Debian 8.7 to 9 transition and MATE issues [Edited]

[prppedro]

Good night,

I've been trying to develop an applet for MATE and began studying forms to contribute to the project. Then, much surprised I became when I found MATE version on my system to be 1.8.1! Not surprising for any of you, certainly, as there are several Google entries linking here regarding that matter. I quickly figured out that there's no backport, official or unnoficial. However, is it possible for me to manually compile it? Would those new versions ran into severe dependency problems?

Thanks,
Att.,
trp

[stevepusser]

There is my unofficial backport of MATE 1.16( gtk2 version) for Jessie...however, the last few days, the OBS service is having some kind of bug where it doesn't show the automatically created link for the instructions to add the repo and its key. I think the link to the instructions still works, and is in a thread here about MATE 1.14.

https://build.opensuse.org/project/show ... :MATE-1.16

http://download.opensuse.org/repositori ... ebian_8.0/

I have the repo address URL here for sources.list, but you'll get a warning without the key.

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deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/stevenpusser:/MATE-1.16/Debian_8.0/ / 

Edit: I found the directions: https://software.opensuse.org/download. ... nvironment

The commands to add the key must also be run as root, not with sudo.

There's currently a known issue with a file conflict with some Jessie atril library if you upgrade from the Jessie MATE, but uninstalling the older file fixes it. I think I have it fixed in my MX build, and will load it into the OBS. Check this link to see when the new version has a successful build: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show ... 1.16/atril

It's built against gtk2 as much as possible because of some known issues with GTK 3 themes on Jessie's version of GTK3.

Coincidentally, some people expressed an interest in doing an unofficial MATE respin of the Jessie-based MX Linux, so I'm currently porting the packages over to the MX-15 test repository (which also feeds MX 16). I've done most of the work on it, but will have to finish up tomorrow.

[prppedro]

Thanks for the reply, Steve. I'm removing atril and will be trying it soon.

But I have a sole question, for now: the actual 1.8.1 runs over GTK 2 or 3? Will it jeopardize GTK3 native apps in, let's say, the same way KDE apps get messed when they run outside QT environment?

Thanks,
Att.,
trp

P.S.: I'll be reporting my progress soon.

[stevepusser]

No, they just will possibly use different themes. They won't be broken--just maybe look different. I suppose a perfectionist will try to get matching gtk2 and 3 themes that look the same--I've been told that a backported arc-theme looks good in the backported MATE. I could add that to the repo tomorrow.

Here's the 1.14 thread that evolved to 1.16: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... =mate+1.14

[prppedro]

No, they just will possibly use different themes. They won't be broken--just maybe look different. I suppose a perfectionist will try to get matching gtk2 and 3 themes that look the same--I've been told that a backported arc-theme looks good in the backported MATE. I could add that to the repo tomorrow.

Here's the 1.14 thread that evolved to 1.16: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... =mate+1.14

Well, thanks... The themes are indeed a bit... different. But I understand the limitation on having to work with GTK 3.14... Hopefully Debian 9 will be here soon and we could get more up to date libraries.

Atril seems to work flawlessly.

As for the rest, only time will tell. Until now, there's only a problem with "mate-power-manager" as reported by Inhibit applet.

[stevepusser]

No, they just will possibly use different themes. They won't be broken--just maybe look different. I suppose a perfectionist will try to get matching gtk2 and 3 themes that look the same--I've been told that a backported arc-theme looks good in the backported MATE. I could add that to the repo tomorrow.

Here's the 1.14 thread that evolved to 1.16: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... =mate+1.14

Well, thanks... The themes are indeed a bit... different. But I understand the limitation on having to work with GTK 3.14... Hopefully Debian 9 will be here soon and we could get more up to date libraries.

Atril seems to work flawlessly.

As for the rest, only time will tell. Until now, there's only a problem with "mate-power-manager" as reported by Inhibit applet.

I had build failures with the 4.9 kernel on my local machine with mate-power-manager until I switched back to a 4.7 kernel. Apparently it's building against some cpufreq headers somehow related to the kernel version, and that makes me wonder if it will work if it's a different kernel than it was compiled against. The OBS builds use the 3.16 Jessie kernel.

You could of course try developing your applets in a Stretch virtual machine if your computer has the requirements...that might be best if you want to match the upstream version that's going to be in Debian 9 exactly.

[aplistir]

Ööööh..

How about the most obvious solution...

Upgrade your Jessie system to Stretch. Stretch has Mate 1.16.1

Yeah. I know that using stable is recommended, but Stretch is becoming stable soon. It has already been frozen, which means that big transitions, which can break things are not happening anymore.
Also noticed that some annoying bugs Mate had in Jessie has been corrected in Stretch.

You are doing much more work currently in trying to compile Mate, and installing kernel and stuff from backports. Upgrading is simpler.

OR you could run stretch in virtualbox. Then you would have a development environment with newer Mate

[prppedro]

I had build failures with the 4.9 kernel on my local machine with mate-power-manager until I switched back to a 4.7 kernel. Apparently it's building against some cpufreq headers somehow related to the kernel version, and that makes me wonder if it will work if it's a different kernel than it was compiled against. The OBS builds use the 3.16 Jessie kernel.

You could of course try developing your applets in a Stretch virtual machine if your computer has the requirements...that might be best if you want to match the upstream version that's going to be in Debian 9 exactly.

Well, I'm using 3.16 too:

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prppedro@arrandale:~$ uname -a
Linux arrandale 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.39-1+deb8u2 (2017-03-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux
prppedro@arrandale:~$ 

And the power manager seems to work for the most part, excet for the inhibit button.

But may be it's time to migrate to the new release...

