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Ubuntu 13.04: Getting Excited About Ubuntu Again

126 points by jdabgotra 13y ago

dpratt 13y ago
By all accounts, Unity continues to improve and actually innovate across releases, but the Canonical guys need to fix one simple thing - the out of the box appearance of Ubuntu is frankly hideous. They are doing some very interesting things w.r.t. human interaction, but the design is nearly an immediate turnoff to everybody I've shown it to. I'm well aware that it's infinitely customizable, but that's not a solution. When a large fraction of your userbase makes their very first action after installation to change the color scheme/theme of your OS, you should go back to the drawing board with your designers. The actual paradigm they present to the user is fantastic, but the color scheme is repugnant.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  I have never understood why it has such enormous fonts out of the box. The default size of the launcher fills up about 1/4 of my laptop screen.
  - dpratt 13y ago
    I'm with you - I'm running a VM of 13.04 full screen 1920x1200 on a dual monitor machine. The Ubuntu desktop can fit about 40% of the content that the host MacOS install can in the same space. It's frustrating - I shudder to think what it's like in lower resolutions.
  - vacri 13y ago
    Ubuntu were the folks who made a printer test page in colour that made giant filled boxes of colour - apparently whoever created it has never purchased printer ink. It has (thankfully) regained some sanity.
- icelancer 13y ago
  In this regard, 10.04 was the pinnacle of the appearance of Ubuntu Desktop. Everything since has been a downgrade IMO and that tends to be the consensus on HN as well as other tech portals. Unity is a disaster, as is the forced Amazon search stuff (as you said, opt-out is not a solution).
  - joeblau 13y ago
    I'm with you on this!
u2328 13y ago
I'm a big advocate for the Linux desktop, but at this point, as long as Canonical has Ubuntu ship off desktop search results to Amazon by default, I would even advocate for users to use other operating systems, even Mac OS X. It's no bastion of freedom respecting software, but at least doesn't ship off your desktop search results to a third party for profit. Ubuntu is no longer freedom respecting software.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  The counterpoint of course is that with open source there can always be forked versions with egregious features removed. If OS X decided to record all of your search results you'd be SOL.
  - kunai 13y ago
    Not really... pretty much every aspect of OS X is removable, it just isn't as straightforward as Ubuntu and may break portions of the system. You can remove Spotlight and Notification Center with ease, and I doubt it would be difficult to disable recording. Although I highly doubt Apple would risk the backlash by putting a malicious feature like that in without an option to turn it off.
    - oblique63 13y ago
      > Although I highly doubt Apple would risk the backlash by putting a malicious feature like that in without an option to turn it off. Really? Wasn't Apple the one tracking iphone users wherever they went? [1] I get the concern about Ubuntu sending data to amazon by default (i.e. can be disabled), I really do, but going out of the way to recommend something as proprietary as either Apple or Microsoft out of spite? This is what really bothers me about the OSS community. How about helping Mint/Fedora out and recommending them instead? I know some do, but even the OP here flaunted that an OSX recommendation seemed more viable than Ubuntu. As much as I would want not to be tracked, at least with Open Source SOFTWARE we can be more aware of it, or even have a say in it; not always so with proprietary stuff! So no, I do not believe either Windows or OSX are better than Ubuntu in this regard. Not to mention that Canonical isn't a big company, so if they need help bootstrapping by doing some stuff with amazon for now, then so be it. I would hold off judgement on their actions until they're actually in a position of real financial power, cause right now it just seems they had to resort to such ad placement deals because the generous donations weren't cutting it. It's really not clear whether it's actually that big of a deal right now. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-trac...
mcintyre1994 13y ago
Unity runs terribly on my laptop that runs Windows 7 perfectly fine. It's probably more important in a technical sense that I can just use a different desktop environment, and Cinnamon works brilliantly for me. In terms of a less technical audience though, that won't be an answer and performance woes really should be a priority.
spindritf 13y ago
I have always been a big fan of Unity. The only changes I don't like are the ones introduced under pressure from users. Namely, removing the "dodge" option for the launcher and disabling the scroll on it[1][2]. It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. I haven't really noticed HUD for quite a while but a few days ago I tried it frustrated with GIMP's cleverly hidden sub-menus and was blown away by how easy it is to jump straight to the desired function if you know (or can guess) the name. Invoking "Arbitrary Rotation..." doesn't even take a second. I was like a magician, I wasn't using the system, it was an extension of my being. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1173623 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1173623 [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1149092 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1149092
- kunai 13y ago
  I actually like the window switcher, but it would have been far, far better if Canonical had made it so that alt-scrolling on the appicons would have had that effect. Scrolling the launcher should have been standard.
- wslh 13y ago
  I quitted Ubuntu because the latest versions of Unity uses 3D acceleration that consumes a lot of battery in a VM. I didn't find a solution for it (except using it natively). I followed some solutions that didn't work or turned the windows manager very unstable. I really liked Unity.
  - broodbucket 13y ago
    I believe Unity is getting a lighter rewrite for 14.04 (at the latest) so there's that. I don't think they should have canned Unity2D like they did.
    - freehunter 13y ago
      Running Ubuntu in a VM, I've been unable to update to 13.04 due to them dropping Unity2D. My VM doesn't have enough video memory to run Unity 3D, and that's not going to be changing anytime soon, so I'm stuck on an old version.
joe_the_user 13y ago
I used Unity for three months or more. While it had lots of cosmetic issues that I'm sure could be improved and will improve, what infuriated me was that it seemed to revolve around the assumption that I would only about five, well-known GUI apps. This might be a point of, uh, Unity for Newbies and programmers who "live in the shell" but it completely excludes me and I think it excludes some portion of Linux users.
- spindritf 13y ago
  > I would only about five, well-known GUI apps. Nah, you can have as many apps pinned to the launcher as you like. I have 18, and some of them probably have dozens rather than thousands of users. Plus, you can easily search for applications from the dashboard, though that's a bit laggy.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    I've never needed a launcher or menu since I installed gnome-do, years ago. It's instant and amazing.
stormbrew 13y ago
I used to use Xubuntu, got frustrated with the ways that it hasn't really kept up integration-wise, and tried to switch to straight Ubuntu with 13.04 and... couldn't stand it. I'm glad I found Mint after that. Cinnamon is by far the best experience I've had with the linux desktop yet.
- smoyer 13y ago
