GNOME 3.6 and funtoo-gnome-overlay

[Daniel Robbins]

Hi All,

Having a clean emerge of GNOME is a priority for me and for many others, and we have been having issues with GNOME breaking due to upstream (Gentoo) changes.

To resolve this issue, bug FL-948 was created (http://bugs.funtoo.org/browse/FL-948), and thanks to the help of Jean-Francis Roy and several others, we were able to create a separate funtoo-gnome-overlay which contains a reliable build of GNOME 3.6. 

We are currently using funtoo-gnome-overlay as the source for GNOME ebuilds in your Portage tree, so that things should remain a lot more stable in Funtoo. The goal is to always have GNOME emergeable by selecting the desktop flavor, the gnome mix-in, and then emerging gnome.

For those who are interested in GNOME 3.10+, we are planning to begin support of a GNOME 3.10 build called FOAM, which will use systemd instead of OpenRC. I am giving it its own name because GNOME is now essentially its own stack, from PID 1 on up, and is distinct from Funtoo. Once FOAM is working nicely, we will be looking at mechanisms to run FOAM in parallel with Funtoo on a single system.

Thanks to everyone who helped with getting a stable GNOME 3.6 in Funtoo, and please test :)

Best Regards,

Daniel

[Guy Fontaine]

This is very welcome.

I for one am very interested in FOAM (BTW what's the meaning of this acronyme ?)

I'm currently running GNOME 3.10, thanks to JF. Desktop itself seems to be quite stable. I have no real problem with systemd. Migration from OpenRC to systemd ain't a nightmare. There's a good wiki about the subject here.

Guy

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[Daniel Robbins]

Hi Guy,

I have not figured out the meaning of the acronym yet. Suggestions welcome ;)

Since OpenRC is a key part of what makes Funtoo "Funtoo", we need to call something with systemd something else. Then I have no problem supporting it. So I am not planning to support migration from OpenRC to systemd in Funtoo. But we can support a full systemd environment in FOAM.

Regards,

Daniel

[Raphael Bastos]

Good idea drobbins. Systemd seems is usable. :P

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Raphael Bastos aka Coffnix

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[Guy Fontaine]

Hi Daniel,

In reading your reply, I understand that there will be a FOAM stage 3. It will provide a systemd-ready pre-compiled system to start installation from. That means sensible packages will be compiled with systemd USE flag. What one will have to do is to configure system in using systemctl and localectl. It sounds good. I do think FOAM profile will include systemd and -consolekit global USE flags. No matter how chroot is done, chrooted environment needs systemd being installed.

Now about acronyme,,, I thought FO meant FUNTOO OVERLAY. But as by now I'm really short of any suggestions for AM. Is there any reason why you picked FOAM up ?

Regards,

Guy

[Guy Fontaine]

Hi Raphael,

Yes systemd is usable. I do run GNOME 3.10.

BTW... I don't have a facebook account.

Guy

[Jonathan Vasquez]

I suggest that FOAM doesn't stand for anything but rather keep the imagery of the extra residue left by soap.. Aka.. systemd is nothing more than whatever little pieces are left after Funtoo is complete.

[Guy Fontaine]

Hey Hey ! Jonathan,,, seens you're not a fan of systemd :lol:

Your suggestion reveals a great sense of humor. I like it.

[Jonathan Vasquez]

Lol you are correct, and thank you.

[Jacob Godserv]

FOAM: Funtoo of Another Mother. ;)

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[Daniel Robbins]

Not bad ;)

[Raphael Bastos]

LOL

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Raphael Bastos aka Coffnix

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[David Abbott]

FOAM: Funtoo On A Mission :P

David Abbott (dabbott)
Gentoo Foundation Secretary
http://dev.gentoo.org/~dabbott/

[Guy Fontaine]

Funtoo Or Another Machiavelli

[Christian Kaps]

Hi,

is it really needed to switch from OpenRC to Systemd only because of a newer Gnome version? The Gnome developers says that Systemd is recommended but not required. At work I run Gnome 3.10 on Ubuntu 14.04 which uses Upstart as init system. I don't really understand why this isn't possible for Funtoo too!?

Regards,

Christian

[Jean-Francis Roy]

Hi!

GNOME developers are arguing that GNOME does not depend on systemd. However, they require the init system to have features that many init system do not have. GDM runs happily with logind (which requires systemd to be running as PID 1), and will happily fail with OpenRC due to "missing" features. https://blogs.gnome.org/ovitters/2013/09/25/gnome-and-logindsystemd-thoughts/.

So if I understand well, the "take home message" is that GNOME does not depend on systemd, but it depends on many systemd features that are "missing" from many other init systems.

About Ubuntu, they may have added the missing features in Upstart. Or maybe they do not use GDM (or they forked it). That being said, they are switching to systemd (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1316).

