Ubuntu 11.10 launch interview- Unity is here to stay
Linux User talks to Canonical’s Gerry Carr to get the full low-down on Ubuntu 11.10 ‘Oneric Ocelot’ ahead of its 13th October launch…
Gerry Carr is a busy man. As director of communications at Canonical, it’s his job to make sure that everyone knows what to expect from the launch of Ubuntu 11.10 – also known, in classic Ubuntu fashion, by its animal codename Oneiric Ocelot.
“We’re describing it as an iteration rather than a revolution,” Carr explains of the release his company has spent the last six months shepherding towards release. “Really, it’s the first step towards this drive that we have to break down the separation between the operating system and the applications – the legacy of where Ubuntu’s come from – and the cloud, and the Internet, so basically where people get content and applications from outside of their local PCs.”
Carr, previously Canonical’s marketing manager, is used to having to sell Ubuntu releases to the Linux-using public. When he took responsibility for the Ubuntu.com site back in 2008, he spoke publicly of his desire to demonstrate what could be achieved with truly open tools – something which won him a great deal of respect in the community, even if he admitted to cheating occasionally with a copy of Adobe Photoshop.
Now, as communications director, Carr has the responsibility of keeping the community – and our readership – informed as to the goings-on at Canonical.
Talk us through the major new features of Ubuntu 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot,’ compared to the previous release.
“One of the most significant steps forward is the work we’ve done on this release to the Ubuntu Software Centre. That changed in this release in three ways. First of all, on a basic level, just in the variety and range and the number of applications that we’re making available through the Ubuntu Software Centre now, which will only ramp up significantly across the lifetime of Ubuntu 11.10.
“The other significant step forward, which is a very recent one but we’re already starting to see the benefits from, is the release of developer.ubuntu.com. Basically, what developer.ubuntu.com does is make it much more transparent about how to make an application available on Ubuntu, and at the same time how to develop an application natively for the platform.
“Finally, we’ve done a fair amount of work to make it much more integrated into the Ubuntu experience itself, so for instance if I got to Dash and search for applications, it’ll prompt me with applications that are locally installed and also with applications that are available via the Ubuntu Software Centre. That’s a big step forward we’ve made for Ubuntu 11.10, and I think it will become a more popular yet less visible part of what we’re making available ongoing.”
When Ubuntu 11.04 launched with Unity, there was feeling in the community that it wasn’t quite ready for release. Is that something that’s been addressed in this latest release?
“You learn far more by releasing a product than you do by developing it under wraps. I mean, obviously, we believe that the product is and was ready for prime-time, if you like, for a vast majority of use cases and a vast majority of users. We knew we were running pretty tight towards the release date of that product, and we had stopgaps in place if we felt it wasn’t ready but we didn’t have to use them.
“It was ready, but there will be some faults. We knew we wanted to get it out at least a year before the LTS releases, to give it that time to iron out the edges. 11.10 has six months additional development in terms of making it smoother and faster and better than Ubuntu 11.04.
“The Dash has become much more mature in this release. It was its first release with Ubuntu 11.04, and I think with 11.10 users will start to realise the centrality of its place in how to navigate their way around this operating system. The Launcher, we’ve done a lot of work – and learnt a lot about this – with improving the algorithms for search.
“We’ve broken down more the difference of whether I’m searching for applications or whether I’m searching for files, that’s much more of a distinctive location for either. We’ve also, with this release, made clearer what the Lens concept is: you can consider it a subset of Dash, which allows us to focus on a single type of content.
“We released 11.04 because we thought it was ready then. We knew that there would be some faults, but we’ve had six months to iron out those faults and I think 11.10 is better, and 12.04 will be better again – but that’s the inevitability of development cycles in software.”
You mention making the concept of Lenses clearer – what are the best examples of real-world uses of Lenses in Ubuntu?
“For a few months now there’s been a Help Lens, which is a Lens that accesses Ask Ubuntu – an external site with lots of help and support queries and answers for Ubuntu. So, a Lens uses the same interface, more or less, as the Dash, so users don’t have to learn a new interface in order to access different types of content.
“With this release, we’re bringing out the Music Lens, which offers a Dash-like experience and allows you to use the search bar to search for, let’s say, Abba – it’ll display all the Abba that you have locally on your machine, and it’ll also display any Abba available in the Ubuntu One cloud, and then also it will – and I’m not quite sure if this is going to land at release, or just after – but basically it’ll also allow you to access all the Abba that’s available on the Amazon Music Store or on the Ubuntu One Music Store, so I can purchase that directly within the same Lens.
“Once purchased that music will be made available through to Ubuntu One Cloud so I can stream that music to my local Banshee player on Ubuntu or I can play it on my iPhone or on my Android device, or however I choose to listen to my music. So, that represents a breakdown of where my music is available, how I access this music – so basically we’re sort of elevating the content away from the operating system. We’re starting to see that in various real ways that we hope people will find convenient and useful.”
We couldn’t help but notice that the traditional Ubuntu mail client, Evolution, has been swapped out in favour of Mozilla’s Thunderbird. What prompted the change?
“The short answer: user preference. Basically, at each UDS – which is the developer summit we hold every six months – we run through a check of the default applications, and ask whether they’re the right default applications ongoing. We were aware that lots and lots of users were using Thunderbird as opposed to Evolution as their preferred email client, but that had certain inconveniences: for instance, if I click on an email address that’s in a document it’ll automatically start up Evolution, but most of our users seemed to be using Thunderbird.
“So, now, if I do the same thing it’ll start up Thunderbird, which is the email client I prefer. So, really, it wasn’t a case of fault with Evolution, it was really a case of preference for Thunderbird and the fact that reality seemed to be that most of our users were using Thunderbird over Evolution, so it seemed a natural switch. We’ll still make Evolution available through the Ubuntu Software Centre – I’m 90 per cent, 95 per cent sure of that – so it’s still a simple install for users who want to use it, but it’s not the default email client from 11.10 on.”
Are you concerned that the decision to remove Ubuntu Classic – which allowed Ubuntu 11.04 users to drop to a classic GNOME interface – in this release will get a negative reaction from the community?
“We’re concerned in a sense that we never want to do anything to deliberately lose users, and we’re obviously concerned about anything that people would have a negative reaction to – but we’ve been pretty open and consistent around the fact that we think that the new user interface for Ubuntu is the direction in which we’re moving. We know that that’s caused problems, let’s put it that way, for certain sections of users around Ubuntu.
“We brought out the two experiences – the default 3D experience, and then the GNOME experience – because we needed to give people the option. We’re more confident now that we don’t need to have that second option – the Unity 2D option is ready.
“What we said then, we continue to say: we are committed to Unity, we see Unity as – for a variety of reasons, and across a variety of form-factors – as the principle driving force for where Ubuntu is going, so it makes consistent sense for us, at least, to make Unity 2D the default secondary experience for users with graphic-restricted PCs.