Ööööh..

How about the most obvious solution...

Upgrade your Jessie system to Stretch. Stretch has Mate 1.16.1

Yeah. I know that using stable is recommended, but Stretch is becoming stable soon. It has already been frozen, which means that big transitions, which can break things are not happening anymore.
Also noticed that some annoying bugs Mate had in Jessie has been corrected in Stretch.

You are doing much more work currently in trying to compile Mate, and installing kernel and stuff from backports. Upgrading is simpler.

OR you could run stretch in virtualbox. Then you would have a development environment with newer Mate

My doubt is: with those new MATE GTK2 packages installed from Steve's repository, how should I proceed? If I had MATE 1.8.1 yet, it'd be a simple matter of changing "jessie" to "stretch" in every sources.list entry. But won't my current MATE version conflict with those new packages?

[stevepusser]

The Stretch versions of the packages should be higher than my backports, because of versioning conventions I used, so upgrades shouldn't be a problem.

[prppedro]

Well, so I upgraded.

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$ cat /etc/debian_version 
9.0

Now, there's a bunch of problems, but the first I noticed is odds with GTK 3 themes (seems like MATE is finally using GTK 3), but some Window themes like "Fog" is missing and many, many controls themes like Murina variations, Redmond et alii became all aliases to some kind of default theme:


I suspect that it sets the actual theme for GTK 2 apps, but may be there's no compatible theme for GTK 3, so they falls back to "Adwaita" theme. And seems like many GTK 3 themes won't work as well (I tested it). What's happening?

Edit: and, contrary to MATE 1.8.1, I can't edit color properties.

[stevepusser]

Can you create a new user account and see if the same issues appear for that user? I'm starting to get a theory that the mate settings are stored in some gconf file(s) in your home and those stayed the same during the upgrade, and the gtk2 settings are somehow messing with the gtk3 theming. The arc-theme seems to work well with both versions, as far as I can tell.

[PhilGil]

Can you create a new user account and see if the same issues appear for that user? I'm starting to get a theory that the mate settings are stored in some gconf file(s) in your home and those stayed the same during the upgrade, and the gtk2 settings are somehow messing with the gtk3 theming. The arc-theme seems to work well with both versions, as far as I can tell.

Didn't GTK 3.20 break backward compatibility with older GTK 3 themes? When I ran MATE/Stretch a few months ago I needed to use a GTK 3.20+ compatible theme. That could be causing some of the OP's theme problems.

[stevepusser]

That what I was hearing, so when I did the backport of 1.16 to Jessie's GTK 3 3.14, I pulled it from a PPA that was taking care to build against GTK 2 as far as possible. Arch Linux actually splits MATE into separate GTK 2 and a GTK 3 versions; Debian policy is to always build against GTK 3 if the build supports it, come what may, damn the torpedos, full steam ahead, etc.

[prppedro]

Well, to be honest, had no time to test it. The transition to Stretch bought problems beyond one's imagination. From video lags to oddities with GDM. But's it's not the topic question. According to my search, it was precisely the GTK 3.20 update to broke older GTK 3 themes. To be honest, I now understand why Jessie had kept 1.8.1 MATE for so long time. It was, like everything I had before the upgrade, so damn stable. For an example: a tried to create the test user as Steve suggest me. But I couldn't login in it: GDM kept boucing back to the account sellection screen.

Nevertheless, thanks for the help. I'll find my way arround through this mess and, being the case, I'll start a new thread.

[stevepusser]

If I was were in your place, and Stable was working just fine, I'd just install the MATE Stretch in a Virtual Box VM. It's actually not very difficult at all, as far as my experience goes.

[TonyT]

GTK3 did break older GTK3 themes, the Adwaita theme in Stretch MATE is solely GTK2.
I made a GTK3 Adwaita-like theme for Stretch MATE by hacking TraditionalGreen GTK3 theme.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=132184

[prppedro]

If I was were in your place, and Stable was working just fine, I'd just install the MATE Stretch in a Virtual Box VM. It's actually not very difficult at all, as far as my experience goes.

Like I say, always, "there's things we learn only by empiricism"... Taking dist-upgrade with a grain of salt seems to be one of these things. Nevertheless, perks are part of the Linux world. Perhaps they teach us more than the secure VM environment. hahaha

GTK3 did break older GTK3 themes, the Adwaita theme in Stretch MATE is solely GTK2.
I made a GTK3 Adwaita-like theme for Stretch MATE by hacking TraditionalGreen GTK3 theme.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=132184

Seems like an okay job for me. But Adwaita was never my favourite theme. I'm using TraditionalGreen for now, and I think it's pretty okay.

--

But, for an way or another, I'd consider that thread as solved. MATE 1.16 is here. And the rest of the system will soon be fine after some manual fixes.

[stevepusser]

And now that the gtk 3-only MATE 1.18 is out, we can now start calling 1.16 stale. Though if one was to backport it, it could be much easier to do on Stretch. I don't know if it will take a while to show up in Sid, since developers are dedicating a lot of effort to get Stretch out now.

[prppedro]

It's an interesting thing. After all, they had such goal since the very begining.

GTK 3 seems to still have an entire way ahead... If, of course, GTK team stops doing thinks like GTK 3.20. MATE will stick to it for a good time, so seems like we aren't going to face difficulties for at least the next year. But we can't tell... MATE is in very active development and they may decide to kill backward compatibility for new features. Then, backports may function, but not that well, as MATE relies in a bunch of libraries and GTK to an whole bunch others. I wish it were easy to backport as, IDK, Apache is. It relies in a dozen of libraries and it's done. And it won't care if they date back to 1972.