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Ubuntu 11.04 will use Unity UX instead of GNOME Desktop

83 points by kleiba 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kingsidharth 16y ago
Just when I was about to start working on Gnome, they announced it's demise.
wildster 16y ago
This is good news as GNOME has had it's day. The Unity interface is pretty cool.
- bad_user 16y ago
  Unity is just a shell on top of Gnome, which is an entire platform. That said, Unity does look pretty cool.
vanschelven 16y ago
Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830372 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830372
wyclif 16y ago
In the article, I think they are confusing the GNOME shell with the GNOME desktop, which are not the same things at all.
- roqetman 16y ago
  I think this clarifies things: "There is going to be some questions about this decision in relation to GNOME. I want to make something crystal clear: Ubuntu is a GNOME distribution, we ship the GNOME stack, we will continue to ship GNOME apps, and we optimize Ubuntu for GNOME. The only difference is that Unity is a different shell for GNOME, but we continue to support the latest GNOME Shell development work in the Ubuntu archives" From: http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-unity/ http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-uni...
- bconway 16y ago
  It doesn't seem like they make that mistake at all: It will be the first version of the OS not to ship with the Gnome shell as the default UI. Gnome will continue to be the underlying framework, as Unity is based on it, but the interface layer will look nothing like Gnome.
drblast 16y ago
With wide screens, there is a scarcity of vertical screen space, especially on netbooks. Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. Windows XP had the nice benefit of the application buttons' text being horizontal so a wide start bar on the left or right could list about 15-20 open applications without cropping the application name. Even though they're going to a side bar, moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness. I'd imagine it's impossible to move the menu bar in Mac OS X, but since there's no Mac netbook, it's probably not a problem.
- tommorris 16y ago
  You can have the Mac dock on the bottom, left or right. And you can have it so it slides away when not in use. And the new MacBook Air 11" is close to a netbook...
  - hogu 16y ago
    yes, but you still loose the top to that menu bar
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      Doesn't Windows 7 have menu bars on every window?
      - vito 16y ago
        This is one thing that I'm very glad Unity does - it removes those menubars and has a global menu like OS X. Saves so much screen space.
        rbanffy 16y ago
        I think the global menu would be a huge nuisance on a multihead setting.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mhd 16y ago
I still miss CDE. (No "glutton for punishment" comments, please.)
- rwmj 16y ago
  Ewww, CDE :-) fvwm was nice, and of course is still available.
  - mhd 16y ago
    I think I stopped using fvwm after they switch to their 2.x branch. I still use twm occasionally, though. (Don't care a lot about virtual desktops and pseudo-3D window frames anymore) I wonder whether you could still compile bowman, the fvwm fork that "begat" the slew of NeXt-like window manager that followed…
tzury 16y ago
if you want to experience it now on your desktop do the following: $ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:canonical-dx-team/une $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install unity Log Off, and then choose the Unity session before logging in. I did it in the past and did not like it much. But perhaps it is far better now, and would be even better in the future release
- buro9 16y ago
  I just tried this and I think it's a much better desktop in terms of UX. However, I'm running on a mere 16GB 16-core MacPro and performance was appalling with it really suffering and the end result is practically unusable. If performance can be brought up to Gnome levels then I'll probably be happy as it is really nice.
  - kevinherron 16y ago
    16-core? Since when is there more than a 12-core Mac Pro?
    - buro9 16y ago
      Good question, and I don't know. I just went by cat /proc/cpuinfo and htop which both show 16 independently operating cores. Maybe I have an octo-core and it has hyper-threading? I can't say I pay a great deal of attention to the specifics of the machine I'm hot-desking at, but I suspect that even if it is 8 cores hyper-threaded that Unity should still run smoothly.
      - kevinherron 16y ago
        That sounds about right. And yes, I agree, Unity should still run smoothly :x I think Unity for the desktop is in beta though so hopefully they get things worked out in time for the 11.04 release.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
zecg 16y ago
My money is on Ubuntu 12.10 defaulting to xmonad and triggering the apocalypse.
xentronium 16y ago
It isn't very usable/gui-customizable as of now. I'd like an ability to move the "superbar" to other side of the screen, for example. Visual part doesn't rock much either. Thus, in my opinion, using it as a default in netbooks is just a little too early. However, the vector direction is right, and we surely can have some nice things with unity.
bilban 16y ago
I actually wish window managers would use overlays for the toolbars and menus - if the hardware was up to it. Then my web browser would just be a bare chrome. Touch screens, could sense my fingers coming close to the screen and bring up icons or something. Text based menus could also be brought up for power users. Something like that...
Ogre 16y ago
Saying "This move could anger at least some open source enthusiasts" seems to imply that they're moving to a closed source or proprietary system, but Unity seems to be an open source project at a cursory glance. It could anger some Gnome enthusiasts, who are presumably open source enthusiasts as well, but not because of anything to do with the open source-ness of the project. Right? Or is Unity not quite as open as claimed?
grobolom 16y ago
I think the biggest problem with the current version of Unity is the lack of customization. 10.10 Unity does not allow the removal or movement of any of the desktop elements - you cannot hide the topbar or the sidebar, both of which take up significant space on netbooks. Less of an issue for desktop computing, but still. The bars are also not customizable, which to me was a big draw of Ubuntu and the GNOME shell itself. Let's hope that they return that functionality - otherwise, I'll be using 10.04.1 for quite a while.
chibea 16y ago
An interesting side note here is that the coming Unity will be based upon compiz, instead of relying on mutter. Canonical apparently hired the lead developer of compiz: http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/a-bright-new-future-for-compiz/ http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/a-bright-new-futur...
twymer 16y ago
Unity is the default in the 10.10 Netbook version of Ubuntu. It runs terribly slow and I found it unusable because of this. I was thinking it seemed like they made something that expected you to be on a desktop but marketed it wrong, I guess I was right..
dkokelley 16y ago
Probably not ready for prime time just yet. I installed Unity on my 12.1" HP tablet and there were immediate and obvious bugs. Most notably, all menus and several other windows were skewed about 45 degrees. I like the concept, and I think that in order for Ubuntu to compete with other distros and innovation among the major players (OS X and 7) a redesign of the UI is necessary. Considering the new features OS X Lion will be bringing, I think Unity is a necessary progression.
tmsh 16y ago
May 10, 2010 Mark Shuttleworth blogpost on Unity: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383 http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383
sp4rki 16y ago
IMO Unity is just, appalling. That being said, I like my Linuxes with a small footprint windowing system and a decent colorscheme. I find this pretty desktop Linuxes stuff meek.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
Why are we still futzing around with always-visible taskbars when we've got things like Quicksilver, Gnome-Do, Alt-Tab window switchers, and tiling window managers. I'd think by now that we'd get rid of any visible element that's not an app, like menu bars, an integrate them, along with alt-tab app switching and program (Start) menus into a single popup Quicksilver/Gnome-Do interface. WTB one point of contact for starting/switching/stopping any app on the system, that is hidden until you need to see it, and activated by either a shortcut key or mouse button combo or gesture.

