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Preview of Ubuntu's Unity Interface
itwbennett writes "In late October we learned that starting with the next release (11.04), Ubuntu would use Unity instead of GNOME as its default desktop interface. Now we know a bit more about what that will (and won't) mean for users. The move to Unity doesn't mean that Ubuntu is abandoning GNOME. It also doesn't mean that users will be forced to use Unity; they'll still be able to revert to the old GNOME interface. What it does mean, mainly, is that users will be presented with a simple interface — probably too simple for nuts and bolts types. The more 'radical shift' will be switching Ubuntu's base graphics system from the X Window System to Wayland. There users can expect that it will take some time before things are in working order. 'In other words,' says Steven Vaughan-Nichols who reviewed Unity for ITworld, 'Wayland will be an option, and one that only people who don't mind having their desktops blow up on a regular basis should fool with, in Ubuntu 11.04. By Ubuntu 11.10, it will be workable, and come the spring release two years from now, Ubuntu 12.04, we should, if all goes well, see a stable Wayland-based Unity desktop.'"
Text is useless. I want screenshots!
I'm sorry, how is this possibly a "preview" when there is not one screen shot? One link goes to an older /. article, the other goes to an all text article.
Can you please stop naming things that don't have photos like they do have photos?
If "weird" includes Ubuntu's adoption of Wayland, I have bad news: Fedora is also dumping X for Wayland (eventually).
The problem with PulseAudio is not that it wasn't finished or well tested, the problem is the implementation sucks (ie. bad programmers wrote it).
I have never understood why they didn't just go back to OSS. OSS has made extensive improvements in the latest versions and can do everything ALSA/PulseAudio/whatever can do plus a lot more. On top of that everything works with OSS because it's the original Linux sound API.
Ubuntu has stability problems?
From what I've heard at least they'll wait until it's ready before they decide if they should make the switch or not.
If "weird" includes Ubuntu's adoption of Wayland, I have bad news: Fedora is also dumping X for Wayland (eventually)
Fedora? The base OS for RHEL server systems? Is going to dump X so server admins will no longer be able to run graphical admin programs remotely from their servers to their desktop without using some horrific kludge like VNC? Apps which will apparently require OpenGL to render, on servers which don't even have OpenGL drivers?
They are duplicating the KDE 4.0 roll out plan?? *ducks*
Fedora and Ubuntu appeal to two completely different crowds.
Ubuntu is for those who want everything to work, even if not perfectly. They include proprietary drivers strait off their install discs for the purpose of making all hardware within your computer work on first boot. Ubuntu and Debian take a lot of pride in Apt as well, as a way to reduce the pain of dependency tracking for your normal users who just want to get Cinelerra or other useful linux apps that are rarely ever included running.
Fedora is for those who really enjoy tinkering, who want to be bleeding-edge. A lot of time, the non-standard apps won't run without some significant tweaking, and even Redhat says that you will need to recompile the kernel to avoid some hard limits on Disk I/O, however they make doing all of these tasks very easy, because they maintain very large repos and provide you with your development tools strait off the disk.
Thirty four characters live here.
Linux Mint has all the good plug ins and none of the weird stuff thats been happening ubuntu while
still being compatible with ubuntu. The window buttons are still on the right, the start button is
still on the bottom.
Linux Mint will still use GNOME for the forseeable future.
They make big sweeping changes to a new technology that is not well tested or even finished, ala PulseAudio.
To be fair, new technology rarely gets well tested or even finished if no-one is using it.
Pulseaudio has been a disaster though. Every new Ubuntu release seems to fix some sound problems and introduce others (e.g. going from 9.10 to 10.04 stopped the button sounds working in xbmc on my HTPC).
Is it completely impossible to get something similar into Wayland? It doesn't do it right now, but if it get enough momentum I can't think that someone isn't going to add it.
Is it completely impossible to get something similar into Wayland?
Every time I've seen someone ask the Wayland devs how they plan to support remote rendering, their response seems to be 'we don't. go away'.
Debian is a logical choice... I am seeing more Ubuntu users going to Debian every year.
