
Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/ubuntu-18-04-the-return-of-a-familiar-interface-marks-the-best-ubuntu-in-years/
======
shabbyrobe
> Ubuntu has done a bit of tweaking so that you can actually put launchers,
> folders, and files on your desktop, which should be welcome news for many
> Ubuntu users. How long that will last is an open question, though, since
> GNOME just completely removed the code that made it possible for Canonical
> to enable this feature.

I was curious about this and went spelunking for more information.

    
    
        https://community.ubuntu.com/t/files-nautilus-v3-28-will-lose-the-desktop-icons-capability/3115/1
        https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/merge_requests/46
        https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2018/01/09/%23ubuntu-desktop.html#t14:46
        https://csorianognome.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/nautilus-desktop-plans/
    

I understand the need to remove cruft that blocks progress, but the Desktop
filesystem metaphor is used by almost every single computer user I have ever
seen. It seems wilfully destructive to remove something that is depended on by
so many without making sure there's a replacement in place first.

~~~
tapoxi
> the Desktop filesystem metaphor is used by almost every single computer user
> I have ever seen

Smartphones, tablets, and Chromebooks are incredibly popular and lack a
desktop. ChromeOS is the most similar to GNOME here, in that it has a desktop
wallpaper but you cannot create anything there.

~~~
mkasu
Most of these smartphones and tablets have homescreens which serve a pretty
similar purpose. And people are used to having links to all their favorite
apps on it.

------
fb03
I've been skipping all the Unity drama by staying on Xubuntu which is really
snappy and stays out of your way.

Also, Gnome on this laptop (Dell Inspiron 15 7000) gave me (and several others
users, as per forum post
[https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2358975](https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2358975)
and some bug reports I found on the internet) a freeze or stutter every 10 or
so seconds. So instead of having to start debugging shit from a fresh Linux
install like I used to do in early 199x linux days, I chose to install xubuntu
and just get to work and be productive.

Try XFCE today, really (and install all gnome apps should you need to run
something from that desktop environment: they integrate great with xfce).

o/

~~~
djanogo
I have been using XFCE for 5 or 6 years, the _best_ thing about it are it's
developers, they don't keep updating it.

XFCE avoids the plague which affects rest of the software industry (me
included) - dedicate design, marketing, and development teams who constantly
have to add _something_ to justify their jobs and bonuses. Look at the number
of app updates on mobile phones, every freaking week there is a update
available. If you don't update they will eventually block older versions.

~~~
flyinghamster
I've been a big Xubuntu fan for quite a while myself. I recently put 18.04 on
a VM to give it a test drive, and found that they've tweaked XFCE so that you
have to be ridiculously precise at moving the mouse to a lower corner if you
want to resize a window. The margin for getting a lower-corner drag cursor
seems to be one pixel at best.

Argh. I've seen this problem over and over on a variety of Ubuntu versions
over the years, as if they don't want me resizing windows.

Is there any way to tweak this? I'm not at all liking it. My 16.04
installations are much better in this regard.

~~~
benjaminjackman
This isn't a solution but `a just in case you are not aware` You can press
alt+right click and hold then drag near the corner of the window to resize it
(alt+left drag moves it).

I understand that there are times when that isn't work so it's nice to have
both options. ( I wrote a browser based windowing system and have experimented
with having the bezels on the windows be quite large and/or auto-expanding
when the mouse nears them to make resizes as easy as possible since hard to
hit pixel thing annoys me so much)

------
ploggingdev
> but two deserve a quick mention. The first is Kubuntu, which for my money is
> the flavor to beat. If you haven't tried KDE lately, you really should give
> Kubuntu a go. KDE is no longer the memory hog it once was, and Plasma 5.12
> offers an incredibly nice, polished, and smooth experience.

Strongly agree. KDE/plasma continue to make great progress and it's my
personal favorite. Looks gorgeous out of the box, is light on memory and the
cpu, and offers great customization options. Since it uses a layout similar to
Windows 7/10 people coming from the mentioned operating systems feel right at
home and it eases the transition to linux (I've installed Kubuntu for a few
non-technical people and so far no complaints!). If you're interested in
following KDE's progress, check out Nate Graham's blog [0] where he publishes
a weekly post going over new features and bug fixes in KDE applications and
plasma. Really looking forward to plasma 5.13.

[0]
[https://pointieststick.wordpress.com/](https://pointieststick.wordpress.com/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
KDE too has cycled through removing the ability to put things on the desktop
and reverted to allowing a "folder view" and then back to a traditional
windows desktop (as one option).

They still do some kookie stuff with Plasma -- from big things like Activities
to little annoying things like removing the drag-resize from the application
menu (I fix the size in ~/.config after every update), and removing the KDE
version info from the Dolphin file manager about menu. Weird little changes
that make you wonder if someone's gone insane.

Mind you I disable just about every automation and haven't used KDE apps like
kmail for a long time.

