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Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

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Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#41
post #6

I've used Gnome (on Fedora) for 10+ years as my daily driver and just recently have been using the pre-installed Ubuntu 16.04 and Unity that came with my new Dell laptop. One of the things I immediately loved is the global menu. This greatly expands application space especially on small laptop screens. I figured I would wipe the laptop soon after delivery and install Fedora/Gnome but the look and integration of globa…

Funny thing is that i seem to recall KDE supported that as an option back in the 3.x days. But come the 4.0 debacle i walked away. Had a long stint with XFCE, but as i increasingly had to deal with Gnome-derived "plumbing" (aka sewage) i have now moved to IceWM.

Why do you call it "sewage"?

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#42
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right or wrong, this does seem more inline with "the Gnome way." It's also why I stopped using Gnome (and in fact, Ubuntu all together). But I suspect I was never their target user, and that's OK. If they can make it easier for more typical computer users, good for them, and they should stick to what works.

Sadly it feels like the "target user" of Gnome (and thus Freedesktop related projects) are dyed in the wool Mac users, but the Gnome people will not admit this even as they drive away more and more existing Linux users.

They are clearly not targeting Mac users, as Gnome/GTK programs continue to insist on the Windows shortcut model of overloading Control. KDE/Qt programs are at least configurable, with effort, to the Mac (and historical Unix) model of a Meta key for GUI shortcuts and Control for control characters.

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#43
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also note the design of that pie chart - 'left' is on the right, and 'right' is on the left.

Also, left should be red, right should be blue. :)

Ubuntu defaults to US locale, where left is blue and right is red.

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is that i seem to recall KDE supported that as an option back in the 3.x days. But come the 4.0 debacle i walked away. Had a long stint with XFCE, but as i increasingly had to deal with Gnome-derived "plumbing" (aka sewage) i have now moved to IceWM.

Why do you call it "sewage"?

Because it leaves a stinking mess whenever it breaks (and it seems to break worryingly often).

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#45
post #6

I've used Gnome (on Fedora) for 10+ years as my daily driver and just recently have been using the pre-installed Ubuntu 16.04 and Unity that came with my new Dell laptop. One of the things I immediately loved is the global menu. This greatly expands application space especially on small laptop screens. I figured I would wipe the laptop soon after delivery and install Fedora/Gnome but the look and integration of globa…

I'm not a fan of the disconnected global menu for regular windows. For maximized windows, however, the way Unity integrates/eliminates the menu and title bar feels very natural and is one of my favorite features.

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#46

This survey and the article show a remarkable amount of humility, which is something new to Ubuntu. I'm quite pleased to see this new direction for them.

Maybe they finally started to learn from Unity fiasco.

Unity became usable in recent releases. But I've never been 100% comfortable with it, I've always felt like I'm interacting with my computer through a bowl of treacle. I've been using Ubuntu Mate for a few years now, I much prefer the old Gnome 2.x look and feel. And with compton it's lightning fast

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#47
post #6

I've used Gnome (on Fedora) for 10+ years as my daily driver and just recently have been using the pre-installed Ubuntu 16.04 and Unity that came with my new Dell laptop. One of the things I immediately loved is the global menu. This greatly expands application space especially on small laptop screens. I figured I would wipe the laptop soon after delivery and install Fedora/Gnome but the look and integration of globa…

Funny thing is that i seem to recall KDE supported that as an option back in the 3.x days. But come the 4.0 debacle i walked away. Had a long stint with XFCE, but as i increasingly had to deal with Gnome-derived "plumbing" (aka sewage) i have now moved to IceWM.

AFAIK you can still do it in KDE plasma

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#48
The people who have knowledge about these extensions cannot be said to be the target audience of Ubuntu Desktop. Or are they going all-in on the multiple desktop environment crowd?

I'm kinda surprised they are not aiming at making Gnome as similar to Unity as possible. I expect the majority of Ubuntu users to be familiar with Unity and not much else in the Linux Desktop ecosystem.

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#49

The people who have knowledge about these extensions cannot be said to be the target audience of Ubuntu Desktop. Or are they going all-in on the multiple desktop environment crowd? I'm kinda surprised they are not aiming at making Gnome as similar to Unity as possible. I expect the majority of Ubuntu users to be familiar with Unity and not much else in the Linux Desktop ecosystem.

That expectation would be wrong. Most Ubuntu users either have a more technical friend that picked the desktop environment for them or they are developers.

I have seen hundreds Ubuntu desktops the last couple of years. Seeing unity was the exception.

Why do you think Canonical moved away from Unity? After the effort and money they invested? Its because such a large group of users was actively avoiding it (myself included - although i like many of its design elements in isolation the execution, the thing being a compiz plugin and the user iteraction design was just unbalanced).

It actually has this Vista like quality where the trade off between power users and casual users ended up worse for both. The unity desktop wasnt the best choice for any group of users, although it may have been the best compromise.

If Canonical has any sense, they just focus all their energy on being the best desktop for developers and monetize from that perspective. The years they wasted trying to compete for a market (desktop consumer) that was going to be eaten from every direction.

Well hindsight is easy i guess

Re: Ubuntu Reveal Results of Gnome Desktop Survey

#50
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they finally started to learn from Unity fiasco.

Unity became usable in recent releases. But I've never been 100% comfortable with it, I've always felt like I'm interacting with my computer through a bowl of treacle. I've been using Ubuntu Mate for a few years now, I much prefer the old Gnome 2.x look and feel. And with compton it's lightning fast

Yeah the problem is it's not even proper desktop interface, it was made for touch screens i.e. tablets, also 7 years ago ubuntu was first distro on distrowatch.com hits per day ranking, today its 4th and it really goes down every month, so I'm assuming it has something to do with Unity and pragmatically it was a fiasco that was bringing Ubuntu down, I also doubt they can do much about it at this point in time.
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