Post by John WilliamsPost by Milan KnÞekGnome 3 requires a hw support from the video card. Before the upgrade,
have you successfully used some compositing window manager through x2go
(compiz, metacity with compositing enabled)? I doubt so...
Up until now, I have not heard any news that Gnome 3 would provide a
fallback, which would be visually similar to the "normal" Gnome 3.
(Canonical has such a plan for its Unity - to be released in autumn
2011.)
Right. It isn't possible to use accelerated graphics with NX -- at
least for the time being. I'd be more than a little surprised if that
was to change in the near future. Another problem with these new
shells is the growing number of unnecessary animations, even when they
don't require acceleration. They still kill the performance for
NX-based thin clients. Unity 2D has that problem as well. You need to
scroll the launcher, for instance, and since this doesn't look the
same every time, NX doesn't really optimize it that much. Unity 2D is
available in the Ubuntu repositories already btw, and they've provided
an NX-based test for it, using Nomachines Web Companion:
http://www.edubuntu.org/weblive (Remember to check Ubuntu 11.04 using
Unity 2D.)
Post by John WilliamsPost by Milan KnÞekThis is by the way the reason, why I am in a search for a GNOME
replacement...
Well, Gnome is more than a shell. It's quite possible to use
Xfce4-panel with the rest of Gnome, or LXPanel if you want to.
Gnome-panel will also be available for a long time, so there's no need
to rush into radical changes.
Post by John WilliamsI have never tried KDE before, but I tried it after having this
problem. I could not stand it, and it had some compatibility problems
(it would not work properly with gnome-terminal -- the windows kept
auto-shrinking themselves).
I've run KDE4 using X2go and it's seemed to work just fine. I don't
really like KDE4 though, so I haven't stuck with it, but it should be
a viable option.
Post by John WilliamsThen I tried LXDE, and that works great with x2go and all my usual
programs. I also like the feel of it, and it seems fast (KDE felt slow
to me). So it looks like I am switching to LXDE.
Yes, LXDE is a brilliant environment and perfectly suited for terminal
servers. It really is very fast; on my laptop it's ready for use in
less than two seconds while all the others take ten or more. The
differences will probably be smaller on a terminal server though. You
should also have a look at Xfce, which is more like Gnome 2, but
slightly less demanding. I really like both of them.
If you're using Ubuntu, you might be interested to know that the
appindicators (the replacement for notification area and stuff in
gnome-panel and Unity) are supposed to be available for both LXDE and
Xfce as well. I really like that little piece of software and it makes
the panels in both DEs more useful, I think. Appindicators are not
included in LXPanel or Xfce4-panel by default for performance reasons,
and I haven't tried them in those panels myself, but I've been told
enabling them doesn't require magic.
Since you said you're looking for a replacement for Gnome, I want to
add something: Xfce4-panel is able to run Gnome-panel applets, which
may be very useful. I do think Xfce4 is a natural replacement if you
want to stick with the Gnome2 experience while at the same time using
software that's actively developed, more lightweight and more suitable
for terminal servers. But LXDE is great too; I really love both of
them. :)
I hope this is of use to you, and please write about your experiences.
Jo-Erlend Schinstad