~~~
seba_dos1
You always had an ability to put things on the desktop in Plasma, even in KDE
4.0. It just worked in a completely different way, unrelated to the "Desktop"
folder in the filesystem.

Also, Alt+PPM works well for resizing the Plasma menus now. It was missing for
some time due to architectural changes.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
PPM? Didn't realise it had been fixed, there's no affordance for resize on the
menu ...

Definitely wasn't a usable way for putting icons on the desktop when plasma
rolled out.

~~~
seba_dos1
Sorry, RMB :) Used Polish name for some reason.

There was, in a form of the icon plasmoid. It worked and behaved completely
differently than Folder View does, but if you really wanted, you could have
some icons on the desktop. It still works, by the way - it gets created when
you drag'n'drop something into the non-Folder View based desktop.

I think drag'n'dropping might have been added shortly after 4.0, but the icon
widget was there from the beginning for sure.

------
neverminder
I'm on Ubuntu 18.04 (upgraded from 16.04) and I'm still using Unity.
Technically Unity is not gone, but it's no longer a default, Gnome is.

I've tried Gnome and was very disappointed. No global menu integration which
means losing useful screen space for no good reason. Tray icons somehow look
squished and ragged. No fractional scaling is a massive issue for me since I'm
working with dual 27 inch 4K displays. Tray bar only shows only on one of the
monitors and you need a plugin to make it appear on both which is just
ridiculous. No more convenient built in features/options like auto resizing a
window to 1/4 of the screen by dragging it with a mouse to one of the corners,
etc.

~~~
tannhaeuser
Another serious issue with Gnome IMHO, also shared with Unity, is way too
small window edges so that attempting to drag-to-resize a window becomes an
exercise in patience.

I'm on a laptop most of the time and, like you, have absolutely no desire to
go back to wasteful non-global menus. Have you eyed a replacement DE for
Unity/Ubuntu going forward?

Edit: OTOH, Ubuntu have clearly spent a good amount of effort to customize
Gnome so here's hoping they can morph it to work like Unity even more (OHD,
global menu)

~~~
neverminder
I've tried KDE Plasma too but didn't like it either. To me it looked like 15
years behind Unity in terms of polishing, aesthetics and design/look
consistency of base applications such as file and task managers. Unfortunately
Unity was just right for me and everything else feels like a massive step down
without tweaking the shit out of it and still not quite getting wanted result.

------
sliken
Since 20+ years ago I used decent window managers that let me have a 2x2
workspace. VERY simple to use. Moving the mouse works within a workspace and
the same way across workspaces (mouse off any edge).

Moving windows worked within workspaces (click, drag, drop) same as across
workspaces (click, drag, drop).

Basically the principal of least surprise. Moving the mouse and clicking
shouldn't have special rules across workspaces unrelated to the rules of
working within a workspace.

So basically you could basically intuitively work on a space much larger than
your screen without having to think about it.

Ubuntu 18.04 forces vertical workspaces (so 1x4). In the dual monitor config
it only moves the left monitor across desktops. And moving windows between
workspaces is a nightmare. Step one is move the mouse to the top left corner
and click activities to expose. Step 2 displays all your windows as tiny
icons, 2/3rd of your screen is just the background, so they aren't much bigger
then icons, and theor position once exposed is unrelated to the original
position. So now you have to refind your window, then drop it into one of the
workspaces. But you can't watch or tell where it lands. So then you have to
switch workspaces and refind that window.

Quite the pain compared to 16.04 (or any decent window manager since olvwm 20+
years ago) it's just drag and drop.

Additionally there's no spatial relationship. So a window that's off your top
edge of your workspace doesn't show up in the workspace above yours. It's
basically just 4 unrelated workspaces. They also prevent wrap around, so you
can't go from 1 to 4, but have to visit 2 and 3 first.

Reminds me of the first hacks to OSX and Windows to get more than one desktop.
Linux folks figured this out 20+ years ago with olvwm, ctwm, and many others.

