Unity is the end of Ubuntu

http://www.jemmatzan.com/2011/10/unity-is-the-end-of-ubuntu.html

by darkduck • 15 years ago

49 113 15 years ago

macavity23• 15 years ago

Whatever one thinks of unity, taking away the ability to keep the old desktop environment seems extremely misguided. One of the best things about open source is the knowledge that once you get a working setup, you'll always be able to keep it.

I'll soon be returning to using a linux box as my primary machine after a year stuck on laptop-only. I'll give Ubuntu a first shot out of loyalty, but if my experience is anything like this guy's, it'll be back to Debian for me...

robin_reala• 15 years ago

One of the best things about open source is the knowledge that once you get a working setup, you'll always be able to keep it.

You can keep it – no-one’s forcing you to upgrade. Or are you saying that every open source project should keep every option and setup it’s ever had ad infinitum?

regularfry5• 15 years ago

A lack of security updates for an old system, when it happens, is forcing an update.

mzarate06• 15 years ago

+1 on wanting to keep the old desktop environment.

I've been an Ubuntu user since 7.04. One of the biggest benefits was that the desktop environment stayed pretty consistent throughout the years. I always enjoyed upgrading b/c I got the benefit of bug fixes, performance improvements, and better hardware compatibility, but w/out having to re-learn a new environment. Enter Unity, and now I'm forced to either learn it, or jump to another distro.

Thrymr• 15 years ago

Or configure a different interface for yourself, e.g. gnome or xfce. I can't stand Unity either, but I just don't use it. It would have been nice if the default interface was more usable by power users/developers, but I can see why they made Unity simple. We are not the target audience.

EDIT: And yes, I know that it is harder to get a "normal" gnome interface in 11.10. That's why I haven't upgraded myself yet. But I will, and I'll see what others have done to get around Unity. I just can't see it as the "end" of Ubuntu. Maybe some of us power users will go back to Debian, or to Xubuntu, etc. Maybe we'll lead an exodus to a new distro, but I think more likely Ubuntu will stay at the leading edge of the "user-friendly" Linux distributions for a while.

abyssknight• 15 years ago

Ubuntu was always about giving the every-man a usable operating system. Describing the typical new user as "a complete retard who can only click shiny buttons" is extremely rude and misguided. Not everyone is a terminal guru, and not everyone uses Ubuntu. If you don't like the distro, slipstream yourself a new copy with your favourite WM. I don't understand how anyone can complain about progress like this -- if you don't like convention over configuration, maybe Ubuntu isn't for you.

ominous_prime3• 15 years ago

My sentiments exactly. Although Unity goes pretty far to provide keybindings for most actions by default (and compiz can provide whatever else you may want), I just couldn't get it working in a way I like. I did an `apt-get install gnome-shell`, and I've been using that since.

This didn't take me any absurd amount of time, and didn't result in any angry blog posts. I could have just as easily dropped in another distro, but I do like the default font rendering on Ubuntu, which takes some work to get right in others like Fedora.

TylerE2• 15 years ago

Ubuntu has been losing that plot for a long time. Remember when they shipped a version with essentially broken audio? Because they decided to switch to PulseAudio?

rbanffy2• 15 years ago

Which was subsequently fixed. That's how things get done with open-source. You make a big change, lots of stuff break at first, then they get fixed over time. Audio has been working flawlessly for a couple years here.

GvS• 15 years ago

I really tried to get used to it and gave it a week, but in the end it was impossible. It's just full of bad design decisions and slows me down a lot. I think it has some potential and I tried to configure it but coudn't find any options so I googled "ubuntu unity remove" and I was back to gnome after reboot.

jcfrei2• 15 years ago

I considered updating tonight, but this will keep me from doing it. preventing users to switch back to a working, classic gnome gui is beyond ridiculous and downward ignorant of a large userbase. I'll probably stick with 11.04 and switch to xubuntu sometime in the future.