“So, are we concerned? Yes. Do we hope that people will come with us? Yes. Are we going to change our minds on that? No. We know it’s an argument that we have to win, we know it’s an argument we have to win over time, we know it’s an argument we’re not going to win with absolutely everybody, but we think it’s the right thing to do and this is consistent with that decision.”
Canonical has been very vocal about its support for the ARM architecture in the past – how is that project progressing?
“With this release, we’re releasing a tech preview of Ubuntu Server for ARM as well – Ubuntu Server 11.10 will be available on the ARM architecture for the first time, I think, any general-purpose software system has been available as a server technology, so that’s a very significant feature.
“We’ve done a lot of work to make the LAMP stack available on the ARM server product, so there are real applications for people to run and test out the applicability of ARM for data-centre use. We’ve done work to make virtualisation container technology available on ARM, which allows us to make OpenStack or Ubuntu Cloud available on ARM for the first time.
“There’s a lot of firsts in there on the server side. It is a tech preview, there’s a limited range of architectures available out there – so it’s not for everyone, put it that way. We’re not expecting production on these devices for some time, but ourselves and ARM are extremely excited that we’re starting to see real movement over there.
“On the client side, we going to start seeing ARM devices appear like netbooks – we’ll start seeing those running Ubuntu pretty soon. There isn’t a legacy of applications out there that have been in the market for as long as an x86 PC-type experience, but that work is ongoing. There are, obviously, areas where it makes sense to port applications across to ARM, and it’s a case of the industry deciding which ones make the most sense to focus on.”
Ubuntu has long been made available as alpha and beta versions for community testing before each version gets an official release. How important is the community feedback in the development of the distribution?
“Well, it’s hugely important – that’s why we do it. I can’t characterise how important it is, but as you know we have an alpha programme which is out very soon after the release of the previous product, we have an extended beta programme, we have many, many, many thousands of participants in that – the bug reports are probably the most essential part of making sure that our stability is right, and the features are working.
“It’s certainly something that our development teams pay huge attention to, the entire community pays huge attention to. It’ll become even more important with the next release, which is the 12.04 release, which is all about stability and precision as Mark [Shuttleworth] announced. So, the beta programme, the extended beta programme, the entire development process which you could call a beta programme – it’s what Ubuntu is about, it’s how we crowdsource and how we make sure that the product is quality is by getting feedback around where we’ve fallen down and to try and fix it.”
Thanking Carr for his time, we ask him if he has a message he’d like to pass on to our readership. “It’s not for me to lecture people about how they should or shouldn’t react to releases,” he explains, “but I think that they should understand that what we’re trying to do.
“The best of our efforts, and what we talk about all the time, is basically ‘how do we get free software into the hands of more people?’ We take decisions around interface design, product design and application integration, but they’re all designed for a single purpose: to put more free software into the hands of more people.”
It’s clear from his words that it’s a topic Carr feels passionate about, and one he believes is fully supported by his employer. “While we may disagree in terms of tactics,” he admits wryly, “the strategy is shared between us and the broader community in open source and elsewhere.”
Ubuntu 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’ is a launch which Carr and his colleagues is hoping will win back support lost during the transition to Unity with 11.04, and will be followed in April next year with the company’s latest Long Term Support – LTS – release, Ubuntu 12.04 ‘Precise Pangolin.’
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The ellipsis in http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/features/ubuntu-11-10-launch-interview-unity-is-here-to-stay%E2%80%A6/ is breaking links to this page.
Thanks for that – all fixed now.
Unity is yet another attempt to turn Linux into what we dislike about the latest Windows and Mac environments: a desktop PC pretending to be a smartphone.
The truth is, the RISC OS style desktop (which most people know as “the Windows 95 style desktop”) was the pinnacle of desktop UI design and usability. Most computer users want it to stay that way.
If I want the user experience of a smartphone, I’ll use my smartphone. A computer is not a smartphone!
Will linuxuser be doing an article on how to get, install and configure a real desktop in the near future.
I’ve tried to like Unity, but for a lot of reasons I just can’t get on with it. I’d like to stick with Ubuntu, but enforcing Unity is a deal breaker for me :-(
I am a computer user as well as a consumer. I want to be able to turn off the search of “Amazon Music and “The Ubuntu One Music Store”. Sometimes I only want to search what I have. I don’t always want to be prompted “Want to spend a buck to buy this”. I am here for more than filling Ubuntu’s coffers. On the other hand, sometimes I do want to just buy it for a buck.
I still think that Unity is to large of a departure for desktop users. Then again I am still dragging around my keys file from Fluxbox since 2002. Not every one can run unity. I really need to see that Unity 2D is up to snuff on Oneiric.
Thanks to Unity I left Ubuntu several months ago and am now happily running KDE 4.72 on OpenSUSE 11.4. I am a long time Linux/Unix user and I will never be happy with Unity or Gnome3. Also, KDE4.72 is infinitely configurable so that I can do whatever I want with my desktop. The wonderful thing about Open Source is having choices…
Sounds like it is still “My Way or the Highway” with Ubuntu and Unity. I had to go to Linux Mint 11 because Ubuntu 11.04 was unworkable for me. In fairness Ubuntu gave us warning that the classic option would not be available in 11.10 so we had time to switch. As long as Canonical insists on choosing for me I will stick with a distribution that allows me to choose. Perhaps the approach in 12.04 will be more relaxed and “linux” like. Contrary to Carr’s believe recent releases of Ubuntu have been too close to the “bleeding edge”.
I am with the above posters that I will NOT switch to Unity desktop, do not need that crap. I’ll settle for KDE or XFCE. It seems with Ubuntu nowadays that its their way or the highway, I feel they are letting their users down. Bigtime.
Thanks for nothing Ubuntu.
I see where Ubuntu is going with Unity, but I can’t get on that train. I tried, but the lack of configurability left me reeling. Same thing for Gnome Shell. At least the Gnome Shell started out with good intentions. Unfortunately, they went into “copy Unity mode” halfway through development and the Gnome shell went from a neat idea to a useless turd.
There are things about Mint that I don’t like, but it’s more useable than Ubuntu, Fedora, and KDE so I’ll learn to live with them. Like any operating system, I have to make sacrifices if I want to use it. Unfortunately, Linux on the desktop is becoming too much to deal with.
I will also not be upgrading (using the term loosely) to 11.10. I prefer to work the way I want rather than have the way I work dictated to me. At least they are making it clear that this is the way it will be from now on.
Thank you Ubuntu for the five years that I was able to enjoy your releases.
I will be back when Unity works as well as my Gnome2 desktop.
I’m dropping the Ubuntu derivative and going with the Xubuntu flavor. I like XFCE better then Unity or Gnome 3.x.
ok, I’m done with Ubuntu.
I was using it to introduce Linux to non Linux users. it was nice and easy to use. looked like windows to make tradition easier. ran on their hardware faster and was more stable. but with Unity. it’s not configurable. I thought that was one of the main drives of Linux set it up as you want. it looks horrible. took me hours to get Gnome and XFCE installed on it and working half decently.
it made my (windows 7) net book slow to a crawl. slower even than win7
When did Ubuntu turn into Apple and Microsoft? “our way or the highway”
no, it’s time to look at whats out there for other distros. Ubuntu broke faith with me so I’m voting with my feet.
