
Ubuntu and GNOME jump the shark - octopus
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3822
======
icarus_drowning
The only really valid criticism I see here is the binary blob problem--
clearly this is a poor way to store user configuration data, and completely
antithetical to the kinds of philosophies that undergird Linux _and_ Ubuntu.

But really, the core of the issue that's been raised by Unity is that Ubuntu
seems to be moving away from catering to power users to cutting features
essential to them in favor of appealing to more amateur users. One can lament
that decision, and even disagree with it, but I don't know how fair I think it
is to criticize Unity for lacking those kind of power user features.

After all, it isn't like power users are exactly wanting when it comes to
replacement options in the Linux space.

~~~
Peaker
Unity also simply regresses on many UI issues, relevant not only to power
users:

* When a maximized window is behind an active non-maximized window, the panel serves as its title bar. But it actually spells out the name of the active window. Very confusing.

* Additionally, in the same situation, all of they standard mouse gestures on the panel (e.g: double-click to unmaximize) do not work. Maximized windows don't get the right-click-title gesture to work at all.

* No window list at a glance (useful for remembering your context/state with the UI)

* Hides important buttons such as close window, as well as the menus, where non-power-users will not know to look.

* Panel unhide takes a relatively long time -- slowing down almost every interaction with the UI.

* Workspace switcher does not support window drag, unlike the gnome panel workspace applets.

* Workspace switcher requires multiple selections to switch to a window.

* Alt-tab switches applications, not windows, which is more confusing, as it associates unrelated windows together, as if the mere fact they're implemented by a certain application necessarily means they relate. This also requires more keystrokes to reach the window you want -- when you don't have many of them in a workspace, which is a typical situation for organized users that actually use workspaces.

I could go on and on. Unity is an immature, alpha-quality piece of work that
seems to have been thrown out because of a deadline.

~~~
ricardobeat
Many of these traits are shared with OS X. It's a different mindset, and I'm
sure Canonical has done plenty of research on usability. From what I've seen
most people who arent savvy computer users happen to like it.

~~~
nknight
Please do not slander OS X like that. I've been a happy OS X user since 2005.
I look at GNOME 3/Unity and I vomit. Vigorously.

If this was an attempt to be Mac-like, then it was pure cargo-cult UI design.
They clearly have no understanding of the actual design process.

The last Linux desktop environment I was reasonably happy with was KDE 2.x. I
tolerated 3.x.

~~~
morsch
Please, a bit less hyperbole and more constructive criticism.

~~~
nknight
Fine:

> _When a maximized window is behind an active non-maximized window, the panel
> serves as its title bar. But it actually spells out the name of the active
> window. Very confusing._

This just doesn't happen in OS X that I've ever observed. It's in fundamental
conflict with the OS X window management paradigm.

> _Additionally, in the same situation, all of they standard mouse gestures on
> the panel (e.g: double-click to unmaximize) do not work. Maximized windows
> don't get the right-click-title gesture to work at all._

Again, this is just inapplicable to OS X.

> _No window list at a glance (useful for remembering your context/state with
> the UI)_

This is true for OS X, as far as it goes, but OS X UI practices seem to make
it less of an issue than it would be on Windows or a typical Linux desktop
environment.

> _Hides important buttons such as close window, as well as the menus, where
> non-power-users will not know to look._

I'm not even sure what this one is about. It seems inapplicable to both Unity
and OS X.

> _Panel unhide takes a relatively long time -- slowing down almost every
> interaction with the UI._

Hiding off by default in OS X, quite fast to unhide.

> _Workspace switcher does not support window drag, unlike the gnome panel
> workspace applets._

OS X supports this fully.

> _Workspace switcher requires multiple selections to switch to a window._

Not true of OS X.

> _Alt-tab switches applications, not windows_

True of OS X.

8 properties total, 1 I can't make sense of, 2 that are more or less shared.
If my post was hyperbole, the one I responded to claiming "many" of these were
shared with OS X was, too.

------
scrrr
For what it's worth:

I try to use the mouse only when necessary (even when browsing the web), and I
like to launch my applications through text search. Actually I don't need the
Unity sidebar at all, unless perhaps when I want to see what hidden apps are
running. I arrange my windows using ctrl-alt + numpad and I switch between
workspaces with ctrl-alt + arrow keys. The new active window switching with
alt-tab and alt-shift-arrow keys is nice. All in all I'm happy with Unity and
it got better with 11.10. Being 50% on Ubuntu and 50% on OSX I have to say
that I wish OSX had a little bit more of Ubuntu-UI in it.

Just writing this to offer a counter-point to all the anti-Unity posting.
Perhaps everyone should try to play around with Unity shortcuts and see if
it's really that bad.

Here's a post detailing some of them:
[http://blog.sudobits.com/2011/09/04/ubuntu-11-10-oneiric-
oce...](http://blog.sudobits.com/2011/09/04/ubuntu-11-10-oneiric-ocelot-
keyboard-shortcuts-for-unity/)

