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GNOME GUI Ubuntu Linux News

GNOMEbuntu Set To Arrive In October 157

Posted by timothy from the would-prefer-mate dept.
First time accepted submitter Rzarector writes "Good News Everyone! Thanks to the Ubuntu Gnome Community and Jeremy Bicha, it seems that the popular distribution will ship a flavor with a relatively pure GNOME experience in the next release cycle, on October 18. At this point the effort is community based, but hopefully GNOMEbuntu will make it as an official Canonical spin, similar to Kubuntu, Xubuntu, et cetera, in the 13.04 release. This is the story: At the Ubuntu Developer Summit in May, some discussions took place on the need for a Gnome spin. On August 13, Jeremy Bicha posted on Gnome mailing lists about looking a name for the new Ubuntu derivative. After that, I had no news till Stinger gave us a thread in Ubuntu Forums. On there, Jeremy talks about working on an Alpha version! So I contacted him and he verified that GNOMEbuntu will be released together with Ubuntu 12.10."
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GNOMEbuntu Set To Arrive In October More

GNOMEbuntu Set To Arrive In October

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  • Which Gnome? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AliasMarlowe ( 1042386 )

    If it's Gnome 3, then screw it. It goes into the "ignored trash" category, along with the Unity flavor of Ubuntu.
    If it's a Gnome 2 fork (like Mate) or other Gnome 2 flavor, then I might be interested.

    We converted all our home PCs from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to Xubuntu 10.04 LTS more than a year ago,. This was after testing a couple of versions of Ubuntu with Unity in a VM and seeing the train-wreck that it was. Now we're on Xubuntu 12.04 LTS.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you base your Gnome 3 experience through your interactions with Unity, please realize that you are practically talking about two different things (even if it is the same libraries)

      I know plenty of people who like Gnome 3 but hate Unity, so there is a difference in user experience.

      If you really want Gnome 2, well there's two libraries which were targeting making that kind of desktop experience better, with less bloat and cruft. So, why do you want the big, bloated, slow, version of that desktop back? Mo

      • Re:Which Gnome? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by justforgetme ( 1814588 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @04:56PM (#41184061) Homepage

        I know plenty of people who like Gnome 3 but hate Unity

        Me! Hi! I'm here!

        No, really guys. OK, I get that things can get rough when major changes are undertaken in your infrastructure. Whether that is Country, State or Desktop. But really all this hating on the gnome desktop has to subside at some point in time. I mean, come on! Ok, the guys made a total mess out of usability testing (not that large scale usability testing is good in any way but still some controlled environment tests are helpful) but in general they pulled it through. Gnome shell, in the past year, has been doing leaps!

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Actually, Gnome Shell isn't the problem with Gnome 3. Yes it's a big divisive change that some people hate, but it works pretty well.

          The real problem with Gnome 3 is the continued march of "I, the developer don't know why you would want this feature, so clearly no one needs it, so I will remove it. Anyone that disagrees in Wrong. Even if that means that everyone other than me is Wrong".

      • I prefer Unity to Gnome 3 by a long way. Unity in it's later guises has grown on me a bit; I still prefer XFCE (via Xubuntu) in a straight choice, but Unity isn't awful.

        Gnome 3 I just can't get on board with.

        • I just don't understand the unity hate. at all.

          I never used the earlier versions of unity. Maybe they were horrible. But unity in 12.04? Honestly I like it a lot. It feels modern, like something the look-and-feel design guys at Apple or MS might be proud of, without feeling flashy and bells-and-whistles "because we could" (cinnamon, I'm looking in your direction).

          If somebody hated unity because it replaced your beloved gnome2, well, use debian then in all its gnome2 glory. I do occasionally (TAILS usb stick

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 )
      Unity is a train wreck but Gnome Shell seems to be dead on.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by binarylarry ( 1338699 )

        I'm a former hater but I really like Unity now.

        I think Unity could be amazing with the 12.10 release.

