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Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Out; Unity Gets a Second Chance
An anonymous reader writes with this enthusiastic review of the latest from Canonical: "So how does Ubuntu Precise Pangolin (12.04) fare? I will say exceptionally well. Unity is not the same ugly duckling it was made out to be. In Ubuntu 12.04, it has transformed into a beautiful swan. As Ubuntu 12.04 is a long term release, the Ubuntu team has pulled all stops to make sure the user experience is positive. Ubuntu 12.04 aka Precise Pangolin is definitely worthy of running on your machine."
Thanks for the review Mr. Shuttleworth!
I am disappointed they didn't opt for Platypus. Way more interesting than an anteater. Can a pangolin lay eggs? I think not. Can a pangolin inject venom through its ankle? I don't think so. Does a pangolin have 6 poorly-understood sex chromosomes? No to that as well.
Pangolin. Puh-leeze. So comparatively boring they might as well have opted for penguin.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
What's with all the strange names? I guess they're trying to emulate Apple. I never bother learning the random words and just say OS 10.5 or Ubuntu Linux 10.0
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Unity on the other hand has bitten slashdot and injected troll venom. In before the show.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Sorry, but cramming an unfinished product down my throat and expecting me to deal with a time consuming buggy interface is the kind of thing that turns me off of a product. After all that's kind of the reason I moved from Windows to Linux in the first place.
Ubuntu was dead to me since the moment they tried to force Unity down out throats. I'm sticking to Mint from now on.
Poster 1) Unity is and always will be an unholy mess.
Poster 2) Unity is a massive leap forward in modern functionality, and anyone that simply gives it an honest try will agree.
Poster 1) I have tried. I don't want to learn new things and shouldn't have to. I had to switch to xfce.
Poster 3) APPLE APPLE APPLE
Poster 4) Seriously, Windows 8? Really?
Poster 5) You all should really give gnome3 another chance, it's really almost acceptable to use now.
Poster 1) Ubuntu is dead to me.
Poster 6) Remember NeXT?
I've test-driven Unity in the past but despite being told "the ugly duckling has grown into a beautiful swan" TFA doesn't give any information about what, if anything, they did about those horrible hiding scroll bars, auto-showing side bar, 1-pixel wide window edge focus, so-called "smart" volume control that controls headphone volume on low settings and speaker volume on high settings (instead of allowing me to control them independently).
I couldn't care less about all the "touch screen friendly" features they've added. I'm not using one. Thus, my most important question still is (and remains unanswered by TFA): how can I *switch off* Unity in 12.04LTS?
Isn't there another OS that uses the platypus for a logo?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Thank God they didn't go for a name like Lackadaisical Lemur, as those would have very accurately described my sentiments of 11.04. It upgraded without a hitch... but what demons may be lurking below have yet to be discovered! No, but seriously, it does seem to work and for that I'm grateful.
I'm not particularly hopeful of a functional system given the mouse problems I've had from 10.04.2 onwards, but I'll download it, try to install it, and give it a shot.
I really do like Debian's APT system a lot better than Fedora's RPM, though both get the job done. But unless that mouse problem isn't present, it doesn't matter which I prefer -- I need to use a distro that works.
The kicker will be whether they're using a GTK based installer or not. While you can always resort to text/expert mode, it's a nuisance to have to do so.
Yes, I know it's not an Ubuntu specific issue, but this is the problem I have with the recent set of distros from Debian and Ubuntu (including Kubuntu's installer.)
Mouse clicks getting lost
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I was going to take issue with the "revolutionary" phrasing (though the whole sentence is odd), but at the same time, I'm not sure that "ripping off" OS X is such a bad thing. It's a nice feature. I'm never sure why UI improvements (and other aspects of technology) are always an example "damned if you do, damned if you don't": If somebody doesn't copy $FEATURE into their system, they are derided for being outdated; at the same time, if they do add $FEATURE, then they are derided for copying.
That said, the lack of a traditional menu bar might be a source for problems. I prefer the more hybrid approach of OS X.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Why was the submitter Anonymous? Perhaps because their address was @canonical.com?
Seriously. I am sure everyone can smell the astroturfing here.
I tried it (Unity) for the first time last night. I hated it. It doesn't have focus follows mouse, or sloppy focus.
Ubuntu is now dead to me. I'm looking for another distro.
Any suggestions? Please!? Thanks in advance.
I wish for an easy to use skin selector. Ubuntu seems to produce a new feel far too often.
New Ubuntu release? Oh good, that means there should be a new Linux Mint release right around the corner. From what I've heard, they'll now have everything completely back to the way I'm used to (and like!)
(And so yay! Ubuntu still serves a useful purpose; advance warning for the upcoming Mint release.)
There is. It's called Darwin and it's the base of OSX.
Most of the comments here so far are debating what they thought the code name for this release should be. I think that says a lot about how far desktop linux has come if that's all we can find to improve. Either that or we all spend too much time complaining about the color of the bikeshed than working on real problems.
What??? No! (Oh, wait; yes.)
"a beautiful swan"... A beautiful swan as long as you don't mind it uncontrollably eating menu bars and crapping on your rug.
Apparently, they use the word "revolutionary" in the same sense as Apple.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Credit where credit is do, it really works very well. It's stable, polished and fast.. And there is some innovative stuff too, such as the keyboard-driven way to access application menus. (Called the HUD: hit Alt and start typing the name of the function.)
Well worth giving it a go. It's borderline Apple quality in terms of the overall experience.
Is a platypus native to Africa? There's a deeper theme.
Can a pangolin lay eggs? I think not. Can a pangolin inject venom through its ankle? I don't think so. Does a pangolin have 6 poorly-understood sex chromosomes? No to that as well.
These are now all features that I MUST HAVE in an operating system.
We do need more Australian animals. Ubuntu 19.04 : Dangerous Dropbear
Thanks so much for your thoughts -- I learned SO much!
Yay for opinion modding!
From what i've seen, elementary os should be a game changer if they can get their next version released. Think Ubuntu without unity and the turd shine.. add docky.
Nah. Not going back. Unity is too painful a recent memory. I'm with Mint now.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Ubuntu's interface is shit. There, I said it.
I just bought my first ever smartphone last month. It's a Samsung Android phone. It works. I can use it. I can move shit around and find my way around it quite easily.
I'm not too old to try something new. I'm too old to have time to go through this shit every time someone has a bright idea when I was more productive than ever with the previous incarnation, and where every iteration I've ever tried makes me less productive.
I spent most of the time in Unity right-clicking on things hoping there were more options to turn shit off and put useful things on. I assumed it was all just hidden away somewhere and I could find it. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that that was *IT* in terms of interface.
Fuck typing the names of programs into a dialog box. That assumes I know what the bloody thing is called. I just want to categorise stuff and thus keep all related things visible without having to handle special interfaces to do so.
Ubuntu has become the thing that it was supposed to be an alternative too: Fucking stupid design ideas destroying existing productivity for the sake of something shiny.
When I read in the summary that Unity was now a "beautiful swan", I clicked on the link, hoping to get a review of why this is the case. Instead, I get a long summary of the biggest new features in the latest version. Not very convincing.
"Platypus" wouldn't communicate that it is full of bugs quite so effectively.
(just kidding - I'm actually a happy Ubuntu user)
Close and minimise are still on the wrong side.
I dropped Ubuntu for Linux Mint a while back because of this, despite Linux Mint 12 being a little disapointing this one thing prevents me from going back to Ubuntu.
P.S. I know it can be changed, but it's a pain in the arse and aren't distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint all about avoiding those little pains in the arse.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'm surprised that they still recommend 32-bit for desktop instead of 64.
Programs probably just not quite ready for LTS on 64, but disappointing nonetheless.
Yes, indeed. Ubuntu 12.04 Paralyzed Platypus.
I've been using Unity on my netbook for a little more than a year now.
Unity was never my problem with the OS, and I've enjoyed it.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
It should have been Perry Platypus.
Trackpad settings are lost on reboot, extra packages are needed to get sane status displays, but everything else works great.
Above all, it's not Unity.
You get chewy Ubuntu goodness without the ipecac shell.
That's totally the way to get me to take you seriously, Ubuntu team. That's also totally what I want on my screen at work in my open office environment.
to the beginning. Everyone stole from Xerox PARC, but revisionist fanboism has airbrushed Steve Jobs out from being the first in that line.
No, there isn't. At least not that one. I don't think you get many Gibbons, Koalas, Lynx, Narwhals, Ocelots or Quetzals in (or off the coast of) Africa, unless you are visiting a zoo. Ibex are found in limited numbers in Egypt, so that one's OK, but Jackalopes don't even exist and are a North American creation anyway.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The version name is sufficiently rare that it will be precisely found.
