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First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of UnityUbuntu's 11.04 release ("Natty Narwhal") is going to be an important inflection point for the project, and for Canonical. The company is banking on its users, and potential users, embracing a user interface (Unity) that differs significantly from the previous Ubuntu release as well as other familiar desktop UIs. Further, the target release date is less than three months away and significant chunks of the Unity interface are still unfinished. The second alpha release on February 3 shows promise, but there is significant work left to be done. ![[Unity]](/images/2011/natty-unity-sm.png)
The most interesting, or at least most visible, change is in the shift to Unity. Canonical began work on Unity during the 10.10 cycle for the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Despite the less-than-exuberant reception for Unity on 10.10, where some vendors opted to remain on 10.04 for netbooks, Canonical decided to push ahead and make Unity the default shell in 11.04 rather than adopting GNOME Shell from GNOME 3.0. Why has Canonical chosen to take this route instead of GNOME Shell? In part because of differing visions for the desktop. Ubuntu developer Jorge Castro pointed to different ideas, for example, about Application Indicators. While GNOME Shell and Unity have some similarities, the projects also diverge significantly. Initially designed to use the new GNOME window manager (Mutter), Mark Shuttleworth has said that Canonical was unhappy with its performance — which has led to using Compiz instead. There were also problems with getting the Zeitgeist data engine fully integrated with upstream GNOME. The second alpha lives up to the alpha name. You don't expect that an alpha will be ready for prime time, but this alpha has more bugs than is expected from an Ubuntu development release due to Unity development and some major shifts in underlying packages. Specifically, the alpha was pushed out very shortly after the transition to X Server 1.10 and the rest of the X.org stack, which breaks the proprietary Nvidia and ATI drivers and has a few bugs when using the Intel drivers as well. Booting the standard desktop ISO to install or test 11.04 alpha 2 on many systems (or under VirtualBox or VMware) is unlikely to result in much joy due to the changes in the X.org stack. This, however, is likely to be resolved by the time that the third alpha ships in March. For determined developers and testers, it is possible to get a working install. Users that have been running the first Natty alpha will escape the problems in the transition, as the upgrade won't replace the affected X packages. I was also able to upgrade a system running Ubuntu 10.10 in place to Natty without problems, though it required manually installing the Nouveau driver to be able to use the default Unity interface. Unity is now no longer dependent on Mutter (as it was in 10.10), and is instead using Compiz. Unity's UI consists of the Launcher on the left-hand side of the screen, a Panel at the top of the screen, and a Home button (also referred to as the Big Freaking Button) on the extreme left on the panel. The BFB now brings up, or should, the Dash (dashboard) with applications and a search bar that allows the user to search the system for applications, files, etc. In this alpha, however, it simply brings up a blank Dash that's approximately the size of a netbook screen. Castro said that it will eventually be re-sizable so users can expand it to fit the whole screen or just part of the screen at their preference. The Launcher holds icons or items, which can be for individual applications (such as Firefox) or "Places." What's a Place? One example is the Application place which should display the most used applications as a top row and then all installed applications grouped by category, or displayed alphabetically. But the hope is that developers will create Places that are much more specialized. Castro described it to me as "like a Firefox special search on steroids." Eventually, Castro says, developers should be able to create Places for all manner of things — one example would be an IMDB "place" that would allow users to search IMDB via a launcher and see results in an overlay from the Launcher. The top panel implements a global application menu that works with most applications. This means that instead of displaying the standard "File, Edit, View," etc. menu items in each window, they are displayed in the Panel. This works with standard GNOME and Qt applications, but there are some outliers — like Firefox, LibreOffice, and Eclipse to name just three — that don't use GTK or Qt menuing. For Firefox (and Thunderbird) this is being implemented as an extension by Chris Coulson that should be ready in time for 11.04. However, it seems likely that there will be at least some percentage of applications that will not quite fit in the standard Unity UI for some time. Whether the switch to a global application menu is preferable or not is left as an exercise to the reader. The per-window menu mode is deeply ingrained for many of us, so even when the menu works properly for all applications it's going to take some getting used to. Having it implemented for most, but not all, applications is likely to irritate many users. ![[Workspace viewer]](/images/2011/natty-unity-workspaces-sm.png)
