Ubuntu Turns 7

sfcrazy writes "Ubuntu, the world's most popular GNU/Linux based operating system is celebrating its 7th year today. Ubuntu was first released on 20 October 2004. In these 7 years Ubuntu has changed the GNU/Linux desktop segment by making it more useful for ordinary user." Besides the work that Ubuntu has done to popularize and polish the Linux desktop, and to present a humane entry point for non-guru users, it's provided a base for many other distributions (like Mint and Puppy) and helped make people realize just how powerful is the Debian infrastructure that Ubuntu itself launched from.

Comments

Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[yog]

I used to love Ubuntu; a few years ago, I threw it on a Dell laptop and it just worked (albeit with a bit of tweaking to get wifi connected). I was impressed by its ability to locate printers on the network. Now I have it on both a desktop and a couple of laptops. I also have it in VirtualBox on my XP work laptop and it works great there as well.

However, in recent versions they are pitching this Unity desktop thing which I despise. It may be great, it may be awesome, it may be the next big thing. But it's not for me. I'm an old Windows/X/KDE guy and I don't want to deal with icons down the side. So I'm stuck on an old revision and am starting to look around for another distro, possibly OpenSuse which I use at work and enjoy very much.

Now they are forcing Unity on us in the latest revision; there's no option to go back to the classic desktop (please correct me if I'm wrong but that's what Slashdot said a few days ago).

I will agree that Canonical has done a great job popularizing this Windows alternative and making it so easy to install and use. I wish them well. I just wish they'd stop limiting people's choices. Linux is about choices. Guess I'll have to look into some of these Ubuntu offshoots like Linux Mint.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read a lot of forums, not just computer related ones but other things where someone starts a "Linux" thread.

I'd say the opinions run about 90% against unity, and 10% for. Trouble is, they made it the DEFAULT, rather than an option, and since in the mind of most non-hardcore people, Ubuntu *is* Linux, they are turning people off from using Linux. Sure, gurus know they can install KDE or XFCE or another environment, but people new to linux don't know that. They grab the thing they have heard of, a default version of Ubuntu, try it, encounter Unity, and think, "Wow, Linux really sucks", and go back to Windows.

It's doing irreparable harm to the image of Linux, and they *won't listen* to the massive outpouring of user feedback against it. It isn't that it shouldn't exist - it's fine, just not as the default environment for the distro! Because of that choice, it has been a disaster for the image of desktop Linux.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Dyinobal]

ya I used the unity desktop and I didn't like it much. I ended up using Lubuntu for my laptop because a lot of the newer stuff in these latest few releases was really slowing it down for no good reason. About the only reason I use it these days I the debian packaging system, with out all the debian silliness.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[gfxguy]

Me, too. Ubuntu got me back to Linux on the desktop. I'm a long time computer programmer and Linux tinkerer, but ultimately I like to log in and work or surf or play games or something, and I felt like I spent too much time tweaking other distributions to get everything to work.

The first time I tried Ubuntu (around 6.x) it just worked... on both the laptop and desktop, it recognized the video cards, network adapters, sound cards... it's true that later versions actually broke working things, which really pissed me off (I could have spent hours or days figuring out how to make my wireless adapter work, but I just downgraded instead).

I even gave Unity a fair shot - not a couple of hours, not a couple of days, but a couple of months. Now I use Xubuntu, and it's quite good.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Windwraith]

"Forcing"? It's just the default, you can change it to whatever you want, as always.

It's like saying they are forcing Telepathy, but I swear I have Pidgin running here. And Synaptic instead of the Software Center.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[The MAZZTer]

If you would prefer gnome 3 you can install the gnome-shell package or whatever; reportedly it works just fine... I dunno about gnome 2 though, I would expect there is a package for that too.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[BasilBrush]

I'd not heard about Unity, but your comment that it wasn't Windows enough for you made me look into it. To me being less like Windows is a big selling point.

For me it looks really nice. Linux copying OS X for a change rather than copying Windows. For the first time in years, a Linux UI that I actually fancy trying.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Frenzied Apathy]

As a Windows user going to Ubuntu for the first time (with v.11.04) I liked the Unity interface. It felt very familiar and was easy to pick up. I'm not saying it's "better" than whatever UI it replaced, because as I said Unity was my first experience with Linux, but I like Unity, personally.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Frenzied Apathy]

It'd be interesting to know who those 90% and 10% are. I.e. are the 90% mostly people who have been using Ubuntu before - and therefore have something to compare to - and the 10% mostly newcomers? I'm curious because, as I stated in a previous post, I personally like Unity, which is my first experience with Linux.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[asv108]

Linux is about choices, you have root and are free to customize as you see fit or go to another distro. (there are plenty that support vanilla GNOME and KDE Desktops) The move Ubuntu is making here is smart. Its about ease of use and design.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[cshark]

Not true. It's not beautiful or functional.
It's been hindered, and it drains productivity.
It has no fucking admin tools! You can't move the control bar! You can't multi-task! You can't move icons! How is that functional?!

It's like Mac OS, without the flexibility. If you are a serious computer user, Unity is not for you.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[BasilBrush]

Coincidentally 90% is approximately the proportion of the general public that think desktop GUIs ought to look like Windows...

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[eddy the lip]

I'm a long time linux user, and I like Unity, too. I can point to a couple of annoyances, but it's early days. I'm very happy to be done with running the mouse maze with those main menus.

There are a few things I wanted to customize when I first saw it, couldn't, so I learned to work with them and it really wasn't a big deal. Some don't care for it, and that's fine. Welcome to linux, where Sturm and Drang are your first cousins.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Tarlus]

I thought the same thing and spent some time with it when 11.04 was released. I'm always interested in taking new UI ideas for a spin but decided that Unity was so stifling, buggy and limited in functionality that I yearned for a Windows UI by the end of it.

Hello, XFCE.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[itof500]

Yes. I'm an old Common Desktop Environment guy from the Dec Alpha days. I always configure my desktop to look like that. Unity is very different. I understand the utility of the side/vertical icons for the common wide screen monitors many of us use. However, I don't understand the fiat that we cannot configure it how we want.

So, yes. Looking for another home os. How is Fedora these days?

Duke out

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[MMC Monster]

Agree totally.

I've been using Ubuntu since 5.04, and it's been my only exposure to Linux on the desktop. I have since bought a NAS that runs debian. I only shell into it, so I would never have been comfortable buying it if it wasn't for my desktop experience with Ubuntu.

Now, I just installed Ubuntu 11.10 on a Acer Aspire Revo 3700 and have it running XBMC. I can't figure out how to run XBMC automatically upon automatic login. So when I reboot the system I need a mouse to start XBMC. (It's otherwise controlled with my universal remote -- And I don't want to add a macro to the remote as my kids may screw things up.))

My guess is I'll switch over to Debian running KDE, since Gnome 3 has given up on the standard Gnome desktop as well.

Any other thoughts? Whatever I use, I would like some comfort in knowing the project will exist for a couple years or so.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[shish]

It may be great, it may be awesome, it may be the next big thing. But it's not for me.

So don't use it? Linux noobs were complaining for years about how there were too many desktops to choose from, and they're all still there :-/

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[laffer1]

I think people need to stop pushing Linux distros as Linux. If we all start calling them by their given project name, it will avoid this confusion. We want end users to compare Fedora to Ubuntu to Suse to Debian, not one size fits all. Yeah they use the same kernel and some of the same software, but it's not even the same versions between current distros. It will just make things easier to deal with.

Besides, let's say we finally get that year of Linux on the desktop everyone dreams of. It won't be Linux on the desktop, it will be some distro on the desktop. They won't all hit critical mass. If distros marketed themselves distinctly, it would help.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[laffer1]

I totally agree with this. When I needed to use linux, Ubuntu was my go to distro for the last several years. I migrated from Redhat and Gentoo to it. I've ended up using Debian lately. It's a little behind what Ubuntu was, but it's a lot more stable and many things work for me that didn't in Ubuntu out of the box.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

You do know that it's the Gnome project who discontinued Gnome 2, right? So for Ubuntu the option was to go with Gnome 3 (which has "icons down the side" as well) or do their own desktop shell (which they did with Unity). Kubuntu and Lubuntu exist for those who don't want Gnome, anyway. So, I think that your rant was misdirected.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

And Xubuntu as well.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[JonJ]

How is Fedora these days?

