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I've been using Redhat/Fedora/Ubuntu on and off for the last 12 years or so but I've largely stayed away from any Linux desktop environments for the past couple

by wyuenho 14y ago

I've been using Redhat/Fedora/Ubuntu on and off for the last 12 years or so but I've largely stayed away from any Linux desktop environments for the past couple of years as I've embraced the Mac and the Cloud PaaS services. A couple weeks ago I had a chance to use Ubuntu Unity at work for a week and OMG WTF BBQ. The design of Unity had unleashed one the largest nerdrage moment I've ever had. 1) Alt-tab switcher highlights 2 big icons with the same color value. Which is my current app and which is the one I'm going to switch to? I have no idea. Takes too much brain power to process the signals. 2) Default binding of Alt to the search box thingy. Whose bright idea is this? Binding the key closest to the thumb = invitation to trigger the search box erroneously all the time, especially if you use Emacs or used to using readline shortcuts in the Terminal. 3) Where the hell do I go to configure anything? How do I rebind Alt so I can get readline keyboard shortcuts everywhere? 4) Why do I sometimes get multiple of the same app icon in the dock? 5) How do I switch to another instance of the same app? It doesn't work like Windows or the Mac, the only way I discovered was point my mouse to the tiny little arrowy markers on the left of the very subtly active app icon to trigger a Mission Control-like thingy. 6) Don't even get me started with the unavailability of Chromium on 12.10 and the Amazon search results... If this doesn't kill Linux on the desktop (if it's not dead already), I don't know what will.

imglorp 14y ago
Just to remark on the new Alt-tab behavior: * Now alt-tab switches between application groups * and alt-backtick switches windows in your current group Initial nerd rage for me, but I'm starting to like the distinction. Eg, alt-tab to get to empathy, then alt-` to chose one of its several windows.
elteto 14y ago
If you are comparing Unity to Mac OS X then of course you are going to be disappointed. IMHO and in those of many others, OS X has one of the most polished UIs out there, thanks in part to the fact that it is more than a decade old. Unity is relatively young by all standards. 1) I don't really understand what is the problem here. Could you be more explicit? Perhaps this is not your gripe, but since the switcher threw me off at first, this is what I have learned: if you want to switch b/ windows of the same application Alt-` will do the trick, same as in a Mac. If you press Alt-Tab and leave focus over an application with multiple windows the view will expand and show thumbnails of each one, if you can't wait you can switch from Tab to ` without releasing Alt and it will do the same thing. 2) I have never incorrectly pressed the Alt key, but alas, this is just me. 3) System Settings panel, to get there press the Win key(or equivalent) and start typing "settings", it should come up as the first result. You might perhaps find the different setting panels lacking in options sometimes, but a quick google search and a short trip to the command line has always worked for me. 4) I am assuming you mean to say that you have a launcher icon on the dock for a certain application and when you click it it spawns a new icon. This has happened to me mostly with applications that invoke a bash script to start (Matlab in my case). It is more of a problem of integration of external software with the Unity interface. This is to be expected for a relatively young platform. 5) See 1. 6) I don't know about Chromium but Google maintains their own repository so getting Chrome and keeping it updated is relatively simple. Perhaps there is a similar solution for Chromium? The Amazon thing really pissed me of at first, but uninstalling it was as simple as executing "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping". There is also a setting in the Privacy settings panel that I think that does the same. Also 12.04 doesn't seem to include the Amazon lens. I understand not liking Unity but there is no need to go in a self-described nerdrage rant. You could have found the answers to all of your questions with a quick google search, just like I did.
- wyuenho 14y ago
  See my reply to StavrosK below
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rck 14y ago
All of your complaints are spot on, but for your #5 you can hit alt-` to cycle through multiple windows of one app. For my own part, I just decided to switch back to Slackware when my roommate wanted to play Sword & Sworcery and Ubuntu kept trying to sell her a katana. You can only tolerate so much...
cturner 14y ago
Further annoyance with the alt search box thingie: you can clear it, and when you reboot it comes back again. So reconfigure it to something you'll never use like Rshift, l-alt, r-alt, super. You can fix a lot of these problems with compiz-settings. For example - you can get a better alt+tab switcher and disable the default one. > How do I switch to another instance of the same app? Yup, you need compiz settings. Some of the plugins are very deliberate hacks around the shortfalls of unity. You could start here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/43875/how-do-i-adjust-the-alt-tab-speed http://askubuntu.com/questions/43875/how-do-i-adjust-the-alt... If you don't find what you need, have a look through package management to see if there are any other compiz packages - these might give you more plugins.
StavrosK 14y ago
Standard "I'm not a fanboy" disclaimer here. 1) On my system, the square of the app you're switching to is shown brighter. I don't know why it doesn't happen on yours. 2) Alt always used to be bound (it didn't pop up a textbox, it selected the menu), especially in Windows (it might have been different in Gnome, I can't remember now, but I think it wasn't). 3) There's a control panel with all the configuration elements, but yes, compizconfig is a maze, and I don't think it's even installed by default. 4) I find this extremely frustrating too, it's the same on OS X. You open two terminals, you only get one button. 5) Same as OS X again (I don't know why you say it doesn't work like the Mac, when it's exactly the same). Alt+tab switches apps, Alt+` switches windows, like in OS X. I hate it. 6) Yeah, I don't know why they can't bundle Chromium in a PPA by default. Ultimately, we're an entirely different market from regular users. The average "Linux on the desktop" user doesn't care about readline shortcuts, or configuration, or pressing the alt key. They want all their programs in a dock, and all my family/friends whom I've switched to Ubuntu (to decrease my support time, and it worked fabulously) swear by it.
- wyuenho 14y ago
  1) I don't know, I get something very similar to this when I have a bunch of apps opened. http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/tab.png http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07... Can you tell which one is active and which one is the app I'm switching to? I can't process it. 2) I think the super key is the one that's always bound. I can't remember this one either. It's been a while since I used Windows for longer than a week. 3) There is? I think the multiple app icons and the ridiculously slow moving sliding dock must have pushed it down somewhere, either that or it's been camouflaged by all the similarly looking icons... they are all the same shape. 5) Thanks for this tip! I don't know why I didn't try this combo, must have scared of touching the Alt key...
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    1) Ah, hm. The one you're switching to is the whiter one with the name ("Terminal", here), although I don't think the active window is shown there. 2) The super key alone is dead, so it doesn't do anything. I think the alt key used to work in Gnome too (how will you access the menu otherwise?) but I'm not positive on that. 3) It's on the top-right cog button, together with the shutdown/logoff/etc stuff, it says "System Settings" and everything is gathered there. 5) Haha, no problem. I went into compizconfig and switched to the static switcher, which has the old behaviour, but you might like the new one more, coming from OS X.
FilterJoe 14y ago
I'm a different data point. I've used nothing but Windows (98, XP and now 7) for over a decade. Lately I've been learning web development (Django) and realized a few weeks ago that to really do this right I needed to do linux. So I used VMware/bitnami to set up a VM with linux/python/django. It was Ubuntu 12.04 without the desktop. Very hard to get around with the command line so I installed the unity desktop. Bingo. Very easy for someone used to Windows. I couple minor quirks but I didn't find that any of the above issues bothered me. I have had issues. But these have been things like figuring out where to set environment variables, learning the bare command line basics, learning how to get postgres going locally, etc. Nothing to do with the desktop, except for the fact that it doesn't provide an interface for everything that can possibly be done with command line - so as (someone learning to be) a developer, I've had to learn all the command line stuff anyway. I have no idea whether other desktops are easier. All I can say is that the command line had a steep learning curve, while unity desktop took just a few minutes to get started and I was off working.
- thaumaturgy 14y ago
  For modern desktop-related tasks, a desktop UI certainly should be better than a commandline, sure. (I still prefer CLI for servers though.) And if there weren't already better GUIs available, then Unity would certainly be a revelation. The complaints though are coming from people who are already accustomed to other better windowing interfaces, including (in some cases) previous versions of Gnome, which arguably makes Unity one giant UI regression. I'd like to deftly sidestep that whole flamewar though and merely say, "KDE is nice."

