Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/03/ubuntu-dumps-the-brown-introduces-new-theme.ars?utm_source=microblogging&utm_medium=arstch&utm_term=Main%20Account&utm_campaign=microblogging

by jasonlbaptiste • 16 years ago

122 114 16 years ago

arstechnica.com

dasil0032• 16 years ago

Not emulate, but blow right past Apple in the user experience we deliver to our end users

You gotta admire the guy's ambition.

jasonlotito• 16 years ago

Damn right. And considering everything he's accomplished, I think he has the right to be. =)

dasil0032• 16 years ago

I don't think ambition is something you have to earn, more power to him.

However considering the cat-herding involved in creating great user experiences from the top down, and considering how much Apple pays its engineers and designers, if he pulls this off he's 100 times the leader Steve Jobs is.

mcantor• 16 years ago

Ubuntu: Now with grape flavor!

cmanfu• 16 years ago

more like purple drank

Dobbs• 16 years ago

I just installed Xubuntu on a new laptop. I was blown away at how beautiful it looks in comparison with Ubuntu. I'm very glad to see Ubuntu get over it's fetish for its old ugly color scheme.

swah• 16 years ago

I disliked the Dark theme for ubuntu 9.

revorad• 16 years ago

Xubuntu is beautiful and fast. I like it much better than Ubuntu.

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

It's the same thing with XFCE as the default window manager.

genieyclo• 16 years ago

Xubuntu is actually pretty bloated in slow, in some tests even worse than the standard Ubuntu install. (see <http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7520/1.html>; ).

Lubuntu, which is the "official" Ubuntu sub-distro for light fast iso for small-spec computers runs on LXDE instead of XFCE and is purportedly much better on resources and faster. I think the real reason why Xubuntu is so bad is because all the other junk from Ubuntu Gnome got packaged in with Xfce and got called Xubuntu.

pluc• 16 years ago

Original article: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brand

Not sure why neither sources or HN links to it.

notaddicted• 16 years ago

"Ubuntu dumps the brown" is a particularly bad pun.

nailer4• 16 years ago

It's not actually a pun, but an an unfortunate visualization.

But perhaps I'm just being anal.

malkia• 16 years ago

Gordon Brown? :)

ern• 16 years ago

I always felt that Ubuntu had a very "African" look and feel because of the brown (and the name of course).

I wonder if this is part of a move towards a more global image.

jasonlbaptiste4• 16 years ago

Why are there no OEMs making strictly ubuntu machines? There's System76, but they're too complicated (20 different choices). Go look at hardware partners and there are no north american system builders! That's what Ubuntu is missing. Guys like us will install it, but if they want to be adopted by normal people it has to come with the system. You'll never get a strong commitment from big guys like DELL. They're too worried about pissing off MSFT.

I'll tell ya, Ubuntu Netbook Edition is the best interface for "simple computing" out there. It's like an iPhone for your desktop computer. I almost want to do a live test where I sit people down with windows 7 and Ubuntu Netbook Edition. I bet you Ubuntu Netbook Edition will win almost every time.

jonknee2• 16 years ago

Support cost is the only thing I can think of. And pressure from MS. I looked just today for an Ubuntu laptop and ran into the exact issue you describe. Dell has Ubuntu on two netbooks, but that's it. Not that I can't install on my own, but I don't want to pay for Windows if I'm not going to use it (and knowing all the hardware is supported is a nice plus).

jasonlbaptiste4• 16 years ago

pressure from MS is the biggest part.

bugs• 16 years ago

Sadly you get a discount from windows on most machines... same specs but the windows equivalent is usually cheaper.

axod• 16 years ago

I agree @ Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

The other thing I just don't understand is why are netbook manufacturers still putting crappy nonstandard little known restrictive linux distros on their netbook?

I bought an Acer Aspire One, which came with linpus I think, which was ridiculous. Installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and now it's fantastic.

jasonlbaptiste4• 16 years ago

i use it on my tv. i fucking love it.

rsheridan64• 16 years ago

Hmm, maybe linpus (never heard of it, but what a horrible name, makes me think of a wound with purulent discharge) offers a better crapware kickback or something like that.

pingswept• 16 years ago

In 2007, I bought a Dell XPS 410 that came straight from Dell with Ubuntu installed. It works great.

http://pingswept.org/2007/06/03/finally-booting-pre-installe...

rsheridan64• 16 years ago

Dell did make a serious Ubuntu effort in 2007. They had a fair selection of Ubuntu machines, but they didn't make any money. Other OEMs dropped their plans to sell Ubuntu, and all you can get with Ubuntu from Dell now is a few netbooks.

I bought one when they were brand new (in fact, I'm using it right now). It was not ready for prime time - there were suspend/hibernate problems, among other issues. I could not have recommended it.

That with Dapper Drake. Karmic works a lot better, but it's so bloated that I can barely use it. I had to get rid of GNOME and run fluxbox, and I don't use Firefox anymore because it takes fully half of my RAM (not that that's Ubuntu's fault). But I think regular Ubuntu would be ready for prime time on a faster machine. The only thing really holding it back now is inertia and software compatibility.