Stopped using Ubuntu at 11.04. Couldn’t get used to Unity, went back to Windows 7.
You can always use the Gnome Shell fallback mode which as I undestand it looks fairly similar to Gnome 2.x. I think I will try this out myself before deciding whether to switch off of Ubuntu entirely.
I agree with the majority of the comments above.
Canonical is free to experiment whichever way they want.
In the very least, they should make it easy for a user
to configure its system. I doubt that either gnome
or unity will bow to the user.
I have since switched to kubuntu (now running the 11.10 beta)
and I’m happy. Before kde 4.7, I was not too thrilled with kde.
Now, it is definitely maturing, and users are not seen as
children.
Sigh. There is a lot to like about Ubuntu, but Unity is still inferior in many (but not all) respects. Dismissing the feedback from practically all of your users will probably result in a fork (wbuntu for workstations?). Unfortunately not all of the Unity problems can be fixed since some appear to be intrinsic to the design.
Unity
Like:
• Collapse of menu and title bar into the header bar when full screen.
• Improved searching.
• Application ratings
Bugs:
• New Tab from the root menu…? The root menu need a significant amount of work.
• Pop-up menu bar doesn’t always pop-up without minimizing things
• Some applications (Libre Office) don’t collapse up the menu bar.
• The administrative/configuration options are still not complete/structure enough.
• Menus should ONLY be moved to the top when the application is maximized… otherwise leave the root menu in place!
∘ Seriously, it’s too far from the small terminal window in the lower right corner of the screen, and when I’m running Eclipse + three gnome terminals + rdesktop + gvim it just gets really, really, hard to use and VERY confusing.
Major Complaints:
• Pop-up menu bar on left side of screen
∘ This sucks because the most used buttons (and menus) on applications tend to be on the left of the screen which means that the button bar gets in the way.
• Over-dependence on networking…
∘ The integration of the “Cloud” model is conceptually cool, but I don’t want a dis-functional system when operating in an environment without Internet access.
∘ Excessive networking is a security problem
∘ Many corporate/government organizations don’t provider full Internet access… with good reason.
• Lack of pre-structured information (Menus!)
∘ This is not to say that the traditional Motif (gnome/kde/MS) type menus are perfect… The SUSE GNOME slab really grew on me after a while. Sometimes traditional menus are too small/long/narrow/quick to disappear/too brief descriptions, etc.
∘ Non-redundant menu structures are flawed since obviously some things fit under multiple categories, but that browsing through a structured hierarchy is still the easiest way to find out what sort of applications are available on a local system. This is the reason Google has *added* menus to their primary search page.
• Over-dependence on “searching”.
∘ Because of not having menus
∘ There is a reason almost nobody uses “I’m Feeling Lucky” on Google… The results are non-authoritative by nature. Improving the searching in Ubuntu is great, but not at the expense of loosing structured authoritative information about the applications and tools on the system.
Minor Complaints:
• Removal of click-able notifications
• Removal of tear off menus
• Lack of text descriptions on the main application bar… Are we three years old? Seriously?
• Application bar is ugly. The non-application icon gloss is way too prominent. Apple does this way better if you MUST use this stupid metaphor. Job’s genius was consistency and perfection within his selected metaphor, NOT in the selection of the metaphor itself!
• The application icons are way too big. Screen real-estate is important for people using their computers as workstations to perform real work.
The major problem with Unity (and Gnome 3 for that matter) is the blatant desertion of those users who don’t want it. There’s painfully little option for them. XFCE is built on GTK2, so when that starts to fall behind in maintenance, they will be forced to move on again. And then what?
As FOSS users, we love choices, but what do we do when usability that we’ve become dependent on is forcibly taken away?
“…When Ubuntu 11.04 launched with Unity, there was feeling in the community that it wasn’t quite ready for release…” there’s is Xubuntu for gnome 2.x lovers.
Yup, I agree with everyone here… Not going to use Unity. I will download Kubuntu and use that.
Long Live KDE :). Boy, I sure am glad its still there!
Joe
Before my dad went into retirement, he’s been a manager for a worldwide IT company (no names). He once told me about the concept of what his company called “banana marketing”, which consists to ship an unripe product to the client and then let it come to ripeness there. After getting tired of Canonical’s blatant inability to adopt a more perennial view of things, I migrated to Slackware 13.37 with KDE 4.6.5 on top, and now I’m a happy man.
Really wanted to like unity in 11.04 but couldn’t unfortunately, due to performance issues. 11.10 has vastly improved though. It offers, almost but not exactly, smooth desktop animation on my, not powerful, dual core machine but performance is significantly better than on 11.04.
I see where Ubuntu is going with Unity and I like it. The Desktop was due for change and this move by Ubuntu, although bold, was timely and necessary.
I remember, many years ago, an accountant where I worked, resigned because he objected to the computerization of his department. An irreversible paradigm shift was occurring that, towards the end of his career, he was unable or unwilling to adapt to.
Similarly, I detect that some of the criticism Unity receives is merely stubborn resistance to evolutionary change.
Windows XP comes to end of life soon. If Ubuntu can become less resource intensive, through the implementation of Wayland, I think Ubuntu can win. Many XP boxes will need upgrading or replacing in order to upgrade to win 7.
There is an opportunity here for Ubuntu and Linux more broadly. Let’s not drop the ball yet again. And let’s definitely, not defeat ourselves by infighting.
Linux desktop users should bare in mind that they represent less than 5% of desktop users. There is a whole wide world out there to capture.
Shuttleworth was a billionaire before starting the Ubuntu project. I’m sure he didn’t achieve that by not daring to dare.
Some faith, some space, some optimism and some support, let’s give it, at-least, a chance and see.
XFCE should start looking at GTK3 and build its DE on top of it. THAT will give us peace of mind. I hope they’re already thinking about it. They might become THE desktop for workstation users.
Good luck to Canonical with this adventure. Leaving your user base behind when you have such a small share of the market seems suicidal to me, but, hey, it’s Mark’s money and he can waste it as he wishes.
I’m experiencing most of the problems “Pragmatist” and others have brought up. I’d like to add that using workspaces is almost unusable for me in Unity (in Ubuntu 11.04.). On Gnome desktop moving applications from one work space to another is a breeze, but in Unity you have to go back and forth between clicking on the left panel, alt + tabbing and mouse-dragging. Add the several bugs to this, and you have a very bad user experience. Until a couple of days ago I used solely Unity for six months to get used to it, but I had to change back to Gnome because of the bugs. Changing back felt like a breeze of fresh air: everything just works and I can accomplish most of my tasks faster. There are many good ideas in Unity and I like it visually too, but if the general user experience hasn’t improved a lot by Ubuntu 11.10., I’m going to change to a distribution that allowes me to use the classic Gnome desktop (before that I might try the Gnome Shell fallback mode that Anonymous suggested).
