A Quick Look At The New GNOME Classic Session (Now Available In The GNOME Testing PPA)

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5Fcc3pVRNto/URlNih9O16I/AAAAAAAANj0/HDPImzV8T9A/s1600/gnome-classic_1.png" imageanchor="1" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="New GNOME Classic Shell session"><img alt="New GNOME Classic Shell session" border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5Fcc3pVRNto/URlNih9O16I/AAAAAAAANj0/HDPImzV8T9A/s320/gnome-classic_1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>As you probably know, <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/fallback-mode-classic-session-to-be.html">the fallback mode will be dropped with GNOME 3.8</a> and instead, users will be able to use a set of GNOME Shell extensions that provide a GNOME2-like layout. Recently, these changes have landed in the GNOME Testing PPA for Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04.</b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">After some recent updates to the GNOME Testing PPA, a new "GNOME Classic" session has showed up in the login screen:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-gdm.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic Shell login screen"><img alt="GNOME Classic Shell login screen" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-gdm_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>This isn't the old fallback session</b> (which used to be called 'Classic GNOME Session' in Ubuntu), <b>but a new session in which you're still using GNOME Shell</b>, but with some extensions enabled by default that try to provide a GNOME2-like layout.<br /><br />The first thing you'll notice when using the new GNOME Classic session is that it comes with a <b>light theme</b>, as opposed to the standard GNOME Shell session which uses a dark theme by default. <b>Using this session, you'll get:</b><br /><ul><li>a window list on a panel at the bottom of the screen, with a notification counter at the right;</li><li>an application menu and a places drop-down on the top panel;</li><li>minimize, maximize and close buttons by default (the standard GNOME Shell only uses a close button);</li><li>classic ALT + TAB;</li><li>the clock / calendar has been moved to the right.</li></ul></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The extensions used by the new GNOME Classic session</b> are: AlternateTab, Places Status Indicator, Applications Menu, Static workspaces, Window List, Default Minimize and Maximize and Launch New Instance.</div><br />Here are some screenshots:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_2.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: menu"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: menu" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_2_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_3.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: Places"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: Places" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_3_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_4.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: user menu"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: user menu" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_4_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_5.png" rel="image_group" title="GNOME Classic session: Activities Overview (black background probably because I'm using it in VirtualBox)"><img alt="GNOME Classic session: Activities Overview (black background probably because I'm using it in VirtualBox)" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic_5_thumb.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(black background probably because I'm using it in VirtualBox)</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-alt-tab.png" rel="image_group" title="Classic ALT + Tab"><img alt="Classic ALT + Tab" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-alt-tab_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Since these are just extensions on top of GNOME Shell, <b>there are some advantages over the old fallback mode: you'll be able to use GNOME Shell's features </b>such as the <b>Activities Overview</b>, get <b>GNOME Shell notifications</b>, <b>use other extensions</b> and so on. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="GNOME Classic: notifications"><img alt="GNOME Classic: notifications" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notifications</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications_2.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="GNOME Classic: notifications and message tray"><img alt="GNOME Classic: notifications and message tray" src="http://img.netupd8.com/gnome-classic-notifications_2_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notifications / message tray</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But there are some <b>disadvantages </b>too: the extensions bundled with the new GNOME Classic session are very simple and with only some basic features so users coming from the old fallback session will probably miss some of its features. For instance, right clicking an item on the bottom panel doesn't do anything, you can't right click a panel to add new applets (and there are no applets), there are no tray icons on the top panel and so on. </div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Further more, while the notification count is displayed at the right of the bottom panel which is nice, the actual notifications are displayed at the bottom (center) just like in the standard GNOME Shell session, so they show up on top of the window list which is pretty annoying, as you can see in the screenshots above.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>GNOME Shell 3.8 is still under development, so the GNOME Classic session extensions will probably be polished further,</b> but even so, they still won't get all the features that were available in the old classic / fallback session so I wonder if this will be enough to please all those users who were using the old fallback session. What do you think?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you want to test these changes in Ubuntu 12.10* or 13.04, you'll have to add the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3">GNOME 3 PPA</a> as well as the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~ricotz/+archive/testing/+packages">GNOME Testing PPA</a> (but the GNOME Testing PPA is highly unstable so I advise you to only use it in a virtual machine), then run a "dist-upgrade". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">* In my test, the new GNOME Classic session didn't show up in the login screen for Ubuntu 12.10 for some reason, but it was available for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>thanks to deusmetallum @ <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/184sgx/gnomeclassic_now_available_in_the_gnometesting/">Reddit</a></i></div>

A Quick Look At The New GNOME Classic Session (Now Available In The GNOME Testing PPA)

As you probably know, the fallback mode will be dropped with GNOME 3.8 and instead, users will be able to use a set of GNOME Shell extensio...