Running GNOME 3, which is worse/shit. Alternatively you can use a poorly optimized KDE version on which will lag for no apparent reason.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

You can't multitask? You can't move icons? Not true at all.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

I've used October Gnome (!), KDE 1.0 before that, and fvwm2 even before that. And I, too, like Unity.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[sarhjinian]

If you are a serious computer user, Unity is not for you.

Ubuntu's tagline, for years, has been "Linux for Human Beings". Unity is not meant for serious computer users, which is why things like Ubuntu Server and the various supplementary editions exist.

I'll admit that Unity is not fully baked, but least they're trying, as opposed to aping the taskbar/start-menu that's been a standard of Linux distros since we dumped twm and olvwm and started using fvwm hacks that looked like Windows95.

I'd like to see Unity's rough edges filed down: managing multiple desktops and windows still seems kludgy (next to GNOME3, so much so that I find myself slapping the Windows key in Windows and getting annoyed that it brings up the start menu) and there's some inelegancy and integration problems (Thunderbird doesn't seem to be well-integrated, the global menu bar and window controls are hard to hit, the supporting apps are glitchy), but I can see the destination.

None of this precludes "serious computer users" from installing KDE, LXDE, GNOME2 or whatever. Or, you know, switching to Arch, Mint FreeBSD, Debian or such. It's not like you're locked in.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[rubycodez]

Nope, the Unity files screw up GNOME and KDE. But, there's a patch that fixes all that. Everything has been good since I applied that patch to my Ubuntu systems at work and home

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[X0563511]

Please define "debian silliness"

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Insightfill]

I am playing with other distros looking for an alternative to this UNITY crap. I need a plain and functional desktop like Gnome 2. Simple, usuable and reliable in a high-pressure IT environment, that's what I want...

Since you're in an IT environment, you may want to give Debian another look. Since you're in an IT setup, you're likely to have pretty standard hardware. Since you're in an IT setup, you may find Debian "Stable" or even "Testing" reliable enough for you; Ubuntu is based on "unstable". You can even tack on any GUI you want, and still get the same APT package management.

You could also go the other way, as others have noted, and look at Mint or a similar Ubuntu-based distro.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[westlake]

I've read a lot of forums, not just computer related ones but other things where someone starts a "Linux" thread.
I'd say the opinions run about 90% against unity, and 10% for.

The thing is, Canonical may not give a damn about posters to the "Linux" forums.

What it has is maybe 1/3 of Linux users. Which is still nothing but a ripple in a vey big pond.

The traditional community oriented Linux desktop distribution is not attracting converts from OSX or Windows. It threatens to be eclipsed in global market share by the walled garden of the iOS mobile device. That has implications for developer support. Retail support. The politcal effectiveness of the EFF and others.

'Doesn't Make a Jot of Difference'

Finally, for Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot who goes by "Tom" on the site, Ubuntu has bigger problems to worry about than just Unity.

Namely, Unity aside, "this latest Ubuntu doesn't make a jot of difference to the world because it doesn't add to the list of programs that Windows or OSX users can now use in Linux," Hudson told Linux Girl.

In fact, "this same mis-directed effort is also why the year of the Linux desktop won't happen," Hudson asserted. "None of the distros, including Ubuntu, are trying to meet the No. 1 demand of the majority of users: to run their existing programs."

'You're Not Growing the User Base'

Most users have at least one application that doesn't have a decent equivalent under Linux, "either open or proprietary," she explained. "Until that changes, 'fixing' the user interface or adding a music store will remain as useful as adding more cowbell. You're not growing the user base, just competing for more scraps from a tiny, stagnant market.

"Free software? For more than 99 percent of the world, Ubuntu is just another word for, 'I can't run your program,'" Hudson added. "The latest Ubuntu doesn't fix that, and neither will the next one, nor the one after it."

So, "until this fundamental weakness is addressed, you won't be able to sell most users on Ubuntu," she predicted. "Heck, you already pretty much can't even give it away to them for free.

"It's a shame that the future of linux in the consumer space is to toil away in obscurity, with products like Android getting all the credit," Hudson concluded. "It's also telling that when Novell took the first small steps to correcting this, they were roundly pilloried by the community."

Ubuntu 11.10 and the Oddly Oneiric 'Countdown' [Oct 20]

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[ladoga]

About the only reason I use it these days I the debian packaging system, with out all the debian silliness.

Just curious. What is this "debian silliness" that you mention?

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[oakgrove]

I would suggest Debian stable. I tried to love Unity but it just didn't work out. Rather than struggle with Ubuntu to get it to a workable state, I'm just using Debian for that olde tyme Linux goodness.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[kruhft]

sudo apt-get remove unity
sudo apt-get install

Personally, I use stumpwm, but (gasp!) that requires editing your .xinitrc, the horrors!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[yacwroy]

I tried 11.04 a month ago.
First unity, which was a serious impediment and barely configurable.
Next, classic desktop, which had problems forgetting to redraw windows and panels. Unfortunately, bugs like this are now a low priority.
So I'm back on 10.10.
My next upgrade will be to a non-default-unity 'nix.

The thing I don't get is why the hell can't the UI elements be independent apps - Instead of having the sidebar or taskbars part of the UI, make them separate applications.

That way, we can customize them at will, and download new ones easily without having to replace the whole UI. Modularity is good.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[kruhft]

Forgot to hit preview, step 2 should have been

sudo apt-get install < whatever window manager or desktop environment you want >

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[DadLeopard]

Sudo apt-get install gnome-panel, then restart and click on the gear icon at the log-on screen and choose Ubuntu Classic and it is all better, well mostly! Seems a bunch of stuff has gone away, but you can install synaptic! I hate how they are dumbing down the whole thing and making it suitable for use on a tablet, or phone that they don't even have! Switching form one application to another is just so clumsy with Unity!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[mspohr]

"I wish them well. I just wish they'd stop limiting people's choices. Linux is about choices. "

So, stop whinging and find another distribution. There are literally hundreds. If you're stuck on a particular UI, then I'm sure you can find a distro with that UI. You do have a choice.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

My household runs on Ubuntu 10.04LTS right now. 5 machines of it. I've been running Ubuntu since 7.04. I do NOT upgrade releases with each new release. I go from one LTS to the next after giving the new LTS a period to settle down, usually a few months. 12.04LTS is due soon.

Shuttleworth, owner of Canonical, owner of Ubuntu, seems committed to Unity Desktop from what I have read of his pronouncements. For me, it looks like I have to find a replacement for Ubuntu.

I have had 11.10 running in a virtual machine. I absolutely HATE everything about it. Everything. If I had wanted a hand-held I'd have bought a fscking hand-held device. I do software development and a hand-held UI just does NOT cut it. I hate GNOME3 too. Want to see what other Linux professionals think? Have a look:

ESR's blog article titled "Ubuntu and GNOME jump the shark". He thinks even less of it than I do. His solution is XFCE.

Dave Jones G+. Search the page for "linus torvalds". One of Linus' comments is a scathing assault on Unity and GNOME3. Linus has gone to XFCE. See also the Wikipedia article on Linus Torvalds.

Here's the wrinkle. Since I go from LTS to LTS, if Unity in 12.04 does NOT have an option for a GNOME2 desktop, it will be a long, long time before there's an opportunity for me to switch back to Ubuntu, assuming they come to their senses and give me a GNOME2 UI.

There's good news!!! There are at least 2 forks of GNOME2 now: MATE and BlueBubble:
MATE Desktop Environment. A fork of GNOME2 on GitHub
BlueBubble Desktop. Apparently Fedora based

There's hope!

