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Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

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Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#41

Post by kristianp »

hackoder wrote: post #24
hsmyers wrote: post #5

As we get closer to the next big version (wherein most of the apocalyptic changes take place) I'll be reading HN for useful lists of alternatives. Anyone with useful suggestions can chip in now of course :)

Debian is fantastic. I tend to stay on testing (wheezy atm) because it is fairly modern yet stable. Stability is the biggest problem with Ubuntu I believe- people will generally adapt to the UI changes that canonical is making, but breaking stability is a complete no-no. Even today, on Ubuntu 11.10, Unity shows wierd bugs time and time again. Apps like VirtualBox and KeePassx will show multiple times (or just disappe…

I'm looking around for alternatives too after using 11.10. I have been happy using Ubuntu for about 3 years.

Is there anything Ubuntu adds that I would miss in changing to Debian? Not including the Unity interface of course.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#42

Post by jamesgeck0 »

nkassis wrote: post #17

I don't mind the some of the directions they have taken with Unity (I've switched to Gnome 3 at this time, I feel more comfortable it, even with no shutdown/restart option in menu ;p) but the shear lack of ability to customize is really annoying. I understand them choosing defaults but why take away all ability to customize? Also, some changes still make no sense to me, the buttons on the left still annoy me. The doc…

Offtopic, but my Gnome 3 status menu has a separate shutdown/restart menu option. :-) https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5/alternative-status-...

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#43

Post by koenigdavidmj »

rbanffy wrote: post #32
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #2

Columns do not work on the web.

They may work, but you have to keep all of your content above the fold and paginate the article. Comments can be implemented as sidenotes and can point to specific parts of the article. But it's a completely different language.

What I meant is that nearly all internet articles are optimised so that I only need to scroll down. Scrolling up only is necessary if I need to reference something that I already read.

Both your case and a single-column layout fulfill that need. The linked article does not.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#44

Post by acabal »

asadotzler wrote: post #12

"The 'usability studies' that get quoted whenever I have talked to people from Canonical about this have participation numbers that are laughably low. Having a focus group with two or three dozen hand-picked candidates to 'evaluate' complex user experience changes like these does not seem convincing to me. It seems ludicrous." Dismissing out of hand as "ludicrous" that user research on small groups can and very often…

I actually think he's right in dismissing those studies as ludicrous. You can't honestly take one or two (that I can recall) "studies" with only a dozen participants and then brand your product as "usability tested." That's just paying lip service. When you're changing a complex, deeply-ingrained interface for hundreds of thousands of people, doing two studies on a dozen people--and AFTER the fact!--and then calling it a day does indeed seem ludicrous.

Though at least Canonical can say they've done SOMETHING, which (at least I think) is more than Gnome has done. Gnome Shell gives itself a handful of breathless superlatives but I don't think they've ever once actually done a study of how real people use software. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

In the end, though, such studies are very expensive and time-consuming, so free projects would have a tough time pulling it off. Though that doesn't discount the silliness of Canonical's attempts.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#45

Post by ohyes »

open source != community driven

This person has some other version of open source in mind in which it means something other than 'I can download the source code with the program.'

I don't take community suggestions for features on any of the projects that I have on github;

A.) because no one uses any of my stuff.

B.) because I don't care if they use it, I'm doing it for myself.

If the makers of Ubuntu have a vision for their idea of a perfect desktop experience, they should go ahead and do it. Sometimes it does take a dictatorial visionary to get important stuff done. We already have gnome 3, yes, and it is fine, but there is plenty of room for others. Particularly successful others like Ubuntu/Canonical.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#46

Post by rmk2 »

tikhonj wrote: post #38
pan69 wrote: post #22

My problem isn't so much with the innovation. My problem is with the lack of choice both Unity and GNOME 3 give to their users. What Ubuntu and GNOME 3 are doing is not giving their users an option. I run Ubuntu on a work station, which is not a tiny screen gadget. I need to do work on this thing and I'd like to get work done. Both Unity and GNOME 3 are departing from life time engrained metaphors and replacing them…

OS X is no alternative--you'll have just as little choice or less there. You should consider KDE--it's a really nice option these days, and easy to configure however you like. Fedora is a great distro if you want to run KDE with minimal setup.

