Ubuntu 11.10 ('Oneiric Ocelot') Released

Cue the Ubuntu release parties — Ubuntu 11.10 has arrived. Ars Technica has a very positive summary of the changes in 11.10; Joe Brockmeier's piece of a few weeks back explains the return to Xen to Ubuntu and the introduction of Juju (formerly Ensemble). Asks an anonymous reader: "Any outstanding reasons why I shouldn't upgrade?" YMMV, but as a long-time Ubuntu user, and like many other users, I have mixed feelings about the concerted (and now complete) move away from a conventional WIMP interface to the new Unity. With previous versions, it was possible to choose a "classic" look rather than the default of Unity; now, for good or ill, the left-hand vertical menu is a permanent desktop element. It looks great to me, in the way the Canonical developers intend: as a consistent, replicable, supportable interface to recommend to (for instance) my parents — but I'm used to (and prefer!) more traditional WIMP environments, so at least for now have switched to Linux Mint's Debian Edition.

Comments

Re:12.04 LTS

[d3ac0n]

And this really bugs me. They are the only Linux distro that uses animal names for their version names, they get to 'P' and they DON'T USE 'PENGUIN'? WTF???

Re:apt-get install gnome?

[GPLHost-Thomas]

Debian's strict philosophy is offputting to many people, who don't quite understand how they benefit from getting "Iceweasel" instead of Firefox

There's nothing guided by philosophy here, but by trademark laws. That rename was IMPOSED by the Mozilla foundation, imposed thanks to their registered trademark they old for both the Firefox logo and the browser name. Because they didn't like Debian to back-port bugs in stable releases of Debian, and thus running a different code than Mozilla is producing. The source-code being free (libre) and without trademark, Debian has still the rights to ship Firefox if it's avoiding the trademarked logo and name. This renaming isn't something that Debian wants, it's a pain to maintain and an annoyance for the users. So why are you giving this as an example of Debian's miss-behavior, when here the issue is Mozilla refusing to do long-term support, and refusing that we do it under their name as well? Shouldn't you blame Mozilla instead?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's mostly still WIMP, but just different enough to be annoying, and for no apparent reason.

Reasons:

1. GNOME devs already wish they worked for Apple, and it shows.
2. Ubuntu/Unity devs wish they were Apple.
3. Shuttleworth got an iPad.
4. Shuttleworth apparently not only had his mouse and keyboard stolen, he also had his arms cut off and can now only operate computers with his nose. He thus expects every computer he uses to be an iPad.
5. Combine the above four points and Ubuntu becomes an iPad, whether you ungrateful bastards with ARMS on your torsos like it or not.
6. Stupid people with arms. All a bunch of uncaring assholes. Every one of you.

wrong understanding of "WIMP interface"

[halfdan the black]

WIMP stands for "window, icon, menu, pointing device", which you have with 11.04 I think what the author is complaining about is that Unity (or Gnome3) are not what I call "windows 95" clones. We have had this disease in computing ever since Windows 95 that every interface has to look like Windows 95. Think about it, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, KDE, Gnome 2.x were ALL essentially copies of the Windows 95 user interface. (Gnome 1.x was more of a CDE clone). All of these had some basic things like start bar and a "desktop" with files and program links. So, instead of using the term WIMP, the author should have used something like "Windows 95 based" user interface. No, I am not particularly fond of Unity, not because its different, in fact a choice between Gnome 2.x or Unity, I would choose Unity. I do however MUCH prefer Gnome 3, its much more polished, consistent, customizable (css/javascript), the workflow is well thought out, and Gnome3 does not use a unified Mac menu thats hacked onto applications that were simply not intended for a unified menu bar. I for one am ecstatic that we are finally moving away from Windows 95 being the gold standard for user interfaces.

Re:What distribution left for developers?

[dokebi]

The way Unity auto-hides the top menu (File, Edit, etc) really interferes how I interact with my programs. Instead of looking at the menu target (say Tools), then moving the mouse pointer there, I have to move my pointer to the top, then find my menu target, then move my mouse again to get to Tools. On my 24" monitor, I have many windows open, and having to move all the way to the top just to *see* where my Tools menu just drives me nuts. No thank you.