  I've also switched to Mint with xfce. My laptop got slow terribly slow somewhere between 11.04 and 12.04 and I just couldn't stand waiting for Unity anymore. The same laptop is blazing fast again.
- vacri 13y ago
  Cinnamon is in Ubuntu and has been at least since 12.10 - this is what I use at work. It's also in Debian unstable.
  - stormbrew 13y ago
    I haven't tried just using the basic cinnamon packages from an installed Ubuntu system, but I have tried it from an installed Xubuntu system and it definitely doesn't work as well as a full Mint install. At any rate they're all ubuntus in the end, but the whole package of Mint+Cinnamon is what I was referring to.
    - vacri 13y ago
      In hindsight, I'm incorrect. There is a PPA for cinnamon in 12.10. I just upgraded to 13.04 today and ran into the PPA issue.
- pwnna 13y ago
  What are the problems with xubuntu, if i may ask?
6d0debc071 13y ago
> If we obey stubborn users set in their ways, user interfaces would never advance and evolve. But neither would they catch genetic defects - the mutation rate would just go to 0. To be an advocate for evolution, at least to be one that I'll listen to, you need to point me to strong selection pressures in favour of a desirable outcome. How does this improve information management, how does it improve workflow? That sort of thing. What are you using to vet? And I'm not seeing that with unity. Some hand waving about how it's 'largely ineffable' just isn't going to cut it. Let's be honest here: They stuck the launcher, which other OSes allow you to move anyway, on left hand side of the screen. I can get all my options on the same side of the screen just by dragging the launcher there. And yet... most people don't choose to keep their launcher on the side of the screen when given the option. Talking that up as some big advantage is just... yeah. Not buying it. It seems to me like forcing a way of using the computer on people that they've elected not to use and that there are the capabilities that it ought to have naturally arisen as the way they'd use it if it was superior. HUD's a nice idea, mind.
- jdabgotra 13y ago
  You are right that the "largely ineffable" feeling needs to be cashed out. But I use that phrase largely because the psychology of UI interactions and usability that would justify my like of Unity is a new, inexact, and developing science. So, I'm starting with the basic observation that after giving Unity a try, it grew on me, as it did with others, to the point where we actually prefer something new. Part of it is increased simplicity. Another part is more screen space. Another part is that the OS doesn't get in your way (like KDE does). Another part of it is that is the tendency to place things of importance in the upper left which is, in our Western culture, where we tend to start looking for things (like when reading a book). As far as evolution is concerned, my point is that I often notice, say, when Facebook changes their interface that users complain because they have to learn something new -- they are lazy, but if you force them into something, they may end up preferring it later. It is true that we shouldn't redesign things if they work well. But the way things are designed the first time may not be the best possible way. The new features in Unity might not be molded by some process like natural selection. But there is some argument to made that it is. Creating one platform for all devices and levels of users would have enormous advantages, and is a response triggered by changed in the computing environment -- mainly, the widespread use of touch phones and tablets. Aside from that, all I can say is that Ubuntu does do some user testing, and I hope they are listening to their users. They also have to take some chances and try out new things and see what users respond to. But I agree that their interface changes should respond to real needs, not imagined needs.
Siecje 13y ago
I don't like that you can't move the unity launcher to the bottom. Vertical space is not as import as horizontal space. I don't like how I have to click the small window that is not near the top and then go to the top to access the File menu etc. I don't like that unity doesn't have snap to the right and left side.
- broodbucket 13y ago
  - you can autohide the launcher so it only shows when your mouse hits the left side at an intensity of your choice - you can disable the global menu - Unity has aero snapping to the left and right, and can have it in every corner if you change Compiz settings
  - MisterBastahrd 13y ago
    Canonical doesn't want me to use Ubuntu, because they won't allow me to put the launcher where I want, which has been a feature of umpteen different window managers for at least the last 10 years. I don't care that it can autohide. That feature has been around for well over a decade. I care that it isn't where I want it to be, and that they won't give me the option to put it where I want it.
mike-cardwell 13y ago
I started using Ubuntu because it was "Debian with a nice GUI". I started using Debian again when Ubuntu demonstrated that they don't care about privacy. I was pleasantly surprised to see how far a Debian Wheezy desktop has come. Out of the box, it seems as nice as Ubuntu nowadays.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  In case anyone considering the same, this might help: http://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1ek0u0/moving_from_ubuntu_to_debian_desktop_which_deb/ http://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1ek0u0/moving_from_u...
- kragen 13y ago
  I did the same thing, but I'm using xfce, default configuration, since both GNOME and KDE have decided to break Alt-Tab. (Alt-tab is really the only fucking thing I want from my fucking window manager. Well, and Alt-F4.) My only gripe about xfce is that I have to open a file-browser window to get it to mount USB pendrives.
  - femngi 13y ago
    They fixed Alt-Tab when I had never before realised it was broken. The new paradigm just makes so much more sense: Alt-Tab switches between applications and Alt-` switches between individual windows of that application. When I have to use a desktop without this functionality I am now painfully aware of how cumbersome and slow the old behaviour was when I have plenty of windows open.
    - Argorak 13y ago
      Hate to say that, but thats exactly the way OS X works for ages.
      - kilburn 13y ago
        Yes it is, more or less. This functionality is badly broken (by default) for international users. As the poster above you said, the ` key changes place in different keyboard layouts. I'm using a ISO/Spanish layout and the day I discovered that Cmd+` hotkey I just couldn't figure out why the hell that key would be mapped to "switch between windows of the same app". After googling for a while, I found out what the ANSI/US keyboard layout is, and only then the hotkey made sense. Just for reference the backtick key is right next to the "P" letter in the ISO/ES layout. Now the first thing I do when sitting in front of an OSX computer is to remap that hotkey to Cmd+º, which is the same physical key in ISO/ES than ` in ANSI/US. I seriously doubt that most international OSX users know about this hotkey though. I have a few (non-techie) friends using OSX now, and none of them knew about it...
incompatible 13y ago
I notice a tendency with new interfaces that you need to know "secrets" in order to use them effectively. Things that aren't visible in the user interface. E.g., in unity, to open two instances of an application, you need to shift-click the launcher. It seems to me that the more minimalistic the interface tries to become, the more you need to know to be able to use it. It also seems to take more effort to get what you want. It's easier to pick a program from a menu that to open a search panel, type the name, if you remember it, and find it in the search results. I use xfce on Ubuntu. The particular dislikes I have for Unity include the shifting of window toolbars so that the buttons are nowhere near the window that they relate to, and the launcher that doesn't function well as either a launcher (it doesn't have every program I may want to use) nor a way to quickly switch between open windows (without combining mouse clicks with keyboard modifiers).
