The GNOME 2 Fork ‘Mate’

By Joey Sneddon, Published August 21, 2011

Whether it’s Unity in Ubuntu, GNOME Shell in Fedora, or the number 4 suffixing KDE, there are some users who don’t welcome change with open arms.

For those people not united behind Unity, remain unsure about GNOME Shell, and couldn’t care less about KDE listen up: the GNOME 2 desktop has been forked.

Some might say it was forked a long time ago. Ho ho ho. (Enough of that – ‘the world’)

The fork is called ‘Mate’ and is described by its developers as “a non-intuitive and unattractive desktop for users, using traditional computing desktop metaphor.” Not exactly the best selling point, but most folk seeking out the fork will already be familiar with its pros and cons.

The emphasis seems to be on maintaining existing GNOME 2.x packages rather than adding new features or fixing bugs, and ‘Mate’ is currently only packaged for Arch Linux users.

Further details, downloads and instructions on setting it up were available on the Mate web-site. However, since writing this post the site has gone down.

SRSLY? YA.

With Xubuntu and Lubuntu both offering similar desktop set-ups to that found in GNOME 2, requiring less hardware resources and boasting larger developer bases, the likely-hood of ‘Mate’ successfully maintaining the GNOME 2.x desktop is looking tough.The developers will certainly need to have passion and commitment in order to manage such a vast desktop environment.

But you know what? Even if it fails, Mate shows the power and versatility of Linux: don’t like the way something is heading? Fork it.

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Anonymous
I still love gnome 2 <3
It's sad that Gnome3 went with Mutter instead of compiz. As for Unity, I still haven't got the hang of it..

https://profiles.google.com/phonixor phonixor
mmmmh so you love gnome 2 less then gnome 3

http://twitter.com/robinglee Robin Lee
2<3 evaluates to 1, not 3 :)

Anonymous
Most of the time it evaluates to true, true !== 1.

http://twitter.com/kotaweaver Kota Weaver
“So how do we define True or False?
A lot of people would tell you that false is zero, and true is any number larger than zero. This is not entirely accurate. To be more percise, false is zero and true is any non-zero. This includes negative numbers” - http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/3483/
Looks like true == 1 to me!
Anonymous
depends how picky you are being really. true and 1 are equal in value, but different datatypes. hence the true !== 1, not true != 1. 2<3 would return a boolean, not an int.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton
I believe you can use the gnome 3 fallback with compiz. Although I haven’t looked into it myself, just been told so.

Jonathan
Meh. I got used to GNOME 3.

Anonymous
Meh. I stuck with Unity.
Anonymous
Meh. I stuck with Unity.

http://twitter.com/EuruxD Eustace
“Linus Torvalds likes this.”

Anonymous
he didnt like gnome-shell, but didnt try unity because he uses fedora, so he went directly to xfce.
imho unity already is looking better than both.

Freddi
Fedora will optionally include Unity… ;-)

http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries
Cewl, didn’t know that. I hope Unity will become even nicer in 11.10.
http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries
Cewl, didn’t know that. I hope Unity will become even nicer in 11.10.

http://twitter.com/PAMJ84 PA M
Ha ha

Anonymous
No.
The people who were going to package it for fedora/opensuse decided not to. There were upstream issues.

Felix Perez
I thought unity was going to be crap, I tried it a couple of times on my old macbook, but I tried it in it’s betas. Bought a new laptop, and decided to install 64 bit 11.04. Unity isn’t bad at all it’s quite polished the only part that I don’t like is application search. If you know the name of the app or menu option you are looking for it’s cool, but If you don’t it’s almost impossible to find it. You have to go through like 3 menus before you can find it, hope they fix that everything else is quite nice.

Anonymous
you can right-click the applications lens on the launcher and you get menus similar to gnome2

Daniel Bech
not in 11.10 u can’t
Anonymous
:(
Anonymous
yet… i hope someone filed the bug!
it would be easier now that the button is at the top
B ers
I think you’re supposed to. Currently, there’s a bug that prevents certain mouse actions from being performed on Unity in 11.10. It’s a well known bug and they’re working on a fix for it.
Lorenzo Francisco
That’s because it’s still in Alpha.
https://launchpad.net/~rafalcieslak256 rc
Maybe because there is no such lens anymore?
juzzlin
Why haven’t I noticed that before? :) Thanks for the tip!
http://phontanka.hu/ phontanka
Yes, then I get six application icons. Maybe the app I’m looking for isn’t in that six, so it takes another click to see more apps. This is a bit silly.
Interestingly, I didn’t have to do this extra click on Unity2D on Maverick.
http://profiles.google.com/mardur.hack Marco Chiappetta
Yep! Unity 2D shows the “all applications” menu by default. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer it over Unity 3D! I love having the whole apps database in front of me! Icons do the trick!
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
In the current implementation it takes at least one more click to expand the “installed” section of the, for example, Accessories section in that lens.
And that is assuming that I did not accidentally hit my touchpad again and close the lens before I even got to look at it!
The classic menus take up less space and require fewer clicks. If nothing else, lens sizing, organization, et al, needs to be more configurable for people who are not ever going to use touch screens with Unity.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OO7U4KIP6SHYDLFEJR4AM7YAM4 Jim
Nice tip :) Didn’t know that one!

Anonymous
you can right-click the applications lens on the launcher and you get menus similar to gnome2
Anonymous
Jono Bacon, a canonical employee who reads this blog, said in an interview with the Linux Action Show said he also didn’t like how cumbersome it was to get to files and applications in Unity.
Anonymous
Jono Bacon, a canonical employee who reads this blog, said in an interview with the Linux Action Show said he also didn’t like how cumbersome it was to get to files and applications in Unity.

Anonymous
good to know, hopefully they’ll improve it
Brian Bentsen
It’s only cumbersome if you don’t know what you’re looking for. App and file launchers are much faster than looking through classic menus.
Is it normal to have apps and folders on your system you don’t know the name of? Seems a bit odd.
http://twitter.com/thomas_vandeven Thomas Vandeven
it is perfectly normal to forget the name of a program or file
Brian Bentsen
Thomas, then search for the containing folder (i.e. as you would do in a menu). But yeah if you frequently forget the names of the programs you use, menus probably work better. Also stop doing drugs.
Anonymous
It’s… usually. But I still want a clickable option. I case I forget a name, or something else happens. Browsing the list is sometimes necessary.
Anonymous
Not when the files lense doesn’t ever find files I’m looking for!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
disagree, It is cumbersome. I have quite a bit installed and when i need to use a app i haven’t used for a while and forgot the name its quite a slow down on top of11.04 itself to start digging down. Then when your there nautilus windows get in the way and you have to minimize to get back to global menu. I’ve been trying to find a standard way to speed up things productively, Unless you know exactly what your looking for the first time. I do allot of work with kdenlive and this unity bar does not play nice at all with kdenlive. But never the less this is the way they say things must be now for the new user at the cost of the ubuntu community.
http://www.facebook.com/pererik87 Per Erik Grønvik
I am dyslektic unity suck bals. I hate the thing!
http://www.facebook.com/pererik87 Per Erik Grønvik
I am dyslektic unity suck bals. I hate the thing!

Fatriff
I guess you don’t do much with your computer because I have a list of issues a mile long that really annoy me with unity.. A major one is when you double click a task icon, the program doesn’t minimize.. This is an EPIC FAIL.

Felix Perez
It’s not that I don’t do much on my computer, most times I’m just surfing the web as it’s my home computer, there are something in Unity that suck and I was more use to in Docky, as you said when you click the icon it doesn’t minimize, I hate this I don’t like at all, it’s bothersome and it’s a waste of time. Just saying that It ain’t half bad and if enough work is put on it, it could actually be very good. I just started using it but I understand what you mean, it’s got rough edges but it’ll get better. Just because I don’t have the same problems with Unity that you do, doesn’t mean I don’t do anything on my computer

http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
This is why I’d like to have a “pinned apps” lens in the Dash.

Anonymous
He moved to Linux Mint Debain edition. (Xfce)
http://twitter.com/Hodraghar Hodraghar
Torvalds use Fedora with KDE…

http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
Times change
http://digitizor.com/2011/08/04/linus-torvalds-ditches-gnome-for-xfce/

Mladen Mijatov
I think he once said Ubuntu is not really friendly to kernel developers. It was either Linus or someone else in top kernel development.
http://twitter.com/solarscarab solar flower
rofl. that was the single most “I speak on behalf of someone else with absolutely no clue whatsoever” on here. Anyway, Unity is as **** as G3 so try something else troll.

Anonymous
troll your GM dick

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000423862034 Frank Maverick
I hoped it gets “forked” for Ubuntu, I like my desktop as it is, I’m using various machines running 10.04LTS, 10.10 and 11.04.

http://about.me/technoticracoon TechnoticRacoon
lolfail, just use xfce dammit :P I mean, do you people hate change that much? I’m pretty sure kde 3.5 wasn’t forked when 4 came out :P (actually i just googled it and I stand corrected) Damn, you people do hate change :P

http://mohoho.de Kai Mast
Well, GNOME3 is much more of a radical change than KDE4. I don’t really understand why they don’t offer a classic version themselves ( except as fallback mode)..

