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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

#161

Post by lproven »

akho wrote: post #156
lproven wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Article author here] I am astonished at what a short memory HN has. The Ubuntu project manager did an "ask HN" post on what people wanted to see next. It is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002821 The result was fairly overwhelming: stop Unity, Mir, the mobile stuff, etc. So that is what happened. I personally feel it was a huge mistake. :shrug:

I opened that post. The top comment asks for mixed DPI, trackpad gestures, and better power management. I had to scan (and click the next page thing) quite a lot to get to something that looked vaguely critical of Unity (and even then it was "collaborate with Gnome more"). I wish they took the other suggestions as seriously… Unity was entirely pointless though.

Unity was not pointless.

The point was that Microsoft was threatening to sue any company distributing a Windows-like desktop Linux.

https://www.theregister.com/2006/11/20/microsoft_claims_linu...

SUSE signed a patent-sharing agreement; Red Hat and Canonical said no.

Both developed their own non-Windows-like desktops. RH sponsors GNOME, and many RH people worked on GNOME 3.

Canonical tried to get involved and was rebuffed. E.g. https://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/tag/gnome

So it rebuilt its existing "Netbook Launcher" as a general-purpose desktop.

MS didn't sue anyone in the end, but it got what it wanted: massive fragmentation in the Linux world, no harmony, lots of split and duplicated effort.

My analysis, from a decade ago, is here: https://www.theregister.com/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft_for_l...

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

#162

Post by losingom »

BirAdam wrote: post #137
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 continue…

>Sadly, the one non-standard thing that they continue insisting on is Snap.

Snap was and largely is mainly for the server crowd, that they've shoved into the desktop. So in that regard I suppose it's at least consistent for them. That said, snap is still terrible, but Canonical always just does their own thing.

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

#165

Post by diffeomorphism »

Veliladon wrote: post #127
jeroenhd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK GNOME doesn't really do desktop icons and the ones Ubuntu added were actually a GNOME extension. Ubuntu chose to bundle that extension so the burden on creating a unified experience should be on them.

> AFAIK GNOME doesn't really do desktop icons So the GNOME people are taking their inspiration from Windows 3.x?

Apparently so does every recent OS, e.g. Windows, Mac, ios, Android,.... . They all feature an app drawer/launcher/start menu quite prominently and that is always not the desktop.

Having one window of the files app always open, removing all window decorations and calling it "desktop" can be good, but I won't pretend that there isn't an overarching movement away from that.

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

#166

Post by wmf »

losingom wrote: post #162
BirAdam wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 continue…

>Sadly, the one non-standard thing that they continue insisting on is Snap. Snap was and largely is mainly for the server crowd, that they've shoved into the desktop. So in that regard I suppose it's at least consistent for them. That said, snap is still terrible, but Canonical always just does their own thing.

Docker won the server market years ago; Snap has no chance there.

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

#167

Post by diffeomorphism »

correct-opinion wrote: post #151

I have tried and still use different DEs, but for some time now Windows 10 DE is my favourite one. I think all others should just copy it, no need to reinvent the wheel.

Anything specifically you like about it? Tiling seems really limited, virtual desktops could still need more work, the search I have basically given up on (though "everything" is a kinda nice app for part of that), volume mixer widget is also very limited (e.g. see ear trumpet as an alternative), file manager still does not have tabs, network settings are convoluted (manual eduroam setup anyone?),...

Honestly, whenever I use windows it feels "okay" but I could not point at anything to say "oh, neat".

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

#168

Post by Shadonototra »

lproven wrote: post #106
Shadonototra wrote: post #68

Some day i'll sit down and port unity to arch linux, but damn i got too much stuff to do already..

It was done: https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch I have not tried it, but Rudra Saraswat's new Unity-like desktop, UnityX, is also available in an Arch version: https://9to5linux.com/you-can-now-install-the-unityx-desktop...

Yeap i saw that one, maybe that could be a good starting point

As for UnityX, i don't think starting from scratch is wise

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

#169

Post by Twirrim »

reidrac wrote: post #12
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 wa…

I didn't hate Unity, but it had a bug (for me, and clearly a bunch of others based on the launchpad bug traffic for the bug I filed) that persisted for the entire time Canonical owned it, that meant I couldn't use it.

I could repeat it very easily, just start the application using alt+f2 and use the keyboard to launch it (terminal, chrome, whatever). When triggered a window wouldn't be accessible over alt-tab. Was running, couldn't alt-tab to it. As someone that uses the keyboard a lot for navigation, it was a show-stopper. I have to be able to alt-tab between windows.

Eventually filed in 2012, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/951929 "Fix Released" but you know, still people reporting it later on in 16.04

In fact, even now, the number of "confirmed" bugs with long life on them on Launchpad is particularly disturbing, considering how many of them are fairly fundamentally impacting.

Like, say, https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/1126221. Filed 2013 by an at-the-time Canonical employee, confirmed in 14.xx and then 16.xx. If you had multiple displays, put a window on one and then disabled it, windows on the other screen get essentially stuck, can't be alt+tab'd to or anything.

Or https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1619563, hey I know, let's have two actions be on alt+tab. Switch windows, and close window! What could go wrong...

or https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/49579, reported 2006, still reported 16 years later. If you have menus like the Application open, the timed screen lock won't kick in.

Over and over and over, what could have been a really good desktop experience was crippled by stubbornly ignoring the bugs filed against it (at least, I assume ignoring because the number of times engineers would actually comment on the tickets seemed to be few and far between). Canonical repeatedly shot themselves in the foot by not nailing the basics: the environment has to work.

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

#170

Post by a1369209993 »

ttctciyf wrote: post #49

IMO, the lasting stability of a UI is a far greater factor in long-term user acceptance, satisfaction and facility than almost any breaking "improvements" that are imposed by developers - c.f. Firefox for a negative example. So, if you want to (re-)introduce a new desktop paradigm, give users a simple mechanism to choose to disagree.

> any breaking "improvements" that are imposed by developers - c.f. Firefox for a negative example.

Huh? Firefox hasn't released any improvements since 3.6 about a decade ago; I'm pretty sure they're dead.

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