I know I can hide the top bar but what I did was deleting it and moving some of its components into the bottom one. This doesn't work so well for gnome 3 so far. It's my way of working vs their way and I'm thinking I better have to find another desktop environment.
Me too! I experimented with Gnome 3 in a VM, was unable to fix it in a satisfying way and then installed the Linux Mint desktop. Not as good as the Gnome 2 I have on my host system but much better than Gnome 3. I'll stick with Ubuntu 11.4 without Unity for a little while, waiting for a few things to mature in Mint 12. Don't ask me if Unity is better or worse than Gnome 3, it's very different but it's too close to call.
That picture you link is 1024x768 resolution. Unless it's from a very old monitor it is from something small (maybe comparable to the 10" tablet you write about) so there won't be much space left for anything else anyway. But on a larger display working in maximized mode would be unbearable. We agree on that.
That mindset is called "cargo cult". I'm not sure they very so deluded but there are hints they are starting to listen. Quoting from one of the linked posts:
Judging by the comments it would seem that there is a bit of confusion about what is meant by maximising windows by default, so let me try and clarify:
Not all applications will use this behaviour – only those that have been designed to do so. If an app won’t work being maximised, it won’t be.
Although these applications will maximise by default, it will still be possible to unmaximise them. If you want to be able to view more than one window at once you will still be able to do so.
There will be mechanisms put in place that will adjust the behaviour to compensate for large screens. We are currently investigating a number of options here, including not automatically maximising windows on these large screens or adjusting their layout to make best use of the extra space. Everyone involved is well aware of the need to work well with large screens!
Maybe we'll get a Gnome 4 that works for us in some five years from now.
I believe that this new wave in the GUI design is due to the reductions of screen heights we experienced (suffered?) in the last years. On small screens maximizing windows and reducing the space for menus and toolbars is good design but probably the 4", 13" and 24" form factors need three different interfaces.
Anyway, races are usually held on closed circuits because they are more convenient: racers are safer when accidents happens (check this for plausible examples), organizers can sell tickets, spectators have better views of the action from grandstands and they don't have to close roads to normal traffic. Nevertheless Monaco, Macao and countless other street circuits exist and are raced on every year, by cars and bikes. IMHO motorbike racing in Macao is even scarier than those Irish races in the first video.
Finally, the article on motorist.org linked by GP reports the results of some traffic experiments. It's an interesting reading.
Same for me but that's expected. What have I open on my Ubuntu desktop now? FF, Skype, Thunderbird, terminal, emacs. FF looks like the most complex application among them and the one with more data inside (many open tabs). I run top, sort by virtual image size and I see dropbox coming first (WTF?) in front of FF. Then nautilus and thunderbird as distant 3rd and 4th. Then clock-applet (wow). Dropbox and clock-applet are two really surprising memory hogs. I still remember when the process that filled my memory was emacs. It's a blip on the radar now.
I feel the same as you about Chrome: it looks a little faster but FF closed almost all the gap. I'm still on FF because of AdBlock, NoScript and Firebug. They have counterparts on Chrome (actually Chromium in my case) but not as good IMHO.
Damn, I only saw some HP mini computers at the *end* of the 80s but their hard disks were really the size of dishwater. I don't remember their capacity tough.
I remember when a 360 kB floppy disk was considered a lot of space. A 10 MB IBM hard disk was physically big in those days, as large as the main case of the IBM PC it connected to.
In other news, hard disks are again bigger then computers nowadays - the Raspberry:-)
I live in Italy. We can take home a copy of our medical records after we leave hospital. it's useful for showing them to other doctors, insurance companies or even lawyers if something goes wrong. most records are paper based but my xrays were on cds with a windows only viewer. It's a standard medical imaging format. I found a viewer for Linux too. I don't think it's a format mandated by the state, only a hospital specific initiative. But there is a law for the right of access to medical records, regardless of the format.