X will still run fine, even under Wayland, so relax.
Sigh, we're not talking about running X and rendering on a Wayland desktop, we're talking about running Wayland apps and rendering on a remote desktop, the way you currently can with X. The biggest single advantage of X over Windows, which the Wayland developers seem quite happy to throw away in the quest for 'The Shiny'.
Given a choice between fancier compositing effects and being able to run any program on any machine while rendering on any other machine, I'll take the latter any day.
Ubuntu was working towards a so-called "10 second" boot. What happened to that? They give up? *MAYBE*, if I'm in a generous mood, they quickened boot by 30'ish percent during their efforts. But it still takes like 40'ish second or more until a usable desktop. That's a long way off from their stated goal. People seem to have forgotten about this.
Best of luck. Promoting Linux on the desktop is good, but I'm tired of broken packages pushed out as stable (latest kate in Ubuntu locks up on file open) and I highly value graphical network transparency. It's back to Debian for me.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
The Unity namespace is already occupied by http://www.unity3d.com/ a great game engine for iOS and android and support multitouch and so on. Canonical is just going to make it a PITA for one or both sets of developers searching for "unity opengl" "unity GUI" "unity multitouch" "unity android."
Wait, seriously? They're replacing X Windows with something which doesn't support remote displays?
WTF??? Is that true? That makes no sense whatsoever ... one of the best things about X is being able to have display from multiple sources.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Are there any Wayland native apps yet? Without those, all you have is a pretty interface and nothing to do with it. Sure, you can provide backwards compatibility by running an X server on top of Wayland, but then what was the point of dumping X.org?
The X11R6 protocol has been around for a long time, because it's good at what it does. By dumping the X protocol along with the X.org server they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
From the Wayland FAQ
https://groups.google.com/group/wayland-display-server/web/frequently-askeds-questions
You do realize that Windows doesn't support X11 (at least it's apps won't act as clients - there are servers) and many, many, MANY admins get by just fine with RDP right?
X11 isn't the absolutely only way to do remote access.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
So if I use this unity 3d engine on ubuntu unity using VMware unity, do I get a trilogy?
Nvidia has no plans to support it because as of now, NO ONE USES IT. If by way of Ubuntu support it gains traction, Nvidia likely would indeed support it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Ubuntu puts up the testing, coding, and support. That's the difference. They say, "We want to do this. It's probably broken now. In a couple releases it'll be probably working. After that it'll be standard." Fedora does that somewhat (rush in head-first to new versions), but on big technology switches they like to hang back a bit.
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I have both.
Shameless blog punt here but look at the links below:
http://g33q.co.za/2010/10/26/using-unity-another-7-day-challenge/ (An introduction to me using unity for seven days as my only work environment.)
I also show you how to create a custom skin for Unity.
And here is an older article where I take a preview look at Unity back in May already: http://g33q.co.za/2010/05/12/preview-ubuntu-unity/
Have fun!
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Confusing? X is the server, and handles connections to it telling it what to display. Like httpd (apache) is a server and handles a Web client telling it what Web page to send down the pipe. People weren't confused running the Tetrinet server, seeing the clients connect to them and output images to the screen; but they're confused running the X server, seeing the clients connect?
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Wayland developers include several lead X.org developers,[9] who feel that a cleaner new design and protocol is more maintainable for the future.[14] One of them has envisaged providing remote access to a Wayland application by either 'pixel-scraping' (as in VNC and SPICE) or getting it to send a "rendering command stream" across the network (like RDP).[15] It is anticipated that X11 applications will be supported by an X server running as an application on Wayland.
Hopefully they go the RDP-like route, which im my opinion is vastly superior over the way X11 does it.
With such gems in TFA as
By focusing on Unity (on Wayland or X) for Ubuntu, Canonical has essentially forked its own Linux distribution.
you arent missing much (what does that even mean???? They cant "fork" their own distro...).
Perhaps the author typed "borked" and the editor "corrected" it.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Open source drivers are not useful for serious 3D work on Linux.