IgorPartola3• 15 years ago

Nothing is prevented. sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

jcfrei2• 15 years ago

thnx, will try that

nissimk• 15 years ago

I run ubuntu on my asus netbook. Because the screen is so small, I like to run everything maximized, so I really don't mind unity. Unforunately, VNC server (vino) doesn't work properly in unity. I switched to unity 2D which fixes the VNC issue, but then I can't shrink the icons in the launcher (there's a hack to show smaller icons, but the launcher still doesn't resize to be the same width as the icons).

I think I'll try LXDE next. I like ubuntu because there is a lot of documentation in the google index. I feel like it's always best to have the largest user base because then it is most likely someone else has already encountered your issue. It's too bad that there's such a split now on the default desktop environment.

Also, it's too bad that X is so far behind windows and OSX. On my home machine I use a laptop with 2 external screens, one is connected through a displayLink USB device. In windows it was plug and play. I'm sure that under Linux it will take me a really long time to set it up and even then it won't work as good. It's too bad because I really would prefer to only run windows in a VM.

isbn• 15 years ago

There is a ppa that makes the Unity-2D launcher the same size as the icons: ppa:lucazade/ppa at https://launchpad.net/~lucazade/+archive/ppa

I use it and have no problem or crashes.

kitanata2• 15 years ago

I would highly recommend XFCE4 over LXDE if you are doing development work. I switched to XFCE4 2 weeks ago and it's still impressing the hell out of me. It's just really simple to get things done quickly.

achristoffersen• 15 years ago

what ever. Linux is about diversity and freedom. I personally don't like the path ubuntu is forking, but hey - it will suit a lot of people fine. And I think it will benefit the linux community that e.g. macolytes and windoves will find gnome3 and unity nice too look at. Then later they can open the pandora box of beastly beauty that is linux.

tl;dr: It's good that ubuntu experiments and lives on the cutting edge. If you don't like it install mint or fedora or debian or arch ...

ot• 15 years ago

> Why does Unity suck so much? Because it assumes you're a complete retard who can only click shiny buttons.

What most techies don't get is that this is an extremely reasonable assumption. Well, to be more fair, that most users don't care.

Everything that's hidden behind contextual menus, magic key combinations, endless configuration checkboxes or, for god's sake, command line, simply does not exist, because the average user doesn't want to spend hours to learn the "Right Way" to do something as long as he can find one way to do it, however much inefficient.

suivix2• 15 years ago

Linux requires that you use the command line anyways. For example, you can't even format a USB disk unless you spend an hour looking up an obscure command.

cas5• 15 years ago

Err what? Try Disk Utility in Ubuntu.

sp3327• 15 years ago

Why can't you use the partition manager? It's installed by default.

joelthelion• 15 years ago

Untrue. Gparted works fine.

I have several non-geek friends who use linux, and they almost never need my help. They don't know the first thing about the command line.

Jach• 15 years ago

Have you ever used Linux? I don't even need to do that on Gentoo, my main system. Right click, format, choose a format type, format. Exactly the same as Windows.

Ed: from your other comment in this thread, I think you haven't. I don't think anyone has ever been required to use the command line to install things in Ubuntu (that are in the package manager which contains most things most users care about), but my memory only goes back to Dapper.

regularfry5• 15 years ago

If it assumes that the user can only click shiny buttons, there's no way for that user to acquire skills and climb the Dreyfus skill levels. It holds "novices" in place, while actively hindering anyone already at "advanced beginner" or "competent" levels. "Proficient" or "expert" users will just throw it out.

chadgeidel• 15 years ago

"Command" key (forget what it's actually called), start typing very much like Spotlight and Windows Desktop Search. IMHO way better than a ton of shiny buttons that I may or may not need.

larrik2• 15 years ago

Then those people want Chromebooks or something.

Linux is no where near ready for those people.

