Re: debian mate
Jon Dowland writes (Re: debian mate): On 22 Nov 2012, at 15:57, Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote: So if you don't like that decision it should be escalated to the Technical Committee. I'm surprised that *anyone* can refer issues to tech ctte. Of course they can. Users, upstreams, downstreams, maintainers who are not DDs and allied organisations are all examples of (potentially-)non-DDs who have a legitimate interest in the way we do things. Has a non DD ever submitted something worthwhile? Jakub has given some examples. Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20655.36600.907724.952...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Re: debian mate
Am 22.11.2012 16:57, schrieb Ian Jackson: Michael Schmitt writes (Re: debian mate): Am 21.11.2012 10:30, schrieb Neil Williams: As part of the Debian release team it is Adam's call to make. He's declared his decision which is fully in line with the freeze policy and that's that. There is no point even thinking about MATE in Wheezy any longer. It's done, closed, ended - denied. Move along now, nothing to see here. Please calm down. Please, don't domineer opinions of others based on such questionable arguments. I really prefer the open-minded approach here. You don't have to agree but to just say They said no, so stop bickering feels horribly wrong. Neil's message was entirely appropriate. I guess I did get lost in time there... somewhat. Because as I answered his mail I thought he wrote that after I already told *numerous* times that I had droped my insane suggestion. I still think his tone was too harsh, but I may be a bit sensitive there, so an overall apology is needed from my part. Like so many of these kind of arguments with are controversial outside Debian as well as within Debian, many of the people here aren't aware of how we do things here, who is in charge, and what decisions have been made. That was one of the problems... I was not aware that there was already a decision made. I had the *strong* impression everybody just assumed it would be too late and not worth bothering anyway. See, I am so damn convinced, that with wheezy many desktop users will be lost and grumpy and that is very very unfortunate. Anyway. I thought what if most maintainers don't see the desktop users at all and for sure, all maintainers that are concerned of desktop users as they package desktop-related stuff like KDE, Xfce and so on and so forth would just be interested in their own consumers. The gnome2-users just do not have any lobby anymore, as most gnome-maintainers seem to be very happy with gnome3 these days. So I took the liberty to become their lobby! :D. If I re-read my mails here, I still think I made a not-so-bad job with that. I was rather polite, calm and focused. Not trying to battle with anyone, just trying to make a point. And I hope those willing to think about the whole issue would at least grant me that. And for the record, the details are somewhat blurry, but as I use Debian for almost 10 years now at least the overall workflow is not a mystery to me. :) Everything Neil said was entirely true. And discussing it further is just wasting everyone's time. Ack. If anyone feels that the Debian Release Team have made the wrong decision here, there are escalation routes available within the project. You have been told that they don't want to discuss it further here. And that was about the time I dropped my idea. Many many thanks to Russ there. It was a pleasure to discuss that utterly insane suggestion in a very calm and polite way. He did convince me, the best thing that can happen with such issues. As I am very committed and a strong believer in the gnome2^wMATE-ish way of ui-design, I don't like orders and decisions without merit there. And on that note, Russ was the only one from TC kind of voting for no... at least I had (and still do) no idea the TC already discussed the issue and came to a negative conclusion. And I did think about raising that issue in front of the them but decided to drop the idea before it came that far. So if you don't like that decision it should be escalated to the Technical Committee. But I can tell you now that if you escalate to the TC you will get short shrift. (Or what passes for short shrift within the TC, anyway.) I guess you may be right. :) So Neil was right to say drop it. It was not what he said, but how he said it. But as already said... I may be overly sensitive there. :) Ian. regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50afc52a.6030...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 08:12:55PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote: Because nobody knows anymore how to maintain libraries as complex as bonobo, for example. And I’m pretty sure the MATE developers don’t have the expertise. Yet. Can you please accept that there are some people who dislike gnome3, just like there are some people who don't? And that there are those who dislike it enough that they want to ensure a gnome2-like environment remains available for their own use? I've always thought that the freedom to fork is one of the more central tenets to the Open Source/Free Software philosophy: if you don't like what the developer is doing, fork, try to be better, and see what happens. But your argument against MATE seems to consist of: - They used sed!!!1! oh noes! - This bunch of people deprecated those old APIs! How DARE this other group revive it! It's fine if you don't want to maintain it. Nobody's asking you to. If someone were to upload some MATE components to Debian without consideration, and were to break (part of) the Gnome environment while doing so, then you'd have very good reason to complain. So far I've not seen many convincing arguments that this is going to happen, however. Pretty please, just drop it. -- Copyshops should do vouchers. So that next time some bureaucracy requires you to mail a form in triplicate, you can mail it just once, add a voucher, and save on postage. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121124001250.ga22...@grep.be
Re: debian mate
Am 22.11.2012 08:37, schrieb Josselin Mouette: Le jeudi 22 novembre 2012 à 07:21 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : Now I see how that works for the gnome folks! *lol* Really, if the general gnome attitude is all complaints are dumb and should be ignored, what we do is the holly grail then... Please read http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things (especially the last part about comments). It completely applies here. I can't believe I really read the whole comic.. gosh... what a waste :/ but I acknowledge that some folks might like it, praise it, kneel in front of it and see it as the definitive answer to art in general and how the world does tick. Me, not so much. I really don't know if I should go any deeper there... as I don't want to get rude after trying to be polite such a long time. :) Just one thing, no, that comic does not explain how a fruitful relationship between $PROJECT and $COMMUNITY works. If it stands for how Gnome works... oh hell yeah, that might explain a few things. Oh and just on the fun side, your “real user need”: http://picpaste.com/pics/panels.1353555116.png So here we have 2 panels on a Xinerama setup. On each screen, you have grossly 3 areas of applets: left, middle, right. Exactly the kind of setup gnome-panel 3 was made for. I suggest you make an appointment with your optician or use a bigger screen / look closer to the screen. As I see on screen #1 five areas and on screen #2 eight areas. I would get along with less on both but just left, middle, right is way to little. If you look close enough you might even realize why I needed (read: wanted) that many areas. And I need that to be able to make groupings of applets, to make sure they don't wobble around and *always* *stay* *where* *they* *are* (which does break when resizing screen, which is a bug and not to be answered by removing that feature, at least if one has the broad variety of users in mind). The 3 areas of applets precisely answer that need: your applets won’t wobble around, they will always stay where they are. You can have several times the same applets at different positions, too. Please, look closer *sigh* and try to think harder why with only 3 fixed areas it is impossible to avoid wobbling applets in all cases. You used gnome2 in the past AND gnome3 now, it can't be that hard and I really start to think you're joking. What you are telling me is that GNOME 2.x / MATE does not answer your user needs, while gnome-panel 3 does. Thanks, for the entertainment, MATE :) (...) regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50ade26c.2080...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 12:35:51AM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote: Are you kidding me? The Bonobo interface in gnome-panel 2.x is a horrible PITA. And this is not about reinventing the wheel, it’s basic porting work that anyone with basic C and autotools knowledge can do. The we link against everything and do everything in the same address space design of gnome-shell is a PITA. Now libgnome-bluetooth is able to crash my shell. Some design decisions back from the old days made some sense. Not that I'd defend CORBA, but decoupling components does make sense to me for stability reasons. Kind regards Philipp Kern signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: debian mate
Le jeudi 22 novembre 2012 à 09:29 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : Please read http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things (especially the last part about comments). It completely applies here. Just one thing, no, that comic does not explain how a fruitful relationship between $PROJECT and $COMMUNITY works. If it stands for how Gnome works... oh hell yeah, that might explain a few things. This comic explains why reading random comments on the Internet about a given production is useless and destructive. If you only understood that GNOME development is done like comic writing, well, I don’t think there’s any point discussing with you. Please, look closer *sigh* and try to think harder why with only 3 fixed areas it is impossible to avoid wobbling applets in all cases. You used gnome2 in the past AND gnome3 now, it can't be that hard and I really start to think you're joking. You know, you are really starting to sound like a spoiled brat. “OMGOMGOMG I REALLY HAVE TO POSITION THIS APPLET AT 184 PIXELS AND THE OTHER ONE AT 270 PIXELS. It can ABSOLUTELY NOT be moved a single pixel11!!” If you want absolute positioning, you need to ask yourself what data model you want to use to store applet positions: * should it be in pixels, in %, something else? * should it be relative to the left corner, the right corner, the middle? * what algorithm should be used to compute the applets’ positions when the screen size changes? * which position should be stored if I resize the screen, add a new applet, and go back to the old screen size? Unless you can answer these questions, all your ramblings about applet positioning are completely irrelevant. You make it sound like wobbling applets and screen size problems are a bug that can be fixed while keeping absolute positioning. Maybe you should wonder why Vincent Untz, who knew very well this code, chose to reimplement another positioning data model from scratch instead of just “fixing the bug”. See? This is the difference between a bug and a design mistake. You are holding to a design mistake, thinking of it like a feature just because you are used to it, and then you complain that it is broken. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353580860.4119.185.camel@pi0307572
Re: debian mate
Michael Schmitt writes (Re: debian mate): Am 21.11.2012 10:30, schrieb Neil Williams: As part of the Debian release team it is Adam's call to make. He's declared his decision which is fully in line with the freeze policy and that's that. There is no point even thinking about MATE in Wheezy any longer. It's done, closed, ended - denied. Move along now, nothing to see here. Please calm down. Please, don't domineer opinions of others based on such questionable arguments. I really prefer the open-minded approach here. You don't have to agree but to just say They said no, so stop bickering feels horribly wrong. Neil's message was entirely appropriate. Like so many of these kind of arguments with are controversial outside Debian as well as within Debian, many of the people here aren't aware of how we do things here, who is in charge, and what decisions have been made. Everything Neil said was entirely true. And discussing it further is just wasting everyone's time. If anyone feels that the Debian Release Team have made the wrong decision here, there are escalation routes available within the project. You have been told that they don't want to discuss it further here. So if you don't like that decision it should be escalated to the Technical Committee. But I can tell you now that if you escalate to the TC you will get short shrift. (Or what passes for short shrift within the TC, anyway.) So Neil was right to say drop it. Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20654.19305.615398.415...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Re: debian mate