        I previously used Gnome 3, which is a perfectly serviceable desktop, but I prefer Unity.

        • I'm a former hater but I really like Unity now.

          I think Unity could be amazing with the 12.10 release.

          I previously used Gnome 3, which is a perfectly serviceable desktop, but I prefer Unity.

          Likewise, I like both Unity and Gnome Shell (at least after extensions). I find that I really don't use the Unity-lenses all that much with the exception of the applications one. Same thing with the HUD. It's interesting and all, but I don't find it improves my productivity. Given that, I find Gnome-shell to be more responsive and productive once I add dock and frippery menu extensions.

          But I agree, both are quite usable although different than Gnome 2.

          • Re:Which Gnome? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by justforgetme ( 1814588 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @05:09PM (#41184219) Homepage

            What I can't digest about the unity interface is that it can't be effectively used as a mouse oriented UI nor can it be effectively used as a keyboard only UI. And that really makes a big difference for me. In an HTPC mouse only environment it is much easier to just use Gnome3 (even the theming for the living room aka huge fonts and buttons) are better applied by gnome shell. On the workstation again Gnome 3 works better because the keyboard mappings are very very concise and thought out, to the point where you can get to the behavioral patterns of a tiling wm without having done one modification. Unity? its nice if you have one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. Only that I am 99% less productive like that and it really doesn't make any sense.. And don't start talking about the hud thing because it plainly doesn't deliver.

            • What I can't digest about the unity interface is that it can't be effectively used as a mouse oriented UI nor can it be effectively used as a keyboard only UI.

              How so? I see no problem in using Unity as mouse-only or keyboard-only.

              • Good for you.
                I, on the other hand, like my expose on the top left active corner and super key window positioning. Unity only with a mouse is like a phone UI on a desktop, pretty but too much effort and very cumbersome... Like win8

        • I'm a former hater but I really like Unity now.

          I think Unity could be amazing with the 12.10 release.

          I previously used Gnome 3, which is a perfectly serviceable desktop, but I prefer Unity.

          Obviously your definition of "serviceable" is more flexible than mine.

          I swapped Gnome 3 out for Cinnamon. Not quite everything I used to routinely do in Gnome 2, but closer than Gnome 3.

          • I used to use the classic mode as well, especially in the beginning.

            I still like classic but I think the newer desktops are usable and have way more potential.

            I hope classic sticks around though, you need a fairly beefy machine to run Unity/Gnome 3 with satisfaction (Unity being a bigger problem than Gnome 3). It would suck to run them on a netbook that doesn't have a lot of power.

            • It would suck to run them on a netbook that doesn't have a lot of power.

              Unity does. Gnome 3 I'm using almost exclusively for the last six months. But hey I tinker a lot with my devices.

              Actually gnome 3 works acceptably on an 8 year old Sony VAIO. Unity runs at .2 fps. Seriously!

              • Actually gnome 3 works acceptably on an 8 year old Sony VAIO. Unity runs at .2 fps. Seriously!

                Maybe you are running Unity3D with mesa software 3D emulation?
                Either install Unity2D or use LLVMPipe (with Ubuntu 12.10).

                • Nope, the correct nvidia drivers are installed. It's just too much work for the CPU.
                  Unity2D only will help if you can't handle the graphics load. the problem with this PC though lies also with the CPUs power.

          • I'm a former hater but I really like Unity now.

            I think Unity could be amazing with the 12.10 release.

            I previously used Gnome 3, which is a perfectly serviceable desktop, but I prefer Unity.

            Obviously your definition of "serviceable" is more flexible than mine.

            I swapped Gnome 3 out for Cinnamon. Not quite everything I used to routinely do in Gnome 2, but closer than Gnome 3.

            You should also look at the Gnome 3 fall back mode. It looks and acts similar to Gnome 2, but is still Gnome 3. Ubuntu previously also shipped Gnome Classic Mode, but this was built on Gnome 2 and has since been discontinued. Cinnamon is Mint's version of Gnome's Fallback mode.

