Unity initial impressions

First impression of unity on LiveCD after spending approx 1 hour.

Looks like a dock on the LHS, looks a bit cartoony, but not an instant turn off.
Will take some time to get used to looking at the LHS rather than at a bottom taskbar/panel/dock.
The autohiding the the left panel works well.

Below is lots of niggles, but no show stopping issues, stability and performance seem fine (but I do have core duo and 4gig ram). If I had to I doubt I would have no problems using it in daily use, but different enough to need time to get used to and feel natural.

List of niggles/observations.

Why does Firefox, thunderbird and libreoffice have a different scroll bars ?
Why does clicking on the circle at the top left produce bigger icons/fonts than if I click the applications button.
At first look, I thought the applications button was a zoom button.
Why do I have to move my mouse upto the top of press alt to see menu, I cant see point of hiding them.
Why tell me twice within the app window and at the top of the screen what my app is.
Why does the menu overlay the name, looks messy and unfortunate naming could lead to confusion.
I wanted to browse and explore what was installed. Lack of clear categorisation within the applications view made this difficult as a number of categories are devoid of installed apps.
Frequently used apps was nice.
Not too struck by new scroll bar. Works OK, but not visually distinctive enough when not active.
I can no longer navigate menus using arrow keys.
Active and open apps on the left panel markers are not distinctive enough, hard to glance at quickly.
Why does hover over the top left circle not provide a tool tip of its purpose, I had to click just to find out.
Whats with the inconsistent naming, e.g. is it "Control Center" or "System Settings" ?
I didn't expect to see apps available to download.
Searching for "download" doesn't return the software center yet "Downloads" category has icons that launch the software center.

Cheers, Nick

 

I have to agree with you on a lot of points there. And although I don't hate Natty Narwhal, I don't quite feel the love.

 

I'm already used to it, having installed Maverick Netbook Edition for months.

 

Mrkvonic did a review of the Maverick Netbook Edition and hated it. He loved the 10.04 Lucid Lynx Netbook Remix.

I'd like to see him do a review of Oz Unity Debut 1.0 which is based on it. Despite the name Unity, it has nothing in common with it and it has a default Netbook Remix UI with Faenza icons, which reminds one of Android OS. There is a good selection of default software installed for average users. The desktop looks well-designed and plush. I don't know how they did it! A very inviting environment... if he downloads it, he will see despite the DVD size bloat, it runs smooth and fast! What's not to love?

 

So far I like Unity. I've installed Natty on two of our four Desktops/laptops. My wife says and I quote "I think it's kinda cute". She seems not to have any trouble with it at all though I should add her activities are limited to surfing (Facebook stuff mainly). You can go into Add-ons and disable the Unity extension if you prefer Firefox 4.0 to be more natural in appearance/function.

It will take a little while before Unity will become second-nature to me like Gnome Classic is now but I believe I'll adjust given time.

Later...

Bob

 

I like Unity, and what they're doing with it in general, but I think 11.04 is pretty buggy, which is a little unusual for an Ubuntu release...

 

I think that Unity will improve in time. But if you still won't like it in Ubuntu 11.10, there will be an alternative called UGR (Ubuntu Gnome Remix).

 

Another annoyance.

If I have more than one Window open, they overlap (not maximised), and the window I am using is slightly lower, its impossible to use the menu with my mouse as I have to pass over the other app and I get that apps menu.

Currently I am glad I can use the old gnome 2 desktop. Hopefully next version of Unity will be better polished, as it has a LOT of potential to be awesome.

 

My experience form live cd on desktop is pretty worse that its alpa release like cd hangs at start up when you click on try ubuntu without installing and keep going for 3 min

i didnt 2d menu what i do is i close the it and then i auto get old gnome menu

after another bad thing is i didnt recognize my graphic card even probing it strange well then i install nvidia tv out after that it recognized my graphic card and install it


after that i logout and remove X0.....blabla .....and run startx again i get unity 2d mode after that it work

there is one more serious bug i like to share if anyone also experiencing it when you clean the history of your recent items you still see them system menu funny

so advice to all teenagers

if your dad say

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER ON UBUNTU

dont freaked out

although right click i good move if they make a click on icon minimized that would be great option

default software selection is pretty crap

also i feel my ubuntu software center crashed massage when installing flash and vlc but it still working funny LOOL

search not work as it use to be you dont see vlc in media until you specify it on search

testing more

after 2d experience is pretty pleasant not that bad its pretty fast responsive no more crashes


still testing.............live cd .........


My hardware specification

intel motheboard classic series

core2 duo 2.66 ghz intel

6 gb ram transcend

nvidia 8600GT


later come with more .....)

 

mack_guy, goodday;

I am not removing 10.10 for 11.04 ( not yet ).
The damn live cd works well on wife's Dell Inspiron, Unity is OK and I had no problems in the short time I was allowed to try it.
My desktop is a different story, sound was OK second time I tried it, but no Unity with nvidia 9600GT, even after installing driver and sudo service gdm restart && exit. Also from tty didn't work - always reverts to gnome 2 classic.
i am sure it would be fine on install after activating the nvidia driver, but a bad live cd experience can put anyone off going for a full install.
For the moment I am quite happy with my existing distros.
Thank you for all your fedora tutorials, I often refer to them now that I am triple booting with SL6.

 

thanks and you are welcome ocky

what i did is i install nvidia tv out after that

i somehow get to probe my nvidia card it get detected i install my nvidia drivers enable and logout

then from Ctrl + Alt + F2 get into cli mode

sudo su

#startx


gives me error xserver already running remove tmp file .X0-lock .........

# cd /
/#cd tmp

tmp# rm .X0-lock

again startx

check all F1-----9 in one i get login screen i login and get 2d unity working

mostly i remember its on F8 rather than default F7 which is crashed LOL


hope if work for you as well i try that on friend pc who got nvidia card

it work for him as well

 

I am currently running 11.04 in VB 4.06 to try it out. So far, I find unity too constricting, but that is probably due to "fighting" it. I think I will get used to it over time, but will continue to use lucid until the next LTS, as I hope they will have all (or at least most) of the bugs worked out. That's the beauty of Virtual OS's, you can try them all out, before committing to any of them.

 

Where you aware you can run Unity 2D? It works in 10.10 but be aware that there is no right click on the desktop. If you live with the shortcoming, it works as well as full-blown Unity. The only thing that does not seem to work with Unity 2D are quicklists.