83 points by kleiba 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

kingsidharth 16y ago

Just when I was about to start working on Gnome, they announced it's demise.

wildster 16y ago

This is good news as GNOME has had it's day. The Unity interface is pretty cool.

bad_user 16y ago
Unity is just a shell on top of Gnome, which is an entire platform. That said, Unity does look pretty cool.

vanschelven 16y ago

Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830372 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830372

wyclif 16y ago

In the article, I think they are confusing the GNOME shell with the GNOME desktop, which are not the same things at all.

roqetman 16y ago
I think this clarifies things: "There is going to be some questions about this decision in relation to GNOME. I want to make something crystal clear: Ubuntu is a GNOME distribution, we ship the GNOME stack, we will continue to ship GNOME apps, and we optimize Ubuntu for GNOME. The only difference is that Unity is a different shell for GNOME, but we continue to support the latest GNOME Shell development work in the Ubuntu archives" From: http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-unity/ http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-uni...
bconway 16y ago
It doesn't seem like they make that mistake at all: It will be the first version of the OS not to ship with the Gnome shell as the default UI. Gnome will continue to be the underlying framework, as Unity is based on it, but the interface layer will look nothing like Gnome.

drblast 16y ago

With wide screens, there is a scarcity of vertical screen space, especially on netbooks. Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. Windows XP had the nice benefit of the application buttons' text being horizontal so a wide start bar on the left or right could list about 15-20 open applications without cropping the application name. Even though they're going to a side bar, moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness. I'd imagine it's impossible to move the menu bar in Mac OS X, but since there's no Mac netbook, it's probably not a problem.

tommorris 16y ago
You can have the Mac dock on the bottom, left or right. And you can have it so it slides away when not in use. And the new MacBook Air 11" is close to a netbook...
- hogu 16y ago
  yes, but you still loose the top to that menu bar
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Doesn't Windows 7 have menu bars on every window?
    - vito 16y ago
      This is one thing that I'm very glad Unity does - it removes those menubars and has a global menu like OS X. Saves so much screen space.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        I think the global menu would be a huge nuisance on a multihead setting.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mhd 16y ago

I still miss CDE. (No "glutton for punishment" comments, please.)

