
The year GNOMES, Ubuntu sufferers forked off to Mint Linux - iProject
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/30/linux_in_2012/
======
wyuenho
I've been using Redhat/Fedora/Ubuntu on and off for the last 12 years or so
but I've largely stayed away from any Linux desktop environments for the past
couple of years as I've embraced the Mac and the Cloud PaaS services. A couple
weeks ago I had a chance to use Ubuntu Unity at work for a week and OMG WTF
BBQ. The design of Unity had unleashed one the largest nerdrage moment I've
ever had.

1) Alt-tab switcher highlights 2 big icons with the same color value. Which is
my current app and which is the one I'm going to switch to? I have no idea.
Takes too much brain power to process the signals.

2) Default binding of Alt to the search box thingy. Whose bright idea is this?
Binding the key closest to the thumb = invitation to trigger the search box
erroneously all the time, especially if you use Emacs or used to using
readline shortcuts in the Terminal.

3) Where the hell do I go to configure anything? How do I rebind Alt so I can
get readline keyboard shortcuts everywhere?

4) Why do I sometimes get multiple of the same app icon in the dock?

5) How do I switch to another instance of the same app? It doesn't work like
Windows or the Mac, the only way I discovered was point my mouse to the tiny
little arrowy markers on the left of the very subtly active app icon to
trigger a Mission Control-like thingy.

6) Don't even get me started with the unavailability of Chromium on 12.10 and
the Amazon search results...

If this doesn't kill Linux on the desktop (if it's not dead already), I don't
know what will.

~~~
FilterJoe
I'm a different data point. I've used nothing but Windows (98, XP and now 7)
for over a decade. Lately I've been learning web development (Django) and
realized a few weeks ago that to really do this right I needed to do linux. So
I used VMware/bitnami to set up a VM with linux/python/django.

It was Ubuntu 12.04 without the desktop. Very hard to get around with the
command line so I installed the unity desktop.

Bingo. Very easy for someone used to Windows. I couple minor quirks but I
didn't find that any of the above issues bothered me.

I have had issues. But these have been things like figuring out where to set
environment variables, learning the bare command line basics, learning how to
get postgres going locally, etc. Nothing to do with the desktop, except for
the fact that it doesn't provide an interface for everything that can possibly
be done with command line - so as (someone learning to be) a developer, I've
had to learn all the command line stuff anyway.

I have no idea whether other desktops are easier. All I can say is that the
command line had a steep learning curve, while unity desktop took just a few
minutes to get started and I was off working.

~~~
thaumaturgy
For modern desktop-related tasks, a desktop UI certainly should be better than
a commandline, sure. (I still prefer CLI for servers though.)

And if there weren't already better GUIs available, then Unity would certainly
be a revelation.

The complaints though are coming from people who are already accustomed to
other better windowing interfaces, including (in some cases) previous versions
of Gnome, which arguably makes Unity one giant UI regression.

I'd like to deftly sidestep that whole flamewar though and merely say, "KDE is
nice."

------
JamesMcMinn
Gnome shell is not too bad now, and if you are looking for a modern desktop
environment then I would recommend it - however it still has many problems,
especially when it comes to configuration. Gnome gets this complaint a lot,
and most of the time it is coming out the mouth of a "power user", however
there are a lot of problems that still effect even the most basic user.

The printer configuration is a prime example of this - they have simplified
it, and broken it horribly. It does not work in 99% of cases where the printer
is not directly connected to the computer. You may argue that this is an edge
case and that most printers are directly connected, but I think you would be
surprised by how many printers are networked today. My parents have a wireless
printer, it is not directly connected to anything, and it is impossible to set
up using Gnome 3 control centre because the name has a space in it. Want to
change the name so you can install the printer? Tough. You cannot do it unless
you install the much older "system-config-printer" package.

Other things, such as being unable to set your desktop wallpaper to something
outside of the root Pictures folder (It is not recursive, so a photo in
~/Pictures/Holiday-Shots/ cannot be set as your wallpaper), are what upsets me
about Gnome - it could be fantastic if so much work was not going into
removing features at the sake of making the UI a little simpler.

~~~
slurry
This is the basic problem for making GNU/Linux a user-friendly desktop
environment - too many moving parts. GNU/Linux is complicated enough to say
but it is actually an oversimplification - an average Linux install is
actually Linux/GNU + multiple non-GNU system utlities & scripting
languages/X/GTK + Qt + XUL + one or more of Tk, Wx, FOX etc./desktop
manager[s] of your choice.

Commercially successful end-user Unices (Android and OS X/iOS) have not
proceeded as Unity and Gnome3 are, by trying to reduce the existing complexity
from above. Instead, they have burned most of it to the ground and started
over.

Trying to simplify the existing system by brute force is really not a strategy
that is bound to work well. You'll probably never get things simple enough,
you'll break things along the way, not to mention cheesing off existing users.

Then again, burning everything to the ground has its own problems (see
Netscape 4) especially if your team is geographically scattered, mostly part-
time or volunteer.

I really do not know what the right answer is, but I think the question I have
in mind when I use Linux is very different from the question that Ubuntu and
Gnome are asking. Mostly I'm happy that my new Debian stable installation
still comes with Gnome 2 out of the box.

------
watt
I now run Ubuntu 12.10, but installed Cinnamon instead of Unity. I recommend
it. It installs incredibly smoothly and runs side-by-side with the other
desktop environments you can select on "login" screen. Absolutely
complementary: you don't have to reinstall or change anything.

I guess I am old fashioned. The Unity innovations just don't seem to appeal to
me. I also run Windows 7 and I guess I will stay with it until the end of the
road. I will not upgrade, not unless Microsoft comes up with something that
essentially is still Windows 7, but with the eventual kernel/system
improvements. Otherwise - only Linux the way forward.

------
jiggy2011
Well, it's been said before but one of the biggest advantages of Linux as a
desktop OS is the ability to easily and cleanly switch windowing environments.

I guess there are plenty of Windows 8 users who would love to be able to fire
up powershell and type give-me-my-old-desktop-back and have the computer do
that.

