

Gnome desktop instead of Unity in Ubuntu 11.04? - kia
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2011-April/000842.html

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acabal
Actually I'd be surprised if they did a last-minute switch back to Gnome
Classic for 11.04 given Shuttleworth's penchant for decision by fiat and
history of using non-LTS releases as nothing more than extended betas/UI
playgrounds. (See Pulseaudio, Empathy over Pidgin, Indicators, window buttons
--and that one was actually for an LTS!)

No, Shuttleworth has decided that Unity is the new hotness, so we'll almost
certainly be getting it in 11.04, which will make us all glorified beta
testers again. This'll be the first release since I started using Ubuntu that
I won't be upgrading to immediately. My business productivity--which is what I
use Ubuntu for--is more important than that.

~~~
cmsj
Logical conclusion of what you say is that this is exactly the right time to
make changes, otherwise they would be too dangerous for LTS releases! Unity
going into 11.04 means that by the 12.04 LTS it's had a whole year of real-
world use on thousands/millions of desktops and all of the bug fixing that
will result from that. Yay!

~~~
acabal
What I'm saying is that "non-LTS" shouldn't be code for "bug-ridden and
feature-incomplete," just because it isn't supported for as long. They deserve
the same attention to stability that LTS releases get. I'm not against all
change, only change that is foisted upon me with more concern given to haste
and deadlines than to polish and stability. If Unity is as buggy and feature-
incomplete as they say, I would much rather wait another 6 months for it to
mature in development than have it released early and having to deal with 6
months of crashes and missing features while I wait.

Unfortunately that seems to be the direction Ubuntu has been leaning in for
the past few releases. It's too bad that the PPA system, for all its benefits,
almost forces one to do distro upgrades--it's a choice between having new
versions of critical software like Firefox and accepting immature stuff like
Unity, or using out-of-date software for another 6 months.

Can you imagine being stuck with FF3.6 till October if you choose not to
upgrade to 11.04? (And yes you could add a PPA, but they're often hard to
find, and many popular programs don't have PPAs for out-of-release updates.)
But that's more of a complaint about the milestone-release system than it is a
complaint about Unity.

Though I _am_ glad they're providing the option for Classic, at least in
11.04. Too bad most people who don't like Unity and don't read Linux forums
won't figure out how to enable it!

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buster
I don't care for the default as long as the dropdown on the login screen
leaves me the choice to have my "real" Gnome desktop. Else, this release would
be a nightmare, i guess..

~~~
coryfoo
I agree. And from what I have read/seen as far as Unity goes is that it is not
ready for prime time just yet. On the other hand, Gnome 3 looks pretty
awesome. Just saying.

~~~
pge
Gnome 3 is great...if you have compatible graphics processing.

Ubuntu (and Gnome for that matter) are facing an interesting challenge there.
Do you try to take Windows head on and assume your target customer is running
new hardware? or do you try to keep the installed base of Linux users happy?
Many of those are using Linux on older hardware precisely because it's still
pretty snappy on those machines, while Windows is too bloated. It seems hard
to have it both ways.

~~~
bad_user
You got it backwards -- newer hardware is the problem ;)

~~~
rbanffy
Gnome shell mandates compositing.

~~~
owaislone
Unity doesn't because it has a fallback shell that mimics actual unity 100%.

------
wmf
Discussion: [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
desktop/2011-April/...](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
desktop/2011-April/002894.html)

------
jjcm
I wouldn't be surprised. When I tried Unity a few months ago it was riddled
with bugs and memory leaks. It felt much like KDE4 did when it first came out
- an incomplete product that focused on quantity of features over quality. It
_could_ be a great desktop environment, but it's going to need a lot of work
before it gets there. With 11.04 coming in the next few weeks, I just don't
see it having that polish on time.

~~~
shawnee_
The only reason I can find to prefer one desktop over another is ease of using
/ assigning custom keyboard shortcuts: <http://oss.zentu.net/?q=node/27>

KDE4 was a huge leap _backward_ in that respect. 3.5 was about perfect, and I
actually preferred it over Gnome when 3.5 was the default. But more often than
not must we learn the hard way that sometimes it's just best to leave well
enough alone.

~~~
owaislone
Exactly.

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hasenj
Actually, classical gnome won't even be installed by default at all:

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/ubuntu-11-10-will-not-
shi...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/ubuntu-11-10-will-not-ship-with-
classic-gnome-desktop/)

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/739812/...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/739812/comments/5)

    
    
      We made very good progress on a11y in Natty, but will miss the goal of
      perfect a11y. We'll nail it in Oneiric. That's OK, because we have the
      Classic desktop fallback in Natty, but will not in Oneiric.
     
      Mark

~~~
cmsj
Natty = 11.04 Oneiric = 11.10

So 11.04 will have the classic by default :)

Either way, it's just an apt-get away :)

~~~
fungi
> it's just an apt-get away

im amazed at how much internet drama ignores this point...

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owaislone
Guys, they are talking about having a classic-desktop OPTION by default.
Otherwise people will have to install gnome2-desktop to get it. Unity will be
the default.

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ryanklee
Relevant thread at Ubuntu Forums seems to call bullshit on this
<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1724085>

Contains a link to related [https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
desktop/2011-April/...](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
desktop/2011-April/002894.html)

~~~
viraptor
People on forums can call many things... but it's still the Canonical staff
that makes the decisions (Tech board in this case).

~~~
ryanklee
I'm referring you specifically to the second link I posted which is not from
the forums but from the mailing list from which all this speculation arose.
The forums don't mean anything, it's just where I originally found the
pertinent link.

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MatthewPhillips
This was expected, Unity isn't ready yet.

~~~
kleiba
But GNOME3 is?

~~~
thingie
I have been able to use F15 alpha for a week or so, and I actually quite like
it. Majority of problems that I've met so far was caused by systemd or some
other novelty, not Gnome 3.

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pepijndevos
Some people mentioned Gnome 3 in here, but by Gnome classic, I think the mean
Gnome 2, as opposed to Gnome Shell, which is Gnome 3.

Did anyone else noticed that Gnome Shell has a lot of Unity stuff? Possible
Wayland backend and a launcher interface.

~~~
owaislone
Yes, Shell added and redesigned itself a lot after Unity surface but hey,
that's good.

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BasicObject
I'm still on 10.04 x86-64. I'm very happy with it. If it isn't dead simple to
switch to Gnome Classic in 10.04 I will be switching to Debian. I use my
desktop computer for work not play. If I want to just waste time on the web I
use my CR-48.