Georgi Karavasilev
The gnome3-fallback doesn’t even deserved to be called a session … it is just awful :/

Anonymous
whats so wrong with it?
it has the panel at the top and the panel at the bottom just like the old one.
it has the old menu, what more do you want?
is a transitional desktop.

Georgi Karavasilev
The fact that panel are locked makes it very different from Gnome 2 panel. Have you actually tried doing anything to the gnome3-panels?
And I am Unity guy, so I hardly care about GS or G3 Classic
Georgi Karavasilev
The fact that panel are locked makes it very different from Gnome 2 panel. Have you actually tried doing anything to the gnome3-panels?
And I am Unity guy, so I hardly care about GS or G3 Classic
http://twitter.com/RetroXYZ RétroX
The panel’s still not customizable. You can’t really do anything with it; it just sits there. You can’t even change the colour, and the black hurts my eyes when contrasted with solid white windows.
http://azkware.wordpress.com/ Carlos Solís
And don’t make me start ranting about the windows icons anathema. Okay, the trend began with Ubuntu Maverick but that’s no reason to make it permanent.
http://azkware.wordpress.com/ Carlos Solís
And don’t make me start ranting about the windows icons anathema. Okay, the trend began with Ubuntu Maverick but that’s no reason to make it permanent.
http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/ Satyajit Sahoo
Just Alt+Right click. All customization options are still there.

http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/ Satyajit Sahoo
Why? Fallback mode is as much as customizable like Gnome 2 - http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/2011/08/do-we-really-need-gnome-2-forks.html

Сергей Зигачев
Nope, it was forked too. http://www.trinitydesktop.org
I like changes, but the gnome change is something that I don’t understand… All that “intuitive and beautiful interface” is looking very weird on the desktop. It really fits mobile environment, but not desktop.
GonzO Rodrigue
It’s not that people hate change, its that people hate crap.
Not all change is positive. OS9 -> OS X was positive change; WinXP -> Vista was not.
It is arguable whether or not KDE 3 -> 4 is positive, and most people seem to think G2 -> G3 is not. I think the jury is still out on Unity; the first release didn’t do it for me, but I think this next one might.

http://about.me/technoticracoon TechnoticRacoon
osx sucked until 10.5(some might argue 10.4) so thats not a great example. And the driver support is what killed vista, it wasnt a terrible os. just saying :P

GonzO Rodrigue
Oh, good grief. OS X was far from “suck”.
Everything OS X did, it did well, even right out of the gate. It was *stable*. It’s main issue was releasing before it reached feature parity with OS < X (a worrying trend that unfortunately, KDE, Gnome, and Ubuntu seem to be copying). Vista, OTOH, was a technological nightmare. The UI paradigms didn't work well, and the core OS was unstable (the driver _structure_ was the problem; the drivers themselves just exposed the problems). It took Windows 7 to fix up all the worthy ideas from Vista – including and especially the UI.
Maybe we just have different definitions of "suck", but I don't think "works, although missing some popular features" is one of them.

http://about.me/technoticracoon TechnoticRacoon
I won’t really argue the whole osx thing since that can be subjective to some, but it was the drivers written for vista that screwed it up. Vista was a fine release but the drivers were written poorely. Windows 7 only made one major change to the driver system in windows; GPU drivers can be reset on the fly. Your views on windows are fairly warped if you think windows 7 solved a bunch of issues.
GonzO Rodrigue
My “warped” view of “recent” windows releases comes from having to use, deploy, and support it across several small- and mid-sized businesses.
But you know, I don’t think I have to defend those views to anyone – the Vista/7 sales record discrepancy tells the tale for me. If I do have warped views, a nation full of wallets happens to agree with mine.

Andy Candet
I don’t think I ever managed to reach the Mate website, not even about a month ago when I first heard of it.

http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon
This post has been in drafts for so long in hope that the Mate website would go back up…

http://2buntu.com Roland Taylor
After the last flop (was it EDE or something?) I’m not sure I’m planning to give these “forks” any more airplay until I see something serious pop up.

http://profiles.google.com/sprkv5 Subhashish Pradhan
That’s it! I’m moving to Arch.

Anonymous
hehe
Anonymous
no. you’re moving to XFCE!

Anonymous
i’m not moving anywhere for now I stay with Gnome 2 (for now)
maybe i switch to 12.04 i will see.

http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/ Satyajit Sahoo
So brave!

http://profiles.google.com/sprkv5 Subhashish Pradhan
That’s it! I’m moving to Arch.
http://profiles.google.com/sprkv5 Subhashish Pradhan
That’s it! I’m moving to Arch.
http://www.BaloneyGeek.com Boudhayan Gupta
The first thing they need to do is port it all to GTK3. GTK3 is greatly improved from it’s GTK2 counterpart. Keep the old interface. Use the new libraries. We’ll all be happy.

Anonymous
gnome-shell has a fallback mode that looks just like the old one

http://www.BaloneyGeek.com Boudhayan Gupta
Exactly. Not only looks, but somewhat worls (apart from the applets). You can even use Compiz. So I don’t really see the use of Mate.

http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
I wonder how long the fallback mode will be a priority for Gnome developers
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
I wonder how long the fallback mode will be a priority for Gnome developers

Georgi Karavasilev
The fallback just looks like the old one, but have you ever tried to do anything to the fallback mode panels? You can’t move them, resize them, remove them etc… Basicly nothing except adding applets (Alt+right click on the panel) and that is hidden and doesn’t work all the time.

Anonymous
You can move, resize and remove fallback mode panels as well as old ones (Alt+right click on the panel).
Anonymous
Do you get tired of being demonstrably wrong?
You can move/resize the fallback panels as before – Alt+right click.

Anonymous
Exactly. This is why I didn’t want anyone to fork Gnome2 because it would split the community between GTK2 and GTK3, which is very bad for Linux in general.

http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
Why can’t the classic Gnome panel be updated to GTK3 and Mutter underpinnings?
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
Why can’t the classic Gnome panel be updated to GTK3 and Mutter underpinnings?

Anonymous
Exactly. This is why I didn’t want anyone to fork Gnome2 because it would split the community between GTK2 and GTK3, which is very bad for Linux in general.

http://www.dicasbrowser.com Marco Damaceno
GNOME 3 is very ugly and GNOME 2 is better than it.
http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski
I just hope they get some meat on that fork!
http://dannyboyt.myopenid.com/ Dan
I’ve already made plans to move to Xfce. “Mate” sounds like a good idea but I’ve made my peace to move on.
Anonymous
Some screen?
http://gbutola.wordpress.com Gaurav Butola
IMHO using xfce would be much better, it’s almost Gnome2 like experience.
http://gbutola.wordpress.com Gaurav Butola
IMHO using xfce would be much better, it’s almost Gnome2 like experience.
Anonymous
Why fork gnome 2? XFCE 4.8 is better than Gnome 2.32 in many ways and is lighter. We should promote xfce, instead of reanimating dinosaurs :)

Eylem Koca
I totally agree! I wish this kind of energy and effort was spent on improving XFCE both functionally and visually.
On another note, I really think XFCE devs should be clever enough to up the ante from being (or trying to be) a “light desktop” to delivering what Gnome 3 could not and become something better than Gnome 2.

Freddi
What Linux doesn’t need at all is more forks!!!
Opensource’s greatest drawback is the simplicity to create forks.
Don’t missunderstand me, forks are ‘carried out freedom’, they are in moderation essential for progress of software and like mutations are essential for biological evolution.
Most opensource projects even don’t have enough collaborators at the moment. That causes software to have more bugs then it could have, to be less complete/less featured than users wished and thus to be only popular among geeks. Although opensource is the greatest what humanity has, its fragmentation is the reason why most people (mainstream) aren’t aware of it or are reluctant due to the amount of choices.
“Yet another music player, yet another twitter app, everything written again from scratch because the previous software was so laggy/slow/bad designed…”
What we don’t need is that the projects that we inherited from our opensource fathers (GIMP etc.) die out or are replaced, but we should carry our heritage on for future generations.
I hope Ubuntu and Unity gives at least a bit of unity to spread and unify standards and to strengthen matured opensource softwares instead of increasing fragmentation.

http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
“yet another twitter app”
Except for Gwibber in 11.10, name one other Twitter-app that is both lightweight and nice-looking. I’d say Choqok, but on the GNOME-side, there is nothing else that works as good as Choqok or Gwibber in 11.10 So that definetly needs work.
http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
“yet another twitter app”
Except for Gwibber in 11.10, name one other Twitter-app that is both lightweight and nice-looking. I’d say Choqok, but on the GNOME-side, there is nothing else that works as good as Choqok or Gwibber in 11.10 So that definetly needs work.