Unity also has a workspace switcher that allows users to view all workspaces in a tiled view, move applications back and forth between workspaces, or switch between them. This is not dissimilar to the way that GNOME Shell works, or Spaces in Mac OS X. Overall, the release (if you can get it running) is usable but not entirely stable. A helpful tip, if Unity crashes but the desktop session remains open, you can restart and refresh unity with Though not yet implemented in the alpha, by the time 11.04 ships, there will be an API in place for applications to have a progress meter and/or number on the launcher. If you've used an iOS or Android device, you've probably seen something similar with the application icons on those devices. Castro says that the idea is to stop cluttering the system tray with application-specific notifications and move them to the application icons, keeping system-level notifications and controls (such as the sound volume or network indicators) in the system tray. A mockup can be found on Castro's post about the libunity library. One might wonder, what happens on other distributions without libunity with applications that have implemented these features? Castro says that they'll still run fine on other distributions without any problems, though without the notifications. What if you don't have supported 3D hardware? Natty will fall back to the standard GNOME 2.32 interface, even though Canonical is working on a 2D Unity interface based on Qt for Ubuntu on ARM. Why not default to Unity 2D for the x86/AMD64 releases of 11.04 as well? The primary issue here is making space for the Qt libraries on the installation CD. However, the plan now is to make space for those libraries in time for Ubuntu 11.10. Users also won't be seeing an option for GNOME 3.0 in 11.04, either. In fact, they won't be seeing the option in the Software Center. The decision was made mid-January and announced by Sebastien Bacher on the ubuntu-desktop list, where Bacher said "we don't feel integrating GNOME3 with a high quality level in Ubuntu is a job which can be done in one cycle and we prefer to delay it to be default next cycle." Specifically, Bacher says that "it's not really possible to bring some updated components or [software] in without bringing the GNOME3 desktop" which left the desktop team to decide whether to switch to GNOME 3 in the 11.04 cycle. The decision ultimately was to remain on GNOME 2.32, which is the basis for Ubuntu's 2D fallback. There's also the small matter that GNOME 3.0 would probably not be ready in time for the feature freeze for 11.04 toward the end of February. At any rate, users will need to seek out a Personal Package Archive (PPA) for GNOME 3.0 on 11.04 if they prefer that interface. Castro did indicate that Ubuntu was open to making available an Ubuntu-based release with GNOME 3.0 at some point if there were contributors interested in doing the work. For contributors interested in working on Unity, there's plenty of room. The project has a collection of small bugs and projects under the "bitesize" label that should be a good option for new contributors. It should be noted, however, that even "bite-sized" patches require agreement to Canonical's contributor agreement, which is less than universally loved by free and open source software developers. Though buggy and incomplete, the implementation of Unity as it stands now looks interesting. It's unlikely to appeal to GNOME 2.x stalwarts, but it's unclear whether GNOME 3.0 will either. It's an interface that may appeal to non-Linux users, if Canonical can find hardware partners to ship it pre-installed. (Log in to post comments)
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 3:37 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
The Gnome Shell graphical performance is a issue for me. I have 3360x1080 pixel desktop with Intel drivers and when I do 3D games or 1080i/1080p video playback I need all the muscle I can get.
Compiz itself has improved dramatically in the last couple years. It's fast and stable. I can't really tell the difference in performance between Compiz vs plain-jane Metacity. I have not tried Gnome-Shell in a few months, but it got to the point were using it was fairly painful because of the slowness. For normal desktop stuff it was great and I prefer the shell layout, but it's just slow.
The way I figured it, though, was that Mutter would improve and the drivers will improve.
This Unity shell is really very ballsy and ambitious move for Ubuntu. Good luck to them as if they can pull it off it could mean big things for them.
On a side note:
It looks like Gallium drivers are really coming together now. I am really thinking hard about getting a new AMD desktop with ATI graphics.... Fantastic work on the OSS drivers. Really cool stuff.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 8:29 UTC (Tue) by paracyde (guest, #72492) [Link]
I realize that the Radeon/Mesa/DRM developers have decided on making it "work" first and than making it "fast", but I was wondering if they really know whats needed to create really fast OpenGL drivers? I bought an ATI 4850 18 months ago and I still cannot play Quake 3 (a game which was released in december 1999) with stable FPS :-(
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 10:59 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I just wish I didn't kill my x850 card by mistake (broken heatsink). The R300 drivers are now very mature. To bad it takes so long.
