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

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

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use two monitors at work, and I can't imagine using just one. The productivity boost is great.

Even better than 2 monitors is a single 2560x1600 30".

I'd rather take two 24" monitors at 1920x1080 each = 3840x1080 combined. That would give me a similar number of pixels at a significantly lower cost than a single 30" monitor of similar quality.

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

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""I care what he is writing because his perspective is similar to my own. I don't care what operating system he is using.""" So, you: (a) "care what he is writing because his perspective is similar to [your] own", but: (b) "[you] don't care what operating system he is using.". I fail to see how (a) can be conciliated with (b), given that he is writing about "what operating system he is using", that is the very thing…

Linux is an exotic car. People trying to push linux on the general population so that they have an "easier time getting parts" are just as annoying as people who drive expensive cars and think that everybody else should too. I don't care if the expensive/exotic car is Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD, Plan 9, BeOS, OSX,... ...It's just fucking annoying. Interestingly, if you are unable understand that, I don't really give a s…

"""Linux is an exotic car. People trying to push linux on the general population so that they have an "easier time getting parts" are just as annoying as people who drive expensive cars and think that everybody else should too."""

One of the worst analogies I've seen in my life. And I've seen lots. Where to begin?

(a) There are supposed to be people that "drive expensive cars that think that everybody else should too"?

(b) And (those mythical and "annoying" people) do so because that way the would have an easier time "getting parts"?

And all this BS (that doesn't even make sense, anyone here met a Ferrari driver that believed that everyone should drive one so he can get parts easier? WTF?) is supposed to be an analogy to people promoting Linux on the desktop?

This discussion is not about someone saying everybody should run the "exotic" Linux on their desktop, it's all about people making changes to Linux (Unity, etc), in order to make it less exotic and more fit for the desktop.

Except if you think that Linux will forever be exotic. In which case you are mistaken.

"""Interestingly, if you are unable understand that, I don't really give a shit."""

Interestingly? Hardly. You have a tremendous difficulty in expressing yourself coherently.

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

#104
One of the things I think is keeping any desktop from being "the one" is the lack of true developer interoperability. You can program in gtk or qt (or many many others) but for a single distro your "best" programs span a number of different ways to do the same thing (and many flame wars).

This is the greatest thing about Linux, and its curse. In Windows you have the Windows API, in OSx you have Cocoa. Sure you can add more to the mix but most of it is the main API.

I enjoyed the direction gnome2 was going, slowly filling in the niches needed to create a complete system. Then it seems they scratched that and went with gnome3. I like a lot of things about gnome3, but I wish gnome2 would not be defunct.

The same goes for kde, slowly building a complete system of tools for most users.

Both gnome and kde are the reason people would choose gtk or qt for their development.

What Unity needs (and I am not sure if it is in the works) is a true Unity API. Build apps for Unity with Unity specifics. Of course this goes against the Linux way, but if one really wants "the year of Linux on the desktop" we have to stop being a moving target.

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

#105
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…

On my work laptop I will typically have around three workspaces (everything about a given task/goal in one space), with around three Safari windows open in each, each with 1-6 tabs and a couple of Inspector sheets; some Finder windows thrown in here and there, a couple of Terminal windows per space (some with split screens or multiple splits open in vim), some Vico windows here and there. iChat, Skype, iTunes, Mail and Things follow me around when I move spaces -- they stay hidden most of the time. I will mostly move around with swipes between spaces, Cmd-Tab between three of the most recent apps, and Cmd-` between a given app's windows (or ^W^W from split to split in Vico). When a window is more than a couple of strokes away I'll tile all of the apps windows, or right-click it in the Dock to choose a window from a menu. When an app is more than a couple of keystrokes away I'll summon Spotlight and just move to it by name (or hold Cmd-Tab and trackpad over it).

Thanks to the SSD I don't ever have to wait, or stop to think what to do next.

I wouldn't call this ideal, but I will call the above _the_minimal_ viable windowing environment control scheme, for what I'm after.

How is it that you're so at peace with that glitchy simpleton? (Or am I over-doing it?)

