whither gnobuntu?

[decoherence]

Initially Ubuntu was a GNOME-only affair. KDE fans quickly came up with Kubuntu, paving the way to Xubuntu and Lubuntu, which enjoy spots in the repo as 'xubuntu-desktop' and so on -- something for all of the popular DEs.

Now that Ubuntu has switched to Unity, there is a gap. Anyone know of any GNOME 3 fans doing a 'GNObuntu'? Anyone think we might at some point see a 'gnobuntu-desktop' package? I know Mark has said he doesn't want to use GNOME Shell for Ubuntu but does that preclude such a package? I don't think it should and it would be kind of strange if it did.

thoughts?

PS if you hate gnome-shell, this is a great place for you to say so for the dozenth time! /sarcasm ;)

[sffvba[e0rt]

Gnome-shell will work fine from 11.10 AFAIK...


404

[cbowman57]

There is the UGR project, GnoMint & gNatty respins. So yes, there are some gnobuntu-like alternatives available, but since they aren't officially supported they can't really use 'buntu in their name.

Despite the wailing & gnashing of teeth there are plenty of people that have taken to Gnome shell, not everybody hates it. :)

Oh yeah, G-S will be available in 11.10 for those that want official repos & G-S on Ubuntu. (thanks not found)

[cariboo]

Gnome-shell is installable via the Software Center in Oneiric, see the screenshot for the choice of desktops I have so far.

[Jesus_Valdez]

Gnome Shell and Gnome 3 are two different things.

Unity and Gnome 3 are perfectly compatible and will live together till death tear them apart.

Now, Gnome Shell is one installation(as in apt-get install) away and if you want a "vanilla" Gnome you could pretty well try Debian directly.

[moore.bryan]

I think we've missed the OP's original point... Ubuntu is no longer married to GNOME the way it once was, so I would agree a "pure" GNOME spin would be nice even knowing I can just install GNOME Shell itself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, decoherence, but you're wondering something like this:
Ubuntu = Unity+GNOME
Kubuntu = KDE
Lubuntu = LXDE
Xbuntu = XFCE
Obuntu = Openbox
GNObuntu = Pure GNOME

[sffvba[e0rt]

I think we've missed the OP's original point... Ubuntu is no longer married to GNOME the way it once was, so I would agree a "pure" GNOME spin would be nice even knowing I can just install GNOME Shell itself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, decoherence, but you're wondering something like this:
Ubuntu = Unity+GNOME
Kubuntu = KDE
Lubuntu = LXDE
Xbuntu = XFCE
Obuntu = Openbox
GNObuntu = Pure GNOME

Ubuntu 11.10 and after + Gnome-shell is going to give you as "pure" of a Gnome experience as Ubuntu has ever done...


404

[Jesus_Valdez]

I think we've missed the OP's original point... Ubuntu is no longer married to GNOME the way it once was, so I would agree a "pure" GNOME spin would be nice even knowing I can just install GNOME Shell itself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, decoherence, but you're wondering something like this:
Ubuntu = Unity+GNOME
Kubuntu = KDE
Lubuntu = LXDE
Xbuntu = XFCE
Obuntu = Openbox
GNObuntu = Pure GNOME
In that case you could simply uninstall (or just forget about) Unity and use (or default to) Gnome-Shell and voila! you have your Gubuntu.

Of course, what makes Ubuntu its own distribution is a little more that just the shell or the Desktop Environment that uses, so if you really want a pure Gnome Ubuntu you could pretty much look for another Distro.

Also, Openbox is used in LXDE, what is the reason to have a separate spin off?

[moore.bryan]

Also, Openbox is used in LXDE, what is the reason to have a separate spin off?
Openbox works just on its own... I wasn't even aware LDXE used it! :-)

[Thewhistlingwind]

As I understand it, Ubuntu and kubuntu were made alongside each other.

Mark wasn't sure whether he wanted his distro to use QT or GTK.

[cbowman57]

Building a Gnome 3.0 shell installation from a minimal or net install Ubuntu or Debian iso works nice too.

