6 ms·

Ubuntu in 2013

42 points by zimbatm 14y ago

zimbatm 14y ago
This blog-post refers to, but doesn't cite, Ubuntu's recent integration of Amazon search results to the desktop and the inclusion of non-free apps in their App store. I liked the pragmatism and neutrality of this post.
- mattdeboard 14y ago
  Er, Mark Shuttleworth is a big muckety muck for Canonical. This is a marketing piece.
mattdeboard 14y ago
> "That’s why Unity in 2013 will be all about mobile" Cool, but don't fuck up my desktop experience with your experimentation like you have been doing.
- gnaritas 14y ago
  Unity is all about fucked up. And gnome3 in 12.10 has been very unstable for me, getting rather frustrated.
  - talloaktrees 14y ago
    I just switched to lubuntu, i recommend it even for powerful pcs
    - mtgx 14y ago
      If Canonical could make a pretty interface that is as fast as Lubuntu, that would be great. For example Lubuntu works much better on Cortex A9-based Nexus 7 than Ubuntu.
    - thejosh 14y ago
      Been using LXDE with Ubuntu for over a year now. HUGE fan of LXDE, stable as a rock and perfect for my requirements. I require a couple of minutes of fiddling around with the launcher to get the positioning right but apart from that it's a very solid desktop.
    - pekk 14y ago
      LXDE's multi-monitor capability is broken in several ways, otherwise it's pretty good
      - tomrod 14y ago
        Indeed. I used arandr to make an xrandr script that runs at login. Works beautifully. Xrandr is a great program to know, especially if you use projectors a lot.
  - mattdeboard 14y ago
    Well, Unity 2D was actually really ok for me, but Unity 3D -- now the only option out of the box -- is really FUBAR. I just rolled my girlfriend's laptop back to 12.04, and am going to sit there until next LTS probably.
    - mtgx 14y ago
      Didn't they kill Unity 2D recently?
      - mattdeboard 14y ago
        Yeah, Unity 2D isn't an option in 12.10. Unity 3D doesn't support the video card driver in this laptop (a Radeon M6xxx series) so I'm pretty much hosed with my HDMI out. That was a dealbreaker for me.
    - gnaritas 14y ago
      Rolled back? Can I do that, or did you just reinstall? 12.04 was solid.
      - mattdeboard 14y ago
        Yeah, just reinstalled.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I assume they must be getting deals with some relatively big hardware manufacturers in that case. And hoping those manufacturers don't simply take the open source code from unity and use it to build their own system cutting canonical out of the loop altogether.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Just switch to Xubuntu. Xfce isn't changing any time soon. None of the "interface innovation" Unity is notorious for.
  - mattdeboard 14y ago
    I may eventually, but for the time being I'm going to stick with 12.04 and Unity 2D which I like a lot.
  - zanny 14y ago
    Is there a way to drag / drop arbitrary files onto the panel (ie, directories, executables, scripts, etc)? Setting up launchers and what not is so cumbersome.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      I don't know about drag/drop, since I don't use that much, but it's easy to add panel applets for various things, including launching software and viewing directories. I usually just set up keyboard shortcuts for all my software using the Win key though. It's a lot faster than mousing over to the panel and clicking on an icon.
      - zanny 14y ago
        I just reinstalled it on my arch partition, they do now have that drag / drop to panel I mentioned, but it doesn't act like a dock still, so I had to put Cairo dock on. Going to toy with it some more tomorrow. My use case is disjoint it seems. All I want is a pinnable launcher dock panel (preferrably with app integration, but that gets nutty), systemwide smart learning search with system key, a working system tray and clock, and decent multiheaded monitor support. None of the current Linux desktops really provide all those in tandem.
