Fork of GNOME 2?

[Kingcheese26]

As I'm sure you're all aware, gnome will be switching to gnome-shell and ubuntu to unity in april. Gnome 2 is my favorite DE, and I know I'll still be able to use it after april, but it's not going to be supported anymore. Does anyone know if there are any forks of gnome 2 out there, or if it's just going to rot away and get older and older :p ?

Thanks,
kingcheese26

[Simian Man]

If it works the way you want, why not just keep using it? What benefit would a fork have? BTW try out Xfce 4.8, it's like an improved version of Gnome 2 in my opinion.

[Kingcheese26]

I guess you're right...it's not like they were really adding any new features to gnome anyway :lolflag:

[cascade9]

If it works the way you want, why not just keep using it? What benefit would a fork have? BTW try out Xfce 4.8, it's like an improved version of Gnome 2 in my opinion.

+1 on Xfce.

I can see your point about a fork having no real benefits now, but that is for now....its just a question of time until gnome 2 has gone the way of KDE 3.X. If there was a current fork of gnome it wouldnt be pushed to the back of the classroom in quite the same manner.

[KaYnemO]

I guess I am just thinking, but...

Since Gnome will release it's 3.0 version in April 2011, what is stopping all of us, or any of us, from using it with any upcoming Ubuntu releases ?

[Copper Bezel]

Well, nothing. This is Linux, after all. = )

[Djzn.BR]

Kingcheese26:

Your concerns are quite valid and I share the same concern. Don't like Unity, hate GNOME-Shell, and already feeling like an orphan after getting so much used to GNOME 2. After all, it is years using Ubuntu and its standard layout. KDE, up to now, shows no sign of good competition, with its sluggish window compositing engine and brainless-wise menu launcher.

There is XFCE then, however, you gotta admit it. It may even work well, but it's not as polished as GNOME 2, something is just not right.

I would welcome an official fork for GNOME 2, no problem. Perhaps this movement grows stronger after the next releases of Ubuntu and Fedora. I believe a lot of people will be upset and stirred up with Shell and Unity, just like I am. Future will tell us. As for me, I am keeping GNOME 2 as default, until some leadership (dictatorial or not) watches their distro go down to 4th or 6th place in Distrowatch.com, then we will see what happens. Because crisis tend to make people move quickly to fix their mess.

[Copper Bezel]

Y'all are confusing terms here. Unity runs as a shell on Gnome 2.x. Gnome Shell runs as a shell on 3.x. They're both just shells, that is, panel replacements.

You don't get the option of using Gnome 2 while running Gnome 3, just the option of running the (no longer updating) Gnome Panel instead. All the system settings and services will still be Gnome 3, re-arranged and including all the new options.*

Neither Unity nor Gnome Shell is a replacement for Gnome. Gnome is still Gnome. What's going away is the Gnome Panel, but it's still going to be included as a legacy package for anyone still willing to use it.

So, for instance, since I'm using Avant, Do, and Compiz as my "shell" anyway, I'll be moving on to Gnome 3 as soon as it's available for Ubuntu, sans Shell.

* I'm sorry, I misspoke here; I what meant to say is that all the system settings and services will still be Gnome 3, senselessly garbled and excluding all of the dartboard-deprecated features.

[Djzn.BR]

I know what you said. You talked about the technical side of GNOME 2 and 3 as technologies. This I know. While Unity is a shell for GNOME 2.x and GNOME Shell, a shell for GNOME 3, respectively, what I meant is that the average user will reject both new UI's. When I say fork GNOME 2, what I mean is to build the same visual desktop from GNOME 3 technologies. I believe the same layout will be back as default, after some months of GNOME Shell.

[Copper Bezel]

If you know, then stop reinforcing confusion. = )

If I'm understanding you, then, you're talking about Gnome Shell vs. the Classic Gnome desktop (both of which are still in 3.0.) If there were any fork like what you're describing, it would quite literally just be a fork of Gnome Panel.

[evgeny12]

If you know, then stop reinforcing confusion. = )

If I'm understanding you, then, you're talking about Gnome Shell vs. the Classic Gnome desktop (both of which are still in 3.0.) If there were any fork like what you're describing, it would quite literally just be a fork of Gnome Panel.
I bet it is better to be true. But as far as I know Fallback mode of Gnome 3 is unpleasant to compare Gnome 2. Even one may run Compiz on it, there are themes and other issues that will not satisfy old guys (like me). Another bad thing as I know, that developers of Gnome did not care too much about supporting (polishing) fallback mode, and probably as I understand their intention it will be dropped in some future. Now I learn to use kde4 without panel and with avant window manager+Compiz+Emerald. But I feel it slower than Gnome 2 with similar configuration :( I hope, it will be reasonable to fork Gnome2 as it was for kde3 (trinity). Probably I should try trinity in the similar configuration.

[Copper Bezel]

That's a possibility, but you could also do the same thing with Ubuntu's Gnome install.

[3Miro]

Get Ubuntu 11.04, you can disable the Unity plugin in compiz and then add AWN (along with Emerald).

If you want Compiz + Emerald + AWN + Running Fast, then you want XFCE.

[Copper Bezel]

See, I had the same feeling, but then I had this explained to me: XFCE is a desktop background, a panel, a window manager, and a settings daemon. Compiz and AWN provide three quarters of those things. When you talk about Gnome vs. XFCE under those conditions, you're actually deciding between gnome-settings-daemon and xfce-settings-helper.

