6 ms·

Mark Shuttleworth announces Ubuntu 11.04 will use desktop version Unity

74 points by hasenj 16y ago

barnaby 16y ago
I haven't tried Unity yet because I heard to wasn't quite stable. But from what I saw of a friends laptop who had it installed, it looks PERFECT for netbooks, even tablets (now that we have multi-touch support built in). I think this makes sense seeing as the future of computers (desktops included) will probably be touchable interfaces that can use that kind of layout. Sweet!
- hasenj 16y ago
  I tried it, unfortunately doesn't seem to work on my laptop :/ I'm not sure what's the deal with it, seems to have some special hardware requirements. I can't fathom what these are, seeing as I have an ATI Radeon video card.
  - SkyMarshal 16y ago
    Atom processor?
    - hasenj 16y ago
      I was under the impression that Atom is weaker than Core-i7
      - SkyMarshal 16y ago
        I was under the impression that Ubuntu Netbook Remix only supports Atom. It's the only processor listed in the UNR System Requirements: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements#Ubuntu%20Netbook%20Edition https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequire...
        harisenbon 16y ago
        I don't know what range of processors it supports, but it does run in LiveUSB mode on my ThinkPad x60 (core2Duo) for what it's woth.
        SkyMarshal 16y ago
        Atom is still x86, but UNR has made some Atom-specific optimizations to the kernel. I don't know the details, but there may be some partial incompatibilities that prevent it working on some non-atom x86 cpus but not others.
        bilban 16y ago
        I installed 10.04 netbook edition on an old Dell inspiron, and it didn't grumble. Didn't do any subtle animation effects either, but that wasn't a biggie. Was a little slow flipping between the global menu and other apps which was a bit annoying for a 1.5ghz laptop with 512MB of ram! I was alarmed to see the omission of virtual desktops, and menu integration was a little odd. The person who received their updated laptop appears quite chuffed, given the choice again I would have used bog standard Ubuntu, but I was hoping the netbook edition might have some sensible power saving features.
- nl 16y ago
  I've tried Unity on my Netbook (under 10.04) and had to revert to the normal desktop. At the time it wasn't very customizable - to the point where (from memory) I couldn't add a virtual desktop pager and/or command prompt anywhere. On a netbook I rely on virtual desktops, so that kind of killed it for me.
  - junkbit 16y ago
    I just installed Unity in Maverick and it now comes preloaded with a workspace button that zooms out like Gnome-Shell to show you 4 desktops. Also, gnome-terminal was one of the default apps on the bar
Ocho-Bits 16y ago
On it's current state it's pretty slow and bloated. Let's hope that on six months they can fix the suck. Kudos for trying something new and not copying OSX or Windows 7.
- weavejester 16y ago
  As well as being slow and bloated, it also seems rather rough around the edges. It doesn't feel like a particularly polished product somehow. I doubt everything will fixed in six months, but Canonical tend toward the Google model of development; release something rough first, then refine it on the whetstone of user feedback.
- lhnn 16y ago
  I wish they would copy Windows 7 a bit... a lot of the features in Win 7 that don't conflict with GNOME are really nice. Unrelated: GNOME still doesn't understand the concept of "chunking": You only want 5-7 items in a group for people to comprehend it best. When Ubuntu's System > Preferences drop-down has 25 items in it, you have a bad UI.
  - nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
    The flip side of chunking is the equally-bad UI known as "wading through menu trees". I personally prefer not having to deal with finding my way through half a dozen menu levels trying to remember where I found that admin tool that I don't use often enough to build muscle memory. If you want a friendlier UI, install the Control Panel app or whatever it's called that replaces those menus with a categorized list of big, pretty icons.
    - lhnn 16y ago
      I absolutely agree that a control panel window is the solution, not drop down menus. Drop downs should only be used for a small number of objects and trees, lest someone move their mouse 2px north of a path and lose ten seconds of careful navigations.
- mishmash 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kingkilr 16y ago
Cool. I always thought Unity looked awesome, I'll be happy to have it on my desktop.
YooLi 16y ago
I think it's a great move. They were wasting time and energy in spats with Gnome. Now they can do what they want with the desktop without anyone getting upset that they are not trying hard enough to work their changes in upstream or adding features that aren't wanted upstream.
- aphexairlines 16y ago
  > They were wasting time and energy in spats with Gnome. Gnome is much more than just metacity or gnome-shell. Even with Unity, Ubuntu will still depend on upstream gnome software for its desktop.
  - YooLi 16y ago
    No one said they weren't going to include gnome software. This whole new ui issue stems from differences in opinion in UI/UX and there was a lot wasted going back and forth with Gnome about them.
    - jdub 16y ago
      Can you document or reference the "lot wasted going back and forth"? That sounds like a convenient rationale, but doesn't appear to reflect reality.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
senko 16y ago
