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

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

#91

Post by downx3 »

knewter wrote: post #58

Multi-monitor support in 12.04/gnome3 is unbelievably good. There are tons of horror stories, that I've lived and that I've read, regarding multi-monitor breaking jut when it's most needed (presentation at conferences, etc). This has happened to me in the past. Now, my system keeps track of my preferences per-configuration, so plugging in the monitor that I mirror display on automatically does mirroring, and plugging…

Is that Ubuntu specific? I'm running Debian Wheezy with an Intel GM45, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that hot plugging of my monitor worked. I'd read in the past, that that was Intel specific. Either way it's very welcome. I'd imagined I'd be stuck with Windows because of poor multi-monitor support - on my laptop.

Multiple monitors need a good window manager. I sacked off my second monitor out of frustration in the past, I wanted shortcuts to move apps to the other screen, the ability to turn off one screen when not needed - I inevitably had to turn it back on, when I'd loose a window or dialogue somewhere. Full screen apps chose the wrong monitor, some windows sat between monitors etc. It was just a bind, and a distraction in the end. Virtual desktops were a better fit for me because of the inadequacies.

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

#92

Post by downx3 »

adamtaylor wrote: post #64

The current obsession with tablets is maddening. Tablets are great for many things, but I still spend much of my life sitting at a workstation: a computer with a keyboard, a mouse, and (lucky me) a big-ass monitor. So, for me, it's just sad that everyone is now rushing to optimize their OSes for tablets, often at the expense of usabilty in a workstation-like configuration.

I think that there is middle ground to be had, with some sensible defaults, and sensible configuration options.

Make it good for the mouse, good for touch and good for keyboard! And let me mix it up a bit. And good for small and large screens alike.

The last time I tried Ubuntu, probably 11.10 - I could not use it without a mouse, just because of some wretched dialogues that I couldn't get keyboard focus on!

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

#93

Post by downx3 »

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).

I find network-manager takes more time than anything else getting a foot hold onto my wireless network. Other than that Debian Wheezy, with Gnome Classic is pretty good for me on an ancient SATA 1.0 spinner.

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

#94

Post by pasbesoin »

keithpeter wrote: post #17

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 d…

If you have a Windows machine or image handy, take a look at the Ditto clipboard manager. The way the clipboard should be done -- or closer to it. (BTW, it's free/donation-ware, last I checked. And it has the rather occasional hiccup, but the idea is solid and the hiccups don't lose data, e.g. sometimes the window repositions or it misses a keystroke momentarily while it is loading a large dataset.)

Yes, this is just one small part of the picture. But that's a primary way in which things get done: Someone focuses on one part and "fixes" it really well. Other people eventually add up these fixes and integrate them.

There are also "grand visions" and "productive discovery", but that level of ability seems to be somewhat less common and not always observed/adopted, no matter how deserving.

From my experience, being able to use the clipboard as an indexed data store, or "memory", is very convenient. Control-C, and I know the item will be a 1 - 3 second search away, for the next few weeks.

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

#95

Post by downx3 »

waterhouse wrote: post #8
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.

As an effort to make this conversation productive for all involved: could you name a couple of these bugs in Gnome Classic?

I'm running Gnome Classic as I don't fancy Gnome Shell at the moment. And it's nearly there for me. My quit applet hangs my machine, my cpu applet has redraw issues. And nautilus and gedit are giving me some agro, but that's going off topic. It's taken me a week to theme the thing (Gnome 2 at least had a helper app - where I could make my own changes - though it was still problematic - I run a dark theme.) My keyboard switching applet sometimes doesn't respond to clicking. And I'm lost when it comes to audio configuration.

I think that's where the pain lies, when you run into a wall it hurts.

I guess these are teething issues. I'd like to know what GTK3 does bring to the table?

I get video flicker in games under Gnome Shell, and I've had flickering issues with video under Unity (11.10) on an Intel GM45 and Nvidia 6200 respectively. I crashed Unity in about an hour and made my desktop inaccessible the last time I used it. Unity 2D wasn't that bad, but some elements of the UI didn't gel well together at all - dialog boxes that are out of place etc.

The sad thing for me, is that I remember seeing Compiz for the first time. And there were elements and plugins that I really liked about it, and it felt like the desktop was moving forward. I was hoping that Gnome Shell would take the best bits of Compiz - but really get to the point where it would manage my desktop for me . But I can't say it brings me anything.

The negativity is just a case of sour grapes. We'd prefer to see the free desktops outdoing their commercial cousins. OSX10.4 Tiger is a pretty good benchmark to beat. And that's a 2007 OS.

It would be nice to see a Desktop OS competing with Android, W8 and the iPhone though.

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

#96

Post by downx3 »

rbanffy wrote: post #65
swah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win. What is the value of "win" in the above sentence? Because for me it's much more useful than either Windows or OSX for development. It won me for package management and for being very similar to the actual deployment environment. Even changing the desktop environment is easy - an "apt-get install" does the trick. I don't care about…

Sounds like you are in a sea of technology! Nice point though.

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

#97

Post by downx3 »

swah wrote: post #84
rbanffy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but t until you don't have to think about changing your window manager it can't win. What is the value of "win" in the above sentence? Because for me it's much more useful than either Windows or OSX for development. It won me for package management and for being very similar to the actual deployment environment. Even changing the desktop environment is easy - an "apt-get install" does the trick. I don't care about…

Sure, me too. Without the graphical part, Ubuntu/Debian is perfect, since several years. win = "Microsoft and OSX should really step up their OSes otherwise Ubuntu is gonna leave them behind" like that guy said.

Right. I don't think it's a stupid aim to have. All you need to do is make an OS, that is stupidly easy to use... I still see people flounder over windows. I put Salix with a bare amount of apps on an older family member's computer - and I think it's pretty elementary - but they still run into a few issues. I think it's more user friendly though than Windows XP - so that's a plus point.

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

#98

Post by [deleted] »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #38
cobychapple wrote: post #24

The 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”.…

You need to read further. The next sentence says: "Remember when I said “quick and easy”? I lied."

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #75
cobychapple wrote: post #24

The 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”.…

> In fact, this is my only big gripe with the Unity interface. And it’s not a big one. I’m nit-picking here. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875361

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by frodowiz »

demetris wrote: post #20
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 Of…

sure and the fact microsoft ties you into a lifelong comittment with licenses(break one and you still owe money) has nothing to do with it. dude, ive been hearing bunk like this for years and in the meantime linux is growing like weeds. you need to be glad no real way of measuring linux growth numbers exists. it would be very painful im sure. ms is dying and must find another venue soon. in the mean time, let me know when you are ready to be free, ill direct you to ubuntu's website.
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