
Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever - _grrr
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/01/ubuntu1004_beta_review/
======
hasenj
Completely disagree.

I've been using Unity for a while now, it's pretty awesome and much much
better than anything (classical) gnome could ever be.

This article sounds like "I've just used OS X for the first time and there's
no start menu, instead it has a weird thing that's like a dock or something."

So, no more gnome-panel applets. What's the big deal? Most of them were
useless and ugly anyway. And yes, there _is_ a weather indicator application
that you can install.

On the other hand, you have a global menu that becomes also a title bar when
the window is maximized.

So in Ubuntu 10.10 if you maximize Firefox, you have the following taking up
vertical space:

\- The top gnome panel

\- The title bar

\- The menu bar

\- (by default) a bottom gnome panel.

With unity, there's only one thing:

\- The Unity panel.

It's the panel, title bar, and the menu bar combined into one panel. (there's
no bottom panel).

I would never want to go back to the classical gnome desktop.

The Ubuntu button at the top-left is like gnome-do[0] on steroids.

There's honestly nothing from classical gnome that I miss.

Btw, you _can_ drag and drops applications onto the launcher. At least it
works when you drag them from the desktop. He's right though, the lense
view[1] doesn't let you drag/drop. You've gotta keep in mind though that's not
a finished product yet.

Having said that, dealing with application icons in (classical) gnome was
never a pleasant experience, so in this sense, Unity doesn't really lose you
anything.

[0] gnome-do is a quicksilver clone

[1] That's the new fancy thing that pops up when you click the Ubuntu button
on the top-left

~~~
dman
One thing that threw me off in Unity was the lack of a hierarchical menu for
launching applications. Is there someway to create a button that shows the
hierarchical menu? btw this isnt a criticism of unity, just me trying to pick
the brains of a power unity user.

~~~
nnutter
I don't think a hierarchical menu is needed. What purpose would that help
with? I think instead they should focus on making it easy to search in the
launcher.

One cool feature they have is that it can listed installed apps as expected
but also apps available in Software Center. Hopefully, someone can search for
"draw" and get appropriate apps listed. Or for "GIMP" and either launch of
install the app.

~~~
dman
Hierarchical menus help with app discoverability by showing all the apps the
system has to offer.

~~~
hasenj
I've always found such menus more confusing than anything.

Can you guess under which menu is the termina/command line program is hidden?
No, unless you know in advance that it's under "Accessories". I mean, why
isn't it under "system" or "programming"? It's too hard to guess what the menu
author(s) were thinking so it's always hard to guess where a certain program
is.

~~~
dman
Think of the first time you ever used a computer. I agree that once you know
that there is a app called terminal, using the Hierarchical menu might not be
the best way to launch/use it. But the very first time you use a computer, its
useful to see "Ahh - I can do Graphics, Programming, System Administration,
Games. Oh wow it even has Solitaire!". So a hybrid approach with something
like Gnome-Do for power users while retaining the hierarchical menu for
regular users is optimal imo. Heck a lot of power users even create
application sessions and do most of their app launching automatically at
startup.

------
metabrew
I'm running unity since yesterday - feels like they compromised massively on
the full desktop experience for the sake of compatibility with touch-based and
netbook devices.

I'll give it a week or so though; no-one likes change, and it's impossible to
make any significant UI change without hoares of angry and confused users
foaming at the mouth until they get their bearings.

~~~
ch0wn
Well, I like change. I would even like Unity and I don't feel it's too much
focused on on touch screen devices. After all, there are a lot of useful
shortcuts. However, the article is right that Unity in its current state is
far from being an improvement. It crashes very frequently and lacks important
configuration options.

When those issues are fixed, I'll certainly use it.

~~~
csulok
people said the same thing when they realized unity lacks stability, config
options and key features (like supporting drag & drop files between windows),
but they never came. I don't think canonical considers it a high priority, if
it's not there now, it won't be there at all for this release of ubuntu

~~~
owaislone
Use CCSM to config; or use the command "about:config" in alt-f2 dialog.

Missing drag-and-drop between windows? What are you talking about?

------
windsurfer
This seems pretty typical of Ubuntu releases, frankly. Anyone remember the
Firefox 3 fiasco? Luckily, if you don't like it, you've got lots of choice,
the current version will be supported for another 12 months, and the next
version will be out in 6 months. It's not a big deal.

~~~
vacri
This is something that's so often overlooked. If you want a stable desktop for
production use, use an LTS version of ubuntu. If you want 'close to the edge',
get the last version or two, they come with 18 months support. If you want to
fool around on the edge, well, that's where they do crazy stuff like this.
Early adopters are beta testers, always have been, always will be.