I have tried both Lubuntu and Xubuntu in virtual machines. Looks like Xubuntu will do at 12.04LTS unless Ubuntu comes to its senses.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[kdemetter]

You don't *have* to use Unity . You can easily turn it off :
http://www.virtualhelp.me/linux/324-disable-unity-on-ubuntu-1104

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[sqldr]

I'm not sure why this comment marked as "insightful" since it's been said a thousand times, argued to death, and had alternatives, workarounds, and ad infinitum added to it every time someone near slashdot gets as far as typing the letters "gn"

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[sqldr]

reportedly it works just fine

Not on ATI/AMD it doesn't :-) Fortunately, I upgraded to a chunky great behemoth of an nvidia card last week, so I'm using gnome 3 quite happily. On ATI, it barfs out on login with corrupt graphics whether you use fglrx or the open source driver. I believe the packagers are aware of this.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[dzelenka]

The Debian silliness is the cold adherence to free software. A Debian desktop needs a lot of tweeking before stuff "just works" (like Flash). Debian also lags behind other distributions because they prioritize stability over cutting edge features. ( ... unless you use the Test version.)

I understand and accept that I have to do those tweeks, but I think I'm the exception.

On the server side, I really appreciate the stodgy Debian way. Solid uptime rocks!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[santiagoanders]

I liked compiz the way it was. They had to go and ruin it with unity. I want my old compiz back.

My recent upgrade to 11.10 ruined my multiscreen setup (two X screens don't work with unity) and the gnome screensaver keeps seg-faulting so I had to change to xscreensaver.

If I get rid of the unity panel and switch to gnome panel, then compiz doesn't complain about a window manager already present there, but then it seg-faults while doing some unity crap.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[hairyfeet]

If you are on a laptop try Vector Linux. I've slapped it on a couple of old Dell laptops and it is quite snappy. You'll have to fiddle with the WiFi of course, but I haven't seen a Linux where you didn't have to fiddle with the WiFi. The nice thing is they have 6 versions, so you can pick one as heavy or as light as you like. Oh and they have KDE classic which is nice.

But here is what I don't get, the community FINALLY has a Linux that could gain some real share, and could even end up on the majority of computers, and its being completely ignored. I'm talking about Expressgate/Splashtop which if you've tried it you know its a game changer. No fiddly, no CLI, no update/upgrade mess, just 6 seconds and you are on the web, bam! And you don't have to "convert" anyone since they don't have to be either/or as the nice thing about EG/ST is its built into the system so you simply have two buttons, one button if you want Windows, the other button if you want the web. Oh and it adds a good 20-30% on the battery life as well.

So you have this truly great new thing, its fast, its easy, it costs the OEMs virtually nothing, and with support of the community you could have it one practically every consumer machine and yet its ignored. i honestly don't get it. If the community would get behind writing apps for it it could be fricking huge but instead everyone gives all the press to Ubuntu when Canonical seems to be going out of their way to piss people off. is there ANYONE not on a tablet that like Unity? It would be like going back in time and giving the community the latest Android, all wrapped in a pretty bow, only to get told "Nah, we think this WinCE thing is gonna be big!". Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, its just nuts.

Of course thanks to the drooling fanbois I'm sure to get modded down for not speaking the standard line, so for their benefit I'll give it to them: "Gee Biff, isn't Ubuntu sweel? it sure is chip, and RMS' farts smells like roses and cure the hole in the ozone!".

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[jellomizer]

Translations: I got the new and hippest distro out there. Now that I got older I want it to stay the same. Ubuntu is actually trying to make a better product, that will compete for modern times. Not just put a couple of fixes on a 1970's unix workstation layout just so you can do the new stuff.

Linux is about choice. Ubuntu isn't, Ubuntu is about making it user friendly. The problem with Linux getting mainstream usage was there were too many choices and they didn't always jive together. Some historal examples (some of them for the most part have been standardized finally)
1. Copy and Paste
2. Sound.
3. Wi-Fi
4. Xservers
5. File Systems

Sure choice will let you pick and choose and get the optimal choice for you... However it isn't user friendly because a new user who wants to figure out the system doesn't have all the choices to make an informed decision, and depends on the distro packages to make a good guess. If you don't like ubuntu try an other Distrobution. You like a few things try to install the software from one distribution with an other.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[EETech1]

Check out Bodhi Linux and E17. Exactly what you are asking for, and more!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[X0563511]

Make sure you enable "contrib" and "non-free" - the expert installer asks you, the other I think assumes "no" and doesn't enable them.

Flash et all are available through said repositories. They are there - they are just kept out of "main"

The lag... well, that has it's pros and cons. I personally feel that (since squeeze) the pros far outweigh the cons. Now I have something modern-enough that's pretty damn rock-steady stable. This is certainly a matter of preference though!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[X0563511]

extra note:

You've seen these paths right?

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-dvd/

The amount of software available in "main" is staggering. That's 52 CDs / 8 DVDs just to cover the binaries.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[water-and-sewer]

Cheers to that. I run Bodhi on a Netbook and love it more and more. My desktop runs openSUSE; it's been my preference since SuSE 7.1 back eleven years ago. The last version of Gnome I liked started with a "1," not a "2" or "3." And Unity can just bite it.

Bodhi for the win.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Darinbob]

What wrong with looking like KDE or a traditional X Windows system? The choice in the universe is not limited to looking like Windows versus looking like a tablet.

And to be honest here, the first screenshots I saw of Unity sort of reminded me a bit of Windows 8...

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Darinbob]

GNOME always felt uncustomizable to me anyway which is why I preferred KDE. Unity I see is just keeping that "do it our way" approach.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Or fucking fork GNOME2 and go from there. But they didn't.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Fjodor42]

Are you telling me - in all seriousness - that Unity doesn't work with a multi-head setup? How the hell can they put it as default, then?

Good thing I only run 11.10 on my laptop for now (where I switched to XFCE), so I guess I'll switch to XFCE even before upgrading my desktop, or look into E17, so thank you for the heads-up.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

Or fucking fork GNOME2 and go from there. But they didn't.

True, but it would have been a massive undertaking that I don't think Canonical could have shouldered. Also, whatever you think about Unity, Gnome 2 wasn't perfect either.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[ks*nut]

I've only been using Mint for one day, but it sure is nice to be rid of that bar of icons on the left side of my desktop. I really enjoyed using Ubuntu until they set Unity as the default desktop. The nice thing about Linux is that there are still choices and hell, the price is right!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

It's not true, I run Unity with dual screens with on a MacBook Pro with an nvidia card and on a Lenovo with Intel. It's not perfect, but it works.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

Mod up parent AC:

"I just wish they'd stop limiting people's choices."

Gotdammitsomuch, how many times does the following have to be said:

CANONICAL IS NOT LIMITING PEOPLE'S CHOICES - THE GNOME DEVELOPERS ARE.

If you want to complain about not being able to use Gnome2 (i.e. "the old interface"), point the blame in the right direction: the Gnome development team who discontinued it.

Unity exists as the new default because Gnome-Shell was (and, IMO, remains) a design train-wreck deemed too crappy to represent Ubuntu.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[santiagoanders]

Dual screens with unity works with the nvidia twin-view (a feature of their driver), but not if you put 2 different screen sections in your X config (for two different video cards in my case).

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

I see, I never used that - didn't work well for me with Gnome 2, either.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[santiagoanders]

This is exactly what I was wondering. What kind of crappy tests do they have? Multiple X screens per server are not rare.

Note that twin-view does work for me (up to two displays), but I have 3 displays so I need another video card and another X screen in the xorg.conf.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[CalcProgrammer1]

Exactly, Unity takes most of the useful features of GNOME 2's interface and throws them away. Sure, if your grandmother needs a computer it may now be easier for her to manage, but for many people we need an environment that doesn't put so many limitations on what can be done. The desktop search/program search thing may be useful if you don't already know where to find a program, but I prefer having a well-organized menu that I can mouse through quickly rather than having to move my hands to the keyboard, type the name, then mouse over the application and click it. (This also applies to Windows Vista and 7, though they provide a decent way to browse visually.) I don't need my icons to take up half my screen when browsing for programs either, the point of making larger screens is to fit more stuff on them, not make the stuff that's already there waste more pixels. I also like having more than ~10 programs available for quick launch, and on any other environment I can just fill the whole Desktop with icons as well as toolbars and menus. Unity also does away with the Places menu, which means it is harder to bookmark network shares, custom folders, secondary hard drives, Windows partitions, and other such things (again, I guess Grandma doesn't go outside her home directory, but a lot of people do!).

