timliim
23rd April 2012, 03:19 AM
This projcet is for those who want to use GNOME2 on Fedora 16 (17, 18, ... when possible). For those who are happy with GNOME3, you can safely skip this one.
What is GNOME2.F16 (http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/GNOME2.F16.html)?
From the name it is clear that this project is for running GNOME2 on Fedora 16. It is a perl script (gnome2.build.pl (http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/gnome2.build.pl)) that downloads selected GNOME2 src rpm from Fedora 14, compiles and installs on Fedora 16. The end result is a mix of GNOME2 and GNOME3 on Fedora 16, with the UI (metacity, session manger, screen saver, applets, etc.) from GNOME2, and the rest from GNOME3.
There are already other projects (eg. Blue Bubble, MATE, Cinnamon) aiming to bring GNOME2 experience to newer Fedora Linux. However I still need these two items:
a screen saver that can display the photos I have.
build from Fedora-sanctioned source code.
The first one is easy. I feel ashamed to tell people that my Fedora box can no longer display my thousands of photos with screen saver, which their Windows box is fully capable of.
My second goal is to build the whole project with existing Fedora source, with minimum injection from me. The GNOME2 will come from Fedora 14. Whatever parts I can use on Fedora 16 is fine. With no binaries release from this project, this reduces the chance of people asking, "Who is this Tim the tool guy? Can I trust his binary release?"
This tool is intended as an interim solution, until some long term solution emerges on Fedora. Specifically, I need a screensaver that are capable of showing photos.
Credit
This project is inspired by
the Blue Bubble project (by Nushio et al) and
the MATE project (by Perberos et al).
(I was not aware of the Cinnamon project when I started, so I cannot include Cinnamon, yet.)
How to use it?
A Fedora 16 box with minimum installation (no GUI needed; in anaconda, select "minimum" for package selection).
yum install -y perl createrepo
download gnome2.build.pl (http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/gnome2.build.pl) from the GNOME2.F16 project.
run it as any non-root user with sudo privilege (this takes an hour or two on my VM.)
perl ./gnome2.build.pl --build-and-install
sudo gnome2-install.sh
sudo reboot
On some machines the GDM login window may not show. The work around is to hit <ESC> key during plymouth graphical boot to use text mode boot. A longer term workaround is to remove “rhgb” from kernel args in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.
The usual pre-caution applies:
Do not try this on any box with data that you want to keep.
Of course there are bugs as this is an experimental project. However there are not-too-bad workarounds for known bugs.
For those who wishes to download binaries directly, you may use my build (the same gnome2-repo.rpm works for both x86_64 and i386):
rpm -i http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/i386/os/gnome2-repo-1.0-1.fc16.noarch.rpm
gnome2-install.sh
See GNOME2.F16 home page for known issues and workarounds.
http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/GNOME2.F16.html
Cheers,
Tim Taiwanese Liim
What is GNOME2.F16 (http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/GNOME2.F16.html)?
From the name it is clear that this project is for running GNOME2 on Fedora 16. It is a perl script (gnome2.build.pl (http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/gnome2.build.pl)) that downloads selected GNOME2 src rpm from Fedora 14, compiles and installs on Fedora 16. The end result is a mix of GNOME2 and GNOME3 on Fedora 16, with the UI (metacity, session manger, screen saver, applets, etc.) from GNOME2, and the rest from GNOME3.
There are already other projects (eg. Blue Bubble, MATE, Cinnamon) aiming to bring GNOME2 experience to newer Fedora Linux. However I still need these two items:
a screen saver that can display the photos I have.
build from Fedora-sanctioned source code.
The first one is easy. I feel ashamed to tell people that my Fedora box can no longer display my thousands of photos with screen saver, which their Windows box is fully capable of.
My second goal is to build the whole project with existing Fedora source, with minimum injection from me. The GNOME2 will come from Fedora 14. Whatever parts I can use on Fedora 16 is fine. With no binaries release from this project, this reduces the chance of people asking, "Who is this Tim the tool guy? Can I trust his binary release?"
This tool is intended as an interim solution, until some long term solution emerges on Fedora. Specifically, I need a screensaver that are capable of showing photos.
Credit
This project is inspired by
the Blue Bubble project (by Nushio et al) and
the MATE project (by Perberos et al).
(I was not aware of the Cinnamon project when I started, so I cannot include Cinnamon, yet.)
How to use it?
A Fedora 16 box with minimum installation (no GUI needed; in anaconda, select "minimum" for package selection).
yum install -y perl createrepo
download gnome2.build.pl (http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/gnome2.build.pl) from the GNOME2.F16 project.
run it as any non-root user with sudo privilege (this takes an hour or two on my VM.)
perl ./gnome2.build.pl --build-and-install
sudo gnome2-install.sh
sudo reboot
On some machines the GDM login window may not show. The work around is to hit <ESC> key during plymouth graphical boot to use text mode boot. A longer term workaround is to remove “rhgb” from kernel args in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.
The usual pre-caution applies:
Do not try this on any box with data that you want to keep.
Of course there are bugs as this is an experimental project. However there are not-too-bad workarounds for known bugs.
For those who wishes to download binaries directly, you may use my build (the same gnome2-repo.rpm works for both x86_64 and i386):
rpm -i http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/i386/os/gnome2-repo-1.0-1.fc16.noarch.rpm
gnome2-install.sh
See GNOME2.F16 home page for known issues and workarounds.
http://formosa.homelinux.com/pub/fedora/gnome2/GNOME2.F16.html
Cheers,
Tim Taiwanese Liim
