Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu Moves Away From GNOME
An anonymous reader writes "It's official: Ubuntu has, with its ironically named 'Unity' interface, chosen to move away from GNOME for Ubuntu Natty Narwhal. Or at least move away from GNOME Shell. Mark Shuttleworth says that Ubuntu will still be 'GNOME,' even if it's not using GNOME Shell. Do you agree?"
From TFA:
"GNOME Shell is the interface being developed for GNOME 3.0, which was delayed to spring 2011."
What the hell does a sea unicorn have to do with $5.00/case frat boy beer?
I know some people say you can't configure Unity (running it on a netbook) the one thing it really needs is the ability to auto-hide as I've now got this big column of desktop real estate on the left of the screen I can't do anything with anymore.
NB: To those complaining about lack of configurability - try dragging icons around or right clicking them - you can modify it...
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
...that the summary is +1 flamebait, apparently just a thinly-veiled attack on their decision. How about a summary that describes what they're doing (without using the word ironic), and why?
Mark Shuttleworth says that Ubuntu will still be "GNOME," even if it's not using GNOME Shell.
I've got a mole in the Ubuntu organisation. The word is that mr. Shuttleworth has been in secret talks with Darth^WSteve Ballmer to negotiate the rights for Vista's Aero interface. It was available for pennies due to the number of unsold Vista licenses. The next version of Ubuntu will sport the familiar Aero interface, with features such as the nifty and user-friendly Deny/Allow-widget, grafted straight onto the Linux Kernel.
Open source community, what more do you want?
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Thanks to desktop standards, people have been doing this for years... makes sense that a major distro is following suit.
My desktop pretty much only uses gdm and gnome-terminal from GNOME, and occasionally nautilus (though I turn off the desktop handling).
Using Enlightenment DR16 or occasionally compiz as the window manager, and awn ("Avant Window Navigator") as the panel, with compatible taskbar and notification area.
Bye bye Ubuntu. You made me switch with Maverick Meerkat, but seeing as that's not an LTS as of Natty Narwhal I'll be going back to good ol' Debian.
The times when i used not-the-standard-configuration-of-whatever distribution i installed to save memory are gone with my last laptop below 512MB of Ram. If Canonical thinks its easier to maintain it in a different way, fine with me. If it does'nt work i can tune, switch, get into the details and fix it. Until that point i would be happy not to figure out about changes......
If they do weird things, i am happy to use debian again.
Gnome Shell - YES, I have tried this in Beta - is a real drag.
KDE4 was a cock-up. It's taken, what? 2 years to get back to everyday, usable? Gnome is great. The Gnome Shell will only take 1 year to do the same.
I don't know about Unity. But Gnome shell is a productivity / usability killer.
Example: Gnome Application Menu in the current Panel. Sure, it doesn't scale when you have 30 audio applications and as many "Internet" apps. But Gnome Shell? Only a handful available - in a non scrolling, apparently unconfigurable "top-ten" or so. None of which I chose to be displayed. Hey? Where'd WebHTTRack go?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Semantic questions, and questions of categorization, can be interesting and(when all goes well) can even clarify your thinking about a topic; but are otherwise rather pointless.
On the one hand, it is trivially obvious that if you aren't running the GNOME desktop environment, you aren't runnning GNOME. On the other hand, if you are running a set of programs, and depending on a set of libraries, essentially identical to that of a GNOME desktop, just window managed by something else, it is much more meaningful to say that you are "running GNOME" or "running a GNOME derivative" than it is to say much else.
Unless you want to actually come up with some set-based definition of what "Running GNOME" means, you won't really be able to conclusively answer the question one way or the other.
So the news is that they're moving away from something that doesn't exist yet?
Maybe they just want to wait for it to exist and test it and shake the bugs out before they decide to use it ?
I can't freakin' STAND KDE. I never really understood the appeal of it...just seemed like a convuluted mess to me.
Living With a Nerd
Consistency.
When you product changes all the time, people are going to have to deal with these changes. When I "upgraded" versions of Ubuntu, I had to deal with a completely different looking interface. WHY? Change for the sake of change seems to be a big driving force in this project. Honestly, the UI that I am using now is no different than it was in 2004. I could have made something in 2004 look exactly like what Ubuntu looks like today. So there really isn't even an excuse that things are being changed to add features. We get a "new look" every rev because some dev thinks that it looks cool. It gets really old when your task bar is moved to the other side of the screen, your menus are all reorganized, and the terminal session shortcut that used to be on a particular convenient context menu is now gone.
Up until recently (Vista/Ribbon interface) and arguably even now, Microsoft has been able to provide more consistency than a lot of these Linux distros.
Are we going to see a Gubuntu now?
There is going to be some questions about this decision in relation to GNOME. I want to make something crystal clear: Ubuntu is GNOME distribution, we ship the GNOME stack, we will continue to ship GNOME apps, and we optimize Ubuntu for GNOME. The only difference is that Unity is a different shell for GNOME, but we continue to support the latest GNOME Shell development work in the Ubuntu archives.
Jono Bacon from http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-unity/
FTA: "Earlier this year, Canonical representatives had to deny that they were forking GNOME..."
This apparently is a common refrain when asked, no one will EVER admit to it.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I like the idea of Unity somewhat, but it really isn't much more than an omni-present dock, some shiny effects, and icons. GNOME Shell uses less horizontal space and equal vertical space, scales well for netbooks as well as desktops, has much better notification organization than Unity, is supported upstream much more, it has extensions which allow great control over the system (including this very nice and extremely lightweight dock extension), an Application Menu which lets you quit all windows of an application (and in the future, let you access options that apply to the application as a whole), and so much more! Unity, on the other hand, confuses me. The user interface prefers icons instead of words for telling us what things do, it wastes horizontal space by having that dock, it doesn't have nearly as good workspace management as GNOME Shell, it's slow-ish at the moment, and so on.
GNOME Shell has been steadily improving. You can check the git server right here, which I do every day. And just so you know, the overlay re-design is being worked on and is in a separate branch, which you can find here: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/log/?h=overview-relayout.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Ubuntu had a great deal of promise. But they have failed to deliver. It's been years, and they still cause hard drives to crash, they still fail to support hardware, and they still have shitty updates that break things. I'm done with Ubuntu and it makes me sad, because I can't go back to Windows now. My next computer is going to be an Apple and I don't give a damn about the apple tax, because apparently it is the only way to get a real unix desktop with well-supported software and hardware, that works. Shame on you Ubuntu.
from TFA:
"Unity is 'a shell for GNOME, even if it isn't GNOME shell'"
Riiiiiiiiighhhhttttt... Why do people say things like that? It may be true, but it's like people in the community purposely try to make desktop Linux as confusing and unapproachable as possible.
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Gnome has held GNU/Linux back for nearly 10 years now.
Started 1997, first release 1999, more like 11 to 13 years rather than nearly 10 years.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
So Unity is a shell developed by Gnome, but it is not the true Gnome shell? What is the point of this? Why not just stick with what has made Ubuntu the most popular distribution of Linux. This to me is one of the flaws of Linux, nobody can make up their mind. Once a distro decides to use a certain shell stick with it. New users don't want to have to learn multiple shells. This way when a user picks a certain distro they know what they are getting in the form of a shell. How many Ubuntu users who are not computer geeks, but enjoy open source are going to pissed off once Unity is rolled out and their desktop looks completely different one day?
From TFA:
"GNOME Shell is the interface being developed for GNOME 3.0, which was delayed to spring 2011."
On the plus side: there are now also ordinary people using Ubuntu - people that don't know anything.
On the down side: they still don't understand what a shell is, even after that explanation (see quoted text).
To me, it's not really clear where GNOME starts or stops... So there's at least one Ubuntu user who is quite clueless what this is all about.
The value of this post? I show you all that there are people able to use Ubuntu without even the basic knowledge of the processes or even the names of them running on the computer. I always think of myself as the target group for Ubuntu. The wizkids can use the other Linux systems.
Which, really, has nothing to do with this. Anyone who doesn't know what Aero or Aqua are doesn't need to know whether they are using Unity or GNOME either, both will just work. For some of us, though, it's interesting news.
"As it is now, I tend to use XFCE the most."
It IS fast. Given the convenience, everyone ought to try a few window managers.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I can't blame distributions for not following the GNOME project in all their technical decisions - some parts of GNOME are (and continue to be) neat, but several, particularly those bits tied with Mono and other attempts to wear Microsoft's leash, are lousy (plus some bits duplicate functionality better done elsewhere, e.g. Empathy over Pidgin).
GNOME is still a pretty decent development environment, and there are a lot of nice applications that use the GNOME libraries. Still, there's no reason distros need the detault GNOME desktop to run them, and people/distros can be perfectly happy taking GNOME components and standards piecemail.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
"Not a clue what any of this means. I'll just stick with Windows or Mac. You buy it, turn it on, and it works." - Joe Q Public
"I hope my neighbour's kid can make my damn Windows machine work again." -Joe Q Public, 2 weeks and 10 malware infections later
I can't freakin' STAND Gnome. I never really understood the appeal of it...just seemed like a convuluted mess to me.
Good one. Either you are very young or sarcastic.
Windows 1-3. Complete changes. 3.1 to 95. Complete change. 95-98 the look didn't change, just where everything was. 98 to 2000... don't get me started. 2K to XP, lots of changes again. Vista so many changes many did not bother. W7, must have been a big change because people don't hate it as much as Vista.
Every single version of Windows has changed the layout and organization of basic configurations until the point where messing with your disks is so many layers deep I need a mining canary to find it.
Compared with that both OSX and Ubuntu have been solid rock.
Which probably is what sits in your head... MS and consistent interface...
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I can't freakin' STAND KDE. I never really understood the appeal of it...just seemed like a convuluted mess to me.
It was good and I liked it until KDE 4 came out. After trying to use it for 4 hours I switched to XFCE and have never looked back.