            • I use fallback mode, and will keep doing so as long as it's available. It's exactly what I like to use.

            • You should also look at the Gnome 3 fall back mode. It looks and acts similar to Gnome 2, but is still Gnome 3. Ubuntu previously also shipped Gnome Classic Mode, but this was built on Gnome 2 and has since been discontinued. Cinnamon is Mint's version of Gnome's Fallback mode.

              Similar, but not identical. If you can make the Gnome 2 applets run under Gnome 3, you know more than me, because I haven't discovered how (so much for user-friendly!) And the loss of the applets was one of the biggest things that I hated about Gnome 3. Sure, they've apparently slapped in some sort of "extension" system in the later release, but it seems to require rewriting everything.

              If I've got to rewrite everything, I'd rather do it in Cinnamon. From what I've seen, it's a lot easier to work with than G

        • I recently did a fresh installation of Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit which I'm planning to install Gnome Shell on and remove Unity. Or rather I was planning to. Unity works well enough that I can't really be bothered to. I'm gonna install Gnome Shell 3.6 some day when I'm bored and have time to spare, but I have to say that I'm pretty happy with Unity for now.

          But seriously Canonical, fix the workspace switcher. The thing literally goes to hide in a stack of icons. It's near-impossible to hit with a single mouse strok

          • In Gnome Shell you just tap the top left corner with the mouse pointer to switch workspaces and get an Expos'e view of your windows....

            • Yeah, I know. I think that part of Gnome Shell is great, but the thing is that Unity works well enough for me now that I can't be bothered to install Gnome Shell.

    • Re:Which Gnome? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by McSnickered ( 67307 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:26PM (#41181905)

      Looks like Gnome 3.6 Desktop Environment:

      http://news.softpedia.com/news/GNOMEbuntu-Will-Be-Released-on-October-18th-289041.shtml [softpedia.com]

    • This was after testing a couple of versions of Ubuntu with Unity in a VM and seeing the train-wreck that it was

      Why all the Slashdot anti-Unity hate? Among my friends, they generally like or at least tolerate Unity. In the Ubuntu Software Center, the most recent (later than March 2012) reviews average 4 star.
      I, personally, like it very much. It saves screen real-state and:
      1) Provides direct buttons for all the programs I commonly use
      2) For other programs, I just hit Super and type the first letters of the pr

      • Re:Why the Slashdot anti-Unity hate? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:41PM (#41182147)
        Because it makes my $2k powerhouse computer running a super geeky OS look like something made by Vtech.

        http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81hhVZULnhL._AA1500_.jpg

        • Because it makes my $2k powerhouse computer running a super geeky OS look like something made by Vtech.

          Is its visual, or its functionality that you dislike? "Look like" is a bit ambiguous.

          • Does it matter? an Ugly GUI is kind of defeating it's own purpose isn't it?

            • Is its visual, or its functionality that you dislike? "Look like" is a bit ambiguous.

              Does it matter? an Ugly GUI is kind of defeating it's own purpose isn't it?

              I just wanted to know what is your specific problem with Unity.
              I find it both beautiful and convenient.

      • Re:Why the Slashdot anti-Unity hate? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Tarlus ( 1000874 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:46PM (#41182223)

        It's a lingering hatred from Unity's early days when it was still buggy and lacking in customization options. It's less buggy now but still doesn't offer the level of customization that some geeks like to have. As Unity matures, though, I find myself agreeing that it is in fact quite usable.

        • It's a lingering hatred from Unity's early days when it was still buggy and lacking in customization options. It's less buggy now but still doesn't offer the level of customization that some geeks like to have. As Unity matures, though, I find myself agreeing that it is in fact quite usable.

          This lingering hatred is a pity. Maybe Ubuntu will have to make marketing fireworks with a campaign called "Try the new Unity" or something.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Tarlus ( 1000874 )

            I think they're doing pretty well for themselves. You'll always have the die-hards clinging to older DE's with an icy grip but as of 12.04, I have started to notice a changing attitude toward Unity around here.

