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Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

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Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#31

Post by [deleted] »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #18
notatoad wrote: post #4

more accurate title: "ubuntu: i don't like what you're doing anymore." ubuntu isn't doing anything wrong. they're not doing things the old way, nor are they pretending to. it's top down control with unilateral decisions, but that's what's necessary to move forward. for a product to come out well, decisions have to be made. if you listen to everybody, you get a product that sacrifices quality in favour of not pissing…

But the person making the decisions not a designer. When you load Unity for the first time you have to be taken aback, or at least I was, but how glaringly ugly it is.

[deleted]

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#32

Post by rbanffy »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #2

Columns do not work on the web.

They may work, but you have to keep all of your content above the fold and paginate the article. Comments can be implemented as sidenotes and can point to specific parts of the article.

But it's a completely different language.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#33

Post by notatoad »

wmf wrote: post #14
notatoad wrote: post #4

more accurate title: "ubuntu: i don't like what you're doing anymore." ubuntu isn't doing anything wrong. they're not doing things the old way, nor are they pretending to. it's top down control with unilateral decisions, but that's what's necessary to move forward. for a product to come out well, decisions have to be made. if you listen to everybody, you get a product that sacrifices quality in favour of not pissing…

He already rebutted this in the article with the example of GNOME 3. But I agree with nextparadigms; if "Linux is about choice", why not have one distro that does things differently? The only real problem with Ubuntu IMO was the fact that they built a community of volunteers and then disregarded their input, bait-and-switch style.

i'm not sure how contrasting ubuntu with gnome3 is really a rebuttal, when gnome3 gets almost all the same criticisms that ubuntu does. the bloggers start frothing at the mouth every time gnome3 introduces a change the same way that they do when ubuntu introduces a change. gnome3 is progressing as rapidly as they are precisely because project leaders are exercising exactly the same sort of unilateral decision making process that canonical is.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#34

Post by MatthewPhillips »

AUmrysh wrote: post #29
asadotzler wrote: post #12

"The 'usability studies' that get quoted whenever I have talked to people from Canonical about this have participation numbers that are laughably low. Having a focus group with two or three dozen hand-picked candidates to 'evaluate' complex user experience changes like these does not seem convincing to me. It seems ludicrous." Dismissing out of hand as "ludicrous" that user research on small groups can and very often…

The difference is that users can understand when the interface is poorly designed because they have to interact with it constantly. Sure, there are parts of UX that most users never think about, but when something has been overlooked, like when you can't move the launcher sidebar to the bottom, or the settings are confusing to get to, there's a usability problem. I think the real thing about Ubuntu, however, is that…

It makes very little sense to pick a distro if you dislike their default interface. There are too many choices, or you can pick a distro like Arch that is WM agnostic.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#35

Post by MatthewPhillips »

pan69 wrote: post #22

My problem isn't so much with the innovation. My problem is with the lack of choice both Unity and GNOME 3 give to their users. What Ubuntu and GNOME 3 are doing is not giving their users an option. I run Ubuntu on a work station, which is not a tiny screen gadget. I need to do work on this thing and I'd like to get work done. Both Unity and GNOME 3 are departing from life time engrained metaphors and replacing them…

Are we using the same Gnome 3? It takes up far less screen real-estate than than Gnome 2 did, only a small black bar on the top. There is a "start" menu, in the top left (called Activities).

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#36

Post by tikhonj »

nfm wrote: post #26

"Canonical is repeating a lot of Apple’s mistakes, however, as they are using the same closed feedback loop development system that Apple is using" Care to elaborate? This process seems to be going well for Apple!

Yes, Apple is successful. But so was Microsoft, and you wouldn't want to emulate Windows either!

The point is that while Apple products are selling, the author completely reasonably doesn't like their software and does not want Ubuntu to have the same issues.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#37

Post by tikhonj »

hsmyers wrote: post #5

As we get closer to the next big version (wherein most of the apocalyptic changes take place) I'll be reading HN for useful lists of alternatives. Anyone with useful suggestions can chip in now of course :)

I think the gloom around Ubunutu is a overly pessimistic, but if you're really intent on switching you should consider KDE. The current version is really elegant and usable--I really like it. Fedora is a good distro for KDE.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#38

Post by tikhonj »

pan69 wrote: post #22

My problem isn't so much with the innovation. My problem is with the lack of choice both Unity and GNOME 3 give to their users. What Ubuntu and GNOME 3 are doing is not giving their users an option. I run Ubuntu on a work station, which is not a tiny screen gadget. I need to do work on this thing and I'd like to get work done. Both Unity and GNOME 3 are departing from life time engrained metaphors and replacing them…

OS X is no alternative--you'll have just as little choice or less there.

You should consider KDE--it's a really nice option these days, and easy to configure however you like. Fedora is a great distro if you want to run KDE with minimal setup.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#39

Post by tikhonj »

voidr wrote: post #20

Canonical wants to create somethingm the OS Mark dreamed of, just like the GNOME and KDE people, what's wrong with that? “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” ― Henry Ford Sometimes you need to decide whats best for the user. Most users do not want choices, most users want something consistent that works and that is what Canonical is trying to deliver.

I've always been confused by the "choices" argument: it seems to be a false dichotomy. Why not have good defaults but then let determined users change whatever they want? If you don't care, you just use the system as is; if you are consistently annoyed by something, you can dive in and fix it.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#40

Post by rbanffy »

hsmyers wrote: post #5

As we get closer to the next big version (wherein most of the apocalyptic changes take place) I'll be reading HN for useful lists of alternatives. Anyone with useful suggestions can chip in now of course :)

You can always stay in the current version until you feel safe. Plus, if you don't like Unity, you can use Gnome, KDE, XFCE or whatever makes you comfortable.

I really don't see the fuss about it. If you don't like the new version, skip it. It's not like the next Ubuntu release will be more than 6 months after the current one.

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