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A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

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Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#31

Post by Daishiman »

naner wrote: post #11

As a long-time Linux desktop user (but Ubuntu outsider) I have been watching this unfold for quite a while. I think that Mark Suttleworth is smitten by Apple and desperately wants to create a mostly free-software OSX-ish Linux distro. He copied the anchored menu bar, moved the window controls to the left, copied exposé, copied some elements of the OSX panel, tried to improve typography, etc. Some of these were actual…

It seems unfortunate to me that the Canonical designers didn't just start from the very functional, very slick Gnome 2.x releases and improved and polished them while keeping a stable base. Instead there seems to be a need to reinvent a usability paradigm that worked extremely well and gave users a lot of power while keeping a level of simplicity which, while higher than that of mobile interfaces, is in most ways appropiate for desktop interfaces.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#32

Post by kevinpet »

I think a lot of people are operating under the assumption that Ubuntu is supposed to be for power users. I've used Ubuntu for years, never paid them a dime, don't ever expect to pay them a dime. This makes me suspect that maybe I'm not the person they intend to make money off of.

Far more likely they want to cut in on corporate IT, where saving $50/seat in OS licensing and $100/seat in hardware adds up to real money.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#33

Post by yena »

digikata wrote: post #23
oinksoft wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should just be using Debian if they want a stable system with good package management with a large repository. Archlinux is very good, but its repository is tiny compared to Debian and I trust Debian package maintainers more than pretty much any other distribution. I'm happy to install the few packages I need up-to-date, like Firefox, manually.

I love Debian, but I wish I could find a distro that was Debian + pragmatic hardware driver packages. That was the original value proposition that Ubuntu provided.

Sounds like you should try Linux Mint Debian Edition. I've been using it since I gave up on Ubuntu 11.04

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#34

Post by bostonvaulter2 »

old-gregg wrote: post #27
goodside wrote: post #12

It's not reasonable to expect a design team to be able to function under the condition that whenever a user disagrees with the placement of a UI widget, they must either publicly justify their decision as being objectively correct or make the widget's position a user-configurable option. There is an enormous class of design problems that have several appealing solutions, one of which is better than the others, but no…

> Unity exists because every other Linux GUI has > fallen victim to this process That's very debatable. According to me, Gnome 2.3 is by far the best designed UX for a desktop operating system. Like most people, I generalize based on my own limited experience, and I have seen people grow up and learn how to use a computer in Gnome who were disgusted by Windows and OSX user interfaces. Like all animals, humans can be…

Do you know about the alt+` shortcut to switch between windows of an app? It's really nice.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#35

Post by old-gregg »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #34
old-gregg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unity exists because every other Linux GUI has > fallen victim to this process That's very debatable. According to me, Gnome 2.3 is by far the best designed UX for a desktop operating system. Like most people, I generalize based on my own limited experience, and I have seen people grow up and learn how to use a computer in Gnome who were disgusted by Windows and OSX user interfaces. Like all animals, humans can be…

Do you know about the alt+` shortcut to switch between windows of an app? It's really nice.

I do, BTW Unity/Gnome3 copied this kludge as well and they're proud of it. This is an equivalent of launching a new computer line which throws away SSDs in favour of punch cards.

See, "apps" made sense in the prehistoric times when single-threaded desktops with limited RAM were primarily used to do one thing at a time. But things changed. The concept of an "app" have not been making sense for a long time: you can run Gmail and Facebook in two browser windows (which together live in the same process) or you can have a single window (Chrome) launching one process per tab, or you can have a terminal with several processes running in different windows, or you can have a copy of Microsoft Word embedded inside of an Excel spreadsheet. Similarly you can have an iframe with embedded Google Maps inside of your Wordpress blog. So what's an "app" then?

Microsoft correctly recognized in early 90s that the concept of a "program" or an "app" was obsolete, and modern UI should be using "window", "document" or "folder". An app is just an implementation detail: you can have 3 apps involved in rendering a single document or drawing the same window. Early smartphones couldn't handle these tricks (like multi-tasking) well, so this temporarily reincarnated idea of the "app" came back from the grave, to be happily copied by Unity just because "iOS has them".

Boo.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#37

Post by angusgr »

technomancy wrote: post #19
annomination wrote: post #2

just install XFCE and don't worry about it. as long as the apt repositories are stable, let them play with their GUI and you can go back worry about something more interesting.