On the other hand, numbers are frequent.
By typing 12.04, you could get information about Precise Pangoline. But also the chatper 12, section 04 of another documentation. Or a document dating back from 12th april (or december 2004). Or about an lm_sensors' motherboard probe reading 12.04 for the 12v channel, etc.
The keyword "12.04" has much higher probability to end up appearing on pages not related with this Ubuntu version, than random words such as "Zany Zebra".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I never hated mobile phones. But then, mobile phones didn't try to make everything different just because.
Fine and fine. Yeah, Apple does good thing in UI. But if gnome (or Fxce for me now) ever adopts that polymorphic single menu monstrosity for all apps style I will literally blow chunks and start using... hell, I'll use LXDE, PWM, anything else.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Unity is a hideous, three headed, monster baby. I can't really describe it in any better terms.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Don't they get it? We don't #$%&!?$ want unity. Task bar is a must. Moving tray items is a must. Synaptic package manger is a must. Its so complicated to make it look like my 10.10 desktop. I don't want a tablet look and feel. The good thing is that when one distro messes up, another one jumps in place. Whoever decided to treat their power users as bubbly happy farmville users should be 86d from the Linux community. I've been reading slashdot for 15 years and this is my first post which shows how retarded unity is. Die, die, die.....Unity...Die.
I may not be a music expert but I know what I like.
Looks more like NeXTSTEP to me.
Specifically, a mirror image of it!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I was the first person at our office to try Ubuntu, way back in the Dapper Drake days. It spread like a virus so that pretty much all our Linux users were using Ubuntu. We even rolled it out to about 100 servers. But Canonical has ceased listening to what I need, and started telling me what I want. The best thing I can say about Unity is at least it isn't Gnome Shell.
So you see Canonical, it isn't me, it's you. Until you come to your senses, I'm sticking with Mint Debian edition. It has the Gnome 2 desktop like God intended. Rebuild the humanity icon pack and the Ambiance theme and your desktop can look exactly like the Ubuntu of olde, only minus the suck.
Until Ubuntu come to their senses and either ditches Unity or makes its usability and feature set on par with Gnome 2/MATE, that's where I'll be.
xrandr.... ever since 11.04 it seems (if not even earlier) they incorporated the version of X that has broken bound checking. So use on small screens and trying to use scaling or panning is broken. I have a netbook and I had to wipe it after upgrading from LTS.. to find it broken... To upgrade to the next release... still broken.. to upgrade to the next release still broken.
Maybe I can give it a try if they got all that worked. out.
(Yes I freely admit to being to lazy to build my own X server.)
That said, the lack of a traditional menu bar might be a source for problems. I prefer the more hybrid approach of OS X.
What are you talking about? This is in addition to the traditional menu bar, not instead of it.
I'll make Win7 my primary desktop OS before I'll subject myself to Unity again.
Debian 6 for me. Although Xubuntu/Lubuntu are palatable...
Posted from my Blueberry iBook running Debian Wheezy w/ wmaker desktop.
You don't need to go to Mint just to leave Unity behind. All you really needed to do was sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop.
Yep, and I can say the same about OSX ripping off FreeBSD.
I've been using Unity on my netbook for a little more than a year now.
So how did you keep from mis-clicking when you'd reach for the back button in a maximized web browser and the auto-hidden launcher would pop up, especially after 11.10 which replaced touching the top left corner with touching anywhere on the left side at all?
The best news is this is the first release to, by default, be free of the Mono infection. Good on you, Canonical! Stop letting Microsoft cronies put patent-encumbered shit in our systems.
I thought 9.10 was Dharmic Dropbear.
Well, that's the thing. Unity is fantastic for netbooks, because that's what is was originally designed to accommodate. But anybody running a screen resolution higher than 1280x768 can feel somewhat hampered by it. As if the screen space is no longer being efficiently used.
/* No Comment */
When Unity was first rolled out, there was a lot of complaining about it's poor multi-monitor support. Has this been fixed?
I have a hard time getting too worked up about UI changes these days. I use only a handful of programs all day and Windows 7, XP, Mac, Unity, KDE, and others are similar enough that one environment is pretty much the same as any other. It seems really odd to me that people have such strong opinions when it comes to their operating system.
Frankly, I'm more interested in 12.04 supposed improvements in power management and battery life.
I don't understand the hate. It's actually a very usable, very beautiful WM. I didn't use it before 12.04, but on the current Ubuntu it's easily the best desktop experience I've ever had on Linux.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
made me look!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I thought Debian (original flavor) was the distribution with Disney character names, not Ubuntu.
You can get the same categorical list of programs in Unity. Just click on "filter" or something like it on the dash screen or whatever the HUD is called. Choose your category. Done.
I don't know that you can create your own categories or move programs/shortcuts around, though, if that's what you're after.
It's maybe an extra click or two.
When I was using Unity, I also found it was an extra second or two wait after each click on my 10" Atom laptop. For a desktop environment originally intended for netbooks, it sure felt too heavy for daily use on a netbook. In addition, the launcher had an annoying habit of covering the back button, especially in 11.10. So I went to Xubuntu and didn't look back.
12.10 is useless. it breaks vitrual consoles (ctrl-alt-f1), synaptic touchpads, and usb.
Still has some minor rough spots (xfburn doesn't seem to let me drag-n-drop files from thunnar) but gets the job done. And I have to upgrade my parents' machine soon; I can't imagine trying to teach them Unity. So, Xubuntu for them, too.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I absolutely hated unity with the 11.X platform when I test drove it on an old desktop but as a power user running ubuntu on a laptop with multiple monitors I've always been extremely frustrated with the fact that some things just didn't work right. Last week after they dropped updates to my legacy ubuntu think it was a 9.x version I stumbled upon this Ubuntu multi-monitor design spec: http://bit.ly/IS7SKx read it and loved it. I decided to try out the 12.04 beta and have not looked back. Granted there are a couple of things I would like to change but some of the features are really cool and feel for the first time I have a 1st class linux OS working on my laptop.
I've been using Unity on my netbook for a little more than a year now.
Unity was never my problem with the OS, and I've enjoyed it.
Have you experienced any performance problems? I am pleased with the layout of Unity but it's always just damn sluggish, for why I prefer Gnome Shell instead.
Desktop? My home monitor is 24 inches; my work monitor is 32 inches... Unity makes no sense on large desktops; it makes great sense on netbooks and smaller laptops. The problem boils down to not having a choice(*).
(*) Yes, I know you have a choice, but not something built into the Ubuntu distribution that allows you to easily and freely choose.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
>> Task bar is a must.
The launcher on the left side of the screen shows running apps.
>> Moving tray items is a must.
Grab the items in the launcher, drag to the right, and re-insert them back into the launcher wherever you want.
>> Synaptic package manger [sic] is a must.
If you want that, use the much prettier Software Centre to install it with a simple click.
>> It's so complicated to make it look like my 10.10 desktop.
Then install your old desktop manager or don't upgrade.
As a long-time KDE user who couldn't stand working with Gnome for extended periods, I actually find Unity quite enjoyable. Of course, I customize it with things like cairo-dock and make it fit my own workflow - rather than just bitch that the default is too simple for me to use.
Nah. Not going back. Unity is too painful a recent memory. I'm with Mint now.
Mint doesn't quite do it for me. I use it at work, but I really prefer my home system that still has Gnome 2 and its applets and icons that can be dragged to the bar at the top of the screen, whatever that's called.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
What do you suggest? Pwnatious Platypus?
Unity's come a long way since it's rather embarrassing first appearance, and that's a good thing Ubuntu. While I'm sure arguments over whether it's good or bad will rage on for years, the one truth about it is that it is an Application-Centric shell. AC shells are becoming the norm in the OS front, as seen by Unity, iOS, Andriod and the up-and-coming Windows 8 Metro. From a usability standpoint, they make perfect sense - they're very, very easy to use for someone who knows little to nothing about computers.
Therein is the problem for the power-user. Power users (Network admins, coders, computer enthusiasts/expects, etc.) tend to do a lot of things at once, and an AC shell is terrible for trying to actually do serious work with a computer. Power-users tend to migrate toward Task-Centric shells where active software is displayed on a task bar of some sort with applications contained in their own windows. Again, this makes sense given the type of user.
What does not make sense is Ubuntu's lack of flexibility in regards to the shell. While it caters nicely to the novice user, a power-user has little choice unless he/she wants to go to the trouble of installing an alternate shell that is more Task-Centric in nature.