http://www.redtube.com ActionParsnip
Tweetdeck for chrome not float your boat?

http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
I totally agree! LibreOffice, is an example of a good fork since Oracle could not be trusted with the fate of OO. There are so many distros and DEs being maintained out there keeping such a small amount of contributors busy, Linux would be much better off if all these contributors rallied behind one or two different flavours. People argue that the competition amongst distros is good, but to be honest, they’ve got enough competition from Microsoft and Apple (and users have enough choice)
http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
I totally agree! LibreOffice, is an example of a good fork since Oracle could not be trusted with the fate of OO. There are so many distros and DEs being maintained out there keeping such a small amount of contributors busy, Linux would be much better off if all these contributors rallied behind one or two different flavours. People argue that the competition amongst distros is good, but to be honest, they’ve got enough competition from Microsoft and Apple (and users have enough choice)
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
I half-way agree. I don’t think it is a black and white concept. Sometimes forks have merit, and other times they don’t. Not every fork can be conveniently boxed into one category.
And human nature is generally not supportive of just working on one or two versions of the wheel. Hasn’t been for millenia. Inevitably, if everyone were to work on Unity and nothing else, the Canonical meritocracy is going to override many a preference of other contributors.
But naturally, I do wish projects that differed by one detail would merge.
I’m not sure what a good measure would be for determining when to merge and when to fork.

Felix Perez
They are missing on a few points, they are light and good but they should deliver a better quality of image, it’s not as customizable and it doesn’t look as good. But it’s basics are much better, it’s browser is better faster and lighter.

http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
Then take a look at E17.
http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
Then take a look at E17.

Anonymous
yes, i prefer they implement whatever feature is missing in xfce…
it already support many of the gnome plugins so

GonzO Rodrigue
It’s be nice if XFCE would use an OpenGL-based compositor. That’s a missing feature I can’t do without.

https://launchpad.net/~dyfet David Sugar
I have used xfce 4.8 easily and successfully with compiz in place of xfwm4. You do have to select the gnome/gtk window decorator for compiz and then set it to a metacity theme. It would be great of course if someone added a fully native xfce4 window dectorator to compiz, but it works great.

Felix Perez
that’s true if you want something light and that works use XFCE, i’ve tried it a couple of times, I think the thing tht people don’t like are the looks s it isn’t as configurable as Gnome 2.0 but it’s something that with enough time you can get use to it.

http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
If you want to customize more, then E17 is a way better choice.
https://launchpad.net/~dyfet David Sugar
There are also certain places where xfce4 is both more and better configurable than gnome 2 was, or features I wish gnome 2 had but never did. One of them is in launchers, particularly the ability to have a panel launcher that is both a button and a menu of launchers. It also does an excellent job now with vertical panel support and rotating things. Hence I do not think it is at all “less” configurable at all, just “differently” configurable, thereby offering different opportunities.

http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
I don’t remember precisely why, but there has been a time where I had both Nautilus and Thunar file managers installed side by side on Ubuntu. For some reason I did not want to switch completely to Thunar.
And I’ve used Xubuntu in the past (as well as installed LXDE) but I never wanted to switch completely to eitiher one full-time. I wish I could remember and enumerate the details for my decisions here

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000516131137 Duane Bekaert
I’m currently planning to move to Pantheon (Elementary OS), Mate is… too late. I love Gnome 2, and I still love it. In fact I think this was if not the better, one of the best Desktop Environment ever created.
The king is dead, long live the king…

https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel
+1
elementary’s Pantheon Shell solves the Unity vs GNOME Shell dilemma for me. It’s rather conservative, it doesn’t strive to be different for the sake of being different and has the traditionally well-though DanRabbit’s design. In addition, it’s modular, it’s built using modern technologies and it’s still quite lightweight.

http://fitoschidoblog.wordpress.com Fitoschido
“Modern technologies”. Ha ha ha.
I love all those lackeys doing product placement.

https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel
I just wanted to say that gnome-panel uses libraries that were deprecated years ago while elementary apps don’t. Actually, elementary’s love for cutting-edge stuff like sqlheavy and unstable vala versions is quite a PITA for testers and the guy who mantains PPAs with them (me) – that’s why I wrote Glimpse.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton
I would much prefer Linux Mint than elementary to be honest, although I’m quite happy with Arch and Gnome 3 lol.
But to each their own, and it’s always nice to see lots of enthusiasm with Linux :)

andresimi
I am loving unity!

Georgi Karavasilev
I love pancakes!

Freddi
Pancakes, unite!

Georgi Karavasilev
Pancakes for the total win :D
I was just making a point that saying “I love Unity” on this article is kinda stupid, because Unity is Gnome, so If one uses Gnome, he also use Gnome

Anonymous
What about cookies?
Georgi Karavasilev
MM, chocolate cookies. Yummy :D
Georgi Karavasilev
MM, chocolate cookies. Yummy :D
andresimi
The point is to show that there are lucky people using unity without problems..
andresimi
The point is to show that there are lucky people using unity without problems..

Georgi Karavasilev
Pancakes for the total win :D
I was just making a point that saying “I love Unity” on this article is kinda stupid, because Unity is Gnome, so If one uses Gnome, he also use Gnome

Anonymous
Me too. I don’t care about the “GNOME vs KDE” wars anymore. I’m using Unity and I’m happy with it. It’s simple, beautiful and it works. Thanks, Canonical!

Georgi Karavasilev
And since Unity is Gnome you love Gnome too :)

Anonymous
In that sense, yes :)
Anonymous
In that sense, yes :)
http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
But not Gnome Shell or the classic Gnome 2.x UI….

Anonymous
it works? not for me.
the close min max buttons don’t disappear for you? the windows in the workspaces don’t move by itself?
the indicators don’t sometimes stop working on a mouse click? and many other problems? no?
lucky you….

juzzlin
At least I haven’t noticed anything like that. But I know that there are some problems on certain graphics drivers / chipsets. It’s sad that 3D acceleration on Linux is still a big mess.
Anonymous
It doesn’t run at all on my computer :(

juzzlin
Did you try Unity 2D?
Anonymous
No, I probably should but the 3d version worked for me in the earlier alpha’s, so I don’t think it’s a lack of hardware support.

https://launchpad.net/~loneowais Owais Lone
Stop whining, file bugs!

http://twitter.com/toxicbits toxicbits
Easier solution – switch to XFCE
Anonymous
and forum posts
Anonymous
done, 4 months ago… and if i’m a programmer i would fix them myself, but i am not!
so much effort and sweat are being put into unity, but for it to be stable as gnome 2 was, it will take another 2 years. believe me. i’m patient but i can’t understand why? the effort vs benefit here is not clear to me.
Anonymous
I filed bugs and it didn’t change much (not even one was fixed). Besides filing bugs on Unity in 11.04 doesn’t have much sense. We would have to install 11.10 which is unstable and doesn’t work well with VirtualBox so… it’s easier to switch or just grind your teeth and try to live with Unity 11.04 till October or sth.

https://launchpad.net/~loneowais Owais Lone
Stop whining, file bugs!
http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
I can’t say I have encountered any of those issues (on a couple of different installs with varying setups!)
Unlucky you….

http://hector-macias.blogspot.com Hector Macias Ayala
People just stick with 10.04 LTS if you dont like Unity or Gnome Shell. 12.04 LTS you will surely like, otherwise adopt KDE.
Adapt or perish.

John Penland
If this were windows, you would be right. More so if this were an Apple product, but its linux. Somebody needs to show the unity team in paticular that making a crappy combination of all the worst aspects of desktop design, calling it intuitive, and making it hard to customize will simply not work, and it sums up what people turn to linux to get away from. Not even Apple and Microsoft show such contempt for their users.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
Bravo! I agree! The sad part is this is the way they do things in Australia At the helm of this dictatorship is Mark Shuttleworth.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
Not only does this one have the answer, he to is dictating. Dud, your talking to a mass community of linux users NOT windows users. Some countries still due have the freedom to choose and make decisions on there own WITHOUT your help.

Ogün Çakır
That’s it! I’m moving to Madagascar.

Anonymous
what?

Richard Fannin
he’s referencing the old “that’s it! i’m moving to arch.” trend.

http://profiles.google.com/bamamorgans Todd Morgan
Mubuntu anyone?

http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski
I love how Thunar shows a warning about using it with a root account :)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Razvan-Teodor-Coloja/1030296203 Razvan Teodor Coloja
Finally! I was giving up hope on GNOME 2.x. It’s great that they are forking and maintaining it for users like me who don’t like GNOME 3 a bit.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Uri-Adonay-Herrera/100000821548713 Uri Adonay Herrera
Yeah… Mantaining, that’s the keyword right there.

