

New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds - doh
http://thisisthecountdown.com/

======
fhars
Oh my god is that embarrassing.

Some meaningless marketing spew, some social network stealth tracking widgets,
and not a single link to any meaningful information. After the recent
interresting design choices, the unity disaster and now this it is probably
time to look for a distribution that doesn't think of it's users as mindless
drones easily distracted by empty shiny things. Any recommendations?

~~~
Auguste
Slackware and Arch Linux are great options if you're interested in exploring
something a little more advanced. You'll have to put more work into setting up
your system, particularly at first, but you will learn a lot more about how
Linux works. They kind of throw you in the deep end, but they both have plenty
of good documentation.

On the other hand, if you're looking for something not too far from Ubuntu,
Debian or Fedora might be better options.

~~~
fhars
Well, I started with slackware (well, actually SuSE when it was still a
rebranded slackware, around linux 1.0.8ish), and I don't really want to dive
into deep ends for my work machines anymore, I just want them to work and be
moderately up to date. Ubuntu looked so promising at 7.04...

~~~
andyking
I use 10.04 LTS on work machines (by which I mean, machines at my workplace)
simply because things stay the same on it and I'm not going to get calls
saying "this huge colourful bar has appeared on the left of my screen, what on
earth is it, and furthermore where on earth is my Thunderbird menu bar?". We
have a lot of older users who are not especially computer-literate, so an
interface that doesn't change is valuable to us.

The machines are also fairly ageing, and don't support the composited desktop.
I did test Ubuntu 11.10 beta on one, but it was so slow (with what I assume
was Unity 2D) that it would be unusable for day-to-day work. All we use at
work are Chrome, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and Audacity - why would we need
Unity? Why can't we turn it off?

For me, Ubuntu definitely peaked at 10.04 and I'm going to be looking
elsewhere in the near future.

~~~
keithpeter
A desktop based on Cent OS or Scientific Linux springs to mind. Support
measured in semi-decades... should see your hardware (and possibly users) out.

Now, Sir, Just what do you call 'older'?

~~~
andyking
Isn't CentOS more designed for servers? I'm not sure. I've considered Debian
Squeeze, but it's one of those things I've never got round to looking at in
enough depth.

Our older users are in their 60s and 70s. We're a non profit radio station and
several of our volunteers have never used a computer before, or have had only
a passing involvement with them.

~~~
keithpeter
CentOS claims to be a clone of RHEL. There is a desktop install package that
puts Gnome with the usual (firefox, openoffice, evolution). There would be
some post installation fiddling with different repositories to get any sound
software you need working. Scientific Linux is another distribution based on
RHEL but which changes the binary packages more. Again, repositories and some
twiddling.

What sound software do you use? Does it involve Jack?

------
kiwidrew
I've just updated to the 11.10 beta2, and my experience so far has not been
promising. My main gripe (as expected) is that the Unity desktop is the only
option now; while it is possible to install GNOME 3 and use that, it lacks the
polish of 11.04's GNOME desktop and is clearly in an unfinished state.

As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is
extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal
windows; when you Alt-Tab from the browser, only one of the terminals appears
in the list. And when you switch to it, all of the open terminals gain focus.
So when I want to have one terminal open on top of my browser (e.g. so I can
see part of the page underneath) I have to minimize all of the other
terminals. If I don't, as soon as I focus the one terminal, the others also
pop up over top of my work.

And on top of that, much of the (desktop) system is still very unreliable.
Unity crashes, Compiz crashes, the battery status applet crashes, etc. (Yes,
all have been reported on Launchpad, some for well over a month now.)

I'm unfortunately committed at this point, but perhaps my words of warning
will save others who think "it's almost done, so I'll help out the community
by installing and testing the beta". There's only _9 days_ left to go, and I
don't see how they're going to deliver a reliable and robust release on time.

~~~
davidcuddeback
_> As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is
extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal
windows; when you Alt-Tab from the browser, only one of the terminals appears
in the list. And when you switch to it, all of the open terminals gain focus._

I often run into that exact problem with OSX. That is partially why I'm
considering trying out Xmonad.

~~~
alperakgun
As a developer and 6 year ubuntu user I appreciate the innovation attempt in
unity, gnome3 and kde4...I hope they mature soon.. Still prefer, gnome 2, and
long for more bug free, performing, fast updates...

------
gurkendoktor
I think the biggest clue Ubuntu should take from Apple is to _show_ the
product and how to use it. I am seriously interested in Ubuntu's progress, so
after shaking my head looking at the countdown, I went to ubuntu.com and
clicked on the big picture, only to be forwarded to a download page for
Windows stuff. (I am using Safari on OS X.)

The point is not that I _can't_ find information on what it is about. But why
make it so hard and so little fun?