Yesterday my boss, who has been a hardcore Linux user for decades, managed to change his theme in Gnome3 (Fedora) to some weird high-contrast thing, just by clicking on his desktop somehow. We actually couldn't find the place to change it back in the few minutes I was helping him. It wasn't in the menu accessible from right-clicking on the menu. It wasn't anywhere we found in the stupid new System Settings screen. We searched in the Activities window-thing for "Theme" and came up with nothing.

I can't imagine what would have happened if it was one of the people I used to support at my old job. shudder

slowpoke4• 15 years ago

> What most techies don't get is that this is an extremely reasonable assumption. Well, to be more fair, that most users don't care.

I don't think he's complaining that they try to make it easier for people for whom this assumption holds true. There should be emphasis on only. From what I can gather, Unity seems to make it impossible (or at least highly inconvenient) to do anything but click on shiny buttons - and that's retarded.

bryanlarsen4• 15 years ago

In my opinion, Unity does a better job of getting out of my way and doing what I want to do than its predecessor. And I've been using Linux as my primary desktop since 1995...

davedx• 15 years ago

No problems here.

Drag terminal onto the application launch bar.

Job done.

ilcavero• 15 years ago

what's wrong with ubuntu 10.04? it's still in support and has gnome 2.X I will use it until either gnome shell or unity until get mature enough, there is no need to change OS every 6 months.

one-man-bucket2• 15 years ago

I had the same thing happen to me a couple of days ago when I did the upgrade.

My old gnome2 desktop was set up so that I almost never had to use the mouse. I used gnome-do for application launching (excellent software!) and various compiz plugins for window placement with the keyboard (dual monitor setup).

I gave unity a try when I upgraded to 11.04, but it felt so "unfinished" back then that I figured it would take at least a year for me to give it any serious consideration. And it lacked all the configuration required to get to a mouseless setup. And it still does.

Oh, and it made X really sluggish and I've had at least one compiz crash every day since I upgraded (the ui crashes and reloads, putting all windows in the top left workspace).

jsvaughan3• 15 years ago

gnome-do works perfectly well under 11.10, unity has keyboard shortcuts for window placement (e.g. Ctrl-Alt + Numpad e.g. Ctrl-Alt-6 = window to the RHS of the screen)

IMO unity much improved in 11.10 over 11.04

one-man-bucket2• 15 years ago

You're probably right that it improved, but it's still not nearly polished and robust enough (compared to gnome2).

You get the exact same window placement stuff by activating the Put compiz plugin (which is more customizable than unity).

Yes, gnome-do worked in unity in 11.10 once you disable the launcher bar shortcut.

I guess my point is that unity made everything much more sluggish and introduced crashes/buggy behaviour without really adding anything for a power user who doesn't use the mouse.

yock• 15 years ago

Delightful bit of complete bullshit. The complaints range from "I don't want these icons!" to "I can't find my favorite program!" If this blogger couldn't find Google Chrome, despite the gigantic search bar in the applications menu, then maybe he personifies the pointy-clicky-user he so rudely insults.

Moving on now...

drndown20072• 15 years ago

Actually, I agree with it. I'm a Linux noob, and even I (the target idiot?) can't find anything in the latest version of Ubuntu without having to constantly search. The older version was quite discoverable for me though. I'm also looking around for something more useable.

sp3327• 15 years ago

Is searching that bad? Personally, I find pushing the windows button on my keyboard and typing what I want (just like I do in Win7) is pretty convenient.

narad• 15 years ago

I am a linux n00b too. Last weekend, I installed Ubuntu 11.10 is a shiny new Intel i3 machine. Just started learning the Unity interface. It is very difficult. The alt-tab does not show the each window of the open apps. The windows of the same program are clubbed together. WTF, how do I select them?

To me, Unity is a usability nightmare. As I have recently migrated from WindowsXP, this seems to be very hard. I hope I can learn to live with Ubuntu.

