Ubuntu 14.10 Officially Released

[Luke]

Compiz-MATE update: Emerald no longer needed with newest updates

I do not know if it was the last round of Compiz updates in Utopic or some MATE or GNOME update in Vivid (which I now follow) but I found out by accident this week that compiz's native gtk-window-decorator is now respecting window manager preferences set somewhere. The button order comes from GNOME in org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences , I suppose that is also where the window manager GTK theme (I think using GTK3 now) used by gtk-window-decorator is read from. At the moment gnome-tweak-tool can set the theme but not the buttons, so dconf-editor is all that is worth installing anyway as you will have to use it to set up your min/max/close buttons.

Thus, emerald is no longer necessary, though I am keeping it installed in case this breaks again or GNOME decides to stop supporting non-GNOME apps that don't use client side window decoration and Compiz gets to the point of only reading Unity.

[Luke]

Window list extension is in gnome-shell-extensions package

How do you get the 'window list' extension?

Sounds like I should install MATE desktop - it will run fine on Unbuntu that already has GNOME installed (DE)? Also, I haven't upgraded to 14.10, yet. Has anyone done so recently? How was the process? Thanks.

In newer versions of gnome-shell, the "gnome-shell-extensions" package contains the window list plugin by default. The only thing you can do with the full Frippery suite in an older GNOME 3 install that you cannot now do with the upstream GNOME extensions package is move the clock, as of GNOME 3.12

[Luke]

More MATE goodness: how to get the best of both MATE and Cinnamon

I've finally managed to get a DE on Ubuntu that combinesd the beauty of Cinnamon with the speed and true compiled code of MATE. I'm using a MATE session, but with compiz/emerald on window management, a hacked version of Nemo that works with compiz as file manager, and using cairo-dock to draw the meny, systray, and right side panel applets. The mate-panel draws the window list and handles the launchers, with the cairo-dock panel sections simply drawn over blank space in the mate-panel. The result is I've been able to nearly copy the GNOME3 theme in Cinnamon's appearance without using clutter or running a DE written in an interpreted language like JS. Letting compiz handle notifications forces KDE apps to follow the MATE notification theme, which is "coco," resembling Cinnamon notifications under the GNOME theme.

This is a hacked mix of MATE, Cinnamon (the nemo file manager with the compiz patch), and cairo-dock, giving the best of each with the fewest problems. Only issues are the sound and calender applets in cairo-dock are slow, and I have yet to find a way to get a mate-panel to use a different gtk theme than everything else without causing programs launched from the panel or run dialog to also carry that theme being child processes. There is a mint menu applet for mate-panel that is themable and works well, I use it on the netbook where cairo-dock can't be used due to opengl issues.This theme issue is the only reason for using cairo-dock to draw the menu and tray/right side applets. I'd really rather do that with custom gtk theming in the upcoming GTK3 version of MATE if it will be possible.

There is one other thing that compiz/mate cannot do that cinnamon can: arrange windows in a grid in "expo" as triggered by a hot corner, yet keep them in a line for the switcher and the arrow keys. Still, I see a future convergence of these two DE's, I love both of them but figure one will eventually come to be the desktop style DE of the future.

More interesting will be all the forum comments when all the RadeonSI users start experiencing https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79980 . :-(

There are a couple guys trying to bi-sect the bug, but they haven't succedded yet.

I got my 7850 back and had some time to mess with it. Under Xubuntu 14.10; it's relatively stable with paulo's PPA + 3.18rc3. The only GPU crash and recovers I've seen were when I was watching videos through Chrome, and they were pretty rare.

Haven't done any gaming whatsoever though, so no idea how thats fairs.

[Luke]

Having GNOME installed or not does not affect MATE

How do you get the 'window list' extension?

Sounds like I should install MATE desktop - it will run fine on Unbuntu that already has GNOME installed (DE)? Also, I haven't upgraded to 14.10, yet. Has anyone done so recently? How was the process? Thanks.

As is usual in forks, all GNOME 2 files in MATE were renamed, it can exist in the same filesystem as GNOME3 and not have any trouble at all. Only nasty is that if you run COmpiz with MATE, neither Metacity nor March can "talk to" compiz right no, so if you want compiz with themable borders you also need Emerald. MATE plans to bring back native Compiz suppport but their devs are busy as bees with the GTK3 porting process. As long as that does not get seriously "versioned" it should work fine with whatever version of GNOME is in the same distro version as the version of MATE. I suspect the MATE devs will be damned careful about that one and won't be removing GTK2 support anytime soon either. GTK3 is needed for future Wayland compatability.

As for 14.10, I am using it as I follow alphas in a "rolling release" fashion. No problems yet, and as I am using systemd I really like the last round of updates to Plymouth and systemd that have them at last working right together. The update process for me is always to simply re-set repos in /etc/apt/sources.list as sooon as I have access to the new repos, then do the same for all the PPA's I use as they add support. My experiences might not mean much though, as my OS is so heavily hacked as to be nearly a fork.

[Panix]

Best possible DE? That depends entirely on the user. For me to use gnome-shell and not be constantly slowed down, I need to use the "window list" extension, and the app menu extension. Both of these seem to be ports of frippery to some extent, are in the upstream gnome-shell-extensions package, and work well. Thus, I could boot a machine from a new Fedora CD and have a desktop I can use in minutes.

However, when you use GNOME 3 with these extensions, you are using it the way you would use MATE or Cinnamon. That means if you are choosing a DE to select one of those. Cinnamon is too heavy for my netbook, but MATE works fine on it. If you are looking at an existing GNOME3 install, are satisfied with the performance you get, and don't need fast tray access enable window list and menu and be done with it.

