
Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu? - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/104581-linux-mint-the-new-ubuntu
======
gerggerg
Canonical is genuinely trying to make linux the most user friendly it's ever
been and make it ready for real mass adoption. It's not going to be easy and
not everyone is going to like every change but you can't get so down on them
for trying so hard.

Saying the solution is to go backwards is the same as telling canonical to
just stop trying all together.

There's no point in stagnating and sticking with gnome. New users aren't going
to switch to ubuntu because there's a start(or applications) menu. Canonical
has to genuinely create a usable, unique user experience that ubuntu can call
its own. It's not there yet, everyone knows. But saying people should just
switch to something else and poo-pooing all over canonical isn't going to help
make (desktop, mass user facing)linux the best it can be.

If you really care, get involved. Go to askubuntu.com and answer some
questions. Make blog posts that illustrate how you'd improve unity. Write some
code. Ubuntu is foss. Canonical neither charges for it nor sells hardware, and
I'd say they're doing pretty good in spite.

All that being said; you can install gnome in ubuntu 11.10. You don't have to
use unity.

~~~
mindslight
The problem, like everything Ubuntu, is that it may be 'user friendly' when
everything works perfectly, but when you want to do something different or
something fails, it's anything but. You're left fighting multiple levels of
indirection, trying to figure out what the system is actually doing so you can
_fix it_. Much of the indirection comes from Debian, but it seems Ubuntu finds
a single use-case, and then builds more indirection _on top_ of the Debian
indirection.

Needing to download 5GB of intermediate packages to go from karmic -> oneiric
one release at a time (way to ruin apt-get, guys), a weekend fighting remotely
with what turned out to be nouveau (which given its hard locking a fresh
install, shouldn't even be enabled by default), and Unity tonedeafness have
signalled to me that it's time to move on.

I'm giving Arch a try, and it's refreshing that I can just _edit_
/boot/grub/menu.lst without having to figure out the abstraction built on top
to do things the "right way" (and avoid being overwritten). However, if Arch
doesn't work out, I'm settled on straight up Debian. At least with Debian, the
indirections actually get me something.

~~~
xyzzyz
Obviously, you're not the target user of Ubuntu, so there's no point in
complaining. Ubuntu is not meant for people who want to edit grub/menu.lst by
hand. There are plenty of other distributions for that.

~~~
jiggy2011
The advantage of using Ubuntu even for "power users" is the level of support
available.

Since it has such a large share of the Linux desktop market it's easy to find
solutions for most of your common Ubuntu problems.

I don't really want to go back to the days when everyone used a different
distribution where if you had an obscure problem and used google for a
solution you would come to a page describing how to fix it in another distro
with a completely different package management system and where the contents
of /etc were completely different.

I remember posting questions on the forums of various distributions relating
to problems I was having just seeing them go unreplied to in perpetuity.

~~~
fredsanford
How long will Ubuntu have this user base if they keep pissing people off? Is
it that hard to give the users who want the old shell in its usable form what
they want?

Benevolent Dictator is what Bill Gates somewhat pretended to be for years.

~~~
jiggy2011
I'm not sure of Shuttleworth's credentials as the benevolent dictator/UI
designer.

He made his money selling SSL certificates in large quantities, I don't really
think he is a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

He reminds me more of the type of entrepreneur who makes his money then
decides to buy an English Football club and run it into the ground.

That's possibly unkind though, there was enough good work going into Ubuntu
providing good support and sorting out allot of the common Linux Desktop
issues to award him some credit, but I don't really see Ubuntu as any kind of
creative juggernaut.

~~~
gujk
Something weird happened. Ubuntu used to be amazing: hr easy to install and
use district, the world-changing help forums and wiki. Then Unity seemed to
upendded everything. But look: MacOS is getting phased out by iOS. Google is
converting all their apps to a touch-optimized UI that makes no sense on a
desktop or laptop. Windows 8 is doing the same, and MS's TV ads trying to
convince people to buy a touhscreen 27" monitor.

Maybe they are right, and the future of mass computing is in entertainment
consumption and not productive work. Maybe the dream of a popular powerful OS
is dead. Maybe it's time for power users to return to being a.nich

------
ChuckMcM
Personally I found it a bit snarky. By the same token I find that UI wars are
the most vitriolic, after all they are the way you talk to the machine day in
and day out. Screwing with that, screws with everything.

I have found Ubuntu's strategy interesting because it seemed clear that while
KDE was following general guidelines around Microsoft OSes to be more
accessible, and Gnome was following general guidelines around Apple OSes for
similar reasons, Canonical sort of 'turned left' and drove off the road to a
new place.

I remember distinctly when I left Sun and had to give up my Suntools interface
for what became Windows98 at the time. And it was hokey and painful and it
crashed a lot, except that over the weeks and months it crashed less and less,
all without a software update :-). And I realized it was not so subtley
training me not to use features that failed. Of course if you use something
long enough you become reasonably facile with it. When I switched my desktop
to Linux I was always more comfortable with KDE for that reason, the whole
'start' menu on the lower left, the control panel abstraction, the way things
laid out on the screen.