I personally switched from Ubuntu to Mint back in 2009, at the time largely because Mint was a much more polished distribution. Now, Mint offers the extra perk of a shell that gives the user a choice as to how Application or Task Centric they want their environment to be. Their extensions to Gnome 3 initially allowed this with the Mint 12 release, and later their Cinnamon shell (a fork of Gnome 3) took it a step further. This is the sort of flexibility I wish Ubuntu had, but it seems they're content to stick with Unity and the base Gnome 3, and in the last year that's cost them a huge number of power-users, and likely will continue to do so.
They should have called it Penguin in honor of the Linux mascot.
all your UI are belong to grandma
Unity is not the same ugly duckling it was made out to be.
The problem with Unity is not its looks (at least not for me), the problem is its usability.
Which is horrible.
Love the wording here.
Everyone was just using it wrong, right?
:rolleyes: ;) Well, first of all, nobody is forcing you to do it. I do find it interesting though that everyone who doesn't like newer desktop environments (not just Unity but also Gnome Shell) assumes that 'everyone' hates it. Newsflash: most people really like it; Ubuntu hasn't remained the most widely used Desktop Linux for nothing. (Based on actual browsing stats, not what Distrowatch does, of course.)
Anyway, on to your points:
> Task bar is a must.
Task bars are used to see which apps are running and switch between apps. The Launcher does that; it indicates which apps are running and you can bring a running app into focus. In addition you now have the quick lists on right-click for many apps. It's all rather similar to the Apple Mac dock. (Though some will yell blasphemy at that notion. ;)
> Moving tray items is a must.
Why, actually? In Gnome 2 I spent more time trying to put them back in a sane place on the side after they went walkabout every time I connected an external display and the resolution changed. It was near impossible to just keep them in the same order, in the same place, on the side. Unity does this all by itself; it's a blessing.
> I don't want a tablet look and feel.
It's not a tablet interface. It's actually more keyboard-centric than Gnome 2 was, which forced everyone to go to the mouse quite a lot. Have a look at all the keyboard shortcuts, and how Unity selects what you want with 2-3 keystrokes starting to type the name of an app (in the dash) or a function (in the menu HUD)
> Die, die, die.....Unity...Die.
Well, okay. I'd say you deserve your money back. ;) Bottom line: It's a Free world. If you prefer a different DE: fine. If you prefer a different distro that already uses a different DE: also very fine; all the more power to you. Diversity is a strength. I personally appreciate many of the new/innovative features. The ones that don't make sense will fall by the wayside, but this is how progress is made.
An important point being made by the OP is that Unity has come a long way since 11.10. I could even use it in 11.10 and switched to Xubuntu. In 12.04 I find it usable..though I still have several issues with it. Give it another release cycle and it will continue to improve and it will work very well.
I find KDE users these days very happy with the latest version of KDE, but does anywhere here remember KDE 4.0? Torturous...
sudo apt-get install gnome-panel
And then choose "Gnome Classic (No Effects)" at the display manager screen.
You want Lubuntu. Here's the Release Notes.
Lubuntu is still new enough to be under-the-radar for most people, so here's the quick bio: It's a Canonical-supported distro based on the LXDE desktop manager. It is technically a 'lighweight' like Xubuntu, and while it does run well on older machines that's not the point at all.
What makes Lubuntu frigging awesome is here's your 'Ubuntu' with classic W95 toolbar GUI that Ubuntu itself has walked away from.
You'll have virtually zero downtime converting, because you already know how this works. Unlike other 'lighweights', you will spend NO time in CLI for configurations, just like old Ubuntu. And there are /always/ good dialogs where you need them, just like old Ubuntu.
I'm not against the other lightweights like Xubuntu etc at all. I like them. I like variety. People should check them out. But that's not the point here, the point is Lubuntu is the Ubuntu for Ubuntu people who don't want Unity/Gnome3.
You don't have to lose the simple interface you know and like, and you don't have to go to some community-fork that is trying valiantly to make Gnome2 keep working on Ubuntu. Lubuntu is already there for you, check it out.
Unity is getting it's second chance as a fork, not as Ubuntu 12.04
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
The summary reads like an advertisement. No actual facts and just full of opinions. This should be titled "Review: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS".
AccountKiller
Unity was designed for tablets & smartphones, not netbooks
Ok, I get all that, but you can have gnome2 et al w/cinnamon.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Unity works awesome on large monitors, especially with the autotiling thing, I can easily portrait mode browsers and documents, with multiple heads I can have 4 documents laid out at once, it's productive.
You claim you care about choice, what about people who want a working computer without dealing with the ridiculous notion of choosing a GUI?
This Unity debacle obviously has clear parallels with the KDE 4 fiasco, but the crucial difference is that although KDE 4 was very badly broken for the first few point releases, it is now vastly improved and getting better with each new release (especially as regards stability and performance); the overall aim was sound, but the implementation was terrible for the first few iterations.
Unity on the other hand has fundamental flaws in design built right into it, so it's not just a matter of ironing out bugs and reimplementing features; the unity devs don't actually think that there are any problems to fix!
Incidentally, for those of you who'll end up trying Kubuntu, I find that the two most important settings to fix are to change the bland and washed-out default Air theme and turn off the horrendous blue window glow that surrounds the active window. Do this as follows:
system settings -> workspace appearance -> window decorations tab -> select the 'oxygen' theme (or try some of the others) -> now click on 'configure decoration' at the bottom -> click the 'shadows' tab -> uncheck 'active window glow'.
Obviously there are lots of other setting to play with as well, but I find that these ones make the biggest improvement.
For me this was a big irritation and one of the reasons for moving to GNOME Shell.
Man, this dog turd tastes aweful, let me try this cat turd.
"Perverse Parrot"
would have been rather nice indeed.
I was never a big fan of Unity but I'm not crazy about the Gnome3 shell or Gnome2 shells, either. I'm thinking of switching to Lubuntu or some other distro that uses LXDE desktop. I just want an old-school desktop that's simple and intuitive but I still want to use Compiz and the heavier apps like LibreOffice. I'm open to other suggestions, as my search continues.
Yeah, choosing a gui, that's rediculous. You haven't been into that Apple Kool-Aid, have you?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
You can't "rip off" BSD licensed code you retard. Especially since they employ practically all of the FreeBSD developers that are worth a damn.
Say brother, are you forever vigilant in protecting the purity of your HOST file? All the evils of the world can be defended against simply by keeping a properly configured HOSTS file. But you must be wary to protect the purity of your HOSTS file, for Saitan himself is constantly trying to corrupt it, thereby letting thetans attach themselves to your computer.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Pfft. You GTFO. I faked being a Mac user who hated on fake Mac users before it was cool to fake being a Mac user who hates on fake Mac users. You're just a poseur.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Unity was the most painful thing I've used in years. On top of an OS where it's simply not possible to get the full value out of my hardware investment... and now they want me to try a new one?
The reason I left Ubuntu was two fold:
Say what you will about Windows. If you conduct an upgrade, your settings and preferences stay at least mostly intact between os versions. And if it's not life threatening, Microsoft will rarely push something to your system or change anything without telling you. And if you don't like it in MS world, you can usually roll back. They've gotten better about this, while Canonical has gotten worse.
It sucks, but it's the only comparison that makes any sense.
This signature intentionally left blank.
Is it? I didn't notice it in the screenshots. If so, then I retract the statement.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
So, "sudo apt-get install whatever" is too complicated?
Personally I mostly use Gnome classic.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
By removing Tomboy note taking app from the default installation, Ubuntu 12.04 is saying goodbye to everything Mono. However, all Mono based software including the popular Tomboy can be installed from the Ubuntu repositories.
at last, sense prevails!
I honestly don't get it. I work on a 24'' 1900x1200 monitor, my laptop is a 15 inch 1080p and I have zero problems with Unity. I sincerely doubt that people who are so critical of Unity have given time to get used to its quirks, but to each their own. Linux is Linux, we can each have a different WM and all be happy.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Xubuntu 11.10 64-bit install.
I'm doing the OS upgade from the update manager and instead of saying it's updating Xubuntu it says it's updating to Ubuntu 12.04. I'm not sure what is going on but it will be interesting if their upgrade process switches me from Xubuntu back to vanilla Ubuntu. I'll post an update when it's done.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
It's simple really. Do you think the organization that made Linux easy for the masses -- that EXCELLED at making linux easy, would ever let this out the door normally? Do you think that a huge multi billion dollar international corporation known for being pure evil is beyond a bribe? Wal-Mart was nailed for bribing Mexican government officials. Large corps bribe people all the time. Microsoft or Apple did this, but if I had to bet I'd say probably MS. Who got bribed? See who is riding around on a new luxury yacht at Ubuntu & that'd be the likely suspect.