I'm currently doing serious 3D work with the Xorg Radeon driver with 4350 and 4850 cards (the former slow but fanless and quiet). The driver has been rock solid including suspend/resume. The only noticable regressions so far are lines not antialiased and bilinear filtering not working for mipmapping. These are in no way an obstacle to development work and I have every confidence these issues will be addressed in due course, and probably have already been addressed in upstream. Unlike the closed NVidia drivers I've used in the past, every one of which has had serious issues ranging from non working text console to black screen on reboot and many others. Never mind the inconvenience of having to build a new kernel wrapper on every kernel upgrade, and deal with NVidia's braindamaged driver installer.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I can't get PulseAudio working in any way shape or form. Perfect setup doesn't work, no fresh Ubuntu installs work. I'd guess that it was hardware related, but the hardware is question is an old SB Live (maybe early Audigy) card. It worked fine for years under Gentoo and pre-PA Ubuntu releases. It works fine when I boot into windows for an occasional game. It works fine once I purge PulseAudio and go back to Alsa.
Every new Ubuntu release I try to fight with PA for a couple of days. When it's clear it's not going to work, I purge it, and all is well. (Outside of a few flash issues, of course.)
I understand what PulseAudio is supposed to do - I've had it semi-working at times. It's a great, great idea. It's badly needed for Linux. I just wish it goddamned worked for me! Best I've done so far is have everything work, except sounds queued up in the pipeline, and trickled out tens of seconds to minutes after they were called. Before PA crashed and died. I have to agree with the AC you replied to: "Man, the hours upon hours I've lost on Pulseaudio. Insanity."
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
'Wayland will be an option, and one that only people who don't mind having their desktops blow up on a regular basis should fool with, in Ubuntu 11.04." Every time I upgrade or clean install Ubuntu something blows up. Why is this different? I now consider the blowing up part of the leaning experience.
The desktop sits atop the OS. It's not a different OS, but a different GUI.
Unlike Windows or Mac, you can actually have several different GUIs installed, and even switch between them at will.
End the FUD
Ubuntu lets you choose too. If you want off the roller coaster and just want a stable system based on proven technology, install an LTS and wait for the next LTS. Easy.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Bzzt! Wrong... The GUI is a significant part of what defines any consumer oriented OS. Your attitude promotes feature-instability on the desktop.
Its one of the reasons the Linux-based systems have such a hard time getting traction: The GUI stuff is treated as separate and second-class and can change from month to month. It prevents distros from being recognizable by end-users, and prevents robust vertical integration where its needed to make things convenient and understandable for the user.
Confusing? X is the server, and handles connections to it telling it what to display. Like httpd (apache) is a server and handles a Web client telling it what Web page to send down the pipe. People weren't confused running the Tetrinet server, seeing the clients connect to them and output images to the screen; but they're confused running the X server, seeing the clients connect?
It is confusing because while it makes sense from point of view of the X protocol, from the point of view of the user, the "server" appears to be the client and the "client" appears to be the server. If I connect to server and request an image - in the http protocol, I connect to a server(apache), and it shows content on the client(browser). However if I am doing the same thing using X, it appears as if I connect to server(remote system), and request to show an image, and it shows content on client(my display or X-Server). What is actually happening is that the remote server's program is the client that requests to display things on the server - but that is not what the user sees. Thus the confusion of so many people, which is understandable as it is not the most logical thing unless you understand the X protocol.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
It doesn't "just work" so well if you're trying to access something over the Internet. The X11 protocol is ridiculously inefficient at transmitting over links that aren't LAN-based. That's why projects such as FreeNX and x2go exist. They trim off all the useless fat to make it usable over a WAN connection.
The launcher on the left has a few features, one of which is auto-hide If that's not good enough, you could, I dunno, switch to the classic GNOME Panel GUI in Ubuntu at GDM rather than doing an entirely different distro I wonder how you feel about GNOME Shell, which even Debian would have to move to eventually
I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect there will be a setting to auto-hide the launcher dock on the side of the screen. And even if not, it's better than having the dock at the bottom of the screen, given the prevalence of widescreen monitors these days.
