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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

#131

Post by noisy_boy »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #74
noisy_boy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is an interesting point - though no other devices are affected so it is unlikely that this is related to power.

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

#132

Post by noisy_boy »

kkfx wrote: post #92
noisy_boy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!…

I see this happening on few low-end machines (Intel core i3 integrated graphics and Celeron integrated one), not know the cause though...

I have a Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2 with i7 processor and NVIDIA Max-Q graphics so I think the issues common on low-end machines are unlikely to apply in this case.

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

#134

Post by bregma »

brnt wrote: post #76
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.

This is nowhere near the historical truth. The Ubuntu Edge (2013) had no effect on the Unity project or on the OS convergence project. Those were cancelled several years (2017) after the Ubuntu Edge as a result of a business decision to make the company more profitable for investors. There is zero money in desktop, and Canonical continues supporting Ubuntu only as enabling technology for their server and IoT product lines.

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

#135

Post by akagusu »

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…

As a company it made sense to develop their own desktop experience instead of relying on the default experience provided by Gnome, since the majority of developers in control of Gnome are Redhat employee or ex-employee or affiliated to Redhat in some way, and Redhat is their main competitor.

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

#137

Post by BirAdam »

nothatscool wrote: post #80

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 Uni…

I felt much the same way. The global menu also fixed the issue of people shoving menus into hamburgers that I hate. Unity additionally had their search feature that doubled as a run box which was awesome. Tap meta and type the application name and hit enter. Unity really maximalized productivity in my opinion. It’s a shame that Canoncial abandoned it, but being open source the community seems to have quietly continued.

Ultimately, I think Canonical just slowly realized that home users are going to cost money for everyone but Apple, while servers will make money. They shifted nearly all of their focus there and just package the same things everyone else does for desktop. Sadly, the one non-standard thing that they continue insisting on is Snap.

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

#138

Post by jimnotgym »

nothatscool wrote: post #80

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 Uni…

When Ubuntu moved to Gnome I remember getting so frustrated at how much screen space Gnome wasted that my old laptop became difficult to use. I gave up on the Linux desktop after that

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

#139

Post by ehvatum »

addicted wrote: post #82
okasaki wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 custom…

Lol, because Linux users are the biggest whiners on the planet. Almost no one appreciated Unity when it was around. All this nostalgia for it is just that. If Ubuntu switched to Unity tomorrow people would just start whining like mad about it. I bet Gnome Fladhback doesn’t even get 1% of the usage of actual Gnome.

> Lol, because Linux users are the biggest whiners on the planet.

Gnome is even more of a loser on FreeBSD.

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

#140

Post by cosmiccatnap »

I have never understood unity.

For all it's faults and annoyances I have never once considered gnome, kde, or even cinnamon inferior to unity.

People talk about it's consistancy in the comment section but as someone who has had to use different DE varients over the years, any features unity had a claim to fame for were implemented and then superseded by gnome a long time ago.

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