I Like Unity!
I have been a Linux user since the late 90′s and have used many different distros. I find that Unity is easy to configure and make work just the way i like, and I am very happy with it and will continue to use it.
That being said I feel, from reading most of these comments, like I’m swimming against the tide. But then that’s the good thing about freedom :)
@Ademeion, just a suggestion, for swapping apps to other workspaces. Right click on the title bar and select Move to Workspace3 or whatever or just Move to Workspace Right, just like in Gnome 2. It works on most apps, in fact the only one it won’t work on I have found so far is Chromium. Also Crtl_Alt Right Arrow to move to the workspace on the right. Of course you have to have your workspaces in a single row, but that’s easily done with the Workspace Indicator app from the main menu bar.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/quickly-adjust-the-number-of-workspaces-in-unity-with-indicator-workspaces/
I don’t use Unity myself, but I do use Ubuntu and have done since Warty – our whole company, from server infrastructure through to desktops and laptops uses Ubuntu for everything. It’s great. Most of the people making negative comments about Unity are not the target market for Ubuntu. They are, by and large, people who are already committed to Linux. That is a VERY small number of people (who also happen to feel very empowered, for better or worse, to comment on blog posts). Ubuntu is hoping to convert all those people who won’t even know what Unity is/means, the same way they don’t know what Windows or OS X is. These are the people Ubuntu is trying to attract.
Stop looking at Unity from the perspective of a Linux guru – *of course* it’s not designed for you. It never was (but eventually, I suspect you’ll end up liking it better, because eventually, it might actually *be* better, even more quickly with your constructive support rather than wasted derision complaining about your problems in blog comments rather than in the issue tracker).
If you’re a frustrated guru remember this: you’re using Ubuntu. You can just install a different desktop. You of all people should recognise that it’s not a big deal. If you can’t find what you want in the rich Ubuntu ecosystem, by all means go to another distro. But don’t piss in the pool. That’s just needlessly destructive.
Shuttleworth and crew are doing what you (and I) have been trying (and failing) to do all along – get the *rest* of the world using FOSS. And, if you look at it that way, they might even gain your support. Even if you don’t come around, I think they’ve got a chance to make a difference, and I, for one, appreciate the fact that they’re taking it.
I have come to love unity and will certainly stick with it!
You must be kidding :
“I mean, obviously, we believe that the product is and was ready for prime-time” (on Unity)
It did _not_ work. Ever. I had to go to Ubuntu classic just to be able to do ……
It frooze up every time I clicked on the sidebar…
The concept was nice; hopefully they got it right this time around…
Shuttleworth’s my way or the highway can get someone hurt. The Ubuntu community is ready to break something. Tempers are short. A very scary situation. Unity forced me to move on. I was with Ubuntu from the very first release a spokes person for a great Linux distro. All my new users i led to Ubuntu are gone. With a statement like Unity is here to stay, I will with every chance i have to steer people clear of Ubuntu now.
I had been using Ubuntu on one of my machines and it was useable for most everything. Then came the change to that GOD AWFUL Unity crap. Lost me IMMEDIATELY with that hunk of garbage. If I had wanted a cheap mac, I would have BOUGHT a cheap mac.
The idiot menu bar won’t go away when I’m trying to use an application, effectively screwing me out of desktop space that I NEED. GREAT innovation. And if removing Unity is no longer an option, then Ubuntu is no longer an option for me.
If I had wanted someone else to tell me how to use MY computer, I would have just gone back to winblows (haven’t used it since 2000) or gotten a Mac. I DON’T WANT some idiot telling me how to use MY machine, IT’S MINE. I BUILT IT, I don’t want some SCHMUCK telling me what desktop I HAVE to use on it. Ubuntu has gotten arrogant and I for one don’t NEED that kind of attitude anywhere near MY machines. Screw ‘em.
Oh, and BTW, the Unity desktop is just the FINAL killer for me. Pulse audio is a freaking JOKE. One app works just fine, the next has NO audio whatsoever, and NOTHING is any different from one setting to the next. WTF? Pulse audio is a disaster, and NOW you force this miserable Unity crap on us TOO? Take your distro and go away. You are WAY too arrogant for me.
Ubuntu is a failure
You might say, “Hey, Eldergeek. Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution out there, how can it possibly be a failure?” Just bare with me and allow me to explain my position. By their own admission, Ubuntu creates initiatives to make Ubuntu Linux better and advance Linux. Let’s took at their track record. Here are some past initiatives
* Improved audio via PulseAudio
* Seamless video from boot menu to desktop
* 10 Second Boot Times
* Create a better looking desktop than MacOS
* Desktop notification System.
* The Unity Desktop metaphor
And Future Initiatives
* Wayland Video System
* 200 million users in 2 years
Take a look at this list and ask yourself. Has Ubuntu ever accomplished one of its major long term goals? So far the answer is “No”. Ubuntu is a failure. Every time the announce what they are going to fix on the desktop next, I know what system will still be half-done in 2 years time.
I am using Ubuntu since 8.10 and I think that Unity will be a smart and clean GUI. Give it some time guys. I know that in the beginning seems like an alien GUI but after 2-3 days of work you can’t go back.
As long as they keep the Fall-Back mode I will be happy. I have no issues with the Fall-Back mode. It is what I want for a desktop. I am sorry but I gave Unity and Gnome3 a try. They both just adds more steps to get from point A to point B. I just hope they continue to give people there choice of desktop.
Hi there, from South Europe, so… sorry for my poor english.
I didn’t know that average Ubuntu users had that conservative ideas. It sounds bizarre for me. What about improvement, innovation… progress in Linux Planet??? and… Do you want to keep routines and tracks from twenty years ago? Really? It’s 2011, dudes!
I don’t know which is the main reason for Canonical developing Unity, indeed, I don’t care… by the way, I see a purpose of building an space of their own, learning from the newest hot advances in user experience. Perhaps is an «expensive» movement.. but who the f**k needs dozens of cloned distros!!! You have Linux Mint, or Debian… or Xubuntu, or Lubuntu, or… [write your favourite right here] and listen, FOSS needs a real alternative to OSX and W8! How?? With Gnome2… Please! Are you kidding me!!!???
Just spend a few hours of rehearsal with shortkeys on Unity… don’t use the mouse but the keyboard and enjoy the experience. It could be better, of course!
Ubuntu guys, in my opinion, well done, you have a lot of further work… don’t betray your aims, respect the openness… and here I am waiting for the 12.04 LTS! Good luck!