(edit) formatting

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

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is an exotic car. People trying to push linux on the general population so that they have an "easier time getting parts" are just as annoying as people who drive expensive cars and think that everybody else should too. I don't care if the expensive/exotic car is Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD, Plan 9, BeOS, OSX,... ...It's just fucking annoying. Interestingly, if you are unable understand that, I don't really give a s…

"""Linux is an exotic car. People trying to push linux on the general population so that they have an "easier time getting parts" are just as annoying as people who drive expensive cars and think that everybody else should too.""" One of the worst analogies I've seen in my life. And I've seen lots. Where to begin? (a) There are supposed to be people that "drive expensive cars that think that everybody else should too…

"Any of your arguments as to why we should would apply equally well to cars, but you never see people have that conversation."

Reading comprehension FTW.

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

#107
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The issue with pushing Linux onto unwitting users is many don't understand it's incompatible with their Win32 software and end up returning the computer. Therefore Dell had to put up a big "here be dragons" page in front of the Ubuntu systems. If this were to actually work, they would need some sort of huge mass marketing campaign which convinced people they actually want or need Linux on their computer, which is ver…

Your point is valid, but it's becoming less so. The web is taking over more and more of what used to be desktop territory, and the OS is becoming a device driver for the internet. There are plenty of people now who just need something that will run a web browser (granted, there are also still plenty who have to have MS Office or whatever).

The more cheapass the PC, the more of a difference the Windows Tax makes. $50 out of $1000 is only 5%, but $50 out of a $115 Walmart computer[1] is pretty substantial (not that Walmart is likely to be paying that much for a Windows license, but at the low end a little bit of money makes a big difference).

[1] http://www.walmart.com/ip/IBM-40GB-8183/16880171

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

#108
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with pushing Linux onto unwitting users is many don't understand it's incompatible with their Win32 software and end up returning the computer. Therefore Dell had to put up a big "here be dragons" page in front of the Ubuntu systems. If this were to actually work, they would need some sort of huge mass marketing campaign which convinced people they actually want or need Linux on their computer, which is ver…

Your point is valid, but it's becoming less so. The web is taking over more and more of what used to be desktop territory, and the OS is becoming a device driver for the internet. There are plenty of people now who just need something that will run a web browser (granted, there are also still plenty who have to have MS Office or whatever). The more cheapass the PC, the more of a difference the Windows Tax makes. $50…

The point wasn't whether people do or don't need Windows software, it's that you can't just throw Linux systems on the market unless the consumer feels they have some compelling reason to buy one.

And MS does scale their license prices based on the system costs, but I think you've demonstrated one can always find a cheaper PC without switching to Linux.

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

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thirded, Geeks are coding away at some application feature, managing servers, updating designs, watching some TV show, browsing the web, discussing project goals over skype with team members and other mundane things – all this on a slow day. I disagree. I have three windows open. Google Chrome (with, unfortunately for my productivity, Hacker News open), Emacs, and a Gnome Terminal (I X forward my Emacs session from m…

I typically have Chromium, a urxvt running tmux with 5-15 "windows" (a couple of which go to remote machines), two workspaces of Emacs, and half a dozen open pdfs of journal articles that I may be looking back at. When debugging parallel jobs, I may have a few more tmux instances. I find that Xmonad offers the most efficient window management in this scenario. I currently run it with Gnome3 in legacy mode because all…

I don't think the debate is between xmonad and some WM. The debate is between Ubuntu's Gnome set-up before Unity and Ubuntu's set-up with Unity.

Ubuntu's Gnome set-up was never been like xmonad or even a tiling window manager and neither is Unity. It seems to me that, as far as you're concerned, Ubuntu's default set-up sucks just as much as it always has.

edit: fixed mis-wording in second paragraph.

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

#110
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Middle-click the terminal button in the dock.

Perfect, thank you!

Selecting the right terminal if I have a bunch open is still a little awkward, because I can't just cycle through the ones on a single workspace. I'll switch to unity for a little while and see how much that actually bothers me.

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