Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

kumailht.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 112 posts

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#61

Post by technomancy »

supar wrote: post #34

I have experienced quite the opposite. A lot of colleagues that were once found of Ubuntu switched in flocks to other distros starting with Ubuntu Maverick. With Ubuntu 11, friends personally asked me how to switch back to the previous system, or to dump linux completely because the system got too slow with updates. And, sadly, that's true: the experience of the Ubuntu desktop, performance-wise, has degraded to the p…

What makes you think you don't have a choice? I'm running Ubuntu with xmonad, and before that was on xfce; it's super easy to switch. I will probably switch to Debian soon, but that has more to do with Ubuntu pushing nonfree software than Unity.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#62

Post by jiggy2011 »

rbanffy wrote: post #54
jiggy2011 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for one example: I use 2 large monitors to work with and run allot of applications at the same time. With gnome 2 I can put a seperate taskbar on each monitor and switch quickly between tasks with the keyboard or mouse. I also have another panel with buttons to launch my most common apps. Small amount of mouse movement and 1 click. With unity I have to drag the mouse right to the far left or my furthest left mon…

I use two monitors and I solved this problem by using multiple desktops. Every desktop has one of my "tasks". When I want to see what other window is doing, I move to that given desktop. This way, each desktop has one "context" - Emacs and a development server, a browser and another window to the same development server (screen is your friend), one with various "social" things - IM, Skype, IRC, Twitter - and others w…

This is an approach that could work for sure, but then you need to be disciplined and remember what is open on each desktop. I love the simplicity of just having a list of windows at the bottom of each monitor, requires no memory or keyboard shortcuts to switch between things.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#63

Post by fader »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #20
pg7 wrote: post #15

I am a geek and I like Unity. It's like emacs of the world of UI's. The first modern GUI you don't need to use a mouse to work with it. I find it very productive.

What do you use to work with it? I didn't try it for very long but I didn't find it especially conductive to keyboard use. Or are you referring to touchscreen usage? How many people are actually using multitouch with Ubuntu?

http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboar...

You can launch or switch to any of the first 10 applications on the launcher, resize/maximize/minimize a window, tile multiple windows, switch workspaces, or bring up the dash with a single keybinding for each. The only one of those I remember being able to do in GNOME 2 was switch workspaces.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#64

Post by dextorious »

burgerbrain wrote: post #55
dextorious wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""Who cares what everyone else is using?""" A lot of people. It's called "network effects": if more people use my OS of choice, I get more stuff for it, from support to applications to resources to see it develop faster. The real question is "who cares what YOU are using?". Why there always has to be one guy in every discussion of desktop Linux, going "I use it on my desktop just fine"? We don't care, and it's not w…

I care about what I am using, and he cares about what he is using. We don't care what they are using. Any of your arguments as to why we should would apply equally well to cars , but you never see people have that conversation.

"""I care about what I am using, and he cares about what he is using."""

So, by you own logic, nobody cares to read what you and he are using, except you and him respectively. Which was kind of, my point.

"""We don't care what they are using. """

Good for you. This thread is about adoption, though, and about caring about what they are using --and specifically whether Unity is good for mass Linux adoption.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#65

Post by jiggy2011 »

burgerbrain wrote: post #55
dextorious wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""Who cares what everyone else is using?""" A lot of people. It's called "network effects": if more people use my OS of choice, I get more stuff for it, from support to applications to resources to see it develop faster. The real question is "who cares what YOU are using?". Why there always has to be one guy in every discussion of desktop Linux, going "I use it on my desktop just fine"? We don't care, and it's not w…

I care about what I am using, and he cares about what he is using. We don't care what they are using. Any of your arguments as to why we should would apply equally well to cars , but you never see people have that conversation.

The car analogy doesn't work so well here because cars are far more interchangeable, although if you use a less popular type of car perhaps it is more difficult get parts for it for example.