[scott-ian]

I don't see what's wrong with you still using it. A lot of people are using older versions of Ubuntu. I like to have the best and most recent software available (not counting beta and alpha), but there are no disadvantages I know of.

[StygianAgenda]

All technicalities aside, I'm with the OP here. Gnome 2 rocks. Gnome 3 & Unity remind me too much of android / iphone, and I don't want a computer that works like these chinsy frakkin' phones. I have an iphone that I would have never bought had I known that Apple would take the stance that they did about jailbreaking. At first, I wanted to upgrade to an Android phone, that is, until I got a peek under the hood. A friend of mine has a Samsung Galaxy (I forget the exact model number; irrelevant), which is rooted. I installed OpenSSH on it for him and showed him how to connect into it using PuTTY, since he's primarily a Windows user. When I got to poking around in the file system, exploring out the directory trees, for the life of me, I could barely see anything resembling Linux in there. Granted, there's nothing forcing a vendor to write their OS & filesystem structure along any certain guidelines to make it work, but it's usually better to do so from a development stance, simply to reduce the learning curve for developers that work with several platforms... an odd duck is an odd duck.

Anyways, if it takes compiling Gnome 2 from source on a future release, then that may be exactly what I do, but it seems to me that with the number of people that have complained about the new (so called) vision for Gnome & Ubuntu in particular, one would think that the dev-teams would actually stop for a moment, pause, and take listen to what their 'fanbase' are saying. I don't want some broken legacy mode. I don't want an X86 compatible OS that looks like a smartphone/MID/Tablet OS on any of my 22 systems I have at home.

If 12.04 follows suit with 11.04 to help hasten the demise of Gnome 2 in favor of Unity's fisher-price-looking-interface, I'm sorry, but I'll have to go a different way, and many will follow with me.

[pony-tail]

I will also have to agree with the OP.
I used Unity for 2 weeks -- not to my taste .
I am using Gnome 3 ( Fedora ) and Kubuntu 11.04 -- not fussed on either of them either .
I guess after using Gnome 2.x since it's beta days ( 9 years or so ) I have become very used to that way of doing things .
I had the same issue with running Fedora -- over a decade of Debian and derivatives I was lost on an RPM distro ( Still am a bit ) . I hope they come up with something usable or I will be stuck on XFCE which looks like a cheap knockoff of Gnome 2.x although XFCE does work VERY well.

[Alvasin]

"Desktop Environment is so important for the overall 'pleasure' during computer use, that Linux Mint, being what it is and what it is intended to be, should seriously consider, for a not so distant future, to have its own Desktop Environment - be it a fork or not. This DE should be: 1) aligned with the distro philosophy, determinded by the team; AND 2) open, as usual, to direct and open discussion with the user base."

[downwardspindle]

The classic desktop in Gnome 3 works almost exactly the same as it did in Gnome 2.32. The Gnome developers have even mentioned it will continue to recieve attention for as long as the free accelerated drivers are an issue for Gnome Shell's adoption. So I'd imagine that still gives it at least a year or two of work before people would even need to consider finding an alternative. By that time, most of the hard work will have been done (Actually, that's true right now. It's ported to Gtk3/Gnome3 and completely functional).

The only thing that's really left is for more Gtk3 themes to be created, and for third party applets to be ported over. Here's a link (http://i.imgur.com/W30P0.jpg) to how I have my current classic Gnome(3) setup.

[pony-tail]

(Actually, that's true right now. It's ported to Gtk3/Gnome3 and completely functional).
Have you actually spent some time on classic ?
completely functional - well almost !

[downwardspindle]

Have you actually spent some time on classic ?
completely functional - well almost !

A few tips for anyone who wants Gnome 3's fallback mode to look like Gnome 2:

1) Hold Alt and right click on the panel. There's all the configuration options you're probably looking for.

2) Gnome Tweak Tool lets you change the Gtk3 theme, fonts, gives you the option to let Nautilus place icons on the desktop, along with some other options.

3) Metacity's theme has to be changed in gconf-editor at the moment. Go to apps > metacity > general, and click on theme and change the entry to the name of the new metacity theme folder name in ~/.theme.

4) The default Adwaita Gtk3 theme has a file called gtk-widgets.css that has an entire section at the bottom of the file which gives the panel a black look with white bold font. Changing the theme (when more themes are available) or just removing that section will give the panel it's normal Gtk appearance.

5) Adding the following to gtk-widgets.css brings back the Gnome Foot/distribution icon to the top left corner of the panel.


.gnome-panel-menu-bar {
-PanelMenuBar-icon-visible: true;
}

Not really an important feature, but after 9 years of Gnome 2, I kinda like to have the icon there for nostalgia.

6) Compiz still works just fine in 'fallback mode.' This isn't really a tip. I just thought you guys might like to know.

A litle bit of work if you're using the vanilla Gnome3 desktop without any distribution tweaks, but nothing too difficult. Most of the hard stuff is editing the gtk-widets.css file, which won't be necessary once new Gtk3 themes are available. If you love Gnome 2's desktop setup, I recommend reading this Gnome developer's blog entry (http://www.vuntz.net/journal/post/2011/04/13/gnome-panel-is-dead%2C-long-live-gnome-panel!) (as well as the comments under the entry) about all the work put into gnome-panel for Gnome 3. It's the most work done since it was mostly rewritten for Gnome 2.4, so they're hardly just sweeping it under the rug at the moment. As long as the accelerated free drivers are having problems with video cards (it's gonna be a while), they're going to be working on gnome-panel.