Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

Aventinus · 2011-04-30 11:28:25

Hello guys. I'm a GNOME fanatic but I must admit that GNOME 3 has concerned me. At first I didn't like it at all. Then I got used to it a little and after that I reminded myself that even with GNOME 2 I certainly did NOT used any of the default theme/features etc. So I need to give some time to GNOME 3 for the devs to make mods, themes etc.

Right now 3 things concern me:

1. I'm using Cairo Dock but I found out that I cannot drag and drop apps from the Activities menu to the dock. Any ideas how to do this? (I'm really embarassed to admit it, but after 4 years on Linux I still don't know another way to add apps to cairo dock :-/ )
2. Is there anyway to make the system tray that appears on the down-right corner move up like GNOME 2 used to?
3. At last, are there any widgets for the bar? I like the upper bar full or else I find it boring and useless.

Thanks in advance!

invalidArgument597 · 2011-04-30 12:22:29

Simply put, my opinion is that Gnome Shell sucks in general. ANYWAY, I'm pretty sure Gnome 3 is still too much in it's infancy to have widgets. The system tray MAY be able to be moved by editing the theme's source code (should be CSS if I recall). I'm pretty Gnome-Stupid so don't ask me where that's at. A Google may help there. And as for adding stuff in, try this.

Push to shove there is an option somewhere to force "fallback mode" which is more Gnome 2 like...

*headdesk* OK, so I just answered this in reverse order... lol

Aventinus · 2011-05-01 16:31:27

Thanks for the suggestion. But no other opinions/ideas? Has everyone in Arch abandoned GNOME?

llawwehttam · 2011-05-01 16:42:29

Aventinus wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. But no other opinions/ideas? Has everyone in Arch abandoned GNOME?

I left gnome some time ago to openbox...... and this change is still causing me issues with gtk3 aps. I think unless you go to a pure command line this upgrade is causing people issues regardless.... so don't worry, you're not alone XD

Aventinus · 2011-05-01 16:48:12

llawwehttam wrote:

I left gnome some time ago to openbox...... and this change is still causing me issues with gtk3 aps. I think unless you go to a pure command line this upgrade is causing people issues regardless.... so don't worry, you're not alone XD

Yes, I had the same problems so I made a clean install and everything works fine. After a few days of using GNOME 3 I think it has potential but it needs to mature. As for Openbox, I was a user a long time ago. It's great but sometimes it's a productivity killer so I abandoned it.

Mr_ED-horsey · 2011-05-01 17:06:16

Gnome 2's time has come. If you don't like Gnome 3, either the shell or the fallback mode, I would suggest installing XFCE with Compiz as a sufficient replacement. Personally, I like the Gnome Shell. It hasn't given me any problems whatsoever, but everyone's different

Last edited by Mr_ED-horsey (2011-05-01 17:07:48)

WorMzy · 2011-05-01 17:16:57

Aventinus wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. But no other opinions/ideas? Has everyone in Arch abandoned GNOME?

Nah, not quite. I just added gnome and gnome-extra to IgnoreGroup in pacman.conf so that I don't get any of this gnome3 crap. I'm gonna have to jump ship at some point though; I don't like the idea of not receiving any security updates for my gnome packages. XFCE looks pretty good.

Last edited by WorMzy (2011-05-01 17:17:31)

invalidArgument597 · 2011-05-01 17:17:12

I went Gnome 2 -> KDE -> Gnome -> Xfce -> Openbox -> Awesome -> DWM for what it's worth...

Honestly if I was forced to leave Tiling managers, if I could still function properly, it would be back to OB. KDE is too much bloat and Gnome took a turn into a totalitarianism. And I can't configure Gnome much...

Eh, Gentoo user so I guess I'm too used to having it my way, lol.

