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Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#61

Post by phatbyte »

I still think that this new design feels more like a theme than a default GUI of a OS (or DM in this case).

While I love Linux and I use it everyday, mostly as a server, everytime I enter in the desktop interface I do not feel the "home sweet home" I do on a OS X or Windows.

Linux DM are not comfortable, specially when you have KDE apps mixed with Gnome Apps and there's that mix of different gui + usability styles.

I've said this once, and I will say it again (running the risk of serious bashing): Linux should concentrate in only one DM and improve it.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#62

Post by rbanffy »

barrkel wrote: post #53
rbanffy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or big screens. Unix machines have traditionally been used with big monitors. It's not surprising at all Gnome uses lots of pixels. And there is nothing forcing you to use Ubuntu's default layout. You have literally hundreds of options to choose from. I tend to change look and feel more or less on a monthly basis.

I live with Windows 7 on two monitors, combined pixel area approximately 3600x1200, and it's still not enough even with Windows's more condensed by default tree views, list views, menu bars, toolbars etc. I have e.g. my desktop icons dialed down to 32x32px. I like my toolbar buttons 16x16px. I like my buttons approximately 75x25px. Information density. When running XP, as I still do on my non-Linux laptops, the total…

You have very unique needs. I am always with a lot of open windows, using small fonts and icons and usually have more than one screen at hand, but I am sure I would feel lost on a 3200x1200, at least for a while. A couple weeks ago, I discovered the big Integraph (I restore and collect interesting computers and this one was just gathering dust) screen my mother uses was capable of going up to 2048 by about 1500, I felt oddly agoraphobic.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#63

Post by rbanffy »

randallsquared wrote: post #42
rbanffy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they have earned is the right to brag. Apple has a Unix that's very polished and usable, but is not that much Unix-ish if what you need is a traditional X desktop. And OSX lacks package management.

Package management is really useful for servers, or other systems where there's a bunch of dependencies. Desktop apps hardly need it, and OSX apps in particular don't need it. The combination of the drag-to-applications-folder installing and checking for new updates to the app when you launch it solves the vast majority of this problem for the vast majority of users.

That's a circular argument. OSX apps solve the dependency problem because they have no other way of dealing with it. They have copies of the dependencies inside the app bundle because they have to be self-contained bundles.

But that's not solving the problem - if you have a defective library inside a bundle, upgrading the copy that lives inside the other bundle will have no effect on the first one. Programs are on their own and the provider must ship a new release of the bundle for each and every update on each and every library that gets bundled. Each program has to self-update and decide if the user will be exposed to a vulnerability while it self-updates or if the user will have to wait for the upgrade to finish before he or she can read his or her e-mail.

The idea that all shared libraries are in effect shared and updated at the earliest possible time, automatically, makes a lot of sense for desktops.

This is insanity. It only looks sane if you have never seen anything better.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#64

Post by sjs »

arohner wrote: post #49
randallsquared wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package management is really useful for servers, or other systems where there's a bunch of dependencies. Desktop apps hardly need it, and OSX apps in particular don't need it. The combination of the drag-to-applications-folder installing and checking for new updates to the app when you launch it solves the vast majority of this problem for the vast majority of users.

You're absolutely right, but as a developer, package management makes a significantly more pleasant experience. I also really hate how every OSX app has it's own way of doing updates. Even if the OSX makes desktop apps not need dependencies, it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.

It's pretty silly to have a serious dev machine without a package manager. What do you do when you migrate to a new machine? I like to copy a list of packages and then run an update/upgrade command. Linux wins by far. Copying a directory of self-contained apps is quick and easy as well... but if you need binaries for a newer arch, say x86-64, you'll have to download a new copy, whereas the package manager solution has you covered.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#65

Post by rbanffy »

arohner wrote: post #49
randallsquared wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package management is really useful for servers, or other systems where there's a bunch of dependencies. Desktop apps hardly need it, and OSX apps in particular don't need it. The combination of the drag-to-applications-folder installing and checking for new updates to the app when you launch it solves the vast majority of this problem for the vast majority of users.

You're absolutely right, but as a developer, package management makes a significantly more pleasant experience. I also really hate how every OSX app has it's own way of doing updates. Even if the OSX makes desktop apps not need dependencies, it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.

> it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push.

No. If you are asking for updates and fixes, you are doing it wrong. It should be automated, because you shouldn't have to bother to remember pressing a button. I set up my mother with a Linux box and sure as hell I don't count on her pressing buttons without some prompting.

> As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.

If you have a defective library that's bundled in five apps and needs fixing, you will have five upgrades instead of one. And, possibly, an OS update and a reboot.