~~~
SkyMarshal
Preach it brother. I still use Gnome-Do (or Synapse sometimes) to launch apps
via text search. I honestly think you could design an entire OS UX around that
motif that would end up more efficient and more intuitive, even for new users.
If the Start Menu and Google Instant had a baby, that would be the result.

~~~
kijin
Yes, desktop environments such as Unity seem to be designed with text search
in mind. Instead of navigating a menu tree or filesystem tree, users are
expected to "search" for whatever they're looking for.

Which works pretty well... until you realize that these desktop environments
are also pretending to target the tablet market, where text entry is an order
of magnitude less convenient than it is on a regular computer.

~~~
rbanffy
> target the tablet market

that's why you have large-ish icons for frequently used applications and why
you can pin them to the launcher bar.

~~~
kijin
Yep, that definitely helps. But I have yet to see a Linux UI that would help
me find anything other than most frequently used apps on a tablet nearly as
easily as I can on a regular computer. We'd need a different sort of UI for
that.

I doubt that the text-search paradigm is the right way to go about developing
a tablet UI of the kind that we need. Anything based on mouse clicks would
seem to be a much better starting point for the transition to tablets.
Unfortunately, both Unity and GNOME 3 require a lot of clicks to get around,
which is equal to a lot of screen-tapping on a tablet.

~~~
Raphael
The most popular touch screen GUIs, iOS and Android, default to a grid of
icons, like most major desktop GUIs (Windows, OS X, Gnome, KDE) have desktop
icons. I don't see this as hurdle.

~~~
kijin
iOS is lovely. All the apps are represented by finger-sized icons.

In Ubuntu, neither Unity nor GNOME 3 have any desktop icons by default. Unity
at least has a dock on the left, but GNOME 3 requires you to click
"Activities" before you can do anything else.

In both, the only way to have desktop icons is by changing an obscure setting
in an application that isn't installed by default.

Unity's dash is also far from a "grid of icons". You need to open the dash,
click the "more apps" button, and finally click a relatively small target at
the top of the list before you can see all of your installed apps in a grid.

------
larrik
As someone who's been using Ubuntu full time since 9.10 (though I'm really not
a Linux "power user."), I was pretty much horrified by my upgrade to 11.10.

In tweaking a few compiz settings, through their config GUI, I managed to
crash compiz hard enough to need to reboot several times.

Unity itself is incompatible with Desktop Cube for some reason, and trying to
force it just breaks everything. (I like Desktop because it seems to be a more
reliable desktop switcher, anecdotally.) I don't mean "force it" like changing
the config directly. I mean "force it" like pressing the button that asks if I
really want to activate it.

So I tried out Gnome 3 for the first time. It tries so hard to LOOK like OS X,
yet it winds up being way worse than either OS X or Gnome 2.

Maybe I'll try Kubuntu. Or Linux Mint. Or just keep trying to like this new
crap. I don't know.

~~~
gldalmaso
I have a problem with people turning from Ubuntu because they lost a pet
feature. Ubuntu is changing how to look at the desktop and surely what was
built around the old api will not be fully supported at first. But it's just a
matter of time before it's functional again.