I know how to do all that n00b. Respect your Slashdot elders, I've been here leaps and bounds longer than you and from the good ol days where we had to everything by hand...Don't reply to my post like I am asking questions in #ubuntu. I know all about apt-get, xubuntu, etc...Go off bubbly boy on your ipad and play some farmville.
The painful memories go back even further with Ubuntu. Start with the colors, most people don't like the default colors but that didn't matter because Ubuntu worked on almost every machine, which lured everybody to the distro. Then in 10.04? they moved the window buttons to the upper left corner which is bass akwards like a mac which foreshadows what they did in the next release, more mac "improvements" THEN came unity.... 10.10 is the last release I will ever use of Ubuntu. Linux Mint!
I know how to do all that n00b. Respect your Slashdot elders, I've been here leaps and bounds longer than you and from the good ol days where we had to everything by hand...Don't reply to my post like I am asking questions in #ubuntu. I know all about apt-get, xubuntu, etc...Go off bubbly boy on your ipad and play some farmville. You talk like the other guy who posts, maybe the same person trying to convince the world that Unity is for the better of Linux. Take a look around at these posts, look at how many complaints. You sound like your the PM (Project Manager) on this and no wonder your trying to defend it.
Unity is not fantastic for netbooks. What are you smoking?
My problem with Unity, as well as Gnome 3 for that matter, is that they let down poer users like me.
What makes me a power user? Well, basically the fact that I like to tweak and script my system. Tweaking, specially, has been getting harder and harder as of late. Tweaking shouldn't involve recompiling from source, turning off or on cimpile switches and suck. It shouldn't involve writing any code for that matter. Because for each programmer there is a 1000 power users and for each power user there 10 regular users. Power users make computers better for the rest of the world. we are the grease in the world personal computing. Standing between the casual user who can't even describe what they want and programmers, ther is an army of tech savvy cousings and geeky husbands and of course, IT crews that take care of fine tuning software for the tasks required.
Linux desktop used to be a power user's wet dream. It used to be the case that you could cause any behavior in any piece of software. Instead we are getting massive functionality regressions by complete software rewrites that forgo any customization in the name of standarization and "design". And now I'm happy that I can disable locking on suspend on a laptop without writing an startup script.
Configuration in modern desktop linux is getting so awkward that when it is possible at all, happens in third party applications like Gnome Tweak or Unity Tweak.
Goddamit, last time I had to install dedicated tweaking applications was when I was using Windows XP!
But... the future refused to change.
I'm using Mint now too, and I fricken hate it. My home desktop is not a powerhouse, but it isn't totally antiquated -- 1.8 ghz core 2 duo system, used for youtube and surfing. Mint just chokes it, and then sits its fat ass on that systems face and won't let it recover. Maybe its gnome 3, I don't know, but I'm thinking I'm just going to put CentoOS on it and not watch video, or go back Ubuntu 8 which ran great on the same hardware.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
When you can disable global menus and move window controls.
Sure they do, The Ubuntu Software Center. It's got Gnome 3, KDE, and probably more than a few others.
I liked the old Debian way of doing things where you clicked on something like Applications, then it showed you a menu with a list of things like Games, Internet, and Office, and when you scrolled down to them, it showed you another list of applications that fell under those categories.
It was so simple and intuitive...
Actually, with 11.04, I tried it for several months before giving up. Around the same time I was trying to adjust to the Mac I got at work, too. They suffered (IMO) from the same problems - problems that are not easily fixed; the unified menu paradigm, for example, only works if you don't use sloppy focus (focus follows mouse). I like sloppy focus... sometimes I don't want to raise a whole window to block another one just to type a single command in it. Sloppy focus will NEVER work with a unified menu.... that's just the way it is.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I gave up 12 years of windows use and went to Linux Mint. (now use Cinnamon with it) Best desktop ever, I am extremely happy with it. Gnome 3 and Unity gave me a friggin migrain and the mental strain when trying to switch between windows and apps would snap a buffalo in half. Ugh, no thanks.
Mint ftw!
Yes, you're right, never thought of that.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
"Ubuntu 12.04 aka Precise Pangolin is definitely worthy of running on your machine"
you don't know me and you don't know my machine. therefore you don't know what's "worthy of running" here, much less "definitely".
but i know me and my machine and i can say with utmost certainty that ubuntu does not qualify.
sorry.
Time to ditch ubuntu once and for all.
It doesn't deliver a usable system, not for a programmer like me. I want to manage a bunch of discrete workflows, some of which may involve opening and working with hundreds of files (eg: linux kernel). I don't want or need consumer crap that prevents me from doing exactly this. Same reason I don't do macosx, windows or tablets.
Have fun guys, I'm no longer on that team.
This is strange. I use GNOME 3 on Fedora 16, and I have no problems whatsoever with performance.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
No, like many other extremely odd animals, the platypus is found in Australia. So is the Koala, which another Ubuntu version was named for.
The fact that they didn't use Penguin clearly makes them heretics against the True Church of Linus.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
One, can I make it look like 10.04? Specifically, I don't like big icons I can't remember that chew up screen real estate. I like one little-bitty bar across the top with words that I can read.
Two, if I make it look like 10.04, is there any point in upgrading? Or is it only UX "improvements"? If I stand a better chance of getting halfway decent performance out of my ATI card (and my first question goes favorably) then I'm all over it.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
You sound like my mother. Move the Firefox icon and she thinks the internet has been deleted.
Don't be afraid to learn something new. If you do decide to give it a chance, I recommend learning the keyboard shortcuts. I realize that lots of us old-timers don't learn as quickly or easily as we used to, but it's good brain exercise. Just do it.
from what I understood 11.10 would have dogged it down badly, I started with (and preferred) 10.x netbook remix, but there was an issue with the battery monitoring that it would read as drained even with a 99% charge (and thus shut down). So how will 12.04 run on the netbook? (Acer Aspire One with Atom N450 CPU, 2 GB RAM)
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Are you just trolling? If you know that all the things you complained about are based on incorrect assumptions or are easily remedied, why complain in the first place?
Did you ever stop to think that Ubuntu and Unity just works for lots and lots of people? People who are satisfied with it and are busy getting things done are far less likely to take the time to post than someone who is upset at the direction the project has taken. Unity is getting better all the time and if you haven't tried recent builds, I would recommend taking another look at it.
werld, you sound pretty stressed. I recommend setting up a farm and growing some asparagus. It's a good way to chill out.
Ridiculous argument. "I used the alpha and though the finished product is 100x better I will use something completely different to spite myself". There was all the hate for KDE when it launched 4.0 and that was way worse. By 4.2 it was actually something quite usable. Unity was a bit basic when it launched in the 11.04 days but it wasn't the unstable mess KDE4 was when it launched.
If you just want something you know and don't like change then go retro and stay with Mint or Debian. Everybody else will just ignore you and enjoy the latest KDE/Unity/xfce/etc.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"is definitely worthy of running on your machine" ... unless you want netflix, then dont bother.
unity auto scales itself to pretty much any res. also get a program called myunity it change it up to your liking even more the icon size weather or not you want desktop icons etc. i even gave it another shot due to las saying it was a different beast and its not a lie.
Ridiculous argument.
Suite yourself. Meanwhile, I kinda need to get work done in as efficent a way as possible, I really don't need to explore the wonders of Unity, figure out they're crap, and spend all my time getting back to where I need to be. Which I did anyway. Thanks for the sentiment. Enjoy your hell.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
As someone that uses Unity on my 52" tv I find your assertions strange. I don't feel like it gets in the way on any platform. The whole reason it's nice for smaller platforms is because it gets out of your way, this is just as useful on any size screen.
I'll admit there are things in my 11.04 install that needed polish, same with my 11.10 installs,but they are nearly as bad or unreliable as Ubuntu was when it was Gnome 2. Of course in none of those scenarios was my experience bad, I spend a lot of time in CLI anyway so I guess I don't worry a whole hell of a lot about where a few icons are displayed.
The only thing I found sluggish was the file browser until I turned accessibility options off. Then everything sped up like I'd expect on a newish i7 laptop. Not sure why the browser doesn't index folders that you use regularly, it can be a real pain to open folders with lots of files like my download or reference folders.
Ubuntu doesnt force you to use Unity, though people seem to think they do. On my laptop Mint runs hotter for whatever reason. Ubuntu with unity runs cooler but I got tired of it. As soon as I re-installed Ubuntu and updated I added the repo to MATE and been using that instead.
- -= Napalm means serious BBQ =-
You can enable "focus follows mouse" along with auto-raise or click-to-raise in CompizConfig under the General settings. Not sure how it works with the unified menu thing, though.
Well I did try Unity from day 1 and it never really worked for me. Maybe it was my computer or whatever so I switched to Linuxmint 11 and now running Mint 12 with the Cinnamon 1.4 desktop. Mint 12 with Cinnamon rules for me at least. Even with all the negativity about Unity, you would think Mr Shuttleworth would drop it ?? Oh no, there starts the fall of a great distro ...
