A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

>A window representing one document will never switch to representing another. It will always open a new one.

Except for the Finder in its default configuration. (Opening a folder does not open a new window unless the user has changed the Finder using Finder > Preferences > General.)

But more importantly, the Dock is app-centric whereas the task bar in Gnome 2 and in Windows 95 through Window XP is window-centric. I can live with the Dock, but I'd rather have a task bar or more precisely a task bar plus a one-click way to open heavily-used apps such as is provided by both the Gnome Panel and the "panel" or "bar" at the bottom of Windows 95 through Windows XP.

I can't live with Apple's Expose as the normal way to switch between windows. (And Spotlight is too slow on my 2006 Macbook as a means to switch to or start apps). To switch between windows, I use OS X's facilities for app switching, and rely on every app having only one or two windows open. To switch between apps, I use the dock or I use a function key -- four of my function keys' having been bound (using Spark) to my most-heavily-used apps, namely Emacs, browser, IM client and Finder. I have not tried OS X Lion yet.

I definitely can't live with Spaces after having used the simple and sane workspaces of Gnome 2.

So I agree with old-gregg that these are areas where OS X is weak compared to Gnome 2 on Linux. (I prefer OS X overall though at least on laptops.)

ADDED. When I ran Gnome 2, it was no trouble to have ten terminal windows open. Since I started running OS X, I have worked around OS X's less capable window-management facilities by upgrading my Emacs skills so that instead of using terminal windows, I now use Emacs buffers to interact with shells and other "text-mode command-line" programs. (There's no problem having many Emacs buffers open at the same time, and I only ever have one Emacs window (or "frame" in Emacs terminology) open at a time.)

ADDED. Moreover, when I ran Gnome 2, it was no trouble to have 3 or 4 or more Firefox windows open. One thing that makes OS X a little more comfortable for me is that when I switched from Firefox to Chrome, I stopped having dozens of tabs open with the result that I am able to manage most of the time with only one browser window open. (Fewer tabs are required in Chrome because Chrome does not have Firefox's bug in which invoking the back button or the history menu frequently takes many seconds to complete.) In other words, I got by in OS X by rearranging my life so that I did not run any apps with a lot of windows open.

ADDED. None of these difference between Gnome 2 and OS X is a huge deal, but it does shed light on the quality of decision making at Canonical these days to note that they decided to transition from the Gnome 2 way to the OS X way in one of the few areas in which Gnome 2 is better. (Hmm, if Canonical switches to the OS X way of doing cut and paste, in which you have to press Command-C or Control-C to get the selection into the clipboard, that would be further evidence that they do not know what they are doing.)

Ah, that definitely makes a lot more sense. Coming from Debian, I'm used to just saying "apt-get install " and switching to it immediately, so the Xubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu thing always tripped me up--but I guess the point isn't that you could do it the way I'm used to, but that you can more easily just grab an ISO to default the way you like it.

Me, I usually just install a very basic Debian and pile crap on top as I go :)

That is an article from 2008 - hardly 'latest'.

As for Gimp itself: I must admit that I love it and love it a lot more than Photoshop. I use it to post-process the pictures that I take (example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/valanx/sets/72157627905845341/ ) and while I have no need for anything fancy, I have yet to find something that beats the speed of the Gimp.

Yes, Alt+c, adjust, Alt+i, s - you do have to get down to your keyboard if you want speed, but once you're fluent with that stuff, you just breeze through it. Put differently: The Gimp gets out of my way and provides just the functionality that I need. I love that.

Well I did also say that I was whining like an indulgent nerd about an OS I got given for free. Which pretty much sums up the characterisation you've given here, as well. ;)

I do see your point, I really do. My concern, and the part that I specifically labelled hubris - which in hindsight is a regrettable term - was neither the desire to make changes nor the desire to not maintain old configurations. Those things are understandable. When I tried Unity in 11.04 I was impressed that Canonical were working to advance the state of the art.

The part that irks me is when I try to imagine the assumptions behind the choices for the upgrade behaviour in 11.10. Users are proactively prompted to make that upgrade, and I perceive a disconnect between their expectations of a simple upgrade and the resulting user experience.

In the post above I mentioned some ways in which this could have been made much smoother (simply warning users that their entire desktop environment was about to change, for instance.)

Canonical doesn't have to answer a single thing to me for the operating system they worked hard to give me for free, but I still wonder why they chose that path.

It's not an issue just of figuring out what the user wants. It's figuring out what is not working for the user and why.

In general you can assume that what's not working for current users will not work for a large subset of future desired users.