6 ms·

I've tried the beta of 12.04 the past few weeks. Unity is still a pile of ----. Gnome Shell (3) isn't much better and fall back mode (Gnome Classic) is riddled

by pan69 15y ago

I've tried the beta of 12.04 the past few weeks. Unity is still a pile of ----. Gnome Shell (3) isn't much better and fall back mode (Gnome Classic) is riddled with bugs that basically makes it unusable as a desktop to work on. The Linux desktop has finally officially failed.

waterhouse 15y ago
As an effort to make this conversation productive for all involved: could you name a couple of these bugs in Gnome Classic?
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  Don't feed the trolls, just downvote and move on. If it was his intent to make the conversation productive, he would have. It's not hard.
- downx3 15y ago
  I'm running Gnome Classic as I don't fancy Gnome Shell at the moment. And it's nearly there for me. My quit applet hangs my machine, my cpu applet has redraw issues. And nautilus and gedit are giving me some agro, but that's going off topic. It's taken me a week to theme the thing (Gnome 2 at least had a helper app - where I could make my own changes - though it was still problematic - I run a dark theme.) My keyboard switching applet sometimes doesn't respond to clicking. And I'm lost when it comes to audio configuration. I think that's where the pain lies, when you run into a wall it hurts. I guess these are teething issues. I'd like to know what GTK3 does bring to the table? I get video flicker in games under Gnome Shell, and I've had flickering issues with video under Unity (11.10) on an Intel GM45 and Nvidia 6200 respectively. I crashed Unity in about an hour and made my desktop inaccessible the last time I used it. Unity 2D wasn't that bad, but some elements of the UI didn't gel well together at all - dialog boxes that are out of place etc. The sad thing for me, is that I remember seeing Compiz for the first time. And there were elements and plugins that I really liked about it, and it felt like the desktop was moving forward. I was hoping that Gnome Shell would take the best bits of Compiz - but really get to the point where it would manage my desktop for me . But I can't say it brings me anything. The negativity is just a case of sour grapes. We'd prefer to see the free desktops outdoing their commercial cousins. OSX10.4 Tiger is a pretty good benchmark to beat. And that's a 2007 OS. It would be nice to see a Desktop OS competing with Android, W8 and the iPhone though.
yaix 15y ago
I am using Xfce as a desktop since Unity/G3 came out and made working on my netbook impossible. Xfce is quite fast and works mostly very good.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  Might be worth mentioning the Alt-F11 function in XFCE for those who don't know it already. Alt-F11 removes the title bar from the current window, and ensures that the window uses the whole screen area. The menu is still on top of the window unlike the usual 'full screen' settings. Very handy on a 1024 by 600 screen. I have Firefox in one workspace, LibreOffice Impress in a second, e-mail client in a third and I switch between them using Ctrl-Alt arrows.
  - yaix 15y ago
    Didn't know. That's handy and it works per window. Any more magic?
keithpeter 15y ago
GNU/Linux provides choice. There is CentOS 6.x with security updates and 'point releases' with refreshed apps until 2017 at least. Gnome 2 based. There are other window managers as well if you need more recent base libraries for your work.
- swah 15y ago
  That are those alternatives, and I's rooting for linux, but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win. Also, since I deploy Ubuntu I would like to work on Ubuntu (apt-get).
  - andyking 15y ago
    Ubuntu 10.04 is still there, and still great. I'm still using it on my home and work machines--Gnome 2-based, PPAs and backports to update any apps that are a bit tired, and the whole thing's really stable. I'm not sure what I'll do when support runs out for it, though. I'm kind of holding out that they'll announce another two years of desktop support!
    - keithpeter 15y ago
      If you are using ppas and backports, the security update situation gets complex anyway. People have been trying to pin down the situation for Gnome Shell packages on 12.04, looks like not 5 years because they are 'Universe' packages. The 10.04 server packages, therefore the base, have 5 years of support, so I guess you could simply risk carrying on with 10.04 after the EOL for the desktop? Maybe not for the work machine.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    > but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win. What is the value of "win" in the above sentence? Because for me it's much more useful than either Windows or OSX for development. It won me for package management and for being very similar to the actual deployment environment. Even changing the desktop environment is easy - an "apt-get install" does the trick. I don't care about achieving desktop dominance - the desktop is going the way of the dodo for most people and for everything that's doesn't sit on a desk or has an Apple logo, Linux is the dominant OS. I'm at home now and there are 9 machines running Linux (phones, e-readers, tablet, router, modem, notebooks) and 5 that don't (Macs, iPod and iPhone).
antihero 15y ago
LXDE + Compiz is quite nice if you don't want to go full tiling.
insertnickname 15y ago
Cinnamon, while still an young project, is great. I've been using it on my desktop for a while now. Two steps forward, one step back.

by pan69 15y ago

waterhouse 15y ago

As an effort to make this conversation productive for all involved: could you name a couple of these bugs in Gnome Classic?