GNOME 3 outperforms cinnamon, as it seems to have sped up quite a bit since the fork. On the other hand, MATE blows either one out of the water for sheer speed and reduced RAM usage, and can do almost anything I actually ask GNOME 3 to do. Unlike GNOME 3 and like Cinnamon the system tray is quickly accessable, making forced power saving via Ubuntu's indicator-cpufreq easily accessable. On GNOME 3.12 the overview tray seems a bit buggy compared to previous versions.

Lastly, MATE is converting to GTK3 as we speak, and plans to support Wayland. Mint is porting some of the hottest Cinnamon features like the fancy menu to MATE, and I cannot find any evidence that Cinnamon is working to deal with the Wayland issue. That points to MATE passing Cinnamon at some time in the future. With it's fast compiled code, this is appropriate. GNOME 3 and all forks of it use a lot of Javascript, which is no match for compiled binaries for sheer speed.

Sometimes the past is the future, just like when Intel had to revert all that "netburst" crap that handed the performance crown to AMD on a silver platter for so long. I do look forward to the DE equivalent of a Core 2 quad in tbat analogy: MATE running on Wayland via GTK3 with important applications using Wayland directly.

How do you get the 'window list' extension?

Sounds like I should install MATE desktop - it will run fine on Unbuntu that already has GNOME installed (DE)? Also, I haven't upgraded to 14.10, yet. Has anyone done so recently? How was the process? Thanks.

[johnc]

Lastly, MATE is converting to GTK3 as we speak, and plans to support Wayland. Mint is porting some of the hottest Cinnamon features like the fancy menu to MATE, and I cannot find any evidence that Cinnamon is working to deal with the Wayland issue. That points to MATE passing Cinnamon at some time in the future. With it's fast compiled code, this is appropriate. GNOME 3 and all forks of it use a lot of Javascript, which is no match for compiled binaries for sheer speed.

Sometimes the past is the future, just like when Intel had to revert all that "netburst" crap that handed the performance crown to AMD on a silver platter for so long. I do look forward to the DE equivalent of a Core 2 quad in tbat analogy: MATE running on Wayland via GTK3 with important applications using Wayland directly.

If MATE is moving to GTK3 I have this nagging feeling that it's going to be a bloated slow mess.

But I only say that because I have yet to see a GTK3 desktop that isn't a completely slow pile of bloated crap.

[Luke]

GNOME 3 not best for me on a notebook but can be made to work

Out of the question.

On a notebook Gnome 3 is the best possible DE to have.

And EVENTUALLY everyone is going to have to deal with EGL and Wayland. Might as well start now, so that in the event things go belly up, I still have the knowledge and the knowhow needed to roll my own Gnome 3 without EGL and Wayland so that I can fall back to X and fglrx UNTIL the proprietary drivers become EGL and Wayland capable.

Best possible DE? That depends entirely on the user. For me to use gnome-shell and not be constantly slowed down, I need to use the "window list" extension, and the app menu extension. Both of these seem to be ports of frippery to some extent, are in the upstream gnome-shell-extensions package, and work well. Thus, I could boot a machine from a new Fedora CD and have a desktop I can use in minutes.

However, when you use GNOME 3 with these extensions, you are using it the way you would use MATE or Cinnamon. That means if you are choosing a DE to select one of those. Cinnamon is too heavy for my netbook, but MATE works fine on it. If you are looking at an existing GNOME3 install, are satisfied with the performance you get, and don't need fast tray access enable window list and menu and be done with it.

GNOME 3 outperforms cinnamon, as it seems to have sped up quite a bit since the fork. On the other hand, MATE blows either one out of the water for sheer speed and reduced RAM usage, and can do almost anything I actually ask GNOME 3 to do. Unlike GNOME 3 and like Cinnamon the system tray is quickly accessable, making forced power saving via Ubuntu's indicator-cpufreq easily accessable. On GNOME 3.12 the overview tray seems a bit buggy compared to previous versions.

Lastly, MATE is converting to GTK3 as we speak, and plans to support Wayland. Mint is porting some of the hottest Cinnamon features like the fancy menu to MATE, and I cannot find any evidence that Cinnamon is working to deal with the Wayland issue. That points to MATE passing Cinnamon at some time in the future. With it's fast compiled code, this is appropriate. GNOME 3 and all forks of it use a lot of Javascript, which is no match for compiled binaries for sheer speed.

Sometimes the past is the future, just like when Intel had to revert all that "netburst" crap that handed the performance crown to AMD on a silver platter for so long. I do look forward to the DE equivalent of a Core 2 quad in tbat analogy: MATE running on Wayland via GTK3 with important applications using Wayland directly.

[grndzro]

Out of the question.

On a notebook Gnome 3 is the best possible DE to have.

And EVENTUALLY everyone is going to have to deal with EGL and Wayland. Might as well start now, so that in the event things go belly up, I still have the knowledge and the knowhow needed to roll my own Gnome 3 without EGL and Wayland so that I can fall back to X and fglrx UNTIL the proprietary drivers become EGL and Wayland capable.

OpenSuse 13.2 comes out in 5 days with Gnome 3.14.
It should have fglrx 14.9 support by default
Kernel 3.17
and latest xorg

[Sonadow]

Sounds like an appropriate time to dump Gnome 3.

Out of the question.

On a notebook Gnome 3 is the best possible DE to have.

And EVENTUALLY everyone is going to have to deal with EGL and Wayland. Might as well start now, so that in the event things go belly up, I still have the knowledge and the knowhow needed to roll my own Gnome 3 without EGL and Wayland so that I can fall back to X and fglrx UNTIL the proprietary drivers become EGL and Wayland capable.