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[CalcProgrammer1]

I switched to Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) on Ubuntu 11.10's release day. Enough of that crap, LMDE provides a powerful GNOME2 interface with all of its customizability and productivity and none of that stupid Unity garbage. I'm not sure when they plan to switch to GNOME3, but I have more trust that they will keep supporting GNOME2 than Ubuntu, where you just throw obnoxious UI changes that everyone hates without listening to user feedback. Problem is, it isn't just Ubuntu. If it was just Ubuntu shooting themselves in the foot I wouldn't care so much, but the whole GNOME team has gone insane with them. GNOME 3 also tries to push the stupid "modernized" crap where you just remove useful features in the sake of "simplicity" and the more useful "fallback" (apparently productivity is out of style these days) lacks tons of classic GNOME 2 features. Xfce isn't anywhere near what GNOME 2 was and I don't really like KDE4 either, so the entire Linux world appears to be falling apart. If GNOME3 were GNOME2, you would have the option to make fallback look exactly like GNOME2's interface, but sadly the development team forgot what customization was all about while they were pandering to new users who don't know what a proper GUI should look like.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Knuckles]

> So for Ubuntu the option was to go with Gnome 3 or do their own desktop shell (which they did with Unity)

They could kept developing and maintaining the old Gnome 2 desktop or make ther own one look more like Gnome 2.

For the first option, see my sibling reply. Where would the resources come from?
For the second option, well they didn't want to. It's their project.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[JanneM]

Just another single datapoint of course, but I've been using Linux (and Sun OS before it) since the mid-90's. I'm very much a technical user and spend most of my time in a terminal one way or another.

And I find Unity in 11.10 to be just fine. It does two really, really good things: It gets out of the way when you push windows onto the panel and similar. And it puts the window controls and menu bar onto the top panel. Both give me more space â" vertical space, especially â" for the applications I use. And as a bonus I still have the panel controls like the clock and mail notification visible even with the screen filled with windows.

Using it - well, it works. Don't really understand what people miss with it. Not better or worse than menus; the application list thing really works like a menu already anyhow. What they still need to do is to expose some more of the settings in the default settings list, such as screen font, and size of the icon panel thing on the left. They're easy enough to configure already, but it'd be better if you didn't have to install something to do so.

One tip: install and use Synapse. Much like Gnome Do, it's a great way to launch programs and get at files you use. Way better for a power user than any menu.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[BasilBrush]

What wrong with looking like KDE

KDE was a copy of the Windows UI from the start. Here's a picture from v1.x. Circa 1996. The colour scheme, the embossed look, the task-bar (moved from bottom to top of screen), the start menu, the window furniture, the per window menus, the isometric icon style etc. etc. All straight out of Windows 95.

http://www.kde.org/screenshots/images/large/matthiase1.jpg

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[hovelander]

Look at that taskbar. Just add the compositing transparency and it's the Win7 taskbar, which I set to autohide and actually like.

Don't shoot me for that. I'm actually transitioning to CrunchBang and am quite happy coding with that. Actually tried a lot of different distros. Unity seems a mess for the week I tried, because I have to conform to its workflow instead of the other way around. Might be a great tablet OS, but feels arrogant on the desktop.

KDE's lead graphic artist, IMO, really REALLY wishes they had Unicorns to ride. Slapdash mess there too. (Jesus Holy Chocolate Buggering Buddha, why don't they get it over with and make the window shadow/glow take up the entire screen?)

#!

!!!!!

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[kermidge]

Just for grins you may want to check out a nifty distro named Zorin. It gives you a choice of desktop appearances to boot to including XP and Win7.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[bahstid]

No problems with my Fedora/KDE here... in fact have started installing this for new linux users too where I previously would have put Ubuntu since the Unity debacle... my only problem is that Fedora versions get EOL'ed a bit quickly, so probably needs an upgrade at least yearly... systems are of course ok, but a bit concerning when software updates stop working too.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[dargaud]

I'm always interested in taking new UI ideas for a spin

So what did you think of the Awesome window manager ? I liked the idea, but couldn't figure out how to use it properly... It's in the Ubuntu repositories.

Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop

[Windwraith]

I'd vote you funny for that. Although I am a happy KDE user with the unity features added on top.

Memories

[LanMan04]

I remember getting my free Ubuntu discs in the mail in late 2004 (you could request them on the website). Gave them out to friends.

Good times!

Re:Memories

[nightcats]

I still have several lying around, beginning with 5.04 (hedgehog? I get the critters confused). I'm sure there are lots of geeks who look down their noses at it, but for this non-geek/para-geek, it was a tremendous learning experience. After just a few months with ubuntu and the shell, I was suddenly understanding some of what the architects and admins were talking about in meetings at work, and they noticed too. And I was eventually making smarter choices (and non-choices) on all the tech consumer shit that's been flooding the market this decade. If I were teaching tech in a middle school or high school setting I'd create a linux network in a classroom and introduce them to tech that asks a little more of them than slide-n-poke. The corporations in particular and the collective overall want us to experience tech in as superficial a way as possible; I think linux could offer kids a chance to overcome that conditioning. I always had the feeling that was part of ubuntu's mission, if you will: to offer a deeper and more rounded and intelligent experience of tech than the proprietary gods want us to have.

Re:Memories

[LanMan04]

Ubuntu: The power of apt-get without having to deal with Debian.

HOORAY!

Re:Memories

[elfprince13]

Damn. In 2004 I still thought Mandrake/Mandriva was hot shit. I don't think I used Ubuntu until Breezy or Dapper.

Does this make anyone else...

[MrNemesis]

...feel incredibly old?! My first experience with ubuntu was when the girlfriend at the time asked me to install it for her cos she thought it looked cool, sometime back in 2005/2006. Of course, I'm back with Debian now...

Re:Popularity

[siddesu]

considering Windows 7 got there in just two years and XP was a hugely popular OS

Excellent trolling, I salute you.

Kubuntu

[tepples]

Now they are forcing Unity on us in the latest revision; there's no option to go back to the classic desktop (please correct me if I'm wrong but that's what Slashdot said a few days ago).

You can install GNOME 2 after you log in for the first time. Or you can install KDE.

Re:Kubuntu

[cshark]

Yeah, but the changes to xorg screw up anything else you try to work with. I don't know about KDE, but xorg has this weird shattering screen thing that happens when you install gnome on it. I'm looking for a new home os. Seriously considering Debian BSD with Gnome.

Re:Kubuntu

[Saac]

yes you can install other things but they don't work well. they are crippled compared to what they were like in natty.

im shopping around for something else.

and typing one-handed hence the lack of capitals

Re:Kubuntu

[RDW]

no xorg changes don't screw with KDE. I'm happily running it from 11.10 .

No problem running Xfce either.

Like a lot of other Ubuntu users, I cast about for alternatives as soon as Unity reared its ugly head as the default interface, and installed a few VMs to try out various Debian and Ubuntu derivatives running the obvious desktops. I wasn't mad on KDE, found the 'fallback' mode of Gnome 3 lacking, but rather liked Xfce and LXDE (though I missed some of the Gnome applications). It turned out that, for me at least, the best solution was very simple - a standard Ubuntu installation with the xfce4 meta-package added later (not Xubuntu, which comes with a rather different selection of default software). No need to change distribution or struggle with a 'new interface paradigm', and everything Just Works (including the useful Gnome stuff).

Re:Kubuntu

[realityimpaired]

im shopping around for something else.

Try Bodhi.

It's based (loosely) on 10.04, with numerous packages backported from later releases, as well as their own packages, with a semi-rolling release model. And they're using e17 for the DE, which is hugely customizable and can be made to behave like KDE, or Gnome2, or whatever else you want it to. Right now, I have a setup that's *kind* of like NeXTSTEP was, but still very different... hard to describe. But basically, you can make it like anything you want it to be. It uses very little memory, too... I've seen e17 take up less than 40MB of RAM, with compositing enabled.

Re:Kubuntu

[Knuckles]

Mint still rocks GNOME2

Yeah because they haven't released a distro upgrade yet. Just a few days ago they announced that they would switch to Gnome 3 & gnome-shell.

