
(Reading database ... 185424 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../dmz-cursor-theme_0.4.4ubuntu1_all.deb ...
Unpacking dmz-cursor-theme (0.4.4ubuntu1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package shiki-colors-metacity-theme.
Preparing to unpack .../shiki-colors-metacity-theme_4.6-1ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Unpacking shiki-colors-metacity-theme (4.6-1ubuntu2) ...
Setting up dmz-cursor-theme (0.4.4ubuntu1) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme to provide /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme (x-cursor-theme) in auto mode
Setting up shiki-colors-metacity-theme (4.6-1ubuntu2) ...
```

----------


## kansasnoob

I'm editing my OP so it makes sense moving into 14.10 dev, and also so it's useful to noobs. Therefore I need to lump a few things into simple posts that can be referenced easily and just make sense  :Smile: 

The footprint of installing 'gnome-panel' in Ubuntu ATM is quite light:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  alacarte gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets
  gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data
  gnome-media gnome-panel-data gnome-session gnome-session-flashback
  gnome-settings-daemon gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete
  libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libpanel-applet-4-0
  metacity notification-daemon
Suggested packages:
  tomboy gnome-netstatus-applet deskbar-applet cpufrequtils desktop-base
  gnome-themes-standard
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  alacarte gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets
  gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data
  gnome-media gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session
  gnome-session-flashback gnome-settings-daemon gstreamer0.10-gconf
  indicator-applet-complete libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgoa-backend-1.0-1
  libpanel-applet-4-0 metacity notification-daemon
0 upgraded, 20 newly installed, 0 to remove and 117 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 50.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
```

The footprint of installing 'gnome-panel' in Ubuntu GNOME is a bit heavier since "flashback" now uses 'unity-settings-daemon' and 'unity-control-center' instead of the GNOME versions of those same packages:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
[sudo] password for lance: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  alacarte geoclue-ubuntu-geoip gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0
  gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-media gnome-panel-data
  gnome-power-manager gnome-screensaver gnome-session-flashback
  gsettings-ubuntu-schemas gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete
  indicator-bluetooth indicator-datetime indicator-keyboard indicator-messages
  indicator-power indicator-printers indicator-session indicator-sound
  libaccount-plugin-1.0-0 libaccount-plugin-generic-oauth
  libaccount-plugin-google libaccounts-qt5-1 libgee2 libgles2-mesa
  libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 liblightdm-gobject-1-0 libmetacity-private0a
  libpanel-applet-4-0 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 libqt5gui5 libqt5network5
  libqt5opengl5 libqt5positioning5 libqt5printsupport5 libqt5qml5 libqt5quick5
  libqt5sensors5 libqt5sql5 libqt5sql5-sqlite libqt5test5 libqt5webkit5
  libqt5widgets5 libqt5xml5 libsignon-extension1 libsignon-plugins-common1
  libsignon-qt5-1 libtimezonemap1 liburl-dispatcher1 libxcb-randr0
  libxcb-render-util0 libxcb-xkb1 metacity metacity-common
  signon-keyring-extension signon-plugin-oauth2 signon-ui signond
  unity-control-center unity-control-center-signon unity-settings-daemon
Suggested packages:
  tomboy gnome-netstatus-applet deskbar-applet cpufrequtils desktop-base click
  lightdm unity-greeter-session-broadcast url-dispatcher
Recommended packages:
  indicator-applet indicator-renderer
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  alacarte geoclue-ubuntu-geoip gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0
  gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-media gnome-panel gnome-panel-data
  gnome-power-manager gnome-screensaver gnome-session-flashback
  gsettings-ubuntu-schemas gstreamer0.10-gconf indicator-applet-complete
  indicator-bluetooth indicator-datetime indicator-keyboard indicator-messages
  indicator-power indicator-printers indicator-session indicator-sound
  libaccount-plugin-1.0-0 libaccount-plugin-generic-oauth
  libaccount-plugin-google libaccounts-qt5-1 libgee2 libgles2-mesa
  libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 liblightdm-gobject-1-0 libmetacity-private0a
  libpanel-applet-4-0 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 libqt5gui5 libqt5network5
  libqt5opengl5 libqt5positioning5 libqt5printsupport5 libqt5qml5 libqt5quick5
  libqt5sensors5 libqt5sql5 libqt5sql5-sqlite libqt5test5 libqt5webkit5
  libqt5widgets5 libqt5xml5 libsignon-extension1 libsignon-plugins-common1
  libsignon-qt5-1 libtimezonemap1 liburl-dispatcher1 libxcb-randr0
  libxcb-render-util0 libxcb-xkb1 metacity metacity-common
  signon-keyring-extension signon-plugin-oauth2 signon-ui signond
  unity-control-center unity-control-center-signon unity-settings-daemon
0 upgraded, 66 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 30.0 MB of archives.
After this operation, 126 MB of additional disk space will be used.
```

----------


## kansasnoob

One of the most troublesome things I've encountered is the inability to backup and restore a total "out-of-box" configuration, or a custom config  :Mad: 

It used to be this easy:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post11968600

Now I find myself sometimes having to actually purge entire packages and sometimes even having to reinstall the OS altogether if i mess up  :Embarassed: 

Any thoughts?

----------


## kansasnoob

I see the new 'gnome-panel' is in Trusty-proposed so give me a bit to test thoroughly. It'd be easier if the daily images weren't borked ATM.

----------


## kansasnoob

> One of the most troublesome things I've encountered is the inability to backup and restore a total "out-of-box" configuration, or a custom config 
> 
> It used to be this easy:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post11968600
> 
> Now I find myself sometimes having to actually purge entire packages and sometimes even having to reinstall the OS altogether if i mess up 
> 
> Any thoughts?


I gained a tiny bit by renaming additional hidden-dots in Home:



