ubuntu/debian: using bluetile with GNOME2-like environment?

Question

The installation of debian wheezy defaulted to the KDE desktop environment. How do I remove it and switch to GNOME 2 (the version that is used in stable)?

I fear that if I just install gnome-core, it will install GNOME 3. Can I just make sources.list point to an older version of some package?

I prefer GNOME 2 because it works well with bluetile (I don't want MATE, or other copies).

Answer 1

I installed MATE and it looks just like GNOME 2. Bluetile runs fine as well, but it didn't start running upon logging in. Here's a solution I found online:

Adding these two files is one possible solution:

/usr/share/xsessions/mate-bluetile-session.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=MATE + Bluetile
Comment=Tiling window manager
Exec=mate-bluetile-session
Icon=bluetile.png
Type=XSession

/usr/bin/mate-bluetile-session

#!/bin/bash

mateconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/caja/preferences/show_desktop False
mateconftool-2 --type string \
    --set /desktop/mate/session/required_components/windowmanager bluetile
exec /usr/bin/mate-session

I'm not sure why the person I'm quoting decided to disable the desktop, mine is set to True. Make sure that /usr/bin/mate-bluetile-session is executable. You should then be able to select "MATE + Bluetile" from the options list when you login.

A second problem I've found is that the run application dialog doesn't come up with win-p. I installed gexec, mapped that to win+p, and changed the bluetile shortcut to Mod1+p.

Another solution: install grun and map that to win+p. Grun seems like the more traditional run application dialog box.

relevant:

1. run application dialog in gnome2 (alt-f2) without gnome-panel

2. http://darkness.codefu.org/wordpress/2004/07/popping-up-the-gnome-run-application-dialog-from-a-script/