I love Ubuntu Unity 11.04 and I am looking forward to tomorrows update. My first experience with Unity or should I say a Unity like interface came by way of my wife’s netbook. At the time I was running a early version of Ubuntu dual booted with Windows on my personal laptop but I had installed Ubuntu on my wife’s netbook because of a serious error with Windows that would of required shipping the netbook back for service. But my wife and I previous to that have run Ubuntu 8.04 as a dual boot with Windows on our personal laptops. I must admit at first it was a big adjustment but once the decision was made by Canonical to go with Unity I updated the system on my main laptop, dropped Windows completely and I have had few complaints. Yes I do still have a desktop running Windows 7 but I will never go back to Windows. Ubuntu Unity is always the talk of the coffee shop or any other place of business that I may venture to every time someone peaks over my shoulder and see the OS that I am running. Yes Unity has some growing to do but I feel its moving in the right direction. It fact I would say Ubuntu Unity is moving into what will be ground breaking territory.
Well said Miraceti, Dave Lane, Paulo and William…constructive and mature comments. Unlike most of the other comments – I agree with Paulo…I find such stuck-in-the-mudness bizarre coming from Linux/Ubuntu users! Well done Ubuntu guys!
why u guys just dont get a life ? u wanna stay in the 2003 year ? i was just like u and scared of unity but after 1 week or so i couldnt live without it , stop bitching about Unity and try to understand and love it insted , aahhh most of ur comments (not all) makes me feel sick , yes ubuntu made u all happy since 2002 , 2003 or maybe 2005 idk and now without even trying to get use to the unity u all wanna leave it behind ? open source bloody users like u guys are not even a bit loyal at all , unlike Win and Mac users even when u use freely and they dont , shame on u all who talk about leaving ubuntu , so be it leave it and get ur crapy low lives out of ubuntu history , they shall remain know’n as the best ever , thnaks alot ubuntu guys , keep up the good work and dont give a shit about some losers who aolways like to make nonesens words cause of their own low life !
Hi Matt B,
Yeah, I think you’re right! ;)
I’m sure that GNU/Linux-*BSD have a handicap: atomization and dispersion… and we can’t forget that we need to work in community… it doesn’t matter which flavour do you like, the big challenge is to understand that there isn’t a real competition between distros but between the FOSS whole community and privative deployments.
Canonical wants to sell and earn money? So what? Till the next Red-October… man, the world runs at this way…
We need to help the others inside the GNU+*BSD/Linux Universe to achieve our target: became a Big Alternative (with uppercase!)
Given the ton of alternative desktop options offered by Ubuntu ( ie. Kubuntu ,Lubuntu, Studio, Xubuntu, etc.), it seems silly to argue over Unity as if there were no choices. It certainly is no reason to abandon Ubuntu. Still, if you miss gnome 2 and insist on a regular Ubuntu install and refuse to install an alternative desktop, I suggest that you simply install the Cairo dock. The program integrates incredibly well with Ubuntu 11.04 and will remind you of “the good old days”.
I have to Say I think all the comments is actual what scares new people from coming to Linux. Its all about me me me and what I want and not about what is needed. I remember the days before Ubuntu where Linux /guru’s used to laugh at people who did not know anything.
I introduced my wife to Ubuntu with natty and I must say she loves the dock bar and everything about it. Yes 11.04 is slower and yes it had bugs but for goodness sake if you want a bug free Distro go use the LTS. I like GNOME3 I like unity. I am also not going to run away. The more people help the faster we will be able to make both more corrigible.
I wish Linux users would be more positive than negative, I can tell you now this was not an attack on you personally. I actually think it was more a move to help retain some as of the GNOME2 aspects. I hate the global menu and will most probably always un-install it same goes for the overlay scroll bars. But thats about it.
I still would have preferred Clementine to Banshee but thats the nice thing about Linux just remove what you don’t want
I actually liked the direction Canonical was going with Unity, up until I tried Gnome 3 and realized that Unity was trying to be what Gnome 3 already was. The lenses are nifty, I’ll give them that, but the whole UX is just slightly better in G3 from this developers’ point of view. I especially like the fluid virtual desktops in G3. Unity is definitely sufficient, and maybe superior for those who like the “everything GUI” approach, but I can’t help but think that if they had built the few things that Unity does better as G3 shell extensions, rather than forking G2 in order to make a slightly divergent version of the same vision the Gnome folks had, we’d all be better off.
What BOTH projects need to do is vastly improve 3rd party support, starting with some high quality developer guides and API documentation. I’d love to get more involved in writing my own shell extensions, and I know the platform Gnome 3 is based on (essentially the same web technologies I spend all day writing at work), but the documentation is abysmal, such that it took me hours to figure out where and how simple things like where shell extensions are supposed to GO, let alone how to write them.
Anyway, Canonical lost me to Arch, as far as distros go, but I still support and recommend Ubuntu to anybody I don’t think is ready for or willing to use a more DIY approach. Though I don’t always agree with the way they do things, I am happy in the knowledge that this is linux – I can make it do whatever I want. I don’t have to agree, because I can change it. That point alone makes a lot of the petty bickering seem a quaint relic of an earlier, proprietary, age.
Have used Ubuntu since it was first available but there will be a new distro after 11.04. The
fanboys shaming language notwithstanding, Unity is not functional as a desktop for
productive use and never for business users. Folks at Canonical are confused, a desktop
PC is NOT a mobile phone!!
Let me tell you my deeply guarded secret, try not to use anything that’s being released between one LTS and another. The real deal is always LTS, so let’s hold our horses until then. Unity is not perfect yet, not only in my opinion but in others as well. Stick with 10.04, don’t be a tech idiot who needs to have everything “latest”. Be patient, I started with 7.04 was happy then, stopped on 10.04 still am. Unity might attract new users and make Linux community larger, which is important and you can always get other flavor e.g. Xubuntu if push comes to shove. Ps. I just hope that one day Ubuntu will work on rolling release something like lmde, so that I won’t have to do reinstall every 3 years. Cheer up, if it wasn’t for Ubuntu most of you wasn’t even reading it now.
I upgraded to 11.10 today and I found it to be very cryptic and non-intuitive. It would not let me drag and drop a terminal on to the desktop! I am down grading to 11.04 using ubuntu classic until I can find a more permanent fix. Unity seems like it would be good for my mother who just browses the web and does not do anything else.
Nay, nay & thrice nay.
Can’t have Unity, can’t work with it, don’t like it, won’t use it.
Off to try other distros/flavours.
Okay, don’t like scrolling for my shortcuts, all my fixed top app bar links are gone, all my BASH shell links are GONE. I like in the command line, windows management is great to help be get to my command line, but geezzzz.
At least have a tutorial migration path to EXPLAIN this dog dirt
I have heard linux mint is good, any others recommend that?
UNITY SUCKS!GNOME should be present in all future UBUNTU releases give us the choice we don’t want unity nobody wants unity get it through your fat ugly head mr. ubuntu….
Unity is the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I am actively shopping for other Linux distros to replace the 10.4 LTS on my main desktop when it sunsets. I’ve tried Unity under 11.04 and 11.10 on ancillary machines in my home network, and replaced it with Gnome Classic after a few tiresome days. It is a stupid, slow, and ineffective toy: pretty looking but inefficient. The learning curve is possibly lower for someone coming to computers from a smartphone or game console background, but for serious users it’s assumptions about how to organize tasks and its severe truncation of application categories are tiresome in the extreme.