```
lance@lance-desktop:~$ ls -a
.              .config           .gconf_OLD       Pictures
..             .config_OLD       .gphoto          .profile
.adobe         .dbus             .gstreamer-0.10  Public
.bash_history  Desktop           .ICEauthority    purge_flashback
.bash_logout   .dmrc             .local           Templates
.bashrc        Documents         .local_OLD       Videos
.cache         Downloads         .macromedia      .Xauthority
.cache_OLD     examples.desktop  .mozilla         .xsession-errors
.compiz_OLD    .gconf            Music            .xsession-errors.old
```

But that does NOT restore the out-of-box panel configuration so I'm still fiddling  :Wink:

----------


## muktupavels

You can reset gnome-panel settings to default:


```
dconf reset -f /org/gnome/gnome-panel/
```

Than logout and login or restart pc. Or you can simply restart gnome-panel:


```
XDG_MENU_PREFIX="gnome-flashback-" gnome-panel --replace &
```

----------


## kansasnoob

> You can reset gnome-panel settings to default:
> 
> 
> ```
> dconf reset -f /org/gnome/gnome-panel/
> ```
> 
> Than logout and login or restart pc. Or you can simply restart gnome-panel:
> 
> ...


Thank you  :Very Happy:

----------


## zika

Comming (at last) from 13.10 to 14.04 with full Ricotz and G3 ppas I've lost flashback...


```
The following packages have unmet dependencies. gnome-session-flashback : Depends: unity-settings-daemon but it is not going to be installed
```