Re:Kubuntu

[CalcProgrammer1]

Do tell how we can install GNOME 2 on 11.10. I have not found a way. The closest thing is installing GNOME 3's "fallback" session, which is a pathetic clone of GNOME 2's interface that lacks a ton of functionality while consuming nearly twice as much RAM.

Re:Kubuntu

[KiloByte]

Sorry, Debian no longer has Gnome2, but 3 which is worse than Unity could ever hope to be.

Windows NT 6.1 runs NT 6.0 drivers

[tepples]

So yeah, Linux still needs some work, considering Windows 7 got there in just two years and XP was a hugely popular OS

Windows 7 also had the hardware support advantage of being able to run all Windows Vista drivers. So perhaps we should consider Windows Vista (NT 6.0) and Windows 7 (NT 6.1) as two minor versions of the same product. Furthermore, Windows has the advantage of more third-party application developers testing their applications in Windows than in Wine.

Happy birthday, Ubuntu!

[DangerOnTheRanger]

My first experience with Ubuntu was back in 2009, when I tried out Jaunty Jackalope inside of VirtualBox just for kicks. Soon, I installed Wubi, and my fascination with Ubuntu only grew from there.
Happy 7th birthday, Ubuntu! I hope your future birthdays come in even more successful years :)

P.S: I actually like Unity - I never have to touch the mouse to get my work done now.

Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[Renegade Iconoclast]

In 7 years the dev team has put out 11 versions of Ubuntu. I got tired of the rat race. Every kernel broke my video driver, and every major revision broke some other software. I always had problems with compiz, and when I turned it off, I had other problems. I finally gave up when I installed 11 (from scratch) and faced the black screen of death on my first boot, and the solutions I found online didn't work. I tried CentOS but it wasn't compatible with about half the software I wanted to run. It seems like Ubuntu is the go-to distro for most packages, so can't they stick to a version for more than a year?

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the LTS version is for.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[Unoriginal_Nickname]

Really.

For the past two versions of Ubuntu I have had issues with mouse focus and clicks on my desktop. It's due to a bug that was first reported and confirmed in 2006, but nobody has ever given enough of a shit to fix it.

If I'm stuck with patching and compiling xorg, why am I running Ubuntu? I might as well just run Gentoo. Better yet, I might as well run OSX or Windows, where I know I will never have a problem this stupid.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[Desler]

Yeah the LTS is great until you hit the point of having to upgrade to a non-LTS since you can't even get the latest version of Firefox anymore. And before you say "but ppas!" if one had to install ppas on an LTS that sort of defeats the point.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[elfprince13]

Yes. They can. It's called "LTS"

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[ender-]

Yeah the LTS is great until you hit the point of having to upgrade to a non-LTS since you can't even get the latest version of Firefox anymore. And before you say "but ppas!" if one had to install ppas on an LTS that sort of defeats the point.

So, you bitch because Ubuntu changes too much/too often. But when given a solution which remains stable for a reasonably long period of time, you bitch because it doesn't change enough? Dare I ask what it is you're actually expecting that isn't possible with Ubuntu? You can have a stable [from release changes] OS and pick the pieces you want to be newer/bleeding edge, or not as you like. What's the problem there?

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[javanree]

It SHOULD have been... unfortunately they don't care about the quality of an LTS release anymore than they do of a normal release. Another big reason for switching every machine I can over to a proper enterprise class distro, Scientific Linux in my case.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[heypete]

*shrugs* LTS releases are meant to be stable.

In general, they should only get security and bug fixes, with updates not delivering new features (like a change in UI, as happened with Firefox).

PPAs exist for adding new features where desired. I use 10.04 LTS with the firefox-stable and pidgin PPAs, as well as the private repos for Dropbox and Google Chrome.

My OS is stable for several years, upgrades between LTS releases are well-supported, and I have modern versions of software that I choose. Seems like all-around win for me.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[elfprince13]

But Desktop "LTS" receives upgrades for 3 years, and Server receives upgrades for 5. So yes, they care, because they want market share. I like to stay on the cutting edge, but for people I set up with Linux, I always give them an LTS release, because it turns out to be lower maintenance for me to support them.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[wed128]

or...download and install firefox.

works fine here. no ppa, no 'hack', 10.04.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[Cato]

Installing the latest Firefox on Ubuntu is as easy as adding a small string to the list of software sources in a GUI tool... then it will automatically get new versions. Details here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/6339/how-do-i-install-the-latest-stable-version-of-firefox/6348#6348

This really isn't hard and doesn't involve the scary command line (unless you want it to).

It really isn't any harder than on a Mac or Windows - the only issue is knowing about PPAs as a way of installing software.

Re:Why not focus on quality instead of major revs?

[mikechant]

And before you say "but ppas!" if one had to install ppas on an LTS that sort of defeats the point.

No it doesn't. I've got a highly stable 10.4 setup on a desktop and notebook, with just one ppa for firefox. For many people, this is an ideal combination of stable+up-to-date.

What is up with init.d

[sgt scrub]

I'm more of a Debian user myself. My laptops have Ubuntu on them, though Unity doesn't live on them. My media center, servers, and personal desktop are still on Debian. I like the idea of moving X into user space but not having an xorg.conf file in X11/ throws me for a spin. I'm probably too accustomed to doing things myself. The changes to init, however, are a real pita. I don't understand why they feel the need to change something so fundamental to Unix users. Not that I want to start a BSD vs SystemV war, init.d has never been a bad thing.

Re:What is up with init.d

[Knuckles]

They felt the need because init.d is slow to boot (inherently, because it starts things always sequentially). You may have seen this is as a problem or not, but stating that there was no reason is misleading. And you can still configure things in xorg.conf if you want to. I haven't used Debian in a while, but the ability to run with a minimal xorg.conf was implemented in the X.org project, so I'd figure Debian is not much different.

Xubuntu

[bigredradio]

As a stable server-class OS, I think Ubuntu is not quite ready for the enterprise. However, as a desktop OS, it blows RedHat and SuSE out of the water. I have been a Xubuntu user for years. I used to switch distros about every 6 months. That ended once I tried Xubuntu. I just keep upgrading.

Re:Xubuntu

[JonJ]

Fedora blows

Fixed it for you.

Re:Xubuntu

[rubycodez]

Fedora blows things out the door before thoroughly testing them. Don't be Red Hat's guinea pig, use a distro that gives a shit about quality.

Re:Xubuntu

[wed128]

soo...debian stable?

Re:Xubuntu

[rubycodez]

Eeeh? who said anything about the ubuntu, I recently ditched that crap

Ubuntu has has two lifes

[Murdoch5]

Ubuntu was a great Linux system, now it's more of a bulky slow running system. I switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu on about the 6.00 release and from the 10.00 release on I switched back to Gentoo. Before release 10, Ubuntu was a nicely trimmed and clean look system, after release 10 they've played with the desktop to much and taken a polished system into a rather ugly bloated system.

This is right on par with bringing Linux to the user base of Windows, Windows user don't want a clean cut and slim experience, they want it to look overly cluttered and a right mess for the eyes. I agree in the last 7 years Ubuntu has really opened up Linux to the user and has opened the other distributions to Linux users.

For what Ubuntu has managed to do for Linux, it is an amazing feat.

Re:Ubuntu has has two lifes

[Requiem18th]

Actually they want the iPad user base, their response to the issue that they are alienating their users is that they need better users, which is despairing.

This is something that started happening since they started replacing the standard notification area with their "Indicator Applet" and which I identified when they changed the position of the window buttons. Basically, where they put the window buttons wasn't as important as the fact that they didn't care what the users tough about it, if the users didn't like it, the users were the problem.

That might be within Canonical's rights, but that doesn't mean it's not despairing for the current Linux user base.

Re:Ubuntu has has two lifes

[Murdoch5]

Agreed! All in All I'm very happy with good old Gentoo and I'm glad that Apple and Windows users are coming over to Linux, not matter how they have to do it.

Die Unity Die!

[BrendaEM]

Ubuntu has stripped away and hidden key user functionality for the sake of looks. The UI hides key menus, such as: File, Edit... in Nautilus, so that those menus are invisible. Users cannot even make launcher icons without the command line!