Window Maker is still around, and supported by numerous distros.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
For the love of $DEITY, stop recommending Kubuntu, it's an half-assed effort that keeps giving KDE a bad name. Yes, the 4.0 release was a PR disaster, whether it was the fault of the developers or distros is debatable but irrelevant now. If you want to run KDE, do yourself a favor and use a distro that puts some effort to it, like Mandriva, OpenSUSE or Chakra.
I can't freakin' STAND Gnome. I never really understood the appeal of it...just seemed like a convuluted mess to me.
Gnome is basically Windows XP/MacOS/Solaris/every other GUI for the last twenty years. KDE is... actually I don't really know what it is, it just seems like a mess every time I try to use it.
Joe Q Public has lots of opinions on things they have no interest in.
It's the family flaw.
I would have thought they could use as much or as little of Gnome as they please. This is hardly anything new: for instance, back in the late '90s, RedHat shipped with Gnome by default, using Enlightenment as its window manager. (IIRC in at least versions 5.2 to 6.2 of the distro.)
On my present (Arch Linux) desktop boxes, it's no longer immediately obvious how much of Gnome I'm using any more. At the UI level, I've done a bit of cherry-picking, using things like compiz-fusion for managing windows and Avant Window Navigator instead of gnome-panel. I spent some time playing with other file managers, but in the end decided Nautilus was actually pretty OK. I haven't had any good reason, however, to replace much of the stuff under the hood that gets fired up by gdm, since I'm fairly happy with how everything works.
"Lindows" was a some crap put together to try and not scare off Walmart customers from buying a $200 PC without Windows. It probably did more harm than good, as it was not free, which to home users is really one of the biggest advantages for linux. Microsoft complained about the name, and it was briefly renamed "Linspire" until Xandros bought them and dropped the product entirely. The only interesting thing it had going for it was the "Click'N'Run" app store, which was supposed to combine a good package management system (I think they used apt) with a front-end for searching and buying applications. However, IIRC it cost a subscription fee just to use the store.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
So you are upset that KDE is not a copy of basically Windows XP/MacOS/Solaris/every other GUI?
How far we have come. When I started using linux, the complaint was that KDE was "just" a badly implemented copy of windows.
If I could get last pass to work with Konqueror, I would drop Chromium. That - and handbrake - are the only non-kde program that I daily use.
KDE's my favorite desktop, but then, I was using it back when I ran Mandrake; tried KDE and Gnome and preferred KDE. I'm running kubuntu at home, I guess I should try Gnome again.
Free Martian Whores!
One of my arguments to move to linux on desktop is that I will have to switch between environments and I'll be more flexible. Why some of linux users are so conservative to change?
I'm having trouble understanding your point of view. Kubuntu functions almost identically to Windows XP/7.
Someone with a three digit /. ID should know that Gnome took several years from the release of 2.0 (2002) until it was back to the usability level of 1.4. Gnome 2.6 (2004) was even forked by a couple of rather incompetent optimists. Of course, Gnome had usability experts from SUN who would claim that inability is two letters better than ability, since the ability to do things only would confuse those who don't understand why and how.
When did the 2.x series start coming good again? 2005? 2006? Or 2010, when they finally ditched Nautilus' obnoxious spatial mode? Or when GTK finally got an acceptable (it's still only half-decent) file selector?
No, he's upset that "it just seems like a mess" every time he tries to use it.
When Microsoft or Apple put something in their product that people don't like, FOSS proponents respond, "The beauty of FOSS is you if you don't like what someone is doing, you can just go off and do your own thing." When someone actually does this the FOSS proponents seem to respond with, "We can't afford to splinter into tiny interest groups or we won't be able to compete with Microsoft and Apple."
Presumably it spent the first few years failing to hold Linux back.
I like Xfce, personally. Cleaner, lighter, and IMO more discoverable than Gnome or KDE.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Try LXDE. It reminds me of KDE3 a lot. I added it back onto my laptop and it's amazing.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Windows isn't that bad. I haven't done a restore on my XP machine since 2005, and it runs 24 hours a day.
Microsoft has, finally, learned to create a stable OS (based on their NT project).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'm pretty sure the neighborhood kids are more likely to know what to do when Mr. Public's computer gets stuck at "mup.sys" than "Error 17".
To me, Gnome's stock look is visually similar to the interface of MacOS while KDE's stock look is similar to Windows, but even there the resemblance is pretty superficial for both.
I think I like Gnome better, but I'm not sure how much of that is "KDE isn't as good" vs. "Canonical doesn't put together Kubuntu releases as well as core Ubuntu", since most of my recent KDE/Gnome comparison have been Kubuntu v. Ubuntu.
KDE apps would "just work"? I don't even understand what you're trying to do with this rather poor troll, apart from spewing regurgitated nonsense.
Someone with a three digit /. ID should know that Gnome took several years from the release of 2.0 (2002) until it was back to the usability level of 1.4.
Hm, I wasn't aware having a low user ID carried such burdens...
Perhaps we should institute a system of tests, in which low-UID users are periodically challenged on their knowledge, and demoted if they fail - and other users are given an opportunity to filter up the ranks via the same system?
Bow-ties are cool.
"Unity requires compositing to work properly, which means users need functioning 3D support to use the interface."
What if you have an app that doesn't work correctly with compiz enabled?
Not 2005 or 2006. That's about when I ditched GNOME due to being sick of Havoc Pennington's reign of "usability" terror. There was a constant crusade to make sure that no user could have edge flipping of multiple desktops, even as a buried option or as an "addon". (I basically stuck with GNOME until they broke Brightside so many times that the Brightside author gave up - Brightside somehow managed to add edge flipping to most GNOME WMs.)
Pretty much everything he did in the name of "usability" was to remove functionality. People bitch about KDE4, but KDE4 is far more feature-complete than GNOME was when I ditched it, and GNOME was actually trending downwards. (Admittedly, I didn't do the KDE 3.x to 4.x transition until around KDE 4.2 or 4.3.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Jeez. Ubuntu is becoming the jack of many trades and master of none.
Let the dedicated desktop guys at Gnome work on the UI. Last thing Linux needs is yet another implementation of a desktop.
I think we are about to witness the "Jumping the shark".. (Happy Days reference)
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I would have thought they could use as much or as little of Gnome as they please. This is hardly anything new: for instance, back in the late '90s, RedHat shipped with Gnome by default, using Enlightenment as its window manager. (IIRC in at least versions 5.2 to 6.2 of the distro.)
On my present (Arch Linux) desktop boxes, it's no longer immediately obvious how much of Gnome I'm using any more. At the UI level, I've done a bit of cherry-picking, using things like compiz-fusion for managing windows and Avant Window Navigator instead of gnome-panel. I spent some time playing with other file managers, but in the end decided Nautilus was actually pretty OK. I haven't had any good reason, however, to replace much of the stuff under the hood that gets fired up by gdm, since I'm fairly happy with how everything works.
Yes there are all kinds of optional configurations and choices when it comes to components and programs and things, but when presented with a pretty usable and nice looking system, one might be less inclined to 'mess with it'. I think that there are also a lot of new users who weren't around for the crusty old days and simply don't know that you can cherry pick and build up your own desktop environment. Believe it or not.
The great thing about modern distributions like Ubuntu is that just anyone can install it and it works. All those battles of yore have been won. However, I think that it also suppresses the notion that it's still made of individual parts.
do() || do_not();
FWIW, I wish there was a window manager that set it's own paradigm.
There are several families of window managers that are pretty much unique to UNIX environments. Someone already mentioned Window Maker, there's also Afterstep if you like NextStep. There's also the Fluxbox/Openbox family. There's Enlightenment too.
Although if you want a wholly new paradigm that simply doesn't exist on other platforms, try a tiling window manager. Ratpoison/Awesome/evilwm/wmii/ion, there's actually a lot of these. Nobody who's used one of these window managers can accuse the Open Source community of not innovating.
it'd be nice if there was a window manager that set the standard for FOSS GUI desktops.
There will never be a wm that "sets the standard" because interface choice is too personal. Think of the actual physical desktops people use, and all the ways they choose to organize things. You can't expect computerized desktops to be any more consistent.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
but the shit remains
while i can see maintaining a gui that for all intents mimics the ease of use of mac, the state of the linux GUI is nothing short of hellishly bloated. GNOME makes its best effort to keep the bloat to a minimum, but in the end fluxbox, blackbox, and a host of others make it look downright obese. Kudos to the guys at Ubuntu. if you can bring something better to the table, bring it!
Good people go to bed earlier.
Can we get serious about the Linux desktop already? Gnome's gone off the deep end with gnome shell, and this looks to be no better. Turn GNUStep into a functional Mac OS clone. Take NetworkManager and DBusKit. Implement a systempreferences pane for networking, do the same with pulseaudio for sound, one for video etc. Finish simplewebkit/vespucci so there's a web browser, write a linux port of AdiumX using pidgin's libpurple and gnustep so there's chat. IRC/Mail already exists. Knock up a quick rhythmbox clone so there's itunes-alike functionality, and port over the mplayerOSX gui so there's a good video player with a nice frontend. Suddenly there's a lot less FAIL and a lot more consistency in the Linux Desktop experience. Start porting over the huge pile of open source mac apps that have decent consistent user interfaces. Write a finder knockoff, use gworkspace, or knockoff any number of other file managers. Oh and throw in a dock option for people who want it. Who knows? Adobe might even bother porting CS5 to the new platform if it retains compatibility with macOS libraries/Frameworks. They already have CoreImage/CoreFoundation implemented. None of the existing Linux desktops hold a candle to Mac OSX's gui. As a bonus gnustep already lets you set the menubar up in either macintosh style (top of screen), windows style (per window), or nextstep style (floating menu). Everyone goes home happy and we can all get on with our lives.