For better or worse, it becomes more and more sensible to think about Ubuntu as a separate operating system, built on top of technologies like Linux, Debian or GNOME. Sort of like Android is built on top of Linux and Java, except less extreme, or what HTC and other handset makers are doing on top of Android. And on the more extreme example, one could argue Apple did the same with BSD and Mach. If the platform is commoditized, it's relatively "easy" for companies to build a new personality in the way they think will add value. Canonical's great push forward was and is realizing that one of the biggest problem with Linux desktop nowadays is UX, and they're trying hard to fix that. Personally, I prefer GNOME Shell and I think it's going to rock, especially on tablets. I've tried Unity in Maverick on a few netbooks, just for a few minutes each, since it's default for live install image. I do think it lacks polish and stability and, compared to Moblin/Meego, it's still got a long way to go towards tablet friendlyness. But I love the fact that there are options [0], and that Linux Desktop, aside from never having its year, is a viable platform on which people can experiment and build cool stuff, even if the end users never learn that under this Ubuntu (or Fedora, ...) operating system there's something geeks have holy wars about. [0] Then there is, obviously, KDE, which a great many people use and love. But this is a comment about GNOME technologies :) EDIT: markup
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > it becomes more and more sensible to think about Ubuntu as a separate operating system, built on top of technologies like Linux, Debian or GNOME It's as if other distros can't use whatever technology Canonical develops (or, more like it, integrates into its own stack), as long as it's free.
- djacobs 16y ago
  > But I love the fact that there are options. In a year when we've seen iOS increasingly restrict its own ecosystem, limit options it doesn't like (see the current story about Jobs nixing the orientation lock on the iPad) ... and even start to take over The Mighty Desktop (see OS X Lion), that thought is a breath of fresh air. Nuff said.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
JofArnold 16y ago
Fingers crossed this encourages Parallels to improve their support of compositing in Ubuntu VMs (since, I assume from another article, Unity required compositing). I've still not yet had it working reliably. Any idea if Parallels 6 works any better?
- kijinbear 16y ago
  VirtualBox too. I've never been able to make Unity on Maverick Netbook Edition work on VirtualBox 3.2.x.
  - JofArnold 16y ago
    I hear you! VMWare Fusion also has these issues for me. I miss compiz (or whatever it's called these days) when devving under Ubuntu under OSX :/
BCM43 16y ago
For those wondering what unity is, here is a great presentation about it by Mark Shuttleworth at DebConf10. [ogv file] http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2010/debconf10/high/1115_The_Unity_Desktop_Environment.ogv http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2010/...
- seltzered 16y ago
  streaming version: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/mark-shuttleworth-talks-unity-at-debconf-10/ http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/mark-shuttleworth-talks-u...
robwgibbons 16y ago
Aaaand I just stopped using Ubuntu as my desktop distro.
gord 16y ago
Is this a new C api [competing with KDE / QT and GTK] ? Why not use Javascript/SVG/HTML5 for Linux desktop UI ? It will happen eventually, anyway, Im not the only person saying this. The browser stack is a better alternative to X-Windows protocol, on balance - you can keep the advantages of client/server separation by using ajax+websockets. Or go the Node.js route and expose OS parts as Javascript API. Either way you'll have an environment many more people will enjoy hacking UI on, and therefore better chance of improving Linux desktop. Although its open source, its still another API that is used nowhere else.. so its expensive for a developer to jump in.
- adambyrtek 16y ago
  Looks like you got a bit carried away. This is just a plain and simple window manager.
- pufuwozu 16y ago
  Unity is just a window manager - not a new toolkit (you still use GTK, Qt or whatever else). But you're right to think web technologies could work elsewhere. Gnome Shell is being developed in JavaScript amd CSS. See also the Palm Pre. http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell
  - codedivine 16y ago
    On a related note, see also JoliCloud, an Ubuntu based distro with some UI customization using web technologies. http://www.jolicloud.com/ http://www.jolicloud.com/
  - jdub 16y ago
    Unity (and GNOME Shell for that matter) is probably best described as a "shell" rather than a window manager. Like the old school GNOME Panel (and taskbar in Windows, Dock in OS X), the shell is for launching things, the entry point to getting your computer to do things. Both Unity and GNOME Shell rely on an external window manager, albeit in an interesting way: They are plugins for mutter (a Clutter-based version of Metacity). When Unity switches to Compiz, it may be as a plugin or as a separate processs, not sure.
metamemetics 16y ago
I've already completely removed gnome-panel in favor of just Gnome-Do and Docky. Don't see the appeal in Unity. Looks like my gnome-panel setup used to: skinny left bar with Talika window list plugin. I don't see the need to have panels to go all the way across a screen dimension anymore.
- technomancy 16y ago
  All I use gnome-panel for is the wifi applet and the the load monitor. I make it auto-hide and bind a key to show it in order to save screen space. But I don't see the appeal of Docky over gnome-panel--isn't it just for launching programs? xbindkeys is way better for that.
  - metamemetics 16y ago
    i use it just as a windowlist autohiding on bottom to show open programs. I like the UI\feel more than a panel extending across the whole screen. Also, the clock docklet is better than the default gnome-panel system clock. I also really enjoy the Timer docklet as well. I open new programs with Gnome DO by typing and do not pin stuff to it.
  - old-gregg 16y ago
    I spent like an hour trying to figure out how to bind a hotkey to show the panel (when it's auto-hidden). How did you do that?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

74 points by hasenj 16y ago

I haven't tried Unity yet because I heard to wasn't quite stable. But from what I saw of a friends laptop who had it installed, it looks PERFECT for netbooks, even tablets (now that we have multi-touch support built in). I think this makes sense seeing as the future of computers (desktops included) will probably be touchable interfaces that can use that kind of layout. Sweet!

hasenj 16y ago
I tried it, unfortunately doesn't seem to work on my laptop :/ I'm not sure what's the deal with it, seems to have some special hardware requirements. I can't fathom what these are, seeing as I have an ATI Radeon video card.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Atom processor?
  - hasenj 16y ago
    I was under the impression that Atom is weaker than Core-i7
    - SkyMarshal 16y ago
      I was under the impression that Ubuntu Netbook Remix only supports Atom. It's the only processor listed in the UNR System Requirements: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements#Ubuntu%20Netbook%20Edition https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequire...
      - harisenbon 16y ago
        I don't know what range of processors it supports, but it does run in LiveUSB mode on my ThinkPad x60 (core2Duo) for what it's woth.
        SkyMarshal 16y ago
        Atom is still x86, but UNR has made some Atom-specific optimizations to the kernel. I don't know the details, but there may be some partial incompatibilities that prevent it working on some non-atom x86 cpus but not others.
        bilban 16y ago
        I installed 10.04 netbook edition on an old Dell inspiron, and it didn't grumble. Didn't do any subtle animation effects either, but that wasn't a biggie. Was a little slow flipping between the global menu and other apps which was a bit annoying for a 1.5ghz laptop with 512MB of ram! I was alarmed to see the omission of virtual desktops, and menu integration was a little odd. The person who received their updated laptop appears quite chuffed, given the choice again I would have used bog standard Ubuntu, but I was hoping the netbook edition might have some sensible power saving features.
nl 16y ago
I've tried Unity on my Netbook (under 10.04) and had to revert to the normal desktop. At the time it wasn't very customizable - to the point where (from memory) I couldn't add a virtual desktop pager and/or command prompt anywhere. On a netbook I rely on virtual desktops, so that kind of killed it for me.
- junkbit 16y ago
  I just installed Unity in Maverick and it now comes preloaded with a workspace button that zooms out like Gnome-Shell to show you 4 desktops. Also, gnome-terminal was one of the default apps on the bar

