Links 25/01/2014: GNOME Desktop/Shell/Alternatives Roundup
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-25 20:51:32 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-25 20:51:32 UTC
Summary: News about GNOME desktop and desktops that are derived from it
GNOME Desktop/Shell
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Most Linux distros bundle GNOME desktop environment (DE) with even minor version numbers (3.8.x, 3.10.x). Like Fedora was released with GNOME 3.10.3. The version 3.11.2 was available in November but it was not bundled .The reason behind it is that GNOME takes a different approach to their software releases. The odd minor versions (3.9, 3.11) of GNOME are development versions of the subsequent even versions (3.10, 3.12). So the .11 version is roughly an alpha version of the .12 branch.
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For a while it looked like Ubuntu 14.04 would stick to a GNOME 3.8 world, for the GNOME packages it ships in Ubuntu Linux as newer packages are partially held back by Ubuntu dependencies for their Unity desktop. Previously blocking the GNOME 3.10 update in Ubuntu was the GNOME Control Center, which ended up being forked by Canonical until their own Ubuntu System Settings can be developed.
Alternatives
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Surely users must be ready for a change from the default Gnome Shell theme by now. I have sampled some of the available Gnome Shell themes on Fedora 20 and now you can see them for yourself. A new shell theme will not change your entire desktop, but it will provide a new look for the activities overview window, and the Gnome indicator applet panel.
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I get a lot of queries regarding the difference(s) between the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments. And of course such queries tend to come from those new to Linux and Free Software.
For the benefit of those class of users, this very brief article summarizes the key difference between these two desktop environments. Nothing technical, just basic stuff that will help those users to better understand what their options are. And because a picture is worth more than a thousand words, there are a couple of galleries to complete the picture.
Applications
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GNOME has finally updated the look and feel of their text editor, gedit. The app has been redesigned to match the newer GNOME 3 interface guidelines.
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The GNOME Project has also announced today that a new development release of the Epiphany 3.12 web browser for the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is now available for download and testing.
Epiphany 3.11.3 adds HTTPS (secure HTTP) support for both the DuckDuckGo and Google search engines, improves the looks of the location bar and the downloads bar, improves filename suggestion for downloads, and cleans up the style of the about: pages.
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Dconf 0.19.3 introduces various improvements in the test coverage area, adds a proper DCONF_ERROR error domain, suppress the GLib deprecation warnings during the build process, correctly handles writability changes in GSettings, displays warnings about missing files only once per source, and it will link to -ldl only if it is required.
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The GNOME Project has released the fourth development release towards the Eye of GNOME 3.12 application, which will be the default image viewer for the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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GVFS 1.19.4 introduces pull support for gPhoto2 and implements truncate and seek support for output streams for the DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol.
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The GNOME Project has announced a new development version towards GNOME PackageKit 3.12, a graphical user interface (GUI) for the powerful PackageKit software, which will be used in the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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The GNOME development team behind the Glib project, a library used in the GNOME desktop environment, has announced the immediate availability for download of Glib 2.39.3, which introduces lots of fixes.
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Dubbed Spoilers, the third development version of the upcoming GNOME Documents 3.12 software, the main document viewer of the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, has been made available for testing.
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The GNOME Project has announced that a second development release towards the upcoming GNOME Weather 3.12 application that will be available in the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is available for testing.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- A Microsoft Lunduke OS (LCOS) is Not Even in Top 100 in DisroWatch, Microsoft Lunduke Just Games the Numbers Like Linspire Did (and Got 'Banned' for It)
- Linspire used to send people to 'its' DisroWatch page to make the illusion of popularity
- Daniel Pocock Makes It Into Mainstream Media Again (Going After Racists)
- American bigots funding blatant and shameless racists here in the UK
- Another Woman (or Women) Has Just Run Away From Brett Wilson LLP (After Barely a Month!), the Hired Guns of Garrett and Graveley (Microsoft)
- They call this phenomenon "death spiral"
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 200 Out of 200: Will GNU Boot Undo the Technical Damage Caused by Microsoft and Garrett? (And Garrett's Litigation Allies From Microsoft)
- Today we publish the final part of this series
- Things Not to Measure in Quantity Alone
- More patents do not beget greater innovation
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 199 Out of 200: An American Burden on the British Legal System
- A year ago (October 2025) the head of media (Jointly in Charge of the Media and Communications List), the judge in the Garrett case, said that this case was a waste of the court's money
- Criminalising Opposition to Fraud
- slop causes social issues
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- Gemini Links 25/09/2026: Arvelie Calendar, 44net, Pebbles, and Building the Bagel Concert Finder
