Ubuntu 11.04 will use Unity UX instead of GNOME Desktop

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-natty-narwhal-unity-gnome-default-shell/

by kleiba • 16 years ago

83 56 16 years ago

downloadsquad.com

wildster• 16 years ago

This is good news as GNOME has had it's day. The Unity interface is pretty cool.

bad_user• 16 years ago

Unity is just a shell on top of Gnome, which is an entire platform.

That said, Unity does look pretty cool.

vanschelven• 16 years ago

Discussion:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830372

wyclif• 16 years ago

In the article, I think they are confusing the GNOME shell with the GNOME desktop, which are not the same things at all.

roqetman• 16 years ago

I think this clarifies things: "There is going to be some questions about this decision in relation to GNOME. I want to make something crystal clear: Ubuntu is a GNOME distribution, we ship the GNOME stack, we will continue to ship GNOME apps, and we optimize Ubuntu for GNOME. The only difference is that Unity is a different shell for GNOME, but we continue to support the latest GNOME Shell development work in the Ubuntu archives" From: http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-uni...

bconway• 16 years ago

It doesn't seem like they make that mistake at all:

It will be the first version of the OS not to ship with the Gnome shell as the default UI. Gnome will continue to be the underlying framework, as Unity is based on it, but the interface layer will look nothing like Gnome.

drblast4• 16 years ago

With wide screens, there is a scarcity of vertical screen space, especially on netbooks.

Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications.

Windows XP had the nice benefit of the application buttons' text being horizontal so a wide start bar on the left or right could list about 15-20 open applications without cropping the application name.

Even though they're going to a side bar, moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness.

I'd imagine it's impossible to move the menu bar in Mac OS X, but since there's no Mac netbook, it's probably not a problem.

tommorris• 16 years ago

You can have the Mac dock on the bottom, left or right. And you can have it so it slides away when not in use.

And the new MacBook Air 11" is close to a netbook...

hogu2• 16 years ago

yes, but you still loose the top to that menu bar

akent• 16 years ago

"results in ugly, buggy weirdness" <--- care to elaborate?

I've happily been removing the top bar in Gnome for many consecutive Ubuntu releases without problems?

Tichy2• 16 years ago

Same here, removing the top bar is always the first thing I do on a fresh install.

drblast4• 16 years ago

Sure I'll elaborate. By the way, if you have any way to fix these problems via configuration, please let me know.

Minor complaint: the default theme is a fixed-pixel gradient that doesn't rotate when you move the bar to the right, so the vertical bar looks like closed venetian blinds. I can change the theme, but the default should be better.

Bigger complaints: The status icons and notification area don't rotate and/or crop themselves so you can't access most of the important icons.

The application buttons DO rotate the text 90 degrees, but (my preference at least) they should be the only thing that doesn't rotate. The problem with horizontal application buttons is you quickly run out of space; I move the task bar vertical to eliminate that problem -- this is a problem with Gnome's implementation, not Ubuntu.

I'd be happy to remove the top bar, but a lot of functionality (wireless configuration menus) is difficult or impossible to access without it.

I normally have the terminal, browser, and emacs set to hotkeys as F1, F2, and F3, so I don't need an application menu other than to start apps I use infrequently. A context menu would be sufficient.

Perfect world: What I'd really like is a blank screen with some method of seeing running applications that remains hidden most of the time, and a way to easily start applications, see wireless config, and log out.

The last desktop I had that worked exactly the way I wanted it was FVWM, where everything was accessed via hotkeys and root window context menus.

Unfortunately a lot of the niceness of Gnome, like the wireless config stuff, battery notifications, auto-mounting of USB Drives, and status icons you'd typically expect are dependent on using the Gnome/Nautilus interface. (At least I think that's the case.)

I'd probably be happy with FVWM again if using it didn't mean abandoning all the configuration apps and automation that Gnome provides. Right now, I'd have to log in to FVWM, and start a bunch of scripts to configure wireless, start the 50,000 daemons that make Gnome run like a modern UI, etc.

It's a lot of work to go through to reclaim 42 pixels from the top of my screen.

prakashk• 16 years ago

> Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications.

I have done this -- moving the taskbar (in my case Gnome Panel) -- to the right for many years. I don't think this is not something of a Windows 7 innovation.

> [...] moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness.

Please explain what you mean. As I said, I have done this for many years in Gnome, and it's just fine.

llogiq• 16 years ago

On my netbook I set the menu bar to hide and set it up to have the same height as the window title bar. This solves both problems (at least for me): a) no vertical screen clutter, b) no unfamilar menubar on the right screen border.

I used to run gentoo w/ ratpoison which had an even better solution and dispersed with the panel altogether...

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

> Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications.

IIRC, Windows 95 allowed you to drag the taskbar anywhere you wanted it.