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 17:17:23

Aventinus wrote:

Hello guys. I'm a GNOME fanatic but I must admit that GNOME 3 has concerned me. At first I didn't like it at all. Then I got used to it a little and after that I reminded myself that even with GNOME 2 I certainly did NOT used any of the default theme/features etc. So I need to give some time to GNOME 3 for the devs to make mods, themes etc.
Right now 3 things concern me:
1. I'm using Cairo Dock but I found out that I cannot drag and drop apps from the Activities menu to the dock. Any ideas how to do this? (I'm really embarassed to admit it, but after 4 years on Linux I still don't know another way to add apps to cairo dock :-/ )
2. Is there anyway to make the system tray that appears on the down-right corner move up like GNOME 2 used to?
3. At last, are there any widgets for the bar? I like the upper bar full or else I find it boring and useless.
Thanks in advance!

I am using Cairo-dock as well. I can't add anything either, I have even tried to add launchers by using nautilus/desktop. not working.
Lucky for me though, my cairo-dock is actually pretty much full - from top to bottom.

There is one way to add new launchers that should work - right click on cairo-dock, goto "Add" and pick "make custom launcher".
You will have to know how to execute whatever app you want to add via the commandline, and you will also have to pick out the apps icon yourself - but this method should work.

You definitely cant do much with the panels at all. It even took my a while to be able to get them resized and the bottom panel hidden (i haven't been able to figure out how to remove it.

I disabled gnome-shell and replaced it with compiz++. I also replaced GTK-window decorator with Emerald. I also have both gnome3 panel's set to hidden. Now, gnome3 is "okay" - just barely!

except for one big detail - Gnome3 breaks VMware. Apparently gnome-developers haven't really tested gnome3 against software that is popular - and in wide-spread use. they've been more concerned with bad UI design - like gnome-shell.\

jordan

Aventinus · 2011-05-01 17:25:27

Mr_ED-horsey wrote:

Gnome 2's time has come. If you don't like Gnome 3, either the shell or the fallback mode, I would suggest installing XFCE with Compiz as a sufficient replacement. Personally, I like the Gnome Shell. It hasn't given me any problems whatsoever, but everyone's different

You misunderstood! I like GNOME 3, I just want to make it more personal like I have with every other DE I've used.

triplesquarednine wrote:

I am using Cairo-dock as well. I can't add anything either, I have even tried to add launchers by using nautilus/desktop. not working.
Lucky for me though, my cairo-dock is actually pretty much full - from top to bottom.
There is one way to add new launchers that should work - right click on cairo-dock, goto "Add" and pick "make custom launcher".
You will have to know how to execute whatever app you want to add via the commandline, and you will also have to pick out the apps icon yourself - but this method should work.
You definitely cant do much with the panels at all. It even took my a while to be able to get them resized and the bottom panel hidden (i haven't been able to figure out how to remove it.
I disabled gnome-shell and replaced it with compiz++. I also replaced GTK-window decorator with Emerald. I also have both gnome3 panel's set to hidden. Now, gnome3 is "okay" - just barely!
except for one big detail - Gnome3 breaks VMware. Apparently gnome-developers haven't really tested gnome3 against software that is popular - and in wide-spread use. they've been more concerned with bad UI design - like gnome-shell.\
jordan

Well, I also thought about adding launchers the hard way, I just hoped for a better solution! I understand that you made your GNOME 3 a lot like GNOME 2. I just want a bit! The only things I care about are the 3 things I mentioned. Other than that I like GNOME Shell. Thanks anyway!

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 19:09:12

Well, I also thought about adding launchers the hard way, I just hoped for a better solution! I understand that you made your GNOME 3 a lot like GNOME 2. I just want a bit! The only things I care about are the 3 things I mentioned. Other than that I like GNOME Shell. Thanks anyway!

I didn't have a choice, too many of my applications perform poorly in Gnome-Shell. (probably because of mutter).

I also am not willing to part with the 200+ gestures that i use with on my desktop - that are provided through compiz++ hotkeys mapped through Easystroke gesture recognition software. i can do anything that Gnome-Shell is supposed to be able to do much faster and much more efficiently. So for me, it would be a huge downgrade to use GS - and just isn't worth it all.

jordan

Aventinus · 2011-05-01 19:14:36

triplesquarednine wrote:

I didn't have a choice, too many of my applications perform poorly in Gnome-Shell. (probably because of mutter).
I also am not willing to part with the 200+ gestures that i use with on my desktop - that are provided through compiz++ hotkeys mapped through Easystroke gesture recognition software. i can do anything that Gnome-Shell is supposed to be able to do much faster and much more efficiently. So for me, it would be a huge downgrade to use GS - and just isn't worth it all.
jordan

So GNOME 3 and Compiz don't get along? How about removing mutter?

