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Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

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Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#81
I still use Gnome metacity flashback because it wastes less screen space and has a nice virtual workspace switcher.

I'm less happy with the configuration/tweak tools and the fact that they are only accessible from within the account and the display itself (not easy to administrate for different users). I wish there was someone keeping a list of requirements so that every new WM could avoid mistakes in the previous ones.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#82
post #71
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was never the objective, nor the result. It's just an ill-informed meme.

I don't know which idea is worse, (1) that they forced desktop users on a phone UI intentionally (2) or that they weren't trying to make a phone UI but somehow ended up with the gross garbage that is GNOME 3+ anyway. Either way GNOME 3+ stinks. Even the GNOME developers had to concede and offer the alternative GNOME flashback ( https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback ), which looks like GNOME 2 (but not custom…

Lol, because Linux users are the biggest whiners on the planet.

Almost no one appreciated Unity when it was around.

All this nostalgia for it is just that.

If Ubuntu switched to Unity tomorrow people would just start whining like mad about it.

I bet Gnome Fladhback doesn’t even get 1% of the usage of actual Gnome.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#83
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Gnome2 was finally removed from Ubuntu, I tried Unity desktop for a while, didn't like it and installed Gnome3... ... ... ... and after an hour decided, that Unity is actually not that bad . Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse . Unnecessary waste of space on meaningless panels, unnecessarily revamped menus, etc. Just no. I didn't dive in this matter in detail, b…

> Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse. At first it felt like they just went for change for a sake of change so they could be unique among the DEs but now, it seems the long-term goal wasn't just creating a combination between desktop and mobile environment but aiming at being the mobile environment first with optional support for desktops. And indeed, reading all exp…

> but aiming at being the mobile environment first

I'd say, being 'touch environment first', not mobile. And it resulted in a very poor UX for mouse users, while touch GNU/Linux computers never appeared (except androids, but they have no use for gnome anyway).

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#84
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Gnome2 was finally removed from Ubuntu, I tried Unity desktop for a while, didn't like it and installed Gnome3... ... ... ... and after an hour decided, that Unity is actually not that bad . Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse . Unnecessary waste of space on meaningless panels, unnecessarily revamped menus, etc. Just no. I didn't dive in this matter in detail, b…

> Almost every change Gnome3 did over Gnome2 was a change for the worse or for far worse. At first it felt like they just went for change for a sake of change so they could be unique among the DEs but now, it seems the long-term goal wasn't just creating a combination between desktop and mobile environment but aiming at being the mobile environment first with optional support for desktops. And indeed, reading all exp…

Gnome’s focus has been creating a desktop environment that is consistent and easy to develop for. Which requires minimal testing and is not exceedingly buggy.

Which is why Gnome is extremely popular across the spectrum. With users, distros and developers.

Gnome makes Linux an OS that can compete with the likes of Macos and Windows and actually best them.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#85
post #8
post #2

That's exciting. I must be one of the few who actually liked Unity a lot, probably better than Gnome. From what I understand, a lot of the underlayment was 'hacky' and abandoned. While I don't like most NIH that Canonical does(snaps, upstart, mir), I really wish they'd have kept Unity.

You are not alone, Unity was my desktop until it was dropped by Canonical. I ended up moving to Windows after that as I did not like the replacement. The main thing I remember was that it was quite fast and worked well with Vmware which is what I used to host client's VMs. Maybe I will give it another go now.

Gnome was always faster than Unity. Which is not surprising considering Unity was a bunch of hacks on top of Gnome.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#86
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there ever been a good time for Linux on the desktop? I'm using Linux (Kubuntu) daily, and it works most of the time, but I still see some issues from time to time (multi-monitor strangeness, windows suddenly appearing without frames because kwin crashed, desktop wallpapers not being shown or being shown incorrectly etc.).