Isn't that sort of the point? Disrupt the user experience minimally when shifting from one OS to another?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Gnome has held GNU/Linux back for nearly 10 years now.
What's wrong with it? How do you think we would have been better off without it?
Bow-ties are cool.
I remember the Window-manager-of-the-month club. Beginning with Enlightenment and finally sticking with Metacity, except when its Compiz that used to be Emerald.
I remember Big, default "CDE" panel, and the new, slim defaults. I remember difficulty in transition - but...
It was not so dramatic. Nautilus was always, pretty much a centrepiece - accessible as the Desktop - since the Andy Hertzfeld/Easel involvement 9-10 years ago.
This is crap navigation for phones/limited memory devices, shoveled up onto the full desktop. Unity looks to be... Much the same.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The thing is that people still bitch about KDE4 as if it still was stuck on 4.0. Mac OS X 10.0 was a pile of shit. Gnome 2.0 was shit. Windows Vista -- somehow, people stopped bitching about Vista when service pack 1, AKA Windows 7, came out. Some people have forgotten even how bad Gnome 2.0 was.
KDE? Oh, it's become pretty damn good in a very short time, works fine out of the box and you can configure it to hell and back if you don't like it. But people simply can't forgive the project for doing the same thing that Steve "can do no wrong" Jobs did with OS X 10.0: released too early. Hypocrites.
Nothing to get your panties in a twist over. I'm sure Gnome/KDE/XFWM will still be available from the repos no matter what canonical does. Besides, it's not like you can't still download Xubuntu, or Kubuntu and install Gnome there.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I knew that.
a few years ago i moved to xfce. I keep trying out other things E17, lxde, kde4, but i keep using xfce. Mostly due to the right click menu.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
*buntu land needs to RUN, not crawl, not walk, but RUN FAR AWAY from the disease that is gnome and monoboi's other crap...
But alas they still don't get it..."Unitiy....will require composting...."
Would you please QUIT with the stupid wobly windows, spinny cubes and other crap!
For a normal desktop KDE needs to be the choice, and yes I will be the first to get the tar, feather, and pitchforks out over the debacle that is and remains KDE4, unfortunately its still the better of the regular X WM's... For lighter weight LXDE, XFCE, etc. are great... just not for me..
If you want to see what a PROPER *buntu WITH KDE can look like then report to KMint and enjoy...
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1495
1311393600 - Back to Black
Isn't that sort of the point? Disrupt the user experience minimally when shifting from one OS to another?
Not for Ubuntu, it's not. They made that abundantly clear when they moved to the Mac-like "Min/Max/Close" setup out of nowhere in Lucid.
I just hope Gnome Shell isn't the disaster that KDE4 has been.
I really *want* to like KDE, but every time I try it, it is always broken. Take 4.5 for example. They finally have the desktop to a pretty stable level, and then for some reason decided to rewrite Kwin from the ground up, and caused a severe performance regression. It's not as noticeable on new hardware, but on an older machine it means not being able to play 720p HD movies without major performance issues. The same machine runs 720p just fine under Gnome.
After using KDE4.5 for a week, I uninstalled it and went back to Gnome. It might be plain looking, but it works. I really hope that Gnome Shell doesn't carry a lot of this sort of baggage.
Maybe because it doesn't work well for him?
I played with KDE 4 and felt that it was too buggy and slow. What should a Desktop do for me? Launch applications and maybe manage files.
That is really about it. I may pick a wall paper but that is it. Even widgets don't really thrill me.
I think that KDE has a lot of detractors because they don't find any benefit to it for them. Gnome actually works as a good compromise for IMHO between a bare bones and and overly complex desktop environment.
But then I may be just too hard to impress. I move between Windows, OS/X, and Gnome all the time and find them all about the same as far as the desktop goes.
Not wonderful but not great.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I use Gnome, because most of the programs I use tend to work better in it. I'm a bit compulsive with making things look the way they should.
KDE is, IMO, a knockoff of Windows (though I haven't used it much since 4.0 came out).
Gnome is also like Windows, but with a few things that make it more Mac-like. I can figure out both of them, but for me, Gnome "just works" and has fewer bugs.
Wait a minute, have you ever tried to configure gnome-screensaver? They basically removed ~all configuration besides "which screen saver do you want and when do you want it?" It does have better encapsulation than xscreensaver, but ironically enough, all the settings that they nicely encapsulated are now hidden behind various semi-standard text files.
</rant>
Gnome != Windows
$ make available
Who really cares what Ubuntu does or threatens to do. I've moved my lot to Linux Mint and am delighted that they are getting off the Ubuntu bandwagon and going with Debian. Life could not be simpler and more easily lived than on Linux Mint LMDE 10.
what it is with the various LInux distros. Why can't they simply establish a mechanism for systematically removing the various inconsistencies in the ways that they call the Linux kernel and in the way they are presented to the user? It that was available, then both groups build to the same standards specification to their hearts content. That way both groups have precisely what they want and users can chose which is best for them. Is it really all that hard to establish some rational measure of consistency from builds with alternate dependencies?
In principle there is nothing to stop anyone from creating a Gnome/KDE desktop that optimizes the desktop in a variety of ways of value to the user, with different optimizations for different users, who may have different needs or requirements.
They are not replacing Gnome. Unity is a shell that runs on top of Gnome. I tried Gnome Shell, which is also a shell that runs on top of Gnome. I didn't like it. I welcome an alternative to it. So these shells are just something that makes your desktop look nice and more organized supposedly. Gnome is still there. Quit with the ZOMG im swtching abck t ofedora!!! You don't have to use Unity or Gnome Shell. Am I wrong here?
quote: There will never be a wm that "sets the standard" because interface choice is too personal.
/all, press enter, and then read off the IP or mac addresses.
FYI, it's called Windows. It's the defacto standard whether people like it or not.
With it, Tech support can tell users to click on start (and assume it's on the left bottom corner), press "r", and type cmd, press enter, then type ipconfig
Good luck "remote controlling" a user on Linux. Sure eventually you can get the user to find "Terminal" or "Xterm" or "Konsole" or "whatever" somewhere. Costs more to do so.
Nobody sane wants "Desktop Linux" on thousands of corporate desktops - you almost have to fork your own distro (with the associated problems). Since they keep changing stuff and often for "not good enough" reasons.
FWIW, I'm not too happy with Windows 7, but with competition like "Desktop Linux" no thanks. As for OSX, I think Apple also likes to change things often.
"Server Linux" on the other hand:
for ((i=1; i<255; i++)) do
echo "###$i###" >> foo
ssh -i ~/sshkeys/server-$i.key user@10.0.0.$i "ifconfig -a" >> foo
echo "###EOR###" >> foo
done
Yes. In fact it is standard FOSS procedure. You don't like how one application suite works use what you like change what you don't and release back to the community. If the main distribution takes the changes into itself then don't fork. If they don't and the changes build up to a critical mass you have your own fork or shell add-on.
I use, and like Ubuntu. But I've never used Gnome.
I might use a few Gnome applications, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I use Window Maker as my window manager, I use aterm for terminals, I use alpine for email, I use emacs/xemacs for editing.
Due to a bug in xorg in Ubuntu 10.10 which caused many applications to crash when using xinerama, including Window Maker, I was forced to use Gnome for a few days. It was pretty horrible.
I don't really care what Ubuntu's standard desktop is, I can still use whichever one I want.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
"People"? So you think that people.jobs-apologists = people.kde4-haters? Got news - they are two different sets.
Further, I DID pan 4.0 - it deserved it. (and that was BESIDES the fact that kubuntu made it impossible to have both on the machine if you wanted to use the repository - I'm STILL irritated at that)
The reason it took me so long to 'forgive' though, were the blatant LIES stated regarding what the 4.0 release was. The kde enthusiasts kept repeating them, and would attempt to shout down and denigrate anyone that didn't like 4.0 when it came out. (The 4.0 release page did NOT include any kind of note saying it was a testing or developer's release that wasn't ready for prime time. The actual release page said it was. The only reference re: development or testing referred quite clearly to packages that might not be ready in distro repositories yet). That left a bad taste in my mouth for a long time.
It was not ready, even though it is now. The only voice of reason at the time (that I can remember) was Aaron Seigo - and he was the ONLY reason I kept coming back to KDE to try it out with each release. Good guy.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
Ubuntu is not moving away from GNOME, so why doesn't the editor update the story?
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Yes, I read it, and deduced that you've tried neither KDE nor Gnome. 1997. Seriously. "The setting to make the desktop usable as a desktop again." It's as if your only goal is to make the comment plausibly on-topic.
Clippy would have said: It looks like you're trying to have a conversation.
Read the article, this is for netbooks, not desktops or laptops!!!
Mark politely refuses to sip the Kool-Aid!
Seriously, though, it'd be good to have Gnome Shell as an option for those who want it. It's possible Mark has backed down from his previous position of making change just for the sake of change.
On the other hand, Gnome Shell is truly innovative, and I commend the devs for that, and it's a good answer to MS fans who talk about the FOSS community not innovating. It'll be good to have a choice, though.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Weird how you can claim that GNOME has fewer bugs even though you haven't "used (KDE Plasma) much since 4.0 came out".
I am also tired of all the inconsistencies between the 6-month releases of Ubuntu. I think now that ubuntu is running on a lot of hardware, focusing on consistency and reliability would be much more important. Many changes are only done for the sake of changing! And unfortunately, this usually means that a lot of stuff breaks and that I have to figure out things again. Yes, you could say, then you should be going with the LTS releases. The idea is good, but in reality, my impression is that the LTS releases are not better-cooked than any of the standard 6-month releases; they have about the same amount of bugs. Moreover, with LTS releases, you are stuck with old software in many cases. I think it would make more sense to move to 1-year, or even 2-year release cycles for the core OS, with apps updated and maintained in between.
Plasma Desktop (the KDE project underwent a rebranding a year ago -- that's now the name of the DE) looks in its default layout somewhat like Windows but behaves actually very differently. The differences begin with the use of a single click to open files and end with Activities, newspaper views, etc.
The gnome shell, nautilus? misses basic features like transparent icons to signify selected (for copy/cut) items.
Windows 95 does it.
Yet, this bug has been open for years.
They refuse to fix it.
Other stuff is more important.
So the shell gets dropped...
Many people proclaim that OS X is an example of how great Unix front end could be, and that went mainstream. In order for Ubuntu to reach similar orbit, it's possible that it can't wait for Gnome proper to get it right, and they need to start making their own stuff.
Every time I try a new major KDE 4.x release, I still see regular crashes of various apps.
Gnome used to be a retreat from that - for all its flaws, at least it's rather stable - but they are fucking up the UI big time in 3.0 with this Shell thing. And Unity is even worse.
Well, I guess it's going to be XFCE for me from there. Hopefully someone will write a decent, stable DE in Qt4 in the meantime.
The shell is my last refuge from GUIs and the damned mouse. I'd rather it be kept simple thank you very much.
Frankly, I can't stand all the GUI shell replacements for xterm for one simple reason: they integrate with the GUI. The GUI portion of these shells respond to key sequences that I prefer to go directly to the shell. If I use bash as my shell, I want alt-f to do what I've programmed it to do with readline key bindings, not invoke some annoying menu item. That way, when I remotely log into other machines, I don't have my local machine interfering. Logging and command history are more appropriately handled with built-in shell commands and tools such as "script" and "screen".
But I've been called a dinosaur before and undoubtably will be again...
There seem to be a lot of people complaining about it, but I *like* the current Gnome interface. It's simple, straightforward, has plenty of information available in minimal space and is pretty enough. OSX drives me nuts and I don't like the idea of GnomeShell or Unity. I like having a taskbar. I don't like having to click buttons or move my cursor to see which windows I have open. Evolution rather than revolution please.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1810977/ubuntu-unity-offer-2d-3d-graphics-1104
BTW: Compositing != Compiz. Newer window managers provide their own compositing without using Compiz.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
.. but only does what evil Steve Jobs wants
-- dnl
Ever seen this? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
There is no need to spend time with packages you won't use.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
No, see, Windows isn't bad... for us. We're tech-literate, we know how to keep our systems running smoothly.
They don't. I never thought I'd see a fresh Windows 7 install on a powerful laptop get bogged down to an unusable mess in under a month, but they made it happen!
You could argue that Linux would have the same problems if it became a more popular desktop OS, but I would disagree. I think Linux is simply more resistant against that sort of crap.
I'm preferring Gnome over KDE for one sole reason - 99% of applications I use everyday are Gtk based (e.g. audacious, xchat, gimp, empathy, gwibber, firefox, chrome, evolution, glade etc). The only Qt application I'm using is VirtualBox.
Ur. KDE? Their own wm? WAT
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
I have periodic issues with the wlan. Once Ubuntu is up and running I never have issues with X starting unless I need to reinstall the drivers.
Generally nothing kills my computers. They just keep running. It's all quite impressive. The types of issues I deal with all day long with Windows frankly don't exist with Linux. Even the Win7 diagnostics I do are as convoluted as when they first began the 2k/XP versions, just carried a bit more to the extreme in Vista and Win7.
I haven't considered Linux to be a geek tool since Ubuntu first came out. Looking back at that time-frame Linux was pretty impressive and remains so to this day (of course, with it's share of glitches during the upgrade cycle every 6 months).
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
My apologies if I sounded hostile in that post, my intentions were to give some info on what "Lindows" is if anyone is looking for a Windows-like experience on Linux. I agree that KDE is the way to go for something like that. I hear Kubuntu gets far less development attention than the main Gnome-based Ubuntu, and see many people recommend SUSE for a KDE desktop. I have not personally used KDE in a long time, but I think I might give it another shot now that 4.x seems to have ironed out most of the kinks. I do recall a friend once customizing a KDE desktop for his parents to the point that they had no idea they were using Linux instead of Windows.
Also, I agree that gaming is a big thing holding linux back from mass desktop usage, but I do not see how this can be fixed. WINE and similar will always be at least one step behind in supporting DirectX/3D APIs, which are pretty much de facto. I've heard even John Carmack will be using DirectX/3D for an upcoming game.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "good volume management system like NTFS/Active Directory", but for ZFS/similar, BTRFS is making strides. However, it still seems behind ZFS. Also, ZFS now has a kernel module, instead of needing to run in FUSE, but IIRC needs to be built manually due to licensing issues.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
For years now I run two partitions, presently one with a stable version of Kubuntu 8.04 and one with the latest Kubuntu 10.10 including KDE4.5.x . /home.
8.04 is installed on ext3, 10.10 on ext4 and via links they share parts of the
I learned long ago that cutting edge can be fun but you better have something secure to go back to when in need.
And I can say since about KDE4.2 I hardly ever come back to 8.04.
Once spoiled by the configurability of KDE you can only smile about Gnome users that class themselves as Hackers, Gnome seems locked up like OS X minus the 'it just works'.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I think this is why someone should either take Gnome and add in the "advanced" buttons that let nice tweaks, like screensaver settings in your example, be easily accessible, or take KDE and organize it properly so it's not a cluttered mess.
:D
Seriously, I believe there is a happy medium that you could make combining the two themes of Gnome and KDE, simplicity and power respectively, by burying the advanced features and tweaks and keeping the simple and common features up-front. I love each DE for each reason, but have ended up with Gnome as I dislike the clutter more than the removal of some features that I don't need all that much, or that installing some additional apps will give me.
Fork, anyone?
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
You could have upgraded from LTS to LTS (each 2 years instead of 6 months, possible since 8.04).
I grew tired of Debian for the Desktop even before Ubuntu existed, and when it came, it more or less addressed my issues.
1. I don't have time to configure/fix forever the same damn stupid things again. I like the install and it already works approach. We have lives to live...
2. I don't like Debian Stable, too old, and Debian Unstable too fragile/broken. While Canonical do pull from Sid twice a year, they test/fix stuff on their own.
3. PPAs, because sometimes a 6 month release is not enough, you can have a couple of crucial apps always updated thanks to this. Backports never got all you needed.
4. Innovation. Stability is nice for a base, but stagnation makes life boring. You might not agree with the changes, but at least they are trying new things.
5. Community support, aside from banning the unfriendly "RTFM" attitude, numbers here do matter. Ubuntuforums had become my most used source even for Debian issues.
I often use Debian at work, and my mind has not changed in the last 4 years. Even Ubuntu Server is becoming appealing now, although i still prefer the BSDs there. Ubuntu or a derivate (Such as Mint) is the best for the Desktop, and even "normal people". I don't do windows anymore, i just put Ubuntu using the "oem" install in their machines, it's my favorite/only solution to the tired "my windows has broken again" problem.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Use Rekonq instead of Konqueror. It's based on Chromium.
That seems rather odd, considering they're mostly targeting Windows users. Bug #1 is about Microsoft.
No, I think people = people. Some people can't let KDE 4.0 go, even though they're perfectly capable of shutting up about practically all competing desktops. And on the contrary to what you claim, its unfinished status was in fact known, and the lack of features wasn't celebrated as a breakthrough in usability, which it was in Gnome 2.0.
It was made clear, and it was well known to everyone who considered installing it, that KDE4 wasn't ready for prime time at release. Yet you think it's in any way credible that you just happened to stumble over kde.org and saw the release announcement even though you were living in a bubble at the time and hadn't heard the rumours that it might not be quite the finished article just yet.
Oh, and hey:
"Cutting edge." "Marks the beginning." "Packages to test and contribute." Not: what you said.
I can understand that you're angry if you installed it and noticed an immediate drop in productivity, since what it actually did, then, was to expose you as an imbecile.
I was using Mandriva, but it looks like it's dying. I tried SUSE six or eight years ago and didn't like it too much. Kubuntu isn't a lot different than Mandriva (although I did greatly prefer Mandriva's implimentation).
I looked at the Ubuntu screenshots at ars -- UGH! YECH!
Free Martian Whores!
Look, I'm all for smooth upgrades, consistency, and I understand why needless change is bad, but I think some people are equating change form something they are familiar with to needless change. Consistency is only a good thing when you either already possess a far superior UI to begin with (Apple in most people's opinions), or are mainly concerned with carrying over an old user base rather than expanding (Microsoft). As much as I love my gnome set up (elegant gnome + my own wallpaper + gnome do), I have to say the default gnome set up doesn't really blow anyone away, and it's hot keys, tricks, and menus aren't necessarily intuitive to a first time user. Basically, it doesn't really give anyone a reason to switch to Ubuntu on first glance. But you know what? The first time I showed my friends (mac and pc users) Unity and Gnome-Do, their first reactions were "wow, that's really cool" and "interesting (in a positive/excited way)" And when it comes down to it, Ubuntu is as much about attracting more users to Linux as it is about giving current Linux users a smoother experience. If Ubuntu doesn't have its own space carved out, what's to interest people, much less convince them to switch over? Plus, I would consider Gnome Shell a much bigger departure from the current gnome interface than Unity in terms of how you use it. Not saying Gnome Shell is worse or better than Unity, but I personally find I work faster on Unity and that Unity is a little more responsive to me.
sudo apt-get remove crap.
sudo apt-get install more_crap.
Once you click on your user name in the GDM login, you can change the default desktop to Gnome's original shell in the bottom panel.
So you are upset that KDE is not a copy of basically Windows XP/MacOS/Solaris/every other GUI?
How far we have come. When I started using linux, the complaint was that KDE was "just" a badly implemented copy of windows.
Is there something wrong with the Common User Access interaction design lineage? The very reason the document was put forth was to reduce user ramp-up time learning a new product.
WordPerfect 5, on the other hand, was a shining example of how to confuse the hell out of a new user by not working remotely like anything else out there. I used it for quite some time, even wrote applications with its macro language, and still couldn't get by without a key binding cheat sheet.
On the other hand, you could actually see begin and end tags in its Reveal Codes mode, and if you were willing to sink enough time and brain cells into it, it was wickedly powerful, so in some sense they were optimizing for the dedicated power user at the expense of the casual user.
On the gripping hand, for ~500 USD in the early nineties, perhaps they were right to expect a highly dedicated power user.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
KDE 4.5 is to KDE 4.0 as a Maglev is to a trainwreck.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
I'm with you.
I just picked up docky, a month ago. I still have the regular "task" panel at the bottom, on "auto hide". It's my insurance policy - I can fall back to using the desktop that behaves as I expect it to.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Gnome Shell has been a goofy looking solution in search of a problem ever sense it's been announced. I'm actually thankful that Ubuntu is moving in a different direction. I still want my Gnome/GTK based apps, but I don't need their interface.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
You didn't indicate that you thought I was being a jerk, I had just reread my post and thought it read a bit stand-offish. Glad you didn't feel that way.
Thanks for the tips, I'll have to check out KDE in my Ubuntu desktop again and maybe try the linux-xp in a VM.
For visual management of drive volumes, gparted is pretty strong on this front. The KDE equivalent is QTParted, although I do not know if they have feature parity.
For Active Directory, I misunderstood and thought you were talking about managing volumes with AD, hence the confusion. I agree that this is a must have for enterprise management of both servers and desktops. Anything I've seen from Red Hat or Novell just does not come close. I too am shocked that Novell did not do this considering AD started off as a poor copy of Novell's directory services.
But yeah, linux just never stops chugging along. It is a dominating player in the server arena and hopefully netbooks and tablets running linux will get more users to use it on a regular basis. In fact, tons of people already do and just don't know it (NAS devices, routers, phones and set-top boxes are already running linux in a lot of households).
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
I'm still using the same GUI in Windows that I started using in 1996 with Windows 95. There is no "try" about it... a few button clicks and about 30 seconds and I'm done. I don't have to download or install a single freaking thing, nor do I have to have any clue as to what is going on under the covers. I truly do not give a $hit that Windows "isn't modular." The GUI works the same way it has for the last decade and a half. That's what I need it to do, and the fact that Linux can do it in a more elegant way is not a feature I need.
Um, you can type Alt+F2 (the SAME SHORTCUT AS WINDOWS) on Ubuntu and get a command line, too. I also suspect that if customer support needs to get somebody to do this, they will use Alt+F2, which is a lot easier to tell over the phone than getting them to popup the start menu and type a shortcut letter that may have been redefined.
It's interesting the differing philosophies. Gnome/Apple take the fewer features less configuration approach. Everyone else lets you do a ridiculous amount of crap to your UI. I personally prefer the KDE/mass configuration model, but the Gnome/Apple philosophy seems to be winning the hearts and minds of the masses. I regularly hear techy iPhone users actually brag about how few features their phone has. It's not cluttered with all the "useless crap" the other options have. *shrug*
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Does a 4 digit id work?
I've been on the GNOME team for quite a while. First GNOME 2 builds were done on my laptop before the rest of the team got onboard with GNOME 2 work (and then it still took quite a bit of time for GNOME 2 to come out). I think that some mistakes were made, but I think GNOME 2.0 was more usable than 1.4. It didn't have the amount of customizability as 1.4, but it was way more consistent and worked far more reliably and was just damn prettier. I actually still like the spatial mode idea.
That said I'm not sure I was really crazy about gnome-shell nor unity when I tried whatever version I tried. One of the things I hate is that neither uses standard widgets. The netbook interface of ubuntu is very broken because it forced me to use a mouse because keyboard navigation was off (because of nonstandard widgets I assume) and using the mouse on the tiny netbook is a PAIN. Gnome shell has similar problems.
I would actually like the idea of GNOME getting simpler again. Get rid of the 2.x cruft and basically make the thing less complex. That is NOT the case with either unity or gnome-shell imo.
Jiri
However, I don't think KUbuntu is what you called it ("it's an half-assed effort that keeps giving KDE a bad name"). I like it personally.
Actually, it is. Kubuntu gets sidelined by the development of the Gnome/Unity Ubuntu, where most tools are developed, and ends up looking, feeling, and working like a mess.
See, I tried Linux "MINT" & it's basically the SAME THING as KUbuntu, but it packs in a lot of tools I could care less about (as well as CODECS I can load myself into KUbuntu on my own anyhow). That's all.
Yeah, what about that? A distro that is just (K?)Ubuntu with a couple of extra repositories and different default settings is basically the same thing as (K?)Ubuntu, but with different default settings and applications? Who would have imagined?
I tried Slackware 1.02 back in 1994, & later Redhat 5.2 + 6.0 even later, in 32-bit distros... too much was still "tty term" based work back then, even in those later Redhat distros. Nowadays though, since I moved to 64-bit wares as well, & with distros like KUbuntu around??
Sorry, but any experience with RH5/Slack 1.x is meaningless in deciding about distros today. You can't decide against Windows 7 because Windows 3.1 sucked, or against OS X because System 7 had no real multitasking. And I've fed the troll too much already to keep going, but your post is pretty funny.
Begun, the flame wars have.
For the love of $DEITY, stop recommending Kubuntu, it's an half-assed effort that keeps giving KDE a bad name.
I used to think this too. Especially 8.10 when they moved to KDE 4 far too early (but then again, pretty much all the other distributions did the same).
But Kubuntu 10.04 changed my mind, and I found it worked quite well. I suspect it is mostly due to KDE 4 maturing, but I've used KDE 4 on many other distros (debian, arch, gentoo) and Kubuntu continues to provide its own conveniences. Kpackagekit and the .deb qt installer actually work well and felt like you were installing packages in a "KDE" way. A lot of the tools specific to Ubuntu were also available with kde counterparts (usb-creator and jockey for example). Running Amarok or Konqueror for the first time prompts me to install those evil proprietary packages for things like mp3's and flash.
The 10.10 release was even better. The move to use Rekonq as the default browser (sigh, Konqueror..) was great decision and I like the new kpackagekit even better.
IMHO, all Kubuntu is missing is Ubuntu-One integration. An amarok plugin for browsing the music store. A client for syncing rekonq bookmarks, kontacts, amarok playlist, etc. Oh and the one-click "sync with Ubuntu one" plugin that nautilus has should be written for Dolphin.
This. Just....THIS. Patrick decided to foist KDE 4 on me in Slackware 13.0 and I hated it. I spent days trying to tweak and configure it to get back to what I had with KDE3 but couldn't. So much effort goes into trying to match Windows Vista/7 with fancy desktop widgets and yet it seems that there are a great number of disaffected KDE3-lovers who just want to be able to work the way they used to. I actually looked at a ticket on their bug tracking system for an issue that I was trying to solve. Other users obviously cared about it enough, but the opinion of the developers seemed to be: "It works like that now, get used to it. Submit a patch or STFU. If you post more comments, we'll ignore this bug completely." Nice attitude. I don't expect KDE devs to be at my beck-and-call, but one comment single-handedly destroyed any inclination I had to try and get KDE4 working for me. I thought about going back to KDE3, but there seemed to be too many hoops to jump through, so:
$ xwmconfig # Select xinitrc.xfce, OK
Oh come now, fellow old timer, you can do better than that. Surely you remember MWM (Motif Window Manager) and twm (Tom's Window Manager)? All this fancy GNOME stuff; kids today don't know how good they've got it. Heck, I remember when, to get to the internet, we had to use special routers that used DECnet to encapsulate TCP/IP packets, because the latter was so new. The www hadn't been invented yet and spam only existed in tins.
Well. OLWM was there in the day - I just didn't know about /usr/openlook/bin back then.
Of course, FVWM in Magenta and Electric Blue. That's a classic look.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Seconded - in that I'm dealing with another customer this year who just can't keep his kids/relatives/etc off the machine, and keep it from getting infected. Twice in the last 7 weeks - because of someone surfing the net and installing whatever they want to (he needs admin rights for some of his software). Negotiations are continuing.
All that he and his wife do on the machine is internet and email.
Loading Kubuntu on his box as I speak.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
His comments seem reasonable enought to me.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Gnome Globalmenu is a package that enables the universal File, Edit, View, Etc bar for apps. Like in Mac OS X
Example
No sig for you!!
In my opinion a desktop that adds takes a noticeable amount of time to load is just not worth it. I don't use Gnome on Ubuntu now and I suspect I won't in the future, The fact that the Unity Shell requires 3d hardware acceleration to be usable does not fill me with an optimism in this regard.
read my mind at http://the-willows.blogspot.com/
I also hated KDE 4, but found it getting progressively better with every 4.x release.
I prefer XFCE and I have been using it for many years (and I'm old school at that... configuring it the way XFCE used to be, rather than all Gnome-like and stupid) but I do use some of the KDE apps so I always have to keep a KDE build around.
I've recently just started using Slack again and the KDE that shipped with Slackware64 13.1 still left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, so I grabbed the sources and build scripts for KDE 4.5.1 from slackware-current and rolled that up to my liking.
I think it's almost there, it's got much better configuration dialogs now and stuff. It performs well and seems to be decently reliable. Still not for me, but I could use it.
At least they've made improvements to the Mr. Potato Head game (ktuberling)
Sorry, I'm on KDE 4.4.5 and still see random DE crashes and options that don't make sense. Widgets on the Dashboard lookalike randomly disappear altogether, that is if I can get them to launch properly at all. Compositing works fine, but I have to leave it turned off since other OpenGL programs don't work with it enabled so it may as well not work at all. Occasionally clicking on the "desktop" background is interpreted as a drag, and the entire "desktop" moves partway off the screen, requiring me to put it back with pixel-precision tracking - no snapping to edges or anything. Why the hell would I want that?
I know there was a lot of negativity about the KDE 4.0 release but I've moved on and judge the current release on its own merits. I just want a DE that works as well as KDE 3.3 did, dammit, and we still haven't seen anything from the KDE 4 line coming close to that.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I have Ubuntu running on three systems at home and as my primary platform at work. I am generally happy with it... except when it comes to upgrading. It seems incapable of managing even simple customizations. The lowest hanging fruit that needs to be plucked is network configuration. At both work and home I am using static IPs. The network management wizard (or whatever it's called) keeps trying to overwrite the interfaces file; I eventually remember how to suppress this via google but it's usually an hour wasted. Worse, during transition to a new version, Ubuntu thoughtfully notes that a variety of configuration files have changed (eg gtetris or some such) proffers a diff, and asks if I want to keep the old one or use a new one. Then it merrily runs off and overwrites all the network configuration information without so much as a how-do-you-do. I was upgrading from 9.04 to 10.04* this morning, and had to recover nameserver and gateway info from a colleague - all I had was loopback setup.
Video and audio always seems to be an issue, too. I had to do a fresh install at home because the system couldn't cope with a change from Nvidia to ATI video chipset, and stopped running anything with OpenGL. Tomorrow I'm wiping the work system with a fresh 10.10 because the Nvidia drivers (pick one of several) are now not being recognized, and even if I get X up with generic drivers the mouse and keyboard are no longer functional in an X session (such that I can't even get out to a shell with Ctrl-Alt-F1), even though the KB is fine prior to X. The last time I ran through an upgrade I had been able to get twinview working after spending a profanity filled day, but audio was somehow collateral damage, even though I didn't muck with anything obviously related to it. I could spend another day pasting bits of my logs into google but would rather spend half a day installing cleanly and restoring my home directory. Ironically I was feeling smug about my Linux platforms having just done this a month ago as a matter of routine Windows maintenance.
* My plan was to stick with 9.04 but I really need Thunderbird 3 to use a javascript filter plugin to compensate for the horror that is our corporate spam "filter", and the non-standard TB3 install suddenly got upset over an updated flash pluggin "shared" (??) with Firefox. I naively thought it would be easier to just bite the bullet and upgrade to a version where TB3 was part of the default install.
I think I will stick with Gnome! I woks! I hope Mint stays with it in its distro!!
Seriously. "The setting to make the desktop usable as a desktop again."
I refer to when KDE4 was first released. It came with a default setting that let you do all sorts of arcane things with your desktop, but not use it as a place to drop files and whatnot. I later discovered there was a switch I could change to revert to more intuitive (for me, that is) behaviour.
Anyone who has used Linux since '95 or so will have a list of "features" implemented in ANY of the desktop environments that seemed idiotic at the time. Sometimes they really were, and we had to find ways around them; otherwise we just learned to live with them and move on.
I think I might have been mistaken when I wrote "~1997". It might have been a year or two later, but I remember occasionally being frustrated with my preferred Gnome suite, and finding that the KDE equivalents tended to run more smoothly. Apart from that, it comes down to how comfortable one feels with the interface, and there lies a pointless flamewar with which I can't be bothered.
you can type Alt+F2 (the SAME SHORTCUT AS WINDOWS) on Ubuntu and get a command line, too.
1) I think you're missing the point. Assuming alt-f2 even works for Joe's distro (which is quite a big assumption!), say "Joe Sixpack" is on the other end and says "his nephew installed leenooks for him" what do you tell them to type?
gnome-terminal? terminal? konsole? rxvt?
So same problem. Extra time and cost to support some moving target "fringe desktop OS".
2) Same as windows? Doesn't seem to work on my windows machine "alt f2" doesn't show any hits on site:microsoft.com while "alt f4" does. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449
As for pressing "r" being redefined in Windows, they can click on "run" instead. It's still there. Or if the caller knows what "windows key" means, "winkey+r" (but in real life I think more time would be spent trying to get them to find the winkey :) ).
Did there used to be configuration other than which screensaver you want and how many minutes of idle after which to activate it?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
You're telling me.
I don't know about the others, but I'm savvy enough to use linux on the desktop for 90% of the time (I likes my Guild Wars). If I wanted to use a Mac, I'd use a Mac, dammit.
After so many years of using KDE with KDE apps I have come to expect my desktop manager to do a lot more then your assertion above. I want it to handle boring things like making external folders (sftp) feel native, that copy to clipboard and paste anywhere should just work, that drag and drop is anything and everything. I want filetypes to magically just know what I want from them, and right clicking to be very context sensitive. I want windows to give me info but not be in my way. KDE gives me that, like no other desktop environment ever has (group workload into 1 window: firefox, folder, music app: YES!). Unfortunately it always takes a while to learn the little tricks and default configuration of most distros is less then desirable.
Thanks for mentioning single click. Love it. Drives me crazy that other desktop environments are a mix of single and double click. Setting windows to single click is not the same as KDE's version.
Seriously, loosen the tinfoil, I think it's affecting the circulation to your brain. Could it be that the slashdot hive mind can have dissenting opinions? No surely there must be a global conspiracy. FWIW, yes, I am a "multiple registered account utilizing troll" - I registered around 2000 when I was living in .de, but forgot what my password was (and after I stopped working there, lost saved credentials on my work computer/the work e-mail address I used for registering), didn't bother to re-register for a while.
I will be installing Linux on a notebook in the near future to get the basics on the road. I used Mandriva from its very early versions but haven't used Linux for a few years. What is the 'best' KDE distro at this time? And is wide screen now supported as it wasn't back in the days I used Linux.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Well, only if we can still get Kubuntu & Gnubuntu.
Have you tried ReKonq?
It is pretty good, at least better than Konqueror is (I am assuming you are talking about the browser side of Konqueror)
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
I regularly use both when doing reviews for my blog and the newest KDE4 (4.5) is really good.
While not bug free yet, it has come a long way.
Gnome 2 has some basic niggles that are really getting to me, case in point the applets in the panels moving around between reboots. Or applets crashing.
And don't get me started on Evolution.
Back to the point though - up till the previous KDE4 release Gnome 2 has definitely been more stable - plasma crashes in KDE4 accounted for a lot of my KDE4 issues - but had about the same number of basic little niggles.
4.5 levels the playing field.
At least one can see the work going into KDE4 release on release, less so with Gnome. Guess they are focussing on Gnome3 now.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
I used Gnome Shell for seven days trying to figure out if it was any good.
Sadly it tends to get in the way...
Here (shameless blog punt, I apologise) is Day 1, read from there.
http://g33q.co.za/2010/06/14/using-gnome-shell-day-1/
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
I think that your second observation is spot on. Kubuntu is much more vanilla KDE than Ubuntu is vanilla Gnome.
If you want a really good KDE distro to try, go for Linux Mint 9 KDE, the 10KDE is not out yet.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Ugh. You just _had_ to drag clippy into this...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Have you tried right clicking on a panel widget and picking 'Lock to Panel'?
When ideas fail, words become very handy.
If you are not very familiar with Linux / have some experience with Mandriva, I see no reason why not use it. Some people keep complaining it's too much "for newbies", but there's nothing wrong with that IMHO. The company has faced some financial difficulties, but is not going away anytime soon, nor is the community. The integrated admin tools are among the best. Personally I'm running Chakra, but as it is based on Arch it might be a bit too power-user initially; the community is wonderful though. Just make a separate /home partition, and you'll be able to change distributions easily. As for widescreen support, I've had no issues with it, but as always with Linux (or computers in general), YMMV.
compiz works just fine under KDE4.
IME compiz is more stable, more configurable and has a smaller memory footprint than kwin plus I get to use my favorite emerald theme.
I was a diehard GNOME user for years and KDE hasn't got it completely right yet - for instance I think kate is just awful and prefer gedit for a gooey text editor. I've tried learning to like kate but so far haven't been successful.
But - I do like that KDE seems to have the integration that GNOME lacks for the most part.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
"While not bug free..." You realize you are talking about software, right?
Use Rekonq instead of Konqueror. It's based on Chromium.
It is based on webkit, not chromium.
rekonq is a KDE browser based on Webkit. Its code is based on Nokia QtDemoBrowser, just like Arora. Anyway its implementation is going to embrace KDE technologies to have a full-featured KDE web browser.
I hope they eventually reach their goal of suppporting chrome extensions.
Drives me crazy that other desktop environments are a mix of single and double click.
Mixing clicks means never having to hover and wait for selection, then hold down shift and move the pointer and wait again. I can click and shift click before you're done hovering.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I remember the Window-manager-of-the-month club. Beginning with Enlightenment and finally sticking with Metacity, except when its Compiz that used to be Emerald.
You don't remember that well. With Compiz it used to be Beryl, now you can use gtk-window-decorator or you can use Emerald. I'm using it right now because the window decorators beat the living shit out of the GTK one (I use TruGlass.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You like docky better than avant-window-navigator? The recent releases (e.g. from the testing team PPA) will even fall back to ugly but working non-composited mode so if Compiz dies the dock remains.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
hah. Yeah.
You're perfectly right.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Rekonq is based on Chromium, which is based on webkit.
Thanks. I wish I'd had the patience you'd shown with it. :-)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Thanks. I haven't had compositing fail in over a year. I guess nVidia has been stable. :-)
I too, use the Emerald decorator. Per your other comment, yes I glossed the Beryl/Emerald pairing vs. Compiz. I also didn't go into the detor that was Sawfish - before Metacity... I believe we have significantly illustrated the bumpy road which was travelled by the Gnome user.
Ugh! I just recalled doing Helix installs on top of a base RedHat WS. It had been blotted from memory!
All said, the new, Gnome Shell makes me resort to using a terminal as my principal program launcher. I don't believe that this is a design goal of the project.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Thanks, its nice to have a conversation about both the goods and bads of *NIX that doesn't devolve into an argument. I think it is easier to have an open mind if you use software pragmatically as opposed to zealously following one sect or the other. I see this time and time again with BSD vs. GPL licensing debates. GPL advocates often see BSD-licensed code as too easily stolen and BSD advocates see GPL-licensed code as "infectious" and too restrictive. The reality is that a developer needs to weigh the different licenses and decide if they want the code free for anyone to take or if they want others to be required to share changes back with them.
By the way, I took a look at the feature sets for qtparted and gparted. There are some screenshots on the respective web pages. I know (k)ubuntu keeps low-level system tools to a minimum, but I would be shocked if neither of these were in the default repositories. Gparted definitely is more feature-rich, but if you don't need any of the extra features I would try QTparted first. Gparted would likely require extra gnome libraries if you are in KDE.
Also, if you want or need to do offline partition management, I would recommend using the Parted Magic live CD.
Lastly, it looks like NDS is still alive and running in SUSE Enterprise Server, but under the name eDirectory. I am not familiar with it, so I do not know if it does as good a job as Group Policy in Active Directory at managing settings for tons of machines remotely. There is also no price listed, and I believe it is sold separately from SUSE Enterprise, so it may also lose out on a cost standpoint.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
It has as start-button analog, a clock, you can move windows around with it, and the file manager type windows show you previews of your media files. Who cares what its called? Who cares which desktop you have as long as it does these things?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Windows gets slow because Windows lets the user install all the malware/crapware they want.
Linux has almost no malware/crapware, so there's less to break your Linux distro.
Jokes aside, Windows does what the user says. If the user says, install these 10 toolbars to IE and download and run this exe from this website so I can watch some porn, what do you think is going to happen?
Put a user in a walled garden with enough built in options and/or completely remove certain options, and now your Joe Smith is less likely to break something. Now you're back to OS X/Linux.
If X/Linux became fully mainstream like Windows, suddenly you'll get a every no-name company, that's trying to make a buck on taking advantage of people, paying programmers to make programs that can integrate into the computer and report back data.
be careful what you wish for.
what do you tell them to type?
gnome-terminal? terminal? konsole? rxvt?
No. You tell them to type ALT PLUS F2!!! How stupid are you? I might as well ask if the Windows user should be told to run command.com or cmd.exe, that question makes as much sense as your inanity.
Sorry I was pretty certain Alt+F2 was copied from the shortcut for the "run" command on Windows. This really does not work? I could have sworn it did.
I quoted from their web site. It is based on QtDemoBrowser
I remember when Gnome didn't have a built-in menu editor. I think that was around 2005 or so--it was before Sarge was released, so not too long ago. I don't recall being turned-off by the limited configuration options, but it was frustrating, back then, how Gnome could make the simplest operations inordinately difficult.
Since there exists:
Kubuntu (KDE)
Xubuntu (XFCE)
Lubuntu (LXDE)
and probably soon Gubuntu (GNOME),
it is good to see that Uubuntu will finally use a desktop environment starting with 'U'.
the consistent way to do it since win2k days is: start, run, cmd, ipconfig /all.
So for Linux, you say press Alt+F2.
Then what next?
Well on SUSE you type "ifconfig -a" which I know is really hard compared to typing "ipconfig /all", since we all know the letter f is much harder and user-unfriendly to type than p. And don't get me started on how difficult and user-unfriendly it is to type a dash.
I think you have a point however. This works with KDE. Tried it on Gnome and discovered those *IDIOTS* broke it totally. It runs it (as typing a non-existent command produces an error) but I cannot get the output to appear in a terminal. There is a "run in terminal" checkmark (somehow the KDE guys figured out how to pop up a terminal only when there is text sent to stdout, but considering Microsoft has not figured that out yet (requiring you to decide at compile time if there is stdout!) I guess it was too much to hope for Gnome). But checking the mark does not make it work. After some testing I finally see a very fast flash which indicates they dismiss the terminal when the program exits.
So idiocy is what is preventing Linux from working, not "inconsistent".
FWIW, yes, I am a "multiple registered account utilizing troll" - I registered around 2000 when I was living in .de, but forgot what my password was (and after I stopped working there, lost saved credentials on my work computer/the work e-mail address I used for registering), didn't bother to re-register for a while.
Figures, & I was right on that too: Most guys who are worth their salt KNOW little trolls & weasels like you, & honestly? It's WHY we pity little fucks like you.
And here's where it gets surreal. Seriously, if I have a _single_ previous account, that I can't log in to, how on earth does that change anything? It's highly ironic that you are calling me a troll, as it seems from a quick google that you've been trolling slashdot with your incoherent drivel (anonymously - well, at least you're not using multiple accounts - or wait, there could be many of you!) at least since 2005.
I've run all of the above distros at different times within the past five years, and today I'm running Kubuntu because I prefer it. I use the Kubuntu Team's update and backport PPAs to keep up with the latest KDE packages, which usually come out soon after the source release (same day) and work just fine. In fact, last year I remember upgrading to some newer release of KDE on my laptop, with Kubuntu, and having to wait for those same updates on my desktop, running Chakra. There are other, more meaningful technical reasons I prefer Kubuntu over Chakra (and its formerly-parent distro, Arch), OpenSUSE and Mandriva. But I don't feel like announcing my preferences as gospel at the moment, so I'll just say this:
I've been disappointed in Kubuntu in the past, and that's part of why I used various other distros during that time. But today it's working fine for me, as it has for some time, and with no signs of stopping. This undeserved Kubuntu hate is getting old.
To each his own - I guess I've just been traumatized by people who complain about defects in KDE, and turns out they've only tried Kubuntu. If it works for you, good for you. The delay in releasing a new KDE version is understandable with Chakra, as they modularize the packages (so that for example you can just install KGet instead of the whole kdenetwork package). There are also meaningful technical reasons why I prefer Arch-based distros (my Myth backend/file server runs stock Arch, Myth frontend LinHES and laptop Chakra) - and I guess my reasons differ from yours :) So my apologies for being too harsh. Although this thread has been amusing for me, that apk guy is just something else.
I have both KDE and GNOME installed because I find programs from each that are superior to the other (for instance, I <3 K3B, and Amarok is good (1.x is better than 2.0 though), but I also <3 Chromium and Pidgin.)
As for which DE I use, I prefer KDE, though I like GNOME a lot. Simply a personal preference.
A wise man once said, "Where is my other quotation mark?
I've generally found Kubuntu's package delineation to be more modular than Chakra's, and I think the package names make more sense in that they don't include the category to which the package belongs.
The faults of Kubuntu are mostly related to maintaining parity with Ubuntu in terms of special extensions and customizations. Occasionally there's an art update that Ubuntu receives but Kubuntu doesn't; KDE's interfaces for NetworkManager don't work as well as their Gnome counterparts, but Kubuntu still ships with NetworkManager; the Ubuntu one interface for KDE is unstable/doesn't exist; Canonical hasn't commissioned an Amarok plugin for the Ubuntu One music store like they made for Rhythmbox.
To me, though, I just want functional KDE & Qt packages with tastefully/conservatively applied downstream patches, in a timely manner.
Because of that, I've actually been wondering if I wouldn't be happier on Debian unstable, since it would be more or less the same but I'd be free of the 6-month release cycle.
However, I don't think the Kubuntu guys do a bad job at all, and when people repeat that whole "the KDE devs are good and the Kubuntu devs just come in and mess everything up", I feel the need to push back because I know it's unfair and untrue.
To illustrate: Jonathan Riddell seems to me to be the most prominent Kubuntu developer; whenever I go to modify a KDE package I see his name in the changelog. But Riddell isn't just a Kubuntu developer, but also a KDE developer! He contributes code to KDE, and he is an active member of the community as well.
I don't think any of the Kubuntu devs are incompetent. Kubuntu just isn't the focus of Canonical, while resources are limited and their overall desktop design needs to be unified. So if you want a distro as committed to two DE's as, say, OpenSUSE, those expectations won't be met. But in terms of _distributing_ KDE, they do a fine job.
I don't really even think of Kubuntu as a distribution in its own right. That's just a LiveCD installer with particular defaults. I'm a KDE user on Ubuntu. So maybe that explains why I feel my needs are being met when others don't, and why my stance is different. And I just want to repeat that Kubuntu contributes to KDE upstream, and using a schizophrenic view to blame the Kubuntu developers and absolve the KDE project is a cop-out to commenting on a more nuanced reality.
Although it's more or less off-topic at this point, I'd like to hear what you like about Arch vs Ubuntu. I wrote rather... um, enthusiastically about my formation of the opposite opinion here. I'm definitely interested in your differing experience if you're willing to share it.
Sure, I'll explain, my point of view - surely you are aware of the relation between opinions and assholes :) so these are just my personal opinions.
I personally like that the package names also include the category, as the amount of applications included with KDE can be quite overwhelming, and the names are not always very descriptive - the fact that the package names are longer is a non-issue with bash autocompletion. Anyway, that whole thing is a matter of preference and really doesn't matter at all. Some Arch devs are also KDE devs (see here for example), but it's very rare for derivatives of Arch to modify the packages, they are pretty much plain vanilla.
But as for why I prefer Arch over Ubuntu (in non-KDE issues), I'll first comment on your post you referred to. I have no comment on multilib support, as I've yet to see any compelling reason to move to 64bit, but I'll take your word for it (I'm by no means suggesting Arch is perfect). As for AUR, perhaps my needs are very generic, but I find pretty much all of the packages I need are either in core, extra or community (and the custom repos for LinHES/Chakra) - when I need a package from AUR, I just download the tarball and check/modify the files and then build the package. I don't find it that much more complicated, and as stated, I really don't end up doing it often. I'll certainly grant Ubuntu offers many more packages, but for me, the default Arch selection seems sufficient. On the occasion that I do use AUR, I very seldom run into packages that extract a DEB/RPM and relink them, but partially this is understandable, at least when it comes to commercial programs, as they tend to release packages only for those formats. I agree that such methods are very much bandaid, and should be avoided.
Without caching, I still find pacman to be much faster than apt, but as it uses a flat-files-in-directories -approach, the performance depends greatly on the underlying filesystem. Although I generally don't like ReiserFSv3 that much, it's great with lots of small files, so when running Arch it's wise to have at least /var/lib/pacman in ReiserFSv3. Personally I also like the fact that all of the operations are done with a single program, but this is simply a matter of preference. When it comes to conflicts, -f is your friend, if you are sure the change is safe. If you haven't updated in a while it's not uncommon for some files to conflict, personally I find it amusing to tell pacman to "-Sfu" (if only you there were a -t option as well).
ABS is another aspect I really appreciate, I don't rebuild standard packages often, but when I do it's very handy should I want to for example apply a certain patch. And generally, I really like the rolling release approach, as well as the rc.conf and other minimalistic config files. When using a more desktop oriented distribution I find it harder to figure out which configuration file affects which, although certainly this is a matter of getting accustomed as well. It's a tinkerers distribution, and I like to tinker - would I run it on my work computer, probably not (and unfortunately as of now I'm forced to use Windows at work), but it's a hobby. Specifically, regarding KDE/Chakra, I appreciate that it's pretty much plain vanilla, so I can customize it from there.
But as stated these are my personal opinions/preferences, if you like (K)Ubuntu more, more power to you. And sorry for the typos, grammar and general lack of coherence, English is not my first language and I've just woken up/haven't had enough coffee yet.
Damn slashdot - I wrote a lengthy reply and it seems it just disappeared. Oh well, I'll try again a bit more briefly. These are only my opinions, and you are surely aware of the relation between opinions and assholes...
I can't comment on multilib support, as I've yet to find a compelling need to use a 64-bit system, but I'll take your word for it. Perhaps my needs are very generic, but most of the programs I need are in core/extra/community (or the custom repos for LinHES/Chakra), on the occasion that I need to use AUR I just download the tarball, check/modify the files and build the package. Of the packages I do build from AUR, I very seldom run into those that extract RPMs/DEBs; I do agree it's very much band-aid and should be avoided, but is understandable at least when it comes to commercial/closed-source programs, as they usually only support those formats.
As for pacman, even without caching I find it to be faster than APT, but as it uses a flat-files-in-directories -approach, this depends very much on the file system. Although I don't like ReiserFSv3 that much, it's great with lots of small files, so when using Arch having at least /var/lib/pacman in ReiserFSv3 is recommendable. There are occasional conflicts, especially if you haven't updated for a while, but "-f" is your friend.
I also think ABS is great, I don't rebuild the stock packages often, but when I need to for example apply a certain patch the process is very straightforward. Making PKGBUILDs is very easy, and for the impatient, if a new version of $APP has been released, and one can't wait for it to exist in the repos, updating is usually as simple as getting the PKGBUILD from ABS, changing the version number, and building the package.
Generally what I like about Arch is the fact that the number of configuration files is quite minimal, it's much easier to figure what affects what, contrast to more desktop-oriented distributions. Naturally this is also a matter of getting used to, but in this aspect I find Arch much more approachable than many other distributions, it's very easy to find out what makes it "tick" (I'm also very much aware that this is of little interest to many users). And the rolling release system - yes, there is some breakage every now and then, but surprisingly little in my opinion, given how bleeding edge Arch is.
I agree that placing programs in /opt was annoying (although historically it was the "correct" thing to do for large packages, years ago), but very few, if any, packages install themselves in /opt anymore. I don't think I've ever seen an official package install anything in /usr/local, except perhaps some badly make AUR package, generally using /usr/local is bad practice in the official guidelines.
I also like the community, the wiki is very helpful, and although the forums certainly don't have as much users as the *buntu ones, I find the s/n-ratio to be much higher in Arch ones. But as stated, these are my personal opinions/preferences, if (K)Ubuntu works for you, more power to you. And sorry for the general lack of spelling, grammar and coherence, English is not my first language and it's still very early here.
Damn slashdot - I wrote a lengthy reply and it seems it just disappeared. Oh well, I'll try again a bit more briefly. These are only my opinions, and you are surely aware of the relation between opinions and assholes...
I can't comment on multilib support, as I've yet to find a compelling need to use a 64-bit system, but I'll take your word for it. Perhaps my needs are very generic, but most of the programs I need are in core/extra/community (or the custom repos for LinHES/Chakra), on the occasion that I need to use AUR I just download the tarball, check/modify the files and build the package. Of the packages I do build from AUR, I very seldom run into those that extract RPMs/DEBs; I do agree it's very much band-aid and should be avoided, but is understandable at least when it comes to commercial/closed-source programs, as they usually only support those formats.
As for pacman, even without caching I find it to be faster than APT, but as it uses a flat-files-in-directories -approach, this depends very much on the file system. Although I don't like ReiserFSv3 that much, it's great with lots of small files, so when using Arch having at least /var/lib/pacman in ReiserFSv3 is recommendable. There are occasional conflicts, especially if you haven't updated for a while, but "-f" is your friend.
I also think ABS is great, I don't rebuild the stock packages often, but when I need to for example apply a certain patch the process is very straightforward. Making PKGBUILDs is very easy, and for the impatient, if a new version of $APP has been released, and one can't wait for it to exist in the repos updating is usually as simple as getting the PKGBUILD from ABS, changing the version number, and building the package.
Generally what I like about Arch is the fact that the number of configuration files is quite minimal, it's much easier to figure what affects what, contrast to more desktop-oriented distributions. Naturally this is also a matter of getting used to, but in this aspect I find Arch much more approachable than many other distributions, it's very easy to find out what makes it "tick" (I'm also very much aware that this is of little interest to many users). And the rolling release system - yes, there is some breakage every now and then, but surprisingly little in my opinion, given how bleeding edge Arch is.
I agree that placing programs in /opt was annoying (although historically it was the "correct" thing to do for large packages, years ago), but very few, if any, packages install themselves in /opt anymore. I don't think I've ever seen an official package install anything in /usr/local, except perhaps some badly make AUR package, generally using /usr/local is bad practice in the official guidelines.
I also like the community, the wiki is very helpful, and although the forums certainly don't have as much users as the *buntu ones, I find the s/n-ratio to be much higher in Arch ones. But as stated, these are my personal opinions/preferences, if (K)Ubuntu works for you, more power to you. And sorry for the general lack of spelling, grammar and coherence, English is not my first language and it's still very early here.
Damn slashdot - I wrote a lengthy reply and it seems it just disappeared. Oh well, I'll try again a bit more briefly. These are only my opinions, and you are surely aware of the relation between opinions and assholes...
I can't comment on multilib support, as I've yet to find a compelling need to use a 64-bit system, but I'll take your word for it. Perhaps my needs are very generic, but most of the programs I need are in core/extra/community (or the custom repos for LinHES/Chakra), on the occasion that I need to use AUR I just download the tarball, check/modify the files and build the package. Of the packages I do build from AUR, I very seldom run into those that extract RPMs/DEBs; I do agree it's very much band-aid and should be avoided, but is understandable at least when it comes to commercial/closed-source programs, as they usually only support those formats.
As for pacman, even without caching I find it to be faster than APT, but as it uses a flat-files-in-directories -approach, this depends very much on the file system. Although I don't like ReiserFSv3 that much, it's great with lots of small files, so when using Arch having at least /var/lib/pacman in ReiserFSv3 is recommendable. There are occasional conflicts, especially if you haven't updated for a while, but "-f" is your friend.
I also think ABS is great, I don't rebuild the stock packages often, but when I need to for example apply a certain patch the process is very straightforward. Making PKGBUILDs is very easy, and for the impatient, if a new version of $APP has been released, and one can't wait for it to exist in the repos updating is usually as simple as getting the PKGBUILD from ABS, changing the version number, and building the package.
Generally what I like about Arch is the fact that the number of configuration files is quite minimal, it's much easier to figure what affects what, contrast to more desktop-oriented distributions. Naturally this is also a matter of getting used to, but in this aspect I find Arch much more approachable than many other distributions, it's very easy to find out what makes it "tick" (I'm also very much aware that this is of little interest to many users). And the rolling release system - yes, there is some breakage every now and then, but surprisingly little in my opinion, given how bleeding edge Arch is.
I agree that placing programs in /opt was annoying (although historically it was the "correct" thing to do for large packages, years ago), but very few, if any, packages install themselves in /opt anymore. I don't think I've ever seen an official package install anything in /usr/local, except perhaps some badly made AUR package, generally using /usr/local is bad practice according to the official guidelines.
I also like the community, the wiki is very helpful, and although the forums certainly don't have as much users as the *buntu ones, I find the s/n-ratio to be much higher in Arch ones. But as stated, these are my personal opinions/preferences, if (K)Ubuntu works for you, more power to you. And sorry for the general lack of spelling, grammar and coherence, English is not my first language and work is killing me at the moment so I'm unable to form very valid sentences.
...and it seems slashdot's comment system is borked, expect a flood of similar responses soon :)
Sorry for the brief reply, if I get a chance later I will be a bit more verbose. Anyway, about "libraries" for installing gnome, if you are using the .deb or installing from the repositories using apt, the dependencies and libraries that are required will be listed, and if you accept everything is installed at once. I would be surprised if "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get install qtparted" or "apt-get install gparted" does not work on (k)ubuntu without adding or enabling repositories. Unless you are installing something that is not in the repositories or there is no package available, you should not need to worry too much about the location of the libraries and other dependencies on your system.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
It's got an overload of features (especially built into its graphical interface), which is simply what some people prefer.
I am not devoid of humor.