The advantage of using a common OS is that other people have probably had the problems before you have , often on Linux I feel like I may the first person to experience a particular problem. More users = more software generally, cars don't require "extra" stuff that is designed for a specific car in order to do their job.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#66

Post by jeffdavis »

daliusd wrote: post #10

I consider myself power user. I am developer, I have experience with Windows, Mac OS X, BSD OSes and Linuxes. I have actually tried various desktop environments and WMs (including several tiling managers, I have used awesome WM for half a year). Overall I really love experimenting with software to the very deep level. I have tried Unity and I really like it. It is simple and it does what I need. It respects my screen…

"I really don't understand what other power users are missing."

With Unity, if I am on a workspace with no terminal, and I click on the terminal to open it, I am warped back to a workspace that already has a terminal open, and I have to open a new window from there, and move it back (with several more clicks) to the workspace I really want to be on. Much different than just clicking on the terminal icon, which worked before.

I'd like unity to work out, and if they could get past the awkwardness of task-switching and workspaces, then I'll go back to it. Maybe it would be best to just treat a new workspace as though there are no applications open at all, and if you want an application on another workspace you have to switch to that workspace first.

Also, it would be nice if I had a way to go directly to, say, the third instance of the terminal that I have open, rather than trying to choose it from a picture.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#67

Post by burgerbrain »

dextorious wrote: post #64
burgerbrain wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care about what I am using, and he cares about what he is using. We don't care what they are using. Any of your arguments as to why we should would apply equally well to cars , but you never see people have that conversation.

"""I care about what I am using, and he cares about what he is using.""" So, by you own logic, nobody cares to read what you and he are using, except you and him respectively. Which was kind of, my point . """We don't care what they are using. """ Good for you. This thread is about adoption, though, and about caring about what they are using --and specifically whether Unity is good for mass Linux adoption.

"So, by you own logic"

That is your logic, not my own. I care what he is writing because his perspective is similar to my own. I don't care what operating system he is using.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#68

Post by burgerbrain »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #65
burgerbrain wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care about what I am using, and he cares about what he is using. We don't care what they are using. Any of your arguments as to why we should would apply equally well to cars , but you never see people have that conversation.

The car analogy doesn't work so well here because cars are far more interchangeable, although if you use a less popular type of car perhaps it is more difficult get parts for it for example. The advantage of using a common OS is that other people have probably had the problems before you have , often on Linux I feel like I may the first person to experience a particular problem. More users = more software generally,…

In the vast majority of cases, computers (software and hardware) are quite generic. It is only the people with exotic cars and computer setups (Linux on the desktop for example) that have a concern.

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#69

Post by SoftwareMaven »

karterk wrote: post #21
arocks wrote: post #16

There are two reasons why an average person learns computers and uses a particular OS: * Even if it is not very intuitive, it is universally used (Windows) * Even if it is not universally used, it is intuitive (Mac OS) Linux is currently, IMHO, in the middle. This brings up a lot of issues from an average Joe's perspective: some hardware configurations do not work perfectly (especially laptops), time spent in learnin…

> Even if it is not universally used, it is intuitive (Mac OS) I often hear people saying that the Mac is intuitive. Is there actually proper proof for this?

I really like OS X, but I don't think it is. What I do think it is, though, is more consistent. Apple and almost all app providers do a pretty good job following the HIG[1].

1. http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/ipad/#documentation/U...

Re: Ubuntu’s move to Unity is the best thing that ever happened to Linux

#70

Post by guard-of-terra »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #45
guard-of-terra wrote: post #13

There is no indication whatsoever that Ubuntu will be able to reach "average joe", and building a product for audience you can't reach is pretty pointless. The only audience really using Ubuntu is one consisting of coders and geeks. There's a famous russian chinese saying: When a rhino stares at the moon - he is wasting his spleen flowers.

They did (sort of) reach a mass audience through Dell's Ubuntu laptop program in 2007. It didn't quite work out then because Ubuntu wasn't ready (I owned one, it was not ready for prime time). It still isn't, but it's closer. If it was ready, then avoiding the Windows tax would be a good enough reason for retailers to push Ubuntu.

Sadly, PC makers offset the Windows tax by installing crapware in it. It makes harder for Canonical to gain advantage.
Post reply on HN