My phone has 1 GB RAM and a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU. A 2013 tablet should have at least 2 GB RAM, a quad core CPU and a better graphic card. We can assume that it will be snappier than your old PC, right? Furthermore a tablet built for Ubuntu will be better integrated than a generic Ubuntu distribution installed on generic hardware. Nevertheless, whatever the hardware xubuntu will still be faster.
That said, will I need a tablet regardless of the OS? Don't know. At the moment I don't need one.
Maybe you'll be able to flash your iPad with an Ubuntu ROM. Given the number of iPads around I bet there will be plenty of instructions around the net for doing that.
I agree with your point but Unity looks like as if it were designed for tablets not for desktops. That's why I'll move to MATE when I'll upgrade my notebook to 11.10: it's the GUI closer to what I consider to be a desktop that I was able to find among the ones I tested (I setup a 11.10 virtual machine to research that). Gnome Shell and Unity just don't fit well there.
I had to use a Windows 7 machine yesterday after three years of Linux and many years of previous versions of Windows (from 1994 to 2008). It was a little nightmare. I couldn't find things because their locations changed from the WinXP times. Alt-tab didn't work in the same way it used to work and there were many other little nuisances. Would I inflict it on a family used to Gnome 2? Definitely not but that's subjective and the same would happen to somebody moving from Windows to Linux. Habits are habits and every GUI must be explored, learnt and get used to. Even Macs are difficult to use if you come from other desktops.
But there is more. Would I inflict to my family all those Windows's "new hardware found", "install driver" moments? Nope. I plug new hardware into my Ubuntu notebook (a former WinXP one) and everything works without even a notice and without asking me to install software. All I needed to do to make my webcam and my scanner work was plugging them into the USB ports. The most difficult installation was a network printer. I had to do System, Administration, Printing, Add, Network Printer, Find and it found the printer, downloaded the drivers and set it up. There was CD with the drivers for Windows in the box. After hardware installations like the ones I have on Linux one wonders why can't Windows be as simple as that.
O k, understood. You're not advocating for a law like the one in Belarus but for some form of autharchy. That's something difficult to mandate by law without breaking some WIPO treaty but who knows what will become of then anyway if the financial crisis gets really ugly. But everything I described is true for the people in Belarus. Some won't care, some will even profit from it, but others will be turned into oppositors.
Ok, understood. You're not advocating for a law like the one in Belarus but for some form of autharchy. That's something difficult to mandate by law without breaking some WIPO treaty but who knows what will become of then anyway if the financial crisis gets really ugly. But everything I described is true for the people in Belarus. Some won't care, some will even profit from it, but others will be turned into oppositors.
No slashdot for you if that happens. Assuming that you're here because you are a technical person working in the software market as an exercise for the next days try to note down all the sites you wouldn't be able to see, all the blog posts you wouldn't be able to read, all the reference material you wouldn't be able to access, all the search results google shouldn't show you, all the software you couldn't download, all the startups you'll never know about, all the ideas you won't be exposed to. I bet it will be a long list.
I read in your replies to other posts that you're from Canada. Don't forget all the people from outside your country that should register a.ca email just to communicate with Canadian citizens. Imagine the trouble for Canadian companies working with foreign customers or suppliers. A law like that would build a bubble around your country and everybody in there will more or less disappear from the Internet. Is that going to harm the development of your skills? Probably yes. Is that going to harm your income? Not much initially if you only work for the domestic market. Is that going to harm Canada in the long term? Definitely. Cutting themselves off from the world is a recipe for becoming a backward country.
PS: I'd love to read Cory Doctorow's take on your idea;-)
Maybe, but changing the server name won't be a major problem. The Belarus players instead are going to be cut off from any game server on a non.by domain. I'm afraid that the list is long.
One of the effects will be no more Belarus people getting jobs on freelancer.com. The freelancers from the rest of the world will rejoice because of the slightly reduced competition.
Linux was even created because Linus wanted a free UNIX like desktop
I'm sorry but you're mistaken. You can read the history of Linux's early days writted by Torvalds here. I quote him, bold is mine.