When I went to Google I got a Macbook as my laptop choice, it was different,
and I struggled at first, but once I became reasonably good at navigating
around I found that I was also less annoyed with Gnome.

I think the Unity strategy at Canonical will pay them big dividends. Mostly
because the Linux desktop market has been such a small part of the whole
desktop market as to barely merit a full pixel width in a pie chart of desktop
OSes. I believe that part of the reason for that is that the strategy of being
'kinda like' MacOS or Windows in the GUI has failed Linux badly when it comes
to non-technical users. It failed them because there was neither the cohesion
of implementation, nor the quality of testing, in either KDE or Gnome which
would ever cause a non-technical user to think the GUI was 'better' than the
one they left behind. Unity breaks that cycle because _it doesn't work like
the GUI you used to use._ and so I think users cut it some slack, they realize
they are in a 'new' place and learn how to do the things that they want to do
in the way that this gui does them. And there isn't a mental comparison to
their previous gui because it wasn't like this at all.

Assuming, and its a big assumption, that Canonical can execute on the Unity
strategy well, it will continue to be the dominant Linux distro. Further it
will increasingly leave behind every other distro, because while others may
trade off market share amongst the technical users, where programmers slosh
from one to the next, Unity will be gaining non-technical users who won't go
anywhere else in the Linux space. Ever.

~~~
old-gregg
Great comment. But allow me to disagree on comparing Gnome 2 to OSX. In my
opinion old Gnome was exactly what you're talking about: "driving off the
road". It wasn't like Windows or OSX, it was its own thing, the best desktop
environment, in my opinion. The only element reminiscent of OSX (only
visually, not functionally) perhaps was the menu at the top.

Unity, on the other hand, is the exact replica of Gnome 3, just not as
polished graphically. They both have this weird "buaaa mode" where you're
typing instead of clicking on a shortcut, they both destroy virtual desktop
functionality and if anything, they're basically cloning OSX bad habits:
instead of switching between windows on Alt+Tab they're now switching between
apps (across virtual desktops!).

So I would suggest that the opposite is happening. Instead of staying in the
"new place" Ubuntu is basically trying to get on the road and follow OSX.

Frankly, I'm not even sure it's possible to "drive off teh road to a new
place" when it comes to desktop UX without a significant change in hardware:
we're still using basically the same computers as we did in late 80s, even the
screen real estate hasn't improved much.

~~~
DanBC
> _Frankly, I'm not even sure it's possible to "drive off teh road to a new
> place" when it comes to desktop UX_

Sure it is.

3d file managers[1] never took off. With todays hardware they'd be a lot nicer
to use.

Users have been limited to quite small (sorry about my incorrect terminology
here, I'm going to go read some man pages) total virtual screen size within
which their windows were located. Now graphics cards, and system memory, are
huge; this leads to possible radical new interfaces.

Imagine a "Zoomable UI" - documents open in their own full size window; any
document opens in its own window tiled next to it; the user can zoom in as far
as they like to do detail work, or out as far as they like to organise all
these documents. Programs would open toolbars in their own windows. Any
toolbar would be able to work on any document (because it's Unix, so all input
and output is text, right?) - but the result wouldn't necessarily make any
sense.

That's not particularly radical; tiling WMs exist already.

[1] (<http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml>) {my favourite is FSV.}

~~~
Gormo
3D file management never took off because no one has yet found a meaningful
and intuitive use for three dimensions that couldn't be accomplished with two.

The screenshots of FSV on that site show me a 2D interface that's been
extruded into cubes and displayed isometrically. Usable, but the 3D is
superfluous. All the other 3D file managers appear utterly unusable.

What on earth is going on in this screenshot of Tactile3D:
<http://www.tactile3d.com/overview/screenshot_orbis_9.jpg>?

Or this one of TDFSB: <http://www.determinate.net/webdata/img/TDFSB2.jpg>?

~~~
zach
To me, the clearest mandate for using three dimensions for file management is
in creating a space that people can become as mentally familiar with as they
can with a house.

We already know that one of the most powerful methods for creating a lasting
memory of intangible items, the "memory palace", is basically walking around a
three-dimensional space.

It seems clear that there is a possibility here to create a fully-functional
three-dimensional metaphor. However, it is not an evolutionary step. It would
be something so foreign that it would be better to teach it to people who
never managed files before. And to be honest, with apologies to Dropbox, the
numbers of such folks is back on the rise because file management itself is an
increasingly irrelevant task, not just on iOS but on Chromebooks and just
about any non-desktop computing device.

And so although there is a very interesting potential, I have to wonder if the
quest for better file management is even worth fretting over anymore. Hasn't
being "ready for the desktop" largely been an exercise in skating to where the
puck has been? Maybe a revolutionary file manager would have been strategic
ten years ago, but now?