~~~
asgraham
Does workspace grid [1] work on 18.04? Not sure how to get wrapping, though.

[1] [https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/484/workspace-
grid/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/484/workspace-grid/)

~~~
mort96
This isn't strictly related to your suggestion, but a more general comment.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit frustrating that any time someone
complains about missing/bad functionality in gnome, someone recommends to
install an extension, but when a user complains about stability or
performance, their number of extensions are blamed?

~~~
truncate
No you are not the only one. I've had performance problem with GNOME on my
Dell XPS 13 for a while. Initially it was mostly sluggish animations. After
couple of years, with regular updates, my fan is continuously spinning and it
visibly feels slow. I don't use very few popular extensions (hide title on
maximize, the ubuntu defaults).

I mostly use i3 which is perfect, but one of those days when I feel like using
a full desktop environment, I just can't. On positive side however, scaling
for hidpi screen seems to work out of box in Ubuntu 18.04.

------
rdtsc
Am I the only one who didn't hate Unity?

I wonder if it was an effect of people who didn't like it complained and threw
hissy fits. Those that liked or didn't mind, didn't say anything.

So it _seemed_ as if everyone hated and they just had to replace it. I've
observed that pattern happen with product features before. A customer chimes
vocally that they hate something, another does etc. An issue is created, work
starts, then a whole new wave of complain come later that "hey I did like that
feature, why did you remove it".

Wonder how the decision was made, did they do a more formal survey or just
went by the vocal critics on HN and other sites?

(Now having said that, I don't dislike the new interface, so not complaining
about GNOME, just mainly interested in how the decision process worked).

~~~
ctrlc-root
Unity wasn't perfect but I personally really enjoyed it after the initial
adjustment period. I mostly switch between a web browser, a terminal, and a
text editor. I like how Unity let me run the applications I needed while
staying out of my way and taking up mininal screen space.

------
rullopat
With KDE that got so much better in the last 2-3 years, Qt license that is not
an issue anymore since a long time... why so many distros are still using
GNOME (especially version 3)?

~~~
banishwashtub
I try using KDE every couple of years and I can't even put my finger on why it
grosses me out so much. The "K" start to every piece of software is obnoxious,
I don't know if this is true today but I remember one of my first times using
KDE and searching for "calculator" or something and being unable to find it
because it was "kalculator". Terrible UX.

I think what really gets me is I use Windows at work and KDE is too close to
windows in some respects but isn't...it's also too close to other Linux DE's
but isn't. Feels really awkward, and isn't very pretty. I don't necessarily
agree with the design decisions of GNOME Shell and GTK but I think they still
look a lot better than KDE and Qt.

~~~
seba_dos1
> I don't know if this is true today

It's not.

Also, I can't stand the ugliness of GNOME, while Plasma looks mostly neat and
clean.

------
kcdigital
Anyone else use a tiling window manager like i3wm?
[https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/)

Since I mostly work in the terminal, it improves my productivity quite a bit
when I can navigate around and open apps without touching the mouse.

~~~
Symmetry
I run xmonad from within a Gnome session, at least on my laptop. I looks like
the PPA lazy people like myself use to do the integration has been updated for
18.04[1] so I'm going to move my laptop over shortly.

[1][https://github.com/Gekkio/gnome-session-
xmonad](https://github.com/Gekkio/gnome-session-xmonad)

~~~
colordrops
I second this. Xmonad with gnome is nearly perfect once configured.

------
Jedd
Unity was never the main reason people chose to use Ubuntu -- it was always
(well, from when I first heard about it until I lost interest (5 years ago))
the claim that Ubuntu is easier to install than Debian.

I never understood the fixation about _ease of installing_ , as that's
something I either did once every few years on custom hardware, or had
automated already using a CFM. For stuff I installed manually (laptops,
occasional desktop rebuilds) partitioning was always the thing that gave me
the most pause - and a graphical installer vs text installer didn't really
impact that process. Picking a new hostname wasn't any easier with a GUI than
a text interface either.

The common claim was that Ubuntu _had_ have better X, init (upstart),
installer, and maybe some more recent exotic drivers -- but I was hard-pressed
to identify the differentiating factors from Debian testing (what most of my
friends & family were on, at my behest).

