Why hasn't Canonical hired a designer to modernize the UI? Surely they can afford it. Is it a point of pride for it to remain outdated? I guess that's a feature from the POV of the primary Ubuntu target demo?
Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
191–200 of 297 posts
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#192After updating to 18.04, local DNS no longer works on this machine. It worked before. It seems that the systemd "stub" resolver isn't failing over to the LAN DNS server specified by DHCP. resolve.conf is just a single reference to systemd-resolved. It seems systemd-resolved knows about the LAN DNS server: $ systemd-resolve --status | head -4 Global DNS Servers: 192.168.88.1 It's not using it though: $ nslookup laser…
It's one of many questionable design decisions in the systemd project, in my view. The other one that I really dislike is the entire logging system moving away from plain text files toward binary journals and complex commands to view them.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should the desktop metaphor be constrained to “just a folder with a background set to grid view” though? Phones are already far ahead of most desktops by having widgets. Perhaps we’ll see innovation in the area of desktop UIs from Gnome when they get the next generation in place.
We tried widgets on the desktop: both macOS and Windows had them in previous versions, announced to great fanfare. Nobody used them and they were quietly removed. Same thing with notification centers: another thing that both Mac and Windows added assuming it would be just as vital on the desktop as it was on phones. AFAICT they see very little use; I can't remember the last time I opened the notification center on ei…
The usefulness of the notification center depends on the applications you run, I think. I recall putting a lot of work into 3rd party notification centers ages ago on PCs that didn't have a system one.
Certainly I use the PC one enough that I have the keyboard shortcut memorized and use it a bunch (Win+A). Interestingly, I find I often need it most in games, as the Windows version of the Xbox Guide, the Game Guide Bar, (even with the improvements in the recent April release), doesn't make it as easy to interact with things like Party Chat and Game Invite notifications as the Xbox Guide does on the Xbox One (where the Guide doubles as the Notification Center).
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#194Without sounding too negative, I understand that this is a lot of work but I simply don't understand why Linux desktops, let it be Gnome, Unity, KDE or anything else always looks like a bunch of developers try to master usability.
right? Most DEs offer solutions to problems that simply don't exist. Take the launchbar on the left-hand side for instance. Being able to launch apps quickly is handy. But why waste valuable screen space for it? A simple launcher that can be activated with a keyboard shortcut is enough imho.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#195For people like me that need updated drivers for hardware reasons and really don't want to deal with a new UI, there is always the option of newer kernels.
I personally use this method, which is easy to use, upgrades automatically via the normal apt mechanism, and has never once failed me.
https://askubuntu.com/a/236458/498460
I'm on the `hwe-16.04-edge` kernels, and they've been great for me, although the `hwe-16.04` kernels are still kept up to date quite well.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#196Anyone else use a tiling window manager like i3wm? https://i3wm.org/ Since I mostly work in the terminal, it improves my productivity quite a bit when I can navigate around and open apps without touching the mouse.
I love i3. It's the only computer interface I have used where I feel like there is absolutely no friction between me and the applications I need to run.
I don't really have to make any modifications to the config either. I change the fonts to my liking and swap dmenu for rofi and I'm more or less good to go.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly my approach. Periodically I ask what are the advantages of an environment like Gnome that would make it worth it for me to put up with the resource usage. I haven't heard anything compelling yet.
Many years ago I used to use light weight window managers. I remember using icewm after I got fed up with enlightenment, but I think it was Fluxbox that I kept for a long time -- up until about 2010. However having access to things like a network manager to join wireless networks, a battery indicator, a volume control, etc is essential in today's world, which is why I now run a heavyweight xfce environment.
> However having access to things like a network manager to join wireless networks, a battery indicator, a volume control, etc is essential in today's world, which is why I now run a heavyweight xfce environment.
You don't need to run a full DE to have tray icons. I'm running i3 and the network manager applet + other tray items work just fine.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#198> Ubuntu has done a bit of tweaking so that you can actually put launchers, folders, and files on your desktop, which should be welcome news for many Ubuntu users. How long that will last is an open question, though, since GNOME just completely removed the code that made it possible for Canonical to enable this feature. I was curious about this and went spelunking for more information. https://community.ubuntu.com/t/…
Try Ubuntu Budgie, it's much more user-friendly.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#199After updating to 18.04, local DNS no longer works on this machine. It worked before. It seems that the systemd "stub" resolver isn't failing over to the LAN DNS server specified by DHCP. resolve.conf is just a single reference to systemd-resolved. It seems systemd-resolved knows about the LAN DNS server: $ systemd-resolve --status | head -4 Global DNS Servers: 192.168.88.1 It's not using it though: $ nslookup laser…
It's one of many questionable design decisions in the systemd project, in my view. The other one that I really dislike is the entire logging system moving away from plain text files toward binary journals and complex commands to view them.
I'm fairly neutral on having systemd handle DNS. It seems unnecessary, but I'm not an OS dev. I do strongly prefer text logs, which are still in use on the system under discussion.
Re: Ubuntu 18.04: Unity is gone, Gnome is back, and Ubuntu has never been better
#200Am I the only one who didn't hate Unity?
I wonder if it was an effect of people who didn't like it complained and threw hissy fits. Those that liked or didn't mind, didn't say anything.
So it _seemed_ as if everyone hated and they just had to replace it. I've observed that pattern happen with product features before. A customer chimes vocally that they hate something, another does etc. An issue is created, work starts, then a whole new wave of complain come later that "hey I did like that feature, why did you remove it".
Wonder how the decision was made, did they do a more formal survey or just went by the vocal critics on HN and other sites?
(Now having said that, I don't dislike the new interface, so not complaining about GNOME, just mainly interested in how the decision process worked).