        • No it's not.

          In a mouse only environment you have to fish for the "expose desktops" button whereas in gnome 3 it is one concise move. In keyboard only mode you have to do a combination, not very difficult but much less effective than a single keypress. The UI does not deform properly upon parametrization, the hotbar shortcuts are irrelevant once you have actually started the programs (and you are in flow) which is the biggest part of your productive time, otherwise why are they there, lenses mess up the expe

          • In a mouse only environment you have to fish for the "expose desktops" button whereas in gnome 3 it is one concise move. In keyboard only mode you have to do a combination, not very difficult but much less effective than a single keypress.

            I'm sorry, what button are you referring to? Please rephrase.

            The UI does not deform properly upon parametrization

            What?

            The hotbar shortcuts are irrelevant once you have actually started the programs

            Why?

            , lenses mess up the experience and unnecessarily populate your activit

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zrbyte ( 1666979 )

        Agreed.

      • Re:Why the Slashdot anti-Unity hate? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by BoogeyOfTheMan ( 1256002 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @03:18PM (#41182703)

        I used to hate Unity with a passion. But after giving it a shot, I find that its not as terrible as I originally thought.

        The main reason I hated it was that you pretty much HAVE to use the keyboard to use it. Not so bad for most people, but my monitor is a 42" tv sitting across the room with my pc. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard, but I usually left the keyboard turned off and sitting on a table out of the way. Until Unity, I could access all of my applications with no more than 3 mouse clicks, and I only had to use the keyboard to enter passwords or for the occasional terminal session. Now, I leave the keyboard turned on and always accessible because I have to use it much more often to actually accomplish anything. Though I have learned that as long as I use the keyboard a lot, Unity is actually pretty decent. I still have some major gripes though.

        1- Yes I can just type a few letters and the program will show up, but if I cant remember the name of the program because I only use it once in a blue moon, I need to spend 5+ minutes searching for it. I also cant get programs installed through wine to show up with a few keypresses. (Probably a PEBKAC error, but still annoying)

        2- I have to jump through a few hoops to get all my app notifications to show up correctly.

        3- I have 5 third party apps installed to tweak various settings in Unity that should be built in

        4- I think the universal menu system is retarded. I have it turned off, but it really should be a simple checkbox in the system settings.

        5- It needs a better workspace indicator. The one that is stuck on the launch bar should at least tell me what workspace I have active since I cant remove it. (I have an extra mouse button set to open workspace switching, and I have the cube set up where if I scroll on the left or right of the screen, it changes workspaces)

        6- I would like the option to only show open application on the active workspace instead of always seeing all open apps on all workspaces. If its already pinned to the launchbar, the little arrows are cool, but I dont really need to see a transmission icon taking up space on my main workspace when I only have it open on workspace 4

        Wow, that was more than I thought there would be. After all of that, I still use it because I feel that it has promise, it just needs more polish. I believe that by 13.10 it should be fully featured enough to be a worthy successor to Gnome 2.

        • The main reason I hated it was that you pretty much HAVE to use the keyboard to use it. Not so bad for most people, but my monitor is a 42" tv sitting across the room with my pc. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard, but I usually left the keyboard turned off and sitting on a table out of the way. Until Unity, I could access all of my applications with no more than 3 mouse clicks, and I only had to use the keyboard to enter passwords or for the occasional terminal session.

          Can't you right-click the Ubuntu ic

          • I did not know you could do that with the filter applications, thanks for the tip :) Still more way more clicks than it should be, but now at least it wont take as long to find the app.

            As for app indicators, I like to have the Empathy and Xchat indicators showing because the built in notification system isnt very noticeable if you arent looking at the screen when the message comes in. I like having the icon flash at me to let me know I missed something. In order to allow icons to show in the notification tr

        • (I hate to be the Gnome lover but in this thread I turned out to be just that guy.)

