New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds • Hacker News Board

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#51

Post by technomancy » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:06 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #33

kiwidrew wrote: post #31

I've just updated to the 11.10 beta2, and my experience so far has not been promising. My main gripe (as expected) is that the Unity desktop is the only option now; while it is possible to install GNOME 3 and use that, it lacks the polish of 11.04's GNOME desktop and is clearly in an unfinished state. As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web brows…

You can, of course, install Gnome 2, yes?

Not anymore. The top options IMO are Gnome 3 (which is similar to Unity in that it's a fairly audacious step away from classic desktops; and still more polished than Unity in my experience) and XFCE, which does a great job of providing a more classic feel without giving up the customizability of Gnome 2.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#52

Post by technomancy » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:09 PM UTC

kiwidrew wrote: post #31

I've just updated to the 11.10 beta2, and my experience so far has not been promising. My main gripe (as expected) is that the Unity desktop is the only option now; while it is possible to install GNOME 3 and use that, it lacks the polish of 11.04's GNOME desktop and is clearly in an unfinished state. As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web brows…

> As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web browser and three terminal windows

I hesitate to defend Unity, but why would you open multiple terminal windows? gnome-terminal supports tabs natively, and tmux offers an even better multiplexing solution that works with any terminal emulator.

> I'm unfortunately committed at this point

I assume you mean you're committed to Oneric, but you can stay on Oneric without sticking with Unity. Gnome 3 and XFCE are both viable options that feel a lot more finished than Unity.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#53

Post by viraptor » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:10 PM UTC

snowwindwaves wrote: post #36

I'm still on 8.04. Ubuntu moves too fast for me, and seems to always break something that used to work. The next time I visit any of the machines for which I am responsible for care & feeding I am installing red hat or centos. 7 year support cycle!

Why not debian? You get both the stable release supported for years to come and lots of packages. In my experience most of the needed apps are in the repository and don't need hunting down on third-party sites like with centos/rhel. On top of that you don't get silly things like ancient kernel with hundreds of patches which makes it incompatible with almost anything you need to compile as a module (depends on your hardware of course)

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#54

Post by davidandgoliath » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:19 PM UTC

Debian, debian, debian: http://debian.org Do it -- you won't regret it :)

Ubuntu is turning into such a mess.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#55

Post by andyking » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #48

andyking wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use 10.04 LTS on work machines (by which I mean, machines at my workplace) simply because things stay the same on it and I'm not going to get calls saying "this huge colourful bar has appeared on the left of my screen, what on earth is it, and furthermore where on earth is my Thunderbird menu bar?". We have a lot of older users who are not especially computer-literate, so an interface that doesn't change is valuabl…

A desktop based on Cent OS or Scientific Linux springs to mind. Support measured in semi-decades... should see your hardware (and possibly users) out. Now, Sir, Just what do you call 'older'?

Isn't CentOS more designed for servers? I'm not sure. I've considered Debian Squeeze, but it's one of those things I've never got round to looking at in enough depth.

Our older users are in their 60s and 70s. We're a non profit radio station and several of our volunteers have never used a computer before, or have had only a passing involvement with them.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#56

Post by drivebyacct2 » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:37 PM UTC

kiwidrew wrote: post #31

I've just updated to the 11.10 beta2, and my experience so far has not been promising. My main gripe (as expected) is that the Unity desktop is the only option now; while it is possible to install GNOME 3 and use that, it lacks the polish of 11.04's GNOME desktop and is clearly in an unfinished state. As a developer, Unity's handling of multiple terminal windows is extraordinarily ham-fisted. Say you have a web brows…

How is gnome-shell in ubuntu (11.10) deficient? It is perfectly functional for me.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#57

Post by drivebyacct2 » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:40 PM UTC

DAE not have any issues with non-Unity Ubuntu? Hell even in 11.10 they seem to have fixed the critical Unity/compiz invis-window bug. Minus window behaviors that people aren't used to and the knee jerk reaction to the unity-launcher (learn the shortcuts, it's fast to use!) I have nothing but pleasant experiences. I've found actually gnome-shell to be pleasantly minimal and usable too.

That all having been said, it's really, really hard to beat the simplicity of Cardapio and Docky[1]. I feel very comfortable here.

Now, if we could just fix the font debacle that is Linux. [2]

[1] Caradpio+docky http://i.minus.com/iA94EsbEeR2fz.png

[2] Note how the menus are different here in each application. http://i.imgur.com/ER4pR.png (Firefox, native gnome-terminal, qt VLC)

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#58

Post by tedjdziuba » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 9:48 PM UTC

As long as xmonad is still in the repo, do whatever you guys want.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#59

Post by rbanffy » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 10:15 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #42

rbanffy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and not a single link to any meaningful information How hard is it to type "ubuntu" in your browser? It's a countdown.

"ubuntu" tells me the location of the countdown and not much more. It doesn't tell me what is going to happen in this new release, why they're making a fuss, why I should care.

> It doesn't tell me what is going to happen in this new release

Even without any other information about it, it's safe to assume new and current versions of everything.

> why they're making a fuss

Because they are launching a new version in 9 days.

> why I should care.

That's one question only you can possibly answer.

Re: New Ubuntu in 9 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds

#60

Post by earthviaradio » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 10:44 PM UTC

This thread reminds me of an old slashdot post about the original ipod... Ubuntu is investing in a better Linux desktop experience and they've been doing that successfully for quite a while now.

Unity is new and it's probably going to take a while to work out the kinks. I'm very pleased that Ubuntu is looking to move past the GNOME vs KDE paradigm that has dominated Linux desktop development for the past decade. I think they will be successful in Unity.

I was really impressed with 11.04 when I installed it. About 2 hours later when I had to do some real work it was less useful and I started using Xubuntu instead but I'm confident that they will get it right because they have made it a priority and they are trying something different.