My two bits!!
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
Sure, just pull in kubuntu packages.
Canonical lost the war on failed communication. Yeah, it's nice they have a multiple monitor strategy a year or more after inflicting a multiple monitor abortion on the whole of their user community.
If they had kept Gnome2 operational until the multiple monitor strategy was implemented and working reasonably well, my venom quill wouldn't be painfully squeezing an empty sack like a tasered epileptic.
Christ, if they had just told us straight up: "Sorry, multiple monitor guys, you need to find alternate accommodations during renos." I might even have kept Canonical on my xmas list.
I've got a pretty lean, mean Arch build running as my dual-head desktop. My spare laptop is about to get some Debian love, just because I'm curious about it. I've tried Unity and I'm not too thrilled. Mind you, I run Gnome 3 and while I don't necessarily like it, I don't mind it. I used the Compiz plugin combined with a hot zone in the corner of the screen to zoom out all the windows and tile them. It was the only part of using a OS X I ever liked. So Gnome 3's approach wasn't at all that jarring. The only part of Gnome3 I hate was Also I used Gnome Do a lot.
That's probably why I found Unity so horrifying. All of that customization that was available with compiz was gone. The OS X/Launcher/Etc. dock I hated was in my face, not able to be moved away from the left side. The "unified menu bar" was horrible and always seemed miles away on my larger dual desktop screens. Sloppy focus was permanently and forever broken. Finally, my primary mode of window management was totally busted. I was used to either slide, spot, click, done. Also, I'd mapped a lot of chords to navigate the same view by keyboard.
Mind you, I'll always be thankful to Ubuntu for getting me started with Linux. Well, actually that goes to Fedora. Ubuntu just made it much more bearable while I got past my "WHY DOESN'T ANYTHING JUST WORK" stage. However, the level of customization in Unity (and now, in Gnome, though extensions are trying to make up for it) have really burned me. I'm not quite looking at KDE, but I might start poking around XFCE. I've installed it before on super low-end laptops, so we'll see what happens. However, it will certainly be an Arch or Debian based distribution underneath it. I have little to no interest in ever giving Ubuntu anymore support.
Well, that's the thing. Unity is fantastic for netbooks, because that's what is was originally designed to accommodate. But anybody running a screen resolution higher than 1280x768 can feel somewhat hampered by it. As if the screen space is no longer being efficiently used.
Not this anybody. How is my screen space usage less efficient than say, gnome2? The launcher bar at the side uses probably comparable surface to the old gnome bar at the bottom (which was thinner but longer). But since this is a wide-format display (as are most PC screens on the market today) vertical space is more valuable than horizontal, so this is more efficient. I still have plenty of room for multiple side-by-side windows when I need them.
And when a window is full screen, it uses 100% of the vertical space because of global menu integration, which is great for broswers, IDEs, etc...
They have just bought them selves 5 years to get their crap together
That seems like a pretty big thing they took away. On the other hand, even if they put that in I will never ever ever go to that monstrosity of a UI.
Its their code, they can do what they like. But I am almost at the point where I can no longer advocate Linux.
In other news kubuntu 12.04 is out... http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu
Kubuntu, because KDE is supar awesome once you've right-clicked everything and sight and dug through about 30 control panels to find the exact feature, effect & theme subset you want? Sounds a tad bewildering, I suppose.
Ubuntu, but you kinda have to ignore the default UI, sudo apt-get install gnome-shell & download roughly 15 extensions to make it spiffy? Again... a tad intimidating.
Mint? I guess that'd work. Codecs and drivers and all. But then you'd get something that acts like a sleeker Gnome 2 with a few more kinks... always found Gnome 2 boring. And that Nautilus thing... granted, newbie probably won't be looking for the ability to open a
Something not based on Ubuntu, possibly not even based on Debian? Then I'll be far less useful for troubleshooting. And I appreciate the momentum Ubuntu has. People package their stuff for it, or there's a PPA, etc....
Of course, that's a purely hypothetical question. Because noboby ever asks me about migrating to Linux. :p Ah, vanity...
Unity was first employed for the netbook edition of Ubuntu in 2008, not for tablets and phones.
/* No Comment */
"The MATE Desktop Environment, a non-intuitive and unattractive desktop for users, using traditional computing desktop metaphor." :)
http://mate-desktop.org/
and i love it!
there are a few bugs and the community is tiny, but it works well enough so that i could finally upgrade from ubuntu 10.10 and dont need to plan the murder of mr. s.
Poster 7) Thanks to multi-core CPUs and vast improvements in modern graphics processors, KDE 4.96 is finally usable on many modern systems
I am disappointed they didn't opt for Platypus. Way more interesting than an anteater..
Same here.
Can a pangolin lay eggs? I think not. Can a pangolin inject venom through its ankle? I don't think so. Does a pangolin have 6 poorly-understood sex chromosomes? No to that as well. Pangolin. Puh-leeze..
So true..The platypus is off the charts when it comes to pure coolness.
If you don't like it use something else or better still CONTRIBUTE TO IT
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
Option to hibernate has been removed. Canonical apparently has learned from Apple's book of disabling features instead of actually fixing the bugs in them.
It's easy to understand. The fact is that most Linux users are ultra-conservative. Heck a large number of them still think that a 1970s text based interface is the best UI.
And to prove it, they're going to reply to this post arguing that it really, really is.
I'm glad it's not just me!
I too tried to switch from Ubuntu to Mint on my core 2 duo p7350 (2ghz) with a GeForce gtx 275 card and 2 gig ram.
It takes a good 4-5 seconds for the unity screen to pop up once the mouse gets to the corner of the screen, and takes another 8-10 seconds to respond after clicking anything. The sub-menus take 2-3 seconds to show when mouse-over the main menu options.
The web browser is almost unusable with how long it takes to register a click after hitting the mouse button. We're talking click a link, wait, wait, say WTF!?, move the mouse just to make sure the system is still responding at all, and finally a few seconds later it 'clicks' where ever the pointer ended up out of frustration.
The last time I ran updates through the GUI, network traffic was still spiked for a number of minutes after the update was finished and the GUI app closed.
I can't find a single hardware fault that would cause this.
For as much as I despise Microsoft, I ended up putting Win 7 on it and it simply screams. I never in my life expected to hear myself say I prefer windows over anything else :/
Sadly the year of Linux on the desktop was 3-4 years ago, and it's been down hill since.
pre 12.04 it was a ulgy useless crashy buggy pos. so the hate will not go away for anyone who used it before. i did but i don't hold a grudge being it was pre lts and testing most seem to forget that.
So, "sudo apt-get install whatever" is too complicated?
Actually, yes it is. That's the reason it never was the year of Linux right there. Sudo? apt-get? Linux is full of gobbledy-gook just like that.
Never say never. There's no reason you can't have sloppy focus for keyboard input whilst having the menu always reflect the top most app.
>when one distro messes up, another one jumps in place
It's called Kubuntu. And just because you looked at it for five seconds back with 4.0, don't give me this OH NO ITS BLOATED AND LOOKS LIKE CRAP bull. KDE is the sleekist, most customizable DESKTOP that really looks, feels, and acts like a damn desktop rather than 1) a tablet-inspired mess (Unity, Gnome3) or 2) a glorified window manager (XFCE, pretty much everything else).
So, "sudo apt-get install whatever" is too complicated?
Compared to simply installing Mint? Yes.
I think I should have had some say as to whether or not I wanted to use Unity in the first place. This business of upgrading me for the hell of it was sick, wrong, and totally uncalled for. I was a devoted Ubuntu user for years.
Ask for your money back.
It's a Samsung NF-210.
The wireless didn't work until I patched it, I had to work out how to fix the Fn keys with the voria ppa, and it took a year for trackpad functionality to be anywhere near usable.
Other than that, no, no functionality issues.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
...left disappointed.
Where are the discussions about OpenStack, MAAS, AWSOME, KVM 1.0 support, the Juju Charm store, etc.?
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PrecisePangolin/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuServer
Some of you mentioned LinuxMint but didn't mention Cinnamon. I personally am really enjoying using it on 12.04. I still miss my cube and wobbly windows, but I guess you can't have it all.
You have never even seen a help desk, have you?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity is OK as long as you install Classic Menu Indicator (still not as good as the old Gnome 2 layout though). As for Mint, I found it to be more annoying than Unity.
Look like my Windows 7 but less classy
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Unity may look beautiful swimming in the water, but as soon it climbs onto shore you'll see how ungainly it lurches about. My first piece of business will be installing MATE, Cinnamon, and fallback to give them a try.