It is currently meant for hackers interested in operating systems and 386's with access to minix.
[...]
I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got
minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.
You're probably right on the other point
Since the beginning Linux users have touted how this will be the year of Linux on desktop
Slashdot Mirror
I know I can hide the top bar but what I did was deleting it and moving some of its components into the bottom one. This doesn't work so well for gnome 3 so far. It's my way of working vs their way and I'm thinking I better have to find another desktop environment.
Me too! I experimented with Gnome 3 in a VM, was unable to fix it in a satisfying way and then installed the Linux Mint desktop. Not as good as the Gnome 2 I have on my host system but much better than Gnome 3. I'll stick with Ubuntu 11.4 without Unity for a little while, waiting for a few things to mature in Mint 12. Don't ask me if Unity is better or worse than Gnome 3, it's very different but it's too close to call.
That picture you link is 1024x768 resolution. Unless it's from a very old monitor it is from something small (maybe comparable to the 10" tablet you write about) so there won't be much space left for anything else anyway. But on a larger display working in maximized mode would be unbearable. We agree on that.
they very so deluded but
I meant "they were so deluded but"... editing deluded me :-)
Judging by the comments it would seem that there is a bit of confusion about what is meant by maximising windows by default, so let me try and clarify:
Maybe we'll get a Gnome 4 that works for us in some five years from now.
I believe that this new wave in the GUI design is due to the reductions of screen heights we experienced (suffered?) in the last years. On small screens maximizing windows and reducing the space for menus and toolbars is good design but probably the 4", 13" and 24" form factors need three different interfaces.
Actually somebody does legally race on public roads (but closed to traffic) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBauMfJ786E
Anyway, races are usually held on closed circuits because they are more convenient: racers are safer when accidents happens (check this for plausible examples), organizers can sell tickets, spectators have better views of the action from grandstands and they don't have to close roads to normal traffic. Nevertheless Monaco, Macao and countless other street circuits exist and are raced on every year, by cars and bikes. IMHO motorbike racing in Macao is even scarier than those Irish races in the first video.
Finally, the article on motorist.org linked by GP reports the results of some traffic experiments. It's an interesting reading.
Same for me but that's expected. What have I open on my Ubuntu desktop now? FF, Skype, Thunderbird, terminal, emacs. FF looks like the most complex application among them and the one with more data inside (many open tabs). I run top, sort by virtual image size and I see dropbox coming first (WTF?) in front of FF. Then nautilus and thunderbird as distant 3rd and 4th. Then clock-applet (wow). Dropbox and clock-applet are two really surprising memory hogs. I still remember when the process that filled my memory was emacs. It's a blip on the radar now.
I feel the same as you about Chrome: it looks a little faster but FF closed almost all the gap. I'm still on FF because of AdBlock, NoScript and Firebug. They have counterparts on Chrome (actually Chromium in my case) but not as good IMHO.
Damn, I only saw some HP mini computers at the *end* of the 80s but their hard disks were really the size of dishwater. I don't remember their capacity tough.
Amazing. How do you manage all those tabs? I bet there are desktop environments that crash with a fraction of that number.
I remember when a 360 kB floppy disk was considered a lot of space. A 10 MB IBM hard disk was physically big in those days, as large as the main case of the IBM PC it connected to.
In other news, hard disks are again bigger then computers nowadays - the Raspberry :-)
I live in Italy. We can take home a copy of our medical records after we leave hospital. it's useful for showing them to other doctors, insurance companies or even lawyers if something goes wrong. most records are paper based but my xrays were on cds with a windows only viewer. It's a standard medical imaging format. I found a viewer for Linux too. I don't think it's a format mandated by the state, only a hospital specific initiative. But there is a law for the right of access to medical records, regardless of the format.
Oh, they admitted the existence of Linux long ago when they started claiming it infringes their patents.