SkyMarshal 15y ago
Don't feed the trolls, just downvote and move on. If it was his intent to make the conversation productive, he would have. It's not hard.
downx3 15y ago
I'm running Gnome Classic as I don't fancy Gnome Shell at the moment. And it's nearly there for me. My quit applet hangs my machine, my cpu applet has redraw issues. And nautilus and gedit are giving me some agro, but that's going off topic. It's taken me a week to theme the thing (Gnome 2 at least had a helper app - where I could make my own changes - though it was still problematic - I run a dark theme.) My keyboard switching applet sometimes doesn't respond to clicking. And I'm lost when it comes to audio configuration. I think that's where the pain lies, when you run into a wall it hurts. I guess these are teething issues. I'd like to know what GTK3 does bring to the table? I get video flicker in games under Gnome Shell, and I've had flickering issues with video under Unity (11.10) on an Intel GM45 and Nvidia 6200 respectively. I crashed Unity in about an hour and made my desktop inaccessible the last time I used it. Unity 2D wasn't that bad, but some elements of the UI didn't gel well together at all - dialog boxes that are out of place etc. The sad thing for me, is that I remember seeing Compiz for the first time. And there were elements and plugins that I really liked about it, and it felt like the desktop was moving forward. I was hoping that Gnome Shell would take the best bits of Compiz - but really get to the point where it would manage my desktop for me . But I can't say it brings me anything. The negativity is just a case of sour grapes. We'd prefer to see the free desktops outdoing their commercial cousins. OSX10.4 Tiger is a pretty good benchmark to beat. And that's a 2007 OS. It would be nice to see a Desktop OS competing with Android, W8 and the iPhone though.

yaix 15y ago

I am using Xfce as a desktop since Unity/G3 came out and made working on my netbook impossible. Xfce is quite fast and works mostly very good.

keithpeter 15y ago
Might be worth mentioning the Alt-F11 function in XFCE for those who don't know it already. Alt-F11 removes the title bar from the current window, and ensures that the window uses the whole screen area. The menu is still on top of the window unlike the usual 'full screen' settings. Very handy on a 1024 by 600 screen. I have Firefox in one workspace, LibreOffice Impress in a second, e-mail client in a third and I switch between them using Ctrl-Alt arrows.
- yaix 15y ago
  Didn't know. That's handy and it works per window. Any more magic?

keithpeter 15y ago

GNU/Linux provides choice. There is CentOS 6.x with security updates and 'point releases' with refreshed apps until 2017 at least. Gnome 2 based. There are other window managers as well if you need more recent base libraries for your work.

swah 15y ago
That are those alternatives, and I's rooting for linux, but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win. Also, since I deploy Ubuntu I would like to work on Ubuntu (apt-get).
- andyking 15y ago
  Ubuntu 10.04 is still there, and still great. I'm still using it on my home and work machines--Gnome 2-based, PPAs and backports to update any apps that are a bit tired, and the whole thing's really stable. I'm not sure what I'll do when support runs out for it, though. I'm kind of holding out that they'll announce another two years of desktop support!
  - keithpeter 15y ago
    If you are using ppas and backports, the security update situation gets complex anyway. People have been trying to pin down the situation for Gnome Shell packages on 12.04, looks like not 5 years because they are 'Universe' packages. The 10.04 server packages, therefore the base, have 5 years of support, so I guess you could simply risk carrying on with 10.04 after the EOL for the desktop? Maybe not for the work machine.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win. What is the value of "win" in the above sentence? Because for me it's much more useful than either Windows or OSX for development. It won me for package management and for being very similar to the actual deployment environment. Even changing the desktop environment is easy - an "apt-get install" does the trick. I don't care about achieving desktop dominance - the desktop is going the way of the dodo for most people and for everything that's doesn't sit on a desk or has an Apple logo, Linux is the dominant OS. I'm at home now and there are 9 machines running Linux (phones, e-readers, tablet, router, modem, notebooks) and 5 that don't (Macs, iPod and iPhone).

antihero 15y ago

LXDE + Compiz is quite nice if you don't want to go full tiling.

insertnickname 15y ago

Cinnamon, while still an young project, is great. I've been using it on my desktop for a while now. Two steps forward, one step back.