Anonymous
Well this “some do not like change” crap again.I see it this way:
Is there a problem? If yes, than look for a better way of doing it. Is there no problem? If yes, then if you still what something new, than the new method should not cause more problems then the old one. But I understand developers are just bored sometimes, and the market needs to be going.

Anonymous
What isn’t understood very well is that just because you may like the Gnome2 way doesn’t mean it’s the best or most efficient. That’s like saying “Windows is the easiest to use OS around” (IMO that’s not true, it’s just because everyone learns Windows first). The awesome thing about Open Source is that projects can experiment with other ways of doing things. However, I think we (as a community) tend to not congratulate devs on hard work. It’s never easy to develop a whole desktop environment!

Anonymous
i don’t hate unity. i actually like it, and with some modifications and change of habbits, it can be productive on a desktop nonetheless.
BUT, i like something that works. gnome 2 worked fine. i’m sure unity will get better… but as always, there will be bugs everywhere, legendary bugs that will take canonical years to fix, or drivers problems… or or or…
in order to make an entire stable UI, could take years.. in one year it can’t be done. and i don’t see the fruits of all this great work and development.
i mean, maybe with time, unity will be superior to gnome 2. maybe… but not that superior and pretty and slick to justify all that work and resources.
anyway i’ll stick with it… hope it will not disappoint .
Ghassen Telmoudi
Why stand behind the crappy Unity.
Let me tell you something, I kinda imposed ubuntu to be used by the family members, I they seem to like it, it’s been 3 years now.
Except my little brother, who likes gaming so he’s always want to install windows, any way when I upgraded to 11.04 with unity, guess what happened?
All my family members 6 of them including me of course, didn’t like it, and we all find it crappy, and it is stupidly trying to copy Mac OSX UI.
Any way long story short, I think we gonna stick with Gnome 2.x and Ubuntu 10.10 the end of the golden era of Ubuntu the OS that we all love and we care about.
And if this crap continues ignoring Gnome 3, we gonna migrate to Fedora.

Anonymous
You can use Gnome 2.x on 11.04.
If they don’t like Unity they wont like Gnome 3.
You will probably have to go to XFCE, LXDE, or KDE.
Most likely on Linux Mint.

Anonymous
yeah, definitely check out Mint (preferably Mint Debain) — you’ll get what you’re looking for there.

Anonymous
You sir, are a moron. Global menu does not an OSX clone make (in fact, Apple weren’t even the first to use a global menu, but that’s a story for another day). I see no other similarity to OSX in Natty that wasn’t there in Maverick.

Anonymous
He said his family who knows nothing about Linux thought it was an OSX clone.

Anonymous
Clearly they know nothing about OSX either, then.
Anonymous
Clearly they know nothing about OSX either, then.

John Penland
a lot of the design principles behind Windows 8(from what I’ve seen), Unity and Gnome Shell are based around the concept that people don’t use keyboards and mice anymore.
Pascal Hoareau
The magic of the open source world, don’t like the way things turn, so fork it…
Personally I think this fork is just useless, like some people above said, switch to XFCE !
For my part I like change and evolution, and I feel me good with my Ubuntu 10.10 + Gnome3 + Unity and Kubuntu With KDE4.
Seriously people stop with that and let’s embrace change !
http://twitter.com/DarthScape Kyle B
GNOME 3 isn’t the problem, its GNOME Shell. We just need a GNOME2-like shell on top of GNOME 3

https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel
Long live Pantheon Shell!!

Anonymous
Link for those unfamiliar with it?

https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel
It’s a modular DE-independent shell developed in elementary project. It’s rather conservative and, unlike GNOME Shell and Unity, it’s modular, so you can replace any part of it you don’t like. AFAIK there are no up-to-date screenshots, so install Glimpse and run Cerbere in it to try the shell. Note it’s alpha-quality at the moment. It’s expected to be released sometime after Ubuntu 11.10 and before Ubuntu 12.04. Also, the code lagged behind the design last time I checked, so keep in mind that the menu won’t be fullscreen.
https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel
It’s a modular DE-independent shell developed in elementary project. It’s rather conservative and, unlike GNOME Shell and Unity, it’s modular, so you can replace any part of it you don’t like. AFAIK there are no up-to-date screenshots, so install Glimpse and run Cerbere in it to try the shell. Note it’s alpha-quality at the moment. It’s expected to be released sometime after Ubuntu 11.10 and before Ubuntu 12.04. Also, the code lagged behind the design last time I checked, so keep in mind that the menu won’t be fullscreen.
https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel
It’s a modular DE-independent shell developed in elementary project. It’s rather conservative and, unlike GNOME Shell and Unity, it’s modular, so you can replace any part of it you don’t like. AFAIK there are no up-to-date screenshots, so install Glimpse and run Cerbere in it to try the shell. Note it’s alpha-quality at the moment. It’s expected to be released sometime after Ubuntu 11.10 and before Ubuntu 12.04. Also, the code lagged behind the design last time I checked, so keep in mind that the menu won’t be fullscreen.

http://twitter.com/tardegrade tardegrade
“…there are some users who don’t welcome change with open arms.”
Just because a lot of users ( dare I say most users outside of this rather partisan website ) don’t like Unity, doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t like change.
I’ve loved all the changes that Canonical have made to the Gnome 2 desktop over the years, take a screen shot of Gnome a few years ago and compare it to 10.10 and the difference is fantastic. Well done Canonical.
I want more change as well. I don’t want my desktop to stay still and be left behind, I want evolutionary development and I can see lots of areas where the desktop can be radically changed for the better. Progress is good. I embrace change.
What I can’t embrace is the car crash that is Unity and Gnome Shell. Just because something is new and different it doesn’t mean it’s instantly better and anyone who doesn’t like it is a Luddite.
Ask Linus what he thinks about Gnome 3. I hardly think that he can be accused of being backwards looking. Interesting that you didn’t report that little story at all. I think in the interests of balance it’s worth airing.
Unity is not for me. It’s not a desktop GUI. It’s because I want change that I would like to see Gnome 2 forked properly, I want to see the evolution continue and for whoever does it, to have enough clout to keep up the pace of development and innovation. If they can’t do that and the fork just maintains a static desktop then I can’t see the point of that. I don’t want to stay with 10.04 forever, progress is good. Lets hope it can happen because whether you agree or disagree with my views Unity and Gnome Shell are definitely leaving a vacuum.

Gloucester Shrubhill
Totally agree with you tardegrade. Ubuntu has been fantastic, but these fashionable dash/launcher projects are totally removed from what users actually want from their computers. Under the old metaphor, launching two instances of the same app was easy, and just required a few mouse clicks. Everything in Unity seems to just take longer. Everything useful in Gnome seems to have simply disappeared. You either have to do scrolling/sorting/keyboard-fu to find apps, window switching is similarly weird, and it’s obfuscating the whole process of multitasking. And still, after all these years of “end-user focus”, there’s no first-start “Click here to do stuff!” dialogue for newbies. Shambles.

Anonymous
Launching a new instance needs just one click in Unity;-)

http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
Indeed. Just middle click on the launcher on your opened app.

Anonymous
Unless you use a touchpad because compiz has stolen that function :(
http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
I’m not sure what you mean by compiz has stolen that function? On my touchpad, I right and left click at the same time to trigger a middle click – Works for me in Natty anyway…
Bilal Akhtar
Wha? It works for me in Oneiric, and used to work when I used Natty. Is your compiz screwed? Try running unity –reset (NOTE: Compiz-specific plugin changed will be erased)
Anonymous
@ Bilal Akhtar & Patrick Scott
We may have different ideas of what is middle-click on touchpads I fear.
Since I started using it, I have been able to do 2 finger tap as right-click and 3 finger tap as middle-click.
I use it for things such as opening links in web browsers, closing tabs, pasting etc.
I can still do this in KDE, gnome shell, LXDE, unity 2d and unity 3d in natty but not in oneiric.
Any attempt to do so invokes compiz “love handles” (mtp grab).
If I disable that plugin, it still invokes window moving and there seems no way to disable it.
I have had a hard time getting to grips with using a touchpad and I am used to this way of working now, not about to change for compiz.
This is currently the biggest factor in whether or not I will be using ubuntu come October.
I would be happy enough to just use unity 2d but not unless they give us an option to change the launcher size.

Gloucester Shrubhill
Ahh. Thanks for the tip. I’ll probably re-visit Unity and Gnome 3 at a later date, to see how they’ve matured, but right now LXDE is working wonders for me.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6CLU5ZOTFN5KZODOREOPZ27B7Q John Nelson
It is a logical fallacy to state “What users want” when what you really mean is “What I want.” If you are going to make assertions about what “users” want (the use of which implies the vast majority of not only Ubuntu users but computer users generally), you need to provide links to the peer-reviewed, non-biased research you’re referring to. Otherwise, just own up to the fact that you’re passing off your own personal preferences for the preferences of a large group of people which you have no authority to speak for.