- Links for the day
- Large Wave of IBM PIPs, the RAs Wave Comes After 'Low-Hanging' Fruit (Families) Disposed of
- PIPs are the new RAs
- Links 25/09/2026: Carcinogen Atrazine Pollutes Americans' Bodies, "Donald the Deadbeat Does Diesel", and Anger Over Data Centres Grows
- Links for the day
- Theory That Microsoft Cheapens Its Workforce to Push Workers Out on Their Own (Theory Advanced by Insider)
- people work longer hours for less, i.e. their hourly salary is decreasing
- Tackling Racism in the United Kingdom (Racism Funded by Americans) Using the Courts
- We'll talk about racism my wife and I experienced in the events leading up to litigation
- US Government Sites Can Now Totally Ignore Mozilla Firefox Users or Users of Firefox Derivatives
- Firefox, now at 1.1% in the US (based on American government sites), has sunken to the point of no return
- Even Microsoft Boosters Start to Doubt XBox Will Exist (It's Being Phased Out, Just Not "Officially")
- This is how to phase out a business unit without officially saying so (as it might alarm investors)
- Omarchy is Built on the Idea That Slop is Desirable (It's Not)
- They call bots and plagiarism "agents" and "training"
- IBM is Shrinking Very Fast (Silent, Unannounced Layoffs)
- IBM and Microsoft both avoid WARN notices by compelling staff to leave or silently removing them with some NDA
- In Some Parts of Microsoft 50% of All Staff Subjected to Layoffs, Media Pretends Only 0.1% of Staff Are Removed
- This really says a lot about the state of today's so-called 'media'
- EPO Management Wants Everything to be Done in Microsoft Spyware
- In reality, this management should be ousted for normalising cocaine at the Office
- The Register MS Does Not Properly Flag Its SPAM About Slop
- Signs of desperation
- Gemini Links 25/09/2026: Ljubljana, Tanana River, and Curse of Slack
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, September 24, 2026
- Supporters of winding-up process staking claims against Reform UK Party (CR-2026-007405)
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Winding-up petition leaked before service on Reform UK Party Limited / Nigel Farage
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 24/09/2026: Laziness, Outdoor Seating, "AngelNova’s Interview Malware and Its North Korea Connection"
- Links for the day
- Links 24/09/2026: Slop "Linked to Disturbing Culture of Sexual Assault"; "Zelensky Warns Russia’s War Will Expand if It Is Not Ended Soon"
- Links for the day
- Winding-up petition served on Reform UK Party Limited (Nigel Farage)
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Appliances Should be Dumb
- Any "Smart Home Appliance" is basically a thing that does not last long, does not work as advertised, and is generally unfit for purpose
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 198 Out of 200: It Sounds Like Garrett is Now Sending People to Silence Critics (Including His Own Spouse)
- This week Garrett is having a somewhat karmic experience
- Links 24/09/2026: Slop Contaminating KDE, Slop-Focused Data Centres Have Severe Environmental Impact
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 197 Out of 200: Garrett Became So Poor That He Wants Others (in Another Continent) to Pay for His Own Legal Work Being Faulty
- They lie to courts
- The Register MS Has Become a Slopfest
- This is the behaviour of a perishing publisher
- Gemini Links 24/09/2026: Requiem for a Season, Philosophy, Rube-Goldberg Machine, ROOPHLOCH 2026, and Git over Gemini
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 23, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 23, 2026
- IBM Grapevine: Development Outsourced to LLM Slop and It Results in Many Bugs
- IBM is circling down the drain and every insider knows it
- Microsoft Gives Many People the 'Booty' This Week, Not Counting PIPs (Silent Layoffs and 'Voluntary' Layoffs)
- Microsoft PIPs allegedly target "20-25% in some teams."
- Nearly 1,000 People at EPO 'Met' to Plan Further Strikes and Impending Action to Dethrone Corrupt Leadership
- Exploring the purchasing "power" of EPO leadership (buying elections while doing cocaine in public)
- Links 23/09/2026: Pax Silica Hub Ruins a Country for a Pyramid Scheme (Slop), Convicted Felon's Press Block Resembles Iran, Russia, China
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/09/2026: Stuck, Gambling, Fury Road, IPFS, and More
- Links for the day
- The Register Got Paid Today to Spew Out "AI" Almost 50 Times (Keeping the Pyramid Scheme Buzzing in Headlines)
- paid-for spam
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 196 Out of 200: Sending Someone to Our Doorstep to Ship Approximately 5 KG of Legal Papers (Instead of to Our Representatives)
- it is not about law, this is lawfare
- IBM's Anderon Already Smells Like a Fraud and IBM Insiders Heckle the Lies From the Management
- Sabine Hossenfelder recently made some videos which explain in simple terms why IBM is lying and has already lied about this for years
- Links 23/09/2026: Mass-Surveillance by Clownflare and "Data Centre" Crunch Commences
- Links for the day
- Same Name/Brand, Not the Same Project/Product
- What is Linux becoming?
- Germany, Like Switzerland, Will Dump Microsoft's Proprietary Software and Disservices, Then Dump Windows for GNU/Linux
- This impacts not only the Windows revenue; this corrodes any "rents" Microsoft was getting from "subscriptions"
- 3 Years Divorced From Americans
- Next year we plan to pursue the UK's Court of Appeal
- The Register MS Uses Slop About Slop (in Images)
- Months ago we caught The Register MS using slop for text as well
- There Are Likely Over a Thousand Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Networks Online, Net Gain of 16 Seen This Month by Andreas Gelhausen's netsplit.de
- It's good that they're still tracking that sort of stuff
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 195 Out of 200: Two Years Since Garrett, Graveley and Lozza Worked in Parallel to Censor Techrights
- It began in September 2024, shortly after we had sued Garrett
- Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 8 - In Conclusion
- this can invite more SCO-like problems in the future
- Microsoft Shuts Down More Studios, Morale Low, More Mass Layoffs Ahead of Reports
- They pretend it's not happening or that it's a lot smaller than it actually is
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 22, 2026
- Gemini Links 23/09/2026: Ljubljana, Poetry, and FORTRAN
- Links for the day
