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Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#71

Post by Symmetry »

rubergly wrote: post #57
hasenj wrote: post #16

Completely disagree. I've been using Unity for a while now, it's pretty awesome and much much better than anything (classical) gnome could ever be. This article sounds like "I've just used OS X for the first time and there's no start menu, instead it has a weird thing that's like a dock or something." So, no more gnome-panel applets. What's the big deal? Most of them were useless and ugly anyway. And yes, there is a…

How is the Unity Launcher like Gnome-Do on steroids? Maybe things have improved, but the Launcher of the Unity that's included in Ubuntu 10.10's repositories is really limited. It doesn't have any keyboard shortcut to load the launcher (at least as far as I can tell; it seems like super is the shortcut in current releases, but that does nothing for me in Unity 2.46), and opening things is _nowhere_ near as snappy as…

In Natty typing 'term' and hitting enter seems to do exactly what you would want, except you have to wait a fraction of a second after typing to hit enter so that they can populate the list. Not as good as it could be, but tolerable for me.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#72

Post by Symmetry »

I installed it myself today. The W7 style auto-tiling feature is really pretty convenient when you combine it traditional Linux Alt-clicks. I installed the Compiz Settings Manager and made some modifications to the default keybindings, of course, and sped up the animations but nothing too invasive. I'm going to give it a chance before deciding if I want to go back to my beloved tiling window managers.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#73

Post by rubergly »

Symmetry wrote: post #71
rubergly wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Unity Launcher like Gnome-Do on steroids? Maybe things have improved, but the Launcher of the Unity that's included in Ubuntu 10.10's repositories is really limited. It doesn't have any keyboard shortcut to load the launcher (at least as far as I can tell; it seems like super is the shortcut in current releases, but that does nothing for me in Unity 2.46), and opening things is _nowhere_ near as snappy as…

In Natty typing 'term' and hitting enter seems to do exactly what you would want, except you have to wait a fraction of a second after typing to hit enter so that they can populate the list. Not as good as it could be, but tolerable for me.

interesting; I'll look forward to this when 11.04 leaves beta. though recently I've found that just auto-hiding the two default Gnome panels and calling up gnome-do to open applications works well with my workflow.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#74

Post by nnutter »

dman wrote: post #68
nnutter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a hierarchical menu is needed. What purpose would that help with? I think instead they should focus on making it easy to search in the launcher. One cool feature they have is that it can listed installed apps as expected but also apps available in Software Center. Hopefully, someone can search for "draw" and get appropriate apps listed. Or for "GIMP" and either launch of install the app.

Hierarchical menus help with app discoverability by showing all the apps the system has to offer.

You can view all the apps installed just fine. Ubuntu, unlike many distros, doesn't install 10 of every kind of app so I don't think its necessary.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#75

Post by nnutter »

nnutter wrote: post #44
dman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that threw me off in Unity was the lack of a hierarchical menu for launching applications. Is there someway to create a button that shows the hierarchical menu? btw this isnt a criticism of unity, just me trying to pick the brains of a power unity user.

I don't think a hierarchical menu is needed. What purpose would that help with? I think instead they should focus on making it easy to search in the launcher. One cool feature they have is that it can listed installed apps as expected but also apps available in Software Center. Hopefully, someone can search for "draw" and get appropriate apps listed. Or for "GIMP" and either launch of install the app.

You should check out a review if you haven't actually used the UI.

http://maketecheasier.com/ubuntu-natty-beta-1-review-screens...

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#77

Post by vacri »

androith wrote: post #56
vacri wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that's so often overlooked. If you want a stable desktop for production use, use an LTS version of ubuntu. If you want 'close to the edge', get the last version or two, they come with 18 months support. If you want to fool around on the edge, well, that's where they do crazy stuff like this. Early adopters are beta testers, always have been, always will be.

Of course, the problem is that LTS releases are horribly outdated (the packages in the repos), that it becomes hard to be productive. I needed a new version of a library (actually not THAT new) to compile something, and it just wasn't there! LTS for the lose.

backports?

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#78

Post by owaislone »

mdwrigh2 wrote: post #62
owaislone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they made it very easy to work with touch and small screen devices but I don't see where it limits a full-desktop-experience. Example?

Clicking on the "lens" button (the ubuntu symbol in the upper left hand corner) takes up ~25% of my 24" monitor to show me six icons. Six. That's great for a netbook or even a touch friendly device (easier to touch!), but on a desktop monitor, it's ridiculous. And there's no way to change it at the moment. So far, it's my biggest complain with 11.04

It takes 25% of your screen; Gnome-Shell's activity pane takes 100%; Mac OS X Lion's launchpad also takes 100% AFAIK.

Seriously, what do you intent to do with all the free space you get if dash takes just 10% of your screen?

Dash is for launching apps and places; You open it, launch an item and it disappears. It doesn't stay there and waste space.

I think people have preconceived notions about Unity and Shell being bad. Just try them with an open mind and give them enough time (say, a week) and I'm sure you'll love them both.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#79

Post by mdwrigh2 »

owaislone wrote: post #78
mdwrigh2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clicking on the "lens" button (the ubuntu symbol in the upper left hand corner) takes up ~25% of my 24" monitor to show me six icons. Six. That's great for a netbook or even a touch friendly device (easier to touch!), but on a desktop monitor, it's ridiculous. And there's no way to change it at the moment. So far, it's my biggest complain with 11.04

It takes 25% of your screen; Gnome-Shell's activity pane takes 100%; Mac OS X Lion's launchpad also takes 100% AFAIK. Seriously, what do you intent to do with all the free space you get if dash takes just 10% of your screen? Dash is for launching apps and places; You open it, launch an item and it disappears. It doesn't stay there and waste space. I think people have preconceived notions about Unity and Shell being b…

No, I've used it for more than a week, and I don't love it. In fact, it's my biggest complaint about 11.04... like I said above. I didn't come in with any preconceived notions about Unity. In fact, coming in, I thought it might be an interesting change and I largely like it, but I really don't like Dash at the moment. Also, I didn't say Launchpad and Gnome-Shell were better. I haven't used them, I wouldn't know.

Taking up 25% of my screen real estate for 6 icons _is_ ridiculous. I'm not really complaining about how much of my screen its taking up, I'm complaining that it's really inefficient about it. If you're taking up a quarter of my 24" monitor, show me more than 6 icons at time. Show me a search bar that's got text the same pixel size I selected for the rest of my desktop. At the very least, let me configure it to something I like.

I didn't say Unity sucks, I hate it and no one will ever use it, I made a complaint about how it stands currently.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#80

Post by owaislone »

mdwrigh2 wrote: post #79
owaislone wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes 25% of your screen; Gnome-Shell's activity pane takes 100%; Mac OS X Lion's launchpad also takes 100% AFAIK. Seriously, what do you intent to do with all the free space you get if dash takes just 10% of your screen? Dash is for launching apps and places; You open it, launch an item and it disappears. It doesn't stay there and waste space. I think people have preconceived notions about Unity and Shell being b…

No, I've used it for more than a week, and I don't love it. In fact, it's my biggest complaint about 11.04... like I said above. I didn't come in with any preconceived notions about Unity. In fact, coming in, I thought it might be an interesting change and I largely like it, but I really don't like Dash at the moment. Also, I didn't say Launchpad and Gnome-Shell were better. I haven't used them, I wouldn't know. Taki…

Fair enough, but the whole Dash is used once you search for something or click a category. Filling up empty space just for the sake of filling up empty space isn't such a good idea after all.
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