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I gave up on Ubuntu when I could no longer have faith that my environment would be recognisable from one release to the next. For me, and my mother, that's a ve

by ghswa 13y ago

I gave up on Ubuntu when I could no longer have faith that my environment would be recognisable from one release to the next. For me, and my mother, that's a very important part of "just works".

pavanky 13y ago
Some would say that is the meaning of being stagnant. If you want something that "just works" in that the environment is recognisable, use something like Redhat. You caught Ubuntu (or Fedora or other distributions that moved to GNOME 3) were on GNOME 2 greater part of the last decade. A breaking UI change had to be done at some point, and it happened to be 2 years ago. Even on macs, there was a huge overhaul going from OS9 to OSX in 2001. You can make a point saying that you don't like the new UI. That will be a much more sound argument than saying the environment is changing from one release to the next.
YokoZar 13y ago
If you want something stable that doesn't change much from one release to the next, you could just not upgrade. Ubuntu LTS releases are supported for 5 years, and that support includes backporting hardware-enablement work.
- ghswa 13y ago
  Sticking to LTS releases was actually the worst way to do this as it meant catching 10.04 which was effectively a "one off" UI, resulting in two changes to the UI rather than one big overhaul. My mother started off on 8.04 LTS. When upgrading to 10.04 LTS the window buttons changed sides and there was a new theme (this is enough to throw many users). When upgrading to 12.04 LTS there was a change from Gnome to Unity. My mother now chooses to use a Mac because she was fed up with her computer "changing" each time I updated it. I doubt I could convince her to try any Linux distribution again - there are no perceivable benefits for her.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    You can always install a different windows manager and stay with a Gnome-like interface (Cinnamon). I don't see what is the big issue with that. There are tons of options on Linux, that's the whole point of the system, it gives you choice.
  - wiredfool 13y ago
    I feel like 10.04 was a real high point -- I was running it the desktop for a long while, and the netbook edition was great on smaller screens. The netbook shell was a one off, it only was 10.04, and I think it's nearly impossible to install now. Unity was a descendent of it, but (IMHO) going the wrong way.
  - gohrt 13y ago
    OS X changes every ~18 months also...
jaibot 13y ago
Switching to Linux Mint fixed this for me.
derleth 13y ago
I use Window Maker. I've been using it pretty much exclusively since 8.x or so, and I used it before I used Ubuntu, going back to before Ubuntu even existed. It hasn't changed, and it doesn't look like it's ever going to. Your criticism sounds very strange to me. Edited to add: Not that I think Window Maker is necessarily the solution. I'm just pointing out that the default Ubuntu repos contain a huge number of window managers and even a few desktop environments which haven't changed that much between releases.
lmm 13y ago
That's why I'm such a huge fan of freebsd. It means a bit of editing config files, but once you've got it working it stays working.

by ghswa 13y ago

I gave up on Ubuntu when I could no longer have faith that my environment would be recognisable from one release to the next. For me, and my mother, that's a very important part of "just works".

pavanky 13y ago

Some would say that is the meaning of being stagnant. If you want something that "just works" in that the environment is recognisable, use something like Redhat. You caught Ubuntu (or Fedora or other distributions that moved to GNOME 3) were on GNOME 2 greater part of the last decade. A breaking UI change had to be done at some point, and it happened to be 2 years ago. Even on macs, there was a huge overhaul going from OS9 to OSX in 2001. You can make a point saying that you don't like the new UI. That will be a much more sound argument than saying the environment is changing from one release to the next.

YokoZar 13y ago

If you want something stable that doesn't change much from one release to the next, you could just not upgrade. Ubuntu LTS releases are supported for 5 years, and that support includes backporting hardware-enablement work.

ghswa 13y ago
Sticking to LTS releases was actually the worst way to do this as it meant catching 10.04 which was effectively a "one off" UI, resulting in two changes to the UI rather than one big overhaul. My mother started off on 8.04 LTS. When upgrading to 10.04 LTS the window buttons changed sides and there was a new theme (this is enough to throw many users). When upgrading to 12.04 LTS there was a change from Gnome to Unity. My mother now chooses to use a Mac because she was fed up with her computer "changing" each time I updated it. I doubt I could convince her to try any Linux distribution again - there are no perceivable benefits for her.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  You can always install a different windows manager and stay with a Gnome-like interface (Cinnamon). I don't see what is the big issue with that. There are tons of options on Linux, that's the whole point of the system, it gives you choice.
- wiredfool 13y ago
  I feel like 10.04 was a real high point -- I was running it the desktop for a long while, and the netbook edition was great on smaller screens. The netbook shell was a one off, it only was 10.04, and I think it's nearly impossible to install now. Unity was a descendent of it, but (IMHO) going the wrong way.
- gohrt 13y ago
  OS X changes every ~18 months also...

jaibot 13y ago

Switching to Linux Mint fixed this for me.

derleth 13y ago

I use Window Maker. I've been using it pretty much exclusively since 8.x or so, and I used it before I used Ubuntu, going back to before Ubuntu even existed. It hasn't changed, and it doesn't look like it's ever going to. Your criticism sounds very strange to me. Edited to add: Not that I think Window Maker is necessarily the solution. I'm just pointing out that the default Ubuntu repos contain a huge number of window managers and even a few desktop environments which haven't changed that much between releases.

lmm 13y ago

That's why I'm such a huge fan of freebsd. It means a bit of editing config files, but once you've got it working it stays working.