4 ms·

When Unity came out, I reverted to gnome-classic for a while and tried Cinnamon, but found it to be the least stable - my system would occasionally freeze. Now

When Unity came out, I reverted to gnome-classic for a while and tried Cinnamon, but found it to be the least stable - my system would occasionally freeze. Now I'm on Unity. It has improved to the point that it meets my needs (granted, I've only got one or two monitors running at a time) and stays out of the way. (I've got Docky running, which I find makes it easier to switch between applications.) I have also come to appreciate the elegance of the HUD as I've learned to use it.

barrkel 14y ago
I have to use Ubuntu at work, and Unity took a lot of customization to be workable. Compiz regularly crashes, but thankfully it automatically restarts. Now I don't need to panic when the whole screen stops updating. The "snap" window dragging feature is broken in the presence of multiple monitors; as you drag the mouse across the monitor boundary, the mouse pointer becomes momentarily disconnected from the window location, so that you are moving the window as if by a long invisible stick, not by its original grab location. The overlay scrollbars don't interact well with Eclipse; JUnit running tests outputs file paths that Eclipse turns into hyperlinks, and the hyperlink mouseover stops the scrollbar from from being triggered when the pointer approaches the child window border. The overlay scrollbar thing doesn't seem to have been fully thought through. Gnome-terminal is one of the slowest terminals I've ever used; it would literally slow down development by blocking on log-verbose tests. I've gone back to my old stalwart of rxvt. I don't understand the difference between Windows key and Alt key command prompts. I've given up trying to figure out how to register my various user-directory installed applications with the taskbar thing. So I've stopped using both, and now I start all my apps from the terminal, with shell scripts to redirect output if they are chatty. The Alt-Tab task switcher is broken just like the OS X one is, switching between its concept of applications rather than top level windows. This means alt-tabbing between Eclipse and Firefox would bring the Downloads window to the fore, leaving the actual browser hidden behind maximized Eclipse. Usability disaster. With some difficulty and playing around with preference managers that come with warning labels, I've rebound the keys to a slightly more usable window switcher. Oh, and the fun I had when I tried to bind Ctrl+Alt+F12 to a command in Eclipse; took me back decades to switching terminals with Alt+F keys. In short, Ubuntu Unity is horrifically bad. Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers. The trough in the middle is very ill served.
- networked 14y ago
  >Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers I see how frustrating your experience with Unity was, and it certainly echoes my own, but does it warrant such a conclusion about Linux in general? For one thing, there are alternatives to Ubuntu on the desktop. For new users who are not completely helpless with computers Linux Mint LTS with MATE is likely a better choice than Ubuntu. MATE is very Windows-like; there's a lot that can be configured through the GUI in that DE and, FWIW, I have had a good amount of success converting Windows users to it. As for those who are "so inept [they] only use a browser", well, not all of such users can afford an iPad, especially not in those parts of the world where they have both significantly higher prices on iPads and a lower average income than the US (e.g., Eastern Europe), and even Ubuntu with Unity delivers great value to them. It's an application that's not to be taken lightly, either. Finally, Ubuntu makes it relatively easy to switch your the desktop environment. I admit I haven't seen any usability studies nor have I seen someone try to do it but I imagine a motivated middle-level user with sudo rights should be able to follow a tutorial on YouTube [1] on how to replace Unity with Cinnamon or MATE even if something more advanced replacing Ubuntu with Linux Mint is beyond him or her. [1] Like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJYiPFodlg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJYiPFodlg and many others. Edit: If you have access to gcc/g++ at work but not sudo rights (which is a very crappy situation to be in indeed) you can try to compile a different WM/DE in a local directory for your use and then create an ~/.xsession file to start it. You must have done this already but for the benefit of whoever else might struggling with overlay scrollbars I'll note that you can disable them by putting export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 into ~/.xprofile.
  - barrkel 14y ago
    I already disabled the overlay scrollbar, it's trivial to fix with a Google search. None of this is hard for me, just enormously time consuming for all the broken things I need to fix or work around. I'm no neophyte; I've been using Linux since 1996, a copy of Red Hat 3.0.3 ("picasso", Wikipedia tells me) from a magazine cover CD. The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked. I'm happiest interacting with Linux from Cygwin ssh. It's a fantastic command-line experience.
vacri 14y ago
Like Unity, Cinnamon has had a lot of work done since Unity came out. Judging either of today's offerings based on experiences from when Unity was whelped isn't doing anyone any favours.

