TOPIC: How to install Gnome2 Desktop.

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Introduction:
The Gnome2 is a complete, free and easy-to-use desktop environment and a powerful application framework. Gnome2 is the successor for the current version Gnome 1.4 and build upon the GTK2 library and therefore supports anti-aliased fonts and other nifty features. Installing Gnome2 doesn not interfere with a previous install of Gnome 1.4.

Required
In order to install Gnome2 on your YDL system, you need to have the following tools and libraries.

Complete install of Gnome 1.4 (YDL or Ximian)
GNU development tools (gcc, make, ...)

Compiling the Gnome2 Desktop

1. Get the Garnome distribution tool from www.gnome.org/~jdub/garnome/download/garnome-0.15.0.tar.gz
   
   
2. Extract the package to a directory with a lot of free space (>1GB)
   I will use the /usr/tmp directory
   

   $ cd /usr/tmp/
   $ tar -zxvf garnome-0.15.0.tar.gz
   $ cd garnome-0.15.0

3. Choose a place to install the Gnome2 desktop to, by adding a prefix definition to the top of the configuration file gar.conf.mk. For example:

   prefix = /opt/gnome2 [ENTER]

   That's it.
   
   
4. Compile Gnome2. Garnome will automatically fetch the new software from the internet and compile it on your system, if you execute:

   $ cd meta/gnome-desktop/
   $ make install

   If you experience problems like missing libraries or headers take a look at the compilation FAQ at http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/garnome/#faq
   
   
5. Compiling can take a really long time, if possible start the process at the evening and check results at morning ;)

Configuring the Gnome2 Desktop

1a. If you are using KDM as your login manager, do the following

1. Go to the KDM session directory
   

   $ cd /etc/kde/kdm

2. Adjust the Xsession and kdmrc file. - Find the definition of "SessionTypes" in the kdmrc file and add "gnome2". - Open the Xsession file, find the line containing "gnome)" and add the following shell code before this line: gnome2)

   export PATH=/opt/gnome2/bin:$PATH [ENTER]
   exec -l $SHELL -c "/opt/gnome2/bin/gnome2-session" [ENTER]

   ;;
   
   Adjust the path /opt/gnome2 accordingly.

1b. If you are using GDM as your login manager, do the following

1. Go to the GDM session directory $ cd /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions
   
   
2. Create a Gnome2 script by copying the old Gnome script $ cp Gnome Gnome2
   
   
3. Adjust the Gnome2 script - Replace "nome" with "nome2" throughout the complete file. - Replace "/usr/bin/startgnome2" with the path to the Gnome2 start script, in this example "/opt/gnome2/bin/gnome2-session"
   
   
4. Change to the GDM directory $ cd /etc/X11/gdm
   
   
5. Create an executable file called "gnome2rc" containing the lines export PATH=/opt/gnome2/bin:$PATH exec /opt/gnome2/bin/gnome-session Log into the Gnome2 Desktop and have fun. You can tune your desktop by using themes for GTK2 and Metacity from http://themes.freshmeat.net

   This HOWTO was written by Konrad Rieck