- khyryk 13y ago
  You can middle-click to open additional instances of applications. I think it takes longer to find something when one has completely forgotten its name and description, but this isn't a problem 99% of the time, at least for me. Ubuntu makes much more sense when I'm using my laptop without a mouse available, primarily due to the super+# application switching, whereas I am usually more efficient with Xfce when there's a mouse around; I have both installed.
- sixothree 13y ago
  The thing that bugs me the most about the moved toolbar buttons is that they didn't feel the need to move the scrollbars but were able to come up with a solution that works and preserves our understanding of the interface.
- csense 13y ago
  > you need to know "secrets" in order to use [the interface] effectively I remember finding out, years after I bought the original Master of Orion, that you could use the F8 key to see which planets have incoming enemy fleets. It totally changed the game for me, and also made me decide that UI's suck if the "secrets" aren't discoverable by just moving around the UI and looking at tooltips and the like.
staunch 13y ago
Ubuntu 13.04 is quite good. A bit buggy, but quite good. What I really want from Ubuntu is to be able to run it on my phone. I want Linux, real Linux, on my pocket computer.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  You mean like this: http://www.ubuntu.com/phone http://www.ubuntu.com/phone or like this? http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android
  - staunch 13y ago
    I'm aware they're working on it, but last I looked there's nothing usable yet.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      There is for the former, not sure about the latter.
- deafbybeheading 13y ago
  I'll take talking to my phone as a first step. Getting simple file transfers to my SIII has been a pain, not to mention anything more sophisticated...
  - kukkukb 13y ago
    Get AirDroid for your Android device. You'll never look back.
    - mikevm 13y ago
      Thanks for that!
  - andor 13y ago
    SSHDroid is pretty neat if you use Linux on the desktop.
zenocon 13y ago
that font....
- courier 13y ago
  What? You don't like monospaced text?
ausjke 13y ago
I use ubuntu 12.04 for server, I don't get it why desktop is that important anymore, 90% of my time is with browser and vi these days, the rest is with vlc and a little open office, that's about it.
pcx66 13y ago
I love Ubuntu. Been a fan from, lets see, 5.04. It's been a long sweet experience. But lately I've got many areas which I vehemently disagree with them. I guess the most important issue with Ubuntu nowadays is the one of privacy. With the recent revelations of mass surveillance, exposing desktop searches to a 3rd party by default is a catastrophic decision. I can't understand how the folks at Canonical could accept such a feature. They could have made it opt-in, with flashing popups and shit, asking you to signup. But making it default is a nightmarish situation. I was able to recommend non-technical users (like my parents and relatives) to install Ubuntu by themselves, arguing there was nothing to change that would need someone with know-how. But not now with stuff like this. I don't think the major chunk of the user-base (home users), would understand the implications of this feature.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
alexanderh 13y ago
For me its all about the performance issues. To design responsive web applications, you need to see the (browser) windows content on re-size. This is not default in Ubuntu/Unity, you cannot see a windows contents when you are resizing. You can enable it, but its slow and not very useful. The content in a window needs to re-flow fluidly and quickly, especially the browser. Its as simple as that for me. Until Ubuntu has hardware accelerated window re-sizing, i simply cannot use it as a development platform. Responsive Webdesign isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and responsive apps/websites are a chore to effectively debug on Ubuntu compared to other OS's
- leephillips 13y ago
  I see responsive websites reflowing quickly when I change the browser window size using Ubuntu. I don't see the problem.
  - alexanderh 13y ago
    What version of Ubuntu? Last time I tried was 12.04, and even with a proprietary binary graphics driver properly installed, it was very slow and un-usable. If this is something they've fixed in more recent version, color me excited to try Ubuntu again. But I've definitely seen others w/ this same issue: http://askubuntu.com/questions/297146/live-window-resizing-is-very-slow-ubuntu-12-10 http://askubuntu.com/questions/297146/live-window-resizing-i...
    - leephillips 13y ago
      I'm running 12.04.1 at the moment. On a Thinkpad t60, which came out in 2006 or so. The screen redraws as fast as I can move it. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I don't use Unity or any other desktop environment.
- lttlrck 13y ago
  Use the responsive view tools in Firefox and Chrome.
reedlaw 13y ago
I liked Ubuntu and Unity until I found this release to be so unstable on a Thinkpad T410 that I was forced to look for something else. First I tried Xubuntu but I quickly began to miss many of the niceties of a more featureful desktop environment. Feeling a general dissatisfaction with Ubuntu I decided to try Arch Linux. It was quite a task to configure a base system with video drivers, networking and other hardware working at a similar level that you would get out of the box with Ubuntu. But in the end I'm extremely pleased. I went with the Gnome 3 desktop because it handled a lot of things for me such as drive mounting and managing the network. I actually prefer Gnome 3 to Unity. It's more visually pleasing and minimal. The only thing I miss is the HUD for accessing deeply-nested menu items. The best thing about Arch Linux is that most packages are the absolute latest stable versions. You don't have to wait 6 months for an update to the official package. And if there's no official package, the AUR system for building packages from source is better than Ubuntu's PPA which requires you to trust binaries compiled by 3rd parties.
- milhous 13y ago
  Just picked up a refurbed T410 with integrated graphics and installed 12.04 LTS. So far so good, but I'd like to drop an SSD in here, so maybe the distro will change again. But I figured that LTS would be a good place to start. 13.04 did seem a tad buggy. I'd like to try FreeBSD, but am impatient at the moment, and not sure how good wifi control and hardware support is. Would love to know if anyone's running it on their notebooks. Going to try Gnome 3 now.
- cylinder714 13y ago
  Please check out Manjaro Linux. It's like an Ubuntu based on Arch instead of Debian.
D9u 13y ago
Sadly, this article is stuck on GNOME vs Unity, when the base system runs so much better without all that extraneous UI stuff. I'd rather start off with a minimal install, and build it up as I want, rather than tearing apart someone else's mess, in the quest for my preferred balance of frugality and productivity.
donniezazen 13y ago
I have tried and failed. The simple bottom bar, app menu on one side and system tray on the other side is an unbeatable desktop paradigm. I don't think desktop, specially with large screens, should be forced to use full screen and one app at a time. Ubuntu has done commendable work on 13.04. Power consumption and overall experience is phenomenal. But is hard to get excited about Ubuntu anymore. I was reading a bug report on Transmission torrent client bug tracker where they were discussing if they should support Ubuntu's appindicator or Gnome's message tray or just simple system tray. This divide is only going to increase putting both developers and users in an impossible position. When we free-software-guys don't give Android a hard time, there is no reason to create noise around Ubuntu.
