[Trisquel-devel] Trisquel is based on Ubuntu

[Gaurav Pareek]

On 01/28/2012 06:55 PM, Morne Alberts wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 12:45 PM, David VANTYGHEM
> <david.vantyghem at free.fr> wrote:
>> Mate is based on Gnome 2 and Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3, aren't they?
> MATE is a fork of Gnome 2.
> Cinnamon is a fork of Gnome Shell.
>
>> Mate is packaged for Debian and Linux Mint.
> Take note: I have not used MATE or Cinnamon so I do not speak from experience.
>
> The biggest problem with MATE is that it is neither stable nor on par
> with Gnome 2.32 yet, this is according to the developers and the main
> distro backing it [1] [2]. This reason alone should exclude MATE from
> being the default DE, at least for the next LTS release.
>
> Also, the MATE development team and userbase is much smaller than what
> Gnome 2 had. I do not think it is safe to use something as a default
> if it could potentially have some issues that would end up on our
> doorstep first. We would then have to push these issues upstream and
> it could potentially take a while to get resolved, thus leaving
> Trisquel a bit broken. This might not be the case and perhaps MATE
> will work 100% for all Trisquel users and their developers might be
> really fast and this could even help increase the uptake of MATE.
> However, I do not think Trisquel has the resources currently to
> attempt such a leap of faith.
>
> Cinnamon, being a fork of Gnome Shell, still has the issue of
> graphical acceleration [3].
>
> Leaving the issue of software rendering aside, it seems that the
> second biggest issue regarding DE choice is accessibility. I believe
> this is what Ruben is currently testing with various panels and other
> DE's.
>
>
> [1] http://mate-desktop.org/2011/12/05/hello-world/
> [2] http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_lisa_whatsnew.php
> [3] http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=90670&start=20#p528493
> _______________________________________________
> Trisquel-devel mailing list
> Trisquel-devel at listas.trisquel.info
> http://listas.trisquel.info/mailman/listinfo/trisquel-devel

Having tried both Mate and Cinnamon, and the newer desktops including
gnome-shell,unity and gnome-classic mode, I can deduce the following.

1. Mate is just too big to maintain. The developer chose to fork too
much, and without the required manpower, they can't keep it competitive
enough to appeal to serious users/distros.

2. Cinnamon, being a fork of gnome-shell, brings some nice eye-candy,
but removes the best features from it in the crusade for providing a
familiar layout. Whatever it is, it still requires 3d h/w acceleration
to work.

3. The only full fledged DEs that provide the facility of running the
same environment with or without 3d acceleration, one of the best
features of the old gnome, are the Gnome-classic and KDE plasma. Since
we maintain a gtk based system, gnome-classic with gnome-panel3 is our
best bet, because it's both functional and accesible.

I believe that with some tweaking, gnome3 classic can be the perfect
classic desktop experience presently(though i'll still use gnome-shell).

-- 
grvrulz <Gaurav Pareek>
_________________________
Freedom is Awesome_______|