With Gallium now they seem to be giving performance a higher priority. I estimate that we should be able to get something like 60-70% of the proprietary ATI driver performance by the middle of the year or something like that. For R600. If you are willing to compile drivers or whatnot.
Also I trust your using OpenArena and not the original Quake binaries... :)
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 14:44 UTC (Tue) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link]
I find that quite bizarre. I play Q3A with no issues whatsoever on an ancient Radeon X850 and also on the Intel GMA in my x201 laptop.
3D Posted Feb 15, 2011 16:31 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
The X850 has better drivers. Q3A is pretty old, so for the entire time the R300 era drivers have been under development it has been available for developers to optimise against.
It's really easy for 3D drivers to throw away most of the performance of the hardware in the name of keeping things simple. But until it works at all, simple is definitely the name of the game.
I'm torn on this. For every time I've thought "Wow, this is too slow, someone should really find out why" there's another time I've said "Damnit. The machine locked up again. Nobody should be optimising this until it actually works".
Manpower can't hurt though, and therefore funding to hire such manpower.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 8:41 UTC (Tue) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
I still miss a unity vision instead of being 'we really wan't feature globalpanels,zenity and indicators + X, Y Z'. It's also quite a lot that's still beta/alpha and undecided. Like 'lets just pick that program run dialog' because it's already there. It is going to be less coherent design.
Hopefully they have plan for when to say 'no'.
About performance in mutter. It seems quite a few of them have problems. It's likely an easier problem to solve afterwards, comparing to the task of designing an desktop UI. But performance is also a 'feature' that will leave people impressed or not, because it's the first they will see. Not the feel of workflow, which could take weeks to judge properly. It seems clutter is more abstraction and less performance.
The downside of this is less desktop polish for everyone, since we now have a third target (unity) that divides the heaps of important user testing into three pools instead of two.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 10:53 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Possibly. But if it's slow then I can't use it. When given a choice most people will rather use something else, also.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 12:22 UTC (Tue) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
I agree. Sorry that it wasn't expressed more clearly. I did mention that performance was a 'feature' that decides if people are impressed or not. A 'must have' for the desktop if you will ;). Also it is to a certain degree perceived performance that matters.
Unity, design coherency and Alt-F2 Posted Feb 15, 2011 11:01 UTC (Tue) by sladen (subscriber, #27402) [Link] Feij: for the vision behind Unity, there's a piece by Mark Shuttleworth that introduces the driving factors behind Unity, how it came out of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix and how it can go forward:
The rationale seems to be sound (see the section starting "There are several driving forces behind ") and the implementation of Unity appears to have maintained coherency with that initial design. The priorities mentioned in the introduction are vertical space shortages on widescreen devices (thus a global menu and launcher at the side) and needing multitouch (big icons). The focus on building multi-touch interaction for the future is perhaps why today's keyboard methods have received less of a focus. On the particular issue of Alt-F2 being available, my own personal take is that it's one of those features that will help to put users of previous versions of GNOME and Ubuntu back in their comfort zone, and this is what I've stated on the report. Perhaps it would be worth adding a comment from your own perspective: I don't think it's so much about "them" getting something wrong or right on their own. Getting it right is important, but it doesn't happen in isolation. The tweaks ultimately ripple to-and-fro across all those projects working on making the Free desktop better; you can see that meta influence at work in the infamous image by Frederico Araújo:
Unity, design coherency and Alt-F2 Posted Feb 15, 2011 13:51 UTC (Tue) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link] Hmm either you misread my name or you mistake me from jeffrey stedfast (fejj). :)Important: I'm not saying the rationale for unity isn't sound. I can't judge soundness with subjective opionions in any way :). Also i'm heavily biased. Sorry :(, at least i'm honest :P. Consider it a trust to be earned issue with gnome being a successful design through many and years and iterations, andin my opinion less fortunate ubuntu additions. (Seperate topic). So to be anoyingly pedantic. Unity was announced in 2010 although with the netbook precurser. I'm pretty sure the shell sidebar idea was floated in mid/late 2009, actually from user who used the same configuration in gnome2 (sidebar). He might have been inspired from the ubuntu netbook stuff. It doesn't seem so. But lets not get in to a 'i was first' fight, i'm just saying that the picture shows the authosr perceived timeline, and there are no dates on that diagram. It's quite an aggressive diagram to float around suggesting you influenced others.
