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GNOMEbuntu Set To Arrive In October
First time accepted submitter Rzarector writes "Good News Everyone! Thanks to the Ubuntu Gnome Community and Jeremy Bicha, it seems that the popular distribution will ship a flavor with a relatively pure GNOME experience in the next release cycle, on October 18. At this point the effort is community based, but hopefully GNOMEbuntu will make it as an official Canonical spin, similar to Kubuntu, Xubuntu, et cetera, in the 13.04 release. This is the story: At the Ubuntu Developer Summit in May, some discussions took place on the need for a Gnome spin. On August 13, Jeremy Bicha posted on Gnome mailing lists about looking a name for the new Ubuntu derivative. After that, I had no news till Stinger gave us a thread in Ubuntu Forums. On there, Jeremy talks about working on an Alpha version! So I contacted him and he verified that GNOMEbuntu will be released together with Ubuntu 12.10."
This will make 2012 the year of the linux desktop for sure!
...but I would also go for MateBuntu.
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
http://mate-desktop.org/
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Why is is this not a meta-package? Why is it necessary to have a completely different Ubuntu for Gnome?
It's a lingering hatred from Unity's early days when it was still buggy and lacking in customization options. It's less buggy now but still doesn't offer the level of customization that some geeks like to have. As Unity matures, though, I find myself agreeing that it is in fact quite usable.
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For Kubuntu/Ubuntu, this "part of the official family" is pure cynical corporate marketing to Kubuntu's disadvantage. It is only good for Canonical and this thinking can and will hurt Kubuntu in the long run. They have been cast adrift and must admit it, and not just intellectually. In the corporate world you will really ONLY see what "officially part of the family" means when it comes to money.
Mandriva started from Redhat 5.1, is it part of the "official" Redhat family? No? Why? The money thing. Suse adopted the Redhat file structure and RPM package management system. Does that make it part of the Redhat family? Obviously no. If not, why not, for both Mandriva and Suse? Is it because it writes it's own installer and package manager even though for the most part they both can install pretty much the same RPMs? No, that's not it. Having similar and/or compatible package managers doesn't make systems part of the family except manybe for marketing. Taking ownership or spending time and money on it does. You are really only part of the official family if you are part of the corporate family. Otherwise you are part of the "we'll milk this as long as it gives us good marketing benefit" family. And again, that still comes back to money. Marketing is to make money.
And that's the crux. Right now the Kubuntu community is still in the, "we can still be friends stage." Later when it is understood that Canonical doesn't give a flying fuck about Kubuntu financially (and that means no free help or declining free help over time until reality sets in). And BTW, I don't blame Canonical, it is business. The now all volunteer Kubuntu needs to get that through their heads too. They should start with a name change to make it readily apparent in heads and in hearts.
I thiink right now there is still some warmth between kunbuntu and canonical. But as time goes by and less or no support comes from Canonical the rose will come off the bloom.
FWIW, when I use Linux (on my VM guest on Windows 7) I use Kubuntu.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
What I can't digest about the unity interface is that it can't be effectively used as a mouse oriented UI nor can it be effectively used as a keyboard only UI. And that really makes a big difference for me. In an HTPC mouse only environment it is much easier to just use Gnome3 (even the theming for the living room aka huge fonts and buttons) are better applied by gnome shell. On the workstation again Gnome 3 works better because the keyboard mappings are very very concise and thought out, to the point where you can get to the behavioral patterns of a tiling wm without having done one modification. Unity? its nice if you have one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. Only that I am 99% less productive like that and it really doesn't make any sense.. And don't start talking about the hud thing because it plainly doesn't deliver.
-- no sig today