Ubuntu Linux Community: Canonical Vows to Maintain Focus

http://thevarguy.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-linux-community-canonical-vows-maintain-focus

by jeffreyfox • 13 years ago

34 29 13 years ago

jebblue4• 13 years ago

>> The take-away: Even as Ubuntu forges paths across hardware where traditional Linux (pace Android fans) has never before ventured, and Canonical commercializes the operating system to an extent not yet seen, it is keen to keep peace with Ubuntu users.

I'm not sure what that means but if it means Ubuntu will soon not be recognizable then I don't know if that's a good thing. Unity removed functionality we had in Gnome 2 that the Gnome developers had ironed out over years. Now we have a cool looking Launcher that is barely usable compared to Gnome 2 Panels.

We have global menus like a freaking Mac, unless you remove the two offending packages to restore normal application owned menus.

We have a solid bar at the top which without global menus is useless and even with them is questionable.

Bring back Gnome 2 Panels please Canonical.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

Have you tried Xfce? A lot of Gnome 2 users have migrated to it and are quite happy.

keithpeter3• 13 years ago

Posting this from my laptop running Ubuntustudio; has XFCE4 by default and nicely done

CentOS/Scientific Linux/Springdale Linux 6.x provide an approximation to Ubuntu 10.04 including Gnome 2.x. Support until 2020.

Those nice people at Mint Linux are developing an alternative desktop UI.

Idea: Perhaps someone needs to register 'idontlikeunity.org' or something. Then we can just link to the site with simple alternatives and keep the noise down.

PS: I use Unity/12.04 on the desktop. Quite happy with it as I tend to use the ALT-letter keys for menus anyway.

Munksgaard• 13 years ago

Unless It's changed in 13.04, you can simply install gnome-panel to get the old-fashioned panels back. It's one of the first things I do on a new Ubuntu install.

jebblue4• 13 years ago

I'm on 12.04, I think I tried that and ran into a use case where it failed but I can't recall the details. Thanks though, it might be worth another look.

CJefferson• 13 years ago

I realise you might hate unity, but I just wanted to make clear, some people (me) like it!

I've tried plain gnome 3, latest kde, xmonad and xfce, and out of all of them have decided I like unity the best. The combination of:

* Press win key + type 'th' gets thunderbird selected, win key + 'ch' gets chrome gives me quick access to all my apps.

* I like a dock with fixed icons in fixed positions, so I can open an app, or get open windows, with 'mouse memory'.

I found the other window managers I tried very poor in their default configuration. Maybe I could configure them to act better, or more like I want? But I don't want to spend the time (I did spend a couple of days trying xmonad, before giving up, I really wanted to like it but it seems purposefully designed to be painful to configure)

mayneack• 13 years ago

Linux Mint + cinnamon. Give it a shot.

keithpeter3• 13 years ago

dmenu from the suckless tools package can provide some of the 'invoke an application by pressing a meta key and typing its name' functionality you are missing. Not pretty but it works.

cs02rm0• 13 years ago

I'd suggest trying Cinnamon. http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

jcastro• 13 years ago

Out of curiosity what can't you do with the launcher/indicators in Unity that you could do in GNOME2?

jebblue4• 13 years ago

The big thing is I can't right click and edit the properties and change the path from a binary to a wrapper script I've written.

vidarh• 13 years ago

If you want Gnome 2 Panels, run one of the Gnome 2 forks.

Personally I love Unity, and I finally have my beloved global menus back, like a freaking Amiga - something I have missed since about '97. I don't want to waste space on menus in every single application window.

jckt• 13 years ago

Do you dislike global menus just because it reminds you of a Mac? Is it actually a bad thing, and why? Have you ever tried actually using Unity for more than a few days? I understand that old habits stay strong, but sometimes breaking out of them and learning a new interface can be beneficial.

mixmastamyk2• 13 years ago

I used the Mac in the old days and have a fondness for the single menu. However, Unity's is broken. Why? It hides itself if you are not hovering over it. So the fitts-law advantages are effectively nulled. Talk about clutching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Unfortunately there are a number of these amateurish decisions throughout Unity, even though it has some nice parts.

jebblue4• 13 years ago

Every OS I've run has had application menus except maybe for GEOS (I think it was called) on the Commodore 64 so that's what I'm used to. Well, that and the fact that all previous versions of Ubuntu had application menus then all of a sudden they are global and the close, menu icons are on the left. I guess it was like Ubuntu's user interface was hijacked by an alternative personality of Ubuntu.

sciurus• 13 years ago

Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter.

http://design.canonical.com/2013/05/ubuntu-com-update/

h2s• 13 years ago

I'm struggling to find anywhere in the cited Ubuntu blog post that talks about a vow to maintain focus. The summary itself never revisits that phrase to explain it further, and while the words "maintain" and "focus" do appear in the Ubuntu post, they are completely separate and there is no theme of vowing anything or staying focused on any particular thing. If anything, it's the opposite.