In any case, i agree no (great) work happens in isolation. Don't quote me otherwise ;)
Relationship to Gnome Shell The purpose of shell is exactly to separate activities and tasks, allowing you to focus on one task, and not being disturbed. It's concerning if Marks decision is based on such a misunderstanding on workflow purpose. Note i'm not saying that canonical should not focus on unity, they are more than welcome to do so. Pixel wasteI completely agree with the pixel usage waste, it should always be a design goal. Using a global menubar is one way to accomplish this, and i agree this is a good thing and also a really hard thing to do considering the scope of handling existing applications, props! :)For potentially higher pixel saving... consider changing gtktreeview. Look at the height of each row, and how much whitespace a single row is used by banshee/rythmbox. It's excessive!
TouchClearly the biggest workflow change is focusing on touch. I guess it's up to you to prove that it's possible to create a unified touch/pointer interface without too many tradeoffs, as you want unity to be default i assume it's not just for netbooks, but regular desktops.PS: I think alt-F2 is a superuser feature, that is extremely hard to use unless you know whatever resides in /usr/bin (and thus that calculator is named gnome-calculator). But that isn't ubuntu's fault. :). If you already proper application/desktop/documents search with zenity, that should certainly cover it. Argument purely based on my own usage patterns. I guess it is important because to please a loud,childish and stubborn but important minority. Sorry i didn't add to the bug, but it's partly flamebait... ;).
Unity, design coherency and Alt-F2 Posted Feb 15, 2011 20:01 UTC (Tue) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]
> Pixel waste
White space can make the layout more balanced and pleasing to the eye. If you remove too much of it, UI becomes too busy & cluttered.
(Although I've used KDE for over a decade, IMHO Gtk apps have typically looked better than KDE apps and I think it was because of more balanced use of white space.)
Whitespace and pixel-fixing Posted Feb 17, 2011 7:08 UTC (Thu) by sladen (subscriber, #27402) [Link]
Whitespace is hugely important, it frames the content and provides the cadence. It needs to be there.
At the same time, any specification (GNOME HIG) based upon repeated hard-coding of specific pixel-counts is flawed in an age of infinitely scalable vector graphics and 150300 DPI screens!
Whitespace and pixel-fixing Posted Feb 17, 2011 10:10 UTC (Thu) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
I agree whitespace is hugely important, i've actually bought and read Tufte's books ;). I was specific about gtktreeview for a reason. Framing content with whitespace is a tradeoff.
Remember, not all widgets are equal. Pixel waste when showing a settings dialog is rarely important, you want clarity and the minimum number of choices possible. Whitespace here has almost zero cost.
It's not illegal to use 'ink' to frame content if it results in a better ratio of information. Scrolling/sliding windows are a special case because a smaller row hight allows you to present more data, without scrolling.
Also about the HIG.
I don't see laptop screens changing DPI soon (ie 250+). The work is just too high. Even the traces of resolution independence in OS X 10.6 were lower than in 10.5 (arstechnica). Of course if somebody invents the dual mode DPI screen as way to go forward we might get there. It is different for phones, new platform no legacy and all that. But high DPI would certainly be nice.
I don't believe in porting the same app from desktop to android/iphone without changing the layout anyway.
Lastly. davidz has actually tried to get a resolution independent GTK (although his works dates back to 2008, and danni did pick up the branch, but it seems dead). That's the actual hard work. Not changing the HIG - it just represents what's possible. Cairo was also required work, and was required work before gtk could be changed sensibly.
But i sense this is 1) getting off topic 2) Nitpicking on gtk.
Whitespace and pixel-fixing Posted Feb 18, 2011 16:29 UTC (Fri) by droundy (subscriber, #4559) [Link] Remember, not all widgets are equal. Pixel waste when showing a settings dialog is rarely important, you want clarity and the minimum number of choices possible. Whitespace here has almost zero cost.I strongly disagree, in the common case that setup dialogs do not have scroll bars and the ability to be resized to fit the screen. I don't care to count the number of times that I couldn't hit "apply" because I couldn't see the bottom of the screen. And in worse cases, you also can't see some of the actual settings. (examples: google chrome, firefox, epiphany and empathy all have settings dialogs that either have a fixed minimum size or can be resized to be smaller, but then the content isn't visible.) Of course, the proper solution is to make all dialog boxes resizeable with reasonable behavior (i.e. scrollbars) when they are smaller than their content.
Whitespace and pixel-fixing Posted Feb 23, 2011 19:59 UTC (Wed) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link]
I second this. I have an HTPC running on an older TV and so the resolution is 1024x768. However the fonts aren't readable (because it's a TV) so I have to make them bigger. This makes MANY dialogs taller than the screen and makes the controls go off the end where they cannot be reached. And since it's a TV I don't always have a keyboard so I can't hit ENTER.
Unlike fonts, Whitespace not easily user adjustible. Posted Mar 11, 2011 14:35 UTC (Fri) by gmatht (guest, #58961) [Link]
And I find it particularly that shrinking fonts to fit dialogs onto a 1024x600 netbook screen has little effect. Shrinking my fonts down from 12 pixels to an almost unreadable 6 pixels doesn't even come close to halving the size of the dialogs because it does nothing about the vast seas of white space that surround each line of text.
It is kind of silly that I upgraded my netbook to one with 768 pixels, not some much because my eyes can tell the difference on a 10" screen, but because it allows me to shrink the otherwise unshrinkable whitespace. I did a mockup [1] demonstrating that it should be possible to have usable buttons (etc) in as little as 11 vertical pixels including white space. If had the option of shrinking dialogs down that small even the 480 pixel screen on the original Eeepc would start being usable for most applications.
Whitespace and pixel-fixing Posted Feb 28, 2011 2:58 UTC (Mon) by JamesOnTheWay (guest, #73205) [Link] sladen writes, “Whitespace is hugely important, it frames the content and provides the cadence. It needs to be there.At the same time, any specification (GNOME HIG) based upon repeated hard-coding of specific pixel-counts is flawed.” I sincerely agree. Therefore, users must be given the ability to adjust all parts of windows, tables (row height and column and table width sizes) and dialog boxes with a Restore to Default available. This can be accomplished with an add-on window function and the Window Manager ready to instantly incorporate users' changes. This includes dialog boxes—or at the least these must instantly add scrollbars whenever content is greater than window-size and the dialog box must automatically move or resize to fit on each user’s screen. Anything less than the above is laziness in design and development. That includes overuse of high level languages that add tremendous overhead; avoidance of minimal overhead low level routines written in a language such as Assembly; poor memory management; failure to effectively create and reuse global routines; and under- or misuse of OOP. Since I am a senior designer-developer-programmer and neither a Canonical designer or developer nor a contributor to Ubuntu, I am hoping all of these concerns and more are effectively addressed by Ubuntu designers and project managers. I also hope I will be forgiven for stepping on the toes of all the fine people who actually are “in the trenches” creating Ubuntu and the applications we need to make Linux “ready for the desktop” and all of the wonderful high tech tools currently in use and coming in the future.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 11:22 UTC (Tue) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] The Gnome Shell graphical performance is a issue for me. I have 3360x1080 pixel desktop with Intel drivers and when I do 3D games or 1080i/1080p video playback I need all the muscle I can get. you need "muscle" and yet you used an intel GPU? :-) I have not tried Gnome-Shell in a few months, but it got to the point were using it was fairly painful because of the slowness. we fixed a lot of bugs in Clutter, and that resulted in a vastly improved experience in Mutter and GNOME Shell. Mutter with its default compositing plugin (essentially Metacity but with every window mapped to a ClutterActor and a few effects) performs as well in terms of FPS as Compiz on the same Intel hardware — though obviously FPS are a false indicator, given that everything should be synchronized to the vertical refresh rate of your screen to avoid consuming CPU/GPU resources and power. honestly, there is no reason why Mutter or GNOME Shell should be any less performant than Compiz.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 13:54 UTC (Tue) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
When did you fix this?