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 19:48:26

Aventinus wrote:

triplesquarednine wrote:
I didn't have a choice, too many of my applications perform poorly in Gnome-Shell. (probably because of mutter).
I also am not willing to part with the 200+ gestures that i use with on my desktop - that are provided through compiz++ hotkeys mapped through Easystroke gesture recognition software. i can do anything that Gnome-Shell is supposed to be able to do much faster and much more efficiently. So for me, it would be a huge downgrade to use GS - and just isn't worth it all.
jordan
So GNOME 3 and Compiz don't get along? How about removing mutter?

Oh no, gnome3 and compiz get along great i have disabled mutter/Gnome-shell. gnome-shell is just that - a shell for gnome3 - just like Unity is a shell too. There is no Feature for me in Gnome-Shell that is a must have. Compiz still offers 100X the features, that even a noob can easily manipulate. Gnome-shell might be good in a year or so, when people radically change it around - after all it is based on Java/CSS.

since lastnight, after updating - I pretty much have fixed most issues i had with gnome3. I replaced the desktop with nautilus. I fixed sound - and ditched Pulseaudio, no more ALSAmixer in the panel - so i added a symlink on my desktop. I even just fixed VMware which wasn't working either, as it requires "hal". I used the KDE hack - a start up script and slapped it in Gnome's autostart.

My desktop looks and behaves almost exactly as gnome2 did before the upgrade - just less to be able to customize, as dconf-editor is very limited. gnome-tweak-tool fixed all the other little problems such as my desktop, text-size, etc. and being as i already had emerald/metacity setup with no window borders - even that looks the same happy times.

jordan

diegoviola · 2011-05-01 20:11:36

Deleted.

Last edited by diegoviola (2023-04-17 22:40:45)

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 20:41:17

You mean JavaScript?

yes, that is what i someone told me on the gnome-shell user-list.
sorry, i didn't mean java as a whole.

jordan

akb825 · 2011-05-01 20:47:47

Despite the name, Java is unrelated to JavaScript. It is a poor name choice, and according to Wikipedia many say it was a marketing ploy.

Echo · 2011-05-01 21:52:06

I prefer Avant Window Manager vs Cairo-Dock. AWM is stable and easy to use....

Aventinus · 2011-05-01 22:15:38

triplesquarednine wrote:

Oh no, gnome3 and compiz get along great i have disabled mutter/Gnome-shell. gnome-shell is just that - a shell for gnome3 - just like Unity is a shell too. There is no Feature for me in Gnome-Shell that is a must have. Compiz still offers 100X the features, that even a noob can easily manipulate. Gnome-shell might be good in a year or so, when people radically change it around - after all it is based on Java/CSS.
since lastnight, after updating - I pretty much have fixed most issues i had with gnome3. I replaced the desktop with nautilus. I fixed sound - and ditched Pulseaudio, no more ALSAmixer in the panel - so i added a symlink on my desktop. I even just fixed VMware which wasn't working either, as it requires "hal". I used the KDE hack - a start up script and slapped it in Gnome's autostart.
My desktop looks and behaves almost exactly as gnome2 did before the upgrade - just less to be able to customize, as dconf-editor is very limited. gnome-tweak-tool fixed all the other little problems such as my desktop, text-size, etc. and being as i already had emerald/metacity setup with no window borders - even that looks the same happy times.
jordan

OK so I took your advice. I went to fallback mode. Now my desktop looks like this: http://img821.imageshack.us/f/workspace1001n.png/ which is quite beautiful. Only 2 things bothering me.

1. I use Compiz with the GTK Window Decorator but my windows have no buttons. Any ideas how to fix this? And
2. I'd like to remove the lower bar but I don't know how.

