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Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

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11–20 of 297 posts

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#11

I'm on Ubuntu 18.04 (upgraded from 16.04) and I'm still using Unity. Technically Unity is not gone, but it's no longer a default, Gnome is. I've tried Gnome and was very disappointed. No global menu integration which means losing useful screen space for no good reason. Tray icons somehow look squished and ragged. No fractional scaling is a massive issue for me since I'm working with dual 27 inch 4K displays. Tray bar…

Gnome Shell is about extensions, you want something to work differently - find a suitable plugin or write it.

Except when they break horribly. Some of them modifies gsettings directly, so even if you remove it, you still have to clean them up manually.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#12
post #5

I've been trying to find out whether Ubuntu 18.04 still supports the gnome-flashback package. I've tried to install it via apt-get in a virtual machine but then there was no option to select it as my session after a reboot. Does anyone know more about this by any chance?

Wouldn't cinnamon help? I know it's a bit of an overkill, but it's a gentler entry to the gnome3 world.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#13
I'm on 17.10, installed it with GNOME and went back to Unity after a few hours. I was not a fan of Unity when it was released, but i guess it grew on me. Using GNOME again just didn't feel right. And screen recording was broken, if they fixed that then I may give it another go after upgrade.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnome Shell is about extensions, you want something to work differently - find a suitable plugin or write it.

Except when they break horribly. Some of them modifies gsettings directly, so even if you remove it, you still have to clean them up manually.

Exactly. I had setup some dock extensions before Ubuntu went back to gnome and I'm stuck with it now, can't seem to be able to switch back. Deactivating / uninstalling said extension didn't work. I uninstalled it years after installing so probably the settings changed name or something.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#15

I'm on Ubuntu 18.04 (upgraded from 16.04) and I'm still using Unity. Technically Unity is not gone, but it's no longer a default, Gnome is. I've tried Gnome and was very disappointed. No global menu integration which means losing useful screen space for no good reason. Tray icons somehow look squished and ragged. No fractional scaling is a massive issue for me since I'm working with dual 27 inch 4K displays. Tray bar…

This. Lack of fractional scaling is a big deal. I have 15" Full HD screen on my laptop, and everything is too small without fractional scaling (I prefer to have it set at 1.125/1.25).

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#18
post #9

Unity was one of the reasons I switched away from Ubuntu. It may be time to try Ubuntu again :D

It's always been possible to run the window manager of your choice on Ubuntu, as it is the case on all Linuxen.

But they didn't spend the time to keep GNOME up to date or make sure it was well integrated. Now that it's the default again, it gets more attention.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#19
There's really only one reason I do use GNOME Shell: the Pidgin IM integration and Panel OSD extensions popup a pidgin notification in the center screen where I can reply back to it inline without having to switch to the desktop where pidgin is running (or switch to the active pidgin window even if it's running on the other monitor with the static desktop). I do so much communication with various people throughout the day (using protocols supported by Pidgin) that this saves me a whole heck of a lot of time. I just wish it was available for other desktops.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better

#20
Since 20+ years ago I used decent window managers that let me have a 2x2 workspace. VERY simple to use. Moving the mouse works within a workspace and the same way across workspaces (mouse off any edge).

Moving windows worked within workspaces (click, drag, drop) same as across workspaces (click, drag, drop).

Basically the principal of least surprise. Moving the mouse and clicking shouldn't have special rules across workspaces unrelated to the rules of working within a workspace.

So basically you could basically intuitively work on a space much larger than your screen without having to think about it.

Ubuntu 18.04 forces vertical workspaces (so 1x4). In the dual monitor config it only moves the left monitor across desktops. And moving windows between workspaces is a nightmare. Step one is move the mouse to the top left corner and click activities to expose. Step 2 displays all your windows as tiny icons, 2/3rd of your screen is just the background, so they aren't much bigger then icons, and theor position once exposed is unrelated to the original position. So now you have to refind your window, then drop it into one of the workspaces. But you can't watch or tell where it lands. So then you have to switch workspaces and refind that window.

Quite the pain compared to 16.04 (or any decent window manager since olvwm 20+ years ago) it's just drag and drop.

Additionally there's no spatial relationship. So a window that's off your top edge of your workspace doesn't show up in the workspace above yours. It's basically just 4 unrelated workspaces. They also prevent wrap around, so you can't go from 1 to 4, but have to visit 2 and 3 first.

Reminds me of the first hacks to OSX and Windows to get more than one desktop. Linux folks figured this out 20+ years ago with olvwm, ctwm, and many others.

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