Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
I strongly support inclusion of MATE. Why not packaging GNOME 2 directly? GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 are not parallel installable. And MATE renamed binaries. Why not GNOME Fallback? It is dropped in GNOME 3.8 It is indeed different from GNOME 2, though non-heavy users may not notice the difference. It is not well maintained and have several technical issues (so GNOME devs decided to drop it). Why not GNOME Shell with extensions? I'm aware of the fact that GNOME dev promised to provide a set extensions that resemble GNOME 2 experience. However: 1. 3D hardware issue still exists. 2. Change in applications are visible anyway, e.g., Nautilus 3.6+. 3. We haven't see the end result Why not contributing GNOME project? I guess many people tried. However: 1. GNOME devs' vision is strongly towards dummy proof tablet rather a sane, enterprise / scientific suitable desktop. Check their design mockups for inspiration: https://live.gnome.org/Design/Apps Nautilus 3.6, again, is a good real world example. https://live.gnome.org/Nautilus/Roadmap/3.6 Some features that some users use heavily looks annoying in the eye of GNOME devs; GNOME devs urge to remove these features. I'm pretty sure same thing happened / will happen in other GNOME applications. For example, Empathy 3.6 removed compact mode of contact list. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=687351 2. GNOME becomes more and more *proprietary* these days. proprietary -- one that possesses, owns, or holds exclusive right to something (Merriam-Webster) Once in IRC, I heard that you don't use GDM with GNOME 3.6, the screen won't lock. And I'm pretty sure GNOME would definitely depends on systemd at some point. Then what for Debian? Also for input sources white listing debate in recent days, you can see how much control GNOME devs want over their upstreams (IBus project) and downstream (distributions). The white lists even break Fedora's input experience but GNOME devs don't feel bad. http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-control-center/tree/panels/region/gnome-region-panel-input.c#n67 http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/tree/js/ui/status/keyboard.js#n188 https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-November/msg00091.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-November/msg00123.html https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688914 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688916 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=880007 Third-party developers and theme designer are also unhappy with GNOME project probably. http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes/ Why about MATE's 'stupid duplication'? I guess those who know much about these issues and care MATE should try contributing MATE. In a distribution level, I don't think such technical ugliness, if any, is big concern. Many other package may also use ugly techniques in source code, but who cares? As FOSS world allows people with different ideas and visions to fork, I really hope that Debian can help MATE reaching a wider audience, -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
It is so unfortunate that this matter has become so emotional. No wonder. The gnome people worked so hard to create what they believe to be even better desktop. And Linux community's response was overwhelmingly negative (including public and rather outspoken statements by major Linux developers). However, that has seriously obscured the actual questions about it. Everyone, including gnome developers, should realize that gnome3 is not an upgrade of gnome2 (except by name). It is entirely different and new product. I think it is detrimental to give them comparative labels like good vs. bad, modern vs. old fashioned, easy vs. difficult (my 83 year old mother uses gnome2 daily) etc. As I see it, they are good for different kind of people and/or different kind of use. E.g. what I have observed, most people (in office or home) use only one application at the time, or if they have more than one running they still use them in fullscreen mode and only rarely start new ones or stop old ones or switch in between them. Most have never heard of terminal window (command prompt in MSW). I on the contrary belong to the group that have display full of overlapping windows belonging to various ongoing projects (both my day work and hobbies) and constantly start new terminals, Firefox windows, pdfs, docs, etc (and do a lot of cut/pastes in between them). This seems to be the way a lot of scientist, engineers, software developers, etc work (and plenty of them use Debian). Also, there are small touchscreens and laptops, and there are 27 desktop displays. And what comes to aesthetics, these are matters of taste, not matters of better or worse. So DEBIAN, please, give us all the possible choices there are. Don't get entangled in flame wars or secondary technical issues. Regards! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Il 2012-10-21 01:15 Josselin Mouette ha scritto: Most issues people have with GNOME 3 “classic” usually boil down to “the panel is black instead of grey”. I dont think so. There are a lot of differences between MATE and GNOME fallback. Some examples: the new layout of all applications with so many removed buttons, the removed tree sidebar and compact view in nautilus, etc. Anyway, you’re welcome to package MATE in Debian. Just fix all the code duplication stupidity before. So far no one has volunteered to do so. This is not true. MATE team is working hard to do this and we are in a good point. Migration to gsettings/dbus (and deletion of obsolete libs like bonobo, gconf, gnome-vfs, libgnome, libgnomeui and libgnomecanvas) is almost complete, and GNOME developers helped us on this too. In addition to this, MATE offers new features too. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Hello, I would like to support the inclusion of MATE in Debian. While I'm not sure whether MATE is ready yet for the inclusion in Debian due to the aforementioned issues (plus the MATE Debian packages aren't aware of Multi-Arch), I am confident that bringing MATE to Debian would be a wise choice. While I am not disregarding GNOME3 and it's design philisophy per se, I think that the changes introduced with GNOME3 are rather problematic in large-scale installations with many different users. We're running Debian Squeeze at a physics department of a large university, deploying it on several hundred machines with over a thousand users. Many of our users aren't computer geeks, they're physicists and they use the computer as a tool to get their work done. For this, they need an easy-to-use and unobtrusive desktop which behaves like what they know from their Windows or Mac machines at home, GNOME2 suits here perfectly and thus, most of our users actually run GNOME2. We have recently started to deploy Debian Wheezy on some of the machines to be able to do some testing in the real world. Unfortunately, the feedback we received regarding GNOME3 so far is mostly negative. Not because users dislike the interface design, but rather because they simply don't find their way around in the new user interface. It's hard to justify, for example, why a user can't have icons on their desktops anymore, many people rely on this feature. Yes, I know one can re-enable with the tweak-tool, but I cannot seriously run into 250+ offices and show users how to do that. Plus, all the current display managers won't allow our users to choose their preferred session and language and store this setting in their home directory, so that both session and language are being remembered even when logging in to a different machine on the network. Anyway, I think that it would be reasonable to include the MATE desktop in Debian once the upstream developers have fixed all points of criticism and from talking with them and their roadmap [1], I know that they're actually working on it. The fact that even Fedora (with RedHat being the main driving force and employer behind GNOME) is working to adopt MATE [2] shows that there is definetely a need for it and many people are actually using it. Cheers, Adrian [1] http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/roadmap [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MATE-Desktop -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Le samedi 20 octobre 2012 à 19:05 +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz a écrit : We have recently started to deploy Debian Wheezy on some of the machines to be able to do some testing in the real world. Unfortunately, the feedback we received regarding GNOME3 so far is mostly negative. Not because users dislike the interface design, but rather because they simply don't find their way around in the new user interface. It's hard to justify, for example, why a user can't have icons on their desktops anymore, many people rely on this feature. Yes, I know one can re-enable with the tweak-tool, but I cannot seriously run into 250+ offices and show users how to do that. Then change the settings yourself. You’re the sysadmin, aren’t you? Debian includes all the tools you need to change settings system-wide. The fact that even Fedora (with RedHat being the main driving force and employer behind GNOME) is working to adopt MATE [2] shows that there is definetely a need for it and many people are actually using it. Most issues people have with GNOME 3 “classic” usually boil down to “the panel is black instead of grey”. Anyway, you’re welcome to package MATE in Debian. Just fix all the code duplication stupidity before. So far no one has volunteered to do so. Cheers, -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
* Josselin Mouette (j...@debian.org) wrote: Most issues people have with GNOME 3 ???classic??? usually boil down to ???the panel is black instead of grey???. Mine are generally more of the larger scale; things like not being able to do 2d arrays of desktops any more, options I use being removed or performance/minimum system spec issues. However, that doesn't seem to be relavent to the packaging decision; in the same way that the packager of one editor can't sensibly object to the packaging of another. Anyway, you???re welcome to package MATE in Debian. Just fix all the code duplication stupidity before. So far no one has volunteered to do so. OK, so I've seen that objection a few times - can you elaborate on what you believe needs fixing - given that the MATE guys already have working debs, the issue here seems to be purely one of meeting debian standards and resolving duplication issues; so it's right that we try and build a list of precisely what needs doing. I think they've been pretty careful to allow co-installation with Gnome3, and by it's nature that does mean they've done things like do renames on packages where the actual difference between the gnome2 and gnome 3 source for the package is pretty similar. Dave -- -Open up your eyes, open up your mind, open up your code --- / Dr. David Alan Gilbert| Running GNU/Linux | Happy \ \ gro.gilbert @ treblig.org | | In Hex / \ _|_ http://www.treblig.org |___/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Hi Dimitry, Even worse, this will increase the incompatibility between different desktops. For example, an app making use of gconftool-2 will not work when there's mateconftool-2 in the system instead. Is this said from experience??? I have no problem using gnome apps along side with mateconftool-2. All of the GNOME core applications have been ported in mate to use mateconftool. If you want to fix a bug in GNOME libraries, you should propose a patch to their bugzilla, they will be happy to accept it. This is of course only possible in an IDEAL world where logic and listening govern. Unfortunately, we live in a suboptimal world, where CHOICE compensate for. Also, we try to remove existing packages