I think people are looking at these operating systems the wrong way. In the past, Ubuntu was the easy to set up but hacker-friendly linux. Nowadays, they are transitioning to being more for OEMs and other devices. Linux Mint is simply coming in to fill the gap that Ubuntu is leaving as it transitions to other markets.
Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
61–70 of 194 posts
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#62What's wrong with sticking to an older version of Ubuntu - 11.04 or earlier where you're not forced to use Unity? That's what I do. And I get a lot more work done without having to worry with the latest shiny new toys in town.
What's wrong with selecting "Gnome" as a desktop rather than Unity when logging in? It's literally 2 clicks to change.
...and you get something entirely broken! Really, have you tried your own advice?
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#63Personally I found it a bit snarky. By the same token I find that UI wars are the most vitriolic, after all they are the way you talk to the machine day in and day out. Screwing with that, screws with everything. I have found Ubuntu's strategy interesting because it seemed clear that while KDE was following general guidelines around Microsoft OSes to be more accessible, and Gnome was following general guidelines arou…
I really like your phrase "drove off the road to a new place".
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#64I still can't understand why Canonical doesn't just put out a Gubuntu similar to Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc. That way, they can keep pushing Unity forward while making it reasonably easy for uses who prefer Gnome to choose that option. I know it's possible to get gnome running (I did it on my netbook, which is running 11.10 - my desktop is still on 10.10), but the method feels unnecessarily hacky.
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#65I primarily use OS X but just recently put Ununtu on a laptop. I was totally new to Limux and hated Unity. Unity would be absolutely awesome aside from 3 major flaws: * The dock won't auto hide until hovered over like in OS X. * I have to search for the app I want to use most of the time. There should just be a whole menu or list * The dock should be able to be moved different areas of the screen. I tried to get used…
I have to search for the app I want to use most of the time. There should just be a whole menu or list
Not sure if this is how your supposed to do it, but I just search for the program once from the dash home, then once it's open I right click on the icon and click keep in launcher.
The dock should be able to be moved different areas of the screen.
did you get the Compiz Config settings manager (sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager)? It has a bunch of settings for the dock (it's not fantastic but it helps).
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#66Canonical is genuinely trying to make linux the most user friendly it's ever been and make it ready for real mass adoption. It's not going to be easy and not everyone is going to like every change but you can't get so down on them for trying so hard. Saying the solution is to go backwards is the same as telling canonical to just stop trying all together. There's no point in stagnating and sticking with gnome. New use…
The problem, like everything Ubuntu, is that it may be 'user friendly' when everything works perfectly, but when you want to do something different or something fails, it's anything but. You're left fighting multiple levels of indirection, trying to figure out what the system is actually doing so you can fix it. Much of the indirection comes from Debian, but it seems Ubuntu finds a single use-case, and then builds more indirection on top of the Debian indirection.
Needing to download 5GB of intermediate packages to go from karmic -> oneiric one release at a time (way to ruin apt-get, guys), a weekend fighting remotely with what turned out to be nouveau (which given its hard locking a fresh install, shouldn't even be enabled by default), and Unity tonedeafness have signalled to me that it's time to move on.
I'm giving Arch a try, and it's refreshing that I can just edit /boot/grub/menu.lst without having to figure out the abstraction built on top to do things the "right way" (and avoid being overwritten). However, if Arch doesn't work out, I'm settled on straight up Debian. At least with Debian, the indirections actually get me something.
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#67Canonical is genuinely trying to make linux the most user friendly it's ever been and make it ready for real mass adoption. It's not going to be easy and not everyone is going to like every change but you can't get so down on them for trying so hard. Saying the solution is to go backwards is the same as telling canonical to just stop trying all together. There's no point in stagnating and sticking with gnome. New use…
All that being said; you can install gnome in ubuntu 11.10. You don't have to use unity. If it were this easy, nobody would be complaining. But as far as I can tell, Gnome Classic (without HW accel) is broken by default on Ubuntu 11.10, with the default Gnome Panel being entirely messed up. This wasn't the case in 11.04, which had a great fallback that I still use daily, and I think it's the reason the Unity complain…
If you install gnome-shell, everything works quite well.
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#68Canonical is genuinely trying to make linux the most user friendly it's ever been and make it ready for real mass adoption. It's not going to be easy and not everyone is going to like every change but you can't get so down on them for trying so hard. Saying the solution is to go backwards is the same as telling canonical to just stop trying all together. There's no point in stagnating and sticking with gnome. New use…
New users aren't going to switch to ubuntu because there's a start(or applications) menu. Perhaps, but one of the traditional excuses new users have given for not switching, or switching back after trying, is that Linux desktops are too different, even though they've traditionally not been all that different. Creating something unique, compared to tools users have used in the past, like Windows, isn't going to make p…
"being immediately productive is how the desktop UI/UX enters the background and becomes a facilitator rather than something that the user struggles with."
Yes, exactly. I want my interaction with the desktop to be like that with a prostitute: minimal, direct, clear, and without my having to know much at all about the other party. I don't want to have to beg and plead for the ability to alter the panel once a year on special occasions.
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#69There has been a huge incentive for operating systems to try to adapt to the laptops and smaller form-factors distancing themselves from the age-old desktop form-factor. We all have been affected by that push at some point. Ubuntu has been no different.
Ubuntu more than any other has tried a bit of everything. I've long settled on the Xfce version called Xubuntu. So after trying Unity for a couple of hours after installing the recent Ubuntu I could just install "xubuntu-desktop" and be done with it, back to my trusted experience.
Interestingly, many users seem to settle on the default experience and then feel cheated when it changes to something they don't like. Users coming from Windows found home in some version of Ubuntu. Then felt cheated when it changed some more.
Experienced users have all of this baggage, all the learning they have undergone... But the Linux distros namely Ubuntu want to try to make something for people who have barely used a computer, pushed by partners like Dell and so on.
Windows too has changed a lot throughout versions. The lucky ones kept on using Windows XP.
Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?
#70Personally I found it a bit snarky. By the same token I find that UI wars are the most vitriolic, after all they are the way you talk to the machine day in and day out. Screwing with that, screws with everything. I have found Ubuntu's strategy interesting because it seemed clear that while KDE was following general guidelines around Microsoft OSes to be more accessible, and Gnome was following general guidelines arou…
While I agree that Unity is the right step for Canonical to take with regards to Ubuntu, my main gripe is that they've taken away the old GNOME UI and has left us with no (easy) way to bring it back. This was my experience as of 11.04.