Also tried Gnome 3 shell, but quickly reverted to Unity as Gnome shell was even more horrible.

slowpoke4• 15 years ago

I usually call my programs directly with dmenu (or the Alt+F2 run dialog when I'm on Ubuntu), but even I like the way the older Ubuntu versions organize programs in the menu. It's very intuitive, especially if you're not familiar with the system you're on.

silon3• 15 years ago

I like unity in many ways, except for:

    1. app centric alt+tab (100% showstopper, will not use).
    2. menu on top (almost as bad)
    3. hard to start multiple terminal windows

Can't really say more, because of #1.

rocha• 15 years ago

For #1, you can use ALT-`. I didn't know about it until I saw it here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboar...

For #3, you can also use CTRL-ALT-T to start multiple terminals, and then CTRL-ALT-NUMPAD # to tile them around in your workspace. It is not the best workflow, however.

fader3• 15 years ago

Also, to start a new instance of a window you can middle-click on its icon in the launcher. This works with more than just the terminal (browsers, word processors, etc.).

jsvaughan3• 15 years ago

#1 Super-tab does the per window version of alt-tab

#2 Why waste any more vertical screen space

#3 Ctrl-Alt-T > New Terminal, then Ctrl-Shift-T new terminal tab (or Ctrl-Alt-T again for new terminal)

cas5• 15 years ago

1. Personally I click on the launcher more that use alt-tab these days. However there is a new key combo Alt-` as shown here: http://youtu.be/XHFNnygpvcM

2. You could set the Launcher to Autohide

3. Middle mouse on the launcher icon for another window.

bryanlarsen4• 15 years ago

1. There are about 3 or 4 different switchers available in ubuntu -- take a look in CCSM and choose the one you want. But first I'd spend more time with the unity switcher. Adding the second dimension makes switching through tons of windows a lot easier. Hint: press the down arrow when you've alt-tabbed to an application to see the windows for that app.

2. Menu on top is awesome on my laptop, but not so much on my 2560x1600 desktop. Just do sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt to replace.

3. middle mouse button on the icon.

tartuffe78• 15 years ago

I actually like Unity a lot better, probably because I was never a gnome power user. I used Ubuntu in college because Linux was what we did but I never fell in love, and I've just recently returned to it for Python development.

Honestly I'm sick of people posting these UI critiques that are so rash. He's mad that Libre Office is in his toolbar? Removing those takes about 15 seconds. He makes valid points but when he throws on those tiny insignificant details it makes him seem like any little change would piss him off.

IgorPartola3• 15 years ago

Why is this so hard on everyone? There is Xubuntu which provides a fantastic interface. There is also Kubuntu if you are just jumping on the Ubuntu band wagon and don't care about Qt vs GTK, etc. You always have the option to install classic GNOME and this is easy to do. In the time it took him to write that blog post, he could have done it 10 times.

Look, Unity is not a great choice for everyone, clearly. It took me a while to get used to it, after using Xubuntu for 4+ years exclusively. But this is not Windows or Mac OS X. There is nothing preventing you from trying an entirely different environment that is only a single apt-get away. You have choices and if the default does not suite you, change it.

EDIT: To answer my own question, perhaps it is a failing of Canonical. Maybe they should do a better job explaining the different types of desktops you will get with different flavors of Ubuntu, instead of just telling you that "Ubuntu" == latest Unity-based UI, and others are on the fringes.

ominous_prime3• 15 years ago

> You have choices and if the default does not suite you, change it.

Why do so many techies feel like Ubuntu owes them something, and when they don't like a design choice, it's a personal insult? I almost like Unity, but I think I like the direction gnome 3 is going better. No big deal, I can use either, and I don't have to rant about it.

(that username sounds familiar - Hi from Boston ;)

IgorPartola3• 15 years ago

Agreed. Also... do I know you?

sp3327• 15 years ago

Is there any good way to use multiple applications side-by-side in Unity? I understand that it's optimized for little netbook screens, but wasn't any consideration taken for big desktop monitors?

fader3• 15 years ago

Yep, several:

1. If the windows are maximized, unmaximize them by clicking on a button or by dragging the window down from the top of the screen. Arrange as you please.