But only if you are lucky and the publishers of the five programs are paying attention. Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#66

Post by lygaret »

randallsquared wrote: post #42
rbanffy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they have earned is the right to brag. Apple has a Unix that's very polished and usable, but is not that much Unix-ish if what you need is a traditional X desktop. And OSX lacks package management.

Package management is really useful for servers, or other systems where there's a bunch of dependencies. Desktop apps hardly need it, and OSX apps in particular don't need it. The combination of the drag-to-applications-folder installing and checking for new updates to the app when you launch it solves the vast majority of this problem for the vast majority of users.

In addition to that, there's no restriction on having something like apt-get for packages that really don't make sense in the "drag-to-install" paradigm. Which is why I installed my own version of ruby, say, out of ports.

I like OS X because, yes, there's a paradigm, but there's a rich underside that you can use as much as you like.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#67

Post by rbanffy »

carbon8 wrote: post #40
nearestneighbor wrote: post #15

Am I the only one who thinks that at the GUI level Ubuntu is better than OS X? (I use Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 8.04 extensively)

Gnome's biggest downside is the same core problem of the Windows interface: having a menu bolted on to each window is incredibly inelegant, redundant and wasteful of screen space.

OSX's biggest downside is having a fixed region of the screen that changes according to the context of the selected window on the desktop. That makes it impossible to check what two windows can do or even what program is responsible for them until they are selected. That's terribly inelegant solution that separates the data (what's inside the window) from the menus that act on that data (the menu).

Admit it. That's a draw.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#68

Post by rbanffy »

cookiecaper wrote: post #57
rsheridan6 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell did make a serious Ubuntu effort in 2007. They had a fair selection of Ubuntu machines, but they didn't make any money. Other OEMs dropped their plans to sell Ubuntu, and all you can get with Ubuntu from Dell now is a few netbooks. I bought one when they were brand new (in fact, I'm using it right now). It was not ready for prime time - there were suspend/hibernate problems, among other issues. I could not have…

Don't blame Ubuntu for the suspend/resume or other hardware compatibility problems. Dell sold you a system with hardware and software that conflict. Suspend, hibernate, et al work fine on almost all properly configured combinations of hardware under Linux. If Dell chose to sell you a system with an incomplete configuration or unsupported hardware, that's their fault, not Ubuntu's. I don't know that I'm entirely convi…

A assure you it's not. My Acer Aspire One netbook worked almost flawlessly with Linux right out of the box without any significant effort from the manufacturer (it came with Windows).

The only problem I experience is when I set the desktop to exactly 2048 pixels while using Compiz. It will probably be solved by the next release.

Selling a box with Linux that doesn't work properly with Linux sounds like an excellent way to get a rebate on the OEM prices of Windows licenses.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#69

Post by lygaret »

cookiecaper wrote: post #55
jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #13

Why are there no OEMs making strictly ubuntu machines? There's System76, but they're too complicated (20 different choices). Go look at hardware partners and there are no north american system builders! That's what Ubuntu is missing. Guys like us will install it, but if they want to be adopted by normal people it has to come with the system. You'll never get a strong commitment from big guys like DELL. They're too wo…

We need an Apple that peddles Linux systems is what it boils down to. Someone needs to swoop in, add sexy branding, make it attractive to hipsters/teenagers/some other trend-setting crowd, and everything would work out just fine. The Mac/Apple fad is all about style and message. We need a company that will add style and message, that will make simple choices available to consumers (Apple has only a few different cons…

I really disagree with this.

I'm a developer, I spend 90% of my computing time in Vim and Terminal. I use a Macbook as my primary computer, and tend to bring it to work with me. I try to go to Linux probably twice a year, and have for a long time.

I use a mac because despite the tools I use being written originally for Linux, they work better on OS X. I've never neen unable to connect to a wireless network, I've never had problems with sleep/suspend, I've never even thought about upgrading the kernel. The things I need to do to the system, I can, and everything else works so well that I can forget it's there.

The Mac/Apple fad is all about things actually working. Windows crashes, Linux makes you think too hard about things that you're not doing. When things work, they're sexy, and that's how you can sell it to the masses, but the Zune is sexy too, and see how well pure style sells.

Re: Ubuntu introduces new theme and branding

#70

Post by randallsquared »

arohner wrote: post #49
randallsquared wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package management is really useful for servers, or other systems where there's a bunch of dependencies. Desktop apps hardly need it, and OSX apps in particular don't need it. The combination of the drag-to-applications-folder installing and checking for new updates to the app when you launch it solves the vast majority of this problem for the vast majority of users.

You're absolutely right, but as a developer, package management makes a significantly more pleasant experience. I also really hate how every OSX app has it's own way of doing updates. Even if the OSX makes desktop apps not need dependencies, it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.

"As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day."

Ubuntu is essentially the same in that; some weeks I come home from work to see the "Update Manager" floating in the background two or three times. :)

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