Isn't that just how all desktop OSes are? It works most of the time, and then sometimes you run into things that are bafflingly broken. For me, it's the Windows desktop at work. I'm accustomed to Windows spawning windows fully or partially out of bounds, though at least that's something that you can fix with the "Move" option from the Ctrl+Space menu. But for a few weeks now, there seems to be a bug where the affecte…

Yes. I had easily as many issues with Windows and OSX when each was my d at driver. I don’t really have anything bad to say about Fedora + Gnome except that occasionally, my 5k thunderbolt monitor is finicky when waking from sleep. It’s a simple enough fix, but it’s still a minor inconvenience maybe once a month.

Linux package management alone puts it ahead of both Windows and OSX in my book.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#88
post #35

"This new release doesn't come from Canonical: it's from Linux wunderkind Rudra Saraswat", a 12 years old Linux enthusiast from Bengaluru, India. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/rs2009 Incredible stuff, love to see it.

Interestingly - Canonical dumped Unity in 2017, Rudra would have been 7 years old then.

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#89
post #35

"This new release doesn't come from Canonical: it's from Linux wunderkind Rudra Saraswat", a 12 years old Linux enthusiast from Bengaluru, India. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/rs2009 Incredible stuff, love to see it.

Damn, what kid! To be fair - having time and access to computer between the ages of 9-15 is something that I have come to appreciate in my life as well. Even if I didn't understand everything at the time, playing with open-source software, Linux, jailbreaking iDevices etc has definitely formed who I am today.

Parallels with Blake Ross [0] and Arfa Karim [1] there.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_Ross#Mozilla_and_Firefox

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arfa_Karim

Re: Ubuntu Unity desktop back from the dead after several years' hiatus

#90
post #12
post #7

Unity just felt consistent, usable and boring - all qualities that I appreciate in a desktop environment, which is why some of my devices still use XFCE and there's almost nothing that I find lacking in that regard. Now, GNOME isn't necessarily bad either but it was still sad that Canonical moved on from developing Unity because it did set Ubuntu apart and by the time of the official migration away from it, was actua…

If I recall correctly, both GNOME and Unity shared rejection from a number of users (I don't know if that was large group or just very noisy), and an approach to community management that was basically if you don't like, go away . In the early days, Unity was more usable than GNOME (could be my hardware, perhaps; apparently my nvidia drivers were buggy and I was told to change GPU), but back then Mark Shuttleworth wa…

You memory is correct and incorrect at the same time: early Unity was rejected by many because too much rigid (like you can't move the launcher bar or the top bar) and "too alien" because at that time people was thinking in category-based menus not dashes and fear to loose the "overview ability" of menus. Than Unity mature a bit and such criticism disappear.

In the end most power users at that time already have switched to side docks observing that they fit better modern 16:10 and then 16:9 screens instead of the old 4:3. Also Android at that time offer a substantially identical graphical concept with a dash-like menu, a fixed launcher bar on the shortest side of the screen witch happen to be the bottom one on mobile, have a small fixed top bar etc.

Unity offer innovation and after much reticence people embrace it without even notice. Windows have copied Kde4 menus, most have copied Android and Unity desktop.

Gnome criticism are a far older things about absurdity like nautilus spatial view the RH management want against nobody, the new rush was for GTk3 and the choice of going web-tech, against vala crap etc after with Gnome SHell criticism add to criticisms because Gnome SHell essentially copy Unity look & feel suffering from a secondary narcissistic design that put the desktop at the center of the world instead as a silent servant who appear only when needed.

At a certain point Canonical decide that people are too reactionary and so there is no interest in innovate desktop anymore, it's time to make money and they loose much on the mobile finally find a room in IoT and server support.

Nowadays desktops are left at that evolution point, with no further advancing for generic users, while power users have rediscovered past ideas like tiling WM and document-centric UIs. Generic users desktop is pushed to be a modern WebVM improperly named browser for legacy reasons, power users goes deep in the classic glorious and far more advanced past than today dark middle age of tech. Surely some choose XFCE, Fluxbox etc simply because they are born with such WM concept in the '90s/early '00 and do not want to move from that era, as many still want '60s cars instead of something else more older or more modern :-)

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