~~~
androith
Of course, the problem is that LTS releases are horribly outdated (the
packages in the repos), that it becomes hard to be productive. I needed a new
version of a library (actually not THAT new) to compile something, and it just
wasn't there! LTS for the lose.

~~~
windsurfer
The whole idea of LTS is to leave outdated versions of the repo and only port
bugfixes and critical security stuff backwards while leaving a direct upgrade
path to the next LTS open.

------
riledhel
People understand this is _why_ other people release betas right? To test new
things? To test unfinished products? To gather early feedback? I've been using
Unity for a month or so in Maverick Meerkat (10.10) and I find it great for
daily usage, in spite of it's minor glitches.

~~~
csulok
Except for critical issues, nothing will change. The things that make the most
important UI unusable / annoying are not critical issues, but in fact very low
priority usability issues and or missing features.

------
bgruber
"Unity is a radical departure, but no less so than GNOME 3.0, which has wisely
been pushed back until later this year."

I was wondering where the article author got this idea. It seems as if he must
have fallen for an April fool's joke
([http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/2011-04-gnome-3.0-resche...](http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/2011-04-gnome-3.0-rescheduled.html)).

I compared Unity and Gnome Shell a couple of months ago. At that point there
was no comparison; Unity felt like a hacked-together prototype, and Gnome
Shell felt like a beta. That's a very short-term view of course.

------
tomjen3
A good thing I am on the LTS release then. Unfortunately if they keep the main
menu is separate from the window it belongs to (a huge break with the standard
usability rule which says that things which belong together should be
physically together) I will have to find a new distro.

It's the worst move Apple made, why did they copy that?

~~~
elehack
Because by some other standards, such as Fitts' Law, it's a good move - it
gives the menu infinite vertical size.

Also, it is an effective way of conserving vertical screen real estate. With
the increasing prevalance of widescreen displays, vertical space is
(relatively) scarce. This is particularly true on netbooks, and even on full-
size laptops. Merging the menu with the top dock gives you an extra 24 pixels
or so of vertical space.

~~~
andybak
A couple of years back I switched from Windows to Mac and I can't say I really
noticed any downside to the single fixed application menu. The gains due to
Fitt's Law however are noticable and I when using a Windows box I find the
menus to be annoyingly small click targets.

I do miss the discoverability of Windows ALT+letter menu accelerator key
presses though.

~~~
sjs
The default shortcut to focus the menu bar is Ctrl-F2. I change it to Ctrl-2
and frequently do things like "Ctrl-2 F <Return> O <Return>" to open recent
files. For leaf menu items I set per-app keyboard shortcuts in the Keyboard
pref pane so I don't have to do the Ctrl-2 song and dance to find things I use
all the time.

There are some undiscoverable ways to use the keyboard on OS X. In many alert
dialogs you can hit Cmd-[first letter] to select that button, e.g. Cmd-D for
Don't Save, and Cmd-M for Move to Trash. They don't underline the letter
because it's ugly, but once you know about the convention it doesn't matter. I
like the way Windows displays the underlines when alt is pressed.

~~~
andybak
Your first point is very useful. Still way slower than the Windows way but way
quicker than mousing it.

I already knew the alert dialog trick. It doesn't work consistently though
which is rather annoying (Apple's own apps rarely seem to support it)

------
mnazim
Users always resist change. We should not be afraid to change because of that.
Unity has a huge potential IMHO and the best time is when unity does not do
very much. It will evolve with people learning to use it. "Release Early,
Release Often". I am completely with Canonical, Mark and Ubuntu. The fate
favors the brave. Go for it Team Ubuntu. As for the geeks, they know how to
take care of themselves.

------
esmevane
"The problem isn't that everything you know and love about GNOME is suddenly
gone, and Ubuntu 11.04 is, for all intents and purposes a completely different
experience than everything that came before it."

Am I to assume, then, that it follows that because I haven't used Gnome since
1998, the article's claim that this is the "worst Ubuntu beta ever" is
absolutely inapplicable to me?

I suppose that since it says "with Unity" in the title as well, I'm expected
to forgive its overall link bait nature?

------
trotsky
Between Canonical shipping unity and Redhat shipping gnome shell with gnome 3,
it's going to to be a turbulent spring on the linux desktop. The screams of
protest about the gnome shell are already strong on the F15 alpha forums. I've
used both and I'm not sure they're so bad, but everything takes some getting
used to for people. Then again, I use KDE and am very happy, 4.6 runs and
looks great though I do use a dock.