------
stephank
Here are the beta 2 release notes:
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneiricOcelot/TechnicalOverview/Beta...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneiricOcelot/TechnicalOverview/Beta2)

I probably missed it; what's so radical about this release? It's not even an
LTS.

~~~
xelnyq
the date 11/11/11 is an opportunity for easy marketing

~~~
jalada
Except it's 11/10/11 or 10/11/11 depending on where you live.

~~~
xelnyq
damn i mixed up the date :]

------
earthviaradio
This thread reminds me of an old slashdot post about the original ipod...
Ubuntu is investing in a better Linux desktop experience and they've been
doing that successfully for quite a while now.

Unity is new and it's probably going to take a while to work out the kinks.
I'm very pleased that Ubuntu is looking to move past the GNOME vs KDE paradigm
that has dominated Linux desktop development for the past decade. I think they
will be successful in Unity.

I was really impressed with 11.04 when I installed it. About 2 hours later
when I had to do some real work it was less useful and I started using Xubuntu
instead but I'm confident that they will get it right because they have made
it a priority and they are trying something different.

------
s8qnze982y
I'm really looking forward to new Ubuntu releases... NOT.

As a matter of fact, Ubuntu's getting so much buggier and buggier with each
release, that I'm just downgrading from Natty to Maverick.

What a huge disappointment.

~~~
sciurus
You might want to consider Debian.

------
Or1on
Here are a couple of applications that can improve the Unity experience.
Superswitcher which is an awesome alt+tab alternative, Unity 2D for
performance (no compiz) and gnome-do because It has features unavailable on
unity app launcher.

My favorite superswitcher features is that I can change to an opened window by
typing its name. Switching windows this way is very fast and has improved my
work flow greatly. <http://code.google.com/p/superswitcher/> I have
superswitcher set to capslock key since I don't usually use capslock.

I also use and like unity super+NUMBER key launchers.

------
pnathan
I am looking forward to the new Ubuntu. I plan to customize it quite heartily
of course. There are more window managers than just Unity. Gnome is pretty
'fat' these days.

I like not having to spend the time keeping packages up to date, and to know
that my system is approximately a 2011 vintage.

Of course I install my most frequently used programs from source.

------
bbg
For those of us using NoScript, it's 00 days, 00 hours, 00 minutes, and 00
seconds. We get it first. Win!

------
snowwindwaves
I'm still on 8.04. Ubuntu moves too fast for me, and seems to always break
something that used to work. The next time I visit any of the machines for
which I am responsible for care & feeding I am installing red hat or centos. 7
year support cycle!

~~~
viraptor
Why not debian? You get both the stable release supported for years to come
and lots of packages. In my experience most of the needed apps are in the
repository and don't need hunting down on third-party sites like with
centos/rhel. On top of that you don't get silly things like ancient kernel
with hundreds of patches which makes it incompatible with almost anything you
need to compile as a module (depends on your hardware of course)

~~~
piccadilly
Seconded: if you're still on 8.04 and don't like how fast Ubuntu moves, then
it sounds like you were born for Debian Stable, which is in many respects a
very similar system

------
pinwale
The site doesn't even say anything about 11.10 & try counting the days on the
timer. :)

It looks like it's a countdown for something else.

------
jrgifford
Let it be known that this is a community project, not a Canonical project.

------
Lucadg
I was going to say that there's a flyer. But it's empty too :)

------
davidandgoliath
Debian, debian, debian: <http://debian.org> Do it -- you won't regret it :)

Ubuntu is turning into such a mess.

------
sathishmanohar
Where is the link to Ubuntu website?

------
lhnn
I installed 11.10 B2 on my desktop. It definitely looks more polished
(especially the login screen), but that's where the improvements end for basic
usage. Unity drives me up the wall, for the most part. I could tolerate all
the BS of Unity if ONLY I had a taskbar at the bottom of the screen. I want to
see my windows down there, not constantly alt-tab to see what's open.

When I tried to have gnome-panel overlaid on Unity, I wasn't able to right-
click the panel to configure it... there went my idea.

Another major hit: I noticed they officially brought in a central control-
panel concept for user settings. Great! Except that to change 'obscure' things
like your system fonts or your SCREENSAVER, you need to manually download the
'gnome-tweak-tool' package. That's right, most people won't even be able to
change their screensaver settings.

Ubuntu seems to be doing some really neat stuff on the server side, so my
interest is still piqued there. On the desktop, though, I might be going with
Linux mint Debian Edition or straight-up Debian very soon.

------
drivebyacct2
DAE not have any issues with non-Unity Ubuntu? Hell even in 11.10 they seem to
have fixed the critical Unity/compiz invis-window bug. Minus window behaviors
that people aren't used to and the knee jerk reaction to the unity-launcher
(learn the shortcuts, it's fast to use!) I have nothing but pleasant
experiences. I've found actually gnome-shell to be pleasantly minimal and
usable too.

That all having been said, it's really, really hard to beat the simplicity of
Cardapio and Docky[1]. I feel very comfortable here.

Now, if we could just fix the font debacle that is Linux. [2]

[1] Caradpio+docky <http://i.minus.com/iA94EsbEeR2fz.png>

[2] Note how the menus are different here in each application.
<http://i.imgur.com/ER4pR.png> (Firefox, native gnome-terminal, qt VLC)

------
tedjdziuba
As long as xmonad is still in the repo, do whatever you guys want.

------
jrockway
New Debian in ... always.

------
sundar22in
Let me call it this time... This is the year of Desktop linux :D

------
k_bx
offtopic: and for dr. who fans <http://aubronwood.com/ticktock/>