rwmj 16y ago
Ewww, CDE :-) fvwm was nice, and of course is still available.
- mhd 16y ago
  I think I stopped using fvwm after they switch to their 2.x branch. I still use twm occasionally, though. (Don't care a lot about virtual desktops and pseudo-3D window frames anymore) I wonder whether you could still compile bowman, the fvwm fork that "begat" the slew of NeXt-like window manager that followed…

tzury 16y ago

if you want to experience it now on your desktop do the following: $ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:canonical-dx-team/une $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install unity Log Off, and then choose the Unity session before logging in. I did it in the past and did not like it much. But perhaps it is far better now, and would be even better in the future release

buro9 16y ago
I just tried this and I think it's a much better desktop in terms of UX. However, I'm running on a mere 16GB 16-core MacPro and performance was appalling with it really suffering and the end result is practically unusable. If performance can be brought up to Gnome levels then I'll probably be happy as it is really nice.
- kevinherron 16y ago
  16-core? Since when is there more than a 12-core Mac Pro?
  - buro9 16y ago
    Good question, and I don't know. I just went by cat /proc/cpuinfo and htop which both show 16 independently operating cores. Maybe I have an octo-core and it has hyper-threading? I can't say I pay a great deal of attention to the specifics of the machine I'm hot-desking at, but I suspect that even if it is 8 cores hyper-threaded that Unity should still run smoothly.
    - kevinherron 16y ago
      That sounds about right. And yes, I agree, Unity should still run smoothly :x I think Unity for the desktop is in beta though so hopefully they get things worked out in time for the 11.04 release.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

zecg 16y ago

My money is on Ubuntu 12.10 defaulting to xmonad and triggering the apocalypse.

xentronium 16y ago

It isn't very usable/gui-customizable as of now. I'd like an ability to move the "superbar" to other side of the screen, for example. Visual part doesn't rock much either. Thus, in my opinion, using it as a default in netbooks is just a little too early. However, the vector direction is right, and we surely can have some nice things with unity.

bilban 16y ago

I actually wish window managers would use overlays for the toolbars and menus - if the hardware was up to it. Then my web browser would just be a bare chrome. Touch screens, could sense my fingers coming close to the screen and bring up icons or something. Text based menus could also be brought up for power users. Something like that...

Ogre 16y ago

Saying "This move could anger at least some open source enthusiasts" seems to imply that they're moving to a closed source or proprietary system, but Unity seems to be an open source project at a cursory glance. It could anger some Gnome enthusiasts, who are presumably open source enthusiasts as well, but not because of anything to do with the open source-ness of the project. Right? Or is Unity not quite as open as claimed?

grobolom 16y ago

I think the biggest problem with the current version of Unity is the lack of customization. 10.10 Unity does not allow the removal or movement of any of the desktop elements - you cannot hide the topbar or the sidebar, both of which take up significant space on netbooks. Less of an issue for desktop computing, but still. The bars are also not customizable, which to me was a big draw of Ubuntu and the GNOME shell itself. Let's hope that they return that functionality - otherwise, I'll be using 10.04.1 for quite a while.

chibea 16y ago

An interesting side note here is that the coming Unity will be based upon compiz, instead of relying on mutter. Canonical apparently hired the lead developer of compiz: http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/a-bright-new-future-for-compiz/ http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/a-bright-new-futur...

twymer 16y ago

Unity is the default in the 10.10 Netbook version of Ubuntu. It runs terribly slow and I found it unusable because of this. I was thinking it seemed like they made something that expected you to be on a desktop but marketed it wrong, I guess I was right..

dkokelley 16y ago

Probably not ready for prime time just yet. I installed Unity on my 12.1" HP tablet and there were immediate and obvious bugs. Most notably, all menus and several other windows were skewed about 45 degrees. I like the concept, and I think that in order for Ubuntu to compete with other distros and innovation among the major players (OS X and 7) a redesign of the UI is necessary. Considering the new features OS X Lion will be bringing, I think Unity is a necessary progression.

tmsh 16y ago

May 10, 2010 Mark Shuttleworth blogpost on Unity: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383 http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383

sp4rki 16y ago

IMO Unity is just, appalling. That being said, I like my Linuxes with a small footprint windowing system and a decent colorscheme. I find this pretty desktop Linuxes stuff meek.

SkyMarshal 16y ago

Why are we still futzing around with always-visible taskbars when we've got things like Quicksilver, Gnome-Do, Alt-Tab window switchers, and tiling window managers. I'd think by now that we'd get rid of any visible element that's not an app, like menu bars, an integrate them, along with alt-tab app switching and program (Start) menus into a single popup Quicksilver/Gnome-Do interface. WTB one point of contact for starting/switching/stopping any app on the system, that is hidden until you need to see it, and activated by either a shortcut key or mouse button combo or gesture.