And I suspect there will be a setting to turn off the 'maximize when you touch the top' action, just as there is in Win 7.
As far as the look is concerned, I doubt it will take long to be heavily customized to look however you want it to look.
You've decided you don't like it based on an early demo of some default settings. Why don't you wait until it's mature, and give it a try before jumping to conclusions?
Nothing to see here
You can run X on top of Wayland. See Wayland as cleaner division of what is in kernel, what is in local user space and what is remote. There is no need to glob all this into a single monolithic X binary. X will work just fine in wayland. It wont change anything except that you wont need to be root to start accepting x11 conection.
Personaly, i hope remote display is worked inside the ui toolkit instead. I would like something like gtkssh that open a ssh link and pipe thru the widget building command. This will fix the clinet/server relation to what peoples expect. Make it easyer to acess remote apps from many hosts securly. With that, a gtklib with "pipe" backend could be installed on servers. Puling configuration tool gui, directly from the server would make personal home server more accesible.
That's an interesting opinion.
Perhaps it's rooted in a confusion in the use of "Operating System," or perhaps from your misunderstanding of what an OS is in general, or how the OS and UI interact. Surely, one can roll the UI into the "OS," but particularly in this case, the underlying mechanics aren't changing (there's still a GNU kernel in there), but the discussed changes are in layers between, which can be replaced if you don't like the changes.
The flexibility you chide is a strength not a weakness. When users are faced with Linux distros, they aren't experiencing the Linux OS, but the desktop interface atop the OS. When approaching a PC running Linux, they're faced often with Gnome or KDE or one of the others, probably tweaked with their distro's defaults or the previous user's preferences or tinkerings.
Further, except for us nuts-and-bolts users, few users even get into the UI they're presented with (beyond changing the background or adding widgets) after they've figured out how the launching mechanism works. Most of them are familiar and concerned with the applications they run (word processor, web browser, e-mail client). Those, for the most part, don't change when the underlying desktop changes (that is, switching from Gnome to KDE) any more than they do when applying different themes (colors, borders, fonts).
If you've ever written GUI software, you'd know that your fear-based misrepresentation (or perhaps another misunderstanding) of this is also unwarranted. Few people write application software directly to the UI (Gnome/KDE/etc), or even to the graphics layer beneath that (X/Wayland/whatever), but instead use an abstraction layer (QT, for example), for exactly the reason of removing the concern of which desktop UI it sits atop.
Underneath all of that, the OS, in this case GNU Linux, is the same.
End the FUD
I've had problems with ubuntu a couple years now. This has been common over a few different machines even using differnt graphic cards. The machine seemed prone to desktop lockups that require a hard reset, which I despise. I had pretty much given up trying to fix the problem when I discovered they install those fancy-schmancy desktop FX on machines even if you don't enable them. So after removing ALL TRACES of compiz, beryl and the ilk and installing the OPEN graphics driver for my ATi card I finally got a machine that was as stable as I remembered older versions like 6.10. It doesn't look quite as pretty and flashy, but at least I'm not having to hard reset my pc every day or two.
How will Wayland ever be able to run decently on nVidia cards? Nouveau is not a real option yet (it's not yet decent enough for anything beyond accelerating desktop compositing) and nVidia doesn't plan to support EGL on Linux. So how will Ubuntu fix that? I'm really curious about that.
And how does Wayland plan to implement Clipboard and Drag and Drop functionality? Haven't seen that anywhere in the tiny amount of code that Wayland currently is.
Replacing X is not a bad goal, but getting there is hard. Just writing some code that defers the hard part about graphics to a driver and omits all the rest doesn't cut it. Let's just wait and see where this thing goes.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
Here's something else: you only need to run Wayland if you want to. If you still want to use X, then just run that. Choice, remember?