I'd be a lot more interested in Mint if Ubuntu One ran under it. I'm sure people smarter than me will figure out how eventually.
Now that's an intriguing possibility.
Heh: http://youtu.be/toAEQTsidvg
I was thinking of that baby from Eraserhead.
THL phish sticks
And the fact that it's not a GNU/Pangolin means the Church of Emacs is pissed, too.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've been using Unity on my 24" vertical display at home since 11.10. It took about 2 days to get used to it, but now I like it better than the old Gnome desktop. It's clean, stays out of the way, and is pretty good at dealing with tons of windows open simultaneously.
Thing is, the demographic for whom "sudo whatever" is too complicated are probably going to have zero desire to switch to an older, more complicated desktop. Coming from a Windoze or Mac background, the idea that it's even possible to change the window manager without changing the OS is going to be pretty alien.
Personal observation suggests people with limited technical skill find Unity much easier to use than Gnome. Nothing is stopping an advanced user from switching to whatever crazy complicated desktop they want. So why not have a user-friendly system by default?
The addition of auto-raise would defeat the purpose of half of the reasons I love focus follows mouse. Thanks for the warning about its inconvenience with a unified menu, guys.
Go to the back button and not all the way to the edge of the screen
Good luck completing that motion consistently, a dozen times in a row with zero overshoots, without having to slow to a crawl every time you want to hit the File menu or the back button.
Complaints like this always remind me of the old "it hurts when I do this" ... well, don't fucking do that!
"But if I don't do that, it'll hurt more because I'll be fired from my job, which requires me to do that, and unable to afford food."
i definitely love the flexibility offered by the typical modern linux window manager, but really we're talking about a problem that metacity offered to solve :P
if you need to have a window stay on 'top' ("sometimes I don't want to raise a whole window to block another one just to type a single command in it ") this really matters when typing a single command and then returning to documentation, then repeating ... so the overhead of reordering windows applies is only spread over a loop with one command, hence the efficiency in terms of per command overhead is high. but since metacity window-managers have included a feature to force a particular window ontop, i believe the enlightenment wm will remember these settings or allow more complex rules in terms of any parameter which might distinguish a particular window or family of windows. you can change the opacity as well so you can move your terminal to a bit of white space in the document and vola zero window reorders per command!
Also the number one thing i find myself doing it your situation is scrolling or cycling through lists, tabs etc. and because UNLIKE WINDOWS every linux window manager ive ever used passes a scroll wheel event through to which ever window the cursor is currently over, while still keeping keyboard focus. If you scroll through documentation and enter with the keyboard into one window at a time, then this requires even less gui actions. Focus follow mouse would require you to take your hands off the keyboard and move the mouse back and forward to scroll in one background window and then continue to enter more text/keyboard input into a different field. Each to their own of course. The one thing i do like about unity is that it makes good use of the keyboard, you can control it completely with flag key, tab, and a partial autocompleted text string.
Then it uses some of the width of your screen. So how are people supposed to navigate web pages without horizontal scrolling on a 1024x600 pixel, 10-inch screen now that many commercial web sites' style sheets are designed to use the entire width of 1024 pixel wide screens minus a scrollbar? Or are laptops with 10-inch screens considered to have been obsoleted by ARM tablets running iOS or Android?
It was Pixar
Whose films were published by Disney even before it became a wholly owned subsidiary.
and it's still characters from the original Toy Story.
How many more Toy Story characters are left before they have to move onto other sets of Disney trademarks?
I'd mod you to infinity if I could
Were you using Unity 2D?
I don't think so. It's just that browsing the hierarchy of installed applications was far slower under Unity than it had been under GNOME 2 or than it is under Xfce.
The launcher auto-hides, so I'm not sure how it'll cover the back button. Unless you trigger it opening by going all the way to the edge of the screen.
Which is indeed the case to which I was referring. The back button in a maximized Firefox is placed very close to the left edge of the screen. And even in 12.04, where auto-hide is no longer mandatory, one still has to use auto-hide in order to on a Dell netbook.
but then I just wait a second for the launcher to go away instead of installing a new OS.
It happened so often to me, along with the general slowness of opening things, that I decided to leave Unity behind just to be able to get more work done on a single charge or on a single bus commute. Installing a new desktop environment with apt-get isn't exactly "installing a new OS" to me. But I'm weird that way. I did adapt a few things that Unity on 11.x did right into my Xfce session: move the auto-hiding launcher panel from the bottom to the left, give it 128px width and 75% length so it doesn't screw up Back, move the window list to the launcher panel, and put my six most commonly used applications in a 2-column Quicklauncher (Lines: 2) at the top.
Congratulations to all of you you had no problem with Mint 12, but I had no end of problems. The gui kept hanging on me, and no amount of ctr-r or whatever (I forget the combo now) would restart it. I spent hours and days trying to sort it out; I tried loading Gnome 3, Gmome 2, different drivers, all to no avail. :( I wanted to retain an X based system so that things like ssh -X and all the other X based connections would work, and I wasn't sure how well Unity/Wayland would "play" with these. In the end I went to Kubuntu 12.04, and I couldn't be happier. For those who fret about Unity, I highly recommend Kubuntu.
"You can get the same categorical list of programs in Unity. Just click on "filter" or something like it on the dash screen or whatever the HUD is called. Choose your category. Done."
Sometimes stuff like this does just write itself...
Almost as useful as "Read the MAN pages."
Three Squirrels
I believe you can turn off unified menu (by uninstalling the packages) independently of switching window/session management from Unity. At least, that was the case in 11.10.
Unity has other quirks that make it irksome to me though. For example, the single icon for all windows of the same app makes it very difficult when working with sets of similar-looking windows - terminal emulators, for example. Also having no option for a second click on the launcher icon to hide the application is annoying. Sometimes it's handy to have an app that you want to look at for reference then close quickly. In GNOME you can click-read-click without moving the mouse and get back to what you were doing before. With Unity you have to jump through more hoops.
It does look like they've fixed a few of problems I had with Unity in 12.04. For example, alt+tab cycles windows on the current workspace only, and the default "spread" of windows behaves likewise. Sadly, icons for applications running only in other workspaces still appear, cluttering up the launcher wherever you are.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
I installed 12.04 on roughly 20 computers today, each of which had similar specs.
On the first, the scroll would not work in the Unity file manager. It worked everywhere else: Firefox, Terminal, etc.
On the second, Unity ate up the CPU and GPU. Two second delays per click were common.
On the third, no icons appeared on the bar, although they still worked.
By the fourth, I stared running "sudo apt-get install lxde" at the terminal (Alt+Ctrl+F1) before logging in.
Even when Unity does work, it is not efficient for desktop usage. It takes more clicks, typing, and effort to get anything done. Fine, develop it for a phone, but don't ruin the desktop user experience in the process.
Polish a turd, and it is still a turd.
I prefer Pliable Pussy.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Have you actually tried Unity on a Netbook?
The developers certainly haven't. It's absolutely horrible on a small screen. Once you've got more than 4 or 5 things in the side launcher thing it becomes unusable.
The best Netbook interface Ubuntu ever had was the old Ubuntu Netbook Launcher. Unity was a massive step backwards.
People keep saying that, but it's utterly false.
I've tried it on a Netbook (EeePC 901 - so the last _real_ netbook), and I've tried it on a 2 monitor setup (1920x1200 + 1680x1050), and whilst I still didn't like it with the bigger setup, it was much more suited to it than on the Netbook. The dock bar on the left fills up too quickly, and once it starts that ridiculous collapsing/scrolling thing it becomes utterly unusable. So for a netbook, that's pretty much straight away.
I think the reason people think it's great for a Netbook, is because they know it's crap on a big screen, so they just _assume_ it's good for _something_, and therefore that thing must be small screens. But the sad truth is that there is no purpose for which Unity is fit.
What's so hard about apt-get install whatthefuckeverelseyouwantinstead?
Well that's why you can turn it on or off to suit your needs.
Dozens? I can count only 5
What others are there which are not either practically dead (BeOS, OS/2, AmigaDOS) or not even close to ready as yet (ReactOS, OSFree)?
Does Kubuntu have the Ubuntu software center?
Yes, I know you have a choice, but not something built into the Ubuntu distribution that allows you to easily and freely choose.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Software_Center
People who are expert enough to open a terminal and type 'sudo apt-get install' whatever would have had no reason to go w/ Ubuntu in the first place - they could simply have stuck w/ Debian. I thought that the whole idea of Ubuntu was to come up w/ a Linux distro where everything works OOTB, so that people wouldn't have to open up a terminal, or press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and log into root and type things like service network restart, or sudo apt get. But if the Synaptic or whatever other package manager there is can't do the job, and the person has to go back to a terminal, then why would that person go for any of the polished distros, as opposed to working w/ a bareknuckles distro like Debian, Slackware, Gentoo or so on?