Gloucester Shrubhill
I just know that I am not alone.
GonzO Rodrigue
Well. As a *user*, I agree with him more than you.
But while you’re all [citation needed], I for one would like to see the peer-reviewed, non-biased research that the Gnome 3 team used. I’m not going to hold my breath – you’d be the first to provide any, as G3 is based on a series of design articles with nary a user review in sight.
Also, while we’re at this, I see a LOT of opinion pieces about how G3 is a train wreck, but nary a single one about how its awesome. This, to me, states that a more common perspective is that G3 is a step backwards.

Anonymous
“Just because something is new and different it doesn’t mean it’s instantly better and anyone who doesn’t like it is a Luddite.”
Vista proves your point.

http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
I’m not sure it does… Vista sucked for a lot of reasons but being new and different wasn’t one of them… For example, it looked and felt like it was just a rethemed version of XP, yet it was extremely resource hungry. A lot of hardware failed to work properly with it and as a result of that, a lot of software failed to work too (all games where constantly crashing for me under vista because of nVidia driver issues which weren’t resolved until Vista SP2)..
User Account Control (UAC) was probably the only new thing about Vista which annoyed the masses but then again that was Microsofts (extremely inferior) equivalent of root..

Anonymous
Not different? Are you absolutely insane.
Looks are not everything. Vista was extremely radicallfrom an under-the-hood point of view. they re-wrote the god damn userland!
Kde4 at first looks like a re-themed kde 3. But it’s not the same base.

http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
If you read properly, you’d see that I never said it wasn’t different – I said it being different was not the reason people hated it – And, of course, the original poster was referring to changes in User Experience (Gnome Shell) and not under the hood
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EHJ2I4S6TMA76ETFDGSOEWJ5A Big Mchugelarge
The original point was that new does not equal better, referencing Vista as evidence.
The reason people hated Vista is irrelevant to this discussion. It matters only that it was both new and hated
You stated that “Vista [was hated] for a lot of reasons but being new and different wasn’t one of them.” This can be interpreted to mean at least two things: 1) Vista was hated and new, but its newness was not the reason for its being hated, or 2) Vista was hated, but it was not new, so it is not valid evidence for your point.
You apparently meant the former, which I’ll admit seems to be the most obvious interpretation. However, in context, only the second interpretation is a valid attempt at arguing against the original point. Since you are very obviously doing that, new_user’s interpreting your statement in the latter way seems justified.
The ambiguity of your statement, compounded by its misguided intent, makes you responsible for any subsequent miscommunications.

Anonymous
“Just because something is new and different it doesn’t mean it’s instantly better and anyone who doesn’t like it is a Luddite.”
Vista proves your point.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6CLU5ZOTFN5KZODOREOPZ27B7Q John Nelson
” dare I say most users outside of this rather partisan website”
link plz.

Anonymous
wtf?

http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels
I don’t like Unity in 11.04
I like Unity in 11.10, but that’s still in beta.
My desktop of choice is E17 (on Bodhi). I love E17 just as much as I love Unity 11.10, alhough E17 is way more light-weight. But who knows, maybe I’ll fall back to Unity after 11.10 of somewhere around 12.04
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
Agreed. The blanket statement that someone does not embrace “change” is meaningless. There are all kinds of changes, good changes, bad changes, changes in between …..
I like Unity to some degree, I like the ~possibility~ of what it might be in the future. But I’m not so much of a fan boy that I just casually gloss over crappy details because of the Canonical reality distortion field.
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
Agreed. The blanket statement that someone does not embrace “change” is meaningless. There are all kinds of changes, good changes, bad changes, changes in between …..
I like Unity to some degree, I like the ~possibility~ of what it might be in the future. But I’m not so much of a fan boy that I just casually gloss over crappy details because of the Canonical reality distortion field.
http://twitter.com/pachydyptes Pachydyptes
Agreed. The blanket statement that someone does not embrace “change” is meaningless. There are all kinds of changes, good changes, bad changes, changes in between …..
I like Unity to some degree, I like the ~possibility~ of what it might be in the future. But I’m not so much of a fan boy that I just casually gloss over crappy details because of the Canonical reality distortion field.
http://pn404.wordpress.com/ Tester
«”…there are some users who don’t welcome change with open arms.”
Just because a lot of users ( dare I say most users outside of this rather partisan website ) don’t like Unity, doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t like change.»
True. I liked the new KDE 4.5+ system tray icons, but I disliked the new KDE iconset in 4.6+, and its folder looking more like Tango. It’s a logical fallacy to assume that any new change is better for sure just because is new… Even when it’s not a matter of tastes. Humans can do mistakes. To admit one’s mistakes helps to retry or improve, change again and better.
This doesn’t mean: “trash Unity because it sux”. Unity isn’t that bad, but lets users to choose what kind of menu and panels etc they want and the functionality they miss. They will decide what’s better for themselves. If your idea is better for them, they will accept your idea. If they don’t like it, and you try to impose it (“it’s like so or nothing”), they will move elsewhere.
Luckily GNU/Linux is about freedom too.
If they don’t like what you think is your super-new-sexy-change-that-everybody-should-admire-in-awe, is not because they are retrogrades that can’t welcome change, but because they have a different point of view.

http://twitter.com/tardegrade tardegrade
“…there are some users who don’t welcome change with open arms.”
Just because a lot of users ( dare I say most users outside of this rather partisan website ) don’t like Unity, doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t like change.
I’ve loved all the changes that Canonical have made to the Gnome 2 desktop over the years, take a screen shot of Gnome a few years ago and compare it to 10.10 and the difference is fantastic. Well done Canonical.
I want more change as well. I don’t want my desktop to stay still and be left behind, I want evolutionary development and I can see lots of areas where the desktop can be radically changed for the better. Progress is good. I embrace change.
What I can’t embrace is the car crash that is Unity and Gnome Shell. Just because something is new and different it doesn’t mean it’s instantly better and anyone who doesn’t like it is a Luddite.
Ask Linus what he thinks about Gnome 3. I hardly think that he can be accused of being backwards looking. Interesting that you didn’t report that little story at all. I think in the interests of balance it’s worth airing.
Unity is not for me. It’s not a desktop GUI. It’s because I want change that I would like to see Gnome 2 forked properly, I want to see the evolution continue and for whoever does it, to have enough clout to keep up the pace of development and innovation. If they can’t do that and the fork just maintains a static desktop then I can’t see the point of that. I don’t want to stay with 10.04 forever, progress is good. Lets hope it can happen because whether you agree or disagree with my views Unity and Gnome Shell are definitely leaving a vacuum.
Tariq Sheikh
There’s a famous quote that goes something like,“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘a faster horse’.” -Henry FordAs you most likely know, Henry Ford’s company popularized the automobile. Naturally, automobiles are very different from horses and if you get too used to how a horse works, you might find it awkward to adjust to using an automobile. Automobiles, obviously, are much better than horses, but they no doubt caused complaints from horse riders who were too used to how things worked as they were and have worked for years.[Quoted from a blog on Gnome3]

Anonymous
Yes but this does not mean something new and radical is always better in the long run.
Anonymous
so true…
Anonymous
+1
but i bet the first cars were not very comfortable or polished, so this is just whats happening to both unity and g-shell, they’ll both get much better, but i prefer unity right now.

Anonymous
Its not that gnome 3 / unity (in 11.10) is unpolished.
its an excellent implementation of a stupid concept.
I might use gnome 3.2 but for now… no. Besides although I prefer the Gnome 2 interface, I prefer QT libraries.

http://azkware.wordpress.com/ Carlos Solís
Okay, the Shell might be useful and open a window to new, unexpected ways to use a desktop. But in exchange it deprives the users of a plethora of functionalities. And that’s NOT the way to design an interface. An interface should add or correct functionalities, not remove them.
http://twitter.com/tardegrade tardegrade
Fantastic quote and I couldn’t agree more. But in equating Gnome 2 to a horse and Gnome 3 to a Car, the problem is this. Gnome 3 isn’t a car, it’s a gerbil. I would prefer to stay on the horse and wait for a proper car to come along, rather than transfer to the Gnome 3 / Unity Gerbil.
http://twitter.com/tardegrade tardegrade
Fantastic quote and I couldn’t agree more. But in equating Gnome 2 to a horse and Gnome 3 to a Car, the problem is this. Gnome 3 isn’t a car, it’s a gerbil. I would prefer to stay on the horse and wait for a proper car to come along, rather than transfer to the Gnome 3 / Unity Gerbil.
http://pn404.wordpress.com/ Tester
True, but this doesn’t mean that the customers are always wrong and the producer’s idea is always the good one.
Also Ford may have ignored his customers wishes and then proposed something that they liked; here and idea has been put on the table and many customers don’t like it and they are complaining. Ford ignored his costumers, but made them glad, Canonical made is costumers unhappy and then ignores them. That’s quite different.

Anonymous
Can someone tell me what Fork / Forked means?