Unity attempts to replace Gnome with something else which cannot function without Gnome's libraries. At the same time if Gnome desktop is not used, and maintained, then that will die.

Using Unity is like a shiny turd that you cut your hands on.

I recommend that if Ubuntu does not rid their distro of Unity, then I suggest that it be boycotted.

Re:Die Unity Die!

[sakdoctor]

Unity is a turd. Maybe with enough polish, it will become a dorodango

Re:Die Unity Die!

[Knuckles]

For launcher icons, simply install Alacarte, the gnome menu editor. I think you need to install it first. Entries you create there will be available in Unity's Dash just like any other. Yes, that should have been integrated better,

Re:Die Unity Die!

[leamanc]

I recommend that if Ubuntu does not rid their distro of Unity, then I suggest that it be boycotted.

You recommend that you suggest? Way to take a stance there.

It is possible to run other window managers on Ubuntu, you know. You might even give Kubuntu a try if you are so inclined to customization.

Happy birthday Ubuntu!

[cheap.computer]

We should all be happy that there is an opensource operating system and it has not only survived but thrived in this competitive world, propitiatory software companies continue to use their muscle and power to block the growth of opensource operating systems. So, long live open source and long live Ubuntu. I have been using debian since around 1998, I have used knoppix for a little bit, but switched to Ubuntu when they made their initial release Warty. Ubuntu has evolved over the years, not just the desktop but also on servers, cloud, juju charms etc. And on online services like Ubuntuone file sharing and music. Supports multiple architectures, and has a great open source community participation. It takes a little unlearning to start liking Unity, in 11.04 I often switched to Classic Gnome, but since I installed 11.10 I realized what I have been missing all along. You can drive the entire desktop without touching your mouse! For a programmer like me that is a blessing. I can understand that Unity 3D can be a drag on some older laptops but Unity 2D probably will do the job. If you really have issues with broken packages and unsupported hardware please report a bug, reporting bug is so easy it is done automatically when a crash is detected or you can manually file it from command line using 'ubuntu-bug'.

Argumentum ad novitatem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting bored of this invalid argument, and developers and fanbois attempting to discredit me as a ludite.

I've got specific reasons why I hate Gnome-shell, and Unity, and that it's a permanent state of affairs. Not just because they're new.
1. Discoverability. Without a hierarchical menu, I can't at a glance see what's installed on the machine.
2. They break existing workflows in ways that will not be replaced by more efficient ones, even after relearning. It's simply more mouse mileage, which is not something I want from a GUI.

Yup, they've done some amazing work.

[sootman]

It's pretty fantastic. And I'm holding on to my several-versions-old CD, from just before they messed it all up.

7 year anniversary, today.

[maclizard]

Wow, I got married the same day Ubuntu was born. Awesome.

Re:7 year anniversary, today.

[Wandering Voice]

Congratulations, Maclizard. Here's to many more years for you!

Re:7 year anniversary, today.

[maclizard]

I live in West Virginia.

Re:Popularity

[cshark]

Yeah, but then any argument about Linux being unpopular becomes silly.
Let him have the client argument.

Too bad they jumped the shark

[Brad1138]

I loved Ubuntu, been using it since 6.06, but I dislike Unity a lot. Just switched to Mint and am happy again.

Re:Too bad they jumped the shark

[oreiasecaman]

Mint decided to "upgrade" to GNOME 3... so I guess your happiness won't endure much.

Re:Too bad they jumped the shark

[mikechant]

Mint decided to "upgrade" to GNOME 3... so I guess your happiness won't endure much.

Despite defaulting to Gnome 3, they *will* support Gnome 2 in the next, long term support release, so the happiness should endure for about 3.5 years from now at least. Which is like a century in computer terms.

Alternatives to Ubuntu

[BrendaEM]

After posting my Die Unity Die comment, I've been looking at other distros. I left Fedora some years ago, and I think that I am going to leave Ubuntu.
It's like as soon as Mark Shuttleworth left, it went bad. What remains is a businessperson who pushed the commercial side of things.

I'm looking at Mint, but I like apt.
I tried Debian, but video drivers are a mess, and the sudoers is just a neeedless PITA on a single-user use of a Linux.

Please, someone pick up the torch for Ubuntu seems to have dropped it.

Re:Alternatives to Ubuntu

[rubycodez]

Look up the driver for the video card you have, and install it. It's not hard, they have instructions. My Debian at home runs the nVidia latest driver just fine.

Re:Alternatives to Ubuntu

[iceaxe]

I'm currently running Ubuntu 11.04 with Xfce, but downloaded the new Xubuntu iso a couple days ago, planning on installing that as soon as I get a chance to swing by the toy store to buy a shiny new HDD to put it on.

I've been REALLY REALLY happy with the switch to Xfce, which was prompted by trying out Unity in its 11.04 incarnation. So far there is nothing that I miss from Unity OR gnome.

With that said, I'll put in my standard disclaimer that I live in term and emacs and launch applications from the command line more often than not, often using cryptic three letter symlinks that are only meaningful to me, so I'm not really from the same universe as people who like to smear their fingers around on the monitor.

Re:Alternatives to Ubuntu

[jgrahn]

I tried Debian, but video drivers are a mess, and the sudoers is just a neeedless PITA on a single-user use of a Linux.

I run Debian, and I've never heard about "the sudoers" before. Are you speaking of ways to become root? I need that once per month or so, and I just su.

Also I make sure to have graphics hardware supported by free software, so I have no video driver problems either.

Re:Alternatives to Ubuntu

[Knuckles]

Shuttleworth didn't leave.

Happy birthday Ubuntu

[monkeyhybrid]

I've been using various Linux distros for around 15 years or so. My first proper job introduced me to UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX) and I remember even now the excitement of discovering and learning how the UNIX model worked, wishing I had something similar on my home PC. Within a few weeks, I'd scrubbed DOS and Windows 3.1 from my home PC's hard drive and was up and running with Slackware, installed from numerous 3.5" floppies. As time went by I experimented with other distros, namely Redhat and Suse (which I actually paid for boxed versions of!) and grew to love Linux even more. I can't quite remember why I first moved to using Ubuntu when it came out but have a feeling it was because I was impressed with how slick it was, installing on my laptop of that time without any fuss. I've had no reason to look elsewhere for many years now (on the desktop that is, I still use CentOS on my web server).

There is a way to not use Unity

[Quantum_Infinity]

You don't have to use Unity in the latest version if you don't want to. You can do 'sudo apt-get install gnome-fallback-session' which will give you classic Gnome 2 session. Just select 'Gnome Classic' at the time of login.

Re:There is a way to not use Unity

[rubycodez]

Screw that, there are lingering issues with the way Unity clobbers up some files. Instead, apply the patch ( i386 version here )and everything will be good. It fixed all my Ubuntu systems at home and at work, took the suck right out of them

Re:There is a way to not use Unity

[Captain Hook]

Actually it gives your a Gnome3 session which has been tweaked to look like Gnome2

Re:There is a way to not use Unity

[CalcProgrammer1]

Fallback is NOT GNOME 2! Everyone keeps saying it's the same, but it is quite different (try it sometime!). The theme looks like crap for one (inconsistent coloring and shading), the applets can't be positioned other than left/middle/right, to right click on anything you actually have to alt+right click, it uses a lot more RAM than GNOME 2, it takes more work to get Compiz effects running, it lacks a System menu and instead clutters up Applications categories with system and administration items, Nautilus (file browser) lacks home/up folder/view/zoom functionality with its new dumbed down UI, and I'm sure there are plenty more problems with it. I COULD get used to it, which would take a lot of time, and would still mean I have to give up using my old 512MB RAM laptop altogether, or I could just go use another distro that hasn't gone crazy and still uses GNOME 2, have none of the above problems, and still use my old laptop without issues. Change for the sake of change is a terrible idea, it seems like the Ubuntu and GNOME devs have all gone off the deep end, and that's not good considering together they make the most widely known and used Linux distro (outside of the business world at least).

Re:Popularity

[Tarlus]

I don't think you know what "trolling" means.

