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Ubuntu 17.04 review

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#31

Post by 3pt14159 »

reacweb wrote: post #7
3pt14159 wrote: post #3

> While speed may be the single most important element of a UI, there is plenty about GNOME that is going to disappoint Unity users. The biggest gripe I have is keyboard shortcuts. Unity had them in spades. For as graphical as Unity is/was, it was also very easy to drive without taking your hands off the keyboard. GNOME lacks that level of shortcuts. Can we please fix this before the convergence? Muscle memory and Li…

what are all those shortcuts ? AFAIK, you can customize gnome easily.

I feel like I'm being asked to list all the shortcuts I use, which seems impossible and I've never used Gnome, so I don't know what it's missing. But off the top of my head the must haves are:

1. Open a new terminal and max screen it with focus in the prompt, not on the "window".

2. Move windows between workspaces.

3. Screenshot with copy to clipboard.

4. Disable "quit all" for applications on an application-by-application basis (I never want to nuke chrome, but I often want to close all finder windows).

5. When plugged into a monitor, move active application to the monitor and have it show up correctly. If it was maximized or full screen, make it maximized or full screen in the new context and make sure to handle different pixel resolutions correctly.

6. Fullscreen toggle.

7. Maxscreen toggle.

8. Paste from clipboard without formatting.

9. Make capslock an additional control.

10. Remap individual control keys and have them work in all contexts and in all ways resemble those keys (something that Unity doesn't do which drives me insane in Slack in the browser where I can't always copy and paste because Slack somehow knows capslock isn't a "real" control).

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#32

Post by romanovcode »

jamescostian wrote: post #18

I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple don't. For example, Canonical made a very brave decision to switch to Unity, and now they're having to move away from Unity, which hints that there were enough users against it, and they pushed Canonical into this position (along with Canonical trying to allo…

I guess it's because Unity is not a good product. It is slow and eats too much battery.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#33

Post by bad_user »

jamescostian wrote: post #18

I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple don't. For example, Canonical made a very brave decision to switch to Unity, and now they're having to move away from Unity, which hints that there were enough users against it, and they pushed Canonical into this position (along with Canonical trying to allo…

> which hints that there were enough users against it

I'm pretty sure those users are a vocal minority.

Personally I loved Unity. The only thing I disliked about Unity and Ubuntu's UI in general is the lack of configuration options, having to install extra buggy configuration managers to do really basic stuff, like turning Caps Lock into Ctrl. But that's a problem with the whole Gnome ecosystem and not Unity.

And Unity I loved, because it has pretty good keyboard shortcuts, is space efficient and generally worked for me just fine out of the box.

Going back to why Canonical dropped it, I'm pretty sure that's because they are giving up on the Linux desktop in general.

As for the comparison with Apple, dude, you're comparing David and Goliath, except this is the real world.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#35

Post by Jedd »

jamescostian wrote: post #18

I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple don't. For example, Canonical made a very brave decision to switch to Unity, and now they're having to move away from Unity, which hints that there were enough users against it, and they pushed Canonical into this position (along with Canonical trying to allo…

There was a lovely TV show from the UK back in the 1980's called Yes Prime Minister - one of the frequent exchanges between the senior public servant, and the PM, when the former wanted the latter to back down on something, was for the phrase 'That's very brave of you ...' to be uttered. Brave does not necessarily imply profound, good, worthwhile, etc. Canonical's 'brave decision' to go out and create their own DE (despite two very competent options already existing) does not imply it was a good decision.

> When Apple makes a "pro" laptop without any USB A ports, people laugh, but then buy it.

This is the classic mixup of 'people'. The people that scoffed at a laptop with a single USB port (or a phone without a headphone jack, etc etc) are NOT the same people that bought those items.

> When Ubuntu makes a phone, Ubuntu regrets it.

The proverbial 800lb gorilla made a phone, and also regretted it. There are plenty of propositions explaining why two mobile phone platforms were all that the market could sustain.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#36

Post by Jedd »

hacksonx wrote: post #34

I might start using Ubuntu pure again. I honestly never understood the switch to this interface on desktop. Microsoft tried it on Windows 8 and failed.

Please to be defining 'failed'.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#37

Post by apatters »

As someone who uses Ubuntu on both desktop and server here are my concerns about Ubuntu and Canonical at this stage. I think Ubuntu is awesome and has done huge things for Linux, particularly on the desktop.

A) Canonical's R&D investment is shifting from desktop components to server components. On the one hand I'm sure the server version will get even better which is great. But it's hard to imagine how this could translate to a win for Ubuntu desktop users.

B) Bug #1 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1) was closed a while back with a rationale that I thought was redefining the truth a little bit. Canonical's new direction probably makes it even less likely that bug #1 will ever be reopened. Again hard to see how this translates to a win for Ubuntu desktop.

C) I know that at some point Ubuntu is moving to Wayland as well. I am concerned that this change will break things that are important to me -- for instance I use xmonad and it doesn't work under Wayland.

I get 100% that Canonical needs to make money, and it seems no one's ever figured out how to do that with desktop Linux unfortunately. I just can't help but feel we are losing the biggest champion for the Linux desktop here and am concerned about its future.

If things get bad enough (for instance if they move to Wayland and there's still no xmonad port) I would probably switch to Bunsen Labs or some other form of Debian but I would miss losing the confidence Ubuntu gave me that things would just work. Even if I do have to sign off and leave Ubuntu I will do it with a huge /salute in their direction for having created the OS that was good enough to enable me to make the switch to a free desktop.

I hope Canonical succeeds with their new focus. But I have a feeling an opportunity is going to open up for someone else to become the #1 desktop distro.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#38

Post by duiker101 »

jamescostian wrote: post #18

I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple don't. For example, Canonical made a very brave decision to switch to Unity, and now they're having to move away from Unity, which hints that there were enough users against it, and they pushed Canonical into this position (along with Canonical trying to allo…

Because Apple has enough money to force his decision onto the user. It will take something extreme to make the regret anything.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#39

Post by s_kilk »

ralphc wrote: post #16
reacweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what are all those shortcuts ? AFAIK, you can customize gnome easily.

Alt-` cycles through the windows within one application, such as terminal or Chrome. Similar to what can be done on the Mac. I use it & hope Gnome can do the same.

It's exactly the same in Gnome. In fact, Gnome is better in that you can activate an extension which will change the behaviour of alt-tab so that it cycles through all windows.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#40

Post by kossae »

jamescostian wrote: post #18

I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple don't. For example, Canonical made a very brave decision to switch to Unity, and now they're having to move away from Unity, which hints that there were enough users against it, and they pushed Canonical into this position (along with Canonical trying to allo…

I would think it would be due to the sheer power differences of each organization. While I'm sure Canonical isn't strapped for cash, it's clear Apple is far larger of a company. The fact that Apple has built its user following, along with the huge number of nearly religious followers, against Ubuntu's (or Linux's, really) much smaller audience gives concessions to Apple to make moves such as this. If I had hundreds of billions in cash as a company, I'd feel much more comfortable making "deal with it" decisions affecting my users than if I were running a much smaller operation.
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