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Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

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Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#151

Post by jiggy2011 »

gerggerg wrote: post #26

Canonical 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…

You think people will not switch to ubuntu because there is a "start" menu? Something that has been present in windows since 1995?

I've said this before, but there are bigger problems than the UI of the main desktop. I think gnome2 is a surprisingly usable desktop , I remember when it was an infact that it was slow and buggy but the hard work has paid off and overall it's one of my favorite UIs on any platform due to it's speed and flexibility.

I don't think learning gnome2 would be a big put off for many people anyway, since it's similar enough to Windows XP which more people have experience with than newer UIs anyway.

Imagine if the time and resources spent developing Unity had been spent instead on more thorough hardware testing, fixing remaining issues in gnome2 or creating new applications for users that would make a Linux desktop a compelling choice.

I don't see what unity does that helps me be able to recommend Ubuntu it to less technical family & friends.

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#152

Post by jiggy2011 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #111
mindslight wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Obviously, you're not the target user of Ubuntu, so there's no point in complaining. Ubuntu is not meant for people who want to edit grub/menu.lst by hand. There are plenty of other distributions for that.

The advantage of using Ubuntu even for "power users" is the level of support available.

Since it has such a large share of the Linux desktop market it's easy to find solutions for most of your common Ubuntu problems.

I don't really want to go back to the days when everyone used a different distribution where if you had an obscure problem and used google for a solution you would come to a page describing how to fix it in another distro with a completely different package management system and where the contents of /etc were completely different.

I remember posting questions on the forums of various distributions relating to problems I was having just seeing them go unreplied to in perpetuity.

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#153

Post by jiggy2011 »

bascule wrote: post #93

Desktop Linux users are flocking to a distro that looks like an uglier version of Windows 2000? "Tonight we're gonna GUI like it's 1999!" I guess if they had any aesthetic sense, they'd probably be switching to OS X...

To be fair , whilst it's not the most attractive distro out there it does have allot of usability improvements over Windows 2000. For example the compiz grid which provides the 'aero snap' type functionality of windows 7 as well as decent application search as well as applets etc. I think Windows Vista is probably closer than Windows 2000.

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#155

Post by dbbo »

I just check the stats on DistroWatch: http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

It's based on pageviews as I recall, but that's a decent metric for getting a feel for a distro's "buzz". The data suggest that Mint started to surpass Ubuntu nearly 6 months ago-- not 2 like this article's author implied.

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#156

Post by larrik »

oacgnol wrote: post #70
ChuckMcM wrote: post #56

Personally 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.

The old Gnome UI was about 2 clicks away on the login screen in 11.04 (unless you didn't have a password on your account, for some reason).

In 11.10, you can manually install gnome, and then you get gnome 3, which is certainly not what you wanted (and not necessarily an improvement over unity).

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#157

Post by [deleted] »

tooearly wrote: post #142
pyre wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unity was pushed out before it was ready. I think that this is the real rub here.

Unity was first released in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition. And that was based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix, first released in 8.04 (they didn't necessarily share code, but the design was similar). You would think that by 11.10, released a month ago, they would have something release-quality. I think it's just the design that people don't like. Canonical has the resources to fix bugs, but they don't necessarily have the des…

[deleted]

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#158

Post by pyre »

tooearly wrote: post #142
pyre wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unity was pushed out before it was ready. I think that this is the real rub here.

Unity was first released in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition. And that was based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix, first released in 8.04 (they didn't necessarily share code, but the design was similar). You would think that by 11.10, released a month ago, they would have something release-quality. I think it's just the design that people don't like. Canonical has the resources to fix bugs, but they don't necessarily have the des…

I don't have experience with 11.10 yet but I am running 11.04.

1) On a number of occassions the sidebar has entered a wedged state and required a logout tofix even though I tried to find a process to kill to force it to restart.

2) Often windows will pop to the fore-front but fail to capture focus and the previously focussed window will only have partial focus, where application level keyboard shortcuts are registered but window manager ones aren't. This mainly happens when running most windows full screen on my netbook.

3) Often the update manager window will pop up and enter some weird state whereit doesn't have focus, and it renders as if it's in fullscreen mode (no titlebar) but it's at the regular windowed size.

4) There is also the attempt to generate the osx MDI-esque interface, even though it's only hal-implemented. (from what I understand they have improved this in 11.10, but they should have waited, IMO)

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#159

Post by wyclif »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #151
gerggerg wrote: post #26

Canonical 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…

You think people will not switch to ubuntu because there is a "start" menu? Something that has been present in windows since 1995? I've said this before, but there are bigger problems than the UI of the main desktop. I think gnome2 is a surprisingly usable desktop , I remember when it was an infact that it was slow and buggy but the hard work has paid off and overall it's one of my favorite UIs on any platform due to…

Yep, for example my wife is a WinXP kind of girl and GNOME 2 is not a problem at all for her. Unity? That's a different thing altogether.

Re: Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

#160

Post by fredsanford »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #152
xyzzyz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, you're not the target user of Ubuntu, so there's no point in complaining. Ubuntu is not meant for people who want to edit grub/menu.lst by hand. There are plenty of other distributions for that.

The advantage of using Ubuntu even for "power users" is the level of support available. Since it has such a large share of the Linux desktop market it's easy to find solutions for most of your common Ubuntu problems. I don't really want to go back to the days when everyone used a different distribution where if you had an obscure problem and used google for a solution you would come to a page describing how to fix it…

How long will Ubuntu have this user base if they keep pissing people off? Is it that hard to give the users who want the old shell in its usable form what they want?

Benevolent Dictator is what Bill Gates somewhat pretended to be for years.

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