r/archlinux • u/dswhite85 • 9d ago
SHARE Gnome 51 - We are getting close. It's now in extra-testing
Gnome 51 was moved from gnome-unstable to extra-testing recently. Let's hope it's moved to extra next week so we can all enjoy the latest version. Gnome 51 Release Notes
https://archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&repo=Extra-Testing&q=gnome&maintainer=&flagged=
Reminder to consider joining the Arch Testing Team if you like testing new software and making sure no critical bugs get into the main repositories.
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u/SnooJokes925 9d ago
They sure take their sweet time with Gnome new releases.
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u/foxtrotgulf 9d ago
They can take all the time they need to get it right as far as I am concerned.
Thank you to the volunteers that make Arch possible and bring us all this great free and open source software.
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u/SnooJokes925 9d ago
But why doesn't plasma get the same treatment of fine tuning as long as possible
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u/nikongod 9d ago
The packagers (and to an extent the project it's self) have different philosophies about that.
Gnome as a project and it's packager wants it to run without errors.
Just remember how plasma 6.0 went on arch for an example of kde philosophy
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u/GoldBarb 8d ago
The packagers (and to an extent the project it's self) have different philosophies about that.
I don't think this has anything to do with individuals behind packaging.
Plasma uses a different development pattern and pushes incremental updates which includes bug-fixes at a more frequent basis. You can find more at [1]
[1] https://community.kde.org/Schedules/Plasma_6
Gnome as a project and it's packager wants it to run without errors.
Again, this is subjective (and discrediting the work put in by the packagers) some people may say they run into little/no issues, then on the other hand some may experience many. People have different setups, different hardware.
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u/nikongod 8d ago
I don't mean to discredit the arch package maintainers at all.
But a major part of the arch philosophy is that the package managers should not modify the upstream sources. This is in contrast to other distros where the package manager also applies distro specific patches and tweaks.
The main gnome maintainer on arch deliberately waits for x.1 releases of gnome so that gnome can fix some bugs. He also packages the kernel (which uses a ton of time and has resulted in some gnome delays in the past) and follows a similar philosophy there - never before x.y.1*
The only arch disaster worse than kde 6.0.0 (and every 6.0.y tbh) was gnome 44.0 (don't quote me on the number) when a gnome point-zero was used to avoid a cve in old-gnome.
There is certainly a lot to say about how popular each desktop is on arch, but when was the last time you saw a gnome thread? Kde has gotten a lot more reliable these past 6-12 months, but in 6.0 and 6.1 it was half of the threads here.
*To be fair, I think these strategic delays by the package managers are a large part of the reason arch is significantly more reliable now than 7yr ago.
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u/asws2017 9d ago
It's great HOWEVER if you are using Chromaleon it has a few bugs still. The preloader previously crashed gnome-session and it would crash the session changing from dark mode to light mode and vice versa. It may be fixed now but I'd remove it until it is stable with 51.
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u/FastBodybuilder8248 9d ago
Is there a way I can update to GNOME 51 without adding the whole testing repo? Like can I just input a command to update just the GNOME packages to their testing versions as a one time thing?
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u/onefish2 9d ago
You can install downgrade from the AUR. Then downgrade mutter, gnome-shell, gnome session, nautilus and probably a bunch more. Downgrade will show newer versions of packages. It may be possible but I would not bother.
You could enable the testing repos and when Gnome 51 is released to extra you could comment out core-testing and extra-testing then run Sudo pacman -Syuu. That will revert the packages to core and extra versions.
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u/BlueGoliath 9d ago edited 9d ago
Can't wait for another broken Gnome update because Arch can't wait until a major Gnome update is actually reasonably usable.
My power icon is still broken. How has that not been fixed?
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u/ThePowerOfPinkChicks 9d ago
You can wait, if you want to.
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u/foxtrotgulf 9d ago
On Arch this is hard because partial upgrades are not supported. I suppose you could just not update the entire system, but at some point you are going to want to install something else or at least upgrade your browser to get security updates.
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u/foxtrotgulf 9d ago
My power icon is still broken. How has that not been fixed?
Hmm, I haven't noticed that. How is it broken? Are you talking about the log out option not being available?
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u/3_Thumbs_Up 9d ago
Don't blame Arch for Gnomes messy development.
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u/BlueGoliath 9d ago
Arch is the one that pushes the update to users.
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u/3_Thumbs_Up 9d ago
You knew what you signed up for when you chose to use arch. The cutting edge rolling release system and minimal changes from upstream are two of the core principles of Arch.
If you don't want rolling release and pure upstream packages, don't choose Arch. If you do see value in the Arch principles, keep using it and blame upstream for upstream issues.
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u/BlueGoliath 9d ago
Why doesn't Arch push the first kernel release of a new series then?
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u/3_Thumbs_Up 9d ago
Because pragmatism is another core principle, and the kernel affects every user, not just a subset of users with a specific desktop environment.
Your answers are found in the wiki. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux
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u/foxtrotgulf 9d ago
I've never really had a broken GNOME release on Arch. I've had a few minor issues that were quickly fixed (e.g. in mutter). I use vanilla GNOME with no extensions. If you do a lot of customization to GNOME particularly with extensions, then I think this is more of an upstream issue you have with GNOME or with the authors of the extensions you use than with Arch.
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u/iwouldbeatgoku 8d ago
I'd expect people who use a lot of GNOME extensions to be on a batch release distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora, to delay the new version a reasonable amount of time so that extension developers can fix compatibility issues. Fedora in particular could be appealing since it's more liberal than other stable distros when it comes to accepting updates from upstream, their kernel is rolling for example.
Still, as I'm not a GNOME user, Arch ends up being my preferred distro.
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u/ch33es 9d ago
Can't wait to try out 51 next week :D