          You know that all your problems could be solved with gnome 3 right? specially the living room pc thing (aka mouse only environment).

          • Probably. I just took one look at Gnome 3 and thought it was so different that I may as well stick with Unity, and Unity has started to grow on me. I guess I should give it another try :)

    • Another alternative to the gnome-shell in Gnome 3 is to use the fallback-shell. It is similar to the old Gnome 2 interface and doesn't require reliance on where Mint wants to take Cinnamon.

    • I installed Fedora with Cinnamon on an older machine last night. I've found two features that don't seem to work, but beyond that, it's quite manageable. I tried for about a year to get used to gnome 3, but couldn't do it.
    • Gnome3. What I am interested is - will they be operating in Fallback mode, or have unliberated GPU accelarated drivers, or liberated GPU accelarated drivers?

  • 2012 (Score:5, Funny)

    by hammeraxe ( 1635169 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:01PM (#41181529)

    This will make 2012 the year of the linux desktop for sure!

  • Sorry, but... (Score:3)

    by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:02PM (#41181551) Homepage

    Kubuntu is no longer an official Canonical distribution.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Kubuntu is just as official as Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Mythbuntu or Edubuntu.

      What you need to set it up and keep it running is distributed via the same repositories and servers where you get the Unity encumbered Ubuntu.

      So Canonical is still spending money on it and I am grateful for it.

  • Seriously, why should I care at all about this? What will make this any better than regular Ubuntu?

    • Well, it'll come with gnome installed, which some people want. So, that'll keep some people from ditching Canonical instead of going with Gnome's own independent Debian based distribution.

      Oh, better for users? Fuck users, who gives a damn about them?!

  • Which version (Score:3)

    by ThatsNotPudding ( 1045640 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:08PM (#41181637)
    If it's Gnome 2, I would consider it. Actually, no; I've already moved on from Canonical's increasing ego drama and switched to LMDE.

  • I'm holding out for CinnaBuntu... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:10PM (#41181685) Homepage

    ...but I would also go for MateBuntu.

    http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ [linuxmint.com]

    http://mate-desktop.org/ [mate-desktop.org]

  • Whis is this not a meta-package? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zombie Ryushu ( 803103 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:15PM (#41181753)

    Why is is this not a meta-package? Why is it necessary to have a completely different Ubuntu for Gnome?

    • Why is is this not a meta-package? Why is it necessary to have a completely different Ubuntu for Gnome?

      Because Ubuntu changes some of the gnome things, like the control center, etc., to include Ubuntu things, or to integrate better with Unity, like the notification system, etc. The goal of GNOMEbuntu is to be a pure Gnome 3 implementation, or at least as close as possible. That can't be done by simply installing packages. As to whether or not the differences between the Gnome versions and Ubuntu versions are significant enough to warrant the extra effort, that's to be seen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kasperd ( 592156 )
      Why do you even need a different set of packages installed? It is supposed to be possible to have a different UI per user. Why can't they just make the choice at login time work well enough, that they don't feel the need to make different distributions?

      A few things break if you use a different desktop environment than the one the display manager came from. For example switch user and log out and shut down options tend to break. I don't know why, because both KDE and Gnome support it, so how come it doesn
  • Not trolling, but never have I seen such a horrible distro, short of CentOS (by far the worst ever). Between the dependency hell every dist-upgrade, and the drama every time anything changes, I am surprised more people don't jump ship for vanilla Debian at the least, or move up in terms of distros and go for Archlinux or Gentoo...

    Not only do Arch and Gentoo provide much more vanilla experiences, but they are more "rolling release" than set milestones, so upgrading is a lot less of a pain the majority of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by raddan ( 519638 ) *
      I ditched Gentoo when the "rolling release" schedule you so highly praise decided to upgrade libc. Practically the entire system stopped working. I haven't touched Gentoo since 2005, so maybe things are better now, but it left a bad impression.