It has been a while since i tried shell or unity for that matter. Thesis ;)
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 16:37 UTC (Tue) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link]
it's a continuous work in progress - remember: the GNOME 3.0 release is planned for April 2011.
generally, you want Clutter 1.6.4 (which is the latest stable release), as the fixes for performance issues regarding the scene and redraw almost always end up being bug fixes there. Mutter is pretty transparent, so you should only update it when GNOME Shell requires a new version because of changes in the internal API.
next week there should be the first, UI frozen beta release of GNOME 3.0; my suggestion is to try it then.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 17:59 UTC (Tue) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
Thank You :)
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 17:57 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> you need "muscle" and yet you used an intel GPU? :-)
I don't have much of a choice right now until I build my new computer. It's a laptop right now and such is not upgradeable... but I should be fixing that in a couple weeks or three. :)
ATI hd5770 here I come...
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 10:35 UTC (Tue) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
I will reserve judgement on Unity until it works properly, but the current Natty version seems to me to have a lot of promise. Re VirtualBox, Unity works with the current svn Guest Additions, and I think that the Ubuntu maintainer has backported the change to the packaged 4.0 Guest Additions in Natty. Unity is not very stable in VBox though, and I don't know which of the two is to blame for that (or how the blame is to be divided).
Does not inspire confidence Posted Feb 15, 2011 16:57 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
So it will barely work a month before release? Then it's just the small detail of all practical stuff that might pop up when you port hundreds of applications to your new nifty GUI?
Something tells me that's going to sitt well with end users. I know I'm dangerously close to violating "shut up or pitch in" rule but something tells me this will bite anyone who argues that Linux is "ready for the desktop" in the future.
I still hear "yeah, I tried that but my sound card didn't work" from when some distributions decided to go with PulseAudio long before all applications worked with it.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 15, 2011 20:22 UTC (Tue) by Tara_Li (subscriber, #26706) [Link]
*meh* Not seeing anything yet that pulls me away from Enlightenment 16 - which is far better than that "We know what you want" infection that Gnome (and Ubuntu, it is starting to appear) caught from Microsoft.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 16, 2011 9:54 UTC (Wed) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link]
Tried it yesterday and liked it. Despite almost every bit of their graphics stack having crashed while I tried that out and looking far from finished (no way to configure the thing how do I change color, add a virtual desktop?), I guess that's what "aplha" means.
Liked it a lot.
It is indeed fast and beautiful. Ubuntu's theme itself does a pretty good job of not distracting you (e.g. no overly colorful icons in notifivation area) and unity's hiding launch bar and collapsing menus and title bars remove more garbage from the screen.
For now I stick with gnome-shell in Rawhide and would miss its javascript scriptability, but would be very happy to see Unity in Fedora.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 16, 2011 15:06 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Copying OSX Posted Feb 17, 2011 6:02 UTC (Thu) by tshow (subscriber, #6411) [Link]
I'm really not thrilled by the prospect of anything OSX-inspired. Of the currently available "modern" operating systems, OSX has got far and away the worst window management. I've had to use OSX recently for some development work, and while there are nice things about it, the window management has barely changed since the 80s.
The single menu made some vague sense back in the elder days when machines were slow and couldn't run many programs at the same time, but it has a whole host of problems:
- The Fitt's law justification for single menu dies a horrible, screaming death as soon as you go multi-monitor. The number of times I've wanted to do something with the menu and oops, it's on the other screen, and oops, my screens are different heights so the mouse comes in 16 pixels below the menu when it crosses the screen boundary... It doesn't sound like much, but it's one of those little UX warts that irks you every time it happens.
- Single menu also pretty much requires click-to-focus, which is why you can't have floating focus on the mac. Which is a deal killer for me. Actually, on the mac you get half-assed worst-of-both-worlds floating focus; the scroll wheel and swipe scrolling work in whatever window you're floating over, but all other focus is on whatever window you last clicked on. Which is why you will wind up constantly closing your work or IRC sessions when trying to close a tab in firefox. But I digress.
The point is, single menu + floating focus means that when you're trying to get to the menu of program A, if program B has a window between your mouse pointer and the menu then the menu changes before you can get to it. So you wind up having to thread the needle between windows to get your menu, assuming it's even possible. Or you have to put the mouse over the menu bar and then alt-tab to the menu you wanted. It's untenable, which is why they don't do it on the mac.
- Lack of floating focus means bad use of screen real estate. When I'm working on a screen that's smaller than the combined size of the windows I'm using, I tend to stack them so I can get at the active part without having to expose the rest of the window. For example, I'll put a terminal behind other things such that only the bottom few lines are visible; most of the time that's all I need to see or interact with, but if I get a compile error or something I can bring it forward to see what the problem was. You can't do that without floating focus.
- Single menu also means more context errors. If you're editing a bunch of images, for instance, in a menu-per-window system the menu attached to the image you're editing is the one you use to apply effects, save and so forth. There's an immediate, obvious connection between the two. With single menu, the thing you're affecting may not even be on the same screen as the menu, and you wind up double-checking a lot to verify that yes, the thing you're trying to do is being done to the thing you want to do it to. It's a modal interface, with all that implies.
- Single menu means a single point of failure as well. If something happens to that menu, you're potentially screwed unless you have a shell open. Many times on OSX I've had a program go into "beachball of boredom" mode, and when that happens, quite often it takes the menu with it. I can switch to emacs or bash and get some work done, but pretty much everything else relies on the menu not being wedged, and so is useless until the rogue program gives control back.
- Single menu means quite often (at least on the mac) you start a program and your only indication that it started is that the menu changed. Once the menu is decoupled from the window, many programs don't bother to open windows until you tell them to. XCode is a particular offender here; it takes a while to open on the mac I'm using, and when it does it usually takes me a while to notice, especially if i started several other things at the same time. (Yes, ok, on the mac you also get a little dot by the icon on the dock to let you know the program is running. Woohoo. Another 16 pixels of massive notification power.)
There are lots of other ways mac window management is a giant pile of suck (it's 2011 and still have no edge resistance on windows? no "bring window to this virtual screen? no axis-locked resizing? the list goes on...), but hopefully none of them are relevant to Unity so I'll cut my "mac window management is like a fire-ant enema" rant short.
The other thing I'll say is that with Apple announcing "full screen mode" for mac apps, I'm assuming they're keeping the single menu and planning on encouraging everyone to use full screen mode for everything, as if your mac was a big ipad. The reason for this is that otherwise there's a world of pain for them in making multitouch work on a full PC; what do you do if gestures span programs? Can two or more programs have focus at the same time? I expect they'll just declare that multitouch is only available in full screen mode.
The problem is, what this ultimately leads to for Apple is the iPhone model of computer use. One program at a time, everything else except the music player is asleep and taking no screen space. That's fine for someone whose interaction with the computer is clerical or entertainment, but for those of us who want to use computers as tools to do interesting things...
The TL;DR version: single menu is an anachronism from the 80s, and should be strangled and thrown in a ditch. Then nuked from orbit.
Copying OSX Posted Feb 18, 2011 13:27 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
Amen.
Very good analysis why a global application menu is crap! I'll keep a bookmark to point others to it.
I just hope that one can turn it off via gconf or so; Unity seems to be interesting for my netbook. (I wouldn't use it on my desktop, but my small-form-factor EeePC needs a different UI design.)
Copying OSX Posted Feb 22, 2011 9:25 UTC (Tue) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
I can only agree with that.
- Single Menu FORCES "click to focus". Which is, for anyone who ever worked with sloppy focus, a massive productivity killer. (A similar problem, by the way, are programs who automatically give their pop-ups the focus and place them anywhere on the screen, no matter whether the application generating the pop-up even has a focus; and programs opening their pop-ups as normal windows, so they disappear behind any application immediately if they loose focus).
- The only point where something like "click to focus" makes sense is when you've got a inherently inaccurate pointing device (smearpad, or whatever these things are called ;)) and a small screen estate.
Copying OSX Posted Feb 24, 2011 16:26 UTC (Thu) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link]
Sloppy focus and global menu are not necessarily incompatible:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MenuBar#focus-follows-mouse
Copying OSX Posted Feb 25, 2011 2:12 UTC (Fri) by tshow (subscriber, #6411) [Link]
But that's a terrible idea! It means you get the ugliness that OSX has writ large; input focus is half floating and half click to focus. Which means you'll be happily typing in something and then hit a menu shortcut, and the shortcut goes to some other program entirely that you forgot you left menu focus with.