I personally don't know what to think about all this. I do like GNOME, but I don't like their way of making decisions with a big impact on the users and then ignoring the complaints.

So the take home message : it should be possible to use Gnome >=3.8 using OpenRC, but a lot of work has to be done and at least for now, it doesn't seem anybody is heading in that direction (for reasons that I don't know about, but must be good reasons).

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[Jean-Francis Roy]

Well, and it seems that GNOME is not going back, depending on more and more bits of systemd :

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY0NDQ

[Daniel Robbins]

It should also be noted that Fedora, which is the main driver of GNOME developments, has recently announced that they are essentially going to further fork GNOME and turn it into its own purpose-built operating system, like ChromeOS.

http://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2014/04/16/preparing-the-ground-for-the-fedora-workstation/

So the message I receive from Fedora is "Okay, we have put all other distributions under pressure to switch to systemd, so they can continue to run GNOME, but guess what? That still isn't good enough for us. We are now going to build our own proprietary GNOME and it will now be even harder (or maybe impossible) for others to run it."

I do like the look and feel of GNOME and use 3.6 as my desktop. But, I think these non-collaborative and erratic political moves are evidence that in the big picture, GNOME itself, because primarily of its bad politics, is not doing well against the big players like MacOS and even ChromeOS, and they are realizing this, and trying to restructure things. But in the process, they are further abandoning their roots as being a desktop environment that can run on all Linux (and several non-Linux) systems. They are playing with their model, which they are allowed to do. But their model does not seem to include actually working on non-Fedora.

We have seen this kind of erratic behavior from Ubuntu as well, who recently discontinued Ubuntu for Android, switched to systemd, etc. These desktop players are floundering, trying to get some reasonable level of adoption that puts them in the same realm as commercially-backed offerings like MacOS and ChromeOS, and in the bigger picture, they are failing in their efforts. Which means they are getting more desperate, trying more extreme things, and then also becoming more difficult as they shift from strategy to strategy.

-Daniel

[Christian Kaps]

Hi,

Thanks for your explanations. Is there a timeline for FOAM or has anyone a running Funtoo with systemd? Does the Gentoo systemd HOWTO work with Funtoo too? What are the disadvantages when switching to systemd on Funtoo? I really like Gnome and I would like to switch to a newer version. Gnome 3.6 is now one and a half year old.

Thanks,

Christian

[Anton Shumskyi]

Hi=)
All you need to know that migration to systemd is quite easy, you just need some original Gentoo packages like systemd and virtual/udev, maybe udisks too and put them to your local portage overlay. The main disadvantage is that some packages have only OpenRC init scripts and none of systemd's. Almost all is working good and stable out of box. And don't forget to add systemd's init parameter to your kernel 
init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd for Dracut or real_init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd for Genkernel

I don't recommend updating to Gnome 3.10, better choice will be 3.12 in couple of weeks when packages will be moved from gnome overlay to original Gentoo. Gnome 3.12 is working fine but you will need some original Gentoo packages (or elementary overlay if they still there) like upower which will break some other packages... As with any Gnome upgrade you'll need to make backup, and purge all Gnome related configs from user directory (better solution is to remove all gnome packages too). It's hard to upgrade and get it working fast, but still possible=) 
My advice is to wait a bit more before upgrade to get it more stable. 

On Friday, May 2, 2014, Christian Kaps <kaps.ch...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

[Daniel Robbins]

Yes, Anton, but we do not support systemd in Funtoo. So you are on your own if you enable it like that.

We are going to start a project called FOAM which will use systemd and build using a Funtoo portage tree.

-Daniel

[Guy Fontaine]

Hi,

You can contact JF about systemd. I installed GNOME 3.10 from overlay  provided by JF and I installed systemd following instructions of Gentoo wiki.

Guy

[Richard Caldwell]

All this nonsense with GNOME doesn't seem all that new to me.  If the erstwhile creator of GNOME had his way GNOME would have been rebuilt around Mono.
Unfortunately we're now seeing this game of politics and flavor of the week mimicry working its way deeper into the Linux ecosystem.  Now we have GNOME's bad ideas being fed by systemd, and vice versa. 

The FOAM idea concerns me. I've moved to Funtoo as a refuge from the systemd hegemony.  If effort is split between FOAM and Funtoo proper I fear that we'll eventually see a "we can't beat them so we may as well join them" move to systemd across the board.  I'm really hoping that Funtoo (along with the handful of other systemd hold-outs and non-Linux distros) can start an effort to disentangle the pieces that GNOME depends on from systemd.   I recognize that's easily said by someone who doesn't have to do the coding, but I see this as important to preservation of "the UNIX way."

[Guy Fontaine]

I think I will reinstall Xfce as my default environment.