On 22 Nov 2012, at 15:57, Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote: So if you don't like that decision it should be escalated to the Technical Committee. I'm surprised that *anyone* can refer issues to tech ctte. Has a non DD ever submitted something worthwhile? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/95fe493f-c0c9-4a4c-ac7a-14c312f5e...@debian.org
Re: debian mate
* Jon Dowland j...@debian.org, 2012-11-22, 18:33: So if you don't like that decision it should be escalated to the Technical Committee. I'm surprised that *anyone* can refer issues to tech ctte. I'm surprised you're surprised. Has a non DD ever submitted something worthwhile? #587886 (lilo maintainership) #681783 (Recommends for metapackages) #681834 (gnome-network-manager dependency) -- Jakub Wilk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121122185409.ga6...@jwilk.net
Re: Re: debian mate
GNOME Classic is just as featureful and usable as GNOME Shell, which makes it very suitable for a default desktop on non-3D machines. But GNOME Fallback is going to be dropped soon. And the next GNOME release, also if it will support a classic session with extensions, is not suitable in old or low level machines, for example. Are you kidding me? The Bonobo interface in gnome-panel 2.x is a horrible PITA. And this is not about reinventing the wheel, it’s basic porting work that anyone with basic C and autotools knowledge can do. All MATE core (and this means mate-panel too) is already ported to GSettings and DBUS, and all deprecated stuff is removed too: libgnome, libgnomeui, libgnomecanvas, gnome-vfs, gconf, liborbit and bonobo. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50aeac5a.1010...@karapetsas.com
Re: Re: debian mate
On Thu, 2012-11-22 at 23:51 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas wrote: GNOME Classic is just as featureful and usable as GNOME Shell, which makes it very suitable for a default desktop on non-3D machines. But GNOME Fallback is going to be dropped soon. And the next GNOME release, also if it will support a classic session with extensions, is not suitable in old or low level machines, for example. FYI: Some kind of classic support also for 3.8+ http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/22/1411201/gnome-3-to-support-a-classic-mode-of-sorts http://lwn.net/Articles/526082/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353627666.363.138.ca...@hp.my.own.domain
Re: debian mate
On Nov 23, 2012, at 12:41 AM, Svante Signell svante.sign...@telia.com wrote: On Thu, 2012-11-22 at 23:51 +0100, Stefano Karapetsas wrote: GNOME Classic is just as featureful and usable as GNOME Shell, which makes it very suitable for a default desktop on non-3D machines. But GNOME Fallback is going to be dropped soon. And the next GNOME release, also if it will support a classic session with extensions, is not suitable in old or low level machines, for example. FYI: Some kind of classic support also for 3.8+ http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/22/1411201/gnome-3-to-support-a-classic-mode-of-sorts http://lwn.net/Articles/526082/.363.138.ca...@hp.my.own.domain Yes, that's what Stefano was talking about when he said GNOME Classic through extensions. In any case, that's not really going to help. GNOME3 is still way to different from GNOME2 for the average joe. People just want to get work done and not play around with their desktop. It has to be at least unobstrusive as possible. Cheers, Adrian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/f685e703-2223-494e-9b26-b98a1feb7...@physik.fu-berlin.de
Re: Re: debian mate
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 11:51:06PM +0100, Stefano Karapetsas wrote: GNOME Classic is just as featureful and usable as GNOME Shell, which makes it very suitable for a default desktop on non-3D machines. But GNOME Fallback is going to be dropped soon. I'm surprised nobody has talked about forking *that*. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121123075248.GA2@debian
Re: debian mate
On 2012-11-21, Russ Allbery r...@debian.org wrote: suspect this is a bug that was fixed eons ago. I'd been meaning to try Xfce since I make a personal policy of changing desktop environments every few years -- I used to use GNUstep before GNOME 2 -- so I didn't bother to pursue it further.) I'm looking forward to see you over in my end of the archive in a year :) /Sune -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/slrnkap475.me.nos...@sshway.ssh.pusling.com
Re: debian mate
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 04:03:33AM +0100, Michael Schmitt wrote: So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! IF you had a set of MATE packages all ready to go and you were asking for a freeze exception for them, then the release team would be in a position to consider an exception. But there are no such packages. We're arguing hypotheticals (as we often do on -devel, to my eternal dismay). There's still a lot of work to do in order to get MATE ready for Debian. I'm sorry, it's simply too late for wheezy. The last thing we want to do is delay the release at this point. Long drawn out freezes are horrendously demoralising for everyone. It's important we get wheezy out in a timely fashion. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121121084843.GA28050@debian
Re: debian mate
On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 04:03:33 +0100 Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com wrote: AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! The case has been denied and closed. There will be no exception for any change anything like as large as MATE during a freeze. Adam has made that clear, Russ has made that clear. It was already too late the day that the freeze started. It would have taken many months of work to get MATE into a fit state for a stable Debian release. As part of the Debian release team it is Adam's call to make. He's declared his decision which is fully in line with the freeze policy and that's that. There is no point even thinking about MATE in Wheezy any longer. It's done, closed, ended - denied. Move along now, nothing to see here. What bothers me is that gnome3-classic will be deprecated with the next release of GNOME. I hope that MATE can make into Debian for Jessie. I kind of insist it being in jessie ;) You've already said you're not into the programming / maintainer side of things. The way Debian works is that if someone wants something to happen, that person does the work and/or recruits other people to do the work. If the work isn't done by those who want the work done, it simply won't get done. Those who do not, will not or cannot do the work themselves are not able to insist on anything in Debian. It doesn't matter how much others complain - without someone to do the work, MATE will never get into any Debian release. I've switched to XFCE and I may well move on to KDE4 but I will not work on MATE in Debian. I wouldn't ever work against it but if someone else does the work, I will require that MATE meets all the requirements and expectations of Debian and that includes ongoing competent maintenance within Debian, not just upstream. One of my big problems with old, stale, code like MATE is that I've always been pushing for cross-build support / bootstrapping support across all of Debian. I know the libraries in MATE, I developed upstream code using them, I cross-built all of them for Emdebian Crush and some of them are truly atrocious bits of code. I was *very* glad when libgnomeui and bonobo were deprecated, amongst others. I only wish the migration to GNOME3 would have pleased more upstream developers because then Debian could have dropped all the shoddy GNOME2 underpinnings. There is still a lot of good stuff which was part of the GNOME2 environment but that's why XFCE is a good choice for most of those who don't like GNOME3. XFCE is, largely, the good bits of GNOME2 without the horrors. It's not perfect but it is what most people who found GNOME3 unsuitable have ended up using. We have what we have, I have no desire to work on that code any more, despite being upstream for several projects which used to rely upon it. I took that code out, I did the work - I would NOT be happy to see it coming back and contaminating my fixed code. Sadly, IMHO, fixing the problems of the bits of GNOME2 which aren't XFCE would seem to be a pointless and thankless task. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do it. Complaints do not matter one jot. Unless someone does the work, MATE will never get into Debian, whether for Jessie or Jessie+1. There will not be MATE in Wheezy as that boat sailed months ago. I'm not sorry about any of this, it's the reality and I don't see that Debian needs to apologise about it. The work was not done in time, so the results are not available for release. End. -- Neil Williams = http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ pgpjYvZqt1rxw.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: debian mate
On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 04:03:33 +0100, Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com wrote: Am 20.11.2012 23:14, schrieb Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez: AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! If you are really thinking that the Release Team would let a big and controverse package like MATE into wheezy at this time of the release process, you are completely out of line. This is never going to happen, and it is good that this is not going to happen. As a non-user of GNOME or MATE, I would hate to have the release delayed for that reason. Greetings Marc -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1tb7pb-0005tk...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: debian mate
On 21/11/12 04:03, Michael Schmitt wrote: It may be for you or for some others, but not for all a viable option. Most definitely not for me, the local and remote folks I asked around the globe. Don't get me wrong most of them could probably get along with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse. Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That mule behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects. The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; not all applets ported; simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical fashion;...). No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password then!). The control-center, a lot of stuff is missing. Gone are the days you can keep your laptop running when closing the lid. Want to prohibit display blanking? Sorry, gone too. That list goes on and on (ask the web for a more comprehensive list) and some of those shortcomings can be tweaked away, which means effort and grief in varying degree. In short, gnome3-fallback just looks at the upper surface almost like gnome2 did, but is, behaves, works completely different. Well.. is true that I had to tune a lot gnome3-fallback until I was happy with it. I use compiz+emerald as wm, have replaced gnome-screensaver with xscreensaver and also did many other tweaks. If you feel so strong about MATE, you always can (at your own risk) install MATE from their repositories: http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download Fun fact there... I happen to be forced to work with Redmond OS since windows 95. From Windows 95 up to Windows 7 the design did change *a lot*, it got more features, some options got re-arranged *slightly* but the overall way to handle a windows-system has never changed a bit. It was always the same as I sat in front of a new windows release the first time. Five minutes and I found everything and realised that under the hood everything is actually almost exactly the same as before. *No* research to get going necessary! I don't want to praise MS here (crap and the wrong development model remains crap and wrong) but they got one thing right, don't shock your users too much! I guess you didn't tried Windows 8 yet? :D The good thing with open source stuff is that you always have options and alternatives when some project takes a direction you don't like. But when this happens with proprietary stuff you don't have a say. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: debian mate