So I welcome Canonical's focus on touch devices. Yet I'm concerned about the
sheer inertia of maintaining an identity, in being Ubuntu, on a significantly
different platform. We saw how well the Windows Tablet PC succeeded at being
Windows, and in so doing lost the platform. I sure hope that's not what
happens here.

~~~
Gormo
But a file manager's principal function is to organize things. And people
_don't_ think three-dimensionally when they're organizing things. They don't
even think _two_ -dimensionally. It's always a _single_ dimension, some kind
of vector, and they compose things into one-dimensional vectors that may
contain other one-dimensional vectors, but they're always looking for one
dimension at a time.

If you're looking for a quotation from your favorite author (assuming Google
wasn't helpful), you're not going to nevigate a three-dimensional conceptual
space to find it. You're going to first iterate through your list of
bookshelves, and find the appropriate shelf (assuming you have lots of books
and sort them into shelves e.g. by topic or alphabetically). Then you'll sort
through the books on the shelf and find the book you need. Then, you'll go
through the chapters of the book, etc.

The mind organizes information into categories, and groups categories within
categories. Visual mnemonics are great, but they help us to find the specific
item we're looking for at the appropriate level of abstraction, and they work
just as well in organized, two-dimensional spaces as well as three.

I agree that there may be a lot of potential for some major breakthrough, but
having to remember that your Economics paper is stored in an inventory slot in
a chest in the inn in that logging town outside Stormwind isn't it.

------
Alterlife
Linux Mint has put Google custom search into the distribution in order to
raise revenue. It's in firefox both from the address bar, the search box, and
in the quick search from the 'start' menu. It's very annoying, and it isn't
just a matter of opting out. Mint doesn't support an easy way to remove it
from all three locations without getting technical.

I used mint for a couple of months, the custom search engine came back every
time I updated a browser, and it was very annoying to reset settings. It was a
deal breaker for me.

~~~
dchest
Also, this is absolutely unacceptable:

 _Our goal is to give users a good search experience while funding ourselves
by receiving a share of this income. Search engines who do not share the
income generated by our users, are removed from Linux Mint and might get their
ads blocked._

<http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851>

~~~
Alterlife
> Search engines who do not share the income generated by our users, are
> removed from Linux Mint and might get their ads blocked.

Wow, that is insane... With that sort of mentality, the next logical step is
to gain market monopoly, pre-install a version of adblock with custom filters,
and start charging the entire Internet to show ads.

~~~
cma
If Google blocked Mint Linux from its results in response, it wouldn't be much
of a threat.

~~~
Alterlife
I'm not saying they'd succeed, but based on what they're doing already I'm
sure they'd be willing to try.

------
Meai
Disclaimer: I like Linux. Also very speculative.

While people argue over distributions, Gnome 3 is the silent winner. You may
not see it now, but in ~2 years the choice of distribution will be mostly
meaningless. Because finally: Linux is going to be standardized through a
unified interface - both beautiful and stable. In fact, in 2 years the only
reason people will still be running other operating systems, is because those
have the app marketplaces. Why is that? MacOS is already getting cheaper each
version, they do not intend to make money with it anymore. It doesn't make
sense either, nobody wants to pay more than once for something, and by that, I
mean that people expect to run Windows or MacOS on their phones, tablets and
everywhere without having to think about something as pesky as a licence.
Windows will make money by selling applications and appliances in their
Windows Store, it's the freemium model we know from games. In fact, they will
make more money than before. Most people don't even know that Office is a paid
application suite, now they actually get the opportunity to pay for it. This
may seem small, almost idiotic to us programmers but people can't pay for
something they don't see. So here we have it again: Linux is going to be
behind, but not because it lacks functionality, ease of use or beauty. It will
lack apps.

------
windsurfer
I think people are looking at these operating systems the wrong way. In the
past, Ubuntu was the easy to set up but hacker-friendly linux. Nowadays, they
are transitioning to being more for OEMs and other devices. Linux Mint is
simply coming in to fill the gap that Ubuntu is leaving as it transitions to
other markets.

~~~
unalone
Well-said!

The great thing about Linux – its killer feature compared to Windows or Mac –
is that it's open-source, meaning each user is free to tweak it however they
see fit. Ubuntu has been an interesting experiment in whether such an open-
source system can also be designed to be competitive with a casual market;
they're finding that the casual market's extremely difficult to penetrate, and
so they're trying to innovate and make something genuinely appealing. I'm
curious to see if they succeed or not, but it doesn't really matter either
way, because Linux remains the turn-into-anything choice for people who need
(or just want) more control over their computing environment.

As Ubuntu makes drastic changes, a new iteration of Linux becomes the go-to
for people who want a conventional installation. Maybe it would have made more
sense for Ubuntu to remain the conventional brand and for a newly-branded
brand name to be the one fiddling with Unity, but Ubuntu's already got a name
for itself and Shuttlesworth wants to take advantage of it. I think it's
beautiful how Linux is capable of branching and splitting so painlessly. I
don't use it myself, but that's okay – Linux doesn't need considerable market
share to remain the valuable tool that it is.

~~~
keithpeter
"I think it's beautiful how Linux is capable of branching and splitting so
painlessly."

You've nailed it for me with that quote. Thanks. Points up the difference
between commercially packaged OS and a free (ish given Ubuntu's binary blobs)
one.