Anonymous
Forking is where a project’s source code is brought into a new repository and nothing is contributed back to upstream. This is allowing the Mate guys to pick up the Gnome2 source and keep maintaining it while RedHat and the Gnome council is dedicated to Gnome3.
Forks can either be good or bad. IMO a fork is bad once it breaks compatibility with upstream, but feel free to establish your own views!

Anonymous
Thanks for explaining it to me :)
Anonymous
Thanks for explaining it to me :)

Anonymous
That’s it. I’m switching to XFCE!
Anonymous
“currently only packaged for Arch Linux users.”
I think this explains everything.

Anonymous
Not to me, it doesn’t. Nor does the people liking this comment (if any).

Anonymous
Arch users don’t like being told what to do (for example, use GNOME 3), so they decided to fork GNOME 2. I’m assuming the people behind ‘Mate’ are Arch users since it’s currently only packaged for Arch.

Anonymous
Uh, a couple of points:
1) It isn’t “Only packaged for Arch;” the person (singular) responsible for the project is an Arch user, and stuck an entry for it in the Arch User Repository. The AUR contains scripts called PKGBUILDs, which contain instructions–written entirely in BASH–on fetching the source tarballs and compiling the package into a binary suitable for Arch’s package manager. Mate isn’t packaged in a binary of any form at all, and anyone who wants it needs to build it from source, regardless of what distro they’re using. In the case of Arch Linux this is unlikely to ever change, as the devs won’t give “official support” to anyone’s pet project unless it’s very well-tested. I’m surprised this hasn’t been mentioned yet, actually; it’s not hard to find any of this out.
2) Arch being a rolling-release distro, its users should understand that software is taken directly from upstream as it’s released, packaged, and placed in the testing repositories until it’s determined it won’t break the average user’s system (usually no more than about ten days, from my experience). Arch users expected GNOME 3 to hit the repos the day it was released, which it did. Plenty of people like it and use it, and plenty of people don’t. No one has to use it who doesn’t want to. Besides, it’s no big surprise this happened (OMGU is actually behind the game on this one, as the project was announced a couple months ago), given that there are still people trying to maintain KDE 3.5 out there as I type this.

Anonymous
“currently only packaged for Arch Linux users.”
I think this explains everything.
http://twitter.com/ojdon Ollie Reardon
People are STILL beating a dead horse? Gnome 2.X is bloated as hell, why on earth are people refusing to try out something modern and up to date? There are plenty of similar alternatives to the old Gnome like Xfce which is still getting updates actively if Gnome-Shell or Unity isn’t your thing. But I’ve tried them both and didn’t take long to get used to them. Let Gnome 2 die now and keep Linux offering the latest software and lets not get stuck with (almost) 10 year old dying software.
/rant
http://al3xa.myopenid.com/ aL3xa
anyone succeeded to access the project’s page?
Anonymous
Joey, oh Joey. What is “maintenance” if they’re not going to fix bugs?
“[...] maintaining existing GNOME 2.x packages rather than adding new features or fixing bugs, [...]“
Will Kromer
The slogan is making fun of Gnome shell and the Gnome project’s reason for creating it.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DCCLPI27QJN7ZMQ3LX45HRNIJU AS
I don’t like the dumbed down desktop, G2 works very well for me and I will keep it in my office as long as I can. On my laptop, I tried Unity which I hated at first but got used to over time (I’m neutral about it now, I still don’t love it). I installed Fedora 15 + G3 and have played around just a bit and felt it was a more coherent effort than Unity, but I don’t want to change distros. I also installed XFCE and I like it but still find it rough and not as simple as G2. KDE is a monster I’m a little scared of and I would have to change a lot of my Gnome apps if I switch to KDE, which I don’t want. So my hope for the near future is Unity and G3 improve and I can use either, and I’m happy XFCE is getting more love so I can fall back on it.
Akshat Jain
Meh, another project that will die after some time.
http://pinguy-os.sourceforge.net/ Pinguy
Gnome Shell and Unity should just be taken outside and shot in the face. It is an unwanted mess of a DE that is having an identity crisis. Its not sure if its a desktop or a phone/tablet.
Why they are going after the tablet market I have no f**king clue. Unless you are iOS or Android you are pretty much doomed going after that market. It doesn’t even make sence anymore to use this interface on Notebooks anymore as most people just use them as small laptops as they have more then enough power now. New ones are more powerful then mid rage laptops from a few years ago.
Linux was taken some real steps forward in the Computer interindustry. Now they have just thrown that all out o the window.
There isn’t really a usable DE anymore. XFCE is OK but laking. KDE is just a joke. It looks pretty but once you get past that it has some really odd behaver. E17 is still stuck in the 90′s. And all the other desktops where designed to run on low spec systems so are missing a few that you would see in a more modern DE.
I am hoping for a Gnome 3 port. Not a gnome 2. Gnome 3 maybe a mess but GTK3 is the right way to go. Or even a XFCE port that uses GTK3 and the gnome-panel. Not the gnome panel from 3 because I have no clue what was going though the devs head that made some of the decisions when designing the panel for the gnome 3 fallback.

http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Mark
Agree. What linux desktop needs is an identity. Gnome is to Mac as KDE is to Windows. Don’t even try tell me about other DEs that consume less, light or have nothing in the way of the user. ;)

Daniel Foré
GNOME is absolutely *NOT* like Mac OS o.O

http://fitoschidoblog.wordpress.com Fitoschido
But you’re trying to do that O.o

http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/ Satyajit Sahoo
Why do we need a port? You should look at this article - http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/2011/08/do-we-really-need-gnome-2-forks.html

http://pinguy-os.sourceforge.net/ Pinguy
For one I am asking for a Gnome 3 port. Not Gnome 2. Also in that article you barely explain anything. Just that you can kinda make Gnome 3 look like Gnome 2. I can do a better job then what you have to make Gnome 3 look more like Gnome 2.
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/3517/workspace1001m.png
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/3894/workspace1002.png
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8307/workspace1004.png
But Gnome 3 fallback does not work or act like Gnome 2. You don’t cover the issues with the desktop. For an example there are problems with Compiz. The Close/Maximize/Minimize buttons disappear when running Compiz on gnome3. Also you don’t bring up about the system menu being missing. Also that many of the know and trusted system apps in Gnome 2 are nothing like they are in Gnome 3. Right clicking on the desktop to change the background only does that now. You need to go hunting around to be able to change the theme. Also most of the applets that worked fine in gnome 2 don’t work in Gnome 3. The fallback mode it a joke. The Gnome Team clearly don’t care for it and it shows. They are intreasted in Gnome Shell and thats it. What is needed is a better Gnome 3 Fallback mode. Gnome 2 is still a fine desktop but the core of it needs updating. GTK3 ect. Idealy I would like the XFCE Team to pick this up and run with it. I think they have the skills to be able to make a really good Gnome 3 fallback mode that works and acts the “exactly” the same as Gnome 2.3 and isn’t some half a**ed attempt just to try and keep the public happy. I want to see an updated Gnome 2.3 that is using GTK3. Thats all. Nothing more nothing less.

http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/ Satyajit Sahoo
I agree with you on those missing settings thing. I also have mentioned it in my article if you read it. I also have mentioned that we need more contributors to Gnome 3 instead of creating forks.
About Panel Applets, I guess that codes have changed as it is not GTK2 now, and new applets should be written in GTK3.
But about compiz, I assume if compiz doesn’t work well, it’s a compiz bug, not Gnome’s. Compiz is becoming whole buggy gradually. Well, you can also use Mutter instead of Compiz for simple visual effects.
I only say that forking or porting diverges developers and the maximum benefit would be obtained by collaborating. I know Gnome 3 is not mature and needs lot of improvements. But it’ll take time, especially if developers continue creating forks and ports instead of improving the existing one.
I’m not a developer, but these seem obvious points to me. Nothing more.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/C6S22ANL35LHAH27EX43XFQKTQ Klau3
I guess Ubuntu will anyway switch to Qt long term (if the Gnome guys take more weird decisions than even faster).
Qt is the right way to go, like it is great to have Wayland & LightDM hopefully as Linux ‘standard’. We don’t really need to have 1000 implementations doing the same.

http://pinguy-os.sourceforge.net/ Pinguy
OMG Ubuntu removed my first comment so I have a backup here: http://blog.pinguyos.com/9242644632
http://twitter.com/solarscarab solar flower
lol… what are you on about?