This and the incompetent PulseAudio integration have made me lose faith in Cannonical’s abiltiy to deliver a useful distribution for serious computer users. Sic tranist gloria Ubuntu…it was -really- good there for awhile.
Ah. I pulled 2 things from this interview.
1) The intentional integration of what I have and what I don’t have (but can buy or download.)
2) Ubuntu is engaged in an argument with me regarding the functionality of the OS I want to use.
The first is kind of disgusting. I suppose there are people who have no idea how to use the Google to find something that they want (be it for free or fee), but… everyone I’ve met who’s under 25 knows how to use the internet. Efficiently. Automatically. It’s like a third arm.
So what’s the point? I’m picturing nightmare scenarios where I’m looking for my sound editor and Unity clutters up my s*** with the one I have installed and the five optional ones that I already decided I didn’t want. Why would I care about the newest one? Why, when I’m just trying to edit an mp3, would I want to suddenly be propositioned with the notion that maybe there is another program that is even better than the one I’m already happy with?
Canonical, riddle me this: if I already researched and dismissed what you had through your software center, why would you keep forcing me to reconsider?
Which brings me to the second point: Canonical wants to argue with me about what I want. Which is funny, because why I switched from Win7 to Ubuntu was because I liked how Gnome 2.x gave me room to organize and keep track of a lot of things without eating up screen space or being too eldritch about it. It already had won that argument by doing what I liked, just more of it and better. Now I have to learn a whole new OS idiom? Because you want to attract a few new users with eye candy? For the sake of a high-concept pissing contest over desktop metaphors with Gnome and Mac? Get outta here.
I liked what I had. Now I have to waste hours upon hours doing research on different desktop environments and other Linux iterations, just so I can recreate what worked. I guess I can revert to 10.4, but… ugh. UGH. That’s like having a ticking time bomb. I might as well do the legwork now so that I won’t have to deal with this again later.
You know what a good metaphor for this is? Some uppity carpenter coming into my house and destroying my cherished desk because it isn’t ergonomic enough, and then replacing it with an Ikea Alve (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90148629/) that is 1/8 as small and nowhere near as useful. Way to go, guys.
Unity sucks!
Is there a Linux Distro that doesn’t allow this stupid application?
Wow there are some really jumped up bunny in this blog. I understand you have freedom of choice and are welcome to air your personal opinion. But think of it this way, what did the poor bugger do that brought windows 3.1 who did not like it. Did he say sod this i’m going back to msdos, did he hell. He had to stick with it cos there was nothing else available. Yes I may have been very unhappy, but I bet you he never spat in the face of the people that made windows 3.1 what it was. Which leads me on to the Ubuntu Team, they believe in something big and they are looking to the future of computing. Do you honestly think that we will all have desktop PCs in the future. Answer, YES because the people who refuse to get out of the 80s and 90s are preventing evolution. Not just evolution of computing but everything we look at in the world from building, to transport. As a race we are so far advanced we are going to look stupid and primitive compared to other life forms when the time comes for our first encounter. So who are our children blame. Us for whining about evolution the future of computing. If you don’t like it just move on in silence, because to be honest you are only making the people who come to this blog and read the negative posts, their mind up about Ubuntu unity and walk away. In my opinion Unity is very clean, fun and intuitive. Today I upgraded one of our most used computers to Unity 11.10, and my boss who is not tech savvy, ;loves it. Thinks its very easy to use and I could not get her off the machine all day, normally she sits at her own desk with Windows 98 and Windows XP. That how Ubuntu is affecting old windows users. Good Work Ubuntu. Keep it up. I was a Windows 7 user 1 year ago and now refuse to install the virus riddled garbage on my laptop.
I you hate it shut up and walk away sad guy from the 80′s and leave the rest of the world to evolve :)
Unity Rocks, it converts windows users and makes the heads of Mac users turn.
PS. My rant was not about Ubuntu it is about the people that make something good look bad. Such Lamers.
I use Ubuntu, and also WIndows7
both systems are great.
each in their own way.
11.10 is excellent! except..
It is so easy to solve this problem in you next release:
simply keep the choice
for either option
-with or without Unity
-the classic desktop
as it was in 11.04
What’s the problem with that?
Thanks to a few tips I could do some sudo’s to
get it back to classic.
What irritates me a bit is that
that you are trying to force Unity upon us?
whether we like it or not
by removing the option to restore the classic desktop?
Why not simply keep al the options
then everybody is happy, ok?
Thanks.
Ted
For some years now, I was awaiting Ubuntu release dates like Xmas.
Starting with 11.04, with the introduction of Unity and all the problems it brought, I upgraded Ubuntu only on my laptop, but not on any other computer in my home.
Sadly, Oneiric will be the first Ubuntu release I will not upgrade to, not now, probably not ever (unless I can find a way to get Gnome2 and Panel back).
I understand the reason to introduce Unity, and stick to it (although I don’t really see why my large monitor desktop should look like a smartphone).
What I don’t understand is why Unity is forced on everyone, like it or not?
Why can’t it still be the option of using 11.10 with an interface that even remotely resembles the tested and true Gnome Panel, for the ones who are so inclined?
What I always liked in Ubuntu was the freedom, the possibility of customizing it almost endlessly.
I’m saddened that Canonical departed so much from this principle.
I don’t think is such a good idea to make Ubuntu look trendy,
If users would like to see interfaces just like MacIntosh or Windows, then they would stick to those operating systems. I don’t think that users that switched from those OSs want to see at Ubuntu copycats of them.
People at Canonical should be rightly concerned that they will lose users.
They’re certainly about to lose me.
With all the problems of 11.04 (one of the worst releases of Ubuntu), this wasn’t such an issue. I, for instance, could pretend for 6 moths that Unity doesn’t even exist, by switching to Ubuntu Classic.
With 11.10, Canonical leaves us no other options, and I expect that a mass defection will occur soon.
Is this really what Canonical wants?
Back to slack-y and KDE and the crap that is akonadi (till it gets removed or I give up and go all retro XFCE), unity is the biggest piece of shit I’ve seen in close to 25 years of experience with dumb-puters. I don’t think the world needs a mac OS wannabe. The originals are bad enough!
“Are we going to change our minds on that? No. We know it’s an argument that we have to win..”
There it is: Canonical have chosen not to listen. Well you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
Canonical: Why does it matter to you what desktop we prefer? That is a serious question. Not rhetorical.
You are capable of putting old style panels as an option.
If you make old style panels available at a few clicks, or better a version without the cruft that is Unity already set up, and create a more loving name for fallback, you diffuse all the arguments against Unity in one stroke. Your stubbornness on this one point will turn far more users away than you can gain by trying to force users into an ill fitting mould.
These words are intended in the kindest way: Please don’t be stubborn.
Evil!!!! We hates it Baggins!!!!