I'm pretty sure the Desktop Cube can be made to work seamlessly with Unity.
But it's not Canonical's job to make it so. And if Canonical somehow managed
to lock some of the desktop features into Unity, than we must simply pressure
then into building something more flexible so as to allow other open source
providers to work with a more pluggable interface.

~~~
larrik
I'm not turning away because Desktop Cube doesn't work, I'm turning away
because it completely messed up my system by simply trying to turn it on,
through the GUI.

I wasn't messing with my X configuration or any other insanities. I clicked a
button in the settings, and had to Google around just to get back to a working
computer.

What other landmines are waiting for me? What if I install KDevelop or some
other KDE-based program? Will that cause everything to break too? I don't
know, but I never before had to be afraid to just try things. Now I have to
worry if whatever I'm doing is "Canonical-approved," and I'm not okay with
that.

(I really doubt KDE is going to cause a problem, it was just an example.)

For the record, I played with Gnome 3 a little more, and I'm willing to give
it a longer chance. Avant Window Navigator is a must, though.

Overall, it just seems like Gnome 3 and Unity have all of my least favorite
parts of OS X jammed into it for no good reason.

------
w33ble
One of the commenters in the post mirrored my thoughts exactly; I'm sticking
with the 10.04 LTS, and if this garbage isn't sorted out by the next LTS, I'm
jumping the Ubuntu ship. I understand that everyone is trying to target touch
screens and tablets, and that's fine as an added feature, but you can't leave
the keyboard and mouse folk behind. That's especially true when they make up
the overwhelming majority of your users.

I'm actually quite surprised more people haven't spoken out against Metro in
the new Windows for the same reason; that interface looks dreadful to use with
a mouse. I've been told that Microsoft at least left in a "classic" interface
that holds true to the name. If that's true, Canonical needs to take that page
from their book...

~~~
bluedanieru
My understanding is Metro is just the traditional start menu on steroids. At
any rate, Microsoft seems better able to pivot than Canonical.

~~~
w33ble
That's sort of true. They are clearly targeting the touch market with it, but
it's a lot more than just an application menu. It think it's a brilliant touch
interface, but an awful mouse one, though, to be fair, I have yet to use it in
any form. As I understand it though, Metro is just a layer on top of Windows,
and it can be turned off if that's what you want to do.

~~~
Raphael
Metro is fine with a mouse. I would like to see it become the new widget layer
on top of the desktop wallpaper, without hiding the old task bar, and
preserving a Windows-7-style start menu.

------
waffle_ss
I too disliked Unity at first when it reared its head in 11.04 (didn't help
that it still had some obvious bugs), but I gave it a try and have grown to
like it a lot. They've polished it up quite a bit in 11.10 and it's even
better now. I definitely would not want to go back to the old menu-driven way.
(I would add that most people I know that use Ubuntu are of the same opinion)

Fully agree about the config hell, though. One time I wanted to back up my
gnome terminal profile settings using gconftool, to discover that the terminal
settings are stored in the middle of an XML file that covers a whole slew of
gnome settings. So to do the backup/restore, I would either have to back up
_all_ of my gnome settings, or write a custom script to patch just the section
of the XML file I need changed.

~~~
hartror
After a couple of months of using Unity and trying to fit in with its way of
doing thing I jumped back into classic and was immediately at home.

------
Zak
I'm inclined to agree with him. Unity will be cool some day, but I don't think
it's there yet, and Gnome 3 was completely broken when I upgraded to Ubuntu
11.10. Binary configuration files are an abomination against DMR.

I'm fed up with Ubuntu pushing alpha-quality releases on users to get free
testing. It's making Linux look bad. A couple years ago, Ubuntu was Debian
that "just works" on the desktop. That's all I ever wanted, and I think I've
found it again in Linux Mint Debian Edition.

~~~
w33ble
I feel the same way. Unity wasn't ready for prime time, and I honestly believe
it still isn't. They've forced the user's hand here and made it worse by not
keeping changes speedy. Additionally, I hate nearly all the changes to the
default applications they've made in the last 2 or 3 releases too, but that
stuff is easier to fix.

Back in 2006 I made the move to Ubuntu from Gentoo because I was tired of
constantly tweaking things to make my system work. Ubuntu ushered in an era of
Linux ease that nobody before them had, and as far as I'm concerned, nobody
has since. Sadly, they've started to muck that all up. I don't see anyone else
out there making a distro that "just works" and has the out-of-the-box
functionality Ubuntu does either, which is the most upsetting part for me.

------
DanBC
Binary blobs for configuration should be considered evil.

I'm all for sane defaults and making design decisions and keeping options away
from the users - not having huge preference panes. But keep a hand-editable
text configuration file.

I spent some time using IceWM (shipped with EEEpc 701) and the jwm. So I guess
I'd be using jwm again.

~~~
jodrellblank
_Binary blobs for configuration should be considered evil._

Next do you get to 'binary blobs for code should be considered evil', have a
LISPiphany and found Symbolics?

~~~
kragen
Zetalisp didn't store code in binary blobs. There's a reason Smalltalk, Zope,
and Interlisp are or were tiny-minority platforms.

