this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023

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Any Debian folks here to help me figure out if it's just me or Debian 12 that is broken? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Feyter to c/linux

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EDIT: As it turns out this is just how gnome is supposed to look and to get a permanently visible dock showing running apps and favorites I must install an extension like dash-to-dock

Thanks everyone to help me understand I was the problem here 🙂

After using Ubuntu for years I thought it would be a good idea to try out plain old Debian for the first time.

So I downloaded the live-Image setup a VirtualBox and started installing it... installation ran trough without any problems. But I don't see any panel/taskbar anywhere.

I tried to google this and best guess was that gonme-panel was not installed (how?) after installation I tried to run it by the terminal but it only trows an error "(gnome-panel:3427): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 20:24:58.712: invalid cast from 'GdkWaylandDisplay' to 'GdkX11Display'". So before I start digging into this I just wanted to confirm that I am on the right track and not just mixing stuff up. So does anyone have an idea what went wrong here?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Debian ships with vanilla Gnome. This means that what you're seeing is exactly what you're expected to see. If you want the typical "ubuntu-like" (or mac-os like) dock, you should install the dash-to-dock extension

[–] Feyter 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks man. That is both a relief and a shock for me.

Debian unser actually prefer it this way?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think the safer generalization to make is that the Gnome 3 project leaders prefer it that way.

Debian just doesn't tweak it, likely in favor of increased stability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As the other user also pointed out, it's not Debian but rather the Gnomeproject that is by default pushing this workflow and look-and-feel style. If you try Fedora or Archlinux for instance, you will also find the same Gnome desktop (with a different wallpaper). That said, dash-to-dock is one of the most famous and installed extensions, so this means that many users prefer that workflow, but many also apparently just use gnome without a dock. When I was using Gnome, just for reference, I had dash-to-dock, but most of the times when I needed to launch an application I would just use the shortcut to open the search menu (which coming from KDE I remapped to alt + space)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I also use dash-to-dock, but, generally, I just hit the super key and type what I want to run. So not too far off from the native workflow. I mostly like the dock as a way to, at a glance, keep tabs on what I have open, and what needs my attention. Opening a separate context menu for that functionally seems unwieldy at best.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looking at your screenshot, I see nothing wrong? Gnome shell's bar is at the top and has the typical icons you'd expect. This looks like a dead standard basic Gnome session.

Are you not able to go to Activities and launch an app?

[–] Feyter 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, I can go to activity and that brings up a panel at the bottom screen and a search field from where I can start any app.

But I would have expected to have the panel there permanently showing all running apps and favorites or at least blender in when I hover with the cursor to the bottom of the screen. I also find nothing regarding a panel in the settings. In Ubuntu options for this is under the "appearance" Tap in the options.

Is gnome not supposed to work like this?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yep, that's how plain vanilla Gnome is. You'd get pretty much the same experience if you installed Fedora or any other distro that just ships it as-is.

Ubuntu's version comes with a lot of patches and custom extensions to make it work similar to how Unity did, and give a reasonable desktop experience.

Plain Gnome as imagined by the developers:

Doesn't have a panel for running applications, you're supposed to use the overview thing or Alt-Tab to navigate your open apps/windows
Doesn't have desktop icons. Wallpaper only.
Only shows the dock when in overview mode.
No tray icons. Apps are supposed to have their window open at all times and you're expected to stash it on a virtual desktop if you want it out of your way. No closing out Discord in the background, it must stay open. So does your music player and everything else.

In fact, according to the Gnome vision, you're not supposed to even theme your apps to your liking, you're supposed to stick with the default Adwaita theme. I think Ubuntu patches that too so their Yaru theme works properly.

That's why people make fun of Gnome.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm enjoying this interactive presentation of the fact that Gnome's default interaction design is so uh... "opinionated" it appears broken out of the box to anyone who has used a computer in the last 35+ years.

I think Debian's default gnome install includes the packages to give you a session option in your greeter (login screen) for "Gnome Classic" that will give you a configuration that is ...less... weird but still gnome.

