Natty 11.04 - nearly like 10.10!

[teicah]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 05:20:52PM +1000, Stephen Kuhn wrote:
> On a test machine, eMachines M350, 1gb RAM, integrated Intel graphics
> (shared RAM), 160gb HD.
> 
> Originally, Natty's performance (brown bag) was absolutely horrible;
> without any changes, just straight out of the "box".
> 
> As I've said, I can't stand Unity, or Gnome Shell, for that matter, so
> in order to make this system "usable" by my standards, I had to put it
> back to the way that I like, and feel the most comfortable with.
> 
> What I'm happy with:
> 
> * Gnome2
> * Compiz + Emerald
> * Cairo-dock
> * "Normal" scrollbars
> 
> Right, so first things first, I had to get rid of Unity as I did not
> want to have to resort to "choose at the GDM". Ok, easy enough. Log out,
> choose "Gnome Classic", login. In Synaptics Package Manager, locate
> "Unity" and remove it. As well, I hate the scrollbars, so I located
> "scrollbar-overlay" and the associated lib - for removal. Applied that,
> then ran "sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get autoremove"
> to make sure everything was hunky-dory. Again, prior to rebooting, I
> also made sure I had all the bits and bobs of Gnome that I wanted -
> especially all the Gnome2 stuff that I "require", along with all the
> restricted "extras" (had to also edit the /etc/apt/sources.list" to make
> sure everything was THERE). All good. Again, for giggles and grins, ran
> "sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get autoremove" - fine.
> Reboot time.
> 
> After getting to the desktop and making sure that fusion-icon was doing
> it's bit, whoa - I noticed that Emerald wasn't doing it's job -
> decorating the windows and hey, I didn't have proper control of the
> windows! Right oh - search a tad, and hey, whaddya know? The version of
> Emerald that's in the repo's AIN'T compatible with the version of compiz
> (0.9.2) that we're using! Oh dang! However, by following the link at:
> http://ubuntugenius.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/ubuntu-11-04-fix-enable-emerald-themes-for-compiz-fusion-window-borders-title-bars/
> ...and reading/installing/following the instructions, I was able to get
> emerald via git, rebuild it to suit the "new" version of compiz, and
> hey! Don't ya know! Works like a charm! (Just had to double check some
> of my compiz settings and make sure everything was great). Yeehaw!
> 
> Now, regardless of what anyone thinks of compiz/fusion/emerald, and how
> it impacts performance, I'll say that I'm more than happy having my old
> "desktop" back - even on a cheesy little netbook that did NOT fly under
> 11.04+Unity, but now, under 11.04+Gnome2+Compiz, it's moving heaps
> faster and heaps more responsive than I witnessed under the old regime.
> Very happy with this.
> 
> Now after doing a few other little tweaks here and there (tweaking
> the /etc/sysctl.conf, hdparm.conf, adding dnscache-run) I'm feeling that
> the performance is a bit better than my old install of 10.10 on this
> machine...so, from the past, I'm not knocking 11.04, just the "gift
> wrap" it came in. Stripping out the "junk" or "cruft" made all the
> difference in the world - down to doing simple things like playing vids,
> scanning wireless networks, and producing invoices for clients (oh yeah,
> and running MMC to convert vid formats) - lovely.
> 
> Possibly, when 11.10 or 12.04 comes out, "Jasper" will be the "Emerald"
> of compiz, Unity will have grown up a bit and will work nicely with
> Gnome3, Gnome Shell will have grown up a bit and gotten a bit more
> ergonomic, however, that's for another date and time.
> 
> -- 
> yankdownunder
> reg'd linux user #267497
> --------------------------------------
> Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire.
> --------------------------------------
> I run linux, now go STFU.
> 
> 
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I just might give 11.04 a try/download based on your experience.  I am
still on 10.10.  I would not go as far as git'ing emerald.

I am not sure why the developers tried imitating gnome-shell with unity.
Why reinvent the wheel?
-- 
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