------
jimmyjazz14
I have been using Gnome in its classic form for a very long time but, I
switched to Gnome 3 after the upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version. I must
admit it is starting to grow on me.

When I first used Gnome 3 (back when it was first released) I hated it; it was
buggy and the whole concept of gnome-shell seemed flawed. Now its seems many
of the bugs have been worked out and the usability improvements of gnome-shell
is starting to show. Gnome 3 is still far from perfect and there are still A
LOT of things missing that I had grown to rely on from classic Gnome (like
being able to arrange my panels) but Gnome 3 seems to be progressing and I
have high hopes for its future.

I am less hopeful for the future of Unity frankly because it has so many bad
ideas built in to it. One such bad idea is the heavy reliance on hidden
elements that need to be hovered over for them to be visible.

Personally I think Ubuntu would do well to pick up Gnome 3 and run with it
instead of Unity.

~~~
xiaomai
I'm also liking feeling pretty good about gnome3. It's missing some important
configuration options for me (I don't want windows to auto-raise in sloppy
mode), and I miss my system-monitor applet in the panel, but I think it will
be great in another release or two.

------
marcloney
When I first read this article, I got ready to post a hasty reply with all my
pet hates about Gnome 3, Unity, etc, etc.

Then I remembered the original reason I started using Linux, as a native
Windows user, and that is "Choice". So you don't like Gnome. Guess what? Don't
use it! You have so many other choices of window managers available to you.

Shed a tear for those users on proprietary systems who don't have choice.
Don't like the new Start menu? Nobody cares.

~~~
gldalmaso
Right you are.

Also, maybe since all the power-users are so dissatisfied, they could join and
manage a new packaged Ubuntu, maybe OUBUNTU (old ubuntu). They have that
choice.

I for one am happy to have a linux distro geared towards everyday desktop use
and modern devices, and that I can show my family/friends as an alternative
choice and have them not reply that it's just so damn ugly.

------
rbanffy
While I disagree with esr on Unity (I kind of like it), he raises a very
serious point about configuration being kept in binary blobs. I cringe when I
see it in XML - blobs are an even worse idea.

~~~
devs1010
Thats a rather bizarre way to store config data I can't see any architectural
reason why this would be desirable, does anyone have any insight into this?

~~~
wlach
Performance and footprint. If I remember correctly, the binary format is used
so that dconf can mmap the configuration into memory. This means that a read
on the configuration database doesn't involve any system calls and only one
copy needs to be in memory (no matter how many processes are using it).

<http://live.gnome.org/dconf#Design>

I'm generally a fan of text-based configuration files but in this case I think
the benefit exceeds the cost. Reading configuration used to take a non-trivial
amount of time on startup.

~~~
Zak
For some reason, gnome-settings-daemon reads ~/.thumbnails on login, and
~/.thumbnails was unbounded in size. Mine was 700M when I learned what caused
all the disk IO. I think a lot of the perception of text config files being
slow may have more to do with that than the actual performance of the
configuration system.

The middle ground would be to cache settings in a binary file.

