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Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

releases.ubuntu.com

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Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#161

Post by hasenj »

technomancy wrote: post #105
fingerprinter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it might be if GnomeDo was installed by default and tweaked to do the same thing. But since it isn't, I would hardly call it "pointless", but rather, awesome.

It seems like that's a big theme with the latest Unity changes. Huge improvements over the default desktop, but nobody I know was using the default desktop; they all heavily modified it with devilspie, xmonad, and friends, which are far beyond what Unity offers. So while it seems like a good development in the abstract, it's hard for me to get excited about it personally.

> but nobody I know was using the default desktop

Because the default desktop setup sucks.

But not anymore.

Unity makes things gnome-do and docky obsolete.

And please don't compare it to hacker-centric window managers.

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#162

Post by urza »

Are there any up-to-date statistics how many people uses ubuntu? Ideally also compared to other linux distributions, windows, osx.. Google gives me only few years old numbers or estimates, I guess its not easy to do these kind of stats?

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#163

Post by carussell »

fingerprinter wrote: post #16

I've had it installed on my main machine since late December. There were some rough patches as things were landing during the beta period, but right now this is easily the best desktop I've ever used. My workflow adapted to some of the additions in Unity so quickly that it was absurd. At this point I could never go back to something without Super+#, Super+w, Super+s and the other keybindings found here: http://askubu…

My workflow adapted to some of the additions in Unity so quickly that it was absurd. At this point I could never go back to something without Super+#, Super+w, Super+s and the other keybindings found here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-sh...

There go my hopes that someone would enshrine a sensible scheme for keyboard shortcuts. On new GNOME installs, I remap shortcut modifiers to

Super for actions that operate on the window. This is actually pretty straightforward since most of the default shortcuts can just be adjusted so replace Alt with Super, e.g., Super+Space to invoke the window menu, Super+F4 to close the window, Super+click-and-drag to move the window from anywhere on the window, Super+Tab to tab through windows. It also helps to dealing with this mentally when you realize that Super maps to the Windows key for most keyboards.

To pull the perspective back, Super+Alt is used for actions with a scope wider than one concerned with the current window, like desktop stuff. Super+Alt+Left/+Right for switching desktops, Super+Alt+F2 for bringing up the Run dialog, Super+Alt+T for opening a terminal, Super+Alt+F1 for GNOME menu, etc.

This has the added benefit of freeing up any combination of Ctrl and Alt to be used by applications. This can actually be a big problem, otherwise; I've run across many applications that assume Alt+Function key shortcuts, which cannot be used since they're bound to some global action in default Ubuntu (GNOME?) installs.

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#164

Post by rbanffy »

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #113

Ok... this seems pretty much out of place but I dont suppose I can get a better answer anywhere else, so here it goes. I'm a student in India and in a dilemma about buying a Mac or buying a windows machine (dual booting with Ubuntu 11.04 ). At about 3/4th the price of a Mac I can purchase a more powerful windows laptop and boot up Ubuntu ( and thus avoid windows altogether ). I need a workstation for Ruby on Rails/ N…

Unless you intend to do development for iOS, buy a PC and dual boot into Ubuntu. Even if you really need Photoshop of Office, you can run them on the Windows side. You'll feel dirty, but you'll be fine.

With a Linux machine, you'll have an environment closer to whatever server your application will run (nobody deploys on OSX and nobody sane deploys on Windows), which is a bonus. Plus, package management will save you lots of time. If you want to partition your machine on several environments, you can use Linux containers to do that and have many little Linux "servers" running without interfering with your desktop and taking up very little resources (much less than full blown VMs would).

Disclaimer: I am writing this on a Mac. I love Macs, but I work on Linux.

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#166

Post by rbanffy »

jsz0 wrote: post #45
meric wrote: post #15

Ubuntu's website shows of its Dash "Spotlight", Launcher "Dock", Status Icons "Menu bar with status", Workspace "Spaces", Ubuntu Store "Mac App Store". It's almost like they're trying to directly compete with Mac OS X, with "killer features" that match exactly with what apple regularly shows off with Mac OS X.

Probably a good strategy. I would like to have a pretty good OSX clone for PCs. There's no good reason to clone Windows -- if you have a PC you can just use the real thing. You cannot (easily) run OSX on a PC.

> There's no good reason to clone Windows

Besides that, Windows is insanely complicated. There are zillions of little panels, little things that make other things happen, you have that crazy google-to-find-a-program-that-does-what-you-need and then download it and entrust your machine to a foreign executable (you run it as an administrator in order to install it) and begin that ridiculous next-next-next-finish dance. And do that for every updated version.

Why would anyone want to emulate that?

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#167

Post by rbanffy »

davidw wrote: post #50
mjs wrote: post #43

I find the description of which image to choose confusing. You need the a 64-bit image to handle processes over 4GB, right? Why is the x86 version recommended for "most machines with Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run Microsoft Windows." (That's from the server description, too.)

32 bit "wastes less memory": http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/11/24/slicehost-vs-linode At least for some things, in my experience.

May improve cache hit rates, but my Dell laptop running 64-bit version never hits the swap partition unless I open a couple Eclipses or do something equally stupid.

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#168

Post by pyre »

king_jester wrote: post #74
cageface wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might take a couple more years but somehow I have the feeling that Ubuntu might be heading for the mainstream. Rightfully so. I'd like to think so, and they're doing a great job, but I can't help but feel they're a few years too late. I suspect general email & browsing is going to happen more and more on tablets and phones and people will only want full-blown computers to run specialized native apps, most of which…

For consumers that can afford it, tablets may replace a lot of what a desktop computer does for those people, but there are many people who are lower income who will still depend on very inexpensive desktop computers, either ones the own individually or (more likely) ones that they can access at their local library. I think Ubuntu is heading in a direction where it will replace Windows for users that only need an off…

If tablet computing takes off, the economics could change (i.e. tablets become cheaper, and full computers become more expensive).

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#169

Post by pyre »

unwind wrote: post #5

Of course, this is the release that changes the desktop interface around quite a lot. I'm a bit hesitant, although this answer in the FAQ was soothing: No problem at all. You can choose to launch the classic desktop experience when you log in to your computer. Not sure if this really means that the choice has to be re-made on every login, or if is remembered. Anyone?

IIRC it's just using the standard GDM "Choose an X Session" functionality. The same thing tha allows you to havea KDE and GNOME installed at once and switch between them. Last time I was using it, it prompted when you were choosing a different setting than your last login with a "Do you want this choice to be one-time or remembered?"

Re: Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

#170

Post by pyre »

cgoddard wrote: post #78
lwhi wrote: post #6

As I use my Ubuntu desktop to actually get work done, I'm quite terrified about installing this release. I'm not sure I'll upgrade for a while yet, I want to find out what the general consensus is first.

It's no big deal if you don't mind having a few partitions on your system. Personally I have a large partition for my /home directory, and smaller partitions for testing out new releases, distributions and such. If one of the releases is/becomes unstable, you can just select your old reliable release in the boot loader and get work done on that. It has worked out really nicely for me.

The only issue would be if you run a newer version of a program that updates it's config file (or something similar) format, which ruins things when you boot back into an older partition running a prior version of the program.
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