~~~
Dayshine
>I never understood the fixation about ease of installing

The only time I use linux is when I need a linux VM for something. This
happens maybe 2/3 times a year, and I can never remember all the random linux
specific installation stuff. Ubuntu goes into enough detail that I don't need
to google it, Debian doesn't.

My fixation is because I don't care about what version of linux I'm using, I'm
not going to be using it for much, I just need a linux kernel and a reasonable
package manager.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I honestly don't know what you're talking about with "random linux specific
installation stuff". Installation of Linux hasn't really been any different
from Windows since the early aughties as far as I can tell. Select keyboard
layout, provide hostname, just let the partitioner use the whole disk
automatically, configure the network, etc.

As someone who frequently hates on Desktop Linux, I agree with the sentiment
that the fixation over ease of installing is pretty silly. Only a few distros
in recent memory have anything remotely difficult about their installation
process, and it's usually that they don't bother with any wizards and just
make you do everything by hand from the shell, but those were meant for
experts anyway.

~~~
collyw
I would really like to run Arch, but last time I checked it was a manual
process (so I am on Majaro). The docs are really good. I am expert enough to
get a lot of benefit from that amount of detail, but not expert enough to be
bothered with the manual install process.

One thing that gets me is ~12 years ago I used to install distros all the
time. There was a semi standard way to partition your drive, / home and swap.
Now I look at the partitions that are produced and a lot of the time I have no
idea what is going on. And please stop moving the bloody usb drive mount
location about.

~~~
nobleach
I feel the same. 12-20 years ago, I was installing Linux distros (and NetBSD,
FreeBSD, OpenBSD...) multiple times in a week. It was such a wonderful
playground. As a software developer, now days, I just want something to work
without fiddling with it for days. That said, I just installed Arch again a
week or so ago. I have 2 observations: 1. Getting it bootstrapped and running
is downright annoying. I see little value in it other than teaching someone
what an installer _would_ do for them. Do you know how to chroot? mkinitrd?
fdisk? install a bootloader? ensure that you have the right drivers/modules to
run your WiFi chipset? manually configure everything??? The end product _does_
give you a feeling of accomplishment... but, I'm still not sure it's worth the
cost. 2. ArchLinux docs are about the best I've seen. Kudos to the community
for doing such a fine job.

------
pawelk
I'm on 17.10, installed it with GNOME and went back to Unity after a few
hours. I was not a fan of Unity when it was released, but i guess it grew on
me. Using GNOME again just didn't feel right. And screen recording was broken,
if they fixed that then I may give it another go after upgrade.

------
habosa
Been using 16.04LTS on my personal laptop for a few years, just moved to
18.04.

I feel like the biggest improvement by far is the Snap package manager and its
integration with the Ubuntu software store. After 10+ years of doing personal
computing on Linux this is the first time that installing my main apps has
ever felt sane!

I was blown away by being able to install the latest Android studio, with a
launcher icon, in one click. No more tarballs and command line launchers and
broken dependencies.

Has this been around for a while and I just didn't know about it?

~~~
collyw
What was wrong with Synaptic?

I always felt the the offical Ubuntu package manager was a dumbed down version
that(though its been a while sine I have used Ubuntu). Synaptic definitely
felt better for installing libraries instead of applications.

~~~
sangnoir
> What was wrong with Synaptic?

>> broken dependencies.

Not that it's Synaptic's fault, but some packages will have conflicting
dependencies, especially if you're using PPA's to get recent software
versions. It's not uncommon to get "foo (latest) requires bar >=3.1 but you
have bar 2.8 installed. Baz (installed) requires bar 2.8". Snaps avoid
conflicts by having each app contain it's dependencies, which could otherwise
conflict.

~~~
teddyh
> _Snaps avoid conflicts by having each app contain it 's dependencies, which
> could otherwise conflict._

It also negates the entire point of having a package management system, as you
can’t upgrade a security issue in libfoo and get it fixed once, but have to
wait for all the users of libfoo, and the users of users of libfoo, and so on,
to provide a new version of the Snap package with a new fixed libfoo contained
inside it.