Le mercredi 21 novembre 2012 à 04:03 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : Gnome3-classic (fallback) is the option more like to what was gnome2. I have been using it for a while and is a good option if you want a desktop like gnome2. It may be for you or for some others, but not for all a viable option. Most definitely not for me, the local and remote folks I asked around the globe. Yeah, because people can’t stand their panels going from gray to black. Don't get me wrong most of them could probably get along with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse. Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That mule behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects. You need to be more specific because despite being one of the maintainers I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; This is by design. Please point me to a case where the new layout mechanism doesn’t answer *real* user needs. OTOH being finally free of absolute positioning means the end of the awful bugs when resizing the screen or when applets change their size. not all applets ported; Port them. I’ve done it for a pair of them, it is really simple. simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; Obviously you haven’t had to manage a help desk where you get calls from people who have accidentally removed their notification area or their window list with a wrongly placed right click. menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical fashion;...). Wut? No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password then!). This one, I agree, is a real problem. I don’t like how upstream moved regional settings to the control center. Patches that reintroduce keyboard selection in GDM in a correct fashion will be accepted. The control-center, a lot of stuff is missing. Gone are the days you can keep your laptop running when closing the lid. Want to prohibit display blanking? Sorry, gone too. If you want very specific settings you can use gsettings to set those defaults. You are not talking of basic use cases that a random user with no understanding of a command line would need. That list goes on and on (ask the web for a more comprehensive list) Yeeehaw, just “ask the web”. What could go wrong with that? Haven’t you noticed how asking the web will always lead to the same answer: any change will be deemed absolutely horrible and destructive. and some of those shortcomings can be tweaked away, which means effort and grief in varying degree. In short, gnome3-fallback just looks at the upper surface almost like gnome2 did, but is, behaves, works completely different. Indeed, it works much better. It is a fallback for GNOME3, not just GNOME2 with sed s/gnome/mate/ so it was a bit more work, but certainly worth it. I kind of insist it being in jessie ;) And yes, that makes another good point why the gnome3-fallback just can't feel like the real thing. It is supposed to be for those users that 1.) can't use the shell as no 3D acceleration available 2.) absolutely can't or don't want to work with a new and different desktop-paradigm, with accepted pain and grief in varying detail... So what you suggest for jessie is, after users having gone through the “pain” of moving from GNOME2 to GNOME 3 classic, to go back to GNOME2 with GTK2, GConf (sorry, MateConf) and almost everything looking like a squeeze desktop? Way to go. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353503700.3878.23.camel@pi0307572
gnome-panel (was: debian mate)
Am Mittwoch, den 21.11.2012, 14:15 +0100 schrieb Josselin Mouette: The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; This is by design. Please point me to a case where the new layout mechanism doesn’t answer *real* user needs. OTOH being finally free of absolute positioning means the end of the awful bugs when resizing the screen or when applets change their size. This change is definitely a big improvement. Rearranging panel elements after plugging monitors or resizing the screen was a pain. simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; Obviously you haven’t had to manage a help desk where you get calls from people who have accidentally removed their notification area or their window list with a wrongly placed right click. Changing the right-click is okay and reduces the risk of accidental changes. My first thought was Oh, they removed the ability to add/rearrange stuff in the panel. When searching for a bug report to get this feature back, I stumbled over the new key combination. Either I did not read the appropriate news or this change was not announced prominently enough. -- Benjamin Drung Debian Ubuntu Developer -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353505957.27977.11.camel@deep-thought
Re: debian mate
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 02:15:00PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote: Don't get me wrong most of them could probably get along with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse. Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That mule behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects. You need to be more specific because despite being one of the maintainers I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Well, I can confirm Michael's observations. We're running Debian Squeeze at a physics department of a large German university. Most users are using GNOME2. We have upgraded some of the machines to Wheezy already to be able to test Wheezy before deployment. And many users were actually confused after being confronted with GNOME3. Their biggest disturbances were the missing desktop icons and the missing GNOME menu. It's not something one should underestimate, the average joe user is rather unflexible and lazy (and maybe stupid). But it's not their fault, they just want to get their work done and not mess around with the user interface. The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; This is by design. Please point me to a case where the new layout mechanism doesn’t answer *real* user needs. OTOH being finally free of absolute positioning means the end of the awful bugs when resizing the screen or when applets change their size. Some people want their panel at the bottom, some want it on the sides, some want it on the top. Please do never tell people how to customize their desktop because it is something absolutely subjective and personal. That's why customization exists in the first place. not all applets ported; Port them. I’ve done it for a pair of them, it is really simple. Why reinvent the wheel when we have everything perfectly there? It's not that we gain something by porting everything to GNOME3 when stuff is working in GNOME2/MATE. Also, the whole extension zoo in GNOME3 is not really an alternative because the extensions aren't even compatible between different GNOME3 minor versions which is a HUGE disadvantage. simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; Obviously you haven’t had to manage a help desk where you get calls from people who have accidentally removed their notification area or their window list with a wrongly placed right click. Again, I can confirm that. menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical fashion;...). Wut? I think the new GNOME Control Center is actually horrible. It was much more logical with GNOME2. It's not a good design when I have to search where an option is hidden. No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password then!). This one, I agree, is a real problem. I don’t like how upstream moved regional settings to the control center. Patches that reintroduce keyboard selection in GDM in a correct fashion will be accepted. Actually, this is one of the most fundamental idiotic changes in GNOME3. They automatically assume that everyone is using GNOME3 and completely ignore the fact that many people actually use different desktops or window managers, so they need to be able to select their language *before* login. And lightdm isn't helping in any way because language setting and last session restore are actually broken (see [1] and [2]). The control-center, a lot of stuff is missing. Gone are the days you can keep your laptop running when closing the lid. Want to prohibit display blanking? Sorry, gone too. If you want very specific settings you can use gsettings to set those defaults. You are not talking of basic use cases that a random user with no understanding of a command line would need. Again, this is something highly subjective and most users actually prefer having *more* customizability, not less. Whenever you say Users don't need it, you actually mean I don't need it. That list goes on and on (ask the web for a more comprehensive list) Yeeehaw, just “ask the web”. What could go wrong with that? Haven’t you noticed how asking the web will always lead to the same answer: any change will be deemed absolutely horrible and destructive. No, that's not true. But developers *should* listen to the people who are actually using the software. Changes are ok, but not if these changes mean taking features away or making software more uncomfortable to use. Just look at Microsoft and their disaster with Windows 8 and you will realize what will happen when you don't listen your users: The sales figures for Windows 8 are so low that Microsoft is too embarrassed to disclose them. People
Re: debian mate
Regarding the GNOME vs. MATE etc., please read this recent post from Vincent: http://www.vuntz.net/journal/post/2012/11/21/No-fallback-mode-in-GNOME-3.8%2C-future-of-gnome-panel If people (the MATE people?) step in and maintain adjust the gnome-panel, we won't have any problem for Jessie. I will just wait, since this will all be solved in a nice way :) Cheers, Matthias 2012/11/21 John Paul Adrian Glaubitz glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de: On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 02:15:00PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote: Don't get me wrong most of them could probably get along with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse. Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That mule behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects. You need to be more specific because despite being one of the maintainers I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Well, I can confirm Michael's observations. We're running Debian Squeeze at a physics department of a large German university. Most users are using GNOME2. We have upgraded some of the machines to Wheezy already to be able to test Wheezy before deployment. And many users were actually confused after being confronted with GNOME3. Their biggest disturbances were the missing desktop icons and the missing GNOME menu. It's not something one should underestimate, the average joe user is rather unflexible and lazy (and maybe stupid). But it's not their fault, they just want to get their work done and not mess around with the user interface. The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; This is by design. Please point me to a case where the new layout mechanism doesn’t answer *real* user needs. OTOH being finally free of absolute positioning means the end of the awful bugs when resizing the screen or when applets change their size. Some people want their panel at the bottom, some want it on the sides, some want it on the top. Please do never tell people how to customize their desktop because it is something absolutely subjective and personal. That's why customization exists in the first place. not all applets ported; Port them. I’ve done it for a pair of them, it is really simple. Why reinvent the wheel when we have everything perfectly there? It's not that we gain something by porting everything to GNOME3 when stuff is working in GNOME2/MATE. Also, the whole extension zoo in GNOME3 is not really an alternative because the extensions aren't even compatible between different GNOME3 minor versions which is a HUGE disadvantage. simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; Obviously you haven’t had to manage a help desk where you get calls from people who have accidentally removed their notification area or their window list with a wrongly placed right click. Again, I can confirm that. menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical fashion;...). Wut? I think the new GNOME Control Center is actually horrible. It was much more logical with GNOME2. It's not a good design when I have to search where an option is hidden. No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password then!). This one, I agree, is a real problem. I don’t like how upstream moved regional settings to the control center. Patches that reintroduce keyboard selection in GDM in a correct fashion will be accepted. Actually, this is one of the most fundamental idiotic changes in GNOME3. They automatically assume that everyone is using GNOME3 and completely ignore the fact that many people actually use different desktops or window managers, so they need to be able to select their language *before* login. And lightdm isn't helping in any way because language setting and last session restore are actually broken (see [1] and [2]). The control-center, a lot of stuff is missing. Gone are the days you can keep your laptop running when closing the lid. Want to prohibit display blanking? Sorry, gone too. If you want very specific settings you can use gsettings to set those defaults. You are not talking of basic use cases that a random user with no understanding of a command line would need. Again, this is something highly subjective and most users actually prefer having *more* customizability, not less. Whenever you say Users don't need it, you actually mean I don't need it. That list goes on and on (ask the web for a more comprehensive list) Yeeehaw, just “ask the web”. What could go wrong with that? Haven’t you noticed how asking the web will always lead to the same answer: any change will be deemed absolutely horrible and destructive.
