Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
When doing a web search with that combination you always get Ubuntu advice for that specific version.
Rod Taylor
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!
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.
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.)
I tried it for the first time this week.
All I wanted was to make a "kiosk"-type computer that ran Opera and nothing else.
After 2 hours, I got bored of switching options and the fecking side-bar thing popping up and just put the system in place (its only for temporary usage anyway, to replace a "classic" Ubuntu machine running the last LTS release).
Seriously, I couldn't find any options that I went hunting for and all the tutorials on the Internet to get rid of the thing were basically "uninstall all that crap and install Gnome".
I can understand needing to hide functionality from dumb users but, seriously, I'd just installed, just in as my first and only user and I could not find any options to hide, say, the network connection information, the mail icon, the side-bar, nothing. I couldn't see any options for a screensaver at all (apparently, all that's "old hat" now but I also couldn't stop it blanking the monitor when it felt like it). Hell, it took me several minutes to realise the side-bar WAS the program launching menu too even though it looked more just a taskbar. It took me a good few minutes to even get near a terminal.
All the things I've read basically say remove it. I can see why. If I installed that crap over my last big deployment of Ubuntu (on 50 netbooks for a school), then I'd be fired. It is literally that bad and unconfigurable.
Ironically, I now use Ubuntu LTS for a server and Slackware for desktops...
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
We do need more Australian animals. Ubuntu 19.04 : Dangerous Dropbear
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)
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 don't know why, but Google does much better with named versions. I long ago learned to look for "Tiger" or "Lion" for MacOS advice and the Ubuntu animal-of-the-week when searching for Ubuntu advice. Searching for Windows 7 advice can be troublesome... I've found some success trying "win7" first.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
lol... You forgot to put "Ubuntu is dead to me"!
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.
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 ]
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".'
Looks more like NeXTSTEP to me.
Specifically, a mirror image of it!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I've installed it for my Mom because she keeps "losing the Internet" I set up the menubar (Launcher) to have only Firefox and Writer. I deleted everything else. (This is easy to do... just right click on the icon and select "Unlock from Launcher" and it goes away.) If you need the programs back on the Launcher, you can just drag them from the Dash back onto the Launcher.
Your other problem is also easily solved. To keep the screen from blanking, go to Settings - Brightness and Lock. You can also set the Launcher to Auto-hide (the default is for it to be present all the time) by Settings - Appearance.
I had no problem figuring these things out even though I am a clueless newbie most of the time.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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.)
I can't make sense of Apple's naming scheme beyond it being a "big cat". How a mountain lion is an upgrade to a "vanilla" lion is beyond me, and I'm not sure how a mountain lion is different from a puma or panther (hint: they're not!). But be that as it may, I have to imagine more people are familiar with a lion or tiger or other big cat than they are a pangolin (which I had to look up--spoilers: it's an anteater). A better name would have been Puissant Platypus. People know the platypus.
(Apple fails at hardware revision names, though. My Air is simply called a Macbook Air, even though it's the fourth generation. The new iPad is simply called "iPad". And yet the iPhone has a name, so this lack of hardware naming is inconsistent. Of course, I expect them to remedy this--but in the wrong direction.)
If you can't convince them, convict them.
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.
In all fairness, big cats are way easier to remember than this messed up geekplay. Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger, Panther, Jaguar, Puma, Cheetah...
Not sure it that sends quite the right message...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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?
I thought 9.10 was Dharmic Dropbear.
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.
Slashdotters applaud Microsoft for something? You must be new here.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
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.
Thank you for the stereotypical Linux user response to a new Linux user reaching out for help. Common generalized forum responses when asking for help:
"OMG, just learn Linux better or stop using it"
"Just do X" (where X is a series of dozens of commands requiring an intimate knowledge of the terminal and all commands in it).
"You're must be doing it wrong" (when asking why something isn't working, when exactly copying/pasting commands into the terminal)
"" (ie: no response whatsoever. Thanks for the help, guys)
People like you are the reason Linux has so small a following, because after the above responses, a first-time Linux user's first action will be to format that shit and reinstall Windows.
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.
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.
> Funny how slashdotters in general applaud Microsoft for completely throwing out the concept of menus
Since when? You sir are simply on crack.
We freely criticize Microsoft for the same kind of UI consistency shenanigans that we are currently eviscerating Ubuntu for. We did so even before Microsoft decided to release it's own Unity style atrocity.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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
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.
Okay, go back and read the comments for yourself. Whenever the "Ribbon" comes up in a discussion, more than half here seem to think it's a dandy idea. It leaves me wondering if I clicked the wrong bookmark and I'm actually reading a Microsoft forum.
:wq
I think Apple is still scarred from the mess they created in the mid 1990's. Who can forget their crystal clear lineup of systems
each of which had a variety of model numbers and frequently comparable configurations. It left the company so scared (and scarred) that you practically have to look up the serial number to tell how old a given box is.
Since this is slashdot and being pedantic is a requirement for membership:
Snow Leopard - endangered
Leopard - near threatened
Tiger - endangered
Panther - not even a species
Jaguar - near threatened
Puma - least concern
Cheetah - vulnerable
Yeah, I don't know why Google even reports those numbers. They could be randomly generated for all we know, since no one ever goes past the top 10.
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.
Newer versions of Mint have the Gnome 3 desktop but the shell is modified to have the Gnome 2 appearance, as I understand it.
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...
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.
You can't figure out right click?
You can't figure out that "Settings" is where you go to change settings?
You can have the side bar auto-hide or present all the time... and you can set the location and sensitivity of the reveal... what else do you want?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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.
When you can disable global menus and move window controls.
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.
You're thinking of cougars!
"is definitely worthy of running on your machine" ... unless you want netflix, then dont bother.
I wish slashdot editors would append this hint to the end of every ubuntu-related story. As it is, 50% of the replies are just "I don't like one of the default settings, I'm going to switch distro"... (The other 50% being complaints about the choice of animal in the behind-the-scenes codename)
There was once a saying that the worst thing Microsoft has done to the computing industry is lowering the user's expectations of quality - now I think we're seeing a similar effect from Apple: to a modern computer user, it is inconceivable that an OS would give them freedom to change the vendor-supplied defaults :-(
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
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'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.
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, "sudo apt-get install whatever" is too complicated?
Compared to simply installing Mint? Yes.
"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
This is a news website. The summary should be:
"This is a new release. These are the notable new features. These are the notable bug fixes. Here's where to get it if you haven't already."
What we got was:
"This is a new release and it makes me HARD. OH MY GOD. IT'S SO INCREDIBLE THAT MY PANTS ARE BULGING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. HURNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG AND I'M DONE."
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Hey, I'm the HURD user you insensitive clod