And how long will it be an option and not default? We all know the direction this is going. Eventually everyone will switch and wayland will eat up all the resources leaving the Xorg project, like Xfree before it, to die a slow death whether its still needed by people or not. Even if resources are provided to Xorg the interest will be with wayland and Xorg will still die a bit rot death being dropped by most oses/distros again like xfree86. Bling will win out and needed features X had for twenty years will have to be kludged in with mixed results and stability.
But will all their applications still be able to run on X? It doesn't help me if I can run X, but all the applications I use cannot use it.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind replacing X with something better. But something which doesn't provide network transparency is not better. And yes, it's a feature I frequently use.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Actually those old Creative cards are great with linux. Hardware mixing, multichannel (digital and analog) audio and drivers in vanilla kernel all have been working for years. Everything started to fall apart after (K)ubuntu started to use PA. I suddenly had ALSA, PulseAudo and Phonon on my KDE desktop. Nothing was working anymore.
I can't speak for everyone, but for me, what's confusing has nothing to do with the hardware. It's a matter of local vs. remote and where the important stuff is happening. Most users would look at X the way they would look at Telnet, SSH, VNC, or Windows' RDP: the user uses a client to connect to a server. All the important stuff is happening on the server, the client just provides the user a way to connect to it. I realize that in X, the client/server definitions are based on a client looking for a server to display stuff on, but that's backwards from how most other client/server relations are defined.
We can take your old Compaq and call it a server. We'll install X on it, then use a tiny, low-power box sold as a "Thin Client" to connect to it. We now have a Thin Client running an X Server connecting to a Server running an X Client.
If you don't understand how that could confuse some people, then I suggest you never speak to another human being again. In other words, stfu yourself.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Per the mailing list, they're working on the basics now like running anything, so it's a low priority. Their plan is to advertise the remote viewer's list of renderers options to the app (X, OpenGL, RDP), and pass messages between the toolkits & the remote viewer's renderer.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
You seem to be missing the target market buddy. Ubuntu is Linux for humans and NOT Linux for CS Grads. How many average Joes you think are really gonna mess with remote access via X? But what average Joes WILL notice is the way X can shit itself and die hard if you have a half dozen apps on and then launch something heavy like a video.
As a Windows guy that sells to average Joes I'm all for it, as this is one more step closer to having a true "third way" that will compete with Windows and OSX. Now if they will only fork the kernel away from Linus who STILL refuses to have a stable hardware ABI even though OSX, Windows, BSD, Solaris, etc has had one for fricking ages which makes them a hell of a lot nicer, then we may actually have that third way.
Because one of the big things keeping me from having Ubuntu machines on my shelves is like another poster pointed out when an update broke functionality on his mom's laptop. Having to give away lifetime free support (because home users will NOT by extended contracts, see the hatred of Best Buy as an example) because every time Linus futzes with the kernel shit breaks all over the place really keeps the smaller shops like mine away from Linux. Look at how Dell has to run their own repos just to keep shit from breaking on their Ubuntu netbooks.
With Unity and Wayland and hopefully later on a kernel fork Canonical looks to be giving average folks REAL choice, and not just the same CLI mess with another pretty skin on top. I personally would love it if Shuttleworth does for Linux what Steve Jobs did for Apple, and bring Linux out of the server room into the mainstream. And it isn't like the CLI junkies don't have a bazillion choices, like Arch, Slax, etc. Let the average folks have a "clicky clicky" Linux please?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Surely, one can roll the UI into the "OS," but particularly in this case, the underlying mechanics aren't changing (there's still a GNU kernel in there), but the discussed changes are in layers between, which can be replaced if you don't like the changes.
No, see, that's precisely the problem: because everything at the "GUI" or desktop frramework level is unspecified by Unix, features get provided there in an incompatible, framework-specific, way. So you *can't* replace layers if you don't like the changes - you can maybe pull, eg, parts of X, which at least has some kind of specification, or you can rip out the entire framework, and replace GNOME and all its app ecosystem with KDE and its ecosystem - but nothing in between. Modern desktop frameworks are now based around not just X but a whole horde of daemon services like PulseAudio and Dbus - many of which have no specified API other than their implementation. Good luck deciding to remove one of those and have all your apps still work.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Fair enough; the layers may be rather integrated. But I wasn't suggesting (quite) that you could take apart the UIs and piecemeal them together into some other option. There are dependencies that need to be respected, absolutely.