~~~
diminish
in the past 2 months i used extensively gnome2,3, unity, xfce, kde4.6 etc and
i am so happy for such a small market share there are many choices. this is
the power of open source.

------
cletus
It honestly boggles my mind that people can't read things like these and see
that it's "choice" here that's why Linux on the desktop is doomed to be
nothing more than a niche product for us geeks.

Desktops succeed because they're consistent. Possibly the most important thing
is to have a consistent API. X at this point is venerable. Nascent Linux
desktops come complete with cruft. Lots of cruft.

Honestly I can understand why Canonical wants to start again (Wayland, Unity,
etc). Even more honestly, I just don't see adoption of any Linux desktop going
much above 1%.

I have a 6 core Xeon with 24GB of RAM on my desktop and _Ubuntu still feels
sluggish_. Go down to 2 cores and 4GB of RAM and I'd have a better experience
with either OSX or Win7.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I don't ever want Linux on the desktop to succeed then if I have to sacrifice
choice. I'm thrilled with Ubuntu every day, and if I had to sacrifice any of
the flexibiltiy and customization I enjoy... well, I'd just use OS X.

Also, I have no freaking idea how your Ubuntu feels sluggish. Being in Ubuntu
on my Quad/8GB is vastly faster than being in Windows.

~~~
keithpeter
cletus and drivebyacct2

I've discovered recently that its the video hardware and how that interacts
with the precise (sic) choice of graphics driver that governs Unity speed.

cletus: you can test my hypothesis by logging in with the Unity 2d session and
seeing if the UI becomes more responsive. Scaling (super-s) will be 'ragged'
without 3d effects but should be faster.

drivebyacct2: what is your graphics card and what driver? I need a new desktop
box soon myself...

I'm giving Unity a try and I have to admit its a little _fussy_ and _busy_. My
fallback is Debian with a tiling window manager (dwm) so I've been going in
the 'menuless' direction for some time.

~~~
lvillani
You might be affected by:

<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/763005>

There is a series of known bugs where the window manager picks the wrong
refresh rate resulting in choppy animations.

I noticed that this happens consistently with all compositing window managers
(compiz, xfwm4, mutter) except kwin.

Disabling VBlank syncing may help. The bug report above has instructions to
disable VBlank syncing with Compiz/Unity.

If you are using mutter (gnome-shell) you can put this line in
/etc/environment, restarting your X session afterwards

    
    
      export CLUTTER_VBLANK=none
    

However, in my experience, Unity/compiz becomes sluggish again after a certain
amount of clients are displayed on any (virtual) desktop.

~~~
keithpeter
lvillani, yes, the nvidia form of this bug and its associated work around has
improved the performance of Unity with my old desktop significantly. Lots of
searching Ubuntuforums and the interweb had not turned this up, so thanks.

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-
restricted-m...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-
modules-2.6.20/+bug/92599)

------
hackoder
I use awesome wm on my debian laptop, but I prefer Unity and Gnome Shell to
the old gnome 2 or kde or xfce. They are really starting to come together as
coherent interfaces instead of having mismatched UIs.

Some tweaking tools are around anyway and more will come with time. Gnome
shell extensions are pretty good and they'll mature with time.

~~~
keithpeter
I suspect that users of tiling window managers are already quite a long way
along the axis that Gnome appears to be moving along.

------
protomyth
"The desktop seems crowded, and yet on a large monitor there’s so much real
estate to get to that left menu that it’s a chore; multi-monitor just never
felt right either. To make matters worse, Canonical seemed to ignore all
protest, which made users feel alienated and not cared about."

When I use OS X, I do miss the NeXTSTEP menu bar. I do wonder how much
research is going into large screen UIs these days. It seems like we need
someone to concentrate on the workstation again.

~~~
jinushaun
What I find ironic is that the developers (and designers) that work on these
OSes are most likely using a giant monitor or dual-monitoring, or both.
However, they're still designing for a single 1024x768 monitor. WTF?

With Aero Snap in Win7 and multi-mon taskbar in Win8, MS seems to finally
start supporting some of these features.

OSX is busted on the 27" iMac. I know because I own one. OSX needs Win7-style
window docking so bad... I spend way too much time managing windows on the 27"
iMac.

~~~
protomyth
The one good thing about Lion has been the mission control interface. I got it
rigged on pushing the scroll wheel of my trackball and it keeps me out of the
window managing business.

I really think going back to the NeXT window bar would fix a lot of my hatred.

------
udp
_> it’s Ubuntu without someone else telling you what to do or taking the OS
into a direction that you’re unwilling to follow_

Debian, anyone?

~~~
notatoad
the prevailing theme in most comments regarding mint i've seen on reddit and
various blogs is that people like mint because it's easy. one of mint's big
selling points is that they include the ubuntu-restricted-extras package by
default, rather than making people install it.

if people can't install a single package, i don't think debian is for them.

~~~
sixtofour
And yet, Mint has a version that's directly downstream from Debian, not based
on Ubuntu at all.

~~~
notatoad
what does that have to do with anything? the parent suggested debian, not
"some other debian-derived distro" linux mint debian edition is definitely not
debian.

