Ubuntu devs discuss the change from GNOME Shell to Unity (opens in new tab)

(downloadsquad.switched.com)

24 pointsmanvsmachine15y ago14 comments

14 comments

9 comments · 3 top-level

acabal15y ago· 4 in thread

I'm still pretty disappointed that instead of focusing on fixing and preventing bugs and regressions (every release of Ubuntu has featured serious bugs for features that worked fine on my laptop in previous releases--hibernate, sound, even keyboard buttons, etc.) they're expending tons of man-hours to write a new shell that will doubtlessly be riddled with fresh bugs and incomplete features itself on its first release.

I thought the indicator applets were a bad idea, if tolerable--but after 15 years of using the Win95 desktop paradigm on my work machine, I don't know if I have the patience or desire to re-learn Canonical's new hotness that really exists mostly because Shuttleworth wants to pretend he's a one-man Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive.

Not to mention poor grandma, who had Ubuntu installed by her grandkid; eventually she'll get a dialog asking if she wants to upgrade her "distribution," whatever that is, but hey, upgrading is always good, right? She'll press OK without thinking twice, and all of a sudden the upgrade will have given her computer a virus that moved all her icons around and she doesn't know how to use it anymore, can Johnny stop by run a virus scan and fix everything?

cabalamat15y ago

I know the feeling. I gave up on Kubuntu when they moved from KDE3, which I was used to and liked, to KDE4, which did loads of things in a news way, and which had bugs in to boot.

I guess if software vendors made cars, they'd randomly switch round the pedals to create "an unforgettable user experience" or whatever the bullshit du jour is.

regularfry15y ago

To be fair, the last LTS was pretty good. The next probably will be, too. Between now and then, though, we all get to be beta testers.

acabal15y ago

Even Lucid had some problems for me--the system would hang on hibernate 2 out of 3 times, among various other minor, but honestly very irritating bugs.

My concern for the long-term viability of the entire Ubuntu project is what happens once a user's system starts notifying them that they should upgrade their distribution. Not sure if that happens for non-LTS releases or not, but eventually it'll happen. The user will click 'yes' and then be presented with an extremely different windowing paradigm without having asked for it. It's like having clicked 'upgrade' to go to Lucid and finding all my window buttons on the other side for absolutely no reason. Tech folks like you and I can adapt, but will Grandma continue using Ubuntu if every 6 months something crazy changes and she has to re-learn everything? She won't--she'll get fed up and ask for her "old computer" back, which means formatting and installing Windows from the rescue CD.

I guess what I'm saying is that you can't be both a viable alternative to Windows and Mac and also be a paradigm-changing evolutionary UI experiment. The two markets--nerds and grandmas--just don't mix, at least until the next generation or two.

2 more replies

cpach15y ago

Or we can stick to the LTS:es, which is what I'm planning to do at least. There's just too much potential trouble with upgrading Ubuntu every six months.

1 more reply

jnovek15y ago· 2 in thread

I hope to God that they fix Unity by then -- my non-technical spouse loved Ubuntu netbook edition, but ultimately dumped Linux when 10.10 came along because Unity just had too many problems.

pan6915y ago

As I understand it, Unity is only an alternative. You can still use Gnome.

sterwill15y ago

I'm happy to see a fresh take on the desktop, but I was surprised that Unity is the default in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition. From my experience, Unity requires pretty fast 3D hardware to run acceptably. My wife's netbook has slow graphics hardware (because it's a netbook!), so back to the standard GNOME desktop, hiding panels to win some vertical space.

regularfry15y ago

All I know is that Unity was pushed out way earlier than it should have been in the Netbook edition. I've had it chew resources like crazy, and unilaterally hijacking the left-hand side of my screen? Not cool.

That's before you get to the utter Fitz-law failure that is buttons animating out from under your mouse pointer...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

14 comments

9 comments · 3 top-level

acabal15y ago· 4 in thread

cabalamat15y ago

I know the feeling. I gave up on Kubuntu when they moved from KDE3, which I was used to and liked, to KDE4, which did loads of things in a news way, and which had bugs in to boot.

I guess if software vendors made cars, they'd randomly switch round the pedals to create "an unforgettable user experience" or whatever the bullshit du jour is.

regularfry15y ago

To be fair, the last LTS was pretty good. The next probably will be, too. Between now and then, though, we all get to be beta testers.

acabal15y ago

Even Lucid had some problems for me--the system would hang on hibernate 2 out of 3 times, among various other minor, but honestly very irritating bugs.

2 more replies

cpach15y ago

Or we can stick to the LTS:es, which is what I'm planning to do at least. There's just too much potential trouble with upgrading Ubuntu every six months.

1 more reply

jnovek15y ago· 2 in thread

I hope to God that they fix Unity by then -- my non-technical spouse loved Ubuntu netbook edition, but ultimately dumped Linux when 10.10 came along because Unity just had too many problems.

pan6915y ago

As I understand it, Unity is only an alternative. You can still use Gnome.

sterwill15y ago

regularfry15y ago

That's before you get to the utter Fitz-law failure that is buttons animating out from under your mouse pointer...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse