5 ms·

Mir isn't really rolled out enough to settle the score on that one. Totally agreed on Unity though - it is a breath of fresh air compared to most alternatives

by yxhuvud 13y ago

Mir isn't really rolled out enough to settle the score on that one. Totally agreed on Unity though - it is a breath of fresh air compared to most alternatives on linux.

rpdillon 13y ago
Unity was rolled out too early, and in a hardly stable state. It sacrifices desktop usability for consistency across devices: desktop, tablet and phone. I disagree that desktop computing design should be constrained by the limitations of touch-based devices. So, rather than a breath of fresh air, I see it as a disruptive change in UX, intended to win in the long term, but at the expense of short-term usability. Ditto for the move to Mir. But I don't resent Canonical for this -- I use Linux because I can choose the experience (KDE 4 at the moment). I just hope the short-term sacrifices in terms of usability and fragmentation don't harm adoption too much.
- Arnor 13y ago
  I was on that same wave length for a long time. But I gave it a year then rounded up the usual suspects (xfce, gnome, kde) and was surprised to see how much I missed unity.
- mekoka 13y ago
  It sacrifices desktop usability for consistency across devices I don't know what kind of usability impediment you're talking about? To be honest, I'm kinda tired of hearing this, because it seems to come from people who never really used Unity. I have extensively used KDE (v 2), Gnome (v 2), xfce4, Unity and now i3. I tried Unity simply because I was puzzled by the conflicting arguments. Power users complaining so much, while newbies were raving. I thought I would test drive it for a month just to see, I ended up using it for a year. Unity isn't perfect (no graphic environment is), but it does have its highlights. Most of the essential functions are documented in the cheatsheet that appears when someone keeps the WinKey pressed. In my opinion, most power users who complain never took the 2 minutes required to understand how that desktop works and presumed that all they had to do was to plug in their mouse and click away. If they'd taken the time, there would be less complaints, since Unity is rather keyboard centric. Newbies on the other hand thought "let's learn Linux", read the manual, and came out ecstatic.
  - mcintyre1994 13y ago
    Just an anecdote of course, but on my not very beefy laptop Unity is the only environment I've tried that runs slower than Windows. Using it it seemed great and I'd like to use it, but unusably slow for me.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    I don't know what kind of usability impediment you're talking about? Not being able to use the programs installed on my computer? That seems like a pretty big usability impediment to me. I have a Unity and non-Unity laptop. The problem that Unity allows less than ten apps on the side. It's true that I can search for the things - but that requires me to know the name of the many oddly named Linux apps out there. And yes, I've spent more than minutes, in fact I've spent days using and attempting to customize the thing. The screen mechanics are ghastly also imho but I could learn them if, like, the GUI let me actually run my installed application. Sure it works as a kiosk or those who just start a shell and leave. But if you're really using seriously, why pontificate about it.
    - mekoka 13y ago
      It's true that I can search for the things That is the primary method of using it, it's not the alternative. The problem that Unity allows less than ten apps on the side For one you don't need to know the name of the program, you just need to know a few keywords about what it does. e.g. type in "brow..." in the dash and see it proposing Firefox and other browsers you may have installed. In case you still have no idea what your program does, nor what its name is, you can still navigate to find your programs the old fashion way, using the dash and filters. I would assume that after using a program once or twice a user can either drag its icon to the side or simply remember its name. And if they do neither of those, the dash keeps a history of most frequently accessed programs. While using Unity I had 3 icons on the launcher and I _never_ even used them, and I run many apps at once. Not being able to use the programs installed on my computer? This is the first I've heard of Unity conflicting with a program and that might be a bug in one or the other. But if you're really using seriously, why pontificate about it. Since many are pontificating against it, I think people deserve to be exposed to counter arguments. A lot of people have taken upon themselves to decide that Unity is this and that, without even using it properly. They spread fud as truth, instead of disclaiming it as their own opinion. And frankly when you see the arguments, it is obvious that they haven't used the thing for more than a few minutes. It just strikes me as odd that people would keep doing this when there is ample evidence that the GUI is positively received by most people who give it a chance. If you don't believe me, ask System76 or Zareason, after all their business is directly tied to having people satisfied after they buy a linux box.
- rpdillon 13y ago
  Since folks don't seem to know what I was referring to, I wrote up my experiences with Unity. The tl;dr is in the paragraph second to last ('But Why?'), for folks that don't want the nitty-gritty. http://killring.org/2014/02/17/unity-shortcomings/ http://killring.org/2014/02/17/unity-shortcomings/
keithpeter 13y ago
I rather liked Unity but bug #739184 means I can't use it. Hopefully, someone sorts that out by the LTS 14.04 release.

by yxhuvud 13y ago

Mir isn't really rolled out enough to settle the score on that one. Totally agreed on Unity though - it is a breath of fresh air compared to most alternatives on linux.

rpdillon 13y ago

Unity was rolled out too early, and in a hardly stable state. It sacrifices desktop usability for consistency across devices: desktop, tablet and phone. I disagree that desktop computing design should be constrained by the limitations of touch-based devices. So, rather than a breath of fresh air, I see it as a disruptive change in UX, intended to win in the long term, but at the expense of short-term usability. Ditto for the move to Mir. But I don't resent Canonical for this -- I use Linux because I can choose the experience (KDE 4 at the moment). I just hope the short-term sacrifices in terms of usability and fragmentation don't harm adoption too much.

Arnor 13y ago
I was on that same wave length for a long time. But I gave it a year then rounded up the usual suspects (xfce, gnome, kde) and was surprised to see how much I missed unity.
mekoka 13y ago
It sacrifices desktop usability for consistency across devices I don't know what kind of usability impediment you're talking about? To be honest, I'm kinda tired of hearing this, because it seems to come from people who never really used Unity. I have extensively used KDE (v 2), Gnome (v 2), xfce4, Unity and now i3. I tried Unity simply because I was puzzled by the conflicting arguments. Power users complaining so much, while newbies were raving. I thought I would test drive it for a month just to see, I ended up using it for a year. Unity isn't perfect (no graphic environment is), but it does have its highlights. Most of the essential functions are documented in the cheatsheet that appears when someone keeps the WinKey pressed. In my opinion, most power users who complain never took the 2 minutes required to understand how that desktop works and presumed that all they had to do was to plug in their mouse and click away. If they'd taken the time, there would be less complaints, since Unity is rather keyboard centric. Newbies on the other hand thought "let's learn Linux", read the manual, and came out ecstatic.
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  Just an anecdote of course, but on my not very beefy laptop Unity is the only environment I've tried that runs slower than Windows. Using it it seemed great and I'd like to use it, but unusably slow for me.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I don't know what kind of usability impediment you're talking about? Not being able to use the programs installed on my computer? That seems like a pretty big usability impediment to me. I have a Unity and non-Unity laptop. The problem that Unity allows less than ten apps on the side. It's true that I can search for the things - but that requires me to know the name of the many oddly named Linux apps out there. And yes, I've spent more than minutes, in fact I've spent days using and attempting to customize the thing. The screen mechanics are ghastly also imho but I could learn them if, like, the GUI let me actually run my installed application. Sure it works as a kiosk or those who just start a shell and leave. But if you're really using seriously, why pontificate about it.
  - mekoka 13y ago
    It's true that I can search for the things That is the primary method of using it, it's not the alternative. The problem that Unity allows less than ten apps on the side For one you don't need to know the name of the program, you just need to know a few keywords about what it does. e.g. type in "brow..." in the dash and see it proposing Firefox and other browsers you may have installed. In case you still have no idea what your program does, nor what its name is, you can still navigate to find your programs the old fashion way, using the dash and filters. I would assume that after using a program once or twice a user can either drag its icon to the side or simply remember its name. And if they do neither of those, the dash keeps a history of most frequently accessed programs. While using Unity I had 3 icons on the launcher and I _never_ even used them, and I run many apps at once. Not being able to use the programs installed on my computer? This is the first I've heard of Unity conflicting with a program and that might be a bug in one or the other. But if you're really using seriously, why pontificate about it. Since many are pontificating against it, I think people deserve to be exposed to counter arguments. A lot of people have taken upon themselves to decide that Unity is this and that, without even using it properly. They spread fud as truth, instead of disclaiming it as their own opinion. And frankly when you see the arguments, it is obvious that they haven't used the thing for more than a few minutes. It just strikes me as odd that people would keep doing this when there is ample evidence that the GUI is positively received by most people who give it a chance. If you don't believe me, ask System76 or Zareason, after all their business is directly tied to having people satisfied after they buy a linux box.
rpdillon 13y ago
Since folks don't seem to know what I was referring to, I wrote up my experiences with Unity. The tl;dr is in the paragraph second to last ('But Why?'), for folks that don't want the nitty-gritty. http://killring.org/2014/02/17/unity-shortcomings/ http://killring.org/2014/02/17/unity-shortcomings/

keithpeter 13y ago

I rather liked Unity but bug #739184 means I can't use it. Hopefully, someone sorts that out by the LTS 14.04 release.