My phone has 1 GB RAM and a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU. A 2013 tablet should have at least 2 GB RAM, a quad core CPU and a better graphic card. We can assume that it will be snappier than your old PC, right? Furthermore a tablet built for Ubuntu will be better integrated than a generic Ubuntu distribution installed on generic hardware. Nevertheless, whatever the hardware xubuntu will still be faster.
That said, will I need a tablet regardless of the OS? Don't know. At the moment I don't need one.
Maybe you'll be able to flash your iPad with an Ubuntu ROM. Given the number of iPads around I bet there will be plenty of instructions around the net for doing that.
I agree with your point but Unity looks like as if it were designed for tablets not for desktops. That's why I'll move to MATE when I'll upgrade my notebook to 11.10: it's the GUI closer to what I consider to be a desktop that I was able to find among the ones I tested (I setup a 11.10 virtual machine to research that). Gnome Shell and Unity just don't fit well there.
It's only a matter of habits.
I had to use a Windows 7 machine yesterday after three years of Linux and many years of previous versions of Windows (from 1994 to 2008). It was a little nightmare. I couldn't find things because their locations changed from the WinXP times. Alt-tab didn't work in the same way it used to work and there were many other little nuisances. Would I inflict it on a family used to Gnome 2? Definitely not but that's subjective and the same would happen to somebody moving from Windows to Linux. Habits are habits and every GUI must be explored, learnt and get used to. Even Macs are difficult to use if you come from other desktops.
But there is more. Would I inflict to my family all those Windows's "new hardware found", "install driver" moments? Nope. I plug new hardware into my Ubuntu notebook (a former WinXP one) and everything works without even a notice and without asking me to install software. All I needed to do to make my webcam and my scanner work was plugging them into the USB ports. The most difficult installation was a network printer. I had to do System, Administration, Printing, Add, Network Printer, Find and it found the printer, downloaded the drivers and set it up. There was CD with the drivers for Windows in the box. After hardware installations like the ones I have on Linux one wonders why can't Windows be as simple as that.
Quantum tunneling :-)
Ouch, my keyboard hashed me...
O k, understood. You're not advocating for a law like the one in Belarus but for some form of autharchy. That's something difficult to mandate by law without breaking some WIPO treaty but who knows what will become of then anyway if the financial crisis gets really ugly. But everything I described is true for the people in Belarus. Some won't care, some will even profit from it, but others will be turned into oppositors.
Ok, understood. You're not advocating for a law like the one in Belarus but for some form of autharchy. That's something difficult to mandate by law without breaking some WIPO treaty but who knows what will become of then anyway if the financial crisis gets really ugly. But everything I described is true for the people in Belarus. Some won't care, some will even profit from it, but others will be turned into oppositors.
I read in your replies to other posts that you're from Canada. Don't forget all the people from outside your country that should register a
PS: I'd love to read Cory Doctorow's take on your idea ;-)
Maybe, but changing the server name won't be a major problem. The Belarus players instead are going to be cut off from any game server on a non .by domain. I'm afraid that the list is long.
One of the effects will be no more Belarus people getting jobs on freelancer.com. The freelancers from the rest of the world will rejoice because of the slightly reduced competition.
Don't be too hash on them, this site is about news for geeks but anybody can register and comment ;-)
Linux was even created because Linus wanted a free UNIX like desktop I'm sorry but you're mistaken. You can read the history of Linux's early days writted by Torvalds here. I quote him, bold is mine.
It is currently meant for hackers interested in operating systems and 386's with access to minix. [...] I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.
You're probably right on the other point
Since the beginning Linux users have touted how this will be the year of Linux on desktop
This is probably never going to happen (not with a substantial market share) but 2011 was the year of Linux in the pocket (remember Linux is only the kernel) and 2012 could be the year of Linux on the desk.
because Linux users very much have wanted Linux to be number #1 on desktop
That's unbelievable right? As if Mac users wouldn't like to see their platform to become the number 1.