
Ubuntu 16.04 – Online searches in the dash to be off by default - reddotX
http://www.whizzy.org/2015/12/online-searches-in-the-dash-to-be-off-by-default/
======
feintruled
Not before time! I would occasionally use it in the Windows style "start
typing the app name" use case and it was annoying enough that it seemed to
prioritize the online searches making you wait for a couple of seconds before
it showed the local results, but it would also often bring up weird matches
for adult content too!

~~~
Fuxy
I switched to linux mint a while back and i have to say I'm very satisfied of
how stable and easy to use it is.

It's basically Ubuntu LTS without all the buggy slow crap like unity.

~~~
Afforess
Call me crazy, but I really like Unity. Back on windows, I always kept by
taskbar on the left side anyway, and I prefer the dash search to anything else
I've seen.

~~~
yAnonymous
Same. It looks slick, is very fast (thanks to well defined and configurable
keyboard shortcuts) and easy to use.

Whatever the haters have against it, in the end I get stuff done faster and
spend less time configuring my DE.

~~~
bufordsharkley
The keyboard shortcuts for snapping are so key. I really struggle to manage
windows on any computer that isn't running Unity.

~~~
toxican
What I don't get is why they didn't make them match the Windows hotkeys. It
was ALT+START+LEFT to stick something left, for example. Why add the ALT?

------
creeble
Yay! I often wondered if anyone used all those janky Canonical features they
keep trying to stuff into Ubuntu.

I guess it's hard to not try and become like MSFT, even if most of your
customers use your product because it's NOT from MSFT...

~~~
kunai
At this point in time, even MSFT is really trying hard to not be MSFT.

------
Theodores
I have been using Ubuntu since before Unity (when this 'dash' thing arrived)
and I don't think I have ever used the dash.

If I need to find a file or something on the internets I am more likely to
think 'I must use Gopher for this!!!' than I am ever to think of using 'Ubuntu
dash'. It is one of those helpful creations like the F1 key that is a great
idea in theory but not used in practice.

In some way they have managed 'brand awareness' with the dash debacle,
inevitably it was always going to fall by the wayside though. Command line
tools like 'find' and 'grep' are always going to be vastly superior to these
WysiWyg contraptions.

~~~
mhall119
'find' and 'grep' don't work on your Google Drive docs though

~~~
marssaxman
Sounds like yet another reason to use real files instead of giving all your
data to Google (and thereby the NSA).

------
nerdy
Stallman wins again!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-
vksc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc)

------
rpgmaker
They might as well remove it altogether...

Btw, when it's Canonical going to announce that they will stop developing
Ubuntu Phone? The writing has been in the wall for months and with Mozilla's
recent announcement I believe it's just a matter of time. I think the vast
majority of the mobile OS market has just moved on and is pretty ok with the
two most popular OS options.

I kind of feel sorry for Ubuntu[1] and Linux[2] in general, they never had a
firm foot in the desktop (market share-wise) and then this tectonic shift
happens where everything goes mobile, a market where they aren't even a
player, and to add insult to injury people stop caring enough about the
desktop to even consider changing their OS to Linux in the first place.

1\. I say this as a long time Linux user.

2\. I know android is a modified version of Linux but here I use it as it has
been traditionally understood in the desktop space.

~~~
quadrangle
Android isn't a modified Linux, it just uses the very same Linux kernel as any
other OS that uses Linux. Android is otherwise this userspace thing where
other Linux-based systems have X11 and such with Qt and gtk and other things.

Although not perfect, this really shows the value in the name "GNU/Linux" for
the desktop distros and such vs "Android/Linux"

Anyway, Ubuntu phone may not make it (seems unlikely), but it has _more_ of a
shot given the death of Firefox OS, not less. Ubuntu phone now has less
competition in the alternative-mobile space.

~~~
eropple
_> this really shows the value in the name "GNU/Linux" for the desktop distros
and such vs "Android/Linux"_

I don't really agree. For desktop users, the DE matters a lot more than who
made `cp`. For server users, the distro matters more because of the particular
weirdness of each.

~~~
nonotmeplease
GNOME is part of the GNU project, as well as emacs, gtk, etc.