        w1ntermute 14y ago
        If Cairo does what you want out of a dock, then just use it alongside a regular Xfce panel for the system tray/clock. You can set up whatever system search software you want with an Xfce shortcut (in the Xfce settings). What problems are you having with multimonitor? I use ARandR to configure my monitors - again, in the Xfce settings, just set it to run when you hit the Fn key combo for monitor settings.
- xradionut 14y ago
  "Cool, but don't fuck up my desktop experience with your experimentation like you have been doing." Yes, Microsoft has a patent on that with the release of Windows 8... :D
- joeblau 14y ago
  I think it's too late for that :). I can't even upgrade beyond 11.10 and I'm looking for alternative Linux flavors if anyone has some good suggestions. I've heard Mint is nice.
- tonyedgecombe 14y ago
  It's a shame they are pissing away the opportunity to become stronger on the desktop while Apple/MS focus on the tablet and phone market.
- gosu 14y ago
  After hanging on to vanilla 11.04 (the last gnome2 release) until it became too out-of-date to use, I switched to xmonad with a dzen workspace display in place of gnome-panel. It took a fair amount of time to customize (which I can do now, no thanks to you, Ubuntu), but now my DE is optimal again. I eventually wound up switching off Ubuntu altogether when I realized that I seriously disagreed with its general direction of removing customizability and features for marketing reasons, that I disliked most of its core applications, and that Arch, with its AUR, had a more complete and up-to-date repository of software that I cared about. That particular switch was pretty time consuming, but I learned a decent amount about the modern Linux userspace. I have a nice sleek system now that does what I want it to, and not the other way around. Have a nice life, Ubuntu. Good luck getting grandma to install you.
andrewcooke 14y ago
it's hard to read that without feeling the huge weight of criticism (all the kow-towing and talking about experts). and then i come here and 2 out of 4 posts are complaining. really, can't you just go somewhere else? ubuntu is fine for my laptop. it might even do for my mother's next time i visit. if you want something else, either use something else or at least have the graciousness to complain without "fuck up" and "muckety muck". you're beyond tiring. go away. please.
- mattdeboard 14y ago
  "Works on my machine!" I'm more pissed about the fact that there are so many show-stoppers moving from 12.04 to 12.10. I like 12.04. It's solid. 12.10 is not. I'm going to bitch about it. edit: By the way, I did not know "muckety muck" had a negative connotation. I just use it as a synonym for boss. I should probably quit telling my boss he's a muckety muck.
  - stingraycharles 14y ago
    The problem is that bitching about past issues adds little value. We all know that they made bad choices in the past, it just isn't really useful to keep reminding everyone about those facts every time something about Ubuntu comes up.
    - mattdeboard 14y ago
      I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about their latest release which came out two months ago.
  - theshadow 14y ago
    This goes without saying but no one is forcing you to upgrade from 12.04 to 12.10. 12.10 is not an LTS release so naturally you should stick to 12.04 if you don't want any of the kinks that are a side-effect of being on the bleeding edge. For me personally, I upgraded from 12.04 -> 12.10 last week and after a 'apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping' I can barely even tell I'm running 12.10!