2. Drag a window to the left or right side of the screen. It will resize and snap to the edge of the window taking up 50% of the display. (Great for having two windows side-by-side.)

3. Use Ctrl+Alt+[number pad key] to place windows in multiple configurations. E.g. Ctrl+Alt+9 will place a window in the upper right corner. Pressing it multiple times will cycle through various sizes.

Plenty of consideration was taken for larger screens -- Unity has much better support for them than GNOME 2 did. It might need to be advertised a bit better.

igouy3• 15 years ago

> 1. If the windows are maximized

Please Unity stop maximizing the window!

> 2. Drag a window to the left or right side of the screen. It will resize and snap to the edge of the window taking up 50% of the display. (Great for having two windows side-by-side.)

How do I stop Unity from resizing and snapping the window?

I spend more effort and suffer more distraction undoing Unity's "helpfulness" than I ever spent on window management before, on any OS.

splicer2• 15 years ago

I primarily used Gnome for the last 10 years, but now I prefer Unity. Why? Because I love the keyboard shortcuts, especially Alt-tilde. It's still fairly buggy (i.e. behavior is often inconsistent and non-deterministic), but no more so than Mac OS X Lion's new windowing model. So long as it continues to improve, I'm sticking with it.

jcastro2• 15 years ago

Can you give me some detail on which parts of alt-~ are buggy to you? I'd like to pass it on the team (And yeah, me too, it's my favorite).

bryanlarsen4• 15 years ago

What was alt-~ originally bound to? I accidentally bound it to something else.

splicer2• 15 years ago

There are many bugs I've spotted with alt-tab and alt-backtick; I'll try to compile a list of unit tests for you as soon as I have more spare time. Here's one to start:

1) Open 3 windows of the same application (e.g. Terminal). Make sure each window has different content so you'll be able to tell them apart. Let's call these windows A, B, and C, from top to bottom.

2) While holding down Alt, hit ` twice.

Expected result: window C is now on the top of the stack. The order of the windows is now C, A, B.

Actual result: window A is still on the top of the stack. The order of the windows is still A, B, C.

larrik2• 15 years ago

The problem is that Gnome2 is awesome, and both Unity and Gnome3 are just ways to try and make Linux into OS X.

Guess what? Gnome2 plus stuff like Avant Window Navigator beats the shit out of OS X in terms of ease-of-use and productivity.

Gnome3 and Unity? OS X is better.

(I'm a Linux programmer by day and an iPhone programmer by night.)

moondowner• 15 years ago

I can happily recommend Kubuntu.

For those thinking that it's not stable, it is. Kubuntu (or more precise KDE) is stable since 10.10, so those rant's are over.

For those thinking that GTK applications can't fit in KDE, there's a new GTK Theme oxygen-gtk which gives the same look and feel to them. Also there is QtCurve, etc etc...

And the notifications from GTK applications are shown as native KDE notifications. All of them are on one place.

KDE is a usable environment, highly configurable and for those saying "it's too bloated and full of glossy things yada yada" if you spend half an hour you can make it as minimalist as you wish.

I use Kubuntu on a daily basis, and I use a lot of GTK apps in it too, including GIMP, DeaDBeeF, Firefox, etc etc...

And, one of the most noteworthy things in the new Kubuntu are the new Muon Package Manager - something of a Kubuntu alternative of the new Ubuntu Software Center, and second, a package named Low-Fat Settings can be installed, with settings for computers with lower performance. More on this stuff here: http://www.kubuntu.org/news/11.10-release

jwingy• 15 years ago

The only bad thing I can think of is that I usually run kde with all the special effects turned off and the look of apps and whatnot in this mode is a bit of an ugly grey. However, if you do turn on all the fancy graphical stuff, I would say KDE looks just as good as anything out there (for linux).

vrode• 15 years ago

> Suck

> Retard

Stopped reading.

dragthor2• 15 years ago

Yup. Me too.

dragthor2• 15 years ago

I am sick of rants and/or dire predictions. No one cares as much as you think.

fader3• 15 years ago

Summary: "I hate change. Because this is different than what I personally am used to, it can't be useful for anyone anywhere, and was probably created specifically to annoy me."