by wyuenho 14y ago

imglorp 14y ago

Just to remark on the new Alt-tab behavior: * Now alt-tab switches between application groups * and alt-backtick switches windows in your current group Initial nerd rage for me, but I'm starting to like the distinction. Eg, alt-tab to get to empathy, then alt-` to chose one of its several windows.

elteto 14y ago

If you are comparing Unity to Mac OS X then of course you are going to be disappointed. IMHO and in those of many others, OS X has one of the most polished UIs out there, thanks in part to the fact that it is more than a decade old. Unity is relatively young by all standards. 1) I don't really understand what is the problem here. Could you be more explicit? Perhaps this is not your gripe, but since the switcher threw me off at first, this is what I have learned: if you want to switch b/ windows of the same application Alt-` will do the trick, same as in a Mac. If you press Alt-Tab and leave focus over an application with multiple windows the view will expand and show thumbnails of each one, if you can't wait you can switch from Tab to ` without releasing Alt and it will do the same thing. 2) I have never incorrectly pressed the Alt key, but alas, this is just me. 3) System Settings panel, to get there press the Win key(or equivalent) and start typing "settings", it should come up as the first result. You might perhaps find the different setting panels lacking in options sometimes, but a quick google search and a short trip to the command line has always worked for me. 4) I am assuming you mean to say that you have a launcher icon on the dock for a certain application and when you click it it spawns a new icon. This has happened to me mostly with applications that invoke a bash script to start (Matlab in my case). It is more of a problem of integration of external software with the Unity interface. This is to be expected for a relatively young platform. 5) See 1. 6) I don't know about Chromium but Google maintains their own repository so getting Chrome and keeping it updated is relatively simple. Perhaps there is a similar solution for Chromium? The Amazon thing really pissed me of at first, but uninstalling it was as simple as executing "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping". There is also a setting in the Privacy settings panel that I think that does the same. Also 12.04 doesn't seem to include the Amazon lens. I understand not liking Unity but there is no need to go in a self-described nerdrage rant. You could have found the answers to all of your questions with a quick google search, just like I did.