~~~
rbanffy
Why would it read 700MB of stuff right after login?

~~~
Zak
I don't know why. I just know that it does. The problem is described here:
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-
dae...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-
daemon/+bug/505085)

------
T_S_
_Eventually, by making a fresh account, taking checksums of its dotfiles,
adding an applet, and taking checksums again, I found out that the new panel
configuration lives in a file called .config/dconf/user that is an opaque
binary blob._

I think the OP is a perfect candidate for Arch Linux.

------
mrinterweb
Personally, I really prefer Unity to classic Gnome. Unity is the best desktop
experience I have had. I've been using it since 11.04 out. Unity had some
rough edges when it was first released, but a lot of that has been ironed out.
I really like the direction Unity is going. I feel that it uses space in a
more intelligent way. I am very glad that Canonical has taken the initiative
to build a better desktop environment. Many people don't like change, and I
feel that is the category that many of the people criticizing Unity fall into.
I do agree that Unity is not as easily customizable as I would expect, but
again, I enjoy most of the decisions that comprise Unity.

------
alexlarsson
Reading this thread makes me pretty sad. Usually there are people on hacker
news that at least know the background, and generally there is a measure of
respect that other people might actually know something about what they work
on. The Gnome developers (which includes me) have more than ten years of
experience working on unix and developing a desktop for it. Please don't
assume we're making decisions because we're stupid, we might actually have
reasons to do what we do.

Lemme try to explain some background on configuration storage in gnome.

But first, the main complaint in the article is that you can't modify the
layout of the fallback mode panel in gnome 3. This is just not true, you can
modify them in the UI just like before, only you have to hold down alt when
you bring up the menus, etc. This was done because a lot of people
accidentally changed their panel around causing problems. I'm sure this change
could have been better documented and whatnot, but it _is_ possible.

Once upon a time there was a design decision in Gnome to use so called
"instant apply" configuration options, rather than having each config dialog
button have "apply" buttons. You can disagree if you want, but this decision
drives the design of the configuration framework. Basically, it implies having
some kind of service that handles configuration changes that will tell other
applications of configuration changes. Thus was born GConf.

The original on-disk format for GConf was an on-disk tree that mirrored the
gconf key hierarchy, where each directory had a %gconf.xml file that listed
the keys in that directory.

However, it turns out that this is a major performance problem when reading
settings. Each such file you open causes two random access seeks on the hard
drive. One to read the inode and one to read the data. Hard drive consecutive
data read speeds are pretty high, but seeks are very slow (for physical
reasons), which was significantly affecting login and app startup speed of
gnome.

So, we merged the all the separate files into xml tree files, using one per
application. This cut down on seeks a lot and improved performance. (Of
course, a negative aspect of this is that the xml files are not very human
readable anymore. But the vast majority of readers do not access the text
files directly anyway.)

However, even after this gconf reads was a problem for log in performance. We
do of course do local caching of gconf data in each process and we preload it
in chunks, however during login the gconf daemon was acting as a serialization
point for all processes that were starting up. Also, all these xml trees were
pretty verbose, so parsing and loading also took some time.

Over the years we increased our knowledge of the problem space, and eventually
we came up with a replacement for GConf. It has two parts, one is the API,
which lives in glib, called GSettings. Its an abstraction for settings with
change notification that has client-side schemas (as opposed to server side
schemas like with GConf, another thing we learned). The implementation is
pluggable, there is an ini file backend, a win32 registry, and the DConf
backend, which is the default for Linux distros.

DConf uses a binary on-disk format that is mmapable and readable without
"parsing". I.e. each app maps the config file readonly (sharing this memory),
and lookups is done directly in the in-memory mapping without an intermediate
parsed copy of the data. The data is stored in an efficient hash-table which
allows very fast key lookups with few pagefaults in the file. The actual data
is stored using GValue, an immutable binary datatype for recursive types that
is in glib. So when a value is returned we don't even duplicate it but just
return a wrapped reference to the data in the mmaped file.

Writes to dconf do go through a daemon which handles write serialization and
change notification. Communications with the dconf daemon is through dbus,
which incidentally has an on-wire binary data format that is a subset of
GValue.

So, how does this help us? Well, for one thing we never block during login for
reading configuration, as all reading is parallelized. Secondly we don't spend
any time parsing files, as the config file, once mapped, is already in a
compact "parsed" format. Thirdly, we never waste any memory storing copies of
configuration data on the heap.

Now, there are some obvious drawbacks with binary formats. For instance, you
need tools to modify them, like the dconf-editor GUI app or "gsettings list-
recursively". Secondly, you can't use text based tools like e.g. git, emacs or
diff/patch to maintain them.

But, you got to realize that we are not unaware of these problems. We are well
aware of them, but we made the conscious decision that the real life problems
with the many-text-files approach to configurations (as listed above) outweigh
the advantages. Especially considering that most of our users don't need to
directly modify the config files.

~~~
ldite
Anecdata: I've supported Ubuntu desktops for non-technical users, and they do
indeed seem to have an amazing ability to accidentally re-arrange panel items,
even with "Lock items" ticked. I'm entirely in favour of making it more
difficult -- although I probably wouldn't have figured out holding down "alt"
by myself, but I would hopefully have found it with some googling.

~~~
cpeterso
Rearranging panel items is surprising clunky compared to Mac OS X.

Also, resurrecting panel items that have accidentally been deleted can be
difficult. The "Add to Panel" menu is missing some critical panel items that
can (for unfathomable reasons) be removed, such as the "Applications" menu!

------
dfc
I always wanted to try out awesome but never had the motivation. Yesterday
gnome3 packages started popping up in unstable so I gave it a whirl on an old
machine. The only good thing I can say about gnome3 is that it finally gave me
the incentive to make the leap to awesome...its truly awesome.