http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
I’ll never understand why people still like Gnome 2.3. The panels were awful, the applets/indicators/systray icons or whatever you want to call them were awful and the Application menus were soo 1995. I’m glad the Gnome team dumped it..
And yeah, I agree with you that Ubuntu don’t have a chance in the tablet market with Android and iOS. However, the move to a touch friendly UI was going to have to happen eventually. For example, my next PC build will feature a 23″ Touchscreen monitor (Acer t231h). With the extremely touch orientated Windows 8 around the corner, there are going to be touchscreen desktops, laptops, and netbooks all over the place in a couple of years and some of them will have owners that will want Ubuntu support. It’s good that the Ubuntu devs have spotted the trend before it caught on and is getting a headstart on this…

http://pinguy-os.sourceforge.net/ Pinguy
Why are you going to get a 23″ Touchscreen monitor? Never understood why people would want one. Touch makes sense on tablets and phones where it isn’t possible to use a mouse. It is a perfect way to interact with hand held devices.
Touch is for devices you carry around with you and presentation boards. Touchscreen monitors really haven’t got any use on a Desktop system.
Why would anyone want to sit down in front of a Desktop PC and stretch their arms out and wave it in front of a monitor? Your arms will get very tied very quickly.
Try it now. If you are on a Desktop System hold your finger against the screen and see how long it takes before your arm gets tired.
A mouse is much better then touch on a Desktop PC. Also I hate it when I see smudges on the screen so can only imagine what it would be like on a Touchscreen monitor. Also with Multi-Touch mouses coming out there isn’t going to be anything a Touchscreen can do better then a mouse. If you are going to say drawing we have had Graphics Tablet that are much better then any Touchscreen for a good while now.
So I really can’t see a need for touchscreen desktops. I think its a fad that isn’t going to catch on. The hardware venders have seen that touch phones and tablets are doing really well so they are just chucking touch onto everything. Because of this software developers are getting involved to make sure their systems work on it.
But all anyone needs to do is spend more than 2 minutes thinking about it and they will probably relies its one of the dumbest thing that the tech industry have come out with since the Sinclair C5 .

http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott
Yeah, you’ve changed my mind on that screen actually – On the desktop front, they are a bit pointless – Laptops and netbooks, however, are still hand held and we’ll probably see a lot of touchscreen ones coming out after the Win 8 released. They’ll need to be supported by Ubuntu so I still think Unity is the right direction…

http://pinguy-os.sourceforge.net/ Pinguy
Sure. Thats what the netbook edition was for. Why hurt the Desktop PC experience when all they had to do was keep the netbook edition as a separate version. Instead they ditched the Desktop version and replacing it with the netbook edition.They have been planing this for awhile.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/060910-canonical-developing-ubuntu-os-for.html
http://www.mobilityfeeds.com/mobility-feed/2011/04/canonical-believes-in-the-future-of-ubuntu-for-the-netbook-market-linux.html
Their intention is towards tablets and netbooks. The thing is, its a dead market (just google webos or netbook sells) and they are dragging the desktop system down with it. They have gave up on Desktop computers and are going after the Tablet/Netbook market. Problem is the Desktop PC experience is suffering because of this. Because their system isn’t designed for Desktop PCs anymore.
I understand Canonical thinking why they are going after a market. They are a business at the end of the day so need to take chances. But why has Gnome done the same thing? they are a Desktop Environment. Key word here Desktop not mobile. So out of the two its Gnome I am more disappointed in.

http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Mark
Linux, the land of forks. .. :)

juzzlin
Exactly. Instead of forks we should use spoons.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/C6S22ANL35LHAH27EX43XFQKTQ Klau3
*hihihi*

Ray
more useless info from joey.
Anonymous
I would use pretty much anything rather than gnome2.
Anonymous
I would use pretty much anything rather than gnome2.
http://twitter.com/celldee Chris Duncan
Unity works well for me, however, it obviously doesn’t work for everybody and that’s where we are fortunate to have an abundance of choice.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the developers that have enabled me to install various operating systems at no cost along with a multitude of excellent apps that have also cost me $0. Your hard work is appreciated and my computing life is sooo much better as a result.
http://profiles.google.com/lilianftp Moraru Lilian
I was hatting Unity before but now looks a little better. It is kind of hard in use still but it definitely looks better now than before, I think I will use it in Ubuntu 11.10. The apps now really look more like fullscreen apps than before when the Ubuntu logo was in the left corner.
http://www.dylanmccall.com/ dylan-m
So, instead of helping the Gnome project to maintain gnome-panel 3 and gnome-tweak-tool, they’re taking on the job of maintaining (from scratch) An Entire Desktop Environment. One that depends on at least three deprecated libraries (Bonobo, Gdk2, Gtk2) and has no active interest from its original developers.
No, sir, I don’t like it.
http://twitter.com/ottorobba Otto Robba
Meh. If I want traditional computer interface, I’d go with XFCE which has some awesome features.
Personally? My entire interface is AWN + Nautilus Elementary. And that is more than enough. Gonna go with Luna when it is out.
http://www.facebook.com/maxpoulin64 Maxime Poulin
Why would anyone want to fork GNOME 2 ? The GNOME 3 Fallback mode is EXACTLY like GNOME 2 with some few exceptions, but it certainly work almost like G2. Take a look at it! (screenshot attached)
You just have to change some defaults and there you go…
1- Enable Fallback-mode.
2- Set Nautilus to be in desktop mode (can be changed through its preferences)
3- Start nautilus in the startup (nautilus -n)4- Use Alt+Click on the panels to do what you would in G2. Alt+Click to move, Alt+Right Click to open the menu, Alt+Middle Click to move applets (or Alt+Right Click -> Move)
The only thing I miss is the System menu, that was a great place to put all the configuration utilities so the Applications menu kept clean and contained only the userland applications (like browsers, IMs and such), but you can fix this with alacarte to get a similar effect.
You can also change the Window Manager if you want, the fallback mode uses metacity by default, but I changed mine to use Mutter (not too heavy, some simple effects that I like). One can also use compiz, openbox or anything else too.
Please, stop complaining that “its not exactly as it was before, I hate it” unless you tried it AND read some documentation about it. I remember that the Alt+ click on the panels was clearly stated somewhere.
http://www.facebook.com/maxpoulin64 Maxime Poulin
Why would anyone want to fork GNOME 2 ? The GNOME 3 Fallback mode is EXACTLY like GNOME 2 with some few exceptions, but it certainly work almost like G2. Take a look at it! (screenshot attached)
You just have to change some defaults and there you go…
1- Enable Fallback-mode.
2- Set Nautilus to be in desktop mode (can be changed through its preferences)
3- Start nautilus in the startup (nautilus -n)4- Use Alt+Click on the panels to do what you would in G2. Alt+Click to move, Alt+Right Click to open the menu, Alt+Middle Click to move applets (or Alt+Right Click -> Move)
The only thing I miss is the System menu, that was a great place to put all the configuration utilities so the Applications menu kept clean and contained only the userland applications (like browsers, IMs and such), but you can fix this with alacarte to get a similar effect.
You can also change the Window Manager if you want, the fallback mode uses metacity by default, but I changed mine to use Mutter (not too heavy, some simple effects that I like). One can also use compiz, openbox or anything else too.
Please, stop complaining that “its not exactly as it was before, I hate it” unless you tried it AND read some documentation about it. I remember that the Alt+ click on the panels was clearly stated somewhere.
http://www.facebook.com/maxpoulin64 Maxime Poulin
Why would anyone want to fork GNOME 2 ? The GNOME 3 Fallback mode is EXACTLY like GNOME 2 with some few exceptions, but it certainly work almost like G2. Take a look at it! (screenshot attached)
You just have to change some defaults and there you go…
1- Enable Fallback-mode.
2- Set Nautilus to be in desktop mode (can be changed through its preferences)
3- Start nautilus in the startup (nautilus -n)4- Use Alt+Click on the panels to do what you would in G2. Alt+Click to move, Alt+Right Click to open the menu, Alt+Middle Click to move applets (or Alt+Right Click -> Move)
The only thing I miss is the System menu, that was a great place to put all the configuration utilities so the Applications menu kept clean and contained only the userland applications (like browsers, IMs and such), but you can fix this with alacarte to get a similar effect.
You can also change the Window Manager if you want, the fallback mode uses metacity by default, but I changed mine to use Mutter (not too heavy, some simple effects that I like). One can also use compiz, openbox or anything else too.
Please, stop complaining that “its not exactly as it was before, I hate it” unless you tried it AND read some documentation about it. I remember that the Alt+ click on the panels was clearly stated somewhere.
Robin Jacobs
I like Unity, but Gnome 3 really sucks.
http://profiles.google.com/lain.halfbit Lain inVerse
Pretty useless. The only way to keep old interface and have latest software is to port old interface on GNOME 3 libs. No matter how hard they will try they will fail to backport all new soft on GNOME 2 libs.
So, users will have two instances of GNOME libs in the system.
I do like Unity (2D version only) but if I decide to go back to old interface I will try XFCE first.
Anonymous
It was definitely just a matter of time.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
Just install classic menu indicator, this way you still have the functionality and ability to use your pc more productively, have the ability to stay up to date with ubuntu and support, then hide that unity bar. This is a short term fix for me though, Once LinuxMint separates itself from ubuntu as clem says I’m out of here. They start with release 12.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BEMYXZR3QTBZF676TUAEKATHM syncdram
Just install classic menu indicator, this way you still have the functionality and ability to use your pc more productively, have the ability to stay up to date with ubuntu and support, then hide that unity bar. This is a short term fix for me though, Once LinuxMint separates itself from ubuntu as clem says I’m out of here. They start with release 12.
http://zekeweeks.com @ZekeWeeks
“Open source project forked” is hardly news. What *would* make this news would be information on who exactly is leading and supporting this fork.