~~~
evand
I work for Canonical, but I also share maintainership of some snaps. From an
automatic email I received recently: “A scan of this snap shows that it was
built with packages from the Ubuntu archive that have since received security
updates. The following lists new USNs for affected binary packages in each
snap revision: … Simply rebuilding the snap will pull in the new security
updates and resolve this. If your snap also contains vendored code, now might
be a good time to review it for any needed updates.“

Yes, you don’t get that library update everywhere all at once, but this gives
each vendor a chance to make sure that update actually works with their app.

------
EarthIsHome
Unity was one of the reasons I switched away from Ubuntu. It may be time to
try Ubuntu again :D

~~~
kleiba
It's always been possible to run the window manager of your choice on Ubuntu,
as it is the case on all Linuxen.

~~~
jdub
But they didn't spend the time to keep GNOME up to date or make sure it was
well integrated. Now that it's the default again, it gets more attention.

~~~
rangibaby
Ubuntu Gnome was pretty good, I never had a problem with it for the three
years or so I used it

------
tuomosipola
No type-ahead search in Nautilus. Ubuntu actually dropped their unofficial
patches one version ago, Gnome developers years ago. I cannot fathom how Gnome
3 developers think this is a good idea. We have tried to file bug reports,
discuss with them, explain the use case. Still nothing. Very frustrating for
us users.

------
jessaustin
After updating to 18.04, local DNS no longer works on this machine. It worked
before. It seems that the systemd "stub" resolver isn't failing over to the
LAN DNS server specified by DHCP. resolve.conf is just a single reference to
systemd-resolved. It seems systemd-resolved knows about the LAN DNS server:

    
    
      $ systemd-resolve --status | head -4
      Global
             DNS Servers: 192.168.88.1
                          <ISP IP 1>
                          <ISP IP 2>

It's not using it though:

    
    
      $ nslookup laser
      Server:         127.0.0.53
      Address:        127.0.0.53#53
    
      ** server can't find laser: SERVFAIL
    
      $ nslookup laser 192.168.88.1
      Server:         192.168.88.1
      Address:        192.168.88.1#53
    
      Non-authoritative answer:
      Name:   laser
      Address: 192.168.88.5
    

Not clear to me whether this is a problem with systemd or with ubuntu
integration of systemd. Glancing at /var/log/syslog, it seems systemd-resolved
is restarting every four minutes, which seems unnecessary.

~~~
chillydawg
It's one of many questionable design decisions in the systemd project, in my
view. The other one that I really dislike is the entire logging system moving
away from plain text files toward binary journals and complex commands to view
them.

~~~
iso-8859-1
Really infuriating since it means I no longer can lookup A records on TLD's.
Breaking an old DNS feature...

    
    
        $ nslookup dk.
        Server:		127.0.0.53
        SERVFAIL
        $ nslookup dk. 8.8.8.8
        Server:		8.8.8.8
        Non-authoritative answer:
        Name:	dk
        Address: 193.163.102.58

------
skocznymroczny
I used to dislike Unity, until I played around with macOS and got some
experience with the global menu bar and similar concepts. Now I actually
prefer Unity to all other desktop environments. Apart from that I can stand
XFCE, but I still think Unity was the best thing to happen to Linux.
Unfortunate that they're going back to GNOME.

------
jstsch
I picked up a (very) cheap Acer Spin 1 as a dedicated machine for embedded
development. 250 euros. Meant for Windows 10, but unusable for that with its
32GB of eMMC.

With a bit of effort installed Ubuntu 18.04 on it. Works great! Wifi, touch
pad, even the touch screen and orientation all work out of the box. No messy
driver configuration.

I did replace gnome with Unity (an `apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop` away),
because it performs tons and tons better than gnome and with a 1.25 scale
makes the 11" 1080P screen much more usable. Amazing how much computing you
can get for this price...!

------
nkkollaw
I think it _has_ been better.

Unity has brought a lot of innovations, and it would have been a lot better to
keep it around.

Gnome devs started making extremely unpopular changes that are hard or
impossible to revert. Unity at least put some pressure on them to consider
their users a little bit. If only for this reason, Unity's existence was a
good thing even if you didn't like or didnt' use Unity.

The situation to me is similar to Chrome's dominance, with Firefox being
around to be used by few people, but having the very important role of not
leaving everything to one company/group/project.

I've tried using Gnome 3 but there are just a few things that drive me (and
lots of other people) crazy and can't be changed. Along with the project's
"our way or the highway" attitude that made me switch to Xfce. If Ubuntu keeps
being based on Gnome, Gnome might keep leaking some of their great ideas to
Ubuntu, which is bad IMHO.

Xfce is a little too barebone but very usable, and with an extremely positive
community. Devs are normal human beings that never look down on you (from my
experience)--which can't be said of all open source projects.

------
sandGorgon
To all those who are moving to xubuntu or mate because gnome is janky...well
it can be janky on Ubuntu.

Fedora 28 and Gnome were made for each other. They look and work brilliant.
Try it out (and don't let dnf vs apt hold you back)

