How to Install Gnome on Mepis 3.3

Hi skyfire.

First off, most applications can be installed in a Debian distribution like Mepis using a tool called "apt-get". You don't need to download and un-tar tar balls and RPMs (in most cases). Instead, Mepis uses both apt-get (a command line tool) and the preferred way for lots of people, Synaptic.

Go to your task bar and just to the right of the "K" on the bottom row, third icon to the right you will find one to start synaptic. You will have to enter the root password for your system. Once you have started it, first choose "Reload" if this is the first time you've used it. Then choose the Search button, enter "gnome" in the Search field, and make sure "Look in" is set to Name. A WHOLE BUNCH of applications will show up. Scroll down through them till you find the one simply called "gnome". Right-click on it and choose "Mark for installation". A window will come up telling you about other applications (dependencies) that will need to be installed. Choose Mark. Finally, choose the Apply button above. Answer OK or yes to any requests (I have not loaded gnome so I'm not sure whether it will prompt any further).

Once that is done gnome will be installed and you can then choose it upon login from the Login screen. You do that by entering your username and password as usual, but by clicking the Menu button, then choosing Session type, you will be able to choose KDE, Gnome and any other window manager that you might have installed.

Hope this helps

Jon

I can't find a 'gnome' entry in Synaptic, even after reloading. I can only see 'gnome-keyring' and 'gnome-mime-data'. Why might this be?

I'm using Mepis 3.3.1, which I downloaded and installed just a week or two ago. (This is my first ever Linux experience, so don't be surprised if I've missed something 'obvious'.)

sugna, did you follow the instructions above to skyfire? Did you choose the Search button to the upper right in synaptic? After that, you enter "gnome" (without the quotation marks) into the "Search:" box and change "Look in:" so that is says "Name". There will be multiple screens of programs that are either part of, or used by Gnome. Go down about two-screens-worth and you should see "gnome" as a single entry. That is the one to right-click on.

Are you connected to the Internet, and did you do the initial reload while connected?

Jon

You may need to uncomment some repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list, or enable them in synaptic. There have been other posts explaining how to do that; if you can't find them, post your /etc/apt/sources.list here.