I also think KDE has come a long way. You can configure it all you want and if you ignore the plasma-stuff widgets, then it doesn't get in the way and is very space-efficient (just a panel really?).

I keep hearing good things about Fedora's support for KDE but have not tried it personally.

I run KDE on openSUSE and am very happy with it, as well as the community there.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#47

Post by chmike »

nkassis wrote: post #17

I don't mind the some of the directions they have taken with Unity (I've switched to Gnome 3 at this time, I feel more comfortable it, even with no shutdown/restart option in menu ;p) but the shear lack of ability to customize is really annoying. I understand them choosing defaults but why take away all ability to customize? Also, some changes still make no sense to me, the buttons on the left still annoy me. The doc…

I have switched to mint Ubuntu 12. It solved the frustration I had with unity and not finding things. I'm not their targeted audiance, I guess.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#48

Post by yxhuvud »

lhnn wrote: post #27
pan69 wrote: post #22

My problem isn't so much with the innovation. My problem is with the lack of choice both Unity and GNOME 3 give to their users. What Ubuntu and GNOME 3 are doing is not giving their users an option. I run Ubuntu on a work station, which is not a tiny screen gadget. I need to do work on this thing and I'd like to get work done. Both Unity and GNOME 3 are departing from life time engrained metaphors and replacing them…

Debian (Stable and Testing) are running GNOME 2. My issues with Unity, as of Unity 5 (in Ubuntu 12.04): 1) Alt-tab should switch between windows within a workspace. This is HUGE. What is the point of workspaces if your navigation buttons/application launchers ignore the boundries? 2) Clicking on an application launcher should open a new instance of the program, not retrieve a window already open. 3) IF item 2 is to r…

2: Use the middle button. It will open a new instance if it makes sense. That is, you will get a new emacs, but not a new thunderbird.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#49

Post by wmf »

AUmrysh wrote: post #29
asadotzler wrote: post #12

"The 'usability studies' that get quoted whenever I have talked to people from Canonical about this have participation numbers that are laughably low. Having a focus group with two or three dozen hand-picked candidates to 'evaluate' complex user experience changes like these does not seem convincing to me. It seems ludicrous." Dismissing out of hand as "ludicrous" that user research on small groups can and very often…

The difference is that users can understand when the interface is poorly designed because they have to interact with it constantly. Sure, there are parts of UX that most users never think about, but when something has been overlooked, like when you can't move the launcher sidebar to the bottom, or the settings are confusing to get to, there's a usability problem. I think the real thing about Ubuntu, however, is that…

The difference is that users can understand when the interface is poorly designed because they have to interact with it constantly.

Can users understand the difference between poorly designed and different than what they're used to? Given that studies have shown that people think keyboarding is faster than mousing even when it's not, I doubt it.

Re: Ubuntu: you’re doing it wrong

#50

Post by hyperbovine »

nextparadigms wrote: post #9
notatoad wrote: post #4

more accurate title: "ubuntu: i don't like what you're doing anymore." ubuntu isn't doing anything wrong. they're not doing things the old way, nor are they pretending to. it's top down control with unilateral decisions, but that's what's necessary to move forward. for a product to come out well, decisions have to be made. if you listen to everybody, you get a product that sacrifices quality in favour of not pissing…

I think Canonical's new direction is a breath of fresh air in the world of Linux. We already have so many Linux distros, and what has that gotten Linux? 1 % of the consumer market? Can we just have one Linux distro that is consumer-oriented, and tries to shake things up a bit?

Yes, it's called "OS X". Okay it's BSD, but that is exactly what Apple came along and did ten years ago. The desktop Linux movement has a much bigger mountain to climb (insurmountable imo) than it did when we were having this exact same discussion in the late 90s.
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