- 14y ago
reinhardt 14y ago
Zorin [1] (based on Ubuntu) looks sweet, has anyone played with it? [1] http://zorin-os.com/gallery.html http://zorin-os.com/gallery.html
- _account 14y ago
  Zorin is really good. Personally, I grew tired of little bugs with their window manager switching stuff. Also, worth trying is crunchbang(debian w/ openbox) and pinguyos(ubuntu w/ gnome2).
Aardwolf 14y ago
I wish there was a new great desktop environment focusing on THE DESKTOP.
- zalew 14y ago
  xfce. it's not new but it's great.
- sandGorgon 14y ago
  Cinnamon desktop - the same one that powers Linux Mint
keithpeter 14y ago
"And in this regard, we know, scientifically, that Ubuntu with Unity is better than anything else out there." Quote from the linked article, emphasis added. I'm actually interested in the methodology in use by Canonical. I can find the following reference easily... http://design.canonical.com/2010/11/usability-testing-of-unity/ http://design.canonical.com/2010/11/usability-testing-of-uni... together with some work on application software http://design.canonical.com/2011/08/thunderbird-evolution-usability-testing/ http://design.canonical.com/2011/08/thunderbird-evolution-us... Anyone got anything else solid from Canonical? PS: I know and rather like Unity as manifest in 12.04/12.10. It will be interesting to see how the UI changes and what implications the UI have for the underlying system as the transition to mobile device moves forward. I think that users should stick to LTS or move to a 'rolling distro' if they need very reliable and/or specific interfaces. Of course, that will reduce the pool of testers and the range of hardware tested, but it looks as if Canonical will be working with hardware manufacturers anyway.
meaty 14y ago
That is the vomitous self-congratulatory thing I've ever read and what I've come to expect from our multi-millionare South African marketing overlord. Mark: if you're reading this, please take note. Translated: We're going to push our own goals rather than asking what people want, you know like Amazon again. We're including everyone in our statement, apart from those people with an opinion other than ours. Giving, giving, giving dammit giving giving! We're lying about Unity with a sample size of 15 people that we all knew already, even though the community hates Unity. It's like Ballmer saying how everyone loves Windows 8 Metro but it's not selling. Mobile bandwagon jumpy jump. Let's dumb it down so it can be use for gefingerpoken as well as anything else (not going to happen - probably worse than Windows 8). More cloud tie in - we want your data just like all the other vendors. Completely ignore the foundation that everyone else such as GNU, Linux kernel people, Xorg and surprisingly Debian have provided them. Completely ignore the humongous bug database which makes Ubuntu like a pre-Alpha release of Windows for reliability. Ugh it makes me sick. Sorry to sound cynical, but the above is 5 years of using Ubuntu canned in a few statements.
- zimbatm 14y ago
  So how much did you contribute back in these 5 years ?
  - meaty 14y ago
    Cash, promotion, merchandise, landscape subscription, bug reports, forum help (I have over 3000 posts on Ubuntu forums), stackoverflow, testing to name a few...
    - iamtherockstar 14y ago
      And Mark with his millions out of pocket to invest in a company he believes in. If they were votes, he wins. Do the capitalist thing and stop giving them money if you hate it ohsomuch.
      - meaty 14y ago
uvtc 14y ago
If you like the ease-of-use of Ubuntu, but don't like Unity nor Gnome 3, just use Xubuntu (or Lubuntu). Xubuntu in particular provides what I think of as a regular no-surprises desktop --- exactly what I want and expect from a desktop OS.

