2014-12-02

GNOME is destroying the whole GTK universe

When GNOME 3.14 components were uploaded into Debian (just a few days before the Jessie freeze started), GNOME stopped working on two video platforms: Geode (xf86-video-geode) and NVIDIA (xf86-video-nouveau). On Geode, GDM launches into a black screen. On NVIDIA, GDM launches as expected, but then the GNOME session itself barfs with the dreaded "Oh No! Something went wrong. [Logout]" dialog during session initialization. Basically, components in GNOME have become too tightly dependent upon some video driver features. Thinking out loud, I figured that reverting to a desktop environment that is based upon GTK+3, without GNOME's bells and whistles, would at least restore operation on my NVDIA hosts. Alas, it does not: Cinnamon, too, barfs during session initialization. Great. Now what?