```
The following packages have unmet dependencies. unity-settings-daemon : Depends: gnome-settings-daemon-schemas (< 3.10) but 3.12.0.1-0ubuntu1~trusty1 is to be installed
```

Any idea(s) (other than, I presume, purging Ricotz's ppas) how to get {it,them} back...?
Also, while on that subject, Classic is unusable, it just stall at the entrance... In 13.10 last weeks it was the same as vanilla GnomeShell...
So, I'm doomed just to use GS, Unity or (better) awesome, razor, etc...  :Wink:

----------


## cariboo

Keep the faith zika, we've only got a week and a few days, before the toolchain for the next version is uploaded.  :Smile:

----------


## ventrical

> One of the most troublesome things I've encountered is the inability to backup and restore a total "out-of-box" configuration, or a custom config 
> 
> It used to be this easy:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post11968600
> 
> Now I find myself sometimes having to actually purge entire packages and sometimes even having to reinstall the OS altogether if i mess up 
> 
> Any thoughts?



What helped me in a lot of cases is that just after install I would create another aternate user with privlidges. If lighdm  or gdm were still working (and the desktop I was using was borked) I could login to that user and have a pristine config. It's sort of like  a mini back-up system .. but perhaps this may not apply to the case in point now , this far into the cycle.

----------


## ventrical

> I see the new 'gnome-panel' is in Trusty-proposed so give me a bit to test thoroughly. It'd be easier if the daily images weren't borked ATM.



Just did a fresh install here of yesterdays i386 iso and put gnome-flashback-compiz. Works great!  :Smile:

----------


## zika

> Keep the faith zika, we've only got a week and a few days, before the toolchain for the next version is uploaded.


I've never even scratched my faith, let alone lost it...  :Wink: 
What about devel branch?

----------


## cariboo

> I've never even scratched my faith, let alone lost it... 
> What about devel branch?


As far as a devel branch is concerned, I wish  :Smile: 

14.10 should be the start of some pretty amazing development on the desktop, with Mir and Unity 8, for those that prefer the old style Windows type desktop, Xubuntu. Lubuntu and Kubuntu, we should see a more polished desktop environment.

*Note:* Please don't quote me six months from now, as I've been known to be wrong a time or two.  :Smile:

----------


## kansasnoob

> As far as a devel branch is concerned, I wish 
> 
> 14.10 should be the start of some pretty amazing development on the desktop, with Mir and Unity 8, for those that prefer the old style Windows type desktop, Xubuntu. Lubuntu and Kubuntu, we should see a more polished desktop environment.
> 
> *Note:* Please don't quote me six months from now, as I've been known to be wrong a time or two.


It's NOT a matter of being wrong, it's a matter of these darn faulty time machines they're building these days  :LOL:

----------


## Hazzabin

> It's NOT a matter of being wrong, it's a matter of these darn faulty time machines they're building these days


Most certainly, the older we get the worse the time machines are  :Guitar:

----------


## grumblebum2

> Most certainly, the older we get the worse the time machines are


Mine's working fine and I knew you were going to say that.  :Razz:

----------


## kansasnoob

A question has been asked by Jonathan Carter at the mailing list:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00010.html




> Hi!
> 
> Mate has steadily been making its way into Debian and Ubuntu:
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/01/m...op-ubuntu-1404
> https://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/mate-desktop
> 
> Originally there was a lot of doubt whether that would ever happen, and
> I think that it negates the need for Flashback. Also, the upstream Gnome
> software (like Nautilus, Gnome Control Center, etc) are diverging faster
> ...


I already weighed in:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00016.html




> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> I'd first remind everyone that I'm not a developer, only an end user/tester, and my recent experience is limited to the Ubuntu family.
> 
> 
> My first concern is that someone will read this, cherry-pick the list, and declare "flashback" dead before any official decision is made.
> 
> 
> At the Ubuntu level we first need to clarify that since Ubuntu and Edubuntu Precise are supported until April 2017, and Trusty until April 2019, that Precise and Trusty flashback will continue to be supported throughout the lifespan of those two releases.
> ...


Please add a comment to the list if you have an opinion either way.

----------


## ventrical

> A question has been asked by Jonathan Carter at the mailing list:
> 
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00010.html
> 
> 
> 
> I already weighed in:
> 
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnom.../msg00016.html
> ...



ATM I am using an install with gnome-flashback (compiz) Utopic and it is running just fine. I do not use it regularly, just mostly for experimentation and minimalist jobs. Ronac used to say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

This may be topical. fvwm-crystal had some big updates as of recent.  It is an older , more vintage DE/WM but it appears it is still maintained from time to time. My opinion is  - take gnome-session and mate one day at a time. Do what can be done, fix it when time permits and patch it when time permits but keep options open - don't drop it completely. Somebody else will pick up the slack. That's how things work around here.  :Smile: 

Regards..

----------


## redman5087

> 1) Are you only one with black panels or there are other users with same problem?
> 2) Black panels with both session? metacity and compiz.
> 3) Can you access panel properties? Alt + Right click on panel.


With the Radiance and Ambiance I DON'T have the problem with black panels.
With others themes from gnome-look I DO have the problem with the black panels.

The theme needs to be changed I suppose.

How to change the theme?

In the gtk2 or gtk3 theme?
In the gnome-shell theme?
Or the unity theme?

Thanks for the help.

----------


## muktupavels

> How to change the theme?


You need to edit .css files.




> In the gtk2 or gtk3 theme?
> In the gnome-shell theme?
> Or the unity theme?


gnome-panel uses gtk3 themes.

You could look at Ambiance theme for example how to style gnome-panel.

In Ambiance theme:
1) gnome-panel related styling are stored in separate file - /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/apps/gnome-panel.css
2) gnome-panel.css file is imported in this file - /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk-main.css
3) gtk-main.css is imported in this file - /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

So if you want edit xTheme to add gnome-panel styling you can add directly styling in gtk.css file - /usr/share/themes/xTheme/gtk-3.0/gtk.css.

But I would suggest to add new file in your theme directory and simply add import line in gtk.css file:
1) create gnome-panel.css in - /usr/share/themes/xTheme/gtk-3.0/
2) add import line '@import url("gnome-panel.css");' at end of file - /usr/share/themes/xTheme/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

Remember that when there will be update for theme you edit your changes will be lost on update. So backup your created files. If you will use separate file for styling than after update you will only need to re-add import line.

----------


## redman5087

Thanks

----------


## cedric5

hello, 
again, now with 14.04 running these are the issues I have (also with a fresh user!)

- custom keybindings are not possible!!! the gconf ones are ignored, the dconf ones in org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys too!
- the tooltips are not word-warped any more
- login lasts 10+ seconds

----------


## kansasnoob

Just a friendly reminder  :Smile: 

Since Trusty (14.04) has been released support questions regarding it or any prior release should be asked here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=329

Or directly to me here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2220264

----------


## cedric5

thanks! will do so

----------