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Ubuntu GNOME Remix 13.04 Replaces GNOME Packagekit With Ubuntu Software Center

<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/10/prefer-gnome-shell-download-ubuntu.html">Ubuntu GNOME Remix 12.10</a> uses GNOME Packagekit ("Software") as the default package management application, but this will change in Raring Ringtail.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A recent <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/raring/+source/ubuntu-gnome-meta/0.5">update</a> in Ubuntu GNOME 13.04 Raring Ringtail (currently under development) has removed GNOME Packagekit from the default applications, replacing it with Ubuntu Software Center and Ubuntu's Update Manager.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/gs-usc.png"><img alt="Ubuntu GNOME Remix Software Center" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/gs-usc_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">According to a <a href="https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/msg00145.html">post</a> on a mailing list by Jeremy Bicha, the main Ubuntu GNOME developer, GNOME Packagekit is currently "<i>pretty disappointing</i>", while Ubuntu Software Center is "<i>one of Ubuntu's best features with ratings and reviews, screenshots, app icons, access to commercial software, and decent search</i>", so even though this change will slightly affect the pure GNOME3 desktop experience that Ubuntu GNOME Remix is trying to achieve, it will definitely provide a better overall default experience.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Further more, this won't be the first GNOME distribution that ships with its own software management application: Mageia and openSUSE do this too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, as you probably know, Ubuntu GNOME Remix 12.10 includes the classic session by default (along with GNOME Shell, which is the default session, obviously). Well, the same 13.04 update brought another pretty major change: even though Ubuntu 13.04 is likely to <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/ubuntu-1304-only-some-gnome-components.html">ship with GNOME 3.6 for the most part</a>, and not 3.8 (which will remove the fallback session), <b>the classic (fallback) session packages were removed from the default Ubuntu GNOME Remix 13.04 Raring Ringtail installation</b>.</div>

Ubuntu GNOME Remix 13.04 Replaces GNOME Packagekit With Ubuntu Software Center

Ubuntu GNOME Remix 12.10 uses GNOME Packagekit ("Software") as the default package management application, but this will change i...

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Fallback Mode (Classic Session) To Be Dropped From GNOME 3.8

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OmKT5NXIjDk/UJweUW8JBiI/AAAAAAAALwY/XniJnoaArNc/s1600/gnome-fallback.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="gnome fallback mode" border="0" height="208" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OmKT5NXIjDk/UJweUW8JBiI/AAAAAAAALwY/XniJnoaArNc/s320/gnome-fallback.png" title="gnome fallback mode" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The fallback mode, also known as the classic GNOME session, will no longer be included starting with GNOME 3.8, the next stable GNOME release.</b> Users running computers without graphical acceleration can use GNOME Shell through <a href="http://www.mesa3d.org/llvmpipe.html">llvmpipe</a>, which is already supported for some releases.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><blockquote>I'm <a href="https://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2012-November/msg00009.html">writing</a> to inform you that the release team discussed ["<a href="https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode">Drop or Fix Fallback Mode</a>"] yesterday. We've come to the conclusion that we can't maintain fallback mode in reasonable quality, and are better off dropping it.</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The GNOME 3.8 features page <a href="https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode">mentions</a> some of the <b>reasons behind the decision </b>to drop the fallback mode of which, the most important one seems that "<b>it's in maintenance mode</b>", without no new features or active development for a long time. <b>Other reasons include:</b></div><ul><li>nearly nobody actively tests it</li><li>the presence of fallback mode is having a negative impact on the quality of the primary GNOME 3 user experience</li><li>several apps such as Totem or Cheese now require Clutter and can't work without GL. Thus they won't work in fallback mode</li><li>some changes in the architecture require additional work to keep things somewhat working in fallback, even though they won't offer the full experience</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Dropping the follback mode doesn't just mean there will be no more classic GNOME session. With it, <b>some GNOME modules might go away</b>, like Metacity, GNOME Panel, GNOME Applets, notification-daemon, GNOME Screensaver, polkit-gnome and nm-applet. Furthermore, <b>this decision affects Unity, LXDE or Xfce too</b> because they make use of some fallback components like tray icons of GNOME Settings Daemon. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But not all is bad, because <b>dropping the fallback mode means that some modules </b>like GNOME Control Center, GDM or Nautilus <b>could be simplified</b>, mentions the "Drop or Fix Fallback Mode" <a href="https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode">page</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The GNOME developers didn't forget about the users who prefer a <b>GNOME 2-like layout</b>, and it looks like they will <b>compile</b> and maybe help maintain <b>a list of GNOME Shell extensions</b> that provide such a layout.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ubuntu users don't have to worry about this just yet, since the next Ubuntu version - 13.04 Raring Ringtail -, will <a title="Ubuntu 13.04: Only Some GNOME Components To Be Updated, GTK Not One Of Them" href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/ubuntu-1304-only-some-gnome-components.html">continue to use GNOME 3.6 for the most part</a> and not the latest GNOME 3.8 which will ship without the fallback mode.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://worldofgnome.org/gnome-3-8-is-dropping-fallback-mode/">worldofgnome.org</a>, <a href="https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode">live.gnome.org</a> and gnome <a href="https://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2012-November/msg00009.html">release-team</a> mailing list</i></div>

Fallback Mode (Classic Session) To Be Dropped From GNOME 3.8

The fallback mode, also known as the classic GNOME session, will no longer be included starting with GNOME 3.8, the next stable GNOME releas...

+ Read more »