I think Ubuntu had the right idea about a simplified desktop - GNOME2 was too mediocre for my liking - but the idea of having ONE user interface for desktops/notebooks, tablets and phones - was where they went wrong. In this area, they are making the same mistake as Microsoft - just as the latter is making metro a one-size-fits-all, Canonical made the same mistake by making Unity their interface for all boxes. Since they were on Gnome2 already, they'd have done well to either switch to KDE4.7 completely for the desktop, and for tablets, they could have either embraced Plasma Active or Gnome3. Or, if they wanted to leave KDE w/ Kubuntu, they could have adapted Gnome3 for tablets, while making 'Unity' a desktop UX. Instead, by making Unity a tablet UX that's just overlapping w/ Gnome3, they pretty much left the desktop area open for others like Mint to take over.
Given that Mint has overtaken Ubuntu as the leading Linux distro on distrowatch, I'd say that most people are not prefering Unity to Mate/Cinnamon. I do agree that the default should be the most user friendly of all. In which case, again, why not use KDE, which can look identical to Windows, if the appropriate theme is chosen, or which can be fine tuned to do whatever the user wants.
But if the Synaptic or whatever other package manager there is can't do the job, and the person has to go back to a terminal, then why would that person go for any of the polished distros, as opposed to working w/ a bareknuckles distro like Debian, Slackware, Gentoo or so on?
1. Synaptic can do the job. People are just writing "sudo apt-get install whatever" because it's way easier than typing out a tedious set of directions for clicking on Synaptic.
2. Personally, I find it easier to manage packages with apt-get than with any GUI package manager. Yet I still prefer Ubuntu precisely because it is fairly polished - it Just Works(tm) almost all the time.
Given that Mint has overtaken Ubuntu as the leading Linux distro on distrowatch, I'd say that most people are not prefering Unity to Mate/Cinnamon.
Distrowatch doesn't measure install base, just number of page hits. It could just as well be that Mint is harder to use than recent Unity-based Ubuntu releases. Most non-techies don't spend time on OS websites unless something is broken.
11.10 -- one of the games disappeared from the launcher. Doing a search for "games" in the search box didn't find it.
I ended up launching synaptic, searching for it there, checking "installed files" to see where it was, and launching from command line.
I nuked that partition and went back to previous version immediately afterward.
If search is going to be how to launch less frequently used programs, the search program has to be at least as good as what synaptic has, and should include keywords, user editable, as well.
It may have been true so far, but one you're in Windows 8, you'll be forced to use Metro, w/ no option to roll back.
Fallback mode is total crap. It is mostly static and non-functionnal. Nothing can be adapted easily.
Really only good enough for a screenshot.
The way forward is Mint with MATE
aaaaaaa
Agree on the last part. I hope that's in the works.
As for the first, clicking on the launcher -> more apps -> filter -> games -> expand installed and it should bring up a list of all games installed. From there you can drag back to the launcher or choose "keep in launcher" after you've started it.
So, "sudo apt-get install whatever" is too complicated?
Actually, yes it is. That's the reason it never was the year of Linux right there. Sudo? apt-get? Linux is full of gobbledy-gook just like that.
So if you're a member of the point-and-drool generation, use Synaptic, for heaven's sake. How hard is that?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
What is "Ubuntu software center" ? apt-get ?
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
Ubuntu is great! Gnome-shell is great!
You make a mistake to think that this is a matter of being too young or too stupid to understand. My first computers were a Honeywell 6000 for CS at uni, a DEC Vax at work, and a BBC Micro at home. I date from a time when GUIs hadn't escaped from the research labs.
I understand perfectly well what it means. And from a position of knowledge, I say it's absolutely stupid to have gobbledygook commands like sudo and apt-get that few understand. Few of whatever age or intelligence.
There's nothing intelligent about understanding what sudo and apt-get mean. It's just arcane knowledge. Just as you're not stupid if you don't understand what all the parts of a railway locomotive are called, and the trainspotter who does know is not necessarily clever.
And it goes further than arcane commands. "Precise Pangolin"? Whoever thought that up clearly thought they were being clever coming up with a name of an animal that most people wouldn't know. Again boosting their own ego by naming something arcane.
So, now you suggest a GUI app for doing the same task. Great... but wait a minute, what is this app. How is it described on the home page.
"Synaptic is a graphical package management program for apt. It provides the same features as the apt-get command line utility with a GUI front-end based on Gtk+."
What's "a graphical package management program"? What does that do? What is "apt", "apt-get" and "Gtk+" and why should I care?
For 99% of the population this is gobbledygook.
Even if the person did manage to decipher that, the download isn't obvious. 3 links, 2 of them to raw file browsers with many files, and the other link is broken.
I repeat: this shit is why it never was the year of Linux on the desktop, and it never will be. The sad thing is that is is fixable. An OS based on *nix doesn't have to be this arcane. But the vast majority of Linux contributors are like you - they don't even recognise the problem.
Distrowatch doesn't measure install base, just number of page hits. It could just as well be that Mint is harder to use than recent Unity-based Ubuntu releases. Most non-techies don't spend time on OS websites unless something is broken.
I suspect it must be something like this, I've used Mint 12 for a while but it was so unstable that I was forced to move away after a couple of months.
My opinion is that it is the new Mandriva: aiming to be easier to use and shinier than any other distro, the one that will give you what all other distro won't; winding up being an unusable and unmaintainable pile of hacks.
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
lol. out of ideas for a good rant on this fine day are you?
surely the name of the OS matters less than its performance and ratings in general.
i couldnt possibly care less for the name, except for a good joke on it, they might as well have called it pissful penguin and make for some controversy.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
As mentioned above, the reason for switching to Mint is to have the MATE desktop rather than Gnome 3. It is worth trying out if you still have the install.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Try Archlinux and a tiling WM like Awesome. It takes a weekend of fiddling to get it right the first time, but after that it's pure gold.
I'm writing this on a single-core non-hyperthreading 2.4 GHz Pentium IV with 1 GB RAM. It's been up for 14 days, now using a total of 568 MB RAM with 6 tabs open in Firefox and preload installed, 15 minute load average is 15%.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Even if you could make the menu be the one for the "top most" application, it still doesn't work. We're mostly all using wide screens, now. I have an editor on the left, and another window on the right, and they don't overlap (I may have other windows underneath). Which one is the top most? I move the mouse left and right in order to work in either window... no raises are necessary. I'm in the right window and want to use the menu... which starts in the upper left of the screen. I HAVE to move my mouse through the left window. It simply doesn't work - Apple realized this and that's why sloppy focus isn't even an option in MacOS.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Yes... agreed, that's a good description of what I've experienced as well. Yes, sometimes I want multiple browser windows, especially when I'm using multiple desktops. The worst is the WM would get confused when I'd open a terminal and switch to a different user, then I'd open firefox, for example... and then when I'd click the firefox icon, it would take me to the window in use by the other user. If I did it reverse - opened a firefox window, then logged in as a different user in a term window and ran firefox from the command line, then I'd get two windows.
Even still, sometimes I just want multiple windows... I have one desktop for mail and news, and another for development - they both need a browser. Sometimes I'm logged into three or four different remote hosts - they all need a terminal window.
I still say that when I'm working on my laptop, the unity paradigm works a lot better than it does on my desktop. In this case, I simply can't do nearly as much on my laptop anyway.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
In my suggestion, the topmost one is that you last clicked in, and will have a highlighted title-bar. That's what the menu commands would work on.
The keyboard entry window would be the one your mouse is hovering over. It'd also be the one with the flashing caret.
Not saying it would be nice to use. Sounds complicated. But then I never liked lazy-focus at all. But it does mean that lazy-focus with Mac-like menus is possible.
The Cinnamon desktop can be installed on Ubuntu. I've been using it for a while and I really like it. I think it's a good alternative for people who don't like Unity. http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
It was all the minor stuff that I couldn't change that really annoyed me. Can't edit icons that you create for the panel, can't make the icons as small as I want because a finger is the defining size for pointer now. If I'm on a device with a 21" monitor & mouse why not vary the size down to what I want? When I login on a tablet then size the icons for that? Seriously but one size does not fit all.
I'm looking forward to trying it but hopefully the hype comments at the top took into account all the little niggly stuff that makes you go WTF?
(Sorry; posting as Anonymous because I already used mod points.)
By the fourth, I stared running "sudo apt-get install lxde" at the terminal (Alt+Ctrl+F1) before logging in.
Before logging in?