that use deprecated libraries (like libgnome* and libbonobo*), and I think it's not good at all to add new packages relying on those libraries. A library has become depreciated only because it's upstream maintainer has decided not keep maintaining it. Depreciation is not some uncontrolled nature force. When a library becomes depreciated you could choose either stop using it, or you fork it and keep using it while maintaining it. In this case libgnome, with all it's technical disadvantages will keep living as libmate. So bug fixing that should have gone to gnome developers should land on the ears of mate developers. Hopefully, they will be more responsive than GNOME developers. From my experience so far, it is the case. In the mean while, 3 Major distributions are offering MATE: Arch, LinuxMint, and now Fedora [1]. Debian should not make it hard to to users to choose. Debian should encourage freedom and freedom means choice, even though if we have to work hard for those choices [2] Best Regards, Oz [1] http://ostatic.com/blog/fedora-gets-mate-and-new-server [2] The easier choice is to shut down all Debian servers and buy that other OS. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
I agree with Josselin here. There is no point in forking gconf and other libraries. Even worse, this will increase the incompatibility between different desktops. For example, an app making use of gconftool-2 will not work when there's mateconftool-2 in the system instead. If you want to fix a bug in GNOME libraries, you should propose a patch to their bugzilla, they will be happy to accept it. Also, we try to remove existing packages that use deprecated libraries (like libgnome* and libbonobo*), and I think it's not good at all to add new packages relying on those libraries. -- Dmitry Shachnev (Debian Maintainer) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
I'd like to support the proposal to package MATE. +1 While I agree there is code duplication, that's obviously something that will take some time to remove, however I also believe it's important not to wait until it's cleaned. ++1 I strongly agree with Dave, we should not wait to solve this issues. There is enough potential for Mate to live on a non competing space to GNOME3 which will not run on modest or old hardware (e.g. arm based computers, computer with no hardware acceleration). There is also enough murmur and frustration about the lack of feedback acceptance from from GNOME developers. Personally, I feel the applications in GNOME are dumbed versions of their counterparts in GNOME2 only re-written in GTK3. This is not usable to me. And I am not alone out there. There are enough people who devote the time making whole Debian distros including MATE: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=descentos http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=leeenux http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=snowlinux http://linuxmint.com/ Not debian based: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=salix This works could be directly invested in Debian. Project like Skolelinux, or Debian Edu, which already used GNOME2 based environment will suffer badly if they will be forced to migrade to GNOME3 on thin clients. MATE will be an excellent continuation for their project. And will also save a lot of time re-designing XCFE to feet into thin clients. Please, do not block MATE in Debian, and let it live in peace side by side to GNOME3. I rolled up my sleeves and learned how to package mate to debian, and I willing to contribute to the efforts of cleaning duplicate codes and making MATE a viable alternative in Debian. Best Regards, Oz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
I'd like to support the proposal to package MATE. While I agree there is code duplication, that's obviously something that will take some time to remove, however I also believe it's important not to wait until it's cleaned. There are many users who do not want to change their desktop from their current debian/gnome2 setups (or for that matter ubuntu/gnome2 setups), and the gnome2 environment works well on older hardware and with open graphics drivers, that might not be too hot on 3d. I believe that working well on a wide range of hardware has always been an important consideration in debian. At the moment the nice people at Mint and Mate have got repositories for their own builds and installing on other distros (including Debian), however I assume that diverts resources away from things like the de-duping, it also means that users have to install stuff from other repos; that might be a problem for users in corporate environments where they have sign off to use debian repos for example. Dave -- -Open up your eyes, open up your mind, open up your code --- / Dr. David Alan Gilbert| Running GNU/Linux | Happy \ \ gro.gilbert @ treblig.org | | In Hex / \ _|_ http://www.treblig.org |___/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Le mercredi 08 février 2012 à 00:53 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas a écrit : Many users are using it well. Now that this is enough stable, I begun the process for ask the inclusion in Debian. The first package is mate-common. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783 (ITP) http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2012/02/msg00115.html (RFS) With this mail I wish to have opinions and suggestions about our work from Debian Developers. MATE introduces a lot of code duplication, which is considered bad in Debian, and is based on obsolete technologies - not just GTK2, which will of course remain for a long time, but also things like Bonobo which very few people really understand, and which are the cause of a lot of not-well-understood bugs. For these reasons I object to having MATE in Debian. OTOH I invite you to contribute to GNOME 3 packaging to make it look great and fix remaining regressions. I am of course not the one to decide whether your packages can be accepted; the FTP masters will. Cheers, -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
