

First Look: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Beta 1 - Garbage
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/first-look-ubuntu-1104-natty-narwhal-beta-1/12155

======
Spyou
I've been using the combo OpenBox and Tint2 for a long time now, just because
Gnome2.x feels bloated and I could do anything I want by editing a simple
shortcut file in my config. So yea I like lightweight systems, fast and
blabla.

But the other day, after having bought a new computer, I did give a go to this
beta Unity.

It's definitively not my taste, BUT I can see why this was made. It's clearly
simpler than anything I've tried before on Linux. The "start key" open a sort
of menu, type to search apps, all in the bar make sense, I'm not fond of the
global menu, but well, people seems to like it.

We have to keep in mind that it's just the first release, and it'll evolve in
the future, but after having tried it I went from a complete hater to a "well
ok, it has it's place".

After 2 days I moved back to my simple and light openbox/tint2 combo, but
well, this is only because I'm not the target market for Unity. Unity is for
people not for hackers.

------
rwmj
Actual review here:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/01/ubuntu1004_beta_revi...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/01/ubuntu1004_beta_review/)

------
RuadhanMc
Two things annoy me about Unity:

1\. The menu bar at the top is now wasted space. 2\. The task bar is on the
side.

Shortcuts to spreadsheet, worth authoring, etc, should be hidden away in the
menu. Honestly how many new spreadsheets do you create every day? Not many.
What you might do is double-click on a spreadsheet and have it open, but that
doesn't require a big shiny shortcut being in the taskbar.

These are just defaults and can be changed, but still, I feel as if they are
poorly considered defaults.

~~~
natesm
While I agree with your second point (although I put my taskbar/dock on the
side, I have it autohide) and following paragraph, I'm not sure about the
first one.

The topbar in Unity contains the menu for the currently focused window (and,
in the future, hopefully the currently focused _application_ ). This vertical
space had to be used anyways - the clock and some sort of notification area
are essentially mandatory.

As a person who primarily uses Mac OS X, I think that the menus are the best
use for the vertical space that those items provide. I can use Cmd+tab or
Exposé for switching applications, so a list of the currently open windows
isn't particularly relevant. By moving the menubar to a single spot, if
anything we save space.

That sidebar is truly awful though.

------
emilis_info
Unity looks promising. Maybe I'll switch back to default Ubuntu desktop again
:-)

I didn't know about Unity before this, even though I've been using Ubuntu for
the last 7 years.

I used Tint2 on Openbox to get a vertical taskbar. Combined with Tree Style
Tabs for Firefox it creates a consistent UI hierarchy going from left to
right.

------
parbo
Maybe Unity will finally drive me to start using a tiling window manager, like
XMonad.

------
bfung
No System Monitor applet; the current System Monitor Indicator just doesn't
cut it. On my dev machine, I like watching the little graph of
cpu%/ram/network/disk etc.

My netbook IS running unity w/o the System Monitor, but I rarely do heavy work
there. If the thought is to switch over to Unity for more casual users, then
it probably works out well.

~~~
glennsl
There's an indicator available for this already, although it lacks the fancy
graphs.

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/indicator-sysmonitor-
simp...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/indicator-sysmonitor-simple-
system-stats-app-for-ubuntu/) (seems to be down atm)
<https://launchpad.net/indicator-sysmonitor/+download>

------
pepijndevos
Does this beta contain anything of Wayland? I know they said a year is
probably more realistic, but I'm just curious if the Unity in this release is
running on X11 or Wayland. <http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/551>

~~~
fingerprinter
X11. Wayland is supposed to be there for 11.10 at the earliest. Wayland is
available in a PPA right now, though.

------
zbanks
I tried unity in 10.10 and found it to be cumbersome. I was shocked when they
announced they were moving to it for 11.04.

But, it looks like it's undergone a few improvements.

(Strangely, I know,) I trust the people working on Ubuntu to make rational
decisions. It looks like unity pulled through.

~~~
sambe
I have to say that both Unit and Windows 7's desktop bar look absolutely
horrendous to me. I haven't used either, so I can't tell if this leads to some
surprising productivity boost but there's something about the space-consuming
giant-kiddy-icons that make me think it will only work against me.

I don't have any problem right now with the size of the icons, but screen
estate is always an issue. Window organisation, as it has been for the last 15
years, seems like it has much better room for optimisation.

Other choice have also seemed a bit arbitrary - like moving the power options
to the status bar, whilst also moving the window controls away from the status
bar. Mouse movement has increased in my experience.

~~~
whatusername
The key thing with any system is to make sure you move the bar to the
left/right of the screen. Almost every screen has stacks of horizontal real
estate but never enough vertical.

And by doing that -- the win7 icons don't bother me in the slightest.

~~~
sambe
That is certainly true, and it does seem to be on the side by default. I have
a netbook-like Vaio with Wubi install that will provide quite a good test
before upgrading my main PC - always lacking on the vertical. For me it
doesn't take away from the ugliness: Ubuntu was starting to look really slick
and "pro" with its black bars and smart new font. Those garish icons always
screaming at me bring to mind a laptop covered in stickers and a keyboard so
riddled with extra rubber Interweb buttons that you're scared to touch it. Of
course, everything should have it's chance. I just wonder whether the switch
to default status is warranted.

Glad to see the downvote-disagree is becoming ever more prevalent! Obviously
an opinion on the aesthetics is totally unproductive. Here we go again... k--;

------
semerda
Forget the UI. That can be tweaked and altered to just about anything you
like. I'm really keen to see whether 11.xx has major performance improvements
that I've been hearing about.

~~~
lovskogen
Good defaults are key to adoption. Alot of computer users don't know how to
completely customize.

------
nrbafna
Dash, with its shortcuts, is useful. Now, you can search for new applications
without opening Software Center.

------
Nate75Sanders
Unity!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toAEQTsidvg>

I guess I'll try out Unity, but I may have an itchy trigger finger ready for a
switch back to something more familiar.

------
StudyAnimal
I have been playing with it since alpha 3.

When it is properly released I will do a reinstall, and I will be using gnome
with it. Unity is crap.

