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"Six years after making Unity the default user interface on Ubuntu desktops, Canonical is giving up on the project and will switch the default Ubuntu desktop ba

by Kenji 10y ago

"Six years after making Unity the default user interface on Ubuntu desktops, Canonical is giving up on the project and will switch the default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME next year." Yes, yes yes! That's fantastic! I hate Unity and I love GNOME. Good choice. Too bad it's going to be April 2018 until then, but this should teach anyone: It's never too late to revert a stupid design decision!

slitaz 10y ago
The message is more like that the desktop is too pricey and does not bring back money, so they end up dealing with the £££-generating options. Does the desktop on Linux have a viable future?
- tracker1 10y ago
  I think part of it, is it was too fragmented of a codebase that migrating to Wayland would have been more effort than re-polishing Gnome 3 would be. There were few advantages since the non-desktop (phone, tablet) targets are also going away.
wiredearp 10y ago
I think the stupid decision was to stick with in interface you hate instead of going for an alternative distro that uses GNOME for a desktop environment, but I'm glad it panned out for you in the end.
- Kenji 10y ago
  I think the stupid decision was to assume that I do something that I do not do and then respond to me based on that assumption. First of all, I am a Windows user 95% of the time. But when I wanna spin up a VM or Linux distro real quick, Ubuntu is my choice. Of course, if I use it longer, I will install KDE or something like that. But with lots of window managers, I noticed instabilities or redundancies (e.g. there's a Unity and a GNOME service running for the same thing). It's best to use a distro with the window manager it comes with. Which was Unity on Ubuntu, but will finally be GNOME again.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Unfortunately there are plenty of applications designed for gtk, qt, wx, ... that you'll likely still have various supporting libraries and services installed.
josteink 10y ago
> "Six years after making Unity the default user interface on Ubuntu desktops, Canonical is giving up on the project and will switch the default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME next year." Now imagine if 6 years ago Canonical had spent all that time and effort into improving existing DEs and implementing Wayland-support instead of their (already then) NIH initiatives. Where would we all be now? Certainly not still stuck in this same, unimproved X11 sinkhole (yes yes, apart from Fedora-users, I know). Such a shame they had to spend more than half a freakin decade to realize their mistake.
- Kenji 10y ago
  I agree, but at this point, I had given up hope. It's better to realise one's mistake late than to never realise it at all. So I'm excited they correct it after all.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  Yeah, but that's true for most major decisions in life: hindsight is 20-20, and the mistake can be costly. I don't think Canonical was unusual in having a failed investment.
- Scarblac 10y ago
  > Certainly not still stuck in this same, unimproved X11 sinkhole I really don't care about it being X11 under the hood, I care about the sidebar on the left being gone.
  - verisimilidude 10y ago
    Here you go. https://micheleg.github.io/dash-to-dock/ https://micheleg.github.io/dash-to-dock/
  - tracker1 10y ago
    I prefer it there.. if Windows start menu weren't weird on the left, I'd have it there too... my mac dock is on the left as well. I have more horizontal space than I typically use, while vertical is at a premium.

by Kenji 10y ago

slitaz 10y ago

The message is more like that the desktop is too pricey and does not bring back money, so they end up dealing with the £££-generating options. Does the desktop on Linux have a viable future?

tracker1 10y ago
I think part of it, is it was too fragmented of a codebase that migrating to Wayland would have been more effort than re-polishing Gnome 3 would be. There were few advantages since the non-desktop (phone, tablet) targets are also going away.

wiredearp 10y ago

I think the stupid decision was to stick with in interface you hate instead of going for an alternative distro that uses GNOME for a desktop environment, but I'm glad it panned out for you in the end.

Kenji 10y ago
I think the stupid decision was to assume that I do something that I do not do and then respond to me based on that assumption. First of all, I am a Windows user 95% of the time. But when I wanna spin up a VM or Linux distro real quick, Ubuntu is my choice. Of course, if I use it longer, I will install KDE or something like that. But with lots of window managers, I noticed instabilities or redundancies (e.g. there's a Unity and a GNOME service running for the same thing). It's best to use a distro with the window manager it comes with. Which was Unity on Ubuntu, but will finally be GNOME again.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Unfortunately there are plenty of applications designed for gtk, qt, wx, ... that you'll likely still have various supporting libraries and services installed.

josteink 10y ago

> "Six years after making Unity the default user interface on Ubuntu desktops, Canonical is giving up on the project and will switch the default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME next year." Now imagine if 6 years ago Canonical had spent all that time and effort into improving existing DEs and implementing Wayland-support instead of their (already then) NIH initiatives. Where would we all be now? Certainly not still stuck in this same, unimproved X11 sinkhole (yes yes, apart from Fedora-users, I know). Such a shame they had to spend more than half a freakin decade to realize their mistake.

Kenji 10y ago
I agree, but at this point, I had given up hope. It's better to realise one's mistake late than to never realise it at all. So I'm excited they correct it after all.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
Yeah, but that's true for most major decisions in life: hindsight is 20-20, and the mistake can be costly. I don't think Canonical was unusual in having a failed investment.
Scarblac 10y ago
> Certainly not still stuck in this same, unimproved X11 sinkhole I really don't care about it being X11 under the hood, I care about the sidebar on the left being gone.
- verisimilidude 10y ago
  Here you go. https://micheleg.github.io/dash-to-dock/ https://micheleg.github.io/dash-to-dock/
- tracker1 10y ago
  I prefer it there.. if Windows start menu weren't weird on the left, I'd have it there too... my mac dock is on the left as well. I have more horizontal space than I typically use, while vertical is at a premium.