Yeah, we can all agree we hate Unity, but the constant complaining about it is disproportionate to the ease with which it's replaced.

I think this ease is somewhat offset by the extent to which Ubuntu are pushing it.

When I updated to 11.04 I tried Unity for about 3 hours, got annoyed by certain things hurting my work style (the all-workspaces Alt-Tab mentioned above being one), and logged out and back in via "Classic Ubuntu".

I felt no antipathy towards Ubuntu at this point, and I was impressed they were trying new things. They just weren't for me.

Then 11.10 came out, and immediately my machine starts bugging me to upgrade. Apparently when 11.04 came out Canonical had said that Classic wouldn't be available in 11.10, but I missed this.

The upgrade process doesn't prompt you about that fact at all - it just takes the GNOME configuration that you were using, uninstalls it, and gives you only Unity.

After trying Unity again (I would have felt good about the Ubuntu upgrade if any of the following had happened:

- Upgrade process had said "Please note the environment you are currently using (Ubuntu Classic) will not be available after you upgrade. You can install the gnome-panel package to re-enable it after you upgrade."

- Upgrade process had seen that I was already using Ubuntu Classic and didn't remove the gnome-panel package as part of the upgrade process, letting me keep the Ubuntu Classic after my system upgraded. How would that have hurt?

- (Best One) Upgrade process would have asked me "Would you like to try the new and improved Unity environment after you upgrade? If you change your mind later on, you can log back in as Ubuntu Classic" (alternatively, it could have said "install gnome-panel package and then log back in as Ubuntu Classic" if they couldn't bear to leave those packages installed.)

I agree that to some extent this is me whining like an indulgent nerd about an OS I got given for free, but it's also bad UX on the part of Ubuntu.

During a standard upgrade, your operating system shouldn't decide that the way you've been using it is wrong, and give you an unexpected and not immediately reversible transition to a different way of using it. That's hubris on the part of Canonical.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#38

Post by crag »

goodside wrote: post #12

It's not reasonable to expect a design team to be able to function under the condition that whenever a user disagrees with the placement of a UI widget, they must either publicly justify their decision as being objectively correct or make the widget's position a user-configurable option. There is an enormous class of design problems that have several appealing solutions, one of which is better than the others, but no…

"But the only way to avoid this one major failure mode is for Shuttleworth to ignore, as politely as possible, the complaints of his users."

The problem is Shuttlworth can't keep his mouth shut. Personal attacks only make the situation worse. He should take a page from Apple here - "keep your mouth shut" - and produce.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#39

Post by drivebyacct2 »

bhassel wrote: post #30
SkyMarshal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us who can't do that atm, what does it do?

I am guessing he is referring to this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/8147...

Yup, it's also (impossible?) extremely hard to close without login/logout. IIRC, a `killall nautilus` wasn't even sufficient.

A workaround is to use gnome-tweak to have nautilus not manage the desktop. I highly recommend it. As much as I don't like nautlius, I feel that it drawing the desktop is flat out archaic.

Re: A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

#40

Post by drivebyacct2 »

old-gregg wrote: post #35
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know about the alt+` shortcut to switch between windows of an app? It's really nice.

I do, BTW Unity/Gnome3 copied this kludge as well and they're proud of it. This is an equivalent of launching a new computer line which throws away SSDs in favour of punch cards. See, "apps" made sense in the prehistoric times when single-threaded desktops with limited RAM were primarily used to do one thing at a time. But things changed. The concept of an "app" have not been making sense for a long time: you can run…

You say this, as every major platform migrates towards apps. Windows 8: (huge push on becoming) app centric. Mac OS X: (becoming )app centric. Android: app centric. iOS: app centric. What OS isn't? Linux. (eh, edit, this really isn't fair. Linux is as "app-centric" as I need it, though the "linux is so secure" assumption is uh, going to become fallable as its competitors approach an app-centric, isolated model. (also, X doesn't protect apps against eavesdropping, etc). Also, Ubuntu's Software Center is making the experience at the least, app-like.)

I think in terms of apps. "I need to switch back to my browser". "Alt-tab". "I need to change windows in this app", "Alt-`". I guess owning a Mac got me prepared for it, but I love this new behavior in Gnome3.

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