Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

insights.ubuntu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 470 posts

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#331

Post by pyre »

stinkytaco wrote: post #282
angry-hacker wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Wayland.. Wasn't it all because of phones and tablets?

Wayland solves a number of other problems than phones and laptops. It modernizes code left over from the dumb terminal world. It also should be pointed out that the dream is not dead. Another project (hopefully Gnome) can pick this up, so the effort isn't lost.

Which dream is not dead? Wayland? It's definitely not dead, as Wayland has both GNOME and Red Hat behind it. Ubuntu decided to roll their own (Mir) instead of also going with Wayland.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#332

Post by sampo »

unethical_ban wrote: post #231
Touche wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I live in an alternate universe? Do people really think this looks good? http://toastytech.com/guis/ubuntu114defaultunity.jpg

That's a 6 year old screenshot. They've made incremental improvements since... but yes, I've grown to appreciate it. The most annoying part of unity7's interface is its alt-tab function: It toggles between apps, not windows, and that's annoying.

Alt+` (or whatever key is above tab, if you have non-US keyboard) toggles between windows of the same app. I don't know if there is key combination to toggle between all windows, though.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#333

Post by pyre »

methodin wrote: post #325
AtticusTheGreat wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who applauds this pivot, I never saw much value in the whole convergence idea. Why would I want my laptop and phone to be the same device? This seems to follow the misguided idea in software that if two ideas are similar, just make a single generic idea that solves both problems. But then you get into leaky abstractions and have to make lots of sacrifices to get it working well for both use cases.

My phone is a computer. My chromebook is a screen attached to a computer. My desktop is a monitor attached to a computer. My work laptop is a screen attached to a computer. My tablet is a screen attached to a computer. Why do I need so many separate computers when I have my phone on me at all times?

Because your phone will never have the raw power that you can pack into a larger form factor? Granted, after a certain point this may only be relevant for specific tasks.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#334

Post by sampo »

stinkytaco wrote: post #283
ploxiln wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, there's a _lot_ of diversity out there in the linux "desktop" space, and most of the alternatives to Gnome and KDE are faster and less memory hungry. This is what I've always liked about linux. The UI/UX experts at Gnome/systemd say "linux is NOT about choice", but that's why I chose linux over a decade ago, for choice. If some part sucks for me, I can replace just that part. Anyway, consider Mat…

> The UI/UX experts at Gnome/systemd say "linux is NOT about choice", but that's why I chose linux over a decade ago, for choice. If some part sucks for me, I can replace just that part. I don't recall them saying this at all. In fact, I would argue that Gnome's pursuit of a novel interface is very much about choice. It's not like they firebombed the xfce and KDE projects and ran away with the fortune. They said, "th…

> I would argue that Gnome's pursuit of a novel interface is very much about choice.

As long as you don't try to choose e.g. vertical panels instead of the forced top panel.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#335

Post by avodonosov »

flukus wrote: post #293
avodonosov wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While interfaces should not be the same across devices, being able to dock you phone and continue using its applications on normal monitor of your desktop, with keyboard and mouse would be convenient. I mean when you walk it's a phone, when you at the desk, the same device is connected to monitor, keyboard and mouse.

But then each application is essentially 2 applications in one.

What I mean is that "convergence" benefit is not same UI on different devices out of pure whim, but the ability to use the same application from phone directly or using desktop monitor mouse and keyboard.

I don't mean the interfaces should actually be different. Just that "the same interface" is not the motivation by itself.

Unified interface would be good for that. If the interfaces are actually different, the app could be adopted automatically by its UI framework, or by "window manager", etc.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#336

Post by pyre »

xtracto wrote: post #252
unethical_ban wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a 6 year old screenshot. They've made incremental improvements since... but yes, I've grown to appreciate it. The most annoying part of unity7's interface is its alt-tab function: It toggles between apps, not windows, and that's annoying.

That's the same behaviour as OSX. At first I also hated this behaviour, coming form the Linux/Window environment. But after using it in conjunction with ALT+` (to cycle through app's Windows) I actually find it better than the standard Windows behaviour.

My biggest issue with the macOS way is that there are edge causes when using Spaces. The biggest being "stand-alone" Chrome apps like Signal Desktop are still tied to Chrome, even though they get their own icon and a separate place on the Dock. CMD-Tab'ing to Signal Desktop might just send me to a Chrome window. Ugh.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#337

Post by sampo »

ploxiln wrote: post #246
hd4 wrote: post #125

I'm one of the people who asked for less NIH in Ubuntu in the recent thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002821 but I didn't think they would take it this far. Jokes aside, it's sad that Unity won't be developed further. I'm one of the ones who loves Unity 7, it's always been faster and less memory hungry than GNOME or KDE for me. I will just have to cling onto the LTS for as long as possible. In the long-t…

For what it's worth, there's a _lot_ of diversity out there in the linux "desktop" space, and most of the alternatives to Gnome and KDE are faster and less memory hungry. This is what I've always liked about linux. The UI/UX experts at Gnome/systemd say "linux is NOT about choice", but that's why I chose linux over a decade ago, for choice. If some part sucks for me, I can replace just that part. Anyway, consider Mat…

> consider Mate, the forked continuation of Gnome 2.

I suggest Xfce. It does the Gnome 2 thing better than Gnome 2 ever did. The default colors, theme and background image look dated, though, but are easy to change.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#338

Post by mixmastamyk »

sambe wrote: post #41

Damn. Just been forced to switch to Mate at work and find it like living in the past. Lots of defaults seem ugly or unusable (hunting through menus for programs etc.).

The advanced menu responds to the windows key and you can start typing to search, if that's what you'd like.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#339

Post by flukus »

brendaningram wrote: post #314

Disclaimer: I don't use Gnome or Unity, I'm an i3 guy. I understand that choice in the Linux world is very important, but I also think that choice (taken to extremes) can be crippling. My opinion is that we have too many desktop environments, and too many distros. If we imagine a hypothetical scenario where in June 2010 Ubuntu committed to Gnome as the DE, imagine how much progress would have been made with Gnome in…

I think it's more about the way effort is split. i3 would be an example of good competition, it does something the others don't. Unity on the other hand, does it do anything that couldn't have been done by changing the default gnome configuration? Competition is good but replication is a waste.
Post reply on HN