~~~
sixtofour
You're exactly right. But it could be a gentler introduction to Debian for
some.

------
dan00
I had a really nice config runnig Gnome2 + XMonad. I tried for hours to get
this config running again nicely with Ubuntu 11.10, without much luck.

Then I stepped back and thought for what I'm needing or want a desktop:
automounting + wifi.

For automounting I'm now starting 'thunar --daemon &' in my '.xsession', and
for wifi and it's config I'm using 'wicd' and otherwise just XMonad.

~~~
joeyh
A one-line change to xmonad.hs to make it use xfce instead of gnome, and I was
on my way.

------
w1ntermute
For those who don't want to shift to a new distro, Xubuntu is a great option.
It's lightweight without losing any of the features you've come to expect from
a fully-featured DE.

And best of all, it's not going to pull the UI rug out from under you at a
moment's notice.

~~~
middus
Why switch to XFCE? Can't you just install Gnome?

~~~
SlipperySlope
Sure on Ubuntu 11.10 I installed Gnome 2.2 (see below comment for correction)
as follows. This may not be possible on the next Ubuntu release. That's why I
am migrating to Mint.

How to install gnome-classic on Ubuntu 11.10

# apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

# cd /etc/lightdm # gedit lightdm.conf change user-session=gnome-classic

hold down the alt key when right clicking the menu bar to add frequency and
system monitor applets.

~~~
pettazz
> This may not be possible on the next Ubuntu release.

What, are they gonna stop making it based on Linux and move to something that
can't run Gnome?

~~~
SlipperySlope
Gnome fallback is supposed to be a temporary feature of Ubuntu. Sorry - I
can't easily find where I read that.

~~~
pettazz
Yeah, but at what point does that stop the "power users" who seem to hate
Unity from installing Gnome themselves? Hell, I removed Gnome entirely and
replaced it with Xfce once. It's still Linux. Just because it comes with Unity
preinstalled doesn't mean you're stuck with it.

------
qdog
Sounds like the forced search from Mint would be annoying.

The real problem I have with Unity is the lack of a Focus-Follows-Mouse
setting. Possibly there is some hidden settings I could change, but that's a
deal breaker. Even Windows7 has a registry setting for this I use.

I installed a different windows manager on 11.10 and login with the user
default from the login screen, wasn't that big a deal. I load AfterStep, but
it's kind of a cluster out of the box and I'm thinking of going to something
else. Back in the day spending hours getting my window manager running exactly
'so' wasn't a big deal, but it's not so fun after a decade.

------
RyanMcGreal
I still can't understand why Canonical doesn't just put out a Gubuntu similar
to Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc. That way, they can keep pushing Unity forward while
making it reasonably easy for uses who prefer Gnome to choose that option. I
know it's possible to get gnome running (I did it on my netbook, which is
running 11.10 - my desktop is still on 10.10), but the method feels
unnecessarily hacky.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> I still can't understand why Canonical doesn't just put out a Gubuntu

Because they guessed that not many users would switch to Unity if they can
keep using a Gnome-2-like. But they _want_ them to switch to Unity so they
have to basically force them by forcibly removing the Gnome-2 option.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I thought the idea of Unity was to attract new users with a simple interface
optimized for non-power users. There's no reason why such an approach has to
alienate existing users who _like_ having a more expressive interface.

------
kokey
It reminds me of the die-hard KDE users and Kubuntu. I think Canonical did
well with the creation of Ubuntu, which made it possible to throw a Linux
desktop at a newbie user for the first time. From the sounds of it, Unity
hasn't lost that angle. Since it's actively looking at tablets, I think they
are here to stay. With tablet hardware getting more powerful, it could be
surviving contender to iOS and Android.

~~~
gks
Extremely doubtful that we'll see Ubuntu as a contender to iOS and Android.

If you're going to run linux on a tablet-sized device, why not just use
Android? It has an existing application store(s), and more importantly an
existing userbase.

Look at WebOS, if there's any competition out there to compete with Android or
iOS WebOS would be the best option. From everything I've seen and heard it is
quite fantastic. If not slightly buggy and a little slow. It wasn't executed
well by HP or Palm but there's obvious potential.

I figure, if Palm and HP can't compete with Android and iOS, there's no way
Ubuntu is going to do it.

I'll happily be proven wrong if they do, but I just can't see it.

~~~
pekk
Android is 'built on' Linux but it doesn't expose Linux to users in any
remotely meaningful way (contrast, for example, with Maemo).