Re: debian mate
Please stop top-posting. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121121151332.GA998@debian
Re: debian mate
On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:21:38 +0100 John Paul Adrian Glaubitz glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de wrote: I kind of insist it being in jessie ;) And yes, that makes another good point why the gnome3-fallback just can't feel like the real thing. It is supposed to be for those users that 1.) can't use the shell as no 3D acceleration available 2.) absolutely can't or don't want to work with a new and different desktop-paradigm, with accepted pain and grief in varying detail... So what you suggest for jessie is, after users having gone through the “pain” of moving from GNOME2 to GNOME 3 classic, to go back to GNOME2 with GTK2, GConf (sorry, MateConf) and almost everything looking like a squeeze desktop? Most Debian users haven't gone through the pain of change yet, they're still running GNOME2 with Squeeze. And please, don't call it GNOME3 classic, there is no such thing. It's a fallback mode, an ugly one. Most Debian users will end up migrating to something other than GNOME2 before Jessie is released as the new stable. That's Josselin's point and he's right. Having a GNOME2-alike in Jessie when there cannot be a GNOME2-alike in Wheezy does count against including MATE into Jessie, even if there is someone to do the work. GNOME3 *is* a migration whether it's fallback mode or not, as is XFCE. MATE will not be in Wheezy and staying on Squeeze until Jessie is released is probably not suitable for most users. I'm not saying that this is a good thing, necessarily, but it is what we have and what we will have to work from. However, if people choose to migrate to XFCE instead of GNOME3, then a migration to a GNOME2-alike in Jessie isn't as hard but might still not be wise. Who knows how XFCE will change with a bunch of new users reporting issues and possibly new developers fixing things. I'm undecided but possibly the best route for everyone interested in MATE is to actually join up with the XFCE team and work together to provide something which fixes the niggles with XFCE without burdening everyone with 3D acceleration. That way we all get a long term fix as GNOME have already outlined the end of 2D fallback mode support. (/me thinks that there are plenty of valid use cases for 2D only environments and that these aren't going away any time soon, certainly not before Jessie is released.) -- Neil Williams = http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ pgpQYPI35j6aA.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: debian mate
Hello! Neil Williams has written on Wednesday, 21 November, at 15:48: However, if people choose to migrate to XFCE instead of GNOME3, then a migration to a GNOME2-alike in Jessie isn't as hard but might still not be wise. Who knows how XFCE will change with a bunch of new users reporting issues and possibly new developers fixing things. I'm undecided but possibly the best route for everyone interested in MATE is to actually join up with the XFCE team and work together to provide something which fixes the niggles with XFCE without burdening everyone with 3D acceleration. That way we all get a long term fix as GNOME have already outlined the end of 2D fallback mode support. Don't underrestimate also LXDE. My nephew tried XFCE and LXDE and chose LXDE. And the current work on LXDE's file manager (pcmanfm) will bring it to much better state than XFCE one (thunar). So some people definitely will migrate to LXDE instead of XFCE. May be even some XFCE people will migrate to LXDE. And people who want to contribute into GNOME2-alike stuff are welcomed into LXDE as well. Andriy. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121121160045.gd29...@rep.kiev.ua
Re: debian mate
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 03:48:08PM +, Neil Williams wrote: MATE will not be in Wheezy and staying on Squeeze until Jessie is released is probably not suitable for most users. It's quite likely that if MATE packages make it into Debian at all, they will be provided in backports, so some users might end up doing GNOME2/squeeze → MATE/wheezy/backports → MATE/jessie However, if people choose to migrate to XFCE instead of GNOME3, then a migration to a GNOME2-alike in Jessie isn't as hard The Jury's out on that. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121121164907.GA2935@debian
Re: debian mate
Hm, sorry for the lengthy mail. TL;DR: GNOME Classic is just as featureful and usable as GNOME Shell, which makes it very suitable for a default desktop on non-3D machines. Le mercredi 21 novembre 2012 à 15:21 +0100, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz a écrit : Well, I can confirm Michael's observations. We're running Debian Squeeze at a physics department of a large German university. Most users are using GNOME2. We have upgraded some of the machines to Wheezy already to be able to test Wheezy before deployment. And many users were actually confused after being confronted with GNOME3. Their biggest disturbances were the missing desktop icons and the missing GNOME menu. It's not something one should underestimate, the average joe user is rather unflexible and lazy (and maybe stupid). But it's not their fault, they just want to get their work done and not mess around with the user interface. I can relate since I have the same kind of users. You can add back desktop icons with a GSettings default (and you can do that in a package with dh_installgsettings). As for the menu, there’s an extension to add back the menu in gnome-shell-extensions. The default list of extensions too can be overriden with GSettings. Some people want their panel at the bottom, some want it on the sides, some want it on the top. Please do never tell people how to customize their desktop because it is something absolutely subjective and personal. That's why customization exists in the first place. I disagree with the need for customization. However this is irrelevant anyway, since you can still customize the panel in GNOME 3. not all applets ported; Port them. I’ve done it for a pair of them, it is really simple. Why reinvent the wheel when we have everything perfectly there? It's not that we gain something by porting everything to GNOME3 when stuff is working in GNOME2/MATE. Are you kidding me? The Bonobo interface in gnome-panel 2.x is a horrible PITA. And this is not about reinventing the wheel, it’s basic porting work that anyone with basic C and autotools knowledge can do. Also, the whole extension zoo in GNOME3 is not really an alternative because the extensions aren't even compatible between different GNOME3 minor versions which is a HUGE disadvantage. Yes but just like panel applets, we need a few well-supported extensions that bring useful features, not a gazillion of broken ones that revamp everything. I think the new GNOME Control Center is actually horrible. It was much more logical with GNOME2. It's not a good design when I have to search where an option is hidden. I agree some of the options are not intuitively placed - or I should say, not placed like they used to at all, e.g. keymap in region settings. But it still does the job, and you don’t need the control center more than a few times a year so I don’t see this as a very important matter. Again, this is something highly subjective and most users actually prefer having *more* customizability, not less. Whenever you say Users don't need it, you actually mean I don't need it. No, I mean *most* users don’t need it. Even worse, users will often prefer customizability while they don’t need it. It hinders productivity, and it complicates maintenance and application development. This is related, in the professional work, to the belief that software should adapt to a company’s usage, while you will save millions by adapting your company to off-the-shelf software, and keeping custom software only to what is very specific to your activity. Ask yourself: which of your needs in a desktop computer are different from the vast majority of people? What do you use that other people don’t? Yeeehaw, just “ask the web”. What could go wrong with that? Haven’t you noticed how asking the web will always lead to the same answer: any change will be deemed absolutely horrible and destructive. No, that's not true. But developers *should* listen to the people who are actually using the software. Changes are ok, but not if these changes mean taking features away or making software more uncomfortable to use. I have not seen the web full of blog entries from users saying that GNOME 3 is awesome and they were accustomed to it in a matter of minutes. Yet when I ask around, this is the answer I get most of the time. The very same holds for Unity: mailing lists and forums full of people crying that the desktop is ugly and unusable, yet millions of people keep on using Ubuntu and like it. Do you know why? Because they don’t care at all. Most users care about applications, not the way their menus are handled. At work, we migrated hundreds of users from KDE to GNOME by default, while leaving them with choice; only an extreme minority took care to configure their desktop – and KDE is really light-years away compared to your nit-pickings on GNOME variants. Users just do not give a fuck. Don’t get me wrong: a better desktop is more attractive to
Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 03:23, schrieb Russ Allbery: Michael Schmitttcwardr...@gmail.com writes: as I see you, as a member of ctte, are kind of in favour of MATE for jessie and not wheezy... :( I have no opinion on MATE. I personally switched from GNOME 2 to Xfce on the one system where I use an integrated desktop when gnome-shell wouldn't run due to the age of the graphics and the fallback for some reason didn't function properly. (This was *right* after it landed in unstable, and I suspect this is a bug that was fixed eons ago. I'd been meaning to try Xfce since I make a personal policy of changing desktop environments every few years -- I used to use GNUstep before GNOME 2 -- so I didn't bother to pursue it further.) I can say that, as a light GNOME user, switching to Xfce was trivial. It took me all of an hour. But I can be a somewhat atypical user. I guess so very much! :) But then again, who is the typical user? First, at the end, congrats, I dropped the idea to pursue this insane idea any further! I still believe there will be much grief for wheezy desktop users, but that's just how it is. I do understand the reasons behind this. I haven't evaluated the quality of the MATE libraries or their maintenance. In general, I'm supportive of being discriminating about what packages we include in the archive, since we're promising bug and security support, but I'm also in favor of being inclusive and, in general, welcoming packages for anything that people want to work on. Good attitude and I can see how MATE lost there. Xfce or KDE might not be a catastrophe, but you must see the same issue as I see. You may not be as paranoid as I am, but we all know how users tend to be: annoying, complaining, crying. humans at its best! :) They have no right to complain, we all know that too, but does that prevent them from doing so? And the only perspective I can see there is trying to minimize the possible fallout... I don't believe avoiding user complaints is a primary development goal for Debian. One of the great things about working on Debian is that we are not a popularity-driven or market-share-driven project. We want to do the right thing for our users, but that isn't the same thing as avoiding complaints. Right, agreed. After some thinking I had to agree there. After all there are reasons how Debian differs, and at the end, THE reasons why I love Debian so much. :) Thanks to you, mostly, that made me think about certain aspects I might have lost track of during my. In the specific case of releases, we have a stark tradeoff when it comes to freeze deadlines and release time frames. On one hand, some users will always want something that missed the freeze deadline. On the other hand, *all* of our users who want to run stable and not testing or unstable are hurt by release delays. I'd not say all, but probably a fair amount up to most of them, agreed. I don't run stable on desktops anymore, but even to some degree for servers, I think a fair amount of users (be it on a desktop or a server) like new releases mostly because they are new releases, not because they really need new stuff... that's just how humans tend to be. For sure in general, it does not hurt anyone, if releases are not delayed more than needed. In this particular case, some will be hurt, but thats fine and kind of an atypical situation, at least on that magnitude. The way that we, as a project, have chosen (after *much* discussion and some experimentation with alternatives) to resolve this conflict is with a freeze that's advertised well in advance, and a clear policy of what's acceptable after that deadline. There are other alternatives to managing a release cycle. They all have different problems. This one seems to be the best compromise. I don't have the technical insights there... but I guess I can take your word for it. :) At least it sounds kinda sane. :D But I am not sure it would need that much more time. It always takes more time to introduce things at the last minute. That's why we don't have this discussion every time, and instead have developed some clear guidelines for how to make this decision. We can literally have this discussion forever. There's always just one more thing that someone thinks is really important. The advantage of having clear guidelines is that we can say that it doesn't matter. It missed the freeze. It's too late. Best of luck next time. It sounds harsh, and to some extent it *is* harsh, but I'm serious when I say that without this sort of policy Debian will literally become unreleasable. I just tend to be a hardcore gnome2-kind-of-UI user, that much hardcore that even similar concepts like Xfce or even gnome3-fallback just don't cut it. A fair amount of it is clearly emotional, but that's just how humans are. There are technical reasons as well, sure, but at the end of the day, I am still human and not a robot with adjustable sensors it (all alternatives)
Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 05:06, schrieb Matt Zagrabelny: Hi Michael, On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Michael Schmitttcwardr...@gmail.com wrote: Am 20.11.2012 23:14, schrieb Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez: On 20/11/12 22:55, Michael Schmitt wrote: If one likes Gnome2.x or MATE or not is a question of taste, to acknowledge that many users are just mad about Gnome3 is a fact. To offer no real sane upgrade-path for those users is... dunno how to say it in another way, it is just insane! I did invest some time with thinking about all of this including talking to some MATE folks and current squeeze-gnome-users, and again thinking and thinking... imho it must be done everything possible to try to circumvent that imho probable desaster for the desktop users. Especially when I think of the real *average next door users* not the techie guys who may be happy (or at least not cry to loud about it) to invest some time tweaking their Xfce or KDE to behave more or less like their old gnome2 did. And if you really insist, I can give you detailed reports about what kind of problems those users have with the current DEs in Debian including gnome3, but I don't want to bloat this mail anymore. I just can guarantee you now, the panel in gnome3-fallback being black is not one of them. ;) From my point of view, as said I can't comment much on the technical aspects here. I can just ask those who may have the ability to do so, to do it in a fair way, with as less prejudice as possible. Again, for the users that will have an issue with the current envisioned upgrade-path. For those users not so keen about adding a third-party repo to their sources.list, those users not knowing about the possibility to do so, those users that will get pissed. regards Michael P.S.: I know there is already work in progress for MATE for jessie, I just think that is too late. But I don't want to trip on anyones toes here AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! If you want a classical desktop your main options are: gnome3-classic, XFCE and LXDE. You have also cinnamon on sid (it won't make to wheezy) It is *not* about me and I know already all available options in all possible flavors and directions available as of today for wheezy. I'm guessing that by the time wheezy is released MATE will be in unstable and the wheezy-backports won't be far behind. It is a sensible compromise. Let's see how that will progress. But agreed, a very sensible compromise. Remember, Debian is more that just a Desktop operating system. Let's work within policy and be respectful to those who are working hard to get the release ready. I did never forget that. I do run Debian on servers as well. But at the same time I am a strong desktop-advocate and I tried to keep both sides on my mind there. Sure, those that don't mind much what they run on their desktops can't understand my thinking there. And I am all in for working within the policy and I am very respectful about the choices made. I don't want that to be misunderstood, even if my focus seems a bit... ehm... off to some, it is a valid focus nevertheless! ;) Cheers, -mz regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50ad7938.8060...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 09:48, schrieb Jon Dowland: On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 04:03:33AM +0100, Michael Schmitt wrote: So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! IF you had a set of MATE packages all ready to go and you were asking for a freeze exception for them, then the release team would be in a position to consider an exception. But there are no such packages. We're arguing hypotheticals (as we often do on -devel, to my eternal dismay). There's still a lot of work to do in order to get MATE ready for Debian. Forgive my ignorance there, but much of that talk was kind of strange to me. As, I already run MATE for many months now on at least 5 different boxes, with debian packages kindly provided by upstream. I know they may not be 100% perfect but they do the job nicely. I've seen a fair amount of strange bugs and strange attitudes from people in Debian, a lot of complaints about maintainers and their packages and compared to that I could not think how those well-working packages could make an impact there. About quality of code... I guess one could argue there for hours how bad something is. Man, if I think about all those complaints I have heard over the years, it must be a wonder that something like Debian even works! :D But it does, so do the packages. Even if not perfect, they do the job. So I ignorantly thought even if not perfect, they could be made perfect (as in good enough) in a matter of days or at least one or two weeks. And then there is LMDE (Linuxmint Debian Edition), which provides packages as well. LMDE is more than less a snapshot of Debian testing at a given time. Combine all of that and you might end up thinking well, they just overdraw the whole issue. And many of us agree on that for example ubuntu is of less quality. It may be true or not. I have seen some weird issues in ubuntu (from the outside, I don't run any box with it) and I have some political issues with them, so I quietly agree with that attitude. But translate that to linuxmint and you might have another good explanation why those folks may overdraw the whole issue... big-scale. :) So, to sum it up, I ignorantly thought packages that would fit well enough into Debian would not be as far away as everybody else thinks. I may still think that to a certain degree, but it doesn't matter. I agree with the overall decision. Mainly because of other reasons but that doesn't change a thing here. Anyway, I used the term ignorant for a reason there. And I don't want that others follow the urge to get rid of my ignorance (read: help me understand the packages issue better), especially not here, wasting the time of maybe some others. And maybe it would be better to let that issue remain in clouds anyway... just thinking. :p I'm sorry, it's simply too late for wheezy. The last thing we want to do is delay the release at this point. Long drawn out freezes are horrendously demoralising for everyone. It's important we get wheezy out in a timely fashion. Agreed! regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50ad8312.1020...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 10:30, schrieb Neil Williams: On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 04:03:33 +0100 Michael Schmitttcwardr...@gmail.com wrote: AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! The case has been denied and closed. There will be no exception for any change anything like as large as MATE during a freeze. Adam has made that clear, Russ has made that clear. It was already too late the day that the freeze started. It would have taken many months of work to get MATE into a fit state for a stable Debian release. As part of the Debian release team it is Adam's call to make. He's declared his decision which is fully in line with the freeze policy and that's that. There is no point even thinking about MATE in Wheezy any longer. It's done, closed, ended - denied. Move along now, nothing to see here. Please calm down. Please, don't domineer opinions of others based on such questionable arguments. I really prefer the open-minded approach here. You don't have to agree but to just say They said no, so stop bickering feels horribly wrong. And about the technical content, agreed, I stopped my idea at around 3 o'clock UTC yesterday after reading Russ' mail. Based on the very well expressed concerns he had. What bothers me is that gnome3-classic will be deprecated with the next release of GNOME. I hope that MATE can make into Debian for Jessie. I kind of insist it being in jessie ;) You've already said you're not into the programming / maintainer side of things. The way Debian works is that if someone wants something to happen, that person does the work and/or recruits other people to do the work. If the work isn't done by those who want the work done, it simply won't get done. Those who do not, will not or cannot do the work themselves are not able to insist on anything in Debian. Don't underestimate that little smiley there... I don't really insist on anything here. It doesn't matter how much others complain - without someone to do the work, MATE will never get into any Debian release. (...) I've switched to XFCE and I may well move on to KDE4 but I will not work on MATE in Debian. I wouldn't ever work against it but if someone else does the work, I will require that MATE meets all the requirements and expectations of Debian and that includes ongoing competent maintenance within Debian, not just upstream. You used gnome2 before, you're not happy with gnome3 either... but you have no interest in MATE? May I ask why? And even the idea to work against something like that, that does ring some very bad sounding bells... One of my big problems with old, stale, code like MATE is that I've always been pushing for cross-build support / bootstrapping support across all of Debian. No idea about the technical stuff... but to some degree, what do you expect from MATE some days / weeks / months after the fork? It just is what it is, gnome2 with another name. That means it HAS to be somewhat old. Stale not a bit as the folks work on that code, so it can't be stale. I know the libraries in MATE, I developed upstream code using them, I cross-built all of them for Emdebian Crush and some of them are truly atrocious bits of code. I was *very* glad when libgnomeui and bonobo were deprecated, amongst others. I only wish the migration to GNOME3 would have pleased more upstream developers because then Debian could have dropped all the shoddy GNOME2 underpinnings. There is still a lot of good stuff which was part of the GNOME2 environment but that's why XFCE is a good choice for most of those who don't like GNOME3. XFCE is, largely, the good bits of GNOME2 without the horrors. It's not perfect but it is what most people who found GNOME3 unsuitable have ended up using. Err... bottom line MATE code may be a bit suboptimal because gnome2 code is? *confused* Anyway, don't domineer others viewpoint that neither alternative will ever get it as gnome2 did and MATE does! I really hate that damn ignorant attitude of some! Damn it, no, Xfce is NOT a viable option for everyone! We have what we have, Obviously... I have no desire to work on that code any more, Then don't... despite being upstream for several projects which used to rely upon it. I took that code out, I did the work - I would NOT be happy to see it coming back and contaminating my fixed code. Then you might be glad that that will most likely not happen... Sadly, IMHO, fixing the problems of the bits of GNOME2 which aren't XFCE would seem to be a pointless and thankless task. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do it. Huh? *even more confused* So you say Gnome2 was fine as it was, Xfce may not be as fine but it comes close, but getting Xfce to be fine as well is... useless?
Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 11:19, schrieb Marc Haber: On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 04:03:33 +0100, Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com wrote: Am 20.11.2012 23:14, schrieb Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez: AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! If you are really thinking that the Release Team would let a big and controverse package like MATE into wheezy at this time of the release process, you are completely out of line. This is never going to happen, and it is good that this is not going to happen. Yeah, call me naive, but I really had the feeling I could convince others to pull that stunt. And don't get me wrong there. I still believe it would have been best for a fair amount of users to have an as least problematic as possible upgrade-path for their desktop. But that does not cut it, which I understand and accept. Read: I am in-line now. ;) As a non-user of GNOME or MATE, I would hate to have the release delayed for that reason. Yeah, well... Greetings Marc regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50ad9090.5040...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
Am 21.11.2012 14:15, schrieb Josselin Mouette: Le mercredi 21 novembre 2012 à 04:03 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : Gnome3-classic (fallback) is the option more like to what was gnome2. I have been using it for a while and is a good option if you want a desktop like gnome2. It may be for you or for some others, but not for all a viable option. Most definitely not for me, the local and remote folks I asked around the globe. Yeah, because people can’t stand their panels going from gray to black. Even IF that would be the only problem, yes... I would be concerned enough to let the users allow to change the color of the panel. But I guess even you gnome3 apologists did acknowledge that after some time... or do you not know that now you actually can change the color of the panel? Don't get me wrong most of them could probably get along with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse. Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That mule behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects. You need to be more specific because despite being one of the maintainers I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I can just assume that you are joking there... or do I really have to make screenshots now to show you the optical and technical differences in the UI? The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; This is by design. Please point me to a case where the new layout mechanism doesn’t answer *real* user needs. OTOH being finally free of absolute positioning means the end of the awful bugs when resizing the screen or when applets change their size. And that design is limiting, but it's fine if some DE goes that way of limiting its users. But I found it kind of strange how far the gnome-folks went that road... but even that is fine. And you do not need to agree there at all. It seems to be fine for you, great! :) Have a look here, a real user need: http://picpaste.com/pics/panels.1353555116.png And I need that to be able to make groupings of applets, to make sure they don't wobble around and *always* *stay* *where* *they* *are* (which does break when resizing screen, which is a bug and not to be answered by removing that feature, at least if one has the broad variety of users in mind). And to distinguish those groups clearly. Two times mate-menu because two displays and I sometimes switch one off, before you ask. And yeah... not that pretty, but function is more important to me there. I did mention that from an aesthetic point of view gnome-shell *is* pleasing? But shiny looks tends to not have the users needs in mind as it seems... at least sometimes. not all applets ported; Port them. I’ve done it for a pair of them, it is really simple. That was not the point. We have the overall user here in mind, correct? Or is Gnome3 now for the computer geek who likes to hack code and write their own stuff? simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; Obviously you haven’t had to manage a help desk where you get calls from people who have accidentally removed their notification area or their window list with a wrongly placed right click. Sadly not for GNU/Linux desktops, which is a shame, really. But I do support other operating systems and I have similar issues with their users, I can assure you, no fun at all! But, I explain them what they did, why they did it and what to do to prevent them from doing it again, or most importantly that they can do it if they want to. I want to have competent users and not the granpa- and grandma-style. It is of utmost importance to try to learn, we all know that. Striping something down so that there is less to learn is not always the good way to do things. menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical fashion;...). Wut? I find it kind of weird when I need to click on my name to be able to log out or reboot or find the stuff to configure the box. It concerns the system as in computer system or operating system, great, let's call it system. Nothing wrong with that. And I really love those three menus! They are so damn logical and the names do make sense in every regard! I know my name, I don't need that huge space wasted to see it. But agreed, there is some other stuff in the menu that makes at least some sense in that regard, but it is just not the way I (and many others) like it. So I don't think those that find it ok are completely out of their mind. ;) No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password then!). This one, I agree, is a real problem. I don’t like how upstream moved regional settings to the control center. Patches that
Re: debian mate
Le jeudi 22 novembre 2012 à 07:21 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : Now I see how that works for the gnome folks! *lol* Really, if the general gnome attitude is all complaints are dumb and should be ignored, what we do is the holly grail then... Please read http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things (especially the last part about comments). It completely applies here. Oh and just on the fun side, your “real user need”: http://picpaste.com/pics/panels.1353555116.png So here we have 2 panels on a Xinerama setup. On each screen, you have grossly 3 areas of applets: left, middle, right. Exactly the kind of setup gnome-panel 3 was made for. And I need that to be able to make groupings of applets, to make sure they don't wobble around and *always* *stay* *where* *they* *are* (which does break when resizing screen, which is a bug and not to be answered by removing that feature, at least if one has the broad variety of users in mind). The 3 areas of applets precisely answer that need: your applets won’t wobble around, they will always stay where they are. You can have several times the same applets at different positions, too. What you are telling me is that GNOME 2.x / MATE does not answer your user needs, while gnome-panel 3 does. Thanks, for the entertainment, MATE :) -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353569822.27445.15.camel@tomoyo
Re: debian mate
Am 05.11.2012 00:41, schrieb Andrew Kolotenko: On Mon, 2012-11-05 at 02:57 +0400, Виталий Короневич wrote: debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok when will debian mate-edition? what for? the ones above are enough imho For you maybe, for many others as well, but for many many others not so much. I tend to urge friends to use GNU/Linux instead of Windows and do support them with their machines if they choose to go along with my suggestion. I was successful there in only five cases so far (all with Gnome and up to now squeeze) and made a small test with (up to now) four of them. More thorough with at least two of them. Outcome: All of them choose MATE over any other DE currently in Debian (details of the tests at the end of the mail[1]). Sadly I don't have more impressive statistics to present. For all we know it could have been just a coincidence. If it were a hundred friends maybe 96 would have choosen gnome-shell or KDE? But I think it is save to assume it would be rather in between those two extremes. Anyway, I understand the problems but I think Debian / ftp-masters and those of us sitting somewhere in the queue a package has to go through may want to balance the social / political and technical problem here again. I know there is already progress on getting Mate in Debian, there are already willing maintainers, it is just not possible to get all technical problems resolved before wheezy gets released. Even if all problems would be solved today, I doubt it would be accepted for wheezy anymore. Only if the balance between technical and political / social problem would be re-evaluated AND an exception would be granted, many future users of wheezy will have a happy-wheezy-year-2013. regards Michael [1] All of them was given a laptop with a more or less current sid with Gnome3, KDE, Xfce and MATE preinstalled. With two of them I did a complete data-migration from their main-computers, and hooked up their displays and external devices, so it ran basically as their main-machine. I asked them to testdrive every DE for at least two days and helped them whenever questions arose and tried to fix the problems as good as every DE supports a fix for the particular problems. With the two other people (I did not have the nerve / time to go through that another two times *sic*) I just sat with them together for some hours presenting gnome3 (fallback and shell) and MATE and I asked them to test and do stuff (with me sitting besides and answering / fixing) they would normally do on their main squeeze-boxes. Including getting pics from the digicam, using pendrives and mobile phones, surfing the web, using IM, file-management, overall DE-dive-through for changing settings and appearance. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50abb738.4080...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
Am 05.11.2012 00:41, schrieb Wouter Verhelst: On Mon, Nov 05, 2012 at 02:57:35AM +0400, Виталий Короневич wrote: debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok when will debian mate-edition? When someone (you?) does the work to package (the relevant parts of) mate. There is already one, see http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783 regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50abb9d2.8070...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
Am 05.11.2012 00:51, schrieb John Paul Adrian Glaubitz: On Mon, Nov 05, 2012 at 02:57:35AM +0400, Виталий Короневич wrote: debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok Those aren't really editions comparable to Ubuntu's editions or Fedora's spins. You just install a regular Debian and choose the desktop enviroment you want. when will debian mate-edition? This isn't as easy and straight-forward as you might think. There are many problems that need to be solved with MATE first before it can enter Debian. Some of these are discussed here [1]. One of the biggest problems with MATE so far is that it currently depends on libraries and other things that have been deprecated and removed in Debian and should not be reintroduced to Debian. Can we agree on something more friendly like it would be not optimal to reintroduce these packages? Or at least elaborate a bit why they should not be re-introduced. It would not be the first time something like that happened in Debian. Thus, the MATE developers are working to port MATE to more recent libraries which are available in Debian. And whatever they or anybody else does in that regard, it will come to late for wheezy. Furthermore, work has to be done to make sure MATE co-installs seamlessly with anything from GNOME which isn't that trivial. Apparently it is easy enough, as they got that already done months ago. At least I run MATE on many sid-boxes with Gnome3 co-installed and no issues apart from that damn mime-types-thingy brokenness when one has more than one DE installed. There are many binaries and libraries which still exist in GNOME3 and installing MATE could possibily break these. Could but don't afai(and many others)ct and most importantly should not, as that was one of the first goals of MATE. And from what I've heard from the MATE-devs (#mate@freenode) they tend to disagree there in a rather strong fashion. :) I'm actually helping the MATE developers to get MATE ready for Debian, but don't expect that to happen anytime soon. Expect the worst, hope for the best! ;) regards Michael I'm also working on getting mdm ready, a fork of gdm 2.20. Currently, I'm not really happy with the code, however. Adrian [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50abbfec.1050...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
Le mardi 20 novembre 2012 à 18:37 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : One of the biggest problems with MATE so far is that it currently depends on libraries and other things that have been deprecated and removed in Debian and should not be reintroduced to Debian. Can we agree on something more friendly like it would be not optimal to reintroduce these packages? Or at least elaborate a bit why they should not be re-introduced. It would not be the first time something like that happened in Debian. Because nobody knows anymore how to maintain libraries as complex as bonobo, for example. And I’m pretty sure the MATE developers don’t have the expertise. Even worse, they forked stuff like GConf using sed to rename it mateconf, while GConf is still available in a much more modern version in wheezy, 100% binary-compatible while being ported to D-Bus. I don’t think we should allow libraries from clueless developers to be introduced into the archive. Furthermore, work has to be done to make sure MATE co-installs seamlessly with anything from GNOME which isn't that trivial. Apparently it is easy enough, as they got that already done months ago. At least I run MATE on many sid-boxes with Gnome3 co-installed and no issues apart from that damn mime-types-thingy brokenness when one has more than one DE installed. Maybe you can try to understand how XDG mime works. But maybe this is too much to ask to people who forked libraries that are still available. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353438775.9228.4.camel@pi0307572
Re: debian mate
Am 20.11.2012 20:12, schrieb Josselin Mouette: Le mardi 20 novembre 2012 à 18:37 +0100, Michael Schmitt a écrit : One of the biggest problems with MATE so far is that it currently depends on libraries and other things that have been deprecated and removed in Debian and should not be reintroduced to Debian. Can we agree on something more friendly like it would be not optimal to reintroduce these packages? Or at least elaborate a bit why they should not be re-introduced. It would not be the first time something like that happened in Debian. Because nobody knows anymore how to maintain libraries as complex as bonobo, for example. And I’m pretty sure the MATE developers don’t have the expertise. The MATE-maintainers (especially including upstream team, which is growing) said explicitly they are willing to maintain the legacy code as long as the replacement is not there. As bad as the bonobo code may be, it was in Debian for years and we all know that is not the only code in Debian which at least some Debian maintainers / developers think is to the utmost extent horrible and it is nevertheless in debian. At least I can't comment on this, as I am not a coder, not a maintainer nor a developer, I just have open eyes and ears. I am pretty sure your assessment they don't have the expertise would fit in e.g. your opinion to many other maintainers. Same goes probably for other maintainers and developers as well. Even worse, they forked stuff like GConf using sed to rename it mateconf, while GConf is still available in a much more modern version in wheezy, 100% binary-compatible while being ported to D-Bus. I noticed that, they noticed and acknowledged that, they simply did not know better at that time. Such things happen, even in Debian, but basically everywhere. Human nature. We can't know everything and what one may consider to be important, others may find silly. For example keeping track of a gnome component after the Gnome-devs did go on the (for the MATE devs) horrible and insane gnome3-trek may not seem to be so urgent, especially in the beginning of the fork. No problem for me understanding how something like that could slip through. Now they know that, now they even keep track on other components as well (including finding bugs in current gnome3-code), backport stuff from various gnome3-components and elsewhere. I don’t think we should allow libraries from clueless developers to be introduced into the archive. Wow, that's kinda harsh. :( But then again, I read statements like that more often than I would like to in almost any technical oriented place, especially on debian IRC-Channels from other maintainers about code or other Debian coders in general. I can't comment on that either (me = no clue about any programming language) much, just that I tend to think The only code that is ok is the code that I wrote that kind of attitude may apply to many coders... Let's ignore that imho rude assessment and consider that no one is born as a master in anything. And, let's think about other distros that already include MATE or will include it in their next release. So, Debian would not be the only one. I guess if a serious (security?) bug would be found in the code, those combined forces should be able to fix it. Furthermore, work has to be done to make sure MATE co-installs seamlessly with anything from GNOME which isn't that trivial. Apparently it is easy enough, as they got that already done months ago. At least I run MATE on many sid-boxes with Gnome3 co-installed and no issues apart from that damn mime-types-thingy brokenness when one has more than one DE installed. Maybe you can try to understand how XDG mime works. But maybe this is too much to ask to people who forked libraries that are still available. I don't know what I should make of that. I am not part of the actual forking / maintaining team, I am just a user. So don't confuse me with them. Actually they helped me to understand the issue better. An issue not at all limited to MATE. Plain fdo issue (I noticed it first with Gnome + KDE or Xfce), Now I think about digging deeper to be able to write a high-quality wishlist bugreport for fdo. No worries, I wouldn't even think of pestering the debian BTS with that, I'll go straight upstream. ;) And... you do know about what issue I am talking here exactly? Or was that just some rude comment my parser did not parse right? ;) In general, I have no real idea how the common Debian users will react to wheezy, but I am sure, with MATE, a drop-in-and-feature-complete replacement for the most used desktop environment in squeeze it will be at least on the desktop-front a pleased reaction. In its current state, from a technical point of view it might not be ideally (but I am sure there are even more not-ideal packages in Debian right now), but not THAT bad after all. And from a political / social point of view, just the only sane option to do (if we have the
