Ubuntu moves away from GNOME

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/ubuntu-moves-away-gnome

 

From the article:

and

Unnecessary, needless? Reminds one of MS in which most software upgrades would menacingly "work better" with a hardware upgrade (or at least more RAM).

Adds to the perception that there never will be any sort of unity (pun intended).

 

Um, there's nothing wrong with that, seriously. Newer software need newer hardware. Are you still still running your OS from a 1.44MB floppy on a machine with 640K RAM?

 

Unity is definitely a step in the right direction and also gives Ubuntu an unique and individual touch rather than be a clone.

 

Natty Narwhal nixes Gnome.

 

Bad choice considering the current state of Unity.
Mrk

 

Its state will definitely improve, don't you think? Go forward Unity. .

Thanks.

 

Basically it's a good idea. Gnome has stagnated for the last several years, at least compared to the progress of commercial OSs and KDE. (I'm not saying they are necessarily always doing the right thing but at least they are trying to improve it).
I've quickly used Unity and as it is now it's not "promising" by any means. It's completely unfinished, unpolished and only focused on netbook resolutions and probably single touch interfaces. It still uses the same old nautilus and gnome apps, the wm is even more basic then stock metacity. Even when they switch to compiz, to me that still looks more like a conglomerate of random plugins than a finished product. To get a the most out of it you have to tweak all the settings by hand and figure out what works best together. That task shouldn't be left to the enduser and is completely diametrical to the basic GNOME motto: less options is better.
Everything in Unity seems to take one click more, keyboard control is completely neglected. And before even starting the devs (since that's all Gnome got) should read up on Fitt's Law and over basics of user interface design and study some more professional HIG than the one they hacked together.

If I could make the decisions I'd first polish Compiz, write a new Nautilus, better start menu and get rid of the two plain looking Gnome panels. Instead make something that works both as a sidebar and as a top/bottom task bar. Take the best from OS X and Windows 7, learn from their mistakes. It really shouldn't be that difficult and you certainly don't need to invent any new metaphors and concepts which are bound to fail.

 

If I don't like Unity, I hope it will be easy to change to Gnome shell or the Classic gnome desktop without compatability issues.

I suspect the Unity we see now in netbooks will look drastically different for desktops when its ready for release, will wait to pass judgement until then.

 

I tried it on UNR Maverick, not good, not good at all.
It looks nice, but it's not really usable - a formal rant coming soon.
Mrk

 

Why can't they just leave us users in peace for a while ?
Here some Q and A's regarding Unity:- http://castrojo.tumblr.com/post/1418582606/cutting-through-the-noise-about-unity

and http://askubuntu.com/questions/tagged/unity

 

While Ubuntu tends to make more controversial decisions than other distros, they do tend to have a track record of turning out quite well in the end most of the time. I'd leave them to their devices for now, THEN judge them if Natty fails to live up to expectations come April.

I don't really mind the changes all that much, but then I guess I'm not quite as conservative as the typical Linux user...

 

I dislike Unity. It looks fine (with all those applications and locations lined up horizontally on the left) but if you run a resolution other than default then you'll have a problem. I prefer Gnome 3 over Unity...and that's not saying much. Like someone already stated, I hope we'll have the option to use the older Gnome.

It makes one wonder why they made such a decision. They could lose alot of their current loyal fan base. It's too drastic a change, at least in my humble opinion.

Later...

 

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/...ll-will-be-default-desktop-in-ubuntu-1104.ars
So Mutter is out and will be replaced by Compiz in 11.04. That looks like a bit of good news, especially as we will have the just released Compiz 9.2 (unstable as of now), with plenty new bling to play with. Have a look here :-
http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/compiz-showcase-whats-coming-up-in-0-9-2/

 

I think it,s move in preparation for more of a touch GUI, just like Apple.

 

I tried the Netbook LiveCD the other night on my laptop. Unity looks ok but I kept getting Mutter errors and decided not to install it. So maybe Canonical's sticking with Compiz is the right call.

 

Oh Yeah... You're a PC and I'm Linux, so you mean you care about me. .

Thanks.

 

Ubuntu and the price of Unity

 

Like already quoted from the Network World article;

(Shuttleworth)....'referenced Monty Python's Life of Brian as an example of factionalism in a community'.

So, Unity is the 'crack suicide squad'? Impressive...

 

People complain about Microsoft changing Windows every version, but Ubuntu is just a nightmare.

 

Oh come on - that's an exaggeration. I myself am not yet sure if I will use Unity even if it will be more mature once Natty will be there. But hey - you'll still have the choice since Gnome will still be available. And if you upgrade via apt-get dist-upgrade you'll never happen to see Unity at all. So I would really suggest to calm down about this issue. I'm pretty sure that Unity will vanish again if the majority of users won't accept it - Mark Shuttleworth is not an idiot.

 

I agree with you, Martijn2.
There's always a reason given for the changes, but I'm at the point I don't care.
Just as I had Lucid set up exactly the way I liked it, all the talk was about Maverick.
It's the way of the world, though.

 

Now the name Ubuntu makes sense. It's short for Unity Ubuntu, just like Kubuntu is short for KDE Ubuntu and Xubuntu is short for XFCE Ubuntu.

GNOME Ubuntu should be something like Gubuntu.

 

GNOME 3 is buggy and plain unusable - which is why is it was not included in Natty Narwhal. Hopefully the bugs will be weeded out once Oneiric Ocelot is available. That work is now being done up to the release in October.

We have big expectations for the next version of Ubuntu.

 

Oneiric Ocelot won't include GNOME at all