wyuenho 14y ago
See my reply to StavrosK below

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rck 14y ago

All of your complaints are spot on, but for your #5 you can hit alt-` to cycle through multiple windows of one app. For my own part, I just decided to switch back to Slackware when my roommate wanted to play Sword & Sworcery and Ubuntu kept trying to sell her a katana. You can only tolerate so much...

cturner 14y ago

Further annoyance with the alt search box thingie: you can clear it, and when you reboot it comes back again. So reconfigure it to something you'll never use like Rshift, l-alt, r-alt, super. You can fix a lot of these problems with compiz-settings. For example - you can get a better alt+tab switcher and disable the default one. > How do I switch to another instance of the same app? Yup, you need compiz settings. Some of the plugins are very deliberate hacks around the shortfalls of unity. You could start here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/43875/how-do-i-adjust-the-alt-tab-speed http://askubuntu.com/questions/43875/how-do-i-adjust-the-alt... If you don't find what you need, have a look through package management to see if there are any other compiz packages - these might give you more plugins.

StavrosK 14y ago

Standard "I'm not a fanboy" disclaimer here. 1) On my system, the square of the app you're switching to is shown brighter. I don't know why it doesn't happen on yours. 2) Alt always used to be bound (it didn't pop up a textbox, it selected the menu), especially in Windows (it might have been different in Gnome, I can't remember now, but I think it wasn't). 3) There's a control panel with all the configuration elements, but yes, compizconfig is a maze, and I don't think it's even installed by default. 4) I find this extremely frustrating too, it's the same on OS X. You open two terminals, you only get one button. 5) Same as OS X again (I don't know why you say it doesn't work like the Mac, when it's exactly the same). Alt+tab switches apps, Alt+` switches windows, like in OS X. I hate it. 6) Yeah, I don't know why they can't bundle Chromium in a PPA by default. Ultimately, we're an entirely different market from regular users. The average "Linux on the desktop" user doesn't care about readline shortcuts, or configuration, or pressing the alt key. They want all their programs in a dock, and all my family/friends whom I've switched to Ubuntu (to decrease my support time, and it worked fabulously) swear by it.

wyuenho 14y ago
1) I don't know, I get something very similar to this when I have a bunch of apps opened. http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/tab.png http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07... Can you tell which one is active and which one is the app I'm switching to? I can't process it. 2) I think the super key is the one that's always bound. I can't remember this one either. It's been a while since I used Windows for longer than a week. 3) There is? I think the multiple app icons and the ridiculously slow moving sliding dock must have pushed it down somewhere, either that or it's been camouflaged by all the similarly looking icons... they are all the same shape. 5) Thanks for this tip! I don't know why I didn't try this combo, must have scared of touching the Alt key...
- StavrosK 14y ago
  1) Ah, hm. The one you're switching to is the whiter one with the name ("Terminal", here), although I don't think the active window is shown there. 2) The super key alone is dead, so it doesn't do anything. I think the alt key used to work in Gnome too (how will you access the menu otherwise?) but I'm not positive on that. 3) It's on the top-right cog button, together with the shutdown/logoff/etc stuff, it says "System Settings" and everything is gathered there. 5) Haha, no problem. I went into compizconfig and switched to the static switcher, which has the old behaviour, but you might like the new one more, coming from OS X.

FilterJoe 14y ago

I'm a different data point. I've used nothing but Windows (98, XP and now 7) for over a decade. Lately I've been learning web development (Django) and realized a few weeks ago that to really do this right I needed to do linux. So I used VMware/bitnami to set up a VM with linux/python/django. It was Ubuntu 12.04 without the desktop. Very hard to get around with the command line so I installed the unity desktop. Bingo. Very easy for someone used to Windows. I couple minor quirks but I didn't find that any of the above issues bothered me. I have had issues. But these have been things like figuring out where to set environment variables, learning the bare command line basics, learning how to get postgres going locally, etc. Nothing to do with the desktop, except for the fact that it doesn't provide an interface for everything that can possibly be done with command line - so as (someone learning to be) a developer, I've had to learn all the command line stuff anyway. I have no idea whether other desktops are easier. All I can say is that the command line had a steep learning curve, while unity desktop took just a few minutes to get started and I was off working.

thaumaturgy 14y ago
For modern desktop-related tasks, a desktop UI certainly should be better than a commandline, sure. (I still prefer CLI for servers though.) And if there weren't already better GUIs available, then Unity would certainly be a revelation. The complaints though are coming from people who are already accustomed to other better windowing interfaces, including (in some cases) previous versions of Gnome, which arguably makes Unity one giant UI regression. I'd like to deftly sidestep that whole flamewar though and merely say, "KDE is nice."