Anonymous
the article is just an excuse to be snide and dismissive — if you were expecting a proper report or news, you came to the wrong place!

http://www.redtube.com ActionParsnip
Switched to LXDE, no problems at all :). Unity is ok but I find it slows me down personally.
http://twitter.com/zc456 Squeaks
I hope they succeed. We already have a fork of KDE3, known as Trinity. Despite the wonderful improvements in Gnome 3, I’d love to see 2 continue.
http://twitter.com/MarcCoquand Marc Coquand
Perhaps we could create a new DE based on kde. Kinda like how unity and eOS does it but for kde instead and make it stick to the original gnome 2 layout. That way we get the neat and crispy effects of QT.
Just saying that could be a cool community project to start.
Anonymous
Here’s a snapshot of the website I managed to load (After about 1/2 minutes). http://i.imgur.com/sXm8r.png – Unfortunately, no images.
http://2buntu.com Roland Taylor
I held off writing about MATE on 2buntu because I asked the author of the DE if he would be interested in discussing it with us. He said no, so I realized he wasn’t trying to be friendly.
In all honesty, I don’t know if my chips are down for it. I’m much more interested in seeing what happens to GNOME Panel in GNOME 3, and in what the Elementary team is kicking out. If/when I’m mature enough with programming I’ll probably even pitch in with them.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001686007829 Brenden Blosser
I use Linux Mint and I’m glad with the decisions they have made with Linux Mint 11 and etc. I tried Unity and I kinda liked it but not enough for it as my main environment. I prefer Gnome 2 atleast until Unity matures much more…But I think I’ll be sticking with Linux Mint so what they do in future updates I’m sure I’ll be happy with. :)
Miles (milesianmedia)
The website is back online.
Anonymous
So to avoid being too complex they decide to remove features.
The gnome 3 developers decided to remove minimizing/maximizing.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000224702818 James Culver
I don’t see why everyone hates Gnome3. After spending the last 5 years wishing Linux had a mature-looking, stable, responsive, and above all UNIQUE desktop environment, switching back and forth between GNOME and KDE a zillion times, trying every bell and whistle I could cram in there in every imaginable combination, I almost gave up on the Linux UI ever really being anything more than an unimaginative hybrid between Windows and Mac.
Since installing Gnome 3.0 I have stopped needing to tweak every little aspect of my workspace, everything flows much more smoothly, everything even LOOKS good. I know this is all very subjective but I find it perplexing that so many people think the Gnome Shell is so awful. I think it’s genius!
Also, Unity isn’t bad either, but it’s basically just a clunky half-finished take on Gnome 3 so I don’t really see any reason to use it…

http://twitter.com/zc456 Squeaks
Two words: Personal preference.
http://twitter.com/zc456 Squeaks
Two words: Personal preference.

Anonymous
Can it succeed or will it fail like the KDE 3.5 fork? Probably fail I think.
Anonymous
Can it succeed or will it fail like the KDE 3.5 fork? Probably fail I think.
Anonymous
I really like Unity much more than Gnome2. Yes, the Dash is buggy and the Launcher is uncustomisable, but these things are temporary. I also agree with the people who said that Unity in 11.04 was not mature and should not have been released. 11.10 and 12.04 are going to rock though.
P.S. Paranoid Pigeon ftw!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000423862034 Frank Maverick
Will the classic interface be available in 12.04 LTS?
I’m happy with my setup.
One panel [top] with: gnome main menu [icon], dockbarx, window title + window button applets and Notification area [volume and net icons]
Simple, minimal and functional.
Synapse is also enabled w/o icon

http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/ Satyajit Sahoo
You can try to install Gnome Shell and use its Fallback mode. It’s exactly same, except the unstable compiz. But mutter works for Visual effects(mutter –replace).

http://www.facebook.com/people/Anderson-Lorencini/100000104011032 Anderson Lorencini
Well, i know it’s a matter of opinion and stuff… But Gnome Shell is working awesomely to me. It is incredible fast, (faster than Unity with compiz… I guess it’s my Graphics Card…), it’s beautifull and (again, in my opinion) the Gnome Team really are doing a great job in useability in it. I know it has some flaws, but again, when the Gnome 2 came out, lot’s of people diddin’t liked it, but switched to it eventually…

Anonymous
I think you mean KDE 4 not Gnome 2

Anonymous
you guys should check out the new E17 desktop environmental.
It goes pretty fast and has everything, despite the small size of only 17mb. We really have a quite few different choices now.

Anonymous
E17 new? You know that it’s been around for years right, even if it wasn’t officially stable. Enlightenment is beautiful, it it is a royal pain to compile and to modify – not modular AT ALL. If you can get it to work properly though, you are right, it has an amazingly small footprint and it is incredibly powerful, considering all the eye candy it has built in. The docs for E really do suck though.

Felix Perez
Exactly, if you don’t like it good, just change it isn’t that the beauty of it, you can go XFCE, gnome 2, gnome 3, Flux, LXD, ect. You have so many options why complain, If it’s a new user you install unity, if you want smething easy you install unity, if you know what you want you install and that’s it, you fill your needs and you make your computer do what you want

http://twitter.com/solarscarab solar flower
if you want something easy, you do’t install unity. Cumbersome and non-intuitive.

Anonymous
I love Gnome 2 (for me it is by far the most flexible and easiest to customze of all DEs), but I have to agree that energies might be better spend improving Xfce than forking Gnome 2. At the same time IMHO, GNOME 3 shell is a disaster. Sure it is pretty, but it is all about removing choice, which at least for me is what drew me to linux in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, as the DE on a tablet computer, it would be brilliant. on a proper computer made to do work, it’s beautiful but annoying. It just gets in the way. IMHO, unity (even with all it’s flaws) has a better and clearer direction, and does a far better job of taking users into account. If some of the changes turning up in the 11.10 betas are anything to go by, canonical has obviously been listening, which is more than I can say for the Gnome 3 shell team. Still, all is not perfect in Unity land either, and until the product gets a lot more stable and polished, I have no plans to adopt it. Until then, some version of mint will remain my go to distro (main edition for now, but probably LMDX after the fall release). Can’t wait to see what Ubuntu does with unity.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton
Why don’t they just try to make gnome 3 fallback better instead?
eMcE
hehehe.. Screen from wiki
“Download Matte with CRACK or KEYGEN?”
lol ;P
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IOIYOCHLLECLUM66M4SHUJGBWY Guillaume
http://matsusoft.com.ar/redmine/projects/mate/wiki
Download Mate +crack +serial +keygen MU-RS 249 parts only $49,99 pre-order + $19,99
WTF ???

http://twitter.com/eduardobatta Eduardo Battaglia
It’s a joke.

http://www.facebook.com/lgblgblgb Gábor Lénárt
I would love gnome3 with ported gnome2-like (in functionality too!) panel (no, gnome3′s similar feature is far from gnome2′s), and without the gnome shell.
Phil Landry
I’ll use it!
http://twitter.com/spearman001 James Spearman
Any news on Gnome Mate fork???
Tried Ubuntu 11.10 don’t like it.
Couldn’t get DockbarX in a panel.
Li Tai Fang
Make this thing available in either Ubuntu or Debian, and I’ll kiss your shoes!
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Joe Z
Gnome 3 and Unity are fitting for hand held devices, but for those of us who have large screens and work with many applications simultaneously in different work spaces, the Gnome 2 Desktop is much more functionally efficient. I guess our complaints should be directed toward gnome developers and not ubuntu, as the Desktop is not developed or maintained by Canonical, and gnome has dropped the ball affecting all distributions of Linux and what once had appeared to be the most preferred Desktop. It’s off to Linux Mint in hopes that they will take advantage of the large demand for a choice of Desktop.
http://twitter.com/TheProdejeff The Prodejeff
I really hope they will bring back the GNOME2 feel and looks because lets be honest ´´UNITY, GNOME3´´ are just putting us linux users years back in terms of usability and friendly user experience. Today I installed ´´Linux Mint 11´´ over Ubuntu 11.10. By far the best choice.
Anonymous
I installed MATE onto my home-office desktop machine running Ubuntu 11.10 yesterday (Dec 19th) following the latest directions. 20 mins tops and I had my old Gnome2 desktop back. So far no issues here other than font rendering which doesn’t seem to be as crisp as it is under Gnome3 / Gnome Classic fallback / Unity. But that’s a minor gripe for now. My appreciation to those that did the work on the Gnome2 fork to create MATE. Well done! (applause)
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