------
chuhnk
Yes I agree with this writeup. Having tested the unity desktop I was
thoroughly disappointed. I felt as though the interface was dumbed down and
all of the advanced features or navigation that I once had control of were now
gone. It will perhaps as they gear more towards a touch based interface and
even netbooks but as a main desktop manager it really does fail quite badly.

~~~
owaislone
"Interface was dumbed down.."

That is a good thing. I use my computer to use websites, write code, watch
videos; Those things should be more visible not the OS chrome. OS UI should be
as minimal and simple as possible.

------
motters
I've been using the 11.04 beta for a day or so, and it seems ok to me. Sure,
it's not exactly the same as Gnome 2.x, but that doesn't necessarily mean that
it's worse. I never used panel applets much anyway, and like the keyboard
shortcuts and the universal menu bar. So far I havn't found anything which I
thought was really irritating or stopping me from working.

------
yaix
apt-get remove unity; apt-get install gnome

Done. What's the problem?

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
You don't even need to do that much. Just select the classic desktop at login
time.

~~~
dman
At least on alpha3, selecting the classic desktop results in broken themes.
Gnome suddenly reverts to looking completely unskinned and like it did 10
years ago.

~~~
rbanffy
I never noticed how fast my GPU was until I crashed the theme engine by
accidentally xkilling the bottom panel.

And I don't think it looks that bad.

~~~
dman
I might be hitting a bug then on the nouveau drivers. because I am getting
completely unthemed gtk which looks a lot like Tk.

~~~
rbanffy
I think we have different definitions of ugly ;-)

I confess. I don't think unthemed GTK 2 is ugly.

------
rubergly
The only complaint I've ever had with Unity is that the dock consumes the
super key for shortcuts. The only reason I've been unable to stick with Unity
is that I can't assign gnome-do to the super-based hotkey I'm used to. I could
learn to use the Unity Launcher, but it never seemed to be anywhere near as
easy to use as gnome-do.

------
ratsbane
Not the best choice in names. If there are problems people are going to refer
to it as "Nasty Narwhal."

~~~
rbanffy
Catchy name.

I believe the Unity shell will generate that kind of buzz. Programmers (and
any Linux distro is geared towards them) are notoriously averse to change and
get really attached to their tools.

I only hope the new shell makes sense on multiple 30" monitors, because I
don't really like using the built-notebook screen unless I am out of the
office (and not on my desk at home) and OSX is weird when you have your
document on monitor C and its menu on monitor A...

------
Symmetry
I installed it myself today. The W7 style auto-tiling feature is really pretty
convenient when you combine it traditional Linux Alt-clicks. I installed the
Compiz Settings Manager and made some modifications to the default
keybindings, of course, and sped up the animations but nothing too invasive.
I'm going to give it a chance before deciding if I want to go back to my
beloved tiling window managers.

------
davidw
Can anyone using the beta tell me whether:

* I can still do focus-follows-mouse if I hack around with the settings?

* If it has a 'workspace manager' thing that lets you have multiple workspaces?

Without those, no way, no how. Other stuff I can probably get used to.

~~~
dman
Multiple workspaces - yes it does have multiple workspaces and devilspie
continues to work in Natty. Dont know about focus follows mouse.

------
zokier
So how long until a Gnome remix of Ubuntu appears? Already with Natty, or in
2012? I guess gubuntu name is free. Or maybe some existing remixes get a
sudden popularity spike. Or maybe nobody cares, and those who care switch to
Fedora/Arch/Debian/<distro-du-jour>.

------
rbanffy
To be fair, we have been program-and-file centric for since the arrival of the
Mac (Lisa was less like that, with the stationery thing, Star even more and
Smalltalk 80 didn't look like this at all) and a new metaphor could be useful.

------
wazoox
I remember there was about the same whining last time about the "wrong"
placement of the window controls. How old this seems now :)

~~~
jan_g
It seems old, but I still can't stand it:) and that's why I switch those
controls back to the right side on every new machine that I use/install (via
gconf-editor).

~~~
mixmastamyk
They should be split, actually. The close button should not be next to other
buttons.

------
dman
One thing I wish for is that they would show the Unity panel if I move the
mouse past the left edge of the screen.

~~~
fader
Currently the panel will display if you mouse to the upper-left of the screen.
It took me a day or so to get used to but I strongly prefer it over the entire
left edge of the screen being a hotspot -- on other OSes I waste a lot of time
waiting for the panel/dock to go away when I mistakenly mouse just a little
too far to the edge of the screen when trying to interact with a window.

------
joelmichael
How much additional development will Unity get because Ubuntu has put its
massive weight behind it?

------
mariuolo
I couldn't agree more.