dubcanada 13y ago
I just cannot stand Unity, I understand the whole tablet experience thing, but I'm not using it on a tablet. The first thing I did with Ubuntu 12 was remove Unity and install http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ for people coming from a Windows platform, it's like a nicer start menu.
ensmotko 13y ago
I just tried the latest daily build. For some reason Unity dash stops working smoothly once I change the resolution from 1024x768 to 1680x1050. Might be because of my dated graphics card (ati firegl).
mariuolo 13y ago
They can keep it.
jaequery 13y ago
just switch over to macs
josteink 13y ago
While this piece seems to be reasonably balanced, well informed and above all honest about the Ubuntu-experience, this one sentence about launcher-support for web-apps stood out as plain wrong: > These are not only innovative but great ideas that are being offered from the world of Linux, not by Microsoft or Apple, in a new way never seen before the Unity experiment. The ability to pin web-applications to the launcher was really introduced in Windows 7, with ability for the web-site to add custom-actions or shortcuts to the icon, accessible through a right-click context-menu. Chrome allows you to create application launchers without all the browser Chrome, which to the OS looks like normal apps. Afaik this was even based on some third-party app which did the same thing (although with Webkit and Safari) on OS X. We've also had this ability to add shortcuts to web-apps as "normal" apps on our mobile devices for quite some time. To me his statement basically seems very uninformed. Or am I missing something crucial here?
- Drakim 13y ago
  Unity is a lot of things, but an "innovative experiment" is not one of them. Unity is more a collection of various ideas and concepts from other modern UIs.
aristidb 13y ago
If Ubuntu hadn't abandoned Gnome 2, I might never have switched to XMonad. So thank you, Ubuntu. I'm also a bit surprised that the author of the article finds Mir to be a good idea. If they think a new display server is needed, they should contribute to Wayland, IMHO. Or at least fork Wayland if there would be irreconcilable differences, but as far as I can tell that's not the actual problem, they just want to do their own thing, which for a display server seems like the worst idea. Display servers are pretty fundamental low-level building blocks of a system, and for that reason one of the few that has resisted fragmentation in the Linux world. (I don't think fragmentation is bad per se, I just think it's bad for display servers.)
- switch007 13y ago
  I have a Macbook Air and when it first arrived, I thought I'd give Mac OS X a try. One day I lasted! I missed dear XMonad so, so much. Made me appreciate it a whole lot more. I originally switched because I was so sick of using the mouse to arrange my windows all the god. damn. time.
  - scribu 13y ago
    I decided to give OS X an honest try after Ubuntu started crashing for no apparent reason. I wouldn't have lasted much either, if a friend hadn't pointed me to a neat little application called BetterTouchTool [1]. It lets you re-arrange windows using keyboard shortcuts. [1]: http://www.boastr.de/ http://www.boastr.de/
AndyKelley 13y ago
"Every time I came back to Unity I grew to like the interface more" This is telling. I empathize with the author. Here is what he is saying: I really, really want to like Unity. I'm giving it a huge benefit of the doubt, and yet I simply cannot stomach it. I am compelled to go elsewhere. It seems to be getting better but I still cannot use it. This entire blog post reads like someone trying desperately to convince themselves something of which they don't truly believe.
- binderbizingdos 13y ago
  same thing for me with GNOME 3, I really wanted to like it but I just can't :) I'm on Debian so Unity is far away for me...
- jdabgotra 13y ago
  I think we can separate the design and the performance when evaluating Unity. The design is something innovative and gets a lot of things right. It doesn't mean its the desktop environment of everyone's choice, but it can still be an effective one. Then, there is the performance, which has been getting better, and it may catch on. Second, sometimes I've been annoyed with Unity, but I do like using it most of the time, some comments have shown a similar reaction. A lot of times the reasons I don't like using Ubuntu can be for potentially temporary reasons, like bugs, or lack of polish and maturity. But the reasons I do like it aren't as temporary, they are a set of good decisions already made. And the other reasons I do like it is the software availability, the stability and speed under the environment, using it as a web server, my own history of knowing how to use it -- all more established pros for Ubuntu. So, I can use that, or Gnome, or the Fallback, or any other environment really but in the switching back and forth it was ultimately Unity that seemed most nice to be on. I will, however, try out Cinnamon again. And I like using other environments as well, but there are negatives to them all. The ol' Windows 95 panel with a user's open app buttons (small icons and window titles) are arranged by when the apps were launched by the user. But they should be pinned icons that don't vary their location -- and launchers shouldn't be separate icons from these buttons, its superfluous -- that's my intuition now, especially after using Windows 7 and Macs, and Unity. I have my issues with Docky and Cairo and AWN is dead. So Ubuntu I think gets a lot of things right, adapting to some usable alternatives to the old Windows 95 desktop I discovered 15 years ago. It has a good dock, good global search, more screen space. But I like other environments too, I'll give it a fuller exploration when I have the time. The good thing about Unity is, it not being too customizable right now, I don't waste time trying to customize my desktop like I would on KDE.
belgianguy 13y ago
As a long-time user, I must say they've come very far already. I'm one of those who always appreciated Unity and never got the whole hate thing. I really like the experience on my HP Elitebook 8740w. But I recently thought about installing Steam, for which I needed to use the proprietary graphics drivers to be able to play its more demanding games. I thought my entertainment to be just another 'apt-get install' away. I have never been so wrong. Canonical should start handing out medals to people who survived replacing their graphical drivers with those provided by AMD/ATI. It's a hellish experience, taking your heart and mind on a rollercoaster of emotions, only to see the tracks end right in front of you when the installer fails and then get catapulted into the dark void that is a system with a broken graphics driver. Digging about in the root shell was the only option left. Adding insult to injury, their uninstall scripts usually only work halfway, breaking any further installs because it never uninstalled fully. Which then pretty much leaves no other option then to start 'forcing' installs and hoping for the best. And lo and behold, after wrestling with some packages, purging everything that remotely looked like it knew fglrx, I had my desktop back. But what a chore it was. So I would really love it if those hardware manufacturers provide a better and less-volatile experience when Mir launches. Perhaps the oft-rumoured SteamBox could accelerate said process even further... Installing a graphics driver shouldn't be a fight between life and death for a system.