Ubuntu in 2013

42 points by zimbatm 14y ago

This blog-post refers to, but doesn't cite, Ubuntu's recent integration of Amazon search results to the desktop and the inclusion of non-free apps in their App store. I liked the pragmatism and neutrality of this post.

mattdeboard 14y ago
Er, Mark Shuttleworth is a big muckety muck for Canonical. This is a marketing piece.

mattdeboard 14y ago

> "That’s why Unity in 2013 will be all about mobile" Cool, but don't fuck up my desktop experience with your experimentation like you have been doing.

gnaritas 14y ago
Unity is all about fucked up. And gnome3 in 12.10 has been very unstable for me, getting rather frustrated.
- talloaktrees 14y ago
  I just switched to lubuntu, i recommend it even for powerful pcs
  - mtgx 14y ago
    If Canonical could make a pretty interface that is as fast as Lubuntu, that would be great. For example Lubuntu works much better on Cortex A9-based Nexus 7 than Ubuntu.
  - thejosh 14y ago
    Been using LXDE with Ubuntu for over a year now. HUGE fan of LXDE, stable as a rock and perfect for my requirements. I require a couple of minutes of fiddling around with the launcher to get the positioning right but apart from that it's a very solid desktop.
  - pekk 14y ago
    LXDE's multi-monitor capability is broken in several ways, otherwise it's pretty good
    - tomrod 14y ago
      Indeed. I used arandr to make an xrandr script that runs at login. Works beautifully. Xrandr is a great program to know, especially if you use projectors a lot.
- mattdeboard 14y ago
  Well, Unity 2D was actually really ok for me, but Unity 3D -- now the only option out of the box -- is really FUBAR. I just rolled my girlfriend's laptop back to 12.04, and am going to sit there until next LTS probably.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    Didn't they kill Unity 2D recently?
    - mattdeboard 14y ago
      Yeah, Unity 2D isn't an option in 12.10. Unity 3D doesn't support the video card driver in this laptop (a Radeon M6xxx series) so I'm pretty much hosed with my HDMI out. That was a dealbreaker for me.
  - gnaritas 14y ago
    Rolled back? Can I do that, or did you just reinstall? 12.04 was solid.
    - mattdeboard 14y ago
      Yeah, just reinstalled.
jiggy2011 14y ago
I assume they must be getting deals with some relatively big hardware manufacturers in that case. And hoping those manufacturers don't simply take the open source code from unity and use it to build their own system cutting canonical out of the loop altogether.
w1ntermute 14y ago
Just switch to Xubuntu. Xfce isn't changing any time soon. None of the "interface innovation" Unity is notorious for.
- mattdeboard 14y ago
  I may eventually, but for the time being I'm going to stick with 12.04 and Unity 2D which I like a lot.
- zanny 14y ago
  Is there a way to drag / drop arbitrary files onto the panel (ie, directories, executables, scripts, etc)? Setting up launchers and what not is so cumbersome.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    I don't know about drag/drop, since I don't use that much, but it's easy to add panel applets for various things, including launching software and viewing directories. I usually just set up keyboard shortcuts for all my software using the Win key though. It's a lot faster than mousing over to the panel and clicking on an icon.
    - zanny 14y ago
      I just reinstalled it on my arch partition, they do now have that drag / drop to panel I mentioned, but it doesn't act like a dock still, so I had to put Cairo dock on. Going to toy with it some more tomorrow. My use case is disjoint it seems. All I want is a pinnable launcher dock panel (preferrably with app integration, but that gets nutty), systemwide smart learning search with system key, a working system tray and clock, and decent multiheaded monitor support. None of the current Linux desktops really provide all those in tandem.
      - w1ntermute 14y ago
        If Cairo does what you want out of a dock, then just use it alongside a regular Xfce panel for the system tray/clock. You can set up whatever system search software you want with an Xfce shortcut (in the Xfce settings). What problems are you having with multimonitor? I use ARandR to configure my monitors - again, in the Xfce settings, just set it to run when you hit the Fn key combo for monitor settings.
xradionut 14y ago
"Cool, but don't fuck up my desktop experience with your experimentation like you have been doing." Yes, Microsoft has a patent on that with the release of Windows 8... :D
joeblau 14y ago
I think it's too late for that :). I can't even upgrade beyond 11.10 and I'm looking for alternative Linux flavors if anyone has some good suggestions. I've heard Mint is nice.
tonyedgecombe 14y ago
It's a shame they are pissing away the opportunity to become stronger on the desktop while Apple/MS focus on the tablet and phone market.
gosu 14y ago
After hanging on to vanilla 11.04 (the last gnome2 release) until it became too out-of-date to use, I switched to xmonad with a dzen workspace display in place of gnome-panel. It took a fair amount of time to customize (which I can do now, no thanks to you, Ubuntu), but now my DE is optimal again. I eventually wound up switching off Ubuntu altogether when I realized that I seriously disagreed with its general direction of removing customizability and features for marketing reasons, that I disliked most of its core applications, and that Arch, with its AUR, had a more complete and up-to-date repository of software that I cared about. That particular switch was pretty time consuming, but I learned a decent amount about the modern Linux userspace. I have a nice sleek system now that does what I want it to, and not the other way around. Have a nice life, Ubuntu. Good luck getting grandma to install you.

andrewcooke 14y ago

it's hard to read that without feeling the huge weight of criticism (all the kow-towing and talking about experts). and then i come here and 2 out of 4 posts are complaining. really, can't you just go somewhere else? ubuntu is fine for my laptop. it might even do for my mother's next time i visit. if you want something else, either use something else or at least have the graciousness to complain without "fuck up" and "muckety muck". you're beyond tiring. go away. please.

