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Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

lunduke.com

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Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#11

Post by keithpeter »

pan69 wrote: post #4

I've tried the beta of 12.04 the past few weeks. Unity is still a pile of ----. Gnome Shell (3) isn't much better and fall back mode (Gnome Classic) is riddled with bugs that basically makes it unusable as a desktop to work on. The Linux desktop has finally officially failed.

GNU/Linux provides choice.

There is CentOS 6.x with security updates and 'point releases' with refreshed apps until 2017 at least. Gnome 2 based.

There are other window managers as well if you need more recent base libraries for your work.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#12

Post by keithpeter »

yaix wrote: post #9
pan69 wrote: post #4

I've tried the beta of 12.04 the past few weeks. Unity is still a pile of ----. Gnome Shell (3) isn't much better and fall back mode (Gnome Classic) is riddled with bugs that basically makes it unusable as a desktop to work on. The Linux desktop has finally officially failed.

I am using Xfce as a desktop since Unity/G3 came out and made working on my netbook impossible. Xfce is quite fast and works mostly very good.

Might be worth mentioning the Alt-F11 function in XFCE for those who don't know it already.

Alt-F11 removes the title bar from the current window, and ensures that the window uses the whole screen area. The menu is still on top of the window unlike the usual 'full screen' settings. Very handy on a 1024 by 600 screen. I have Firefox in one workspace, LibreOffice Impress in a second, e-mail client in a third and I switch between them using Ctrl-Alt arrows.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#13

Post by keithpeter »

jiri wrote: post #5

I've also tried beta 12.04, seems ok, but article is a really bit hyperbolic. IMO this ubuntu has similar progress from previous version as other versions in the past. Big surprise for me: I've upgraded 4 years old laptop with new SSD disk and 12.04beta and its really lightning fast compared to windows 7 (altough I have to switch to Unity 2D because of too hot gpu). It really feels like new machine.

How long do you have to wait for the Dash to appear when you tap the Super button or click the Ubuntu icon?

Unity has dynamic search &c and I find it takes a little time to build the Dash home lens.

Because the Gnome Shell 'Activities' overlay is not building a dynamic list, it seems to appear almost instantly.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#15

Post by franciscoapinto »

jiri wrote: post #5

I've also tried beta 12.04, seems ok, but article is a really bit hyperbolic. IMO this ubuntu has similar progress from previous version as other versions in the past. Big surprise for me: I've upgraded 4 years old laptop with new SSD disk and 12.04beta and its really lightning fast compared to windows 7 (altough I have to switch to Unity 2D because of too hot gpu). It really feels like new machine.

Too hot gpu? If you have a ATI graphics chip on that machine, you can try one of the following:

- Installing the proprietary drivers (fglrx). https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI - Properly configuring power management for the libre ones. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1569512

Disclaimer: I'm not an ubuntu user (debian here)

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#16

Post by jiri »

keithpeter wrote: post #13
jiri wrote: post #5

I've also tried beta 12.04, seems ok, but article is a really bit hyperbolic. IMO this ubuntu has similar progress from previous version as other versions in the past. Big surprise for me: I've upgraded 4 years old laptop with new SSD disk and 12.04beta and its really lightning fast compared to windows 7 (altough I have to switch to Unity 2D because of too hot gpu). It really feels like new machine.

How long do you have to wait for the Dash to appear when you tap the Super button or click the Ubuntu icon? Unity has dynamic search &c and I find it takes a little time to build the Dash home lens. Because the Gnome Shell 'Activities' overlay is not building a dynamic list, it seems to appear almost instantly.

Yes, this is not instantenous, but ok fast, few hundreds of ms for me. Also using Unity 2D instead of std Unity bothers me a bit.

Anyway I am really suprised by overall performance, apps start very fast and laptop has 4 sec suspend/3 sec wake up. (altough it often takes additional timea for wifi to reconnect again).

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#17

Post by keithpeter »

Does anyone have examples of good quality criticism of GUIs? Examples of reviews that changed the way you think about the GUI would be very welcome.

We are going to get a rash of articles like this one, which make some valid points, but do not really compare Unity in its 12.04 guise with any kind of model of interaction or external standard.

It would be nice to try to produce something better. Canonical design have done a lot of testing and have documented some of their work. I think they deserve a critical essay rather than the kool-aid type response, or the instant dismissal that seems quite common.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#18

Post by jiri »

franciscoapinto wrote: post #15
jiri wrote: post #5

I've also tried beta 12.04, seems ok, but article is a really bit hyperbolic. IMO this ubuntu has similar progress from previous version as other versions in the past. Big surprise for me: I've upgraded 4 years old laptop with new SSD disk and 12.04beta and its really lightning fast compared to windows 7 (altough I have to switch to Unity 2D because of too hot gpu). It really feels like new machine.

Too hot gpu? If you have a ATI graphics chip on that machine, you can try one of the following: - Installing the proprietary drivers (fglrx). https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI - Properly configuring power management for the libre ones. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1569512 Disclaimer: I'm not an ubuntu user (debian here)

Sorry, dont have ATI, I have Nvidia NVS 160M, using proprietary drivers. I think I'll try to figure out power management again in few weeks, but I'll decided to stay with 2D for now.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#19

Post by keithpeter »

jiri wrote: post #16
keithpeter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long do you have to wait for the Dash to appear when you tap the Super button or click the Ubuntu icon? Unity has dynamic search &c and I find it takes a little time to build the Dash home lens. Because the Gnome Shell 'Activities' overlay is not building a dynamic list, it seems to appear almost instantly.

Yes, this is not instantenous, but ok fast, few hundreds of ms for me. Also using Unity 2D instead of std Unity bothers me a bit. Anyway I am really suprised by overall performance, apps start very fast and laptop has 4 sec suspend/3 sec wake up. (altough it often takes additional timea for wifi to reconnect again).

Thanks, I'll take that as something like a fifth to a quarter of a second! I'm seeing nearer half a second, which is above my annoyance threshold.

The Dash home lens is actually providing a lot of context by listing the recently used apps/modified files/and even the played music. I sometimes wonder how many people use that context!

The times for the app loading and suspend/resume is down to your hardware which is obviously fast with the ssd.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#20

Post by demetris »

stock_toaster wrote: post #2

> The short version: Ubuntu 12.04 is the best release they’ve ever had and > absolutely blows the upcoming releases of Windows and MacOS X out of the > water in just about every way that matters. The second half of that statement may be a touch hyperbolic.

It says more about the quality of the review than about the relative merits of the 3 systems.

These things are simple: If Ubuntu were so much better, or just plain better, than other operating systems, more people would use it.

Firefox is, and has been for a long time, much better than IE, and so people use it.

OpenOffice/LibreOffice is not better than Microsoft Office, and so people don’t prefer it over Microsoft Office.

Ubuntu is not better than Windows or OS X, and so very few people prefer it.

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