126 points by jdabgotra 13y ago

By all accounts, Unity continues to improve and actually innovate across releases, but the Canonical guys need to fix one simple thing - the out of the box appearance of Ubuntu is frankly hideous. They are doing some very interesting things w.r.t. human interaction, but the design is nearly an immediate turnoff to everybody I've shown it to. I'm well aware that it's infinitely customizable, but that's not a solution. When a large fraction of your userbase makes their very first action after installation to change the color scheme/theme of your OS, you should go back to the drawing board with your designers. The actual paradigm they present to the user is fantastic, but the color scheme is repugnant.

jiggy2011 13y ago
I have never understood why it has such enormous fonts out of the box. The default size of the launcher fills up about 1/4 of my laptop screen.
- dpratt 13y ago
  I'm with you - I'm running a VM of 13.04 full screen 1920x1200 on a dual monitor machine. The Ubuntu desktop can fit about 40% of the content that the host MacOS install can in the same space. It's frustrating - I shudder to think what it's like in lower resolutions.
- vacri 13y ago
  Ubuntu were the folks who made a printer test page in colour that made giant filled boxes of colour - apparently whoever created it has never purchased printer ink. It has (thankfully) regained some sanity.
icelancer 13y ago
In this regard, 10.04 was the pinnacle of the appearance of Ubuntu Desktop. Everything since has been a downgrade IMO and that tends to be the consensus on HN as well as other tech portals. Unity is a disaster, as is the forced Amazon search stuff (as you said, opt-out is not a solution).
- joeblau 13y ago
  I'm with you on this!

u2328 13y ago

I'm a big advocate for the Linux desktop, but at this point, as long as Canonical has Ubuntu ship off desktop search results to Amazon by default, I would even advocate for users to use other operating systems, even Mac OS X. It's no bastion of freedom respecting software, but at least doesn't ship off your desktop search results to a third party for profit. Ubuntu is no longer freedom respecting software.

jiggy2011 13y ago
The counterpoint of course is that with open source there can always be forked versions with egregious features removed. If OS X decided to record all of your search results you'd be SOL.
- kunai 13y ago
  Not really... pretty much every aspect of OS X is removable, it just isn't as straightforward as Ubuntu and may break portions of the system. You can remove Spotlight and Notification Center with ease, and I doubt it would be difficult to disable recording. Although I highly doubt Apple would risk the backlash by putting a malicious feature like that in without an option to turn it off.
  - oblique63 13y ago
    > Although I highly doubt Apple would risk the backlash by putting a malicious feature like that in without an option to turn it off. Really? Wasn't Apple the one tracking iphone users wherever they went? [1] I get the concern about Ubuntu sending data to amazon by default (i.e. can be disabled), I really do, but going out of the way to recommend something as proprietary as either Apple or Microsoft out of spite? This is what really bothers me about the OSS community. How about helping Mint/Fedora out and recommending them instead? I know some do, but even the OP here flaunted that an OSX recommendation seemed more viable than Ubuntu. As much as I would want not to be tracked, at least with Open Source SOFTWARE we can be more aware of it, or even have a say in it; not always so with proprietary stuff! So no, I do not believe either Windows or OSX are better than Ubuntu in this regard. Not to mention that Canonical isn't a big company, so if they need help bootstrapping by doing some stuff with amazon for now, then so be it. I would hold off judgement on their actions until they're actually in a position of real financial power, cause right now it just seems they had to resort to such ad placement deals because the generous donations weren't cutting it. It's really not clear whether it's actually that big of a deal right now. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-trac...

mcintyre1994 13y ago

Unity runs terribly on my laptop that runs Windows 7 perfectly fine. It's probably more important in a technical sense that I can just use a different desktop environment, and Cinnamon works brilliantly for me. In terms of a less technical audience though, that won't be an answer and performance woes really should be a priority.

spindritf 13y ago

I have always been a big fan of Unity. The only changes I don't like are the ones introduced under pressure from users. Namely, removing the "dodge" option for the launcher and disabling the scroll on it[1][2]. It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. I haven't really noticed HUD for quite a while but a few days ago I tried it frustrated with GIMP's cleverly hidden sub-menus and was blown away by how easy it is to jump straight to the desired function if you know (or can guess) the name. Invoking "Arbitrary Rotation..." doesn't even take a second. I was like a magician, I wasn't using the system, it was an extension of my being. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1173623 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1173623 [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1149092 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1149092

kunai 13y ago
I actually like the window switcher, but it would have been far, far better if Canonical had made it so that alt-scrolling on the appicons would have had that effect. Scrolling the launcher should have been standard.
wslh 13y ago
I quitted Ubuntu because the latest versions of Unity uses 3D acceleration that consumes a lot of battery in a VM. I didn't find a solution for it (except using it natively). I followed some solutions that didn't work or turned the windows manager very unstable. I really liked Unity.
- broodbucket 13y ago
  I believe Unity is getting a lighter rewrite for 14.04 (at the latest) so there's that. I don't think they should have canned Unity2D like they did.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    Running Ubuntu in a VM, I've been unable to update to 13.04 due to them dropping Unity2D. My VM doesn't have enough video memory to run Unity 3D, and that's not going to be changing anytime soon, so I'm stuck on an old version.

joe_the_user 13y ago

I used Unity for three months or more. While it had lots of cosmetic issues that I'm sure could be improved and will improve, what infuriated me was that it seemed to revolve around the assumption that I would only about five, well-known GUI apps. This might be a point of, uh, Unity for Newbies and programmers who "live in the shell" but it completely excludes me and I think it excludes some portion of Linux users.

spindritf 13y ago
> I would only about five, well-known GUI apps. Nah, you can have as many apps pinned to the launcher as you like. I have 18, and some of them probably have dozens rather than thousands of users. Plus, you can easily search for applications from the dashboard, though that's a bit laggy.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  I've never needed a launcher or menu since I installed gnome-do, years ago. It's instant and amazing.

stormbrew 13y ago

I used to use Xubuntu, got frustrated with the ways that it hasn't really kept up integration-wise, and tried to switch to straight Ubuntu with 13.04 and... couldn't stand it. I'm glad I found Mint after that. Cinnamon is by far the best experience I've had with the linux desktop yet.

smoyer 13y ago
I've also switched to Mint with xfce. My laptop got slow terribly slow somewhere between 11.04 and 12.04 and I just couldn't stand waiting for Unity anymore. The same laptop is blazing fast again.
vacri 13y ago
Cinnamon is in Ubuntu and has been at least since 12.10 - this is what I use at work. It's also in Debian unstable.
- stormbrew 13y ago
  I haven't tried just using the basic cinnamon packages from an installed Ubuntu system, but I have tried it from an installed Xubuntu system and it definitely doesn't work as well as a full Mint install. At any rate they're all ubuntus in the end, but the whole package of Mint+Cinnamon is what I was referring to.
  - vacri 13y ago
    In hindsight, I'm incorrect. There is a PPA for cinnamon in 12.10. I just upgraded to 13.04 today and ran into the PPA issue.
pwnna 13y ago
What are the problems with xubuntu, if i may ask?

