Sunday, May 29, 2011

Upgrading GNOME3 from 2.x in Linux Mint [OUTDATED]

***THERE IS AN EASIER WAY TO INSTALL GNOME 3 IN LINUX MINT 11 RIGHT NOW***

***Warning***I would just like to say that before you start that installing GNOME3 can cause problems for your system and that you may have to format.  GNOME3 is not quite ready for release on Debian based systems, but it has been said that Linux Mint is planning on supporting it in the future.  That being said, if you're not breaking stuff then you're not having fun.

I had to try a couple of things and format my laptop many times.  I managed to get GNOME Session updated to 3.0.x, but so far I have been unable to get GNOME Shell to compile past version 2.32.1.  I'm still working on that, but I'll do a write up on getting GNOME Session upgraded.

Start by opening terminal and adding the GNOME repository:


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3


Now go to Control Center -> Software Sources -> Other Software.  Change both sources that say http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu katya (main and source code) to say natty like so:



Close both windows and return to terminal.  Hit reload when prompted by software sources.  From terminal type the following commands to begin upgrading to the GNOME 3 Session:


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install gnome-session
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell


This will update everything to 3.0 except gnome-shell (at the time of writing this) which will only install version 2.3x.   It seems that will have to be installed from the source repository to get the 3.x version.  I'll do a writeup on this once I have figured that out.

After that is installed though, log out and try to log in again.  You will need to select the display type when you log in.  You will have 3 types of Gnome listed most likely: Gnome, GNOME, and GNOME Classic (No effects). "GNOME" is the one that will load the GNOME3 Session.  If the screen is black and all you can see is an Activities bar up top, you need to click on it and search for the program "Background" and just change the background because there was a problem with it loading from your old one (you can go back to it after you change it).

If all goes well, which it may or may not have then you should end up with something that looks like these screenshots:



1 comment:

  1. ...First? :D I just had to say, after looking at Gnome 3, I can kind of see the appeal in some ways, but I worry a little bit about this trend with operating systems. I feel like Apple is trying to do this with Lion next in making it look like more like iOS and less like a desktop OS. I think that's okay for something like Chrome OS, which is clearly cloud-based, but for something like Linux, which clearly has a geeky user base, I'm not sure.

    On the other hand, I was telling Doug, I think whatever gets more people into Linux is a good thing. There needs to be some more user-friendly options for people as well, and not just choices for those of us who want to be nerdy and type things in Terminal. It's kind of a toss-up. I do think Gnome 3 looks kind of cool, but I also think in some respects it looks kind of dumbed down. I'll have to see what Linux Mint decides to do with it down the road before I decide if I like it for sure or not.

    Just my two cents! :)

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