I agree with you that it's doubtful, but if Ubuntu doesn't do it then I just
don't think it can be done - Fedora and Debian aren't even going to try and
most other distros don't even have the resources to start.

~~~
gks
Sorry, late reply here.

I know that Android is built on linux. But I don't see that as being hugely
important. It's about the interface and the "mindshare" of the users and
particularly the developers if you want to have a solid app selection for
those users.

There's going to be a huge issue with ANY new platform. It's the chicken and
the egg all over again.

Apple created a platform and got a bunch of users interested because the
product was so mindblowingly refreshing amid all the crap phones available to
consumers at the time. While applications weren't available from the get go,
the users loved the phone despite the lack of apps.

When the app store was made available in the second iOS release allowing
developers to make applications for those phones it effectively bypassed the
chicken and egg problem.

Take a look at WebOS. It was unique and refreshing although not mindblowingly
refreshing like the iPhone/iPad were. Thus, it's userbase was small and it's
developer base even smaller. Developers wouldn't look at the platform because
there weren't enough users. Users won't look at it because of the lack of
applications.

Many of the original iPhone purchasers were tech savy people. They were the
only people willing to spend $500-600 on a phone. People always ask those tech
savy people for advice. Those tech savy people say "I love my iphone and
here's why." But the same didn't happen with WebOS because the tech savy
people wouldn't buy the device because it lacked apps. At least, not until the
TouchPad hit $99 anyway.

What makes you think Ubuntu has a chance here? Seriously. Granted, I will give
you one thing about Ubuntu and that's at least that they're trying to provide
a consistent experience. Which is assbackwards from Linux in general with the
Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, Xfce, XMonad blah blah blah. Sure, those give you
choice. But on a tablet or phone, choice isn't always a good thing, at least
not the same level of choice you find on a desktop.

But I just don't see Ubuntu as a possible threat to anything here at all. As
someone else already mentioned, if someone wants a tablet OS, just fork
Android and run with it. At least you have a working base for something that's
already seen success. You can mold it into something unique like Amazon and
B&N did. I don't think Ubuntu can compete.

------
tzury
I really don't get what is the big deal about not liking unity, this sound
strange on "hacker news" site where people are using keyboards rather than
mice most of their time.

From my opinion, the alt+tab functionality is an improvement, the app/docs
search works great and the overall look and feel is smooth and fine.

I do not pay too much attention whether my active apps are represented as
rectangles in a bottom bar or as lighting dots on a left bar.

In general, when preaching about the ability to choose it is also include the
ability to choose not to use gnome and use something new.

Ubuntu/Canonical/Shuttleworth owes me nothing, seriously, they have been
providing me the entire Ubuntu distro platform and infrastructure for free,
and in the last year alone, I have installed Ubuntu on about 500 network
appliances I provided to my customer.

I, and perhaps every Ubuntu other users, owe to "Ubuntu" more than Ubuntu owe
to us, so all this rant and complaining gets to my ears as a spoiled child
complaining to his mama.

Bottom line, my vim is the same vim, my chrome is the same chrome and my
Konsole is the same, oh, sorry, it is a bit different and better now, because
I set "Ubuntu Mono 11pt." as the default font.

~~~
jmoiron
Except that lots of people don't agree with you. People have already been
using gnome-do (quicksilver) for fast keyboard app launching for a few years;
it's faster, more focused, and less keystrokes than the Unity bar. You also
can't use it without installing some extra stuff and getting unity to give up
its monopoly on the mod (win) key.

As for the alt+tab functionality.. well, if you are used to OSX and its third
rate window management (can't move or resize windows without aiming at a tiny
bar or handle?) and broken virtual desktop implementation, then maybe this
kind of impoverished behavior is a welcome change. Since I have OSX
experience, global menu's aren't a big problem for me, except when they are
hidden by default and show up on different screens depending on window
location. An interesting compromise for multi-monitor users, but mystery-meat
menu decision is mind boggling.

For people who have now had ~16 years of window-centric keyboard navigation,
having no good muscle-memory way to switch among 3 windows in 2 different
applications is a nightmare. Having alt-tab slide your entire desktop over is
just an insult on top of that injury. We use exact same set of tools (vim,
chrome, and a terminal), but you must only ever use one window each; I can't
imagine how you could tolerate the new app-switcher's behavior otherwise.

Your point about the only change being the font is also interesting, since in
Ubuntu 11.10 you cannot change your fonts (or any colors on your theme, or
gtk2 themes which a majority of apps will still use) without installing some
third party tool with a terrible UI that looks worse than anything has since
gnome-2 was released. The terminal is the only program that provides a UI for
changing it.

In general, I agree with the posts in this thread that say you can massage the
XFCE desktop into a worse version of what gnome-2 was about 3 years ago. After
trying very hard to get along in Unity and 11.10 (gvim freezes for 30 seconds
on start-up if you have installed foreign language packs, a bug fedora fixed
about 9 months ago but persists in ubuntu), I've given up am using XFCE w/
Compiz (which doesn't work that great but is usable) until I find a weekend
where I can ditch it for something else.

The part that's sad is that I did not find Gnome3 to be much better than
Unity; it still has the same "enhanced" (broken) window/app collection which I
find completely unsuitable for doing real work without encountering incredible
friction. So for me (and probably others), Gnome3 has joined KDE4 as some
unusable tangent, essentially killing off systems I was very happy and
productive with. Gnome2 is a temporary fix; it's a dead end. XFCE still feels
very spartan; in the past 3 years Gnome2 has got better and better and XFCE
has barely moved. Hopefully, someone (maybe Mint, or maybe the ElementaryOS
guys) will raid the remnants of Gnome2 come up with a system that has a living
development path.