"It assumes you don't care what is going on in any programs except the one you currently have focus on."

Aside from the really nice features for automatic window sizing and positioning that were introduced with it (with both mouse and keyboard bindings!) and the fact that window management otherwise works exactly as it did previously, sure.

"Unity hates Google Chrome (the browser I use most) so much, it buried it three levels deep in a ridiculously oversimplified, slow-loading, nonsensical menu system."

Or, you know, you could add it to the launcher. Or make it your default browser, in which case it has an enormous button right in the dash. (But right, you're not "a complete retard who can only click shiny buttons".)

"It assumed I wanted every LibreOffice program in my application dock"

Oh noes! Sensible default launchers in the default configuration, my heavens! If only you could right-click on those and remove them or drag them out of the launcher. Oh right, you can.

Yadda yadda, I don't have the patience to address every single one of these one by one. But they all boil down to "this is different than what I had previously so it must be terrible for everyone". ("I am not complaining that Unity is different from traditional GNOME." Er, yes you are. That's exactly what this rant is.)

It took me a week or so to get used to it, but I really like Unity now. It works better for me than GNOME 2 ever did. I just get tired of people insulting those who have different preferences. If you want GNOME 2, great! Feel free to keep using it. But demanding that other people support you for free and never advance is childish and petulant.

sp3327• 15 years ago

"It assumes you don't care what is going on in any programs except the one you currently have focus on."

The menus for all programs are hidden. To even see the menu for the current app, you have to mouse-over the top bar. You have to select a window before you can see its menu.

__alexs• 15 years ago

I started using Unity because 11.10 broke my Gnome 2 + xmonad config. It's actually rather nice and has a fairly complete set of key bindings for window management tasks.

NickM• 15 years ago

It's amazing to me how many people write articles bashing Unity and openly admit right in the article that they only used it for less than a day before deciding it was terrible. How long did it take you to reach your current level of productivity in your current WM?

As it happens, Unity has a ton of convenient keyboard shortcuts, and it does take some time to get used to them. I was also inefficient the first day I tried it, but I gave it a fair chance and I actually feel I'm more productive now than I was in Gnome.

People complain about it being "dumbed down", but a lot of the features seem geared toward power users to me. For instance, menu bars at the top: how often do you actually find yourself clicking on a menu item with the mouse vs. using the keyboard shortcut? 99% of the time I use the shortcut, so it ends up saving a lot of screen real estate taking the menu bars out of all the windows. That's just one example, but there are little touches like that all over the place in Unity.

slowpoke4• 15 years ago

>How long did it take you to reach your current level of productivity in your current WM?

Half an hour to learn the keybinds, because tiling window managers (XMonad) are extremely intuitive.

bryanlarsen4• 15 years ago

That's not the question he asked. It took me about 10 minutes to learn the Unity keybinds, but a few days to reach my current level of productivity. For instance, I experimented with a few tiled arrangements of console, emacs windows & firefox. The best turned out to be different from before because of the ctrl-alt-numpad shortcuts. They sound like something a tiling manager would have -- Unity really gives me the feeling of stealing from the best.

jrussbowman• 15 years ago

I actually like Unity. Was disappointed when 11.10 Unity didn't work well on my laptop. Fortunately recent updates fixed that.

I think the main difference may be that I swap back and forth between a Linux desktop and OSX desktop. Switch between OSX and Unity seems to be pretty intuitive.