Ubuntu and Use

[CFBMoo1]

I've been using Ubuntu for a while now on my laptop and on my Desktop. They currently run the 10.4 LTS version which is Gnome 2.x so I have a third system (netbook) which I play around with the new Unity releases on since Unity is geared for that stuff. I have to say that I enjoyed the flexibility of the original Netbook Edition then the spawn which is Unity it fostered. That offered more control over how things looked then the current Unity does. I installed KDE and XFCE from the package manager today on my systems, I'm now trying to determine which flavor I want to jump to from the main Ubuntu branch since Unity is going to be the new way of things.

Side note, I sure as hell am not going back to Windows full time especially after I saw that Microsoft was pulling a Unity with Windows 8 by slapping the Windows Phone 7 interface on it and calling it the future. Seriously developers, if you want do build something for tablets and phones then STICK with tablets and phones and stay off my desktop OS's. I'm not forking over an arm and a leg for touch screens to get crudded up as badly as my cheap keyboards and mice do.

Re:Popularity

[h4rr4r]

TechLA, go make yourself a new account that one will soon be ruined. Nice to see you are just a troll not a shill as I had though.

That is based on web browsers, go look in a server room sometime.

no thanks

[doodzed]

I understand that people like ubuntu but it is not really helping linux. I upgraded my box to 11.04 over the past two days from a much older release and around 10.04 got hit with a bug because grub was not updated. This was a well known bug that was spotted in testing and never got fixed. It is not the first time something like this has happened. Frequently updates will bork settings or a function like sound. It has gotten so bad that a non-profit I help out at will not run any updates unless I am there.

Usually a google search and some command line will fix things but this is not how you spread linux. The ubuntu community really needs to get better about making sure that updates/upgrades work. They continue to do good hard work and it is a shame that the work is undermined by stupid bugs that are known but never fixed.

Ubuntu doesn't force you to use ANY desktop

[Mike]

I'm running the most recent Ubuntu, but I'm running a combination of E16 (Enlightenment) and Gnome2, a.k.a. e16-gnome. Unity is just the default; you're certainly not forced to use it.

Re:Ubuntu doesn't force you to use ANY desktop

[Mike]

I think I originally installed 9.something, and have been upgrading along the way.

e16-gnome was an option on the login screen (along with other choices) when I first loaded it from CD.

However, some distro upgrades have broken it (even though it still exists as a choice on the login screen) and I've had to fiddle with it to get it working again (the details of which I've long forgotten).

Sorry I'm of no help here....

Re:Popularity

[h4rr4r]

RHEL is way more popular than either, probably CENTOS is too. Walk into a server room sometime kids.

Re:Popularity

[Kjella]

Well, trolling with a good dose of truth because when Vista was awful and Ubuntu was good so like 2007-2008, one of the explanations why YotLD didn't come was that people were too stuck on XP. Even Vista couldn't compete against its previous incarnation. Then there comes a new Windows that's actually good and it shows, hey people will move. (Written on a Win7 machine after 3.5 years on Kubuntu, FWIW)

Ubuntu Memory Use Has Doubled!

[BrendaEM]

And for what? A User interface very few people want?
Unity: A mistake not admitted.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Yes forcing

[Merk42]

Well the "They" in that case in GNOME, not Canonical

Re:Popularity

[hobarrera]

Android is linux too, so LINUX is actually 2.23%.
GNU/Linux is still at 0.75%.

Don't mix both up. Linux != GNULinux

Debian at it's core

[Edam]

Ubuntu is still *mostly* Debian packages, IIUC. In other news... Debian is approx. 18 years old.

Re:To All of the Unity Haters

[rubycodez]

But Xubuntu is too bloated a xfce, other distros have nice light ones that you can add only what you need. Give Ubuntu the heave-ho into the trash bin, they jumped the shark and stopped mid-air to sodomize it.

Re:Popularity

[TechLA]

This is a story about Ubuntu and it being geared towards casual users. I doubt they visit server rooms very often.

Re:Alternatives to Ubuntu - Mint

[zoward]

I'm looking at Mint, but I like apt.
I tried Debian, but video drivers are a mess, and the sudoers is just a neeedless PITA on a single-user use of a Linux.

Please, someone pick up the torch for Ubuntu seems to have dropped it.

Mint was built from Ubuntu, and uses apt (and su). In fact, they even use many of the Ubuntu repositories. I migrated from Ubuntu to Mint recently, switched desktops to LXDE, and am loving it.

The GNU/Linux platform

[tepples]

I think people need to stop pushing Linux distros as Linux. If we all start calling them by their given project name, it will avoid this confusion. We want end users to compare Fedora to Ubuntu to Suse to Debian

Are there more applications made for Fedora than applications made for Ubuntu? We call them all "GNU/Linux" (or "desktop Linux" if you happen to be an anti-fan of Richard Stallman) because they all run applications designed for the stack of X11, GNU, and Linux, and they all run device drivers designed for Linux, X.Org, CUPS, and SANE.

If distros marketed themselves distinctly, it would help.

If all GNU/Linux distributions marketed themselves as distinct platforms, then they'd need four times the allegorical shelf space, both for themselves and for non-free applications designed to run on their respective platforms. It'd be a lot easier to make substitutes for these applications "for Linux" than separate products "for Fedora", "for Ubuntu", "for SUSE", and "for Debian".

Re:The GNU/Linux platform

[laffer1]

They should do this. How many times has a company put out a binary for "Linux" that is only an rpm or deb file? Yeah there's ways to convert some of these, but it's confusing to end users. A linux binary doesn't always run everywhere. it's a sad truth.

At best one could put related distros together.. ubuntu/debian * , fedora/redhat/centos *, ...

  The second you try to go off the beaten path, you get into dependency hell.

Linux fans put up with this crap, but regular users don't like it. As for the GNU/Linux vs Linux debate, I'll just avoid that aside from saying that a pure GNU stack wouldn't have the problem you mentioned because there wouldn't be non-free software available for it and the distro would provide packages for everything.

If you think this is unfair, realize that it's the position all the BSD systems are in now. A freebsd 9 binary doesn't run on NetBSD, etc.

Re:The GNU/Linux platform

[tepples]

a pure GNU stack wouldn't have the problem you mentioned because there wouldn't be non-free software available for it

In a world where all software is free software, who pays those who develop video games, video rental playback software, and tax software?

If you think this is unfair, realize that it's the position all the BSD systems are in now. A freebsd 9 binary doesn't run on NetBSD, etc.

And how many non-free desktop applications are ported to *BSD?

Re:The GNU/Linux platform

[laffer1]

More than you think. Not to mention FreeBSD has linux emulation and can run flash, google earth, old versions of Skype and Oracle, etc.

As far as video games and tax software go, I didn't say I thought the RMS vision was possible. It's just what the GNU believers want. It's a philosophy.

I'm a BSD guy and I have no problem with commercial software. I was just pointing out an obvious branding problem the Linux community has. They get linux on netbooks and shitty distros ruin it. Now all those people think Linux sucks because some poor distro tainted their view. It hurts the linux community to push this 1000 distros is all linux mentality. They need to separate the idea of compatibility from linux. Come up with a marketing spiel for that, but push the distro name.

Seriously?

[sean.peters]

Dude, I'm not accustomed to seeing icons down the side of the screen either, but I got used to that in about a quarter of a second. Here's a news flash: OpenSuse is going to be different from old Ubuntu too. I'm kind of baffled by the idea that you'd give up on the whole operating system based on the position of icons.

tl;dr: things change. Deal.

Lets not undervalue Ubuntu, nomatter their WM

[RanceJustice]

For what its worth, Ubuntu has probably been the biggest step forward for Linux on the desktop to date. Past advances like Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros and others made some headway towards making Linux something besides "You need either a CLI or what appears to be a DOS-era interface to install it", but they all had their drawbacks (ie RPM hell). Ubuntu was the first to come along and make desktop user experience a primary impetus while having means/money/marketing to help make it so - even if we don't necessarily agree with all their decisions.