6d0debc071 13y ago

> If we obey stubborn users set in their ways, user interfaces would never advance and evolve. But neither would they catch genetic defects - the mutation rate would just go to 0. To be an advocate for evolution, at least to be one that I'll listen to, you need to point me to strong selection pressures in favour of a desirable outcome. How does this improve information management, how does it improve workflow? That sort of thing. What are you using to vet? And I'm not seeing that with unity. Some hand waving about how it's 'largely ineffable' just isn't going to cut it. Let's be honest here: They stuck the launcher, which other OSes allow you to move anyway, on left hand side of the screen. I can get all my options on the same side of the screen just by dragging the launcher there. And yet... most people don't choose to keep their launcher on the side of the screen when given the option. Talking that up as some big advantage is just... yeah. Not buying it. It seems to me like forcing a way of using the computer on people that they've elected not to use and that there are the capabilities that it ought to have naturally arisen as the way they'd use it if it was superior. HUD's a nice idea, mind.

jdabgotra 13y ago
You are right that the "largely ineffable" feeling needs to be cashed out. But I use that phrase largely because the psychology of UI interactions and usability that would justify my like of Unity is a new, inexact, and developing science. So, I'm starting with the basic observation that after giving Unity a try, it grew on me, as it did with others, to the point where we actually prefer something new. Part of it is increased simplicity. Another part is more screen space. Another part is that the OS doesn't get in your way (like KDE does). Another part of it is that is the tendency to place things of importance in the upper left which is, in our Western culture, where we tend to start looking for things (like when reading a book). As far as evolution is concerned, my point is that I often notice, say, when Facebook changes their interface that users complain because they have to learn something new -- they are lazy, but if you force them into something, they may end up preferring it later. It is true that we shouldn't redesign things if they work well. But the way things are designed the first time may not be the best possible way. The new features in Unity might not be molded by some process like natural selection. But there is some argument to made that it is. Creating one platform for all devices and levels of users would have enormous advantages, and is a response triggered by changed in the computing environment -- mainly, the widespread use of touch phones and tablets. Aside from that, all I can say is that Ubuntu does do some user testing, and I hope they are listening to their users. They also have to take some chances and try out new things and see what users respond to. But I agree that their interface changes should respond to real needs, not imagined needs.

Siecje 13y ago

I don't like that you can't move the unity launcher to the bottom. Vertical space is not as import as horizontal space. I don't like how I have to click the small window that is not near the top and then go to the top to access the File menu etc. I don't like that unity doesn't have snap to the right and left side.

broodbucket 13y ago
- you can autohide the launcher so it only shows when your mouse hits the left side at an intensity of your choice - you can disable the global menu - Unity has aero snapping to the left and right, and can have it in every corner if you change Compiz settings
- MisterBastahrd 13y ago
  Canonical doesn't want me to use Ubuntu, because they won't allow me to put the launcher where I want, which has been a feature of umpteen different window managers for at least the last 10 years. I don't care that it can autohide. That feature has been around for well over a decade. I care that it isn't where I want it to be, and that they won't give me the option to put it where I want it.

mike-cardwell 13y ago

I started using Ubuntu because it was "Debian with a nice GUI". I started using Debian again when Ubuntu demonstrated that they don't care about privacy. I was pleasantly surprised to see how far a Debian Wheezy desktop has come. Out of the box, it seems as nice as Ubuntu nowadays.

SkyMarshal 13y ago
In case anyone considering the same, this might help: http://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1ek0u0/moving_from_ubuntu_to_debian_desktop_which_deb/ http://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1ek0u0/moving_from_u...
kragen 13y ago
I did the same thing, but I'm using xfce, default configuration, since both GNOME and KDE have decided to break Alt-Tab. (Alt-tab is really the only fucking thing I want from my fucking window manager. Well, and Alt-F4.) My only gripe about xfce is that I have to open a file-browser window to get it to mount USB pendrives.
- femngi 13y ago
  They fixed Alt-Tab when I had never before realised it was broken. The new paradigm just makes so much more sense: Alt-Tab switches between applications and Alt-` switches between individual windows of that application. When I have to use a desktop without this functionality I am now painfully aware of how cumbersome and slow the old behaviour was when I have plenty of windows open.
  - Argorak 13y ago
    Hate to say that, but thats exactly the way OS X works for ages.
    - kilburn 13y ago
      Yes it is, more or less. This functionality is badly broken (by default) for international users. As the poster above you said, the ` key changes place in different keyboard layouts. I'm using a ISO/Spanish layout and the day I discovered that Cmd+` hotkey I just couldn't figure out why the hell that key would be mapped to "switch between windows of the same app". After googling for a while, I found out what the ANSI/US keyboard layout is, and only then the hotkey made sense. Just for reference the backtick key is right next to the "P" letter in the ISO/ES layout. Now the first thing I do when sitting in front of an OSX computer is to remap that hotkey to Cmd+º, which is the same physical key in ISO/ES than ` in ANSI/US. I seriously doubt that most international OSX users know about this hotkey though. I have a few (non-techie) friends using OSX now, and none of them knew about it...

incompatible 13y ago

I notice a tendency with new interfaces that you need to know "secrets" in order to use them effectively. Things that aren't visible in the user interface. E.g., in unity, to open two instances of an application, you need to shift-click the launcher. It seems to me that the more minimalistic the interface tries to become, the more you need to know to be able to use it. It also seems to take more effort to get what you want. It's easier to pick a program from a menu that to open a search panel, type the name, if you remember it, and find it in the search results. I use xfce on Ubuntu. The particular dislikes I have for Unity include the shifting of window toolbars so that the buttons are nowhere near the window that they relate to, and the launcher that doesn't function well as either a launcher (it doesn't have every program I may want to use) nor a way to quickly switch between open windows (without combining mouse clicks with keyboard modifiers).