You'll need to load a bunch of gnome extensions (the classic session basically does some of that automatically) to try to make gnome bend to your preferred workflow, try to contort yourself to whatever workflow the gnome folks have currently decided is the one true way, or pick a different desktop environment like KDE or xfce that is more conventional and/or less opinionated.

...Personally, I've mostly been using KDE lately, but I have an easier time with ricer tiling WMs than stock gnome these days, they've made some weird choices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That is pretty entertaining to see, and also shows how many people doesn't know how plain the vanilla Gnome experience is. Most distros that care about UX end up shipping some amount of patched up Gnome stuff.

Gnome really wants to be like macOS, and I pretty much have all the same complaints about macOS as I do with Gnome. Same amount of reliance on overview mode and virtual desktops to organize and no way to bring up that one terminal window you want in a single click or key press.

[–] Feyter 2 points 1 year ago

I thought about this now for a while and the only case in which I could imagine this "no-dock" Workflow beneficial is when just using one application (or more in split screen) and not switching around much between random applications.

However this is not my Workflow since in my daily business I often need to switch From Blender to Godot, maybe have to select single project files in different directories and edit them with gimp or plain Texteditor. Then realizing I have no idea what I'm doing and try to find a solution online I could copy and paste... And many times just with one screen available because of directly working on the notebook.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Try to run a checksum on the image and compare it to the one on Debian's website. It might be corrupted.Try to download it and run the the checksum again.

Edit: also the error seems to be related to a missing package on Xorg or Wayland

[–] Feyter 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you. Will definitely do this (should have done it right away I guess)

But from your comment I assume gnome-panel is the correct software for this and something is definitely wrong with my setup.

Maybe installing Debian from the live image is not the best idea?

[–] KKriegGG 2 points 1 year ago

Can't help right now, but just wanted to wish you luck and say that there are debian users here. debian is a great OS as a daily driver

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Glad I left gnome, I use either AwesomeWM or XFCE or both 😉

[–] Feyter 1 points 1 year ago

Honestly after using it for a while now it's not that bad at all :) And you can install a dock / taskbar so I have all I needed

[–] hairyballs 1 points 1 year ago

A matter of taste. I'm way more productive with GNOME, it's the perfect desktop imo. I cannot see why it's bad not to have a permanent dock, in the current case. I prefer to alt-tab or display the opened windows with a hot corner. I get more screen space, it's more visual, and it's as fast.

[–] JackbyDev 1 points 1 year ago

Just sanity checking, were you able to run the distro live from the USB? If you have the same problem on the live one then that narrows it down some to being a problem with the live USB and not the installation alone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So... I haven't routinely run gnome in decades and only use wayland on one machine as a frequently-disappointing experiment, but that sounds distinctly like gnome-panel is starting for the wrong graphics backend.

Are you starting your graphical session from a manager like GDM or by hand from the console, and do you know if it's an X or Wayland session you're in?

I think you're running a wayland session and for some reason gnome-panel is trying to start in X11 mode. Try running "GDK_BACKEND=wayland gnome-panel" at a terminal to force it, and see if it starts? (Or, conversely, you might need to set GDK_BACKEND=x11 because you're in an X session and it's starting in Wayland mode, but my first guess is more likely).

This is not an entirely complete answer because I'm not sure why it would be picking up the wrong environment or how to make sure that is configured properly in general.

[–] Feyter 2 points 1 year ago

It seems that how gnome is coming in Debian 12 it is coming without a permanently visible dock. (Yes I know sounds crazy) so there was nothing wrong with the system the error probably just occurred because I (re)installed gnome-panel in an attempt to fix something that was not broken.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I love the minimalism of stock Gnome. You don't have to make those Ubuntu icons as small as possible or auto-hide the dock. You don't have to go to obscure settings windows to hide icons on your desktop. It's just minimal out of the box. Just you and your apps. You can have floaty windows if you want, but it's also really simple to run your apps fullscreen or half-screen with just a keystroke. I love it.

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