Last edited by Aventinus (2011-05-01 23:12:09)

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 23:12:49

OK I'd like to do that too. So you are on GNOME Fallback right now?

As i am writing this reply - YES! i am in gnome3 - fallback + Compiz 0.9.4. I've even compiled compiz from git, just to make sure the upgrade hasn't chewed my ability to do that. ~ everything is working great.

I'm soooooo glad that i can stick with the desktop i want - and not gnome-shell.

jordan

Aventinus · 2011-05-01 23:14:20

triplesquarednine wrote:

OK I'd like to do that too. So you are on GNOME Fallback right now?
As i am writing this reply - YES! i am in gnome3 - fallback + Compiz 0.9.4. I've even compiled compiz from git, just to make sure the upgrade hasn't chewed my ability to do that. ~ everything is working great.
I'm soooooo glad that i can stick with the desktop i want - and not gnome-shell.
jordan

Just edited my answer so I'm reposting it. (Sorry about that!!)

OK so I took your advice. I went to fallback mode. Now my desktop looks like this: http://img821.imageshack.us/f/workspace1001n.png/ which is quite beautiful. Only 2 things bothering me.

1. I use Compiz with the GTK Window Decorator but my windows have no buttons. Any ideas how to fix this? And
2. I'd like to remove the lower bar but I don't know how.

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 23:20:23

OK so I took your advice. I went to fallback mode. Now my desktop looks like this: http://img821.imageshack.us/f/workspace1001n.png/ which is quite beautiful. Only 2 things bothering me.
1. I use Compiz with the GTK Window Decorator but my windows have no buttons. Any ideas how to fix this? And
2. I'd like to remove the lower bar but I don't know how.

I don't use gtk window decorator - but i believe you can tell it what buttons to have or not have - dconf-editor maybe?

I am using emerlad++ . the reason being is that in gnome2, if i wanted to strip window decorations - on the side's and bottom, just like gnome3 does, and MacOSX... I would either have to manually edit my metacity theme's XML file and adjust it all.

So i haven't even looked at GTK-window decorator in gnome3 (aside from when i was testing it in VMware).

as for the bottom panel. Have not figured this out yet. I have removed all of its widgets, disabled "expand" and have it hidden. I'm Still looking for a proper solution...

open dconf-editor to adjust settings for the panel, and everything else to tweak gnome is in there. ~ oh, and by removing everything from the bottom panel - it doesn't pop up ever (just shove it off to the corner and don't drag your mouse over it.)

I think i just need to find where dconf is storing it's settings and delete the bottom panel key entirely.

Also in dconf-editor make sure when you change settings to click on "set to default" - otherwise it doesn't reatin them.

jordan

Last edited by triplesquarednine (2011-05-01 23:34:14)

Sloshy · 2011-05-01 23:29:52

What I do is I just use the built-in dock that comes with GNOME 3 on the Activities overlay. If I press the Activities Key (Windows/Super/Meta/whatever) and move my mouse to the left, it's just like a regular dock. It supports favorites of course, right-clicking, and in the future it'll get zeitgeist jumplist support! To switch apps I just use Alt+Tab and Alt+` (or whatever key's above Tab for you; it's relative). I don't even need a dock anymore, and this behavior becomes second-nature really quickly. I don't know how to add an application to cairo-dock, but I think the devs will make a workaround for it eventually. Until then, try it without a dock and see if you can get used to it

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-01 23:59:46

Sloshy wrote:

What I do is I just use the built-in dock that comes with GNOME 3 on the Activities overlay. If I press the Activities Key (Windows/Super/Meta/whatever) and move my mouse to the left, it's just like a regular dock. It supports favorites of course, right-clicking, and in the future it'll get zeitgeist jumplist support! To switch apps I just use Alt+Tab and Alt+` (or whatever key's above Tab for you; it's relative). I don't even need a dock anymore, and this behavior becomes second-nature really quickly. I don't know how to add an application to cairo-dock, but I think the devs will make a workaround for it eventually. Until then, try it without a dock and see if you can get used to it

I have applications that do NOT work properly with Mutter/gnome-Shell. VMware guests that are hardware accelerated perform badly. Autodesk Maya doesn't work properly... Mutter is much slower than compiz, and is not easily tweakable without knowledge of javascript and CSS . - that is brutal!

