ubuntu-gnome team mailing list archive

[Britt Yazel <bwyazel@xxxxxxxxx>]

It is imperative that the Ubuntu Gnome Remix gets its own PPA rather than
using the gnome3-team PPA, and I will explain why:

Today, the Gnome3-team PPA broke my system. It caused GDM to be completely
non responsive with solely a spinning mouse cursor, and I had to do a
ppa-purge simply to get my system back into working order. Now, on the
information page we recommend that people install this PPA in order to get
updated Gnome3 components such as nautilus 3.6, but anyone who has done so
as of today should have a borked system. This is a fairly big deal to this
teams credibility.

As a long time Kubuntu user, I look to their methods as a way that this
team could pattern in order to work seamlessly with the greater Ubuntu
ecosystem whilst still maintaining our own needs. Right now, both the main
Ubuntu desktop and the Ubuntu-Gnome-Remix share many gnome packages,
although each is aspiring to gain different ends from these packages, and
often times a decision that may work well for Ubuntu/Unity, wont
necessarily meet the needs of this project. This is where I see a
Ubuntu-Gnome PPA coming in handy:

While many of the Gnome Desktop packages can reside in the general Ubuntu
repositories, there will be circumstances where alternative packages will
be needed for the Ubuntu Gnome Remix. These packages could sit in a
separate repository so that users of this derivation can benefit from them
without disturbing the rest of the Ubuntu ecosystem. This is how Kubuntu
does it with it's "ppa:kubuntu-ppa" where it releases kde desktop version
updates and alterations to better suit the Kubuntu desktop experience
(however it is not installed by default). I recommend that we do the same,
however we have it installed by default, so that we can include the updated
packages for nautilus, gnome-themes, and all of the other updated Gnome3
packages where Ubuntu has held their version numbers back or made changes
that do not work for what we are aspiring to create.

In this way, the repository in which our users are getting their updates
from is controlled by us, suits our needs, and contains tested package
versions not to cause breakages...like the Gnome3-team ppa currently is
doing.

This I believe would reduce the current variability that exists with
referring users to a third party repository for well needed updates, and
puts more desktop control in our hands, rather than trying to tiptoe around
what works for Ubuntu/Unity and making compromises where we should not be.

In order to feel and function like a real Ubuntu version, I believe this is
a necessary step. And, it works beautifully for Kubuntu as a proof of
concept, and I think we could even expand on this idea further.

Cheers everyone, and I hope we can all work towards making this a fantastic
Ubuntu derivative!

 -Britt Yazel