~~~
davidhollander
I'm very happy with Awesome running on top of arch linux. If you like the
configurability of awesome, also check out luakit:

<http://luakit.org/projects/luakit/>

It's a lua binding to webkit that allows you to fully customize your web
browser as well, with a configuration scheme similar to Awesome. By default
it's configured with VIM bindings, imo better than the vimium or vimperator
plugins.

~~~
william42
Luakit is definitely an interesting project. I'm checking it out, but I'm not
ready to make it my primary browser, if only because the user documentation is
bad enough that the best way for me to figure out how to open a URL is to read
the configuration files.

~~~
davidhollander
Search this ArchLinux thread, lots of great tips:
<https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=97375>

"o" or ":open" plus a url, "t" or ":tabopen" plus a url. "d" closes a tab.
Press tab to autocomplete. "B" to add a bookmark. "H"\"L", back\forward in
history. To perform a search, simply start your open or tabopen command with
"google " or "duckduckgo " etc. If you are on a site that uses javascript
keyboard controls, press CTRL-Z to enter pass through mode. ":wq" saves your
session (pages that are open will be reloaded next time) and quits.

If Javascript doesn't work in gmail or google plus, change

> _"AppleWebKit/%s.%s+"_

to

> _"AppleWebKit/%s.%s+ (KHTML, like Gecko)"_

in globals.lua and it will.

------
yaix
After having used Unity for many months, I recently switch back to "Gnome
classic" and when I upgrade to 11.10 it will be Xubuntu.

It would be great if Canonical concentrated their resources on making the
system faster, like they did until recently (improved start up speed etc).
However, now they seem to be dumping all work into reinventing the wheel by
creating yet another Linux desktop GUI.

------
pinchyfingers
Whatever, I spent so many years with Gentoo/Arch + Openbox/DWM that I'm just
happy to install Ubuntu, copy over my dot files and have 98% of everything
working within 30 min of downloading the distro.

------
devs1010
I agree about Unity being terrible, I just hope the Ubuntu dev's are going to
realize this and relegate it to an "experimental" UI and then go back to the
classic as default

~~~
w33ble
I'm hoping they backpedal too, especially for the next LTS. I'm pretty
doubtful that they will though.

------
FuzzyDunlop
If Ubuntu has done anything wrong with the full-on switch to Unity in 11.10,
it's that it's kindly done us the favour of removing a classic desktop and not
even providing anything approaching similar to replace it. I can't speak for
Gnome3 since it doesn't like my hardware at all, and its 'classic' mode seems
broken (possibly as a result of compatibility issues).

Anyway, that wouldn't be a problem at all, but Unity is still flawed, is
totally unproductive for development work, and there's a distinct lack of
customisation:

The launch bar is useless, and doesn't work at all if you let a window snap to
the left hand side.

You can only add application shortcuts to it (why can't I add bookmark
folders?).

There are no configuration options to be seen (what if I don't want auto-
hide?), and whatever options there are, they're minimal.

Workspace switching isn't smooth at all and requires a strange number of
clicks to make any use of.

Auto-hiding menubars just obscures GUI elements I'd like to be able to see at
all times. If they're not there, I have to stop and remember where to look,
because I can't just glance at the top of the screen. The actual name of the
app is always visible, but clicking it does nothing. This is unbelievably
unintuitive.

As for it replacing the classic desktop, I'm not sure what exactly was wrong
with it, and why a GUI fit for a netbook or tablet is now being shoehorned
into a desktop OS before it's had enough care and attention to bring it up to
par with the standard desktop experience.

I regret running the upgrade and as soon as I can I'm switching to something
more productive and usable, because 11.10 and Unity feels like too big a jump
into unfamiliar (and unstable) territory.

And this is coming from an OS X user (who only uses Linux at work).

------
kand
I was a Ubuntu user for the pass 2 years, only until the heat problem kicks
in. I don't know why most people don't have this problem, but my computer is
extremely hot while running basic graphical tricks, and moreover, this thing
has not been fixed for the last 3 releases. And secondly, the Unity is
extremely stupid for multiple monitor. If he has 3 monitors, how would he like
it to constantly look to the left most monitor just to switch between tasks? I
recently purchased an additional monitor, and because of this stupidity, I no
longer use Ubuntu despite I hate Windows so much. This could be a reason why
Ubuntu will NEVER get to offices, since most of them have multiple monitors.

Wonder if we could have USERS to say what they want in each release? If Ubuntu
continues this path, I'm afraid tech-savvy people will stop using it, not to
mention many new users will never start trying.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Most people don't have the problem because it's related to a specific piece of
hardware in your machine. Search Launchpad and see if you can add any new
details to the bug report, or file a new issue if one doesn't exist.

------
kristianp
I'm probably too late to this discussion, but I work at a windows shop, and
use ubuntu at home and on servers, so it is an irritation that the ubuntu UI
has become more mac-like, starting with the close button moving to the left-
hand side. This is mainly because I find it inconsistent. I have put off
upgrading ubuntu for this reason, currently I'm on 10.04.

What I don't like about ubuntu since 10.04, is that it the UI has become
"opionated", without having the customizability that pre-gnome desktop
managers have.

Specifically, there should be options to put the close/minimize/maximize
buttons on whichever side I prefer, and whether to use mac-style menus or
windows-style menus.

------
JulianMorrison
Seriously, what is with Ubuntu and locked down panels? Would it be so hard to
set up a user default in the home directory and then let me edit?

------
daedalus_j
Interesting to note that nobody mentions Enlightenment or the Ubuntu-based
Bodhi Linux disto. I really can't figure out if Enlightenment is simply living
in a dark hole of obscurity or if it's actively ignored. (And if it's being
ignored I'd love to know more about why, I've always enjoyed it as a desktop
environment.)