Ocho-Bits 16y ago

On it's current state it's pretty slow and bloated. Let's hope that on six months they can fix the suck. Kudos for trying something new and not copying OSX or Windows 7.

weavejester 16y ago
As well as being slow and bloated, it also seems rather rough around the edges. It doesn't feel like a particularly polished product somehow. I doubt everything will fixed in six months, but Canonical tend toward the Google model of development; release something rough first, then refine it on the whetstone of user feedback.
lhnn 16y ago
I wish they would copy Windows 7 a bit... a lot of the features in Win 7 that don't conflict with GNOME are really nice. Unrelated: GNOME still doesn't understand the concept of "chunking": You only want 5-7 items in a group for people to comprehend it best. When Ubuntu's System > Preferences drop-down has 25 items in it, you have a bad UI.
- nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
  The flip side of chunking is the equally-bad UI known as "wading through menu trees". I personally prefer not having to deal with finding my way through half a dozen menu levels trying to remember where I found that admin tool that I don't use often enough to build muscle memory. If you want a friendlier UI, install the Control Panel app or whatever it's called that replaces those menus with a categorized list of big, pretty icons.
  - lhnn 16y ago
    I absolutely agree that a control panel window is the solution, not drop down menus. Drop downs should only be used for a small number of objects and trees, lest someone move their mouse 2px north of a path and lose ten seconds of careful navigations.
mishmash 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

kingkilr 16y ago

Cool. I always thought Unity looked awesome, I'll be happy to have it on my desktop.

YooLi 16y ago

I think it's a great move. They were wasting time and energy in spats with Gnome. Now they can do what they want with the desktop without anyone getting upset that they are not trying hard enough to work their changes in upstream or adding features that aren't wanted upstream.

aphexairlines 16y ago
> They were wasting time and energy in spats with Gnome. Gnome is much more than just metacity or gnome-shell. Even with Unity, Ubuntu will still depend on upstream gnome software for its desktop.
- YooLi 16y ago
  No one said they weren't going to include gnome software. This whole new ui issue stems from differences in opinion in UI/UX and there was a lot wasted going back and forth with Gnome about them.
  - jdub 16y ago
    Can you document or reference the "lot wasted going back and forth"? That sounds like a convenient rationale, but doesn't appear to reflect reality.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

senko 16y ago

For better or worse, it becomes more and more sensible to think about Ubuntu as a separate operating system, built on top of technologies like Linux, Debian or GNOME. Sort of like Android is built on top of Linux and Java, except less extreme, or what HTC and other handset makers are doing on top of Android. And on the more extreme example, one could argue Apple did the same with BSD and Mach. If the platform is commoditized, it's relatively "easy" for companies to build a new personality in the way they think will add value. Canonical's great push forward was and is realizing that one of the biggest problem with Linux desktop nowadays is UX, and they're trying hard to fix that. Personally, I prefer GNOME Shell and I think it's going to rock, especially on tablets. I've tried Unity in Maverick on a few netbooks, just for a few minutes each, since it's default for live install image. I do think it lacks polish and stability and, compared to Moblin/Meego, it's still got a long way to go towards tablet friendlyness. But I love the fact that there are options [0], and that Linux Desktop, aside from never having its year, is a viable platform on which people can experiment and build cool stuff, even if the end users never learn that under this Ubuntu (or Fedora, ...) operating system there's something geeks have holy wars about. [0] Then there is, obviously, KDE, which a great many people use and love. But this is a comment about GNOME technologies :) EDIT: markup

rbanffy 16y ago
> it becomes more and more sensible to think about Ubuntu as a separate operating system, built on top of technologies like Linux, Debian or GNOME It's as if other distros can't use whatever technology Canonical develops (or, more like it, integrates into its own stack), as long as it's free.
djacobs 16y ago
> But I love the fact that there are options. In a year when we've seen iOS increasingly restrict its own ecosystem, limit options it doesn't like (see the current story about Jobs nixing the orientation lock on the iPad) ... and even start to take over The Mighty Desktop (see OS X Lion), that thought is a breath of fresh air. Nuff said.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

