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Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

theregister.com

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Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#11

Post by Nursie »

dleslie wrote: post #6
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Gnome2 was finally removed from Ubuntu, I tried Unity desktop for a while, didn't like it and installed Gnome3... ... ... ... and after an hour decided, that Unity is actually not that bad . Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse . Unnecessary waste of space on meaningless panels, unnecessarily revamped menus, etc. Just no. I didn't dive in this matter in detail, b…

Gnome3 and Unity drove me to use MATE, and though I give KDE, Gnome, and XFCE a shot every six months or so I still use MATE. AFAICT, for someone who prefers verbosity, purposeful display usage and textual clarity over all else, it doesn't get much better on the Linux desktop than MATE.

How is MATE these days? I switched to Xfce when the Gnome 3 debacle hit, and after spending about 10 minutes arranging things to look like Gnome 2, have never looked back.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#12

Post by reidrac »

KronisLV wrote: post #7

Unity just felt consistent, usable and boring - all qualities that I appreciate in a desktop environment, which is why some of my devices still use XFCE and there's almost nothing that I find lacking in that regard. Now, GNOME isn't necessarily bad either but it was still sad that Canonical moved on from developing Unity because it did set Ubuntu apart and by the time of the official migration away from it, was actua…

If I recall correctly, both GNOME and Unity shared rejection from a number of users (I don't know if that was large group or just very noisy), and an approach to community management that was basically if you don't like, go away.

In the early days, Unity was more usable than GNOME (could be my hardware, perhaps; apparently my nvidia drivers were buggy and I was told to change GPU), but back then Mark Shuttleworth wasn't the best PR person always starting flames on his blog.

At the end I got tired of the almost constant drama and gave up the new desktop trend and settled on XFCE (and I couldn't be happier).

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#13

Post by thaumasiotes »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #3
silisili wrote: post #2

That's exciting. I must be one of the few who actually liked Unity a lot, probably better than Gnome. From what I understand, a lot of the underlayment was 'hacky' and abandoned. While I don't like most NIH that Canonical does(snaps, upstart, mir), I really wish they'd have kept Unity.

When Gnome2 was finally removed from Ubuntu, I tried Unity desktop for a while, didn't like it and installed Gnome3... ... ... ... and after an hour decided, that Unity is actually not that bad . Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse . Unnecessary waste of space on meaningless panels, unnecessarily revamped menus, etc. Just no. I didn't dive in this matter in detail, b…

> When Gnome2 was finally removed from Ubuntu, I tried Unity desktop for a while, didn't like it and installed Gnome3...

Gnome 3 was never known as an improvement over Gnome 2. But didn't Gnome 2 continue as MATE? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_(software)

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#14

Post by nikodunk »

rtpg wrote: post #10
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Gnome2 was finally removed from Ubuntu, I tried Unity desktop for a while, didn't like it and installed Gnome3... ... ... ... and after an hour decided, that Unity is actually not that bad . Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse . Unnecessary waste of space on meaningless panels, unnecessarily revamped menus, etc. Just no. I didn't dive in this matter in detail, b…

It might be worth trying gnome 3 again, and opening gnome tweaks. There’s a couple size settings that makes stuff feel good. I have moved onto KDE and honestly KDE is way less smart about screen real estate (it makes up for it in functionality fortunately)

Agreed - def worth trying again. Gnome 3.x was what - Windows Vista era? I switched back to Gnome after the 4x series was released a year or two ago. A bunch has changed for the better.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#15

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

Nursie wrote: post #11
dleslie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnome3 and Unity drove me to use MATE, and though I give KDE, Gnome, and XFCE a shot every six months or so I still use MATE. AFAICT, for someone who prefers verbosity, purposeful display usage and textual clarity over all else, it doesn't get much better on the Linux desktop than MATE.

How is MATE these days? I switched to Xfce when the Gnome 3 debacle hit, and after spending about 10 minutes arranging things to look like Gnome 2, have never looked back.

It's a nice Gnome 2 experience. If you're set up with Xfce there's little reason to switch, but if you want to go Gnome 3 -> Gnome 2 then MATE is the best option imo.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#16

Post by antman »

I remember what happened I think. There was a thread here on HN a few years back presenting something new Ubuntu Unity related and discussion developed about how Unity was bad. Someone from Ubuntu team saw the thread and said he did not know people hated it so much and they will look into into it/change it back to gnome? Apparently forgotten and I can't find the thread to verify the details!

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#17

Post by pjmlp »

silisili wrote: post #2

That's exciting. I must be one of the few who actually liked Unity a lot, probably better than Gnome. From what I understand, a lot of the underlayment was 'hacky' and abandoned. While I don't like most NIH that Canonical does(snaps, upstart, mir), I really wish they'd have kept Unity.

Unity fan as well, nowadays I use XFCE on my surviving Linux netbook.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#18

Post by skocznymroczny »

I used to dislike Unity when it came out. I thought it's weird with the global menu, close button in the top-left corner and other ideas. However, after using macOS for a longer period of time, I got used to these ideas and actually prefer them nowadays. After that Unity became one of my favorite desktop environments.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#20

Post by littlecranky67 »

To provide some historic context: Unity was released in times when there was this "Netbook" trend, started by Asus EeePC with 7" display, followed by a lot of other cheap Netbooks in the 7"-10" display category. Additionally, Canonical pushed to become a mobile/smartphone OS vendor. These constrained display sizes were some of the main factors in the UX design of Unity. Fast forward to today, Netbooks were a short-lived hype to be replaced with Ultrabooks (13" and up), and Canonical failed to become a mobile phone OS vendor and went back to Gnome as a default DE.
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