Changes/PantheonDesktop

Pantheon Desktop

Summary

The Pantheon desktop environment is the DE that powers elementaryOS. It builds on GNOME technologies, but utilizes components that were written from scratch in vala, using the GTK+3 toolkit.

Owner

• Name: Fabio Valentini
• Email: decathorpe AT fedoraproject DOT org
• Release notes owner:

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 30
• Last updated: 2018-12-05
• Tracker bug: #1649555
• Release Notes tracker: #256

Detailed Description

The Pantheon desktop will be another viable choice for users of fedora. In particular, this is also interesting for users who like the Pantheon desktop, but would prefer to use fedora instead of an ubuntu-based distribution.

Most of the components of the Pantheon desktop shell and the applications developed by elementary have already been packaged for fedora.

Benefit to Fedora

This change will make fedora the first linux distribution other than elementaryOS to support the Pantheon Desktop environment and elementary applications.

It gives users of fedora another choice for their desktop environment, and it gives users of Pantheon and elementary applications the ability to choose a different linux distribution for the first time.

Scope

Proposal owners

Packaging Status

Package	Status
appcenter	pass
cerbere	pass
contractor	pass
editorconfig	pass
elementary-calculator	pass
elementary-calendar	pass
elementary-camera	pass
elementary-capnet-assist	pass
elementary-code	pass
elementary-files	pass
elementary-greeter	pass
elementary-icon-theme	pass
elementary-music	pass
elementary-photos	pass
elementary-print	pass
elementary-screenshot-tool	pass
elementary-shortcut-overlay	pass
elementary-sound-theme	pass
elementary-terminal	pass
elementary-theme	pass
elementary-videos	pass
elementary-wallpapers	pass
gala	pass
granite	pass
gsignond	pass
gsignond-plugin-lastfm	pass
gsignond-plugin-mail	pass
gsignond-plugin-oauth	pass
gsignond-plugin-sasl	pass
impallari-raleway-fonts	pass
libgsignon-glib	pass
mutter328	pass
pantheon-agent-geoclue2	pass
pantheon-agent-polkit	pass
pantheon-session-settings	pass
plank	pass
switchboard	pass
switchboard-plug-a11y	pass
switchboard-plug-about	pass
switchboard-plug-applications	pass
switchboard-plug-bluetooth	pass
switchboard-plug-display	pass
switchboard-plug-keyboard	pass
switchboard-plug-mouse-touchpad	pass
switchboard-plug-networking	pass
switchboard-plug-notifications	pass
switchboard-plug-onlineaccounts	pass
switchboard-plug-pantheon-shell	pass
switchboard-plug-printers	pass
switchboard-plug-sharing	pass
switchboard-plug-sound	pass
wingpanel	pass
wingpanel-applications-menu	pass
wingpanel-indicator-ayatana	pass
wingpanel-indicator-bluetooth	pass
wingpanel-indicator-datetime	pass
wingpanel-indicator-keyboard	pass
wingpanel-indicator-network	pass
wingpanel-indicator-nightlight	pass
wingpanel-indicator-notifications	pass
wingpanel-indicator-power	pass
wingpanel-indicator-session	pass
wingpanel-indicator-sound	pass
switchboard-plug-datetime	inprogress
switchboard-plug-locale	inprogress
switchboard-plug-parental-controls	inprogress
switchboard-plug-power	inprogress
switchboard-plug-security-privacy	inprogress
switchboard-plug-useraccounts	inprogress

TODO Items

• investigate improving missing switchboard plugs for fedora support, and submit them for review:
  • Date and Time plug: behavioral differences between fedora / ubuntu
  • Locale plug: implement dnf / PackageKit backend for langpack installation
  • Power plug: remove dependency on ubuntu-specific patches to gnome-settings-daemon
  • Security and Privacy plug: implement FirewallD backend to replace ufw

• do testing for components not yet in official fedora repositories, and package them:
  • Parental Controls plug: does this actually work on fedora?
  • Sharing plug: does this actually work on fedora?
  • User Accounts plug: investigate behavioral differences between fedora / ubuntu

All these switchboard plugs are already packaged and available from one of my COPR repositories:

https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/decathorpe/elementary-staging/

The .spec files are maintained in a GitHub repository until the packages pass package review:

https://github.com/decathorpe/elementary-staging-rpms

• improve screensaver / lock screen support: RHBZ#1644858
  • possibly patch Pantheon session components to use standard interfaces
  • consider implementing shim for GDM / gnome-screensaver and LightDM / light-locker compatibility, or
  • consider implementing adapter for translating different DBus calls for this

• create metapackages or comps groups:
  • Pantheon Session (Desktop Environment without apps) (changed my mind)
  • Pantheon Desktop (Desktop Enviromnent with apps) (DONE)

Creating these meta-packages or comps groups is planned to happen well before the fedora 30 branch point.

The "Pantheon Desktop" comps group got merged into fedora-comps: https://pagure.io/fedora-comps/c/5f94809

Other developers

This is not a system-wide change - however, some components require the latest releases from the accounts-SSO / signon stack.

In particular, signon-glib needs an update to version 2.0 to allow packaging the Online Accounts support for switchboard and some elementary applications.

The necessary updates are now available on fedora 30.

Release engineering

No impact

Trademark approval

N/A - not needed for this Change

This Change is about adding the missing components of the Desktop Environment to fedora, and fixing show-stopper bugs. If we decide to make this a spin in the future, that will be a separate Change.

Upgrade/compatibility impact

Packages for the Pantheon DE and elementary applications have been available since fedora 25 in some cases, and most components have been available since fedora 27. Upgrading to the latest fedora release brings users the latest versions of (most of) these packages.

However, due to upstream changes, some desktop applications might lose user settings when upgrading from fedora 28 to 29, because upstream changed their GSettings path between releases. For that reason, the updates containing these breaking changes were not pushed to stable releases < 29, following the Updates Policy for stable and beta releases.

How To Test

• install the Pantheon Desktop Environment:
  • pantheon-session-settings or
  • "Pantheon Desktop" group
• choose Pantheon session at login
• use the system as usual
• try out elementary applications
• check if screensaver kicks in (should work atop LightDM, but possibly not atop GDM)

When also testing the "WIP packages" from my elementary-staging COPR repository, there are two metapackages available:

• pantheon-session: depends on all session and desktop shell components
• pantheon-desktop: depends on session, shell, and applications

User Experience

• no impact for users who don't already have the Pantheon session or elementary applications installed
• usability and stablilty improvements for users who already use it

Dependencies

N/A

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change) - No
• Blocks product? N/A

Documentation

The current status of the project and detailed instructions on how to install the Pantheon session on fedora are available here.

Release Notes

The improved Pantheon Desktop Environment and elementary applications found in the latest release of elementaryOS 5.0 "Juno" will officially be available on fedora 30 as well.