

Shuttleworth reaffirms Canonical's lead design role in Ubuntu - mrschwabe
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/805

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sjs
I hope that they will settle on the stock apps they are putting resources
behind. I haven't used Linux on my workstation for a while now, but every time
I look at Ubuntu it seems like they have new apps for core things like photos
and such, and I feel sorry for people trying to migrate their data around and
keep up with the latest releases.

It's really important that such fundamental apps are stable. Mom and grandma
don't want to migrate their photos from F-Spot to <photo app of the year>.
That is a pretty cruel task to burden average people with.

Best of luck to them though, and I agree that they have a better chance of
mainstream success than any other distro. However, it's still going to be a
lot of work to get there. Windows and OS X are not standing still.

~~~
rohitarondekar
A good point but I wonder how many Mom's and grandma's install operating
systems on their computers. :)

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reirob
You're right there are not many grand parents able to install an OS. But in
our family the children offered a laptop three years ago to their mother - she
never had a computer before. We installed Ubuntu on it and she is using it
happily now for 3 years. We do not have a single problem with viruses and
such. This is what was behind the decision to install Linux.

But to come back to the topic, the author of the parent comment is right - it
is already difficult for old people to get used to their application, but if
then every 6 month the applications for photos is changing it is a pain. So
for my mother in law we go with Ubuntu LTS. I am a little bit worried how it
will work out with the next LTS if it is going to be Unity :D

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michael_dorfman
I know it is a trivial point, but it's annoying to see somebody as bright as
Shuttleworth misuse the phrase "begs the question."

~~~
hasenj
How is that a misuse? Meaning changes depending on context, it's a well known
feature of natural languages.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Meaning changes, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible for a native
speaker to make an error. In this case, the phrase has a well-documented
meaning (and a long history), and the usage here is clearly a misuse.

~~~
hasenj
When lots of people make the same error, it gradually becomes part of the
language.

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ZeroGravitas
I like it.

The last version had promise, but was somewhat half-finished. This time it's
pretty good (though it still has bugs).

I love all the changes that make tiny netbook screens more usable (auto-hiding
dock, the dissapearing menu bar, easy access to other apps, e.g. music skip,
via the menu bar, auto-hiding scrollbars).

I'm somewhat unique in having a touchscreen netbook. It's mostly for the kids
but the touch-able dock seems to be working for them.

For me, I like that they've went with a power-user friendly keyboard launcher
similar to Blacktree's Quicksilver for Mac OS X (which Apple later copied into
Spotlight).

Less importantly, I like the looks and the general simplification of the UI.

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kleiba
I think that's good news. Designing by (the GNU/Linux) community has not
really proved to yield impressive results in the past.

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bluedanieru
That would be wonderful if their products weren't so disappointing. You can't
throw a stick around here without hitting someone who has tried Unity and
hated it, uTouch is utterly irrelevant to Linux on the Desktop (I thought this
is what Ubuntu was about but I have been proven wrong). Juju might go
somewhere, I haven't used it, but they've definitely got some competition in
that space and considering their tone-deaf responses to users in the past I'm
not confident it'll get any traction.

But this is all fine. They're trying new shit. I wouldn't complain if it was
just that. It's the heel-digging that bothers me. It seems that Mark
Shuttleworth has, rhetorically, tied his reputation somewhat to the success of
these projects and especially to Unity. That is, it will be hard for him at
this point to just say "well we tried something new, it didn't work out like
we hoped, and now we're going to iterate on the next thing." If you listen to
him it's as though their new desktop is already a rousing success. If you use
Ubuntu and you are hoping they switch back to another desktop in a later
release I would humbly suggest that _you_ switch to a different OS. With a
more traditional business model (i.e. if they sold the OS) they would
immediately sack Mark and switch strategies with someone who isn't so married
to its success, when sales fell off a cliff. That's not going to happen.

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andrewvc
_You can't throw a stick around here without hitting someone who has tried
Unity and hated it_

Maybe, but I, and a good number of other people really like it. There's
sizable support for unity, and my guess is a lot of non-power users (who are
silent on HN) like it even more.

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silon3
I'm a power user and I like it, except for application centric alt+tab and top
menu bar. That is a non-starter for me. Going to use something else.

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mtts
I hated application centric alt+tab when I first started using OSX but after a
few days I got used to it. Now I prefer it.

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com
I think the nice thing for me is that it creates a hierarchical method of
finding my next activity - app > window > tab

The MS Windows-specific alt+tab model means way too many things to choose from
without context.

What I'd love in Mac OS X is a _standard_ way that I could drill in - with
enough context - using keyboard short cuts to window and then tab level.

Perhaps something like that exists, but I haven't found the consistent way of
doing it yet!

~~~
silon3
For me, it's essential that I can fluidly switch between last 2-3 or even 4
windows, no matter what they are. (I regularly move tabs into new window in
firefox when I need to do this).