On Windows, every app has a menu, so you still have some screen real estate devoted to a menu, negating the advantage of not having a top menu bar.

sid02• 16 years ago

On Windows, every app has a menu

No. Lots of applications don't have menus.

calloc2• 16 years ago

You may not be able to move the top bar, but that is not an issue since that is the menu bar, doesn't matter where on the screen it is located it is going to take up space, might as well be in a central location.

That being said, the Dock in OS X can also be positioned on either the left or the right side of the screen as well as at the bottom where it has always been. Not being able to move the menu bar is not an issue.

mhd2• 16 years ago

I still miss CDE. (No "glutton for punishment" comments, please.)

rwmj• 16 years ago

Ewww, CDE :-) fvwm was nice, and of course is still available.

mhd2• 16 years ago

I think I stopped using fvwm after they switch to their 2.x branch. I still use twm occasionally, though. (Don't care a lot about virtual desktops and pseudo-3D window frames anymore)

I wonder whether you could still compile bowman, the fvwm fork that "begat" the slew of NeXt-like window manager that followed…

tzury• 16 years ago

if you want to experience it now on your desktop do the following:

    $ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:canonical-dx-team/une
    $ sudo apt-get update
    $ sudo apt-get install unity

Log Off, and then choose the Unity session before logging in.

I did it in the past and did not like it much. But perhaps it is far better now, and would be even better in the future release

buro92• 16 years ago

I just tried this and I think it's a much better desktop in terms of UX.

However, I'm running on a mere 16GB 16-core MacPro and performance was appalling with it really suffering and the end result is practically unusable.

If performance can be brought up to Gnome levels then I'll probably be happy as it is really nice.

kevinherron2• 16 years ago

16-core? Since when is there more than a 12-core Mac Pro?

zecg• 16 years ago

My money is on Ubuntu 12.10 defaulting to xmonad and triggering the apocalypse.

xentronium• 16 years ago

It isn't very usable/gui-customizable as of now. I'd like an ability to move the "superbar" to other side of the screen, for example.

Visual part doesn't rock much either.

Thus, in my opinion, using it as a default in netbooks is just a little too early. However, the vector direction is right, and we surely can have some nice things with unity.

bilban4• 16 years ago

I actually wish window managers would use overlays for the toolbars and menus - if the hardware was up to it.

Then my web browser would just be a bare chrome. Touch screens, could sense my fingers coming close to the screen and bring up icons or something. Text based menus could also be brought up for power users. Something like that...

Ogre• 16 years ago

Saying "This move could anger at least some open source enthusiasts" seems to imply that they're moving to a closed source or proprietary system, but Unity seems to be an open source project at a cursory glance. It could anger some Gnome enthusiasts, who are presumably open source enthusiasts as well, but not because of anything to do with the open source-ness of the project. Right? Or is Unity not quite as open as claimed?

grobolom3• 16 years ago

I think the biggest problem with the current version of Unity is the lack of customization.

10.10 Unity does not allow the removal or movement of any of the desktop elements - you cannot hide the topbar or the sidebar, both of which take up significant space on netbooks. Less of an issue for desktop computing, but still.

The bars are also not customizable, which to me was a big draw of Ubuntu and the GNOME shell itself. Let's hope that they return that functionality - otherwise, I'll be using 10.04.1 for quite a while.

chibea• 16 years ago

An interesting side note here is that the coming Unity will be based upon compiz, instead of relying on mutter. Canonical apparently hired the lead developer of compiz:

http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/a-bright-new-futur...

twymer• 16 years ago

Unity is the default in the 10.10 Netbook version of Ubuntu. It runs terribly slow and I found it unusable because of this. I was thinking it seemed like they made something that expected you to be on a desktop but marketed it wrong, I guess I was right..

dkokelley• 16 years ago

Probably not ready for prime time just yet. I installed Unity on my 12.1" HP tablet and there were immediate and obvious bugs. Most notably, all menus and several other windows were skewed about 45 degrees.

I like the concept, and I think that in order for Ubuntu to compete with other distros and innovation among the major players (OS X and 7) a redesign of the UI is necessary. Considering the new features OS X Lion will be bringing, I think Unity is a necessary progression.

tmsh• 16 years ago

May 10, 2010 Mark Shuttleworth blogpost on Unity:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383

sp4rki• 16 years ago

IMO Unity is just, appalling. That being said, I like my Linuxes with a small footprint windowing system and a decent colorscheme. I find this pretty desktop Linuxes stuff meek.

SkyMarshal• 16 years ago

Why are we still futzing around with always-visible taskbars when we've got things like Quicksilver, Gnome-Do, Alt-Tab window switchers, and tiling window managers.

I'd think by now that we'd get rid of any visible element that's not an app, like menu bars, an integrate them, along with alt-tab app switching and program (Start) menus into a single popup Quicksilver/Gnome-Do interface.

WTB one point of contact for starting/switching/stopping any app on the system, that is hidden until you need to see it, and activated by either a shortcut key or mouse button combo or gesture.

Ubuntu 11.04 will use Unity UX instead of GNOME Desktop

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