~~~
sonnhy
The real upgrade for me was in fact using dnf instead of apt. It seems and
work so perfectly I don't even use any synaptic-like package manager. Also
yes, can confirm that GNOME is very well integrated in Fedora. That vanilla
feel is so strange coming from Ubuntu, which heavily relies on modification on
every package they have.

------
mihaifm
> It's a sensible change upon reflection given Wayland's long list of
> incomplete features like, for example, the lack of support for screen
> sharing in chat/VoIP apps and spotty support for VNC tools

I've been struggling with VNC on 17.10, eventually ended up installing RDP
(XRDP), also buggy as hell.

Can anyone point out a good remote desktop solution for Ubuntu, that will
preferably work in 18.04 ?

~~~
hefty
I haven't tried it but maybe give X2Go a look?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X2Go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X2Go)

------
tofflos
It would have appreciated the software updater telling me that that I won't be
upgraded because I'm on the previous LTS instead of insisting that there
aren't any upgrades available - this while I'm reading the release notes from
Ubuntu. Bonus points for allowing me to upgrade anyway without resorting to
the terminal.

From [https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-upgrading-
ubu...](https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-upgrading-ubuntu-
desktop#2):

If no upgrade appears

As mentioned in the Ubuntu wiki, upgrades from 17.10 will not be enabled until
a few days after the release of 18.04 and upgrades from 16.04 LTS will not be
enabled until a few days after the release of 18.04.1, expected in late July
2018.

You can force the upgrade, however, with the following steps:

    
    
        close Update Manager if it's still running
        open a terminal in the same way you opened Update Manager
        type update-manager -d and press enter

------
urmish
I switched to arch linux a couple of weeks ago after being an ubuntu user for
8 years. After installing gnome3 I see not much difference between arch linux
and Ubuntu. Sure, maintaining packages is quite different (and better) in arch
linux than Ubuntu. I guess I was always a fan of desktop managers and not
quite concerned about the distro.

~~~
jeanmichelx
The AUR is also really cool, no more of "add this dodgy PPA", instead you
download a file that allows to install dependencies and compile the original
sources.

It's more transparent, and if you don't care, you can install pacaur that
hides all of this behind a pacman interface

~~~
nobleach
I'd say that a minor annoyance is: "here, clone this repo, hop inside the
folder, oh... and grab these patches/diffs and pray that you can patch the
source. Otherwise, you're not getting that cool feature that you saw on
/r/unixporn". There's something to be said for downloading a binary, where
someone has already fought through the compilation errors. Totally agree that
the quality of AUR package (untouched by patches) are really good.

------
cdnsteve
I just dumped Windows 10 for full on Ubuntu 18 on my desktop and so far so
good. Great that it has whatever you need only a shell command away. Thumbs up
so far.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Yeah, until it doesn't because no one added it to the package repository, or
the version in the repository is out of date, and there's not even a PPA.
That's one of the big issues I have with the package manager centric
application distribution model, it's basically an appstore. That wouldn't be a
big deal, except that structuring the OS around the package manager as the one
and only way software gets installed has lead to an environment where there is
no standardized set of base system components a developer can target if they
want to distribute their application any other way, so the options they're
left with are 1) Statically link everything, which glibc is actively hostile
to, or 2) bundle all your dependencies, a loader, and a wrapper script (or
static binary) to ensure what you need is available and properly linked. Is it
really any wonder why so little non-oss software is available?

------
greatquux
There's really only one reason I do use GNOME Shell: the Pidgin IM integration
and Panel OSD extensions popup a pidgin notification in the center screen
where I can reply back to it inline without having to switch to the desktop
where pidgin is running (or switch to the active pidgin window even if it's
running on the other monitor with the static desktop). I do so much
communication with various people throughout the day (using protocols
supported by Pidgin) that this saves me a whole heck of a lot of time. I just
wish it was available for other desktops.

