Downgrading Gnome to 2.4

someguy42 · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:55 am Post subject: Downgrading Gnome to 2.4

OK, so emerging Gnome 2.6 apparently wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. I use Openbox 3 as my primary default, but have Gnome installed for some of the included apps like Gedit. Plus, my wife likes Gnome, so last eve, I burned many clock cycles emerging 2.6.
As far as I can tell, all I get out of it is many clock cycles, and now hours, that I'll never get back.

The upgrade broke Openbox's startup by completely ignoring my /etc/X11/Sessions/openbox. After much time spent repairing that one, I get logged into my desktop, only to find that EVERYTHING else I use on my desktop is now severely FUBAR. :evil:

ROX-Filer starts, gives an error about a broken icon theme, and promptly exits, dumping my desktop icons.
Gkrellm starts in the upper left corner, outside the dock and its fonts are now completely screwed up, making it extend off the top and bottom of my screen.
2/3 of the sessions I had in GDM no longer even appear in the list.
The mediocre "spatial" Nautilus and the admittedly decent new GTK file selector are not nearly worth this much headache.
The bottom line is this: I want to downgrade Gnome to 2.6. I mean all of it. GDM, GTK, Nautilus; the whole damn thing. Once I'm there, I won't be returning to Gnome. Not even after they've got it in shape to not break everything else in the world. They've lost me.
So, how is it done? How do I get this damn thing out of my system and back to the version where everything actually worked? Is there a nice, neat little command I can add to an emerge gnome to make it go away?

Edit: Toasted XChat too.
Edit2: And Rhythmbox's ability to sort files by name. This is getting worse by the minute now.
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someguy42 · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 3:46 am Post subject:

OK, found the first thing that I've liked about 2.6 so far. Back when my system was still using 2.4, I had set Gnome to use openbox for my WM, but it had never actually detected the setting. Just noticed now that OB is my WM under 2.6, which is something 2.4 had never figured out. Still, any suggestions? Is it possible to force install the base Gnome 2.4 package, regardless of what version's installed?
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Hypnos · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 4:23 am Post subject:

Unmerge gnome, then clean all the deps with "emerge depclean" (use with caution, blah blah)

Then, re-emerge the version of GNOME you like.

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I'm not sure why you are so upset at GNOME, per se -- it seems that the problems you are having are related more to packaging: display manager scripts, version mismatch between GNOME and GKrellm and ROX, etc. Perhaps development versions of your favorite apps will behave better.
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ecatmur · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 4:24 am Post subject:

Heh. I sympathise with your problems, but perhaps you should be more cautious in future emerging masked software.
I hope you read up on how to create .desktop files for the new GDM (as specified in its configuration file).
It's a pity about GKrellm not working with GTK 2.4; worse is that the author shows no sign of wanting to fix it. Still, I guess he'll have to sooner or later; or maybe someone will fix it themselves.
Interesting about ROX-Filer breaking; were you using a Gnome icon theme? Have you tried switching icon theme?
X-Chat works for me - have you tried remerging?
Rhythmbox is under active development; remerge to be certain, then file a bug and I'm sure it'll be fixed soon.

Basically, you don't go round upgrading pivotal libraries (Gtk, libgnome, gnomevfs, gstreamer) and expect absolutely everything to work perfectly and immediately.

If you are sure about reverting to Gnome 2.4, you can remove your unmask and redo an emerge -Duav world; this will force a downgrade. Make sure you depclean afterwards to flush out new dependencies.

However, fairly soon Gnome and the Gnome libraries will have the latest versions moved from masked to unstable and then to stable; you will need to set up your own package masks if you wish to prevent upgrades; and eventually, of course, the libraries will stop working due to bitrot, so you will have to use Gnome 2.6 sooner or later.

someguy42 · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 4:36 am Post subject:

Yeah, the gkrellm thing's a shame. He'll come around eventually.
ROX was using the same icon theme that it's been using since I emerged it, about 2 weeks before installing 2.4 on this install the first time.
X-Chat works, after a fashion. The login/server screen appears, and works fine, but when I click Connect, it dumps core and disappears. It's in the reemerge list I've got running now to see if anything gets fixed, as is Rhythmbox and ROX.
Wish I could post a screen of what Rhythmbox does, too. I've got a long list of sound files, all with similar file names. The only difference in the file names is a number, ex. file_1, file_2. Suddenly, 63, 18, 6, 37 became valid numerical order.

Oddly, I've been through major version upgrades of everything down to glibc before without breaking this much stuff. emerge -uD world-s have gone smoother than this. I know, I know, emerge masked stuff at your own risk.

Mid-comment-writing update: reemerging Xchat did the trick.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20090

I wonder if any of these issues would be solved when the ebuild is "final". Have you submitted any bug reports?
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rfujimoto · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 195

Most of the programs can be re-emerged to fix them. However, there are a few programs that you'll have to wait for an upstream patch from what I've seen.

Mongrol · Guru Joined: 14 Sep 2002 Posts: 376

I feel the exact same was as Sameguy. I was using Openbox3 and ROX and was very happy with it. After installing gnome2.6 I now feel very bitter (mostly unjustified) and can longer even stand the sight of it. My problems are similar.

ROX is broken due to the icon themes I was using. I can't find the config files for it to reset it to defaults.

gnome-settings-daemon no longer exists. I was using this to set gtk themes, mouse settings etc.

I also seem to be missing some expected gnome-apps. The new multimedia players are nowhere to be seen as the filetypes are still set to xmms and mplayer. Infact, my menus haven't changed at all and are still the exact same as my old 2.4 install. There's a distinct lack of themes too, wheres the new lush theme and that amaranth one that was supposed to be included?

I would dearly love to rub it out completely and start again but gnome likes to stash config data like a plague and I fear I'll never get a clean system again.[/list]

deathdruid · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:30 pm Post subject:

Since Gnome 2.6 comes with a new version of GTK+, all your old apps should probably be re-emerged. Not sure if the GTK+ ebuild nukes the 2.2 version, or installs 2.4 alongside it, since I did a fresh install.

As for Lush and Amaranth, both are in the gnome-themes-extras package. Did you emerge it after the Gnome upgrade?

ecatmur · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:51 pm Post subject:

gnome-settings-daemon is now in /usr/libexec.

Yes, I know, Gnome arrogance - but it is designed for people using the whole Gnome desktop, not hybrid desktops using Gnome components.

Hypnos · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 10:07 pm Post subject:

blaksaga · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 11:31 pm Post subject:

I have a similar problem since I downgraded from gnome 2.6 to 2.4. All of my fonts in gdesklets and gnome-terminal are blurry and fucked up. I'm working on fixing it...I'll let you know if I figure anything out.

BTW: Be careful with depclean. I just did it and had to reemerge several ebuilds myself (grub included).
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