I managed one, but this is Slashdot, not AOL!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
No, let's use this: Chthonic Chupacabra
Nah. Not going back. Unity is too painful a recent memory. I'm with Mint now.
Well, I tried UBUNTU 12.4 for the past days, beginning with the April 20th beta. It is hardly much better than 11.10, the previous version.
If I open a window full screen, all the buttons are hidden and I cannot reduce the window size to allow me to get the pop-in-pop-out favourites bar that is on the left. I had to try with alt-tab and here too, I selected the running application I wanted, by landing on the icon, and sorry, the tendancy is to return to the current full screen running app.
It seems that fullscreen has no return (or has one I did not know about). It seems that Some software no longer recognize or receive mouse clicks. Time to wait a month for patches to be applied.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
...no return (or has one I did not know about).
I get that I may have to do some tweaking after a complete install, its the curse (blessing) of embracing OSS, to some extent) But I kept wanting to tweak Unity in a thousand little ways, and drawing a complete blank on how to make some things I wanted happen. I blogged about it if you're reading my experiences. Sounds like our two are in the same ballpark.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Oh Gawd now Ill spend the next four hours on Wikipedia looking up platypusses.. err... platypussi? eh... whatever
http://xkcd.com/214/
Ubuntu 12.04 is still a bloated mess and unless you're a masochist who likes to tinker, then Gnome Classic is not a suitable desktop alternative either. The only sane desktop environments left now are Xfce, LXDE, Cinnamon and many smaller lightweight DE's like openbox. Debian is the only real option for proven stability and customization. These bloated Debian spinoffs are a world of hurt.
I used to brag to people how easy Ubuntu is to use. "Three menus" I would say. People would say "wow, that's easy and makes sense".
Now I can't even find the f****** games on my Ubuntu 12.04 install. I need to know the name of the game before I can find it. How do I browse my installation without clicking on "Ubuntu Software Centre"? I don't know if it's possible, but the fact that I don't know means this UI is a miserable failure. Two days of casual using should be enough that something so simple is in my face, not hidden somewhere obtuse.
AC
Since there is Ubuntu (Unity/Gnome3), Kubuntu (KDE), Lubuntu (LXDE) and Xubuntu (XFCE), why not add one more to that - Gubuntu (GNUSTEP)? Just complete the whole thing.
Haha.
Seriously, though, Mark Shuttleworth didn't create Ubuntu all by his lonesome self. Granted he spent a lot of his money, and that should be recognized, but there's no way Ubuntu would be what it is without the unpaid hours put in by countless volunteers.
The reason people put in those unpaid hours was because they were under the (mistaken) impression that Ubuntu is a community distribution.
The reason people react as they do is because of Mark's overturning of that impression.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Wait, are you saying you can't unmaximize a window after maximizing it?
If you go to the top left corner of the screen, it shows you the window control buttons.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I don't quite know where this discussion started from, but, OK, yeah synaptic is too complicated for the average user.
But, for them, there's Ubuntu Software Center, which, really, is great even for people like me (for discovering new software).
Also, if you need to tell someone to install something, and they're a newbie, just give them the HTTP link for installing. E.g.,:
apt://filezilla
Click here to install Filezilla
The reason for the weird codenames is so that people will able to easily google for help on a specific version. If it were something like "Ubuntu 2012", it might return hits for articles written in 2012 regarding Ubuntu (of whatever version).
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
For me, autoraise gives me the ability to move between windows without the incessant click-click-click that normally accompanies moving between applications.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
While trying to get some OS installed that includes Gnome, but which allows me to use KDE as the default so I can do configuration and stuff (knowing full well that Gnome doesn't work on my hardware), I ended up redoing the Ubuntu 12.04 installation. This time I didn't let it automatically download updates, so the software manager worked. Sort of. After a minute or two, it stopped registering clicks on the software manager widgets, but the main Unity display manager was still responding to clicks (unlike what happens with Gnome.)
Regardless, I eventually fiddled enough to get KDE installed, and it's been rock-solid.
My main issue now is getting the alien installation of Oracle XE to run. It installs ok, but the configuration fails because it thinks Oracle isn't running. Which is a little bizarre, because the TNS listener is left running when the oracle-xe configure falls over. *shrug*
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Because kids think they are l33t if they show everyone how they type their "cryptic" commands, instead of just telling people to do the exact same thing with the Software Center or Synaptic.
Cool. Not for you, no big deal. Just don't use it. For people who use 10-20 apps (and errr... know what they're called), it's kind of a good design. I like it, so I use it.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
xubuntu 12.04 is just good enough. mintmenu still sucks. unity still sucks even for tablets and phones. kde still looks like mintmenu with a panel....
oh well. 10.04 at least is being supported until next april. At least desura is cool and valve is bringing steam to linux, THAT will be the movers.
Sorry, but the full screen mode masked the buttons on the top left. I am running monitor at 1920 x 1200, I could not get (synaptic) to unmaximize as the buttons were not visible. I had to alt-tab to switch to another process. Graphics card is ATI 3450.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
What, you have a 1920x1200 monitor? Get out.
I've been looking all over trying to find one, unsuccessfully. All there is are the 1920x1080 monitors.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Unity is a hideous, three headed, monster baby. I can't really describe it in any better terms.
Agreed - and so inconfigurable. I opted for Gnome 3 and then Open GL Cairo. The only thing i miss a little is the task bar
The latest Ubuntu 12.04 hangs while using some applications. Extending Monitor is a nightmare....Removing it and installing Linux Mint Debian Version 2012 with Cinnamon desktop
It's still uncomfortable like the Windows 8 metro interface. The best thing they can do with Unity is give it the old Yeller treatment.
It's still impossible to use Unity in production.
Many of the issues related to dual monitors have been worked out and the launcher hide on full screen is fixed.
Install MS Word in Wine, open a doc in Word, and then minimize the doc. Now get it back. You can't. The launcher totally barfs on wine apps. You can have your "year of the desktop linux" when they stop having stupid regressions that we had working in 1990.
Why can't I reorder the icons in the launcher?
Why am I forced to have the close button in the top left? It makes for a terribly inconsistent interface when you have to run Wine apps. and yes, I have to.
Why does "unlocking" a running app from the launcher remove the icon from the launcher? How am I suppose to get the window back after I minimize it?
If you are/were an Ubuntu fan, you really should look at Hybryde Evolution 12.04. It beats plain Ubuntu HANDS DOWN! It is based on Ubuntu 12.04.
First, yes, the website is in French. Obviously, though, you can choose English (or another language) when installing Hybryde. I have been using it just fine for the last 5 months and loving it.
You can choose from a multitude of desktop environments, and without rebooting. KDE, Gnome3, Unity, E17, XFCE, LXDE, and FVWM OPENBOX are gathered on this distribution. The Hy-menu allows you to switch from one environment to another quickly and smoothly, without rebooting...and open applications from one environment follow you throughout the other environments.
From version 12.04, you will be able to activate features such as the setting of memory cache of your browser, choose simply and quickly among your window manager metacity, compiz, kwin and mutter. And finally, customize your menu (themes, wallpapers, transparency...).
I HATED Unity, but Hybryde makes the whole experience much more enjoyable. You have the Ubuntu's Software Center. You can, obviously, install things like the Mint-x theme and Mint-x icons.
Word needs to get out about this wonderful distro. Give it a try. I believe that ONCE YOU USE HYBRYDE, YOU WILL NEVER GO BACK!
http://www.hybryde.org/hybryde_evolution/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT5EN0knSt4
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes Did you check the md5 hash?
I tried Mint/Debian a while back, loved it, but it had one killer showstopper for me.. I use the OpenShot video editor on a daily basis, and try as I might, I could not get any repo install of it to Mint.. STFU anybody who says "Build it yourself..." I've been using Linux since late 1993, with Slackware, so I've DEFINITELY built a LOT of kernels/apps, but I don't have the time/inclination to do that anymore.. So I'm gonna stay with Ubuntu and just switch to MATE as I LOATHE Unity and Gnome 3. Not a big fan of KDE either, though either the X or L-buntu derivitives may actually wind up on my clean install of 12.04 I'm doing as I type this.....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
>Actually, yes it is. That's the reason it never was the year of Linux right there. Sudo? apt-get? Linux is full of gobbledy-gook just like that.
You know what's better than that? When Vista was released, I heard about ReadyBoost. I decided I was interested in trying it. I spent -30 minutes- trying to find ReadyBoost, to no avail.
I resorted to Google and finally found out how to access ReadyBoost.
Don't lecture me about having to type one command on a command line. For the record, I almost never use command line in Ubuntu as I am anti-command line.
AC
And this is why some people should pay more to buy Macs. Still no justification for staying on Windoze.
In Reason We Trust