But I expect that it will be awhile before OEMs want to try again. Canonical shouldn't have pushed it to OEMs before it was ready.

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

Don't blame Ubuntu for the suspend/resume or other hardware compatibility problems. Dell sold you a system with hardware and software that conflict. Suspend, hibernate, et al work fine on almost all properly configured combinations of hardware under Linux. If Dell chose to sell you a system with an incomplete configuration or unsupported hardware, that's their fault, not Ubuntu's.

I don't know that I'm entirely convinced that Dell's program was on the level for Ubuntu, or that it's a fair representation of what would happen with a serious Ubuntu OEM.

kylemathews• 16 years ago

I just installed UNR for my mom last night -- she loves it. She said it was "beautiful" and very easy to use.

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

We need an Apple that peddles Linux systems is what it boils down to. Someone needs to swoop in, add sexy branding, make it attractive to hipsters/teenagers/some other trend-setting crowd, and everything would work out just fine. The Mac/Apple fad is all about style and message. We need a company that will add style and message, that will make simple choices available to consumers (Apple has only a few different consumer-level computers, all with preset configurations), and something that has the withal to market it like crazy.

Consumers don't know or care about advanced functionality or technical considerations -- if your device can run the few applications that are relevant to their niche, then all systems are go; the company that performs those relatively basic technical requirements in the way that is most attractive to the end user is going to come out on top. That means sleek design and branding (probably above everything else), simplicity in choices, and high usability.

If you want your platform to succeed, you need to do the same kind of thing. Shuttleworth's investment in Canonical is good and has helped technically, but now, if he really wants to bring Linux mainstream, he needs to make a computer company that follows in Apple's footsteps. That's the way to make a dent in the market these days. Microsoft would be nothing if they were a startup now, their strategies wouldn't pay off in this environment.

lygaret2• 16 years ago

I really disagree with this.

I'm a developer, I spend 90% of my computing time in Vim and Terminal. I use a Macbook as my primary computer, and tend to bring it to work with me. I try to go to Linux probably twice a year, and have for a long time.

I use a mac because despite the tools I use being written originally for Linux, they work better on OS X. I've never neen unable to connect to a wireless network, I've never had problems with sleep/suspend, I've never even thought about upgrading the kernel. The things I need to do to the system, I can, and everything else works so well that I can forget it's there.

The Mac/Apple fad is all about things actually working. Windows crashes, Linux makes you think too hard about things that you're not doing. When things work, they're sexy, and that's how you can sell it to the masses, but the Zune is sexy too, and see how well pure style sells.

klozetgeek• 16 years ago

Better than the brown.

nearestneighbor2• 16 years ago

Am I the only one who thinks that at the GUI level Ubuntu is better than OS X? (I use Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 8.04 extensively)

grandalf3• 16 years ago

It is for usability. Ubuntu's only weakness is that at the pixel level it's a bit uglier than OSX in some areas... and that by default it doesn't come with quite the same level of fonts...

nearestneighbor2• 16 years ago

Fonts are in the eye (or rather, visual cortex) of the beholder. I got used to the Mac fonts, but at first I thought it was some kind of bad joke or misconfiguration. They seemed annoyingly blurry.

My theory is that one's brain gets used to the particular fonts and may not like change very much.

nailer4• 16 years ago

In some respects - I switched from GNOME to OS X and I found that Nautilus respected the tree a lot more than OS X did, NetworkManager also showed signal strength before OS X's top bar network thingy did.

Only reason I quit is that after speccing hardware that had OSS drivers (and was fairly underpowered to boot), drivers in Ubuntu still didn't work 100% (eg, connecting to external displays broke X render support) and this got worse over time (Intel drivers being replaced with much more unstable replacements).

I still develop for Ubuntu, but inside a VM.

AngryParsley2• 16 years ago

(Intel drivers being replaced with much more unstable replacements).

Ugh, I had this same problem. Every time I upgraded Ubuntu, hardware rendering got another 10x performance decrease and more bugs. Eventually I couldn't even enable vsync, so I got horrible tearing while watching videos. I partially blame Ubuntu for this, since they could have held back Intel's driver updates. Ultimately though, it was Intel's fault for releasing ever-buggier drivers.

A lot of the bugs you're talking about were fixed in updates to 9.10, but I gave up and got a Mac way before that.

barrkel4• 16 years ago

Ubuntu's default control layout looks ridiculous to me - everything is too far apart, the margins are too big, the buttons are too big, the fonts are too big, acres of space are wasted by toolbars in the File Browser in the screenshot, etc.

It looks like a toy for people with poor eyesight.

rbanffy14• 16 years ago

Or big screens.

Unix machines have traditionally been used with big monitors. It's not surprising at all Gnome uses lots of pixels.