JofArnold 16y ago

Fingers crossed this encourages Parallels to improve their support of compositing in Ubuntu VMs (since, I assume from another article, Unity required compositing). I've still not yet had it working reliably. Any idea if Parallels 6 works any better?

kijinbear 16y ago
VirtualBox too. I've never been able to make Unity on Maverick Netbook Edition work on VirtualBox 3.2.x.
- JofArnold 16y ago
  I hear you! VMWare Fusion also has these issues for me. I miss compiz (or whatever it's called these days) when devving under Ubuntu under OSX :/

BCM43 16y ago

For those wondering what unity is, here is a great presentation about it by Mark Shuttleworth at DebConf10. [ogv file] http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2010/debconf10/high/1115_The_Unity_Desktop_Environment.ogv http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2010/...

seltzered 16y ago
streaming version: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/mark-shuttleworth-talks-unity-at-debconf-10/ http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/mark-shuttleworth-talks-u...

robwgibbons 16y ago

Aaaand I just stopped using Ubuntu as my desktop distro.

gord 16y ago

Is this a new C api [competing with KDE / QT and GTK] ? Why not use Javascript/SVG/HTML5 for Linux desktop UI ? It will happen eventually, anyway, Im not the only person saying this. The browser stack is a better alternative to X-Windows protocol, on balance - you can keep the advantages of client/server separation by using ajax+websockets. Or go the Node.js route and expose OS parts as Javascript API. Either way you'll have an environment many more people will enjoy hacking UI on, and therefore better chance of improving Linux desktop. Although its open source, its still another API that is used nowhere else.. so its expensive for a developer to jump in.

adambyrtek 16y ago
Looks like you got a bit carried away. This is just a plain and simple window manager.
pufuwozu 16y ago
Unity is just a window manager - not a new toolkit (you still use GTK, Qt or whatever else). But you're right to think web technologies could work elsewhere. Gnome Shell is being developed in JavaScript amd CSS. See also the Palm Pre. http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell
- codedivine 16y ago
  On a related note, see also JoliCloud, an Ubuntu based distro with some UI customization using web technologies. http://www.jolicloud.com/ http://www.jolicloud.com/
- jdub 16y ago
  Unity (and GNOME Shell for that matter) is probably best described as a "shell" rather than a window manager. Like the old school GNOME Panel (and taskbar in Windows, Dock in OS X), the shell is for launching things, the entry point to getting your computer to do things. Both Unity and GNOME Shell rely on an external window manager, albeit in an interesting way: They are plugins for mutter (a Clutter-based version of Metacity). When Unity switches to Compiz, it may be as a plugin or as a separate processs, not sure.

metamemetics 16y ago

I've already completely removed gnome-panel in favor of just Gnome-Do and Docky. Don't see the appeal in Unity. Looks like my gnome-panel setup used to: skinny left bar with Talika window list plugin. I don't see the need to have panels to go all the way across a screen dimension anymore.

technomancy 16y ago
All I use gnome-panel for is the wifi applet and the the load monitor. I make it auto-hide and bind a key to show it in order to save screen space. But I don't see the appeal of Docky over gnome-panel--isn't it just for launching programs? xbindkeys is way better for that.
- metamemetics 16y ago
  i use it just as a windowlist autohiding on bottom to show open programs. I like the UI\feel more than a panel extending across the whole screen. Also, the clock docklet is better than the default gnome-panel system clock. I also really enjoy the Timer docklet as well. I open new programs with Gnome DO by typing and do not pin stuff to it.
- old-gregg 16y ago
  I spent like an hour trying to figure out how to bind a hotkey to show the panel (when it's auto-hidden). How did you do that?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]