~~~
meaty
We already do that on windows 8. We put windows 7 on the machine again. Every
vendor who ship kit to us are still shipping windows 7.

~~~
w1ntermute
Let's be honest, even you know that's not anywhere near the same thing as
being able to replace the UI on Windows 8, nor is it a long term solution.

~~~
meaty
Agree, but It's good until 2020 I.e end of support. The world may be a
different place then so we'll deal with it later.

I really don't see an uptake of windows 8 yet on our financial app so I think
everyone else is on the same path.

------
bdg
I've been using MATE on my newest box. It's a gnome2 fork focused on
preserving the old-way of doing things.

<http://mate-desktop.org/>

I've only been using it for 30 hours, but so far it's working quite well and
isn't getting in my way.

~~~
mattdeboard
So is this basically Unity 2D by any chance?

~~~
Mavrik
No, Unity2D was still Unity rendered without 3D. MATE is older Gnome2.

~~~
zoowar
Older and wiser.

------
smacktoward
The headline would be more persuasive if the article offered anything other
than anecdotal evidence that Mint is picking up significant numbers of
disgruntled ex-GNOME 3 & Unity users. But it doesn't.

~~~
wyuenho
Except that it does:

<http://distrowatch.com/>

~~~
zalew
except that it doesn't. it's a pissing contest based on clicking links.

~~~
wyuenho
I guess that makes Google Adwords totally irrelevant then.

~~~
wmoxam
I've clicked on Distrowatch's Mint entry several times to see what all the
fuss is about.

I still run Ubuntu.

------
donniezazen
After using all desktop environments out there, I have settled down with
Ubuntu's Unity because Ubuntu is very focused in providing a consistent
desktop experience. Yours and Canonical's definition of desktop experience
might be different but looking at other comparable interfaces Unity is very
well organized. There are no surprising changes in each update like Gnome 3.
Notification and system tray are traditional and consistent. I keep open 4
applications that I use all the time and switch between them either by mouse
or alt+tab or alt+`.

------
keithpeter
Nerd rage avoidance:
<http://spreadubuntu.org/en/material/brochure/1204-poster> Unity grows on
you...

If you want Gnome 2 back: CentOS / Scientific Linux / Springfield Linux fully
supported for the next 4 years. Same kernel/applications generation as Ubuntu
10.04

XFCE4 on Debian Wheezy is pretty good. Will be updates coming down the line
soon as they get ready to release Wheezy as stable.

I can see myself going back to dwm/dmenu:
[http://sohcahtoa.org.uk/pages/linux-dwm-window-manager-on-
de...](http://sohcahtoa.org.uk/pages/linux-dwm-window-manager-on-debian.html)

------
darec1
Oh yes The Register, please tell us about the enormous number of people who
went to Mint? Hmmmm, not a single number in the whole article?

~~~
nacker
Oh please! You may dismiss Distrowatch, but then you have to provide some
better alternative metric. There isn't one. It is plain to anyone who checks
the site regularly that although Ubuntu has more installations, Mint surpassed
it in mindshare last year, closely followed by _(gasp)_ Mageia! And I'm happy
to see Puppy continuing to do well. It must be so boring to be a WinAppleSerf.

------
chris_wot
Despite it being The Register, it looks like they got this one right.

------
killahpriest
Xfce or KDE?

~~~
mdellabitta
Or LXDE. But I run Xubuntu personally. Wife's netbook has Lubuntu on it and
she's had no problems. Cinnamon's nice, too.

------
nacker
I've been using Ubuntu since 2006, and this year I forked off to Linux Mint
Debian Edition with Mate, for all the reasons cited in the article, plus I'm
just fed up with reinstalling every year or so, and spending far too long
tweaking everything to my satisfaction each time.

LMDE is a compromise between that and a rolling distribution that is
constantly updating the system - it's "semi-rolling" based on a scheme that
Mint has come up with of Update Packs that come out every few months.

Mate is very smooth and works perfectly on my netbook.

I've been using exclusively Linux on the desktop with many distros since the
late '90s and I've never been happier with it.

The lucky thing for Linux is that this was also the year that MS shot
themselves in the foot with Win8. With the much-criticized distro ecosystem
though, it is much easier for Linux to recover from mistakes like the Gnome3
and Unity fiasco. The bazaar really is better than the cathedral.

