Is Ubuntu Driving Users Away?

http://www.datamation.com/open-source/is-ubuntu-driving-users-away-1.html

by darkduck • 15 years ago

26 48 15 years ago

Mavrik• 15 years ago

Well, there are some of us who don't want to be guinea pigs for UI testing every 6 months so we're switching to something more stable.

For me, Mint has been a good option - I retain the repositories without the silly GUI change and half-broken software stuff.

snowtiger• 15 years ago

I also hate it, plus I think everyone would be better off if Canonical helped to improve Gnome or KDE not waste developers and users time with such experimental time

MatthewPhillips2• 15 years ago

The latest versions of Ubuntu are always meant to be beta-ish. You want the 10.04 LTS version if stability is key for you.

pointyhat• 15 years ago

Yes it is. It has driven me away. It's so damn inconsistent and chock full of bugs, even in the LTS releases. Not only that, Launchpad is about as likely to get a fix released as Microsoft Connect is. Fedora rawhide is more stable!

Bar one stubborn piece of equipment hanging on 10.04LTS, I've entirely switched to Debian which can actually be trusted, has a decent release QA and doesn't change every two seconds.

georgemcbay• 15 years ago

They haven't driven me away but they have nullified the advantage they had of being the Linux install I could count on to put on a new desktop/laptop machine and have it basically Just Work.

Now I have to undo the damage of the silly UI after the install. I still tend to pick Ubuntu out of habit, but one more iffy release and that will probably change.

wladimir• 15 years ago

I don't agree. Personally I really like the new UI (Unity), and the improvements that they bring with every version. They really seek to innovate in UI space, and like taking a fresh look at it, something that is seems rare in both open and closed-source OSes.

However, Kubuntu might be an option if you prefer a more traditional UI with a launchbar at the bottom etc.

dazzawazza• 15 years ago

I've had nothing but annoyance from Ubuntu. One week printing works, update.... now it doesn't. One week the wacom tablet works, update now it doesn't. The list goes on an on, small failings week after week.

Nothing fails completely. The printing just stalled on large images, the wacom pressure sensitivity stopped working. It all smells of lack of in depth testing before release.

Luckily it's not my workhorse machine.

tintin• 15 years ago

This is a really good question: "Is Unity the best place to invest man-hours with extended development right now?"

It's very hard to balance the needs of the commercial department and the development department.

rbanffy12• 15 years ago

It's a really weird question in fact. How much do you need to change a program that works in a traditional Gnome desktop (even ignoring the fact Gnome has moved on too) so that it integrates seamlessly with Unity?

My best guess is "nothing at all". Am I that wrong?

Are the people complaining about investing man-hours in extender development really developing desktop apps for Gnome/Unity?

cturner3• 15 years ago

Why do successful platforms overhaul established successful user interfaces? Gnome2 could have used some polish but the building blocks were right. Windows 2000 was fine. These changes are value destruction. The world would be a better place had the developers had gone on holiday instead of making overhauls. Were the gnome changes driven by focus groups?

acabal• 15 years ago

Because it's more fun to develop a new codebase using cool new tools and technologies than maintain an old one and try to hack new technology into it. Not that that makes it right.

rbanffy12• 15 years ago

> Not that that makes it right.

But it is. Every once and then you should start off a clean slate. You should throw away old code, even if it works, and rewrite it in better ways than possible when it was originally written. You have to incorporate what you learned into it.

The fact Windows probably contains code written for release 2.x is a weakness, not a strength.

zalew2• 15 years ago

> you can install a Gnome classic fall back option. This provides users with the ability to enjoy a classic Gnome experience. It's unfortunate, however, that I had to do multiple search engine queries just to find out if this was even a possibility. Despite the time spent searching, the fact is that it's possible. Thanks to the Ubuntu team pushing Unity adoption, I'm 99% positive you'll never hear about this option through official Ubuntu channels.

because that doesn't make much sense. Gnome went 3.x and you should naturally expect a decline in popularity of the "old" version, there is no reason to promote this fallback unless someone forks Gnome 2.x as Linus suggested, which is unlikely to happen. the alternative is switch to another DE such as XFCE (lxde, kde), or how to say it by Ubuntu terms - install Xubuntu (lubuntu, kubuntu).

darklajid3• 15 years ago

Gnome-shell user here.

Ubuntu's not for me, mostly because they cannot give me 'vanilla' software easily. They started with smaller changes (the notification patches come to my mind here) and now push their own agenda of a shell.

I'm still having some issues with gnome-shell, but I'm sure they'll be fixed. At least I'm sure that this is software that is maintained by the Gnome guys (I trust their code quality more, again due to the notification patch issues in the past) and - this is the big one - I don't want to use an interface that is distribution dependent.

I can easily use gnome-shell on a variety of different machines. Unity is a Ubuntu only (? Did any other distribution think about including this thing at all? Why would they?) UI and therefor a fail in my open source rule book.

irahul• 15 years ago

You always have the option to use classic gnome with Ubuntu. That's what I use. I am not particularly thrilled with the idea of taking a netbook interface and slapping it on regular users. I tried it, didn't like it,switched back to classic.

rbanffy12• 15 years ago

You can always opt for traditional Gnome (Shell will be available on 11.10). It's a one-time change (you choose it on login) and works well. You'll never have to look at Unity again.

And, of course, you can run Debian or Fedora or any other distro you want.

sesteel• 15 years ago

Works well is subjective. It can be flaky.

pmarin• 15 years ago

I recently switched to Debian Stable with non-free and backports repositories. The default desktop is Gnome 2.30.2 and installs by default all the similar software Ubuntu used to install like Openoffice, transmission, etc. My desktop is even able to resume and suspend (Ubuntu stopped to do it with the version 9.04)

rbanffy12• 15 years ago

> My desktop is even able to resume and suspend (Ubuntu stopped to do it with the version 9.04)

Well... works here, flawlessly (has been, since 6.04, across five different computers)

lwhi2• 15 years ago

They haven't driven me away - I like Unity, it's not perfect, but it works well. I find that Unity lets me get on with my work, and provides access to every thing I need to do so in a fairly logical, economical way.

There are always sacrifices that need to be made when working with Linux - but the advantages out way the disadvantages for me. I expect to have to spend time configuring my system because I have freedom to choose the what runs on my system and how I choose to use it.

Change is uncomfortable - but unless it occurs incrementally, any open source OS is going to stagnate.

When all other competing closed source operating systems are stretching the paradigms they operate within, this kind of stagnation would mean that Ubuntu would be left behind. Ubuntu needs to innovate if it's going to remain useful and relevant.

Perhaps part of the problem was that Ubuntu had been tied to Gnome for so long. It seems to me that in order to address this, the current period of development is less of an increment - and more of a leap - than it comfortably should have been.

vrotaru• 15 years ago

On that revamped UI question (Unity).

Ubuntu was pretty much forced into it, when they became less than enthusiastic about Gnome3 (gnome-shell).