Note: I bought my first Mac this year. So I made the switch to OSX and Unity around the same time. Maybe that was actually helpful. Before my Mac, I generally bounced back and forth between Gnome and KDE based on the distribution I was using at the time. I also primarily work with a Terminal. For work lots of ssh, for home use lots of vim for coding.

BenoitEssiambre• 15 years ago

I've been using Ubuntu for 5 years and I absolutely love Ubuntu 9. Every time I have to use windows vista/7 or osx I want to tear my hear out.

Unity is basically adopting the most annoying parts of OSX, namely that windows aren't individually referenced in the desktop toolbar for easy one click switching and that switching desktops or 'spaces' is a multiple step process with no thumbnail preview, things that have been working perfectly well in Linux since the beginning of the 1990s.

They shouldn't release a product until these are fixed and certainly not impose it on users. It's like they assumed we wouldn't notice because we're all Apple fanboys used to a slow and ineffective UX.

regularfry5• 15 years ago

That dock-fixed-to-the-left thing is really annoying. It's an infinitely large button which wants to expand over my actual target 9 times out of 10.

If I'm using an app and my cursor hits the left edge, what's a reasonable assumption? That I want to do something in the app, or that I want to switch apps? The implicit assumption has always been that I'm interested in my current task. That's why the File menu, the Back button, the application toolbar (if you're into that sort of thing) are there.

It's completely unreasonable to just assume that if my cursor happens to drift out of the active window while I'm seeking a target within it, then it's ok to expand a system window over the target I'm actually looking for to force me to wait and re-seek while it hides again.

About the only way this could be more annoying is if it were on the right, next to the scroll bar.

gmodena• 15 years ago

While I agree that to this day Unity still has a long way to go, I firmly believe that in the long run all the effort and focus Canonical is devoting to UX could become ubuntu's unique selling point.

What is left to see is how long this "long run" will be, but as a rule of thumb and as far as Unity goes I think it is more fair to consider non LTS releases as experimental builds.

I am very positive about initiatives such as http://design.canonical.com/2010/11/usability-testing-of-uni...

The sole existence of a design group within Canonical [1] singles them out - AFAIK - from other major distro vendors. In a way, though I generally dislike this kind of comparisons, I can see ubuntu as the potential osx/nextstep of the linux ecosystem: full blown unix user space coupled with a distinctive, reliable look & feel and a consistent UX.

I know many long time *nix users that switched to osx for this reason [2] and I'd like to see a linux distro able to appeal this audience. Actually I would really like to know if there exist studies or data points that show whether such a market share indeed exists.

Ultimately the only thing I can say is kudos to Canonical for the courage shown in taking a somewhat radical decision and keep up the good work :)

[1] design as in UX and interaction desing, not limited to artwork or wm themes. [2] this is not intended as a statistically significant statement.

pessimizer• 15 years ago

Gubuntu. Luckily, Unity starts with 'U' already, so everything works out in the end.

>Switch to Linux Mint, which is Debian-based and appears to use the "old" GNOME 2

Linux Mint isn't Debian-based, but Ubuntu-based. He may be referring to Linux Mint Debian Edition, which tracks Debian Testing.

cs702• 15 years ago

FWIW, I had been using Gnome 2.x full time on my desktop since 2004, had tried Unity several times in 11.04 and kept coming back to Gnome, and most recently switched full-time to Unity with 11.10. Now I really like it.

Unity is very keyboard friendly: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboar...

Everything I need is now only a few keystrokes away, and I like that Unity 'gets out of my way' at all other times.

akmiller• 15 years ago

On the contrary, Unity is the very beginning of Ubuntu. For the first time I feel that Ubuntu is the easiest to use of all 3 major OS's I use daily (OSX, Win7, and Ubuntu).

swah• 15 years ago

With Xubuntu, I couldn't get the external monitor to other mode than "clone". Searching for how to solve this mentions xrandr... and then I went back to Windows.

rbanffy2• 15 years ago

The only valid complain is about the hidden launcher on the left - I often open it when all I wanted was the back button or resize a maximized window from the left margin.

