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

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

#71

Post by okasaki »

jdub wrote: post #42
okasaki wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should be noted that compared to Unity, GNOME 3 is an even more extreme variant of the phone/netbook UI.

That was never the objective, nor the result. It's just an ill-informed meme.

I don't know which idea is worse,

(1) that they forced desktop users on a phone UI intentionally

(2) or that they weren't trying to make a phone UI but somehow ended up with the gross garbage that is GNOME 3+ anyway.

Either way GNOME 3+ stinks.

Even the GNOME developers had to concede and offer the alternative GNOME flashback (https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback), which looks like GNOME 2 (but not customizable). Given how intransigent they are usually, the push-back must have been enormous.

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

#73

Post by dm319 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #13
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…

> 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)

There was a several year hiatus between end of gnome 2 and beginning of mate, and even longer (a year or two) before mate was solid. During this time I remember a lot of attempts at gnome 2 replacement (fallback, flashback etc) and people jumping ship to xfce. I spent a while on ubuntu 10.04 LTS beyond security support then crunchbang before hearing of the mate project, then moved to linux mint and ubuntumate, which is where I've stayed. Those years were a bit disrupted and I stopped recommending linux to friends during that time.

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

#74

Post by boomboomsubban »

noisy_boy wrote: post #64
rob74 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there ever been a good time for Linux on the desktop? I'm using Linux (Kubuntu) daily, and it works most of the time, but I still see some issues from time to time (multi-monitor strangeness, windows suddenly appearing without frames because kwin crashed, desktop wallpapers not being shown or being shown incorrectly etc.).

I would have disagreed with you except atleast once a day (usually more), my monitors go blank and once the display is back after few seconds, all the windows get shoved to the smaller monitor on the right, all resized to the monitor size. I move the windows again one by one to the main monitor, resize them to how they were and curse NVIDIA while praying that this doesn't happen again too soon. Even changed from Pop!…

>my monitors go blank and once the display is back after few seconds,

Are you sure you aren't having power issues? I had similar problems I think I fixed with randr, but a UPS for your monitors might be a better choice. Never daily though, more storm based or once every few months.

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

#75

Post by forgotpwd16 »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #20

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-li…

That Canonical designed Unity to be convergent (functional to both mobile and desktop) doesn't mean it wasn't a superb desktop environment.

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

#76

Post by brnt »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #20

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-li…

The make or break moment for Unity was Canonicals failed crowd-source campaign for their phone. Work on Unity 8 was underway and would have succeeded Unity 7, and would have been the DE for both their phone and desktop.

With the end of the campaign, it seems like all their desktop efforts ended too, and they shifted focus to servers, snap, snap-stores.

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

#77

Post by simion314 »

red_admiral wrote: post #43
simion314 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that at one point Canonical had done real user testing, bringing people to use stuff and watching them struggling. Big difference vs the other DE that they use now where some big ego dude instinct determines what is removed or changed for the sake of brand identity or futuristic design.

Was that user testing on new users, or experienced ones? There's a big difference between how to make the onboarding as easy as possible for someone who's never used your system before, vs making it efficient to use for power users. The former gets you Ribbon UI and similar - which is really really good at that - but it means that people like me get annoyed when something they have to do 50 times a day now takes 3 cl…

I think there wee people that used computers before, user testing will usually identify situation you describe where doing a task takes too many clicks.

My issue is with big ego people, they use the excuse of casual user to impose their views, I have a KDE example too (so GNOME users can stop downvoting this without any comment explaining why) , on KDE4 the big ego dude added a thing in the corner, "the cashew". the users asked for an option to hide the ugly thing but the dude refused to add an option, he refused patches,.

Now some people will say that we the users do not understand that adding options is adding complexity but this is not the case here and in the end KDE removed it https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/kde-kills-desktop-toolbo... probably after the big ego dude left. This is not the only KDE example, t was the same with scrolling on some widgets, options to disable it was refused by same dude. No user testing, no group of people thinking about it, just one big ego person thinking that because he read half of a book he is a big visionary.

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

#78

Post by worble »

thriftwy wrote: post #30
okasaki wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should be noted that compared to Unity, GNOME 3 is an even more extreme variant of the phone/netbook UI.

I'm wondering why more people are not using KDE. It is a honest desktop environment which does not try to pretend phone/netbook or parrot Mac OS X. Many of KDE apps are the best in a given category. Konsole certainly is.

I'm basically on KDE for one reason, and that reason is dolphin. No other file manager even comes close in my opinion.

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

#79

Post by dm319 »

threatripper wrote: post #37
reidrac wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

> 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) The GNOME redesign. The old 2D GNOME was OK. It was functional, stable and pretty (for someone who thinks that Windows 3.11 style is a good fit for a work environment). Then the old software was abandoned and the update was pushed onto users. KDE also had a transition disaste…

That period I stopped recommending linux to friends as I felt burned by the experience of losing gnome 2. I remember going from ubuntu 10.04 beyond support, to xfce, gnome fallback, gnome flashback, linux mint cinnamon, crunchbang (stayed a while), linux mint mate then ubuntuMate, where I've been for several years now.

I'd say UbuntuMATE is functional, boring and pretty, and frankly should be the modern standard for a work environment linux.

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

#80

Post by nothatscool »

Unity’s global menu system was wonderful and once getting used to how well it used vertical space switching to gnome was like going back 10 years. Seeing multiple empty bars across the screen makes it completely unusable to me not to mention their need to replace simple menus with seemingly random icons scattered everywhere. I’m using kde plasma now with a global menu set up. It’s good but isn’t as hassle free as Unity was.

I’m really sad that canonical abandoned Unity. It was so easy to use and was really easy to recommend to people. I think it was a case of an extremely loud minority who weren’t even using it that contributed to canonical abandoning it.

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