Loved Ubuntu to bits and now it’s ruined (sob!). Can’t find anything; all the icons have disappeared; the workspace switcher is cr*p (compared to the old faithful version in ‘classic mode’). P*sses me off really. One of the benefits of Open Source Software is there’s (usually) an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
Upgraded to 11.10 today and the installation committed suicide at the first opportunity so, to avoid further pain, I’m jumping ship to Linux Mint or Debian until I find another distro I like.
I gave an old laptop (with Ubuntu 10.10 on it) to my niece today (she’s 10). As she’d only previously been exposed to Windows therre was a bit of culture shock but she was completely au-fait with Gnome within half an hour.
However, I suspect she would have given up after ten minutes with the new GUI and chucked the laptop away or installed (spit) Windows.
Oh, and by the way, to all the guys who think people who don’t like the Unity interface are Luddites and change-averse ‘stick-in-the-muds’: I’m a developer, the GUI, for me, is convenient for some purposes and a pain in the ring-piece for others. Thus, what I look for in a GUI is something which is simple, concise, effective and places a minimum overhead on the OS. Whether I am representative of Ubuntu users is a moot point of course. However, despite rhetoric suggesting that I am somehow mentally subnormal for not liking Unity, I reserve the right to vote with me feet if I feel my requirements are better met with other distributions.
I suspect that Canonical will find that many hardened users of Ubuntu, like myself, will take a similar view. Whether that compromises their core user base remains to be seen.
A few questions. Why are half of the icons in the Unity experience the ghosty-white outline things, and half from a full-color icon set? Why do you have to traverse three borders of your UI to figure out how to close a window? How can a triangular divot on an icon tell you more about a second open instance of a program than a switcher tray?
Whenever a device is on, be it computer or refrigerator or lawn mower, the user wants one of three things: do something with it, see how/what it is doing, or turn it off. Unity hides all of those things almost to the point of incredibleness.
So, sure, go ahead and plug your ears until you feel you have “won that argument”, the world will simply leave you behind.
I’m another long term Ubuntu user who is very disappointed that they have dropped classic Gnome. Why do this to spite users? What is to be gained by removing an open source technology that so many users enjoy using?
History will reveal that the decline of Ubuntu began with the imposition of a poor user experience called unity. So sad that an os which attracted users with choice would knowingly stab its longest-standing customers in the back.
The lens menu is really annoying when you have dual screen and the left is a tv that isn’t always on. Login and menu are shown on the left and no way to configure this. The menu is also pretty bad itself because you cannot do everything with the mouse. Yes… of course you can… but it needs a lot of clicking and eventually you got a big list of icons that also contains a lot of duplicates. While typing this while backing up files so I can install 10.10 or maybe I just even go back to 10.04. Lucid started in 5 seconds on this same machine that is now struggling. I’m really a big fan of Ubuntu but with this version I’m shocked because it is everything but lighter. Unity does not bring unity at all. Not on my pc and reading other opinions it also isn’t with the Ubuntu community.
I’m sorry, but I call this version Ubuntu Vista. :-(
Unity will get better I’m sure, but it’s not usable for me now. I’m very unhappy with it.
I cannot understand why you wouldn’t allow the classic to go forward while Unity got more and more polished. The only thing I can think is that it’s from a weak position so that forcing people to unity is the only way to get participation.
I’m unsure how to support my corporate desktops going forward. Unity does not work for our needs and spending time training people on a still immature product is not worth the effort.
I will have to find new solutions and at some point migrate users to another platform.
I can’t believe some of you morons. You do realize that unity isn’t the only desktop available in ubuntu, right? They support all DE’s that other distros do. You guys are nothing but haters and losers.
Guys, that x button to close the window, why the hell is on the left side? why the hell can’t i move it to the right side? why those windows cannot have the menus on the f*ing window itself not on a bar on top ?
why can’t use a menu which is on the left side because like a Windows autohide menubar or what the hell keeps appearing, guys do you ever used a PC not just for music and movies? have you ever write a code, ever read a sourcecode or something ?
This is a big shit, i thought ok, 11.04 was a crap, lets give it a try version 11.10, but that’s it, goodbye ubuntu, after 5-6 years of usage i have to say goodbye, this desktop is a fancy useless shit.
well i know this is for free, but if you want to loose all of your users well you are on the right way!
peace and unity for all
if u are tired fromthis than ofcours u can go to windows
Like most of the people…above…I blessed Mark Shuttleworth for giving us so nice past distros of Ubuntu. Unity is complicated, stupid, not made to work with, needs too much resources…
Like most of the people above I have a deep feeling of betraying. Everything turned wrong when Mark Shuttleworth decided to take the leadership of the design team.
How is it possible that he seemed so kind and efficient before and so dumb now will remain a mystery forever.
Each interview of the Canonical folks reminds me of the behavior of a sect. Marks pays them for delivering the message….
I had the hope the Mark Shuttleworth will wake up some day…..and promote a simple solution up to any interface designer….accept the concept of two very different interface…one being minimal as Gnome 2 was.
Even that simple solution is refused for non understandable reasons…..
What more can I say which have not been said?
Quite amusing that the interview repeatedly states Canonical’s commitment to FOSS software when their own Software Center is offering increasing large numbers of closed paid for apps… bill’s gotta be paid I suppose… unfortunately Shuttleworth seems to be willing to pay with both his soul and credibility.
The inclusion of Gnome-shell as a working DE option is a massive step forward with this release and one that is most likely to bring a few deserters back to Ubuntu that left after the 11.04 Unity debarcle. All but the most blinkered could foresee a move towards a touchscreen style UI on the desktop given the advances in technology and popular reception of iPad and Android devices. I still fail to understand Canonical’s commitment to a proprietary UI which is at best divisive; at worst fundamentally flawed, buggy, 2nd rate (in direct comparison to Gnome Shell) and unintuitive. Development time on Unity is time wasted (IMO) at a time when Ubuntu could and should be making further advances in general usage.
Unity and Software Center – 2 of Ubuntu’s showcase “features” – will be the 1st unwanted apps to go on my Ubuntu installations for a while yet :$
Excuse me:
“making it smoother and faster and better than Ubuntu 11.04.”
- Reality: Since I upgraded to Oneiric, Unity and my whole netbook is LESS STABLE, SLOWER and I cannot even change a window colour.
Is that what you call better? I am currently trying Gnome Shell and so far I like what I see.
All the intensity is really needless. True, Unity is useless. My objection is not that it’s new but that it is a big step backward. It feels like it wants to have control of desktop. I cannot do or change anything like I want to. This element of owning my desktop is what drew me to Linux in the first place. I am not really worried about Ubuntu now, it is so easy to just walk away and use another distro, but with both Unity and Gnome Shell being equally awful I worry about future development. KDE or XFCE both offer hope–I hope they will step up. Insults and arrogance will not work Ubuntu and Gnome–we are already gone.
I foolishly “upgraded” to 11.10 only to discover that the familiar Gnome interface was gone, and replaced by Unity. Unity may be a good interface for a smartphone, but it is a terrible interface for a computer.