I think your example may be a bit more detailed than the typical user, or even just the Gnome vs KDE argument. Yes, when you switch from Gnome to KDE many of the applets, plug-ins, and supplementary do-dads go with. But the functionality, while perhaps different, is still probably there. You may have a different network manager, but you still have a way to manage your network adapters. Or audio, or screen-savers.
Additionally, for the most part the more full-featured frameworks, like QT, provide the APIs the UI may not (and that some may argue you should avoid anyway, to remain portable). The word processor/text editor that comes with the desktop environment may be drastically different, but OpenOffice still works on both, for example.
End the FUD
End users don't care about any of that stuff. They want something with a single identity that is recognizable to THEM. What you defined is only recognizable to people like you and I. (And based on that, I would suggest Slashdotters stop referring to "Linux" as if could be a consumer desktop OS... it cannot be that any more than a transmission can be a car).
GNU/Linux is an OS with a CLI user interface. Android is an OS with a graphical user interface. They both have a Linux kernel. But just because some techies have long preferred to use the former as a desktop does not mean the latter kind of OS isn't possible. Nor does it mean that the definition of an OS ought to be stuck in the 1980s.
Please remember we are talking about the desktop arena. That means OS X and Windows set the standards and define what user expectations are.
XNU (in Mac OS X) is not an OS. Darwin is an OS without a GUI, it includes XNU like OS X does. But what defines OS X (and notice the "OS" in the name) to a great extent is the GUI. No GUI no OS X, and the same has been true for Windows for many years.
So there is your defacto definition of a consumer desktop OS: a GUI is expected.
GNU/Linux can keep right on going with its current formula with graphical interfaces being second class to all of the other hardware, inter-software and text interfaces. But other OSes incorporate GNU/Linux components while ditching the "Linux" identity and the hacker hostility towards graphics.
But what average Joes WILL notice is the way X can shit itself and die hard if you have a half dozen apps on and then launch something heavy like a video.
My main linux machine gets rebooted every few months and I on average have *counts* 18 types of gui apps running at once, with 3-6 instances of certain ones without issue. Have run this way for years because I'm lazy and love to just leave everything open (run a heap of daemons too).
Now if they will only fork the kernel away from Linus who STILL refuses to have a stable hardware ABI even though OSX, Windows, BSD, Solaris, etc has had one for fricking ages which makes them a hell of a lot nicer, then we may actually have that third way.
Not this again. The reason we have no stable ABI, is because it is a FUCKING BAD idea. Besides, if you want a stable abi pick a kernel release and stick with it. There, stable ABI.
You know you are talking about the linux kernel INTERNAL interfaces yes? to keep them stable would basically require development on the kernel to stop. You are free to pick a version and stick with it like what happens in windows land to get a stable ABI.
Technically binary kernel drivers are derivative works of the kernel anyway, thusly should be under the gpl. Yes when the api changes old open source drivers released by vendors break, but that is entirely why they are encouraged to get them into mainline in the first place. Because it is the proper way to do it, and it then becomes supported forever after.
Basically from a development standpoint binary only kernel modules are retarded. There is no real way to bugfix if there is something wrong with them, they will eventually be deprecated anyway (can't use xp drivers with vista for example) and so on.
Having to give away lifetime free support (because home users will NOT by extended contracts, see the hatred of Best Buy as an example) because every time Linus futzes with the kernel shit breaks all over the place really keeps the smaller shops like mine away from Linux.
The answer is simple, set it all up for them once so it all works and get them to not update the kernel... you wouldn't expect an end user to upgrade from xp to vista without bitching about shit not working would you? so why let them upgrade kernel?
I personally would love it if Shuttleworth does for Linux what Steve Jobs did for Apple, and bring Linux out of the server room into the mainstream.
Apple has NEVER been in the server room. It has always been in the mainstay of the creative industries.