~~~
ubernostrum
For the Linux boxes I keep around, E16 is still, after over a decade, my
preferred graphical shell. In fact, I don't think I've touched the config
since around 2001.

That said, I don't get all the bashing on GNOME and Unity; yeah, there are
rough spots (and obligatory "power users" who think GUI means a window that
shows one checkbox for each command-line option), but they're trying to do
good and I applaud them for the attempt.

------
azakai
Why is there so much negativity?

They are providing a free software option for you, and they work very hard on
it. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. But why be angry at them?

As for Ubuntu 11.10, I am posting this from there. Yes, Unity has some
annoyances. But overall things work quite well.

~~~
icebraining
He's providing _feedback_ , even if in an indelicate way, and sharing useful
information to other users, such as the binary blob configuration file.

 _But overall things work quite well._

It's an opinion. Clearly the author begs to differ.

------
kragen
schiptsov posted, in an apparently auto[dead] post:

> Yes, all those better ways to do the configuration, such as gconf2, oneconf,
> and other shit is really annoying, same like people who missing power and
> flexibility of a text file, not an XML but plain old var=value, or, OK, some
> Yaml. But what can we do? The mediocre crowds are migrating from windows
> realms and they like to copy and paste, not to think and learn. ^_^

I just wanted to respond to schiptsov's comment by pointing out that copying
and pasting is something you can do if you have a name=value or YAML text
file, but not something you can do with gconf-editor. So if there are
"mediocre crowds" who "like to copy and paste", they'll be better served by
text-based configuration files.

------
pspeter3
I would suggest checking out Elementary OS. It has been a better experience
for me.

------
WayneDB
Linux Mint 11 is a fantastic distribution for anyone who isn't into Unity or
Gnome 3. I wish I had started using it sooner.

~~~
hristov
Do they have good repositories? One thing I liked on Ununtu is that they have
almost anything I need in their repositories. I never have to compile
anything, or even run an install file.

~~~
kijin
Mint uses the same repositories as Ubuntu for the most part. You can also use
the Debian Edition, which uses the same repositories as Debian Testing. Both
repos are as comprehensive as they get.

------
shareme
whaa a poor power user did not get what they wanted..wha..wha...

For background ESR work is not in UI but in small but important stuff like
GPSd, etc..

He is work here..both GNOME and Ubuntu have made decisions that are making an
impact as far as driving adoption of new users to the platform..both sets of
developers deserve big round of applause..

------
hasenj
Come on .. not another Unity rant.

All Linux desktops before Unity sucked. Gnome 2.x sucked, big time. It looked
ugly, and had only ugly themes. Its applications menu was completely useless.
Its panel sucked. Its model for putting and managing launchers/shortcuts on
the panel sucked. It was a complete mess.

Most Linux users were using Docky + GNOME Do.

I personally was using XFCE, because at least its panel was prettier and more
customizable.