Re: debian mate
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 06:37:48PM +0100, Michael Schmitt wrote: And whatever they or anybody else does in that regard, it will come to late for wheezy. All of MATE will come too late for Wheezy. It's already too late for Wheezy. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121120220730.GB13984@debian
Re: debian mate
Am 20.11.2012 23:07, schrieb Jon Dowland: On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 06:37:48PM +0100, Michael Schmitt wrote: And whatever they or anybody else does in that regard, it will come to late for wheezy. All of MATE will come too late for Wheezy. It's already too late for Wheezy. That may be common thinking, agreed. But I am that extremely worried about the current upgrade solution in wheezy, sorry... I think Debian should try to get it in. And freeze means not released yet last I checked. And Debian is the perfect example for a project that does rather release a month or two (or even longer) if needed, to get things right. regards Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50ac002d.9010...@gmail.com
Re: debian mate
On 20/11/12 22:55, Michael Schmitt wrote: If one likes Gnome2.x or MATE or not is a question of taste, to acknowledge that many users are just mad about Gnome3 is a fact. To offer no real sane upgrade-path for those users is... dunno how to say it in another way, it is just insane! I did invest some time with thinking about all of this including talking to some MATE folks and current squeeze-gnome-users, and again thinking and thinking... imho it must be done everything possible to try to circumvent that imho probable desaster for the desktop users. Especially when I think of the real *average next door users* not the techie guys who may be happy (or at least not cry to loud about it) to invest some time tweaking their Xfce or KDE to behave more or less like their old gnome2 did. And if you really insist, I can give you detailed reports about what kind of problems those users have with the current DEs in Debian including gnome3, but I don't want to bloat this mail anymore. I just can guarantee you now, the panel in gnome3-fallback being black is not one of them. ;) From my point of view, as said I can't comment much on the technical aspects here. I can just ask those who may have the ability to do so, to do it in a fair way, with as less prejudice as possible. Again, for the users that will have an issue with the current envisioned upgrade-path. For those users not so keen about adding a third-party repo to their sources.list, those users not knowing about the possibility to do so, those users that will get pissed. regards Michael P.S.: I know there is already work in progress for MATE for jessie, I just think that is too late. But I don't want to trip on anyones toes here AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. If you want a classical desktop your main options are: gnome3-classic, XFCE and LXDE. You have also cinnamon on sid (it won't make to wheezy) Gnome3-classic (fallback) is the option more like to what was gnome2. I have been using it for a while and is a good option if you want a desktop like gnome2. What bothers me is that gnome3-classic will be deprecated with the next release of GNOME. I hope that MATE can make into Debian for Jessie. Regards! signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: debian mate
Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com writes: That may be common thinking, agreed. But I am that extremely worried about the current upgrade solution in wheezy, sorry... I think Debian should try to get it in. We are way, way too late in the release process for something that substantial. There are other alternatives to GNOME 3 already available in wheezy for those who really dislike GNOME 3. (Xfce, for example, seems to have become a popular alternative to both KDE 4 and GNOME 3 among the people I know who disliked the direction of those two projects.) And freeze means not released yet last I checked. And Debian is the perfect example for a project that does rather release a month or two (or even longer) if needed, to get things right. As a user of Debian, I would very much prefer that Debian not delay the release by even two months for MATE. Nothing against MATE, but introduction of a new desktop environment, even one with arguably nice upgrade properties from a desktop environment in the last stable release, is not the sort of emergency that should warrant postponing the release. This is how freezes work. If someone wants substantial new development (and MATE, regardless of what it was forked from, still amounts to substantial new development from a packaging perspective) in the next release of Debian, it needs to be in unstable before the freeze. If it isn't, oh well, better luck for the next stable release. As Debian gets larger and larger, we're going to have to get more and more strict about this policy. Every project thinks their needs are particularly important, but down that path lies never releasing at all. If it needs to be in the next stable, it needs to be in before the release, period. Anything else that isn't a bug fix to an existing package will not be included, and the bar to override that default needs to be quite high. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87r4nnq59x@windlord.stanford.edu
Fallback for GNOME in jessie [was: debian mate]
Le mardi 20 novembre 2012 à 23:14 +0100, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez a écrit : What bothers me is that gnome3-classic will be deprecated with the next release of GNOME. I hope that MATE can make into Debian for Jessie. This is a problem that needs tackling for jessie one way or another. This might require changes in the installer to select a different default desktop depending on the hardware. The best that could happen is someone picking up the pieces and maintaining them. Ubuntu will certainly have to do it with some of them for Unity, but the work will remain to be done for the panel and metacity. Of course it is much better to start at 3.6 instead of 2.32 like MATE did, since modules have been ported to GTK3 and tons of bugs have been fixed, especially in gnome-panel. In the long term, I wonder how we can make things like MATE, GNOME and cinnamon to coexist, with GNOME moving more and more features from gnome-settings-daemon (which is an easily shared component) to gnome-shell. It is much better for the development of GNOME itself, but makes it harder for us to have a non-3D alternative. Cheers, -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1353451511.9228.123.camel@pi0307572
Re: debian mate
On 20.11.2012 22:27, Russ Allbery wrote: Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com writes: That may be common thinking, agreed. But I am that extremely worried about the current upgrade solution in wheezy, sorry... I think Debian should try to get it in. We are way, way too late in the release process for something that substantial. With all relevant hats on, very much agreed. And freeze means not released yet last I checked. It means working to get what we have in to a state that we can / are happy to release. The day before a planned release fits your not released yet definition; I assume you wouldn't suggest making such significant changes at that point. To reiterate, the day of the freeze was already too late. As Debian gets larger and larger, we're going to have to get more and more strict about this policy. Every project thinks their needs are particularly important, but down that path lies never releasing at all. If it needs to be in the next stable, it needs to be in before the release, period. Anything else that isn't a bug fix to an existing ^^ freeze ;-) package will not be included, and the bar to override that default needs to be quite high. Regards, Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/ef5c113d0545bcd3e5e33b00cc37a...@mail.adsl.funky-badger.org
Re: debian mate
Hi Russ, as I see you, as a member of ctte, are kind of in favour of MATE for jessie and not wheezy... :( Am 20.11.2012 23:27, schrieb Russ Allbery: Michael Schmitttcwardr...@gmail.com writes: That may be common thinking, agreed. But I am that extremely worried about the current upgrade solution in wheezy, sorry... I think Debian should try to get it in. We are way, way too late in the release process for something that substantial. There are other alternatives to GNOME 3 already available in wheezy for those who really dislike GNOME 3. (Xfce, for example, seems to have become a popular alternative to both KDE 4 and GNOME 3 among the people I know who disliked the direction of those two projects.) Xfce or KDE might not be a catastrophe, but you must see the same issue as I see. You may not be as paranoid as I am, but we all know how users tend to be: annoying, complaining, crying. humans at its best! :) They have no right to complain, we all know that too, but does that prevent them from doing so? And the only perspective I can see there is trying to minimize the possible fallout... And freeze means not released yet last I checked. And Debian is the perfect example for a project that does rather release a month or two (or even longer) if needed, to get things right. As a user of Debian, I would very much prefer that Debian not delay the release by even two months for MATE. Nothing against MATE, but introduction of a new desktop environment, even one with arguably nice upgrade properties from a desktop environment in the last stable release, is not the sort of emergency that should warrant postponing the release. Considering that the talk about MATE in Debian did start in around april 2012 iirc, it really does not look like an emergency at all! *lol* But I am not sure it would need that much more time. Sure, depending on when wheezy will actually be released. I did bet for 2013-02-17 as release-date, no idea if that comes even close, but I don't see why mate packages could be that difficult at all. Basically the work was already done for the gnome2 packages, only some modifications may have been needed to use that as a base for MATE. No real idea though, as I am just a user and don't have the expertise to assess that, but as some folks upstream had already months to work on the packages... I don't see a general issue there. At least when I ask them in what shape the packages are, they admit they may not be prime-time ready but from what I could get there is more or less just some minor fixes are needed (some last thoughts are missing though in that discussion). As said (and let me emphasize this) there are already packages for wheezy, they are just not yet perfect. Do you remember the fame and glory Debian got for that little overdue in sarge? It had good technical reasons to be so late (even if I don't remember the details anymore)... but consider what it might have cost the project in the long run. Sure, those what might and might not have been, if... games tend to go nowhere, but they might give some ideas if one agrees to get in those thoughts a bit deeper... And now, I see a similar situation coming, just the other way around. Roughly one year too late for sarge, does not compare to one or two months later as planned, IF it would even need that long (which I doubt). But nice, we do agree that MATE is from a users point of view the BEST alternative for gnome2? And gnome2 was not a DE in then to be oldstable it is *THE* DE of then oldstable. After months of playing around again and again with gnome3-shell and -fallback, Xfce and KDE forward and backward and always not being happy, feeling incomplete and a curse here and there in a specific direction... I just gave me a bump and installed mate from a third party repo and even if it had some *minor* glitches back then, I had tears in my eyes to have my gnome2 back! You can't imagine what I felt that first minute after login... and as I try to keep it family and US-friendly, I don't go in any more detail there. ;) And MATE is not new it is gnome2 with a new name, which runs remarkable well, stable and effortless. I guess 99% code-equal with the last gnome 2.x release. Yes, it has bugs. Old gnome 2.x ones got fixed, new ones got introduced (count: 1 afaict, a regression which is already been worked on). This is how freezes work. If someone wants substantial new development (and MATE, regardless of what it was forked from, still amounts to substantial new development from a packaging perspective) in the next release of Debian, it needs to be in unstable before the freeze. If it isn't, oh well, better luck for the next stable release. I know how that works in general, I know that it is most likely too late... but just most likely... ;) As Debian gets larger and larger, we're going to have to get more and more strict about this policy. Ok, somewhat ack. Every project thinks their needs
Re: debian mate
Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com writes: as I see you, as a member of ctte, are kind of in favour of MATE for jessie and not wheezy... :( I have no opinion on MATE. I personally switched from GNOME 2 to Xfce on the one system where I use an integrated desktop when gnome-shell wouldn't run due to the age of the graphics and the fallback for some reason didn't function properly. (This was *right* after it landed in unstable, and I suspect this is a bug that was fixed eons ago. I'd been meaning to try Xfce since I make a personal policy of changing desktop environments every few years -- I used to use GNUstep before GNOME 2 -- so I didn't bother to pursue it further.) I can say that, as a light GNOME user, switching to Xfce was trivial. It took me all of an hour. But I can be a somewhat atypical user. I haven't evaluated the quality of the MATE libraries or their maintenance. In general, I'm supportive of being discriminating about what packages we include in the archive, since we're promising bug and security support, but I'm also in favor of being inclusive and, in general, welcoming packages for anything that people want to work on. Xfce or KDE might not be a catastrophe, but you must see the same issue as I see. You may not be as paranoid as I am, but we all know how users tend to be: annoying, complaining, crying. humans at its best! :) They have no right to complain, we all know that too, but does that prevent them from doing so? And the only perspective I can see there is trying to minimize the possible fallout... I don't believe avoiding user complaints is a primary development goal for Debian. One of the great things about working on Debian is that we are not a popularity-driven or market-share-driven project. We want to do the right thing for our users, but that isn't the same thing as avoiding complaints. In the specific case of releases, we have a stark tradeoff when it comes to freeze deadlines and release time frames. On one hand, some users will always want something that missed the freeze deadline. On the other hand, *all* of our users who want to run stable and not testing or unstable are hurt by release delays. The way that we, as a project, have chosen (after *much* discussion and some experimentation with alternatives) to resolve this conflict is with a freeze that's advertised well in advance, and a clear policy of what's acceptable after that deadline. There are other alternatives to managing a release cycle. They all have different problems. This one seems to be the best compromise. But I am not sure it would need that much more time. It always takes more time to introduce things at the last minute. That's why we don't have this discussion every time, and instead have developed some clear guidelines for how to make this decision. We can literally have this discussion forever. There's always just one more thing that someone thinks is really important. The advantage of having clear guidelines is that we can say that it doesn't matter. It missed the freeze. It's too late. Best of luck next time. It sounds harsh, and to some extent it *is* harsh, but I'm serious when I say that without this sort of policy Debian will literally become unreleasable. But nice, we do agree that MATE is from a users point of view the BEST alternative for gnome2? No, I have no opinion on that. After all, my personal experience is that Xfce is a fine alternative for GNOME 2 if one doesn't like GNOME 3 for some reason. :) And I know what you have in mind there, with but down that path lies never releasing at all it does just not fit here. Something like this does not happen regularly. Quite to the contrary: something like this has happened, about this time in the release process, in every release of Debian that had a freeze since I started using the distribution. :) That all said, I need to express my apologies for such long mails for an idea where almost anybody seems to be against it. :( I know for a fact what a wonderful operating system and community (with its humanly common exceptions *g*) Debian is and my contribution today (which some may consider to be annoying as hell) is this tl;dr-candidate for some readers. :) But imho the only right thing to do right now, even if it is so damn late... :/ Oh, I have no objection to you expressing your opinion! By all means, that's what the mailing list is for. But a lot of past experience has completely convinced me of the merits of hard release freezes. We have backports.debian.org for those things that are just desperately needed but didn't make it into the release. If MATE makes it into unstable/testing and is proven stable, backporting it to wheezy would be a viable option. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: debian mate
Am 20.11.2012 23:14, schrieb Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez: On 20/11/12 22:55, Michael Schmitt wrote: If one likes Gnome2.x or MATE or not is a question of taste, to acknowledge that many users are just mad about Gnome3 is a fact. To offer no real sane upgrade-path for those users is... dunno how to say it in another way, it is just insane! I did invest some time with thinking about all of this including talking to some MATE folks and current squeeze-gnome-users, and again thinking and thinking... imho it must be done everything possible to try to circumvent that imho probable desaster for the desktop users. Especially when I think of the real *average next door users* not the techie guys who may be happy (or at least not cry to loud about it) to invest some time tweaking their Xfce or KDE to behave more or less like their old gnome2 did. And if you really insist, I can give you detailed reports about what kind of problems those users have with the current DEs in Debian including gnome3, but I don't want to bloat this mail anymore. I just can guarantee you now, the panel in gnome3-fallback being black is not one of them. ;) From my point of view, as said I can't comment much on the technical aspects here. I can just ask those who may have the ability to do so, to do it in a fair way, with as less prejudice as possible. Again, for the users that will have an issue with the current envisioned upgrade-path. For those users not so keen about adding a third-party repo to their sources.list, those users not knowing about the possibility to do so, those users that will get pissed. regards Michael P.S.: I know there is already work in progress for MATE for jessie, I just think that is too late. But I don't want to trip on anyones toes here AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! If you want a classical desktop your main options are: gnome3-classic, XFCE and LXDE. You have also cinnamon on sid (it won't make to wheezy) It is *not* about me and I know already all available options in all possible flavors and directions available as of today for wheezy. Gnome3-classic (fallback) is the option more like to what was gnome2. I have been using it for a while and is a good option if you want a desktop like gnome2. It may be for you or for some others, but not for all a viable option. Most definitely not for me, the local and remote folks I asked around the globe. Don't get me wrong most of them could probably get along with the fallback mode after some degree of tweaking, but they would miss A LOT! Some examples? In no particular order: The complete infrastructure under gnome-fallback is a *completely* *different* horse. Some would say it is not even a horse, it is rather a mule! That mule behaves utterly different when it comes to several aspects. The panel (no free arranging of applets / starters; not all applets ported; simple right-click does not work anymore, alt or even alt+super+click is needed now; menus arranged in a completely different and un-logical fashion;...). No language / keyboard settings in GDM anymore (Oops, you speak a different language with a different keyboard layout then the system default? Hope you did not use any fancy symbols for your password then!). The control-center, a lot of stuff is missing. Gone are the days you can keep your laptop running when closing the lid. Want to prohibit display blanking? Sorry, gone too. That list goes on and on (ask the web for a more comprehensive list) and some of those shortcomings can be tweaked away, which means effort and grief in varying degree. In short, gnome3-fallback just looks at the upper surface almost like gnome2 did, but is, behaves, works completely different. Fun fact there... I happen to be forced to work with Redmond OS since windows 95. From Windows 95 up to Windows 7 the design did change *a lot*, it got more features, some options got re-arranged *slightly* but the overall way to handle a windows-system has never changed a bit. It was always the same as I sat in front of a new windows release the first time. Five minutes and I found everything and realised that under the hood everything is actually almost exactly the same as before. *No* research to get going necessary! I don't want to praise MS here (crap and the wrong development model remains crap and wrong) but they got one thing right, don't shock your users too much! What bothers me is that gnome3-classic will be deprecated with the next release of GNOME. I hope that MATE can make into Debian for Jessie. I kind of insist it being in jessie ;) And yes, that makes another good point why the gnome3-fallback just can't feel like the real thing. It is supposed to
Re: debian mate
Hi Michael, On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Michael Schmitt tcwardr...@gmail.com wrote: Am 20.11.2012 23:14, schrieb Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez: On 20/11/12 22:55, Michael Schmitt wrote: If one likes Gnome2.x or MATE or not is a question of taste, to acknowledge that many users are just mad about Gnome3 is a fact. To offer no real sane upgrade-path for those users is... dunno how to say it in another way, it is just insane! I did invest some time with thinking about all of this including talking to some MATE folks and current squeeze-gnome-users, and again thinking and thinking... imho it must be done everything possible to try to circumvent that imho probable desaster for the desktop users. Especially when I think of the real *average next door users* not the techie guys who may be happy (or at least not cry to loud about it) to invest some time tweaking their Xfce or KDE to behave more or less like their old gnome2 did. And if you really insist, I can give you detailed reports about what kind of problems those users have with the current DEs in Debian including gnome3, but I don't want to bloat this mail anymore. I just can guarantee you now, the panel in gnome3-fallback being black is not one of them. ;) From my point of view, as said I can't comment much on the technical aspects here. I can just ask those who may have the ability to do so, to do it in a fair way, with as less prejudice as possible. Again, for the users that will have an issue with the current envisioned upgrade-path. For those users not so keen about adding a third-party repo to their sources.list, those users not knowing about the possibility to do so, those users that will get pissed. regards Michael P.S.: I know there is already work in progress for MATE for jessie, I just think that is too late. But I don't want to trip on anyones toes here AFAIK is completely impossible that Debian ships MATE for Wheezy. Wheezy has been frozen time ago and by policy no new packages are allowed in the archive for testing during the freeze. So much for the general rules... but exceptions ARE possible! And I just try to make a case here about how important it might be! If you want a classical desktop your main options are: gnome3-classic, XFCE and LXDE. You have also cinnamon on sid (it won't make to wheezy) It is *not* about me and I know already all available options in all possible flavors and directions available as of today for wheezy. I'm guessing that by the time wheezy is released MATE will be in unstable and the wheezy-backports won't be far behind. It is a sensible compromise. Remember, Debian is more that just a Desktop operating system. Let's work within policy and be respectful to those who are working hard to get the release ready. Cheers, -mz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caolfk3xq2cntrywk1lgjslglrhxv1yrfrbshoahrn3lprr_...@mail.gmail.com
debian mate
debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok when will debian mate-edition?
Re: debian mate
On Mon, Nov 05, 2012 at 02:57:35AM +0400, Виталий Короневич wrote: debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok when will debian mate-edition? When someone (you?) does the work to package (the relevant parts of) mate. -- Copyshops should do vouchers. So that next time some bureaucracy requires you to mail a form in triplicate, you can mail it just once, add a voucher, and save on postage. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121104234140.gk18...@grep.be
Re: debian mate
On Mon, 2012-11-05 at 02:57 +0400, Виталий Короневич wrote: debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok when will debian mate-edition? what for? the ones above are enough imho -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1352072499.2362.2.camel@workstation.ground
Re: debian mate
On Mon, Nov 05, 2012 at 02:57:35AM +0400, Виталий Короневич wrote: debian gnome-edition - ok debian kde-edition - ok debian lxde-edition - ok debian xfce-edition - ok Those aren't really editions comparable to Ubuntu's editions or Fedora's spins. You just install a regular Debian and choose the desktop enviroment you want. when will debian mate-edition? This isn't as easy and straight-forward as you might think. There are many problems that need to be solved with MATE first before it can enter Debian. Some of these are discussed here [1]. One of the biggest problems with MATE so far is that it currently depends on libraries and other things that have been deprecated and removed in Debian and should not be reintroduced to Debian. Thus, the MATE developers are working to port MATE to more recent libraries which are available in Debian. Furthermore, work has to be done to make sure MATE co-installs seamlessly with anything from GNOME which isn't that trivial. There are many binaries and libraries which still exist in GNOME3 and installing MATE could possibily break these. I'm actually helping the MATE developers to get MATE ready for Debian, but don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I'm also working on getting mdm ready, a fork of gdm 2.20. Currently, I'm not really happy with the code, however. Adrian [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121104235121.ga25...@physik.fu-berlin.de