~~~
xemdetia
What do you even use pidgin for nowadays? I haven't launched it since AIM died
(and MSN before that).

~~~
greatquux
I use Pidgin to connect to Skype, Facebook, XMPP and Google Hangouts with
plugins. I communicate with lots of people on various networks and with only
one program and even then only through notifications. I just need texting
somehow and I'd be all set!

------
saosebastiao
For people like me that need updated drivers for hardware reasons and really
don't want to deal with a new UI, there is always the option of newer kernels.

I personally use this method, which is easy to use, upgrades automatically via
the normal apt mechanism, and has never once failed me.

[https://askubuntu.com/a/236458/498460](https://askubuntu.com/a/236458/498460)

I'm on the `hwe-16.04-edge` kernels, and they've been great for me, although
the `hwe-16.04` kernels are still kept up to date quite well.

------
quotemstr
I'm a fan of Cinnamon. I wasn't expecting to like it, but I do, and much more
than Gnome 3. Cinnamon's old fashioned flexible panel interface still can't be
beat.

------
stefs
panic story time: updated yesterday. after the update, reboot. full disk
encryption doesn't accept my password anymore. fuck. full panic mode. already
searching for an usb stick to get a clean install, although it may take a
couple of hours to get the machine back into a working state.

luckily my colleague knew what was going on. i had special characters in my
password and after the update, the keyboard layout changed from german to
english.

~~~
jopsen
The disk encryption seems very robust.

I encrypted my external hard drive with LUKS and plugging it into old Linux
installs just work :)

So I wouldn't panic before trying it with a usb stick..

------
fortythirteen
Ubuntu MATE 4 life.

It's like running peak 200x Ubuntu frontend with all the up to date backend.

------
amelius
I love Gnome, but I have been in an almost constant fight with the taskbar in
Gnome. Adding applications is not trivial (right-click doesn't work), removing
them is also not trivial. Moving applications to the end of the list is easy
(and happens often by accident), but moving them back to their original place
is impossible (unless you want to play the game of moving applications to the
end of the list until the list is in the correct order). I managed to have my
taskbar disappear somehow at some point. I had to restore from backup to get
it back. And I managed to change the background color to transparent, and I
can't change it back. Also, at some point, I lost the workspaces widget. I
hope that in the new version, things work a little smoother.

------
jto1218
I don't know if this is on topic but I switched to Ubuntu 18.04 recently and
ran into this fairly annoying bug [1]. Installing curl installs libcurl4,
which then uninstalls any applications you have that have a dependency on
libcurl3 (which turns out to be Slack, Virtualbox, and some others). They
really need to figure out how to allow libcurl4 and libcurl3 to live side-by-
side if that's possible.

Responses from ubuntu folks on that bug ticket have just been "Those packages
are not official ubuntu packages so we can't do anything"

1:
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/curl/+bug/1754294](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/curl/+bug/1754294)

~~~
matharmin
For Slack you can use the snap package, which doesn't have that issue.

~~~
mcovey
For some reason I can only run the snap with sudo, and thus any processes it
spawns (clicking links or opening a file manager for example) run as root.

------
kleiba
I've been trying to find out whether Ubuntu 18.04 still supports the gnome-
flashback package. I've tried to install it via apt-get in a virtual machine
but then there was no option to select it as my session after a reboot.

Does anyone know more about this by any chance?

~~~
xuhu
Swtich to lightdm from gdm3 and you'll be able to choose it in the login
screen.