As to recommend him another OS? Get a Mac. This way you'll complain to Apple and I won't pay attention.

sofuture• 15 years ago

If you don't like the default window manager, use a different one! Arguably that's the point of running Linux.

Ubuntu is so much more than it's default window manager.

Symmetry• 15 years ago

"Why does Unity suck so much? Because it assumes you're a complete retard who can only click shiny buttons."

To answer snark with snark: No, it assumes you either like to click shiny buttons or you know how to use a keyboard. Unity works a lot better for my keyboard-centric workflow than Gnome2 did, and it was enough to lure me away from tiling window managers for weeks, way more than I expected to spend in it.

tintin• 15 years ago

People hate changes. I think Canonical underestimates this.

(I switched to Xubuntu so in my mind things didn't change very much. Only that Xubuntu is way faster and is using less resources than Ubuntu.)

kitanata2• 15 years ago

I couldn't agree more. xubuntu or moreso XFCE4 rocks.

randy909• 15 years ago

Here, this will solve all your problems:

http://awesome.naquadah.org/

mvts• 15 years ago

After upgrading to 11.10 I kinda raged for about one hour. Then installed KDE. And I am looking out for an alternative distro that fits my needs.

robotfuel• 15 years ago

> Why does Unity suck so much? Because it assumes you're a complete retard who can only click shiny buttons.

Unity allows you to drive most of the UI with the keyboard. Which makes easier to use, after you learn them. See: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboar...

SlipperySlope• 15 years ago

I'm a multi-monitor desktop software developer needing the features of Gnome classic in 11.10. I performed apt-get install gnome-classic-fallback , then edited /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to set user-session=gnome-classic.

I plan on upgrading two Ubuntu servers the same way.

jszmajda• 15 years ago

I like unity, but it doesn't work on my quad-monitor setup. I know I'm in the extreme minority, so I stick with Xinerama and broken window managers for the most part. It mostly works, and I'm productive on four screens. Good enough.

Kliment• 15 years ago

I found this pretty useful. It tells you how to fix the worst annoyances and how to get a decent desktop back.

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/things-to-tweak-after-install...

deleo• 15 years ago

I think Unity is useless because these kind of inexperienced users almost don't exist anymore. Everybody got used to the "ugly" interface made of contextual menu and "hard" to adjust settings and those who didn't could live with sensible defaults that could always be overridden.

But with Unity it's like if they went out there to replace QWERTY keyboards with friendlier layouts without paying attention that none of the current users already got so used to the on-purpose-unfriendly layout you're actually slowing them down now.

dlitz• 15 years ago

> While you can install that package and get a half-working GNOME menu system, you cannot get your taskbar or configurable panels back.

Configurable panels: Alt+rightclick the panel Taskbar: I dunno, it works fine for me.

xinuc• 15 years ago

I feel the pain. Now I use arch linux with xmonad.

tep• 15 years ago

This is not the end! I regard it as the worst update myself. But that doesn't matter. We have to learn, that other peoples needs are quite different.

My suggestion/demand would be this: Please implement a "God Mode" where us freaks can tweak details that are important to us.

jenhsun• 15 years ago

I have similar experience. After two times Ubuntu 11.10 fresh installation, I rush to find my MacOSX snow leopard DVD for Hackintosh preparing. However, I lost that DVD long ago. Damn.

bunderbunder• 15 years ago

Unity strikes me as a cargo cult desktop environment. It tries to create a solid user experience by merely copying the appearance of a highly-regarded user experience. Because it goes about things in this way, it's doomed to fall flat: Unity's fundamental failure is focusing on superficial characteristics when what really creates a solid user experience is the underlying mechanics. It doesn't matter how it looks if it's confusing, frustrating, or clunky. Microsoft illustrated that with Windows Vista. And now Ubuntu is illustrating that with Unity.

Unity is the end of Ubuntu

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