[drawkcab]

fwiw, there was no kubuntu until 5.04 and no xubuntu until 6.06

[akand074]

Seems pretty silly to make a whole new distribution for something that can be achieved in two commands


sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
sudo apt-get remove unity

Congratulations on your new Ubuntu distribution... added one package and removed another (and their dependencies). I'm probably going to use Gnome-shell in 11.10. I'll be using standard Ubuntu 11.10.

[Jesus_Valdez]

Openbox works just on its own... I wasn't even aware LDXE used it! :-)
But Openbox and LXDE are two different things. One is a windows manager and the other is a desktop enviroment.

[christopher.wortman]

Seems pretty silly to make a whole new distribution for something that can be achieved in two commands


sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
sudo apt-get remove unityCongratulations on your new Ubuntu distribution... added one package and removed another (and their dependencies). I'm probably going to use Gnome-shell in 11.10. I'll be using standard Ubuntu 11.10.

People have made distributions out of less...

http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html

[akand074]

People have made distributions out of less...

http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html


People have no boundaries...

[VOT Productions]

I think we've missed the OP's original point... Ubuntu is no longer married to GNOME the way it once was, so I would agree a "pure" GNOME spin would be nice even knowing I can just install GNOME Shell itself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, decoherence, but you're wondering something like this:
Ubuntu = Unity+GNOME
Kubuntu = KDE
Lubuntu = LXDE
Xbuntu = XFCE
Obuntu = Openbox
GNObuntu = Pure GNOME

You mean 0ubuntu lol?
Well, how about GNO2Ubuntu? Pure GNOME 2?

[christopher.wortman]

I for one would like to see a pure Gnome 3 Ubuntu, but then again Ubuntu has never been pure Gnome there are about 1000 different workarounds and fixes to Gnome to make it work right. What you see as "pure Gnome 2" is not what Gnome 2 is, go try and use another distribution with Gnome, everything is broken and nothing works as it should. It is why KDE on the other hand has done marvelous until the whole 4.0-4.3 fiasco. It is why other DEs have done wonderfully, they work as they are intended to. Gnome before Ubuntu came along and even as it sits now, is a mess. They are switching to Unity because the Gnome developers don't care what Ubuntu has to say.

Honestly I think Canonical should go with KDE, it would be the better choice here. 4.7 is amazing, using 4.7 now...

[decoherence]

@moore-bryan: yes you are correct -- that is what i was getting at.

however, if the ONLY difference between (for instance) F15 and a recent Ubuntu is Unity vs. Gnome Shell (from a DE standpoint strictly -- i know they're very different animals otherwise), then that's good enough for me.

If, however, there are more Ubuntu specific things that aren't a part of straight GNOME 3 (which is more than just GS) or vice versa it would make sense to have a GNObuntu.

Is it GNOME 3 running under Unity? Just with GS replaced?

finally, i would suggest that it doesn't matter how trivial it is to go from Ubuntu to 'gnobuntu' -- different desktop environments get their own *-desktop metapackage. I guess you could argue that they aren't really different desktop environments but just different shells, but they work in fairly different ways so the distinction wouldn't matter to someone who isn't versed in how things work under the hood. If it really is that trivial, it shouldn't be hard to implement!

anyway, that's my $0.02

[moore.bryan]

I think we're on the same page. I am a fan of GNOME-Shell, but not Fedora, and GS on Ubuntu leaves something to be desired because it isn't as well integrated--arguable because it doesn't need to be. An Ubuntu spin with GS the default would be interesting!

[don_quixote]

I can't help but nod (vigorously) in agreement with akand074. (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=840786)

People, it's going to be two commands in the terminal to replace shells. Making a distribution out of that seems, frankly, ridiculous.

[Ric_NYC]

Forking is a good thing, I think... but don't we have enough fork of a fork from a fork of a fork?

Isn't time to focus on something to make it as good as possible before starting another fork?