~~~
kleiba
Cool, I'm gonna try that. Thanks!

------
nik736
Without sounding too negative, I understand that this is a lot of work but I
simply don't understand why Linux desktops, let it be Gnome, Unity, KDE or
anything else always looks like a bunch of developers try to master usability.

~~~
cJ0th
right? Most DEs offer solutions to problems that simply don't exist. Take the
launchbar on the left-hand side for instance. Being able to launch apps
quickly is handy. But why waste valuable screen space for it? A simple
launcher that can be activated with a keyboard shortcut is enough imho.

------
sp527
Why hasn't Canonical hired a designer to modernize the UI? Surely they can
afford it. Is it a point of pride for it to remain outdated? I guess that's a
feature from the POV of the primary Ubuntu target demo?

------
paines
My experience is quite the contrary which makes me wonder, does it really
behave so differently among systems?!? touchpad and bluetooth pairing (a2dp)
are not working after suspend+resume. Notice: touchpad can be fixed with a
script in /lib/sysetmd/system-sleep. Home encryption gone?!?! Why for fucks
sake?!? This was one of the USPs for me to use it over Debian. Yeah it can be
done manually, but for beginners this is a drawback...

~~~
halkotron
Yeah, BT after resume was f'ed for me too. Solved it by: \- upgrading bluez to
5.49:
[https://launchpad.net/~bluetooth/+archive/ubuntu/bluez](https://launchpad.net/~bluetooth/+archive/ubuntu/bluez)
\- hacking a script that toggles rfkill (un)block <hci0 dev id> on resume

BT applet, at least on Unity (yes, I'm one of those people) seems to be borked
in that it can't enable BT after resume. I'm guessing it's because it
remembers the wrong BT device ID (which gets incremented after every
sleep/resume, at least on my system).

------
sonaltr
I'm surprised no one mentions LXDE (Lubuntu).

It's really light on resources and works great! (been using it for around a
year now on my personal devices).

------
lossolo
I have a problem after upgrading to 18.04 - even if CPU is idle fans are still
working. Everything was fine on 17.10 (fan would only work on higher loads)
then upgraded on my ultrabook to 18.04 and fan is working all the time. Anyone
have similar experience/solved that?

------
znpy
Xubuntu for the win.

~~~
Ygg2
I keep Xubuntu in a VM. It performs perfectly.

~~~
znpy
> It performs perfectly.

THIS! This, so many times. Xfce lets you _actually_ use your computer to
accomplish tasks without getting in the way and/or forcing you any "intended
usage".

It is so good and so light, it's light-years ahead of Gnome.

------
silverdrake11
I still give them credit though. With Unity and Ubuntu phone they were trying
to have one interface that worked in all devices.. 'convergence'. Hope one day
we will have a linux that does this or at least an open source OS on our
phones.

------
foxhop
I actually switched to Fedora when Ubuntu Unity came out (after being a long
time Ubuntu user of many years).

Gnome was a major reason for my switch. I didn't have time for unity (just
like I gave up on KDE for the same reason).

Gnome is solid and looks beautiful these days.

------
s2g
Great to hear. Unity was easily the 2nd worst desktop experience I've had,
behind windows 8. Windows 8 was easily fixed with a 3rd party tool to restore
the start menu.

Unity was just so clunky, and no matter the hardware always seemed slow.

------
aestetix
Is there an easy way to remove systemd yet?

~~~
bigato
The closest to an answer to your question is to install Devuan, which is a
Debian fork that was motivated exactly by people wanting freedom to choose
their init system.

------
keithnoizu
Oh thank god.

------
trumped
almost as good as Fedora?

------
binarez
i3 is all I need.

------
brooksbp
Looks quite nice!

------
throwawaymanbot
Gnome just never seems right. Unity is way more polished. Which is a shame. I
initially supported gnome over unity when Ubuntu released it. But, once you
get used to the polished feel, its not something you want to do with out.
Gnome currently STILL feels like a step or 2 backwards.

------
olskool
So did they actually fix anything? On 16.04 on my HP EliteBook the sound
fucking dies every single time I do a resume. Not to mention the random times
the terminal stops printing characters.