khyryk 13y ago
You can middle-click to open additional instances of applications. I think it takes longer to find something when one has completely forgotten its name and description, but this isn't a problem 99% of the time, at least for me. Ubuntu makes much more sense when I'm using my laptop without a mouse available, primarily due to the super+# application switching, whereas I am usually more efficient with Xfce when there's a mouse around; I have both installed.
sixothree 13y ago
The thing that bugs me the most about the moved toolbar buttons is that they didn't feel the need to move the scrollbars but were able to come up with a solution that works and preserves our understanding of the interface.
csense 13y ago
> you need to know "secrets" in order to use [the interface] effectively I remember finding out, years after I bought the original Master of Orion, that you could use the F8 key to see which planets have incoming enemy fleets. It totally changed the game for me, and also made me decide that UI's suck if the "secrets" aren't discoverable by just moving around the UI and looking at tooltips and the like.

staunch 13y ago

Ubuntu 13.04 is quite good. A bit buggy, but quite good. What I really want from Ubuntu is to be able to run it on my phone. I want Linux, real Linux, on my pocket computer.

StavrosK 13y ago
You mean like this: http://www.ubuntu.com/phone http://www.ubuntu.com/phone or like this? http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android
- staunch 13y ago
  I'm aware they're working on it, but last I looked there's nothing usable yet.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    There is for the former, not sure about the latter.
deafbybeheading 13y ago
I'll take talking to my phone as a first step. Getting simple file transfers to my SIII has been a pain, not to mention anything more sophisticated...
- kukkukb 13y ago
  Get AirDroid for your Android device. You'll never look back.
  - mikevm 13y ago
    Thanks for that!
- andor 13y ago
  SSHDroid is pretty neat if you use Linux on the desktop.

zenocon 13y ago

that font....

courier 13y ago
What? You don't like monospaced text?

ausjke 13y ago

I use ubuntu 12.04 for server, I don't get it why desktop is that important anymore, 90% of my time is with browser and vi these days, the rest is with vlc and a little open office, that's about it.

pcx66 13y ago

I love Ubuntu. Been a fan from, lets see, 5.04. It's been a long sweet experience. But lately I've got many areas which I vehemently disagree with them. I guess the most important issue with Ubuntu nowadays is the one of privacy. With the recent revelations of mass surveillance, exposing desktop searches to a 3rd party by default is a catastrophic decision. I can't understand how the folks at Canonical could accept such a feature. They could have made it opt-in, with flashing popups and shit, asking you to signup. But making it default is a nightmarish situation. I was able to recommend non-technical users (like my parents and relatives) to install Ubuntu by themselves, arguing there was nothing to change that would need someone with know-how. But not now with stuff like this. I don't think the major chunk of the user-base (home users), would understand the implications of this feature.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

alexanderh 13y ago

For me its all about the performance issues. To design responsive web applications, you need to see the (browser) windows content on re-size. This is not default in Ubuntu/Unity, you cannot see a windows contents when you are resizing. You can enable it, but its slow and not very useful. The content in a window needs to re-flow fluidly and quickly, especially the browser. Its as simple as that for me. Until Ubuntu has hardware accelerated window re-sizing, i simply cannot use it as a development platform. Responsive Webdesign isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and responsive apps/websites are a chore to effectively debug on Ubuntu compared to other OS's

leephillips 13y ago
I see responsive websites reflowing quickly when I change the browser window size using Ubuntu. I don't see the problem.
- alexanderh 13y ago
  What version of Ubuntu? Last time I tried was 12.04, and even with a proprietary binary graphics driver properly installed, it was very slow and un-usable. If this is something they've fixed in more recent version, color me excited to try Ubuntu again. But I've definitely seen others w/ this same issue: http://askubuntu.com/questions/297146/live-window-resizing-is-very-slow-ubuntu-12-10 http://askubuntu.com/questions/297146/live-window-resizing-i...
  - leephillips 13y ago
    I'm running 12.04.1 at the moment. On a Thinkpad t60, which came out in 2006 or so. The screen redraws as fast as I can move it. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I don't use Unity or any other desktop environment.
lttlrck 13y ago
Use the responsive view tools in Firefox and Chrome.

reedlaw 13y ago

I liked Ubuntu and Unity until I found this release to be so unstable on a Thinkpad T410 that I was forced to look for something else. First I tried Xubuntu but I quickly began to miss many of the niceties of a more featureful desktop environment. Feeling a general dissatisfaction with Ubuntu I decided to try Arch Linux. It was quite a task to configure a base system with video drivers, networking and other hardware working at a similar level that you would get out of the box with Ubuntu. But in the end I'm extremely pleased. I went with the Gnome 3 desktop because it handled a lot of things for me such as drive mounting and managing the network. I actually prefer Gnome 3 to Unity. It's more visually pleasing and minimal. The only thing I miss is the HUD for accessing deeply-nested menu items. The best thing about Arch Linux is that most packages are the absolute latest stable versions. You don't have to wait 6 months for an update to the official package. And if there's no official package, the AUR system for building packages from source is better than Ubuntu's PPA which requires you to trust binaries compiled by 3rd parties.

milhous 13y ago
Just picked up a refurbed T410 with integrated graphics and installed 12.04 LTS. So far so good, but I'd like to drop an SSD in here, so maybe the distro will change again. But I figured that LTS would be a good place to start. 13.04 did seem a tad buggy. I'd like to try FreeBSD, but am impatient at the moment, and not sure how good wifi control and hardware support is. Would love to know if anyone's running it on their notebooks. Going to try Gnome 3 now.
cylinder714 13y ago
Please check out Manjaro Linux. It's like an Ubuntu based on Arch instead of Debian.