I have just reformatted and reinstalled 11.04 LTS. I’m hoping Ubuntu will come to its senses and create Gubuntu or something with the old Gnome 2 interface. If that doesn’t happen, I will go to Debian (provided Debian does not drink the Gnome 3 cool aid) or Centos. Centos is about 3 years behind, but at least you can count on Redhat to keep a stable user interface.
If someone would like to fork Gnome 2 and continue development on the best Linux UI to date, I would be in their debt.
Hi Matt B!
This stuck-in-the-mudness attitude comes from the choice we are used to in Linux distros.
Unity doesn’t give you the choice anymore. That’s why it’s more like Windows and Mac these days.
Open Source is all about choice. You might say, use the fallback option. Sure, would do if Cairo Dock
was working properly plus the systems menu on the panel has gone, which was one of the best things
about Gnome 2.
I used to tell Windows people that the best thing about Ubuntu is not having to use the search function because intuitively you know where things are. No mess. Now the search function is the center piece of Unity.
Will go back to 10.4
Ciao
Oli
I’d love to meet the moron who came up this desktop and give him an earful. I was absolutely in love with the simple functional <= 10.04 desktop. Even the 10.04 I was happy, it allowed me to switch of all the novelty stuff.
Now I have spent all of my Saturday trying to figure out, why my window borders won't show, why that side bar on the left is a sidebar on the left, why I cannot have custom panels with simple menus…….
Why did you behave like "know it all"? I might have to defect to Mint 11!!
“Unity is here to stay”? Not on my systems. Canonical are turning into another Microsoft, forcing features down users’ throats and breaking existing functionality in new and unusual ways with each update. I shouldn’t have to start googling around to find out which package lets me get back to a gnome 2 – Why dispose of the fallback desktop manager without any decent warning unless you’re intent on pissing people off?
I bit the bullet and ‘upgraded’ to the new version and while I can see there are some things they fixed I wasn’t prepared for the complete trashing a desktop configuration that I had really got set up the way I wanted.
Given that there seems to be no easy way to revert back to my previous configuration I think my best option is to go the Arch route (from where I found the only working patch for the psmouse module to make it work with my Acer’s touchpad). From there I can build up a system step by step to where I want to be and I’ll know exactly what I did to get there. I imagine there are going to be more and more people realising that the Ubuntu team are not interested in their needs as time goes on.
Obviously Canonical have their own agenda, I’m just no longer going to be a part of it.
I am happy to use UBUNTU 11.10 . I upgraded from Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS to 11.10
by the help of Ubuntu site , using a USB stick , as per instructions .
As has been said earlier by Dave Lane , I do not care whether my laptop is with Gnome or
Unity but I like UBUNTU and its development team and every six months of excitement , what
is going to be new . I love Ubuntu and their effort . Keep moving ahead.Thanks .
I’m a recent convert to Linux from Windows. I have had a lot of trouble with Ubuntu 11.10 including it not loading up from the boot sequence. After reinstalling several times I found out how to get the classic desktop for Ubuntu 11.10. I ran the command through the terminal and followed the instructions o how to set it up. That was 2 days ago so far no problems. Here’s the site. http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2011/09/11/install-the-classic-desktop-in-ubuntu-11-10/
When I tried Unity back in version 11.04 I hated it but with the 11.10 release it is so much better. It feels like so much work has gone into it in the last 6 months. I am going to continue to use it. I am sure Unity will get even better.
I’ve been a cautious ubuntu user for 4 years now (always have at least 1 windows machine), 2 years ago after a harddrive crash i made the complete switch to ubuntu on my main pc and loved it. My laptop needed wiped this week soi thought id jump straight into 11.10. Just yuck….unusable shiny piece of crap, even with gnome 3 installed it just isn’t quite right. I might give mint a go now i’ve heard its good and is nice and straight forward like ubuntuu USED to be
Mark Shuttleworth is the Steve Jobs of the Linux world. I never expected such arrogance from the realm of Open Source. I thought, such closed minds are only to be found in Apple’s marketing and development policies. At least, Apple’s OS X is usable, whereas Ubuntu became unusable with Unity. With Unity, you can’t do your daily work fast. It’s a pile of crap that just slows down even the simplest tasks.
Unfortunately, Gnome 3.x isn’t any alternative. It’s the same load of turd, just with a different flavor. Now the only option left is KDE 4. That’s a pity. Because I never liked KDE really. But that’s the way it goes now. Or switching back to Windows — after more than 10 years of Linux. Coming from a long-time Linux user: Yes, Microsoft finally did it right. Not perfect under the hood, still. But Windows 7 is stable and has very good usability. I would have never imagined I’d ever say that, after all that pain I had with previous Windows versions.
Canonical, go home. The game is over.
Ubuntu 11.10 sucks.
That’s all that needs to be said about it. Try it, you’ll [likely] agree!
It’s time to find another distro, unless Xubuntu works well, but I hate all of the GVFS crap and errors.
For the Ubuntu 11.10 user, check your .xsession-errors file, I bet it’s always active and full! There’s just no excuse for this crap.
“So, are we concerned? Yes. Do we hope that people will come with us? Yes. Are we going to change our minds on that? No. We know it’s an argument that we have to win, we know it’s an argument we have to win over time, we know it’s an argument we’re not going to win with absolutely everybody, but we think it’s the right thing to do and this is consistent with that decision.”
What an arrogant line from someone who tries to be “open” and “for human beings”. I’m off here. Ubuntu is the most polished distro out there, but the people behind it suck. Unfortunately.
A lot of people here have right concerning the Unity in Ubuntu 11.04, 11.11 and now 12.04 -beta 1 LTS.
My questions is, the Ubuntu Gurus from http://www.ubuntu.com -CANONICAL, read or not all the users frustrations about the Ubuntu evolution from 11,04.
Ubuntu now is like a cellphone.
The people from ubuntu do not understanding that :
L’arrogance précède la perdition ( French) or
Pride goes before perdition
Loved ubuntu.
Decided to change from 10.04.
Got 12.04
Unity is pointless.
Changed to classic using 12.04
Now depressed that I am with an OS which is great but is doomed because of Unity.
Somehow Canonical decided that they wouldn’t to make Unity so simple any idoit could use it. I find it really is a piece of crap. I’m using the terminal more and more to make up for the massive drop in flexibility.
Is is so bad I’m begining to think Windows is better.
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Wow, amazing weblog layout! How long have you been running a blog for?
you make running a blog look easy. The whole look of your website is magnificent, as well as the content!
I drop a leave a response each time I appreciate
a post on a site or I have something to valuable to contribute to the discussion.
Usually it’s a result of the sincerness displayed in the article I browsed. And after this post Ubuntu 11.10 launch interview- Unity is here to stay | Linux User. I was actually moved enough to post a thought ;-) I actually do have a couple of questions for you if it’s allright.
Could it be simply me or do a few of the comments come across like
they are left by brain dead folks? :-P And, if you are posting at other sites,
I’d like to follow you. Would you list every one of your community sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?