barrkel 14y ago

I have to use Ubuntu at work, and Unity took a lot of customization to be workable. Compiz regularly crashes, but thankfully it automatically restarts. Now I don't need to panic when the whole screen stops updating. The "snap" window dragging feature is broken in the presence of multiple monitors; as you drag the mouse across the monitor boundary, the mouse pointer becomes momentarily disconnected from the window location, so that you are moving the window as if by a long invisible stick, not by its original grab location. The overlay scrollbars don't interact well with Eclipse; JUnit running tests outputs file paths that Eclipse turns into hyperlinks, and the hyperlink mouseover stops the scrollbar from from being triggered when the pointer approaches the child window border. The overlay scrollbar thing doesn't seem to have been fully thought through. Gnome-terminal is one of the slowest terminals I've ever used; it would literally slow down development by blocking on log-verbose tests. I've gone back to my old stalwart of rxvt. I don't understand the difference between Windows key and Alt key command prompts. I've given up trying to figure out how to register my various user-directory installed applications with the taskbar thing. So I've stopped using both, and now I start all my apps from the terminal, with shell scripts to redirect output if they are chatty. The Alt-Tab task switcher is broken just like the OS X one is, switching between its concept of applications rather than top level windows. This means alt-tabbing between Eclipse and Firefox would bring the Downloads window to the fore, leaving the actual browser hidden behind maximized Eclipse. Usability disaster. With some difficulty and playing around with preference managers that come with warning labels, I've rebound the keys to a slightly more usable window switcher. Oh, and the fun I had when I tried to bind Ctrl+Alt+F12 to a command in Eclipse; took me back decades to switching terminals with Alt+F keys. In short, Ubuntu Unity is horrifically bad. Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers. The trough in the middle is very ill served.

networked 14y ago
>Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers I see how frustrating your experience with Unity was, and it certainly echoes my own, but does it warrant such a conclusion about Linux in general? For one thing, there are alternatives to Ubuntu on the desktop. For new users who are not completely helpless with computers Linux Mint LTS with MATE is likely a better choice than Ubuntu. MATE is very Windows-like; there's a lot that can be configured through the GUI in that DE and, FWIW, I have had a good amount of success converting Windows users to it. As for those who are "so inept [they] only use a browser", well, not all of such users can afford an iPad, especially not in those parts of the world where they have both significantly higher prices on iPads and a lower average income than the US (e.g., Eastern Europe), and even Ubuntu with Unity delivers great value to them. It's an application that's not to be taken lightly, either. Finally, Ubuntu makes it relatively easy to switch your the desktop environment. I admit I haven't seen any usability studies nor have I seen someone try to do it but I imagine a motivated middle-level user with sudo rights should be able to follow a tutorial on YouTube [1] on how to replace Unity with Cinnamon or MATE even if something more advanced replacing Ubuntu with Linux Mint is beyond him or her. [1] Like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJYiPFodlg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJYiPFodlg and many others. Edit: If you have access to gcc/g++ at work but not sudo rights (which is a very crappy situation to be in indeed) you can try to compile a different WM/DE in a local directory for your use and then create an ~/.xsession file to start it. You must have done this already but for the benefit of whoever else might struggling with overlay scrollbars I'll note that you can disable them by putting export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 into ~/.xprofile.
- barrkel 14y ago
  I already disabled the overlay scrollbar, it's trivial to fix with a Google search. None of this is hard for me, just enormously time consuming for all the broken things I need to fix or work around. I'm no neophyte; I've been using Linux since 1996, a copy of Red Hat 3.0.3 ("picasso", Wikipedia tells me) from a magazine cover CD. The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked. I'm happiest interacting with Linux from Cygwin ssh. It's a fantastic command-line experience.

vacri 14y ago

Like Unity, Cinnamon has had a lot of work done since Unity came out. Judging either of today's offerings based on experiences from when Unity was whelped isn't doing anyone any favours.