6 ms·

I've just updated to the 11.10 beta2, and my experience so far has not been promising. My main gripe (as expected) is that the Unity desktop is the only option

I've just updated to the 11.10 beta2, and my experience so far has not been promising. My main gripe (as expected) is that the Unity desktop is the only option now; while it is possible to install GNOME 3 and use that, it lacks the polish of 11.04's GNOME desktop and is clearly in an unfinished state. As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal windows; when you Alt-Tab from the browser, only one of the terminals appears in the list. And when you switch to it, all of the open terminals gain focus. So when I want to have one terminal open on top of my browser (e.g. so I can see part of the page underneath) I have to minimize all of the other terminals. If I don't, as soon as I focus the one terminal, the others also pop up over top of my work. And on top of that, much of the (desktop) system is still very unreliable. Unity crashes, Compiz crashes, the battery status applet crashes, etc. (Yes, all have been reported on Launchpad, some for well over a month now.) I'm unfortunately committed at this point, but perhaps my words of warning will save others who think "it's almost done, so I'll help out the community by installing and testing the beta". There's only 9 days left to go, and I don't see how they're going to deliver a reliable and robust release on time.

pnathan 15y ago
You can, of course, install Gnome 2, yes?
- technomancy 15y ago
  Not anymore. The top options IMO are Gnome 3 (which is similar to Unity in that it's a fairly audacious step away from classic desktops; and still more polished than Unity in my experience) and XFCE, which does a great job of providing a more classic feel without giving up the customizability of Gnome 2.
pasbesoin 15y ago
I have a hard time understanding some of these recent UI changes. This one strikes me as being akin to not having MRU tab order in Chrome. Do none of the people making these decisions do actual work in the tools they're affecting? That seems incomprehensible: They're (presumably) developers. But they make these choices or changes, and instantly and persistently I am stumbling over the results of those decisions.
sixtofour 15y ago
Would (wouldn't?) KDE or XFCE be viable alternatives?
trafficlight 15y ago
I tried out Beta 2 (64 bit) yesterday. I think I lasted 30 minutes with it. Unity and Compiz crashed constantly. The machine just seemed generally unresponsive. I feel like these things should've been a lot more stable by now.
davidcuddeback 15y ago
> As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal windows; when you Alt-Tab from the browser, only one of the terminals appears in the list. And when you switch to it, all of the open terminals gain focus. I often run into that exact problem with OSX. That is partially why I'm considering trying out Xmonad.
- alperakgun 15y ago
  As a developer and 6 year ubuntu user I appreciate the innovation attempt in unity, gnome3 and kde4...I hope they mature soon.. Still prefer, gnome 2, and long for more bug free, performing, fast updates...
kylemathews 15y ago
Yes, the new alt-tab window switcher is horrid for the reasons you describe. I gave up on it after a day or so and switched back to the older window switcher via the CompizConfig Settings Manager.
technomancy 15y ago
> As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal windows I hesitate to defend Unity, but why would you open multiple terminal windows? gnome-terminal supports tabs natively, and tmux offers an even better multiplexing solution that works with any terminal emulator. > I'm unfortunately committed at this point I assume you mean you're committed to Oneric, but you can stay on Oneric without sticking with Unity. Gnome 3 and XFCE are both viable options that feel a lot more finished than Unity.
drivebyacct2 15y ago
How is gnome-shell in ubuntu (11.10) deficient? It is perfectly functional for me.
rbanffy 15y ago
> There's only 9 days left to go, and I don't see how they're going to deliver a reliable and robust release on time. I have used Ubuntu betas before and I can assure you the last couple weeks or so are the worst, but with everything straightening up nicely in the final days. My bet is it will be ready on time, this cycle being no different than previous ones. Some kinks may remain, as the user base is not that big to stress out everything that can go wrong, but I am filing bugs as they hit me (they are more or less automatically filed into Launchpad) and the current update version I am running is much better than the out-of-the-box beta 2. As always, if you can't waste time, I would advise you to only install a month after the launch.

pnathan 15y ago

You can, of course, install Gnome 2, yes?

technomancy 15y ago
Not anymore. The top options IMO are Gnome 3 (which is similar to Unity in that it's a fairly audacious step away from classic desktops; and still more polished than Unity in my experience) and XFCE, which does a great job of providing a more classic feel without giving up the customizability of Gnome 2.

pasbesoin 15y ago

I have a hard time understanding some of these recent UI changes. This one strikes me as being akin to not having MRU tab order in Chrome. Do none of the people making these decisions do actual work in the tools they're affecting? That seems incomprehensible: They're (presumably) developers. But they make these choices or changes, and instantly and persistently I am stumbling over the results of those decisions.

sixtofour 15y ago

Would (wouldn't?) KDE or XFCE be viable alternatives?

trafficlight 15y ago

I tried out Beta 2 (64 bit) yesterday. I think I lasted 30 minutes with it. Unity and Compiz crashed constantly. The machine just seemed generally unresponsive. I feel like these things should've been a lot more stable by now.

davidcuddeback 15y ago

> As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal windows; when you Alt-Tab from the browser, only one of the terminals appears in the list. And when you switch to it, all of the open terminals gain focus. I often run into that exact problem with OSX. That is partially why I'm considering trying out Xmonad.

alperakgun 15y ago
As a developer and 6 year ubuntu user I appreciate the innovation attempt in unity, gnome3 and kde4...I hope they mature soon.. Still prefer, gnome 2, and long for more bug free, performing, fast updates...

kylemathews 15y ago

Yes, the new alt-tab window switcher is horrid for the reasons you describe. I gave up on it after a day or so and switched back to the older window switcher via the CompizConfig Settings Manager.

technomancy 15y ago

> As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal windows I hesitate to defend Unity, but why would you open multiple terminal windows? gnome-terminal supports tabs natively, and tmux offers an even better multiplexing solution that works with any terminal emulator. > I'm unfortunately committed at this point I assume you mean you're committed to Oneric, but you can stay on Oneric without sticking with Unity. Gnome 3 and XFCE are both viable options that feel a lot more finished than Unity.

drivebyacct2 15y ago

How is gnome-shell in ubuntu (11.10) deficient? It is perfectly functional for me.

rbanffy 15y ago

> There's only 9 days left to go, and I don't see how they're going to deliver a reliable and robust release on time. I have used Ubuntu betas before and I can assure you the last couple weeks or so are the worst, but with everything straightening up nicely in the final days. My bet is it will be ready on time, this cycle being no different than previous ones. Some kinks may remain, as the user base is not that big to stress out everything that can go wrong, but I am filing bugs as they hit me (they are more or less automatically filed into Launchpad) and the current update version I am running is much better than the out-of-the-box beta 2. As always, if you can't waste time, I would advise you to only install a month after the launch.