mattdeboard 14y ago
"Works on my machine!" I'm more pissed about the fact that there are so many show-stoppers moving from 12.04 to 12.10. I like 12.04. It's solid. 12.10 is not. I'm going to bitch about it. edit: By the way, I did not know "muckety muck" had a negative connotation. I just use it as a synonym for boss. I should probably quit telling my boss he's a muckety muck.
- stingraycharles 14y ago
  The problem is that bitching about past issues adds little value. We all know that they made bad choices in the past, it just isn't really useful to keep reminding everyone about those facts every time something about Ubuntu comes up.
  - mattdeboard 14y ago
    I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about their latest release which came out two months ago.
- theshadow 14y ago
  This goes without saying but no one is forcing you to upgrade from 12.04 to 12.10. 12.10 is not an LTS release so naturally you should stick to 12.04 if you don't want any of the kinks that are a side-effect of being on the bleeding edge. For me personally, I upgraded from 12.04 -> 12.10 last week and after a 'apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping' I can barely even tell I'm running 12.10!
14y ago

reinhardt 14y ago

Zorin [1] (based on Ubuntu) looks sweet, has anyone played with it? [1] http://zorin-os.com/gallery.html http://zorin-os.com/gallery.html

_account 14y ago
Zorin is really good. Personally, I grew tired of little bugs with their window manager switching stuff. Also, worth trying is crunchbang(debian w/ openbox) and pinguyos(ubuntu w/ gnome2).

Aardwolf 14y ago

I wish there was a new great desktop environment focusing on THE DESKTOP.

zalew 14y ago
xfce. it's not new but it's great.
sandGorgon 14y ago
Cinnamon desktop - the same one that powers Linux Mint

keithpeter 14y ago

"And in this regard, we know, scientifically, that Ubuntu with Unity is better than anything else out there." Quote from the linked article, emphasis added. I'm actually interested in the methodology in use by Canonical. I can find the following reference easily... http://design.canonical.com/2010/11/usability-testing-of-unity/ http://design.canonical.com/2010/11/usability-testing-of-uni... together with some work on application software http://design.canonical.com/2011/08/thunderbird-evolution-usability-testing/ http://design.canonical.com/2011/08/thunderbird-evolution-us... Anyone got anything else solid from Canonical? PS: I know and rather like Unity as manifest in 12.04/12.10. It will be interesting to see how the UI changes and what implications the UI have for the underlying system as the transition to mobile device moves forward. I think that users should stick to LTS or move to a 'rolling distro' if they need very reliable and/or specific interfaces. Of course, that will reduce the pool of testers and the range of hardware tested, but it looks as if Canonical will be working with hardware manufacturers anyway.

meaty 14y ago

That is the vomitous self-congratulatory thing I've ever read and what I've come to expect from our multi-millionare South African marketing overlord. Mark: if you're reading this, please take note. Translated: We're going to push our own goals rather than asking what people want, you know like Amazon again. We're including everyone in our statement, apart from those people with an opinion other than ours. Giving, giving, giving dammit giving giving! We're lying about Unity with a sample size of 15 people that we all knew already, even though the community hates Unity. It's like Ballmer saying how everyone loves Windows 8 Metro but it's not selling. Mobile bandwagon jumpy jump. Let's dumb it down so it can be use for gefingerpoken as well as anything else (not going to happen - probably worse than Windows 8). More cloud tie in - we want your data just like all the other vendors. Completely ignore the foundation that everyone else such as GNU, Linux kernel people, Xorg and surprisingly Debian have provided them. Completely ignore the humongous bug database which makes Ubuntu like a pre-Alpha release of Windows for reliability. Ugh it makes me sick. Sorry to sound cynical, but the above is 5 years of using Ubuntu canned in a few statements.

zimbatm 14y ago
So how much did you contribute back in these 5 years ?
- meaty 14y ago
  Cash, promotion, merchandise, landscape subscription, bug reports, forum help (I have over 3000 posts on Ubuntu forums), stackoverflow, testing to name a few...
  - iamtherockstar 14y ago
    And Mark with his millions out of pocket to invest in a company he believes in. If they were votes, he wins. Do the capitalist thing and stop giving them money if you hate it ohsomuch.
    - meaty 14y ago

uvtc 14y ago

If you like the ease-of-use of Ubuntu, but don't like Unity nor Gnome 3, just use Xubuntu (or Lubuntu). Xubuntu in particular provides what I think of as a regular no-surprises desktop --- exactly what I want and expect from a desktop OS.