I have over 200 gestures that i use on my desktop (easystroke), little to almost none of which are transferable to Gnome-Shell. Compiz is a much better way to go for tablet use. I don't require remembering any hotkeys, at all - for any purpose on my desktop - why would i want to learn all of gnome-shell's??? I wouldn't, that's a waste of my time and my workflow is much faster. I only use the keyboard to type text, or for hotkeys in applications that i use, where it makes sense too.

I can add/remove workspaces WITHOUT leaving my even desktop in cairo-dock. (in fact i can do anything gnome-shell does without leaving my desktop). to switch to open applications i draw a circle on the screen - it enables the scale plugin in compiz ~ the scale plugin in GnomeShell is inferior. Scale in compiz can focus on an application (handy when you have many applications open, it zooms in on the app without switching to it - when you have a dozen apps open it's awesome), i can also close applications in scale by using a right-click. Not only that but compiz' scale plugin will show me all applications relative to their own workspace. (and it is customizable).

Compiz also performs as a tiling window manager - gnome-shell's new "snap plugin" - is in compiz, and has been for a quite while. Not only that compiz' is better. it has more functionality and is again - totally customizable! going back to the tiling aspect - if i have 2 windows open that i would like to have each snap to the sides / splitting them across the desktop - i draw a "box" on my screen. not only that, but this works with 4 applications open too.

You don't need a dock, because gnome-shell has it's own way of doing things - i PREFER a dock, anytime i am required to leave my desktop to achieve something, whether it is seraching for a file, or looking/opening an appliction - i consider that to be bad UI design...and trying to compare "activities" to cairo-dock is laughable. activities is a somewhat feature-less attempt at replacing other opensource projects that already exist and are much better....and yes, i am sure Cairo-dock will be fixed.

jordan

Last edited by triplesquarednine (2011-05-02 00:01:25)

Sloshy · 2011-05-02 02:07:29

Well sheesh, you could have been a little nicer about it... Sorry it doesn't work with GNOME 3 well but some bugs will definitely get fixed in future releases.

triplesquarednine · 2011-05-02 03:03:59

Sloshy wrote:

Well sheesh, you could have been a little nicer about it... Sorry it doesn't work with GNOME 3 well but some bugs will definitely get fixed in future releases.

Sorry, i wasn't directing that at you in a personal way - as in attacking you as a human being.... more just pointing out (especially since the discussion we were having was about cario-dock/compiz/gnome3) that Gnome-Shells offerings are just replicating features we have already had on the linux desktop for a long while, and that some of gnome-shells way of doing things is actually less efficient, and much more restrictive.

So, I apologize if you thought that i was trying to be nasty towards you - no harm intended

jordan

Arch Linux

#1 2011-04-30 11:28:25

Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#2 2011-04-30 12:22:29

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#3 2011-05-01 16:31:27

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#4 2011-05-01 16:42:29

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#5 2011-05-01 16:48:12

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#6 2011-05-01 17:06:16

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#7 2011-05-01 17:16:57

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#8 2011-05-01 17:17:12

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#9 2011-05-01 17:17:23

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#10 2011-05-01 17:25:27

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#11 2011-05-01 19:09:12

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#12 2011-05-01 19:14:36

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#13 2011-05-01 19:48:26

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#14 2011-05-01 20:11:36

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#15 2011-05-01 20:41:17

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#16 2011-05-01 20:47:47

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#17 2011-05-01 21:52:06

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#18 2011-05-01 22:15:38

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#19 2011-05-01 23:12:49

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#20 2011-05-01 23:14:20

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#21 2011-05-01 23:20:23

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#22 2011-05-01 23:29:52

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#23 2011-05-01 23:59:46

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#24 2011-05-02 02:07:29

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

#25 2011-05-02 03:03:59

Re: Trying to make GNOME 3 a bit like GNOME 2

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