And there is nothing forcing you to use Ubuntu's default layout. You have literally hundreds of options to choose from. I tend to change look and feel more or less on a monthly basis.

abhiomkar• 16 years ago

I agree. The GTK font looks big. The button color and the GTK app color is not matching well. Giving same color to Title bar and menu bar is not a good Idea IMO. But I feel, the new look is better than the previous default brownish theme. Like the new logo of ubuntu. The font is minimal & elegant.

carbon82• 16 years ago

Gnome's biggest downside is the same core problem of the Windows interface: having a menu bolted on to each window is incredibly inelegant, redundant and wasteful of screen space.

antigua2• 16 years ago

OS X's biggest downside is the same core problem of the Windows interface: having icons, menus and windows bolted on to a desktop is incredibly inelegant, redundant and wasteful of screen space.

rbanffy14• 16 years ago

OSX's biggest downside is having a fixed region of the screen that changes according to the context of the selected window on the desktop. That makes it impossible to check what two windows can do or even what program is responsible for them until they are selected. That's terribly inelegant solution that separates the data (what's inside the window) from the menus that act on that data (the menu).

Admit it. That's a draw.

Daishiman2• 16 years ago

What are you talking about? OSX's menu bar is useless when you have huge monitors or multiple screens, and the menu bar and other behaviors makes focus-follow-mouse impossible.

s3graham• 16 years ago

I find the menus ridiculous on OSX.

sid0• 16 years ago

OS X's biggest downside is that it doesn't allow an interface without menus. :)

jsz0• 16 years ago

GNOME itself has evolved nicely but the wheels fall off the Ubuntu UI when you start installing applications. If you're careful and only install GTK apps it's bearable but once you mix in QT apps and other non-GTK stuff you have a horrible mix of UIs that lack consistency.

cma• 16 years ago

You can just as easily substitute "Ubuntu" with "OS X" above since QT runs on OS X.

anr• 16 years ago

Window controls (max, min, close) on the right of the window title?? I hope they switch them back to the left.

EDIT: my mistake, I meant, why switch to the left?

htsh• 16 years ago

They are on the left now, formerly on the right. I think you have it backwards?

viraptor• 16 years ago

They've found a new way to make your corners and menus more dangerous. It's not just a classic "turn off" button in the top right. Now you get a "close window" button just below "programs" and above "file menu" for free!

motters• 16 years ago

Pink is the new brown.

niels_olson• 16 years ago

To nit-pick . . . let me repeat . . . to N I T P I C K, I reaallly think the window buttons need to be toned down. That one red button looks sends the whole thing back to something out of KDE 2 (no disrespect to the KDE, I run a KDE 4.3 desktop, it's more of a 90s-still-learning-how-to-design-desktops thing)

phatbyte• 16 years ago

I still think that this new design feels more like a theme than a default GUI of a OS (or DM in this case).

While I love Linux and I use it everyday, mostly as a server, everytime I enter in the desktop interface I do not feel the "home sweet home" I do on a OS X or Windows.

Linux DM are not comfortable, specially when you have KDE apps mixed with Gnome Apps and there's that mix of different gui + usability styles.

I've said this once, and I will say it again (running the risk of serious bashing): Linux should concentrate in only one DM and improve it.

volomike• 16 years ago

Purple and /brown/? Really? Did they have to go there? That's uuuuuugly. Blue and green. Red and black. Purple and black. But Purple and brown? That's a harsh color transition, if I don't recall. What's next? The Hot Dog theme for Ubuntu?

BTW, I'm a huge Ubuntu fan. But man, purple and brown? Geesh!

ThomPete• 16 years ago

"Not emulate, but blow right past Apple in the user experience we deliver to our end users"

I fail to see how that by any metrics are related to the new theme and branding efforts.

The user experience is not defined by the look and feel but by so many other factors. It would be interesting if they had actually better ways to deal with certain metaphors such as file browsing.

But as it stands right now although I love what Ubuntu are doing they are a long long long way from being anything close to Apple standards.

tjic• 16 years ago

> After six years it was time to refresh the face of Ubuntu starting with the word mark

Yeah, that's a core principal of branding - as soon as the customers are familiar with your logo, change it.

Someone tell Apple, IBM, and Coca-Cola.

ktf• 16 years ago

The Apple logo has changed at least 2 or 3 times.

And the Ubuntu change isn't drastic enough that people will stop recognizing it.

patrickk• 16 years ago

I'd like to see Ubuntu taking a really radical approach and giving the user a choice of more non-traditional desktop options such as these custom desktops, courtesy of lifehacker:

http://lifehacker.com/5043712/roll-your-own-lightning-at-sun...

http://lifehacker.com/5087956/customize-your-own-killer-enig...

UI looks set to change radically over the next few years, it would be cool if they looked at the multitouch route:

http://gizmodo.com/5457472/how-the-apple-tablet-interface-co...

It can't exactly hurt Ubuntu's market share to really look at exploring the possibilities (sorry couldn't resist). Apple (naturally) and even Microsoft are really upping their game on the UI front and there's the danger of Ubuntu being left even further behind.

Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

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