[moore.bryan]

My point is when you install GS and uninstall Unity, you do not get beautiful GNOME Shell because Ubuntu is not 100% behind that development. In one arguably poor example, Adwaita--the default GS theme--isn't even installed, nor is it installable, so a user would be stuck with an hideous windows decoration with little choice other than to than hunt around for a better theme and hope it works well, which many do not.

[decoherence]

I can't help but nod (vigorously) in agreement with akand074. (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=840786)

People, it's going to be two commands in the terminal to replace shells. Making a distribution out of that seems, frankly, ridiculous.

Are you completely certain that the shells are the only things that would need replacing? I've asked a couple of times and nobody seems to answer definitively but moore.bryan's comment seems to indicate otherwise. (that said, this may just be a packaging issue that could be fixed in the future.)

The point of a GNObuntu would be to give as close to a vanilla gnome 3 install as possible. Off the top of my head, one other thing a 'gnobuntu-desktop' metapackage would do is replace the upcoming lightdm with gdm, similar to how kubuntu-desktop replaces gdm (and presumably lightdm) with kdm.

So sure, it's just two commands to go from unity to gnome shell, but does that really give you a complete GNOME 3 system? I ask because I do not know (as my previous questions might illustrate)

[cbowman57]

I know you guys are talking about a future version, but if you want to check out a current implementation of Gnome shell 3.0 on 11.04, installable from iso, look at gNatty, the link is in my signature.

I don't consider it a distro, just a respin.

I think it compares quite favorably to a Fedora, OpenSUSE or even Arch Gnome 3.0 distro.

[moore.bryan]

I've used and like gNatty, but was going with the OP's idea of a dedicated spin, with a -desktop package.

[FuturePilot]

Unity is not a DE nor is it a replacement for Gnome. It's simply a shell. Everything is still Gnome.

[cbowman57]

I've used and like gNatty, but was going with the OP's idea of a dedicated spin, with a -desktop package.

I've gotten in the habit of building from a minimal iso, pure Gnome, so I'd like to see that too. I realize it's easy enough to do apt-get purge unity* but I'm always left with the feeling that there is junk left over. :)

[moore.bryan]

Unity is not a DE nor is it a replacement for Gnome. It's simply a shell. Everything is still Gnome.

Theoretically, yes, but what's left without Unity does not work 100% with GS, so there are some "adaptations" Ubuntu must make to GNOME...

[decoherence]

...if you want to check out a current implementation of Gnome shell 3.0 on 11.04, installable from iso, look at gNatty, the link is in my signature.


Thanks for the tip! I didn't know about that one.

[cariboo]

Just to add my 2 cents, it shouldn't be to hard for someone to come up with a meta package, similar to the gnome-desktop-environment package in previous releases, admittedly it was closer to Debian than Ubuntu, but it sounds like what some of the posters in this thread want.

[cbowman57]

Yes, that's basically what the people working on the UGR project did for 11.04.
http://ugr.teampr0xy.net/

[cariboo]

No, that project is just pulling in a few Gnome 3 packages on top of a full Natty installation. What I'm talking about, is a cli install + the gnome-desktop-environment only.

Have a look at what's included in the meta package here (http://packages.ubuntu.com/natty/gnome-desktop-environment), these are still the Gnome 2.X packages, but it wouldn't take to much to update all the packages to Gnome 3.

Oneiric is based on Gnome 3, so all the UGR team will have to do is create script to install the Gnome 3 packages directly from the reposiotires instead of using ppa's. Oneiric will have Gnome 3.1.5 at release.

[cbowman57]

I know nothing about the process but would it be that hard to modify the gnome-shell package to just automagically install what it now lists as dependencies & recommends?

If so it seems that could easily become the gnome-shell-desktop-environment package. Just a thought from somebody that hasn't a clue. :)

[cariboo]

Using synaptic (no longer included by default), or the software center in Oneiric, you can automagically install gnome-shell and gnome-session-fallback pulling in all the needed dependencies.

Remember Ubuntu is just another Linux distribution, and it can be customized to be whatever you want it to be.