~~~
eropple
I am well aware of that. I don't use GNOME or GTK (indeed, on my Linux desktop
libglib isn't even installed).

~~~
cosarara97
What are you running, Alpine?

~~~
eropple
I'm running Debian with KDE. The GNU tools are installed but by weight they're
nowhere near the majority of the code on the system, to say nothing of the
components I actually use. So calling that machine "GNU/Linux" instead of
"KDE/X.org/Linux", given the relative importance of the individual components,
would be stupid.

Fortunately, we have the nearly universally understood "Linux" instead, and
weird specializations like Android can be called something else.

~~~
e12e
I agree that "naming all the things" is a bit silly. But I think GNU/Linux
indicates Linux kernel, GNU libc, compiled with gcc -- which is actually kind
of useful information. It doesn't say anything about the Graphical UI (if
any). Similarly I think Android/Linux is useful, because it indicates
something about what kind of (binary) software you can expect will work - and
what will not.

I also happen to think distinctions such as Debian/kFreeBSD (a Debian
distribution based around the FreeBSD kernel, as opposed to (just) the regular
FreeBSD user-land) are informative.

I'm not sure what one should/would call a Linux distribution with an
alternative (non-GNU) libc that relied on a non-GNU compiler chain... Probably
"brandname"/Linux or "function"/Linux (eg: Linux Router Project or
something)...

~~~
eropple
This isn't a technical thing for any of the major proponents, though. It's a
marketing thing, because after the spectacular failure of Hurd GNU was
relegated to effectively a sideline (a useful one, for sure, but a sideline).
I get a lot more direct and personal value out of code not provided by GNU
than I do by code provided by GNU. I don't think they merit top billing, and I
don't think the two decades of holding one's breath and turning purple
deserves a reward.

~~~
quadrangle
Look, the Linux kernel itself uses the GNU GPL, so GNU probably is the most
important factor in all of this. Linux kernel under a proprietary license or
even under BSD-style, you probably would never have heard of it. At any rate,
basically nobody thinks HURD is useful anymore. RMS thinks time spent on HURD
is a waste since it is totally unneeded now that we have the Linux kernel. GNU
is a _political_ movement about software freedom as much or more than a
particular set of software, and even KDE is licensed with a GNU license. etc.

~~~
eropple
"Look," the creator of Linux could not give the faintest fart about GNU and
has said he'd use a different license if he could. Why should a political
movement that specializes in lousy marketing campaigns and haranguing be given
a nod?

I do like that attempt, though. "Well, they used a license that GNU wrote, so
GNU should get top billing!" Do you want to talk about how well
Apache/Dropwizard and PostgreSQL/PostgreSQL work with Apache/Kotlin on
GNU/OpenJDK8?

~~~
quadrangle
> has said he'd use a different license if he could

Citation?

A constantly repeated quote from Linus is precisely: "Making Linux GPL'd was
definitely the best thing I ever did." from a 1997 interview according to
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds)

I've never heard Torvalds say anything regretful about using GPL. When I heard
him in person just last year, he clarified his dislike of GPLv3 while
emphasizing his preference and like of GPLv2.

And anyway, I didn't say anything about "top billing". The fact is, Linux
itself is, admittedly, absurd billing for Linus given that he is the leader of
the kernel project but is among thousands of people who make it happen. GNU is
not a term that credits Richard Stallman. GNU is a community project with a
particular political aim. And my point all along was just about _some_
practical way to differentiate Android from the other primary Linux-based
systems, and "GNU/Linux" is a way to do that.

------
mverwijs
Meanwhile, Apple 'innovated' a very similar feature earlier this year in iOS9:

[http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/15/06/16/apples-
siri...](http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/15/06/16/apples-siri-
spotlight-extend-google-like-search-inside-ios-9-apps-without-tracking-users)

