Gnome 2.32: Resources

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

As the magazine closes out coverage of Gnome 2.32, I’d like to leave you with some additional resources that you can call upon to further expand your knowledge. As you can imagine, since the announcement of Gnome 3.x, most of the remaining Gnome 2.32 documentation is found at the sites of other Linux distros.

Before long, much of the Gnome 2.32 documentation may become difficult to find. Thus, you may want to print out any of the Gnome 2.32 documentation that you find for future reference. Perhaps an even better idea would be to convert it all to PDF files, rather than relying on a fragile paper copy as your only source of reference.

Gnome 2.32 Desktop User Guide - this is a copy of the official Gnome 2.32 user guide, from the Linux Mint web site. If you want to know “typical user” stuff about Gnome 2.32, this is the definitive resource. Just in case you are unable to access the aforementioned copy of the Gnome 2.32 Desktop User Guide, you can also access a copy stored at the Linux Mint web site.

Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference - if you stop and think about it, this one makes sense. Ubuntu’s “flagship” release is (was) built around Gnome. Therefore, books that deal with Ubuntu-proper will obviously have to deal with Gnome.

Mate Wiki - just as there is the Trinity desktop fork for KDE 3.5.x lovers, Gnome 2.32 loyalists have forked Gnome 2.32. The project’s name is Mate. It’s only natural to want to keep an eye on this page, as well as the Mate home page. Since Mate is an attempt to keep Gnome 2.32 breathing and with a heartbeat, the information should be applicable to Gnome 2.32 – at least for a while. Since it only really got off the ground in December, 2011, given a little time, it should be quite the source for Gnome 2.3x information.

Gnome Library - there is plenty of Gnome 2.x documentation still available on the Gnome Library site. This is one site with literally TONS of information. The areas are divided into subsections for users, administrators and developers. Steadily, and unfortunately, Gnome 3.x data is starting to supplant the Gnome 2.x information. I do hope that someone has the foresight to archive the Gnome 2.x information (Mate developers? Are you listening?)

FreeBSD GNOME Project: Gnome 2.32 - FreeBSD has a good bit of support information for Gnome 2.32. Be selective with the information there. The information is FreeBSD-centric, so some stuff will apply, while other things won’t.

Mate Desktop - since the Mate Desktop is the “official” effort to keep Gnome 2.3x alive, you may be interested in keeping track of what is transpiring with its continued development. You can also check out the special Mate Desktop sections on the Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Arch Linux forums.

Linuxgator.org - finally, PCLinuxOS Gnome has its own site and forum. This should be the first place PCLinuxOS Gnome users go for assistance, since the information is PCLinuxOS-centric. Just as in the main PCLinuxOS forum, the folks there are very nice and friendly. In fact, you are likely to see a few familiar faces haunting the forum there.

Summary

I hope that you have found the magazine’s coverage of Gnome 2.32 helpful. Since Gnome 3.x has a special “fallback” mode, I thought it was important to cover Gnome 2.32 before covering Gnome 3.x. Also, Gnome 2.32 – or some resemblance of it – should remain persistent for a while longer. Of course, no one can tell the future of the Mate Desktop project, and whether it will fail or succeed. One thing is for certain: Gnome 2.32, and the Gnome 2.x releases that preceded it, has left an indelible mark on Linux history.