Since Red Hat spoiled us with RHEL 7.2 by rebasing Gnome, but will not be again updating Gnome for 7.3, I felt I would continue that action for them.
CentOS/RHEL is a great platform to work with, but on a workstation it feels out of date. I intended to fix that. So I built Gnome 3.20 and its dependencies for that platform.
Welcome to the Gnome 3.20 repository for CentOS/RHEL 7.x.
SPECIAL NOTE: I removed the debug info from webkitgtk4 to shrink it's size back to what it should be. Should make downloading that much smoother.
SPECIAL NOTE: I have begun getting some of this stuff built in Copr. I will make a note when everything is built in Copr and tested. https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/duh/GNOME_3.20_for_RHEL_and_CentOS_7.x/
Now, I have a few things to explain before you start using it.
This is ALPHA at the moment. Brand new. I need advanced users to test and help work out the kinks. I do not recommend this for production use until more testing is completed.
This is all self hosted, so please, realize that the internet connection for this web server isn’t the best. Be patient when downloading the updates. If anyone wants to donate space on a web server they have with a better internet connection, or even create a mirror for me to link to, it would be much appreciated.
Currently, there are the packages necessary to upgrade a stock el7 Gnome install to 3.20. It has been tested on RHEL and CentOS, but built on CentOS.
The packages have gone through numerous rebuilds to ensure they are built on any packages they themselves replace, to ensure stability.
This repository has a good chunk of the extra Gnome packages built for el7, but not every single possible application has been rebuilt against 3.20 yet. Please look in the repo list to see what is available, as things will be added randomly. Some gtk applications that came with el7, or in the 3rd party repos will still work on top of 3.20 without recompilation. Some will not. I will be happy to build and add packages requested to the repository. Simply email me and ask. If they become too much trouble, sending me through a whirlwind of dependency hell, I likely will give up on them though, so I make no guarantees.
I have not rebuilt any core system packages, and will refuse to. If it can’t be built with the el7 compilers, glibc library, systemd, etc, I will not build it. Rebuilding those foundational components will render the point of this moot, as in the end it would just be fedora with a CentOS/Red Hat badge, which is pointless.
Wayland is built. However it is not yet functional. Most of the GNOME packages were built without wayland support. In order to get wayland going I will need to rebase mesa, and to do that, we run into compiler version dependency issues. I will work on that to see if I can get it going, as I am interested in wayland on el7. A few packages aren’t being updated until then, like GDM, as I had a lot of difficulty getting some going without wayland. But the stock el7 version of them, like GDM 3.14, continue to work with gnome 3.20 anyways.
I will be working on rebasing LibreOffice to the mainline version, v5, as well, and that will be appearing in the repository soon. Been swearing at that one a lot. I also intend to start rebasing to the mainline Firefox version. Those should likely appear in their own repos to make it easier for those who do not wish to upgrade those ones.
This repository WILL OVERWRITE STOCK PACKAGES. So by that definition, is not “safe” as it does not simply install alongside the stock version. But since I doubt anyone intends to use this repo for an enterprise server, we will not worry about that.
The chance does exist, that future CentOS/RHEL updates will break these packages, or cause dependency errors. I will work to correct those as (and if) they occur.
This repo does require the use of EPEL and Nux repositories for various packages. You must add those repo files to yum first before using my repository.
There may be dependency issues, or manual intervention needed if you use this repo on an existing system. I have been testing by upgrading a base live Gnome install to 3.20. So if you have an existing system with other additional packages beyond the base installed, you will likely have dependency errors trying to upgrade to 3.20. You may need to remove, and then rebuild some of those additional packages against the 3.20 installed packages. If it’s a commonly used application, I’m willing to try and build them and place them in the repo with their dependencies for others to use as well.
This repo is not for new Linux users. I will try to offer help where possible, but please do your research and try to fix things yourselves first. If I have to explain to you how to read a log file, perhaps you should learn to use a search engine first. Remember, you can always use yum to downgrade problem packages if needed. No one said you had to use this repository, so keep your whining to yourself.
Sources used all came from Fedora 24, however no code changes were made to their sources. Many, many, many spec file changes to get things to compile, but no source code changes have been made. Therefore, you can get the source for any of these packages here.
So that’s the just of it. This is just one person doing this work, and it isn’t easy work, so please keep that in mind. Don’t expect this to be 100% smooth, as we’re replacing the entire desktop environment, and there is a lot of dependencies to go with that. If you’re installing this on a clean live Gnome install, it should install without issues however.
This repository is unofficial, not supported by Red Hat or the CentOS project, and is provided ”as is”. You use these packages at your own risk and peril. There is no sponsor of this repository. No warranty is given or implied. Do not use it on any enterprise or critical systems. It is meant for desktop use, by knowledgeable users only. I would like to get this moved into an automated build system, but for now I am hosting it on my own, and building everything manually. So I have not yet implemented any gpg signing, please be aware. You should never trust anyone on the internet, or random repositories you find, so again, use this at your own risk.
I will check for new source packages and rebuild them and add them to the repository, but be aware that since this is all manually done, by one person, so you may not get the latest security updates right away when released upstream.
There are no i686 packages. Some i686 GNOME/GTK packages you have installed will cause dependency issues. Recommend removing all i686 packages before using this repo.
I’m a fan of EFL and Enlightenment as well, so the latest Enlightenment window manager, as well as Terminology will be soon included in the repo for those who want to use it.
Later this year when 3.22 is released, I do intend again to rebase to that. If for some reason RHEL/CentOS 8 is released before then, the repo will shift to support that major version.
If you understand the above, and if you still want to go through with this, follow these quick instructions. Don’t forget to add EPEL and the Nux repos first. Otherwise you will just get a boat load of dependency errors right away, those repos are required. I may eventually build their needed packages myself, but for now I saved the effort and used them.
Make sure you are up to date first:
sudo yum –y upgrade
Add the Nux and EPEL repos:
sudo yum -y install epel-release && sudo rpm -Uvh http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el7/x86_64/nux-dextop-release-0-5.el7.nux.noarch.rpm
Create /etc/yum.repos.d/el7gnome.repo file with below contents:
[el7gnome] name=RPMs for GNOME 3.20 on RHEL/CentOS 7.x baseurl=http://el7gnome.ddns.us/RPMS/ enabled=1 gpgcheck=0 protect=0 skip_if_unavailable=true
You may then issue a "yum -y upgrade", if you have Gnome already installed. Otherwise a "yum -y upgrade && yum -y install gnome-shell evolution nautilus totem" and whatever other packages you want installed (need to upgrade a few packages first to avoid dependency errors during install). You can browse the repository here: http://el7gnome.ddns.us/RPMS/
You can get the source for any of these packages here.
You may contact me via email at el7gnome at openmailbox dot org