D9u 13y ago

Sadly, this article is stuck on GNOME vs Unity, when the base system runs so much better without all that extraneous UI stuff. I'd rather start off with a minimal install, and build it up as I want, rather than tearing apart someone else's mess, in the quest for my preferred balance of frugality and productivity.

donniezazen 13y ago

I have tried and failed. The simple bottom bar, app menu on one side and system tray on the other side is an unbeatable desktop paradigm. I don't think desktop, specially with large screens, should be forced to use full screen and one app at a time. Ubuntu has done commendable work on 13.04. Power consumption and overall experience is phenomenal. But is hard to get excited about Ubuntu anymore. I was reading a bug report on Transmission torrent client bug tracker where they were discussing if they should support Ubuntu's appindicator or Gnome's message tray or just simple system tray. This divide is only going to increase putting both developers and users in an impossible position. When we free-software-guys don't give Android a hard time, there is no reason to create noise around Ubuntu.

dubcanada 13y ago

I just cannot stand Unity, I understand the whole tablet experience thing, but I'm not using it on a tablet. The first thing I did with Ubuntu 12 was remove Unity and install http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ for people coming from a Windows platform, it's like a nicer start menu.

ensmotko 13y ago

I just tried the latest daily build. For some reason Unity dash stops working smoothly once I change the resolution from 1024x768 to 1680x1050. Might be because of my dated graphics card (ati firegl).

mariuolo 13y ago

They can keep it.

jaequery 13y ago

just switch over to macs

josteink 13y ago

While this piece seems to be reasonably balanced, well informed and above all honest about the Ubuntu-experience, this one sentence about launcher-support for web-apps stood out as plain wrong: > These are not only innovative but great ideas that are being offered from the world of Linux, not by Microsoft or Apple, in a new way never seen before the Unity experiment. The ability to pin web-applications to the launcher was really introduced in Windows 7, with ability for the web-site to add custom-actions or shortcuts to the icon, accessible through a right-click context-menu. Chrome allows you to create application launchers without all the browser Chrome, which to the OS looks like normal apps. Afaik this was even based on some third-party app which did the same thing (although with Webkit and Safari) on OS X. We've also had this ability to add shortcuts to web-apps as "normal" apps on our mobile devices for quite some time. To me his statement basically seems very uninformed. Or am I missing something crucial here?

Drakim 13y ago
Unity is a lot of things, but an "innovative experiment" is not one of them. Unity is more a collection of various ideas and concepts from other modern UIs.

aristidb 13y ago

If Ubuntu hadn't abandoned Gnome 2, I might never have switched to XMonad. So thank you, Ubuntu. I'm also a bit surprised that the author of the article finds Mir to be a good idea. If they think a new display server is needed, they should contribute to Wayland, IMHO. Or at least fork Wayland if there would be irreconcilable differences, but as far as I can tell that's not the actual problem, they just want to do their own thing, which for a display server seems like the worst idea. Display servers are pretty fundamental low-level building blocks of a system, and for that reason one of the few that has resisted fragmentation in the Linux world. (I don't think fragmentation is bad per se, I just think it's bad for display servers.)

switch007 13y ago
I have a Macbook Air and when it first arrived, I thought I'd give Mac OS X a try. One day I lasted! I missed dear XMonad so, so much. Made me appreciate it a whole lot more. I originally switched because I was so sick of using the mouse to arrange my windows all the god. damn. time.
- scribu 13y ago
  I decided to give OS X an honest try after Ubuntu started crashing for no apparent reason. I wouldn't have lasted much either, if a friend hadn't pointed me to a neat little application called BetterTouchTool [1]. It lets you re-arrange windows using keyboard shortcuts. [1]: http://www.boastr.de/ http://www.boastr.de/

AndyKelley 13y ago

"Every time I came back to Unity I grew to like the interface more" This is telling. I empathize with the author. Here is what he is saying: I really, really want to like Unity. I'm giving it a huge benefit of the doubt, and yet I simply cannot stomach it. I am compelled to go elsewhere. It seems to be getting better but I still cannot use it. This entire blog post reads like someone trying desperately to convince themselves something of which they don't truly believe.

binderbizingdos 13y ago
same thing for me with GNOME 3, I really wanted to like it but I just can't :) I'm on Debian so Unity is far away for me...
jdabgotra 13y ago
I think we can separate the design and the performance when evaluating Unity. The design is something innovative and gets a lot of things right. It doesn't mean its the desktop environment of everyone's choice, but it can still be an effective one. Then, there is the performance, which has been getting better, and it may catch on. Second, sometimes I've been annoyed with Unity, but I do like using it most of the time, some comments have shown a similar reaction. A lot of times the reasons I don't like using Ubuntu can be for potentially temporary reasons, like bugs, or lack of polish and maturity. But the reasons I do like it aren't as temporary, they are a set of good decisions already made. And the other reasons I do like it is the software availability, the stability and speed under the environment, using it as a web server, my own history of knowing how to use it -- all more established pros for Ubuntu. So, I can use that, or Gnome, or the Fallback, or any other environment really but in the switching back and forth it was ultimately Unity that seemed most nice to be on. I will, however, try out Cinnamon again. And I like using other environments as well, but there are negatives to them all. The ol' Windows 95 panel with a user's open app buttons (small icons and window titles) are arranged by when the apps were launched by the user. But they should be pinned icons that don't vary their location -- and launchers shouldn't be separate icons from these buttons, its superfluous -- that's my intuition now, especially after using Windows 7 and Macs, and Unity. I have my issues with Docky and Cairo and AWN is dead. So Ubuntu I think gets a lot of things right, adapting to some usable alternatives to the old Windows 95 desktop I discovered 15 years ago. It has a good dock, good global search, more screen space. But I like other environments too, I'll give it a fuller exploration when I have the time. The good thing about Unity is, it not being too customizable right now, I don't waste time trying to customize my desktop like I would on KDE.

belgianguy 13y ago

As a long-time user, I must say they've come very far already. I'm one of those who always appreciated Unity and never got the whole hate thing. I really like the experience on my HP Elitebook 8740w. But I recently thought about installing Steam, for which I needed to use the proprietary graphics drivers to be able to play its more demanding games. I thought my entertainment to be just another 'apt-get install' away. I have never been so wrong. Canonical should start handing out medals to people who survived replacing their graphical drivers with those provided by AMD/ATI. It's a hellish experience, taking your heart and mind on a rollercoaster of emotions, only to see the tracks end right in front of you when the installer fails and then get catapulted into the dark void that is a system with a broken graphics driver. Digging about in the root shell was the only option left. Adding insult to injury, their uninstall scripts usually only work halfway, breaking any further installs because it never uninstalled fully. Which then pretty much leaves no other option then to start 'forcing' installs and hoping for the best. And lo and behold, after wrestling with some packages, purging everything that remotely looked like it knew fglrx, I had my desktop back. But what a chore it was. So I would really love it if those hardware manufacturers provide a better and less-volatile experience when Mir launches. Perhaps the oft-rumoured SteamBox could accelerate said process even further... Installing a graphics driver shouldn't be a fight between life and death for a system.