      • I ditched Gentoo when the "rolling release" schedule you so highly praise decided to upgrade libc. Practically the entire system stopped working. I haven't touched Gentoo since 2005, so maybe things are better now, but it left a bad impression.

        I stuck around a little longer, but finally threw in the towel on Gentoo after the expat-2.0.x upgrade debacle in 2009. Never again.

      • We gave up on Gentoo sometime around then as well. The package maintainers just didn't give a rat's arse about package quality, so every week something else would break when you went to update.

        Desktops? Linux Mint.

        Servers are now all RHEL / CentOS / SciLinux.

    • God yes. I used to be a huge fan of Mandriva after trying a dozen or two different distros throughout highschool. I was reinstalling the entire system at least once a year to get the latest version, and getting stuck in dependency hell CONSTANTLY, which I _thought_ was one of the things a package manager was supposed to help avoid. Switched to Arch around 3 years ago, the only time I've reinstalled was when I got a new laptop. And my system is never more than a month out of date. And it's easier to use/conf

    • >>> they are more "rolling release" than set milestones, so upgrading is a lot less of a pain

      I'd like an OS that doesn't upgrade at all (except security fixes), so I know my software will still work today in 2012, or in the future in 2020. I am sick-and-tired of these bullshit "upgrades" that make things break on my PC. I call it a DOWNgrade when programmers break your favorite tools. Can you image if carmakers did that? "We upgraded the firmware in your 2010 Civic and, sadly, the radio and air

      • deprecated == you suck, removed = you REALLY suck (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Totally with you on this one.

        Every time I see "deprecated" or "removed", I curse the programmers to hell.

        I installed a new webserver a few weeks ago, basically a job of moving working, production setup to new hardware and so of course a new OS level (though still linux.) moved some very vanilla Perl scripts to it, and bingo, they wouldn't run.

        Fucking Perl changed how one of its special variables worked so that you have to use regular expressions to get the same effect, not to mention the scripts spew all m

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Debian gives Gnome the boot, and it has to go somewhere...

  • Nice development (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pecisk ( 688001 ) on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:47PM (#41182239)

    I like Debian and Ubuntu, because of systematical structure, good packaging system and overall atitude to open system development. However, I strongy dislike Unity (nothing objective, just subjective feeling), and I love GNOME Shell. So this is good news, because I would like to work on Ubuntu and Debian, while still using GNOME stack.

    It's nice to see that while with lack of resources (this and KDE version of Ubuntu are realeased without support from Canonical), Ubuntu has all popular enviroments to install. While someone like GNOME founder/now troll Miguel like to blame fragmentation why Linux isn't bringing him millions, I think having it is not bad - altough I vote for lot of integration which already have took place.

    So thanks goes to devs who undertook this rather daring quest.

    • I strongy dislike Unity (nothing objective, just subjective feeling)

      When have you tried it last? It is progressing nicely.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pecisk ( 688001 )

        In 12.04. I just dislike it, some core details doesn't feel "native" to me. However I know it's just subjective. That's why I never understood 'fragmentation is killing free desktop' claim. Aim to have one universal framework for bus messages is much better, for example - that's why KDE migrated to D-BUS, which is completely desktop-neitral now.

        What's nice that core usability is very similar between Unity and GNOME Shell, so user don't have to retrain for each.

  • i thought i read on slashdot a few weeks ago that the Gnome developers were going to build their own in-house linux distro? did that fall by the wayside?
  • The bastard stepchildren of Ubuntu are never going to be as well looked afer as the main tree. Better to go with another distro if you want something optimized for a different environment.

    I may be the only person on Slashdot who thinks so, but I have been using Unity for several months now, and I really like it. I don't like absolutely everything about it, but the package as a whole is very usable, attractive, and reliable. (And yes, I frequently use the command line, have many windows upen at once ...
  • Since Professor Farnsworth's pronouncements of "Good News Everyone!" are inevitably followed by alien invasion, robot revolts, radiation poisoning of the masses, and diseased mutant rats chewing on your testicles, I think I will sit this one out.

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