------
roestava
There has been a huge incentive for operating systems to try to adapt to the
laptops and smaller form-factors distancing themselves from the age-old
desktop form-factor. We all have been affected by that push at some point.
Ubuntu has been no different.

Ubuntu more than any other has tried a bit of everything. I've long settled on
the Xfce version called Xubuntu. So after trying Unity for a couple of hours
after installing the recent Ubuntu I could just install "xubuntu-desktop" and
be done with it, back to my trusted experience.

Interestingly, many users seem to settle on the default experience and then
feel cheated when it changes to something they don't like. Users coming from
Windows found home in some version of Ubuntu. Then felt cheated when it
changed some more.

Experienced users have all of this baggage, all the learning they have
undergone... But the Linux distros namely Ubuntu want to try to make something
for people who have barely used a computer, pushed by partners like Dell and
so on.

Windows too has changed a lot throughout versions. The lucky ones kept on
using Windows XP.

------
dylangs1030
One of Paul's imperatives is to make a few people very happy rather than a lot
of people kind of happy. That in mind, I think this is a good move for
Canonical to move to Unity in 11.10. If people want the user-friendliness of
GNOME, they can go to other linux distributions. But Canonical is doing well
with open source technology - they've actually moved linux to something beyond
the more savvy users and hackers - it's accessible to anyone used to Windows,
with a bit of tweaking. I don't think they should stick with what's safe just
because it's ubiquitous. They can't directly compete with Apple and Microsoft,
so experimenting with what Linux can be specialized in or how to make it
unique are worth disappointing a few users, I think.

(EDIT): I forgot to mention, I also don't think changing UI will affect
Canonical because of past history with it. Facebook has a mass of complaints
every time ot changes, but it's still growing every day. The two examples
don't entirely match up, but I think the same will apply to Canonical.

~~~
DanBC
> _They can't directly compete with Apple and Microsoft, so experimenting with
> what Linux can be specialized in or how to make it unique are worth
> disappointing a few users,_

To me this feels a bit like what Opera has churned through - first you pay;
then you pay to get rid of ads (or not); then it's got great CSS (which is
rigidly compliant but makes some sites look weird); then it's free; then it's
got versions for mobile technology; then it's got social stuff built in; etc
etc.

Opera is a great browser. Unfortunately, not many people know that it's a
great browser, because they use IE or Safari or Ff or Chrome.

Facebook does get a lot of criticism from users when it changes UI. I think
the difference is that you only read that if you're already using Facebook.
All the furore about $LATEST_CHANGE_IN_OS is written on blogs, and that gets
read by people trying to decide whether they're going to go for some Linux
distribution.

Many Linux distributions aren't very good at "elevator pitches", and most
users are too lazy to plough through a bunch of wiki pages to find out just
why Mandriva is different from Mageia.

~~~
gcp
_Opera is a great browser. Unfortunately, not many people know that it's a
great browser, because they use IE or Safari or Ff or Chrome._

Operas has very good mobile market share, i.e. where it matters now. They
executed well on that space.

Whatever advantages they have on desktop (questionable IMHO) don't seem to be
compelling or strong enough to win users over. And just like everyone else,
they now have to fight the Google Chrome advertising juggernaut.

------
SlipperySlope
Linux Mint looks good for Linux developers who want a high-productivity
environment based on Gnome & debian. Canonical is re-purposing Ubuntu for the
casual, ease-of-use, mobile and tablet markets.

Its easy to understand why ... those markets are growing quickly. And
Microsoft is going in the same direction with their Metro look-and-feel.

------
mbq
It seems that nothing made more for the spread of minor linux distros than the
introduction of Gnome 3...

~~~
DanBC
... and they knew it was going to happen, because of the annoyance that KDE
caused when they went to KDE 4.0, and the number of people that moved from KDE
to other desktop environments.

Gentle iteration (改善) is fine, and complete overhaul is fine, but the
combination of killing off the old version and introduction of workflow-
breaking new versions; with a supposedly community driven project ignoring
many users has been very frustrating for some users.

------
yaix
I am glad about Unity and Gnome3, because it made me try the Xfce4-Desktop.
Simple, fast, without many settings and other stuff that distracts from work.
It's what Gnome should be according to the original philosophy of the Gnome
project.

------
vdoma
What's wrong with sticking to an older version of Ubuntu - 11.04 or earlier
where you're not forced to use Unity? That's what I do. And I get a lot more
work done without having to worry with the latest shiny new toys in town.

~~~
metachris
What's wrong with selecting "Gnome" as a desktop rather than Unity when
logging in? It's literally 2 clicks to change.

~~~
SlipperySlope
Have you tried Ubuntu 11.10? Where are those 2 clicks?

~~~
clark-kent
The 2 clicks is the tools icon right next to Username on the login screen.

~~~
keithpeter
My fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 has exactly two entries in that menu...

Unity Unity 2d

You can install other desktop packages from the repositories of course.

------
nicwest
As a fairly recent main machine ubuntu convert (6 months or so), I'm actually
a fan of unity. Like everyone I hated it at first, but now that I have got
used to it I prefer it to regular gnome stuff.

I agree however that 11.10 has been a nightmare as many useful (but not
hardcore) features have been removed from the UI of many packages for reasons
such as "casual users are unlikely to need this". This is the problem that is
likely to get me looking else where for distr.