    Phase one of the restructure consisted of updating
    Ubuntu.com to reflect the expanded scope of the
    project.

Weird!

slgeorge• 13 years ago

The blog post from Alejandra was about how Canonical is developing the Ubuntu web presence. In general, it's about how you balance a complex set of needs from a wide range of users - probably an interesting read for some people in this Forum.

The actual article seems to be focusing on the implication that this means Canonical will continue to value and maintain the link to it's Community of users. Still in the context of the web site.

ps I work for Canonical

JeremyMorgan• 13 years ago

Yeah they're going to continue to focus on trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole by creating a soccer mom friendly Linux and trying to piss off the rest of the Linux community.

I say go for it, keep focusing on removing features that took years to perfect and reinventing the wheel for the sake of reinvention while chasing a group that doesn't care about their operating system. The sooner they make themselves irrelevant the better.

keithpeter3• 13 years ago

Yes, I suspect that Canonical are attempting to "creat[e] a soccer mom friendly Linux" but I think the motivation may be to make some money so they can continue to develop the Ubuntu core.

I imagine that a workstation/high end laptop developer oriented version of GNU\Linux will be developed, and many would argue we already have such distributions available. Room for everyone. I personally want my Ubuntu phone for perhaps nostalgic nationalist reasons.

buster3• 13 years ago

With Canoncial doing more and more stuff on their own instead of really contributing to the Linux community, i've recently switched back to Debian and without regrets.

Thanks, but no thanks, for Unity, Upstart, Mir and whatever else you will come up in the future.

mhw2• 13 years ago

Is there any particular reason you prefer dogmatism to pragmatism in choosing your Linux distribution?

buster3• 13 years ago

Where is the pragmatism to build (in a rather closed manner) software like unity, upstart or mir, in an open source ecosystem that has viable alternatives? I am confident that Linux will be a better system if efforts are combined and focused and not split up. And thus, i think that Linux would be in a better state today if Canonical would have chosen Gnome Shell, systemd and Wayland (for example). Thus, my voice/vote goes to systems where i see the future.

Besides i wasn't using Unity anyway and i have learnt and used Debian far before Ubuntu, so it's not like i had trouble switching.

sargun• 13 years ago

Debian Unstable? Or Stable? I found the big problem with Debian Stable is that they move way too slow for any modern Linux distro.

I wish that all Linux distros would just go to a rolling release model like Gentoo, and where Ubuntu is going.

mixmastamyk2• 13 years ago

Haha, focus.

Just installed Raring again last night and noticed the long-standing bug (compiz and gnome-terminal where the window won't keep its size if not on the first tab) still in the newest release. How about broken window resizing, where you only get an outline like in Windows 3.1? I could go on, and on, and on.

Meanwhile they have people writing display servers and a new mobile interface for xsake.

I'd kill for a modern, mature workstation OS in the tradition of NextStep, or SGI 4dwm, Windows 2000, even Ubuntu 10.04, etc. I like lots of the other choices, say Cinammon, XCFE, etc, but they are unfinished or not integrated well. Gnome has destroyed many of the powerful tools these products share. KDE has nice tech but is too cluttered. OSX is nice but we use linux everywhere. I'll be trying Mint 15 soon and crossing my fingers.

I know that the linux desktop has been a boondoggle for years but perhaps there is a market for workstation-oriented distribution with deep integration and features that work. Would enough people pay for that? I would. Is it enough for a small startup to get funded? I'd be interested in starting one, though I realize it is unlikely.

jdboyd• 13 years ago

What I want is something debian based with Upstart, gnome3, and replacement window manager and panel/launcher, fitting on a single CD or DVD (around a gig).

Ubuntu with GNOME3 installed and running LXDE and Launchy comes close, except LXDE defaults to using PCManFM instead of nautilus, Leafpad instead of gEdit, LXTerminal instead of Gnome Terminal, etc. Where this is most obnoxious is the replacing of gnome preferences with their own preference tool.

If I was going to start a major project, my approach would probably be to take gnome3, replace gnomeshell with openbox and try to port gnome2 panel to gnome3.

Ubuntu Linux Community: Canonical Vows to Maintain Focus

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