On 08/02/12 09:55, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 08 février 2012 à 00:53 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas a écrit : Many users are using it well. Now that this is enough stable, I begun the process for ask the inclusion in Debian. The first package is mate-common. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783 (ITP) http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2012/02/msg00115.html (RFS) With this mail I wish to have opinions and suggestions about our work from Debian Developers. MATE introduces a lot of code duplication, which is considered bad in Debian, and is based on obsolete technologies - not just GTK2, which will of course remain for a long time, but also things like Bonobo which very few people really understand, and which are the cause of a lot of not-well-understood bugs. Maybe this could benefit to both parties if MATE team tries to reduce usage of obsolete libraries to a bare minimum, and avoid using bug monsters (like Bonobo and others). I guess this means a lot of work, but that's the price to pay to ease its maintainability on the long term and having it packaged within Debian. Did MATE team consider such a plan? If yes, what was the outcome of the discussion? Regards, -- Mehdi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Il 2012-02-08 11:44 Mehdi Dogguy ha scritto: On 08/02/12 09:55, Josselin Mouette wrote: MATE introduces a lot of code duplication, which is considered bad in Debian, and is based on obsolete technologies - not just GTK2, which will of course remain for a long time, but also things like Bonobo which very few people really understand, and which are the cause of a lot of not-well-understood bugs. Maybe this could benefit to both parties if MATE team tries to reduce usage of obsolete libraries to a bare minimum, and avoid using bug monsters (like Bonobo and others). I guess this means a lot of work, but that's the price to pay to ease its maintainability on the long term and having it packaged within Debian. Did MATE team consider such a plan? If yes, what was the outcome of the discussion? Yeah. In our roadmap there is the dismissal of the obsolete libraries, like the replacement of MateConf (the fork of GConf) with GSettings, and so on. We are studying how replace Bonobo and ORBIT, too. About this point I talked some time ago with Karen Sandler to find a meeting point with GNOME3 developers to share more libraries possible between the two desktop environments, to reduce the duplicated work. I dont think work only on fallback session is the solution, because GNOME3 is based on a different idea. I saw some gnome design team mockups of all applications, and I find its far from GNOME2. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
On 08/02/12 14:05, Stefano Karapetsas wrote: I saw some gnome design team mockups of all applications, and I find its far from GNOME2. Then, why don't you help them? (It is easier than re-packaging and maintaining Gnome2). Regards, -- Mehdi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Il 2012-02-08 14:23 Mehdi Dogguy ha scritto: I saw some gnome design team mockups of all applications, and I find its far from GNOME2. Then, why don't you help them? (It is easier than re-packaging and maintaining Gnome2). Regards, I just answered before. GNOME3 is a completely different desktop, and I dont think it can have two ideas in same environment. It should follow it main goal to have an attractive desktop. We started to work on MATE and we understand that it's possible and human to work and maintain it. Best regards, Stefano -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Le mercredi 08 février 2012 à 14:05 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas a écrit : Yeah. In our roadmap there is the dismissal of the obsolete libraries, like the replacement of MateConf (the fork of GConf) with GSettings, and so on. Sorry but what is the point of *forking* GConf? What does it bring, apart from more work for you and more processes for your users? -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Il 2012-02-08 14:41 Josselin Mouette ha scritto: Le mercredi 08 février 2012 à 14:05 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas a écrit : Yeah. In our roadmap there is the dismissal of the obsolete libraries, like the replacement of MateConf (the fork of GConf) with GSettings, and so on. Sorry but what is the point of *forking* GConf? What does it bring, apart from more work for you and more processes for your users? GConf is deprecated. MateConf is born to have a temporary solution until we choose the replacement for it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Le mercredi 08 février 2012 à 14:52 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas a écrit : GConf is deprecated. MateConf is born to have a temporary solution until we choose the replacement for it. GConf is deprecated, but it is still maintained. It is still used e.g. by evolution. I don’t see the point of renaming it, starting another daemon, and whatnot, if you provide the same functionality. If you want to keep maintaining GConf for longer than they plan, I don’t think upstream developers will prevent you from doing it. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#658783: MATE Desktop Environment in Debian
Il 2012-02-08 15:23 Josselin Mouette ha scritto: GConf is deprecated, but it is still maintained. It is still used e.g. by evolution. I don’t see the point of renaming it, starting another daemon, and whatnot, if you provide the same functionality. If you want to keep maintaining GConf for longer than they plan, I don’t think upstream developers will prevent you from doing it. This is a good news. I didnt know that GConf is still maintained. This is a good point where we can start to share our forces! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
