My yearly "lets see if Ubuntu is good enough now" a few days ago: installed the beta, froze when I connected the external monitor. Then the same happened with 11. And with Xubuntu. And I went back to Windows 7.
Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
21–30 of 100 posts
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#22> 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.
When I read this article, I was open to hearing how this could be the case, but then I read:
"Working with Ubuntu 12.04 is quite simple and elegant… until you want to sit down and see what applications are available on your system."
Which sounds like it really doesn't blow anything out of the water. Then I also read:
"click the “Ubuntu” button in the top left, then click the little white icon on the bottom center that is, I assume, representative of “a comb, a pencil and a building with pacman on it”. Then you expand the “Installed” section by clicking on the left/center of the screen. Then you click on “Filter Results” in the top right."
WAT? That's the complete opposite of a well-thought-out experience for the user.
So why is it that this GUI environment is superior again?
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#23I'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.
That are those alternatives, and I's rooting for linux, but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win.
Also, since I deploy Ubuntu I would like to work on Ubuntu (apt-get).
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#24The author says that doing something simple:
"takes several clicks on parts of the screen that are nowhere near each other and are not immediately obvious the first time you see them".
... and that this process requires the user to:
"click the “Ubuntu” button in the top left, then click the little white icon on the bottom center that is, I assume, representative of “a comb, a pencil and a building with pacman on it”. Then you expand the “Installed” section by clicking on the left/center of the screen. Then you click on “Filter Results” in the top right."
Doesn't like like a great thing to use at all to me.
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#25Unity and gnome-shell might be OK on a netbook. Or a notebook. Or maybe on a single monitor desktop. For a triplehead setup this concept is just not bearable. I think this really bad design-decision goes back to the days when there was this "Linux the great netbook / eee-PC OS hype". The good thing is: Nobody is forced to use this . There is Mate ( http://mate-desktop.org/ ), or KDE, or XFCE, or ... The only thing th…
20+ people on my team are using Unity on dual-head setups and it works very well. There was some pain in the transition from Gnome 2 to Unity, but, in general, people are happy and productive.
Most have split their desktops into 9 spaces and run all apps full-screen, usually with a terminal on the notebook screen and something else (Eclipse, Emacs) on the larger LCD.
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#26> 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 Of…
> plain better, than other operating systems, more people would use it.
Desktop Linux is not for everyone. It all depends on what you use your computer for - if you write software for Mac or Windows or if you rely on perfect Office compatibility, it's most definitely not for you. If you run heavy software that has no Linux counterpart, it's obviously not for you. If you develop software that'll run on Linux, it's a really good choice. If you browse the web for everything, it's a great choice.
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#27> 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 Of…
The cost of switching is a high barrier for many people.
Changing from Windows to Ubuntu requires you to find equivalents for all of the software you need.
Changing from your browser -> Firefox = most websites will still work, no additional effort on anyone.
Changing from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice forces you to ensure all the documents open correctly and others can open yours correctly.
It's not always so black and white.
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 swit…
Didn't know. That's handy and it works per window.
Any more magic?
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#29I'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)
"- Installing the proprietary drivers (fglrx)..."
Don't do this if you don't need 3d graphics. The proprietary driver is unstable.
Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.
#30Does 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 d…
>Does anyone have examples of good quality criticism of GUIs?
I would suggest you check out John Siracussa's reviews for OS X releases on Ars Technica.