~~~
pekk
I spend most of my time in a terminal and I thought Gnome 2 was a mess and was
never totally happy with it. I don't think 11.10 has been a nightmare at all,
I have found it to be an improvement on 11.04, where most of the 'removals'
you cite actually occurred.

I originally started using Ubuntu for the driver support (after a while you
want to work rather than compiling everything and editing files in /etc, which
means you either roll your own de facto distro or you switch to something
which has an 'out of the box' workability).

------
DaNmarner
I stared using Ubuntu as primary desktop system from 7.04 and switched to
Arch+KDE when Unity came out as the default UI.

I don't have any issue with a distro refining the user experience, trying to
appeal to a more general market. However, the initial Unity was such a half-
assed, buggy release that my confidence in the maker of Ubuntu was destroyed.

Pissing off base/sophisticated users in attempt to attract doesn't look like a
good omen for future success.

------
imojito
I like Unity and I consider it a cheapish version of OS X gross general style
guidelines. I like full screen application idea, distraction free globalmenu.
Hiding maximize/minimize/close controls as an option. MeMenu it's great. Non
intrusive notifications. And so.

But left taskbar and being unable to integrate Docky with Compiz effects
beauty it's a continuous pain

------
FuzzyDunlop
While I can agree with the sentiment that Unity's not ready for prime-time (by
a long shot), the last paragraph of the article identifies the silver lining:

If one distro makes a change you really dislike, there are plenty of others
out there to try.

Changing OS is a pretty big deal but it's nowhere near as big a ballache as it
used to be, and virtualisation and live CDs are brilliant ways to try before
you buy, as it were.

------
_grrr
Yesterday I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10, having already regretted going from
10.10 to 11.04.

In 11.04 the Gnome fall back just about worked. In 11.10 it does not. As for
Unity I can't tell whether it's working as intended or is buggy.

Every progressive update from 10.04 has gotten increasingly slow to boot and
respond.

As we speak I'm preparing to install Mint, with a fall back to Ubuntu 10.10.

~~~
_grrr
Having now installed Mint 11 I can say it it's a real improvement over Ubuntu
11. Fast to load and shutdown, responsive, beautiful UI.

------
jezclaremurugan
"your activity on the web, every search query you make and product you buy
will help fund our project." - <http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851>

help fund your project and sell my soul too...

------
clark-kent
Why not run Ubuntu classic on 11.10, which uses a very polished Gnome 2 shell?

~~~
mixmastamyk
It's a dead end.

------
kleiba
Canonical should just start a new parallel line, GNUbuntu for the GNOME
desktop (not to be confused with anything GNU-related).

------
hs
i'm actually switching to archlinux after using mint for a year or so

------
dbbo
I just check the stats on DistroWatch:
<http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity>

It's based on pageviews as I recall, but that's a decent metric for getting a
feel for a distro's "buzz". The data suggest that Mint started to surpass
Ubuntu nearly 6 months ago-- not 2 like this article's author implied.

------
billpatrianakos
I primarily use OS X but just recently put Ununtu on a laptop. I was totally
new to Limux and hated Unity. Unity would be absolutely awesome aside from 3
major flaws:

* The dock won't auto hide until hovered over like in OS X.

* I have to search for the app I want to use most of the time. There should just be a whole menu or list

* The dock should be able to be moved different areas of the screen.

I tried to get used to it but couldn't. I switched to ElementaryOS (loved it).
Then I switched to Crunchbang which runs OpenBox and I've never looked back.

Ubuntu is amazing for newbies except for those 3 flaws. Its the only distro
I've seen that could make a Windows or Mac user feel right at home.

~~~
nicwest
_I have to search for the app I want to use most of the time. There should
just be a whole menu or list_

Not sure if this is how your supposed to do it, but I just search for the
program once from the dash home, then once it's open I right click on the icon
and click keep in launcher.

 _The dock should be able to be moved different areas of the screen._

did you get the Compiz Config settings manager (sudo apt-get install
compizconfig-settings-manager)? It has a bunch of settings for the dock (it's
not fantastic but it helps).

------
dknight
[http://intosimple.blogspot.com/2011/11/decline-of-
ubuntu.htm...](http://intosimple.blogspot.com/2011/11/decline-of-ubuntu.html)

~~~
Andrex
Link's broken, yo.

~~~
dknight
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3225931> The author was unfortunate to
have his post deleted by mistake.

------
bascule
Desktop Linux users are flocking to a distro that looks like an uglier version
of Windows 2000?

"Tonight we're gonna GUI like it's 1999!"

I guess if they had any aesthetic sense, they'd probably be switching to OS
X...

~~~
jiggy2011
To be fair , whilst it's not the most attractive distro out there it does have
allot of usability improvements over Windows 2000. For example the compiz grid
which provides the 'aero snap' type functionality of windows 7 as well as
decent application search as well as applets etc. I think Windows Vista is
probably closer than Windows 2000.