To many /. readership sure some talk about it being too "hand-holdy", but that's what Linux truly needs. There are tons of distros out there for the "do it yourself" set, but few for those who don't have the know how or wish to make maintaining/building their OS a hobby in itself. It took the multitude of Debian resources and condensed them down into what could generally be useful to a variety of users; from "grandma" total newbies to Linux to inexperienced server admins, to those who want to build a Mythbuntu home automation setup. It has also given birth to tons of forks that really provide excellent experience and gives a whole different class of maintainers and easy to fork and administer base. LinuxMint, PCLinuxOS , and Pinguy all go out of their way to take Ubuntu one step further and provide even more specialized features and feel for the desktop user. A user can start up an Ubuntu variant or especially a derivative like Pinguy and say "Wow, that's cool" while actually being able to DO things from the start.

This is not to say that constructive criticism isn't warranted - for instance, I think that UbuntuOne needs to be greatly improved to be worthwhile; if it can't pretty much outdo Dropbox and SpiderOak (especially the latter with security) it may not be worthwhile. I would like them to spend the same care on the *buntu variants - Kubuntu's KDE is often behind and sometimes much different and less usable than say, Arch Linux's version - as they do on the main Gnome version. Xubuntu and Lubuntu especially could use some of that desktop magic. A long time ago for instance I was using XFCE as a relative Linux newbie and couldn't figure out why Thunar wasn't able to browse my SAMBA shared folders, only to eventually figure out "it wasn't supposed to". That kind of stuff isn't viable for desktop users especially those who want lightweight but full featured Ubuntu experiences, so go ahead and make sure there are the proper plugins to manage files on the local network. It wouldn't hurt to have updates for certain programs an easy to understand option - a tickbox to use WINE's repository instead of the official Ubuntu one which will almost always be an old version.

Unity is now the big discussion point but I worry that, especially advanced Linux users, are overreacting and not seeing the big picture. I've not used Unity, only seeing it in pictures. Is it possible that this is a good design for an AVERAGE user? Desktop Linux beginners and even some intermediate+ users feel that its a good UI? If you don't like it you have tons to choose from, but they need something they can use immediately. If its "like their phone", is it possible that this is a good thing in that they'll see some familiarity? From my understanding GNOME is basically driving towards a cliff. Gnome2, the variant that the most users like, is EOLed and Gnome3 is going to be the new wave. Sure, there's a fork of 2 and all that but I'm guessing that the standard Ubuntu interface isn't going to be it. Now personally, I'd like to have both Unity and GNOME3 installed (my understanding is that "Gnome3" is the Traditional Desktop option or whatever for Ubuntu 11.10?...or is it GNOME 2? ) to give the most compatibility with such things as advanced drivers and the like. While both GNOME3 and Unity are seen as being limited or dumbed down, one similar to OSX and the other to a cell phone UI, is it possible these are good paradigms for many users? OSX is seen as being "pretty

Unity is different, in a good way

[mx b]

I certainly wonder that too. Unity isn't my favorite (I enjoy KDE) but I certainly have nothing against Unity in general. I'm happy using it too on workstations at work. For ages I have been putting the KDE panel on the left side anyway so it feels natural to me. I enjoy it on widescreen monitors because they often don't have much vertical space. Why take up more vertical with a start menu in the "traditional" place when it can take up some of the copious amounts of horizontal I have? Webpages and documents scroll down, not sideways. Let windows and widgets line up horizontally so I can read windows and toolbars simultaneously! It makes sense to me, which is why I started putting the KDE panel there on my own.

I have been with linux for a long time, and one thing that makes me curious about Unity is the sentiment. Generally before now, there were many comments to the effect of "Well if Windows users weren't so tied to their desktop metaphor and willing to try new things, they may find out the superiority of Linux and switch for good!". Now that there is a new DE for Linux in the running, the community is now "I hate it, it's DIFFERENT.". I admit that is a bit of exaggeration, because certainly the first few releases of Unity had some bugs and not much configurability, but it is growing and getting better. But like the gentleuser whom started this thread pointed out, "icons on the left side" were annoying and different, and so it isn't just an issue with bugs when users are complaining. Of course, this doesn't mean you can't have a favored DE as I do, but I don't understand the hate and unwillingness to spend a couple weeks with Unity to see if you *really* might enjoy and benefit from a slightly different workflow. May learn something about yourself along the way. And if you still really don't like it, keep in mind everyone is different, and that is 100% ok.

Re:Unity is different, in a good way

[Darinbob]

It's difficult to just try it out for a couple of weeks. It's not a simple switch to turn it on and off. So once you're tired of trying out Unity the choices are to either stick with it or to uninstall the OS. Once you've uninstalled then potential users may prefer to not install other Linux versions.

Definitely I understand why traditional Linux users dislike it. Unix people in general want control over their systems and are better educated about how computers work and dislike the dumbed down feeling. Ok, so it may be a nicer UI for tiny limited tablets but it just doesn't feel right for a real computer especially as large displays have been getting more affordable and convenient.

Ubuntu has really helped my family

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a linux advocate since the late 90's, and would always have a version running on one of my machines at home, whether it be Slackware, Debian, or whatever. I loved it, and used it for everything.

Back in 2006, I bought my first Mac, and never looked back. It was simple, and it worked, and I didn't have to muck around.

My family, however, was stuck in the mindset that they didn't want to pay more than $400 for a desktop machine, so they went with Windows machines. Me, being the resident geek, was tasked with the requirement to remove viruses and spyware and all the other fun stuff that comes with running a Windows box.

About 6 months ago, I ran across Ubuntu. I tried it out, and realized that this was actually user-friendly enough for most anybody. My father-in-law asked me to do something about their computer, which was running a touch slow (5 minutes to open Internet Explorer, the only browser he'd use), I let him know that I could fix it, but it would mean removing Windows. He reluctantly agreed, only after I let him use a live-CD of Ubuntu, and he realized he liked it.

6 months later, he's a firm fan of Ubuntu, loves the Unity desktop, and is quite happy with Firefox.

I've since installed it on the computers of several other family members, and they're all pleasantly surprised at how nicely it works, and how they don't have to worry about all the viruses anymore.

Sure, there are a few things I'd like to see done better in Unity, but I figure it's only a matter of time.

Re:Popularity

[h4rr4r]

When you only have 1% of the desktop market there very well might be. Do you really think 1% of the desktop market is more than 50%+ of the server market?

Re:Popularity

[westlake]

Excellent trolling, I salute you.

I don't think it is trolling to look at the evidence and say that Linux is really, really, struggling to gain new users.

That the trend line has flatlined:

When you look at the countries and regions in whicn the Linux geek has invested most of his emortional capital, the numbers are disheartening:

Brazil
Russian Federation
India
China

Germany

Mint

[ThatsNotPudding]

there was an announcement they will also go with Gnome 3 (aka OSX Wannabe). To me (holding at Intrepid Ibex) about the only Debian-based choice left is Debian itself.

Re:Mint

[Knuckles]

Rest assured that Debian won't have the resources to keep Gnome 2 alive, either.

Re:Popularity

[h4rr4r]

Hey Troll, he could still be wrong.

50% of 100,000 is more than 1% of a million.

Re:Congratulations

[SteveFoerster]

What do you think Unity is? If that's not a self-destructive rebellious phase, I don't know what is.

Re:Popularity

[Tarlus]

...and then I saw that the OP was our astroturfing friend. I respectfully withdraw.

one thing missing

[kermidge]

The one thing I didn't see in the over one hundred comments I read:

Happy Birthday, Ubuntu.

New Ubuntu Tag Line

[helios17]

"Ubuntu - Turning $1000.00 computers into $75.00 phones since 2011"

Ubuntu, what's in a name?

[howzit]

I notice in the covering link for this topic there's an explanation of the naming process for the different versions of Ubuntu, but no explanation for the word 'ubuntu' itself. Ubuntu is an isiZulu and isiXhosa word of some complexity. It has lately been used for charitable, helpfulness, sharing, etc. It is actually more than that. It basically means: I am a man (Bantu) of people. What I do effects all humanity, therefor if I do good humanity will do good. If I help, humanity will help me. We must live for each other. We must draw together. Which is Mark Shuttleworth's vision for your desktop, working to unite other systems. Mark is a South African. Oh, almost forgot, happy birthday Ubuntu!