That happens to me in OSX all the time. I'm on irc, one of my colleagues sends an url. I click on it, it opens in firefox. I use the scroll wheel to scroll through the article, then hit clover-w (close window/tab).
Boom.
I've just killed my irc session, because while scroll focus was floating over the firefox window, the menu focus was still on the last thing I actually clicked on, which was the irc window.
I still get bitten by that several times a day, and I've been on osx essentially full-time since november.
Copying OSX Posted Mar 1, 2011 15:06 UTC (Tue) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
Clicking a URL in your IRC client opens it in firefox but doesn't bring firefox to the front? Surely that's a bug in one of the two programs...
Copying OSX Posted Mar 2, 2011 9:04 UTC (Wed) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]
> Clicking a URL in your IRC client opens it in firefox but doesn't bring firefox to the front? Surely that's a bug in one of the two programs...
Absolutely not. You might think that's annoying if you have to switch after clicking, but usually I want to continue reading undistracted until the end of the paragraph that contained the link and *then* switch. If there are more than one link to click, it's even more pronounced.
And it's not an issue in any of those programs anyway. It's the responsibility of the window manager and it's called "focus stealing prevention", most probably as an option :)
Copying OSX Posted Mar 1, 2011 14:22 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
'Sorry we shot you in the foot. We can solve it by amputating the leg.'
This is a textbook example of overwhelming UI design failure. If modality is considered bad interface design, multi-modality that differs seemingly arbitrarily according to subtly different contexts purely to work around another design failure is truly execrable. It is an interface that's impossible to use correctly. Whoever came up with this idea should be banned from contributing to any UI design for life.
Copying OSX Posted Feb 24, 2011 22:19 UTC (Thu) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link]
Another amen here. Gnome 3 seems to be heading in the same direction.
Where can us refugees go?
Copying OSX Posted Feb 24, 2011 22:27 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]
wherever you want. This is Linux/Unix, not Windows or OSX. You don't *have* to run GNOME or KDE.
Some very different offerings from GNOME and KDE are FVWM, Fluxbox, GNUStep, and a host of other options exist. They have costs and benefits to them, like everything that exists. Check 'em out! Heck, old-skool things like twm is available in Fedora (perhaps in the Extras or Fusion repos, but they're there)
Copying OSX Posted Feb 25, 2011 15:59 UTC (Fri) by HenrikH (guest, #31152) [Link]
I've heard that it is possible to run Metacity and Panel under Gnome3.0 which then would provide a 2.x looking desktop on Gnome Shell.
KDE saves the day Posted Feb 26, 2011 8:01 UTC (Sat) by blujay (guest, #39961) [Link]
I've been using single-menu with focus-follows-mouse on KDE for years and it works quite well. The secret, of course, is that in KDE you can configure the delay for the focus-following. I set it to a 400ms delay so I can easily move the mouse from a window up to the menubar, crossing over other windows without focusing them. It is one of the things I enjoy most about using Linux and KDE.
With all the short, widescreen laptops these days, I would *really* hate to give up my single menubar. Having one menubar for each app wastes *so* much screen space! And really, with toolbars and keyboard shortcuts and right-click menus, I don't even access menubars that often. For most apps I think they should be relegated to a lesser position that uses less space.
KDE saves the day Posted Mar 1, 2011 14:29 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>Having one menubar for each app wastes *so* much screen space!
Where? If I move my application's menu bar from one place to another, how does that alter the screen space available for the application? If you have several windows vertically stacked I can see that it would make a difference, but is that something you'd be doing on a short widescreen display?
(I'm actually genuinely curious about this because this argument has always seemed weird to me and I'd like to understand the use case where it applies)
Single-point-of-failure is implementation problem Posted Feb 26, 2011 8:06 UTC (Sat) by blujay (guest, #39961) [Link]
Forgive the extra reply...
"Single menu means a single point of failure as well. If something happens to that menu, you're potentially screwed unless you have a shell open. Many times on OSX I've had a program go into "beachball of boredom" mode, and when that happens, quite often it takes the menu with it. I can switch to emacs or bash and get some work done, but pretty much everything else relies on the menu not being wedged, and so is useless until the rogue program gives control back."
That's not a problem on Linux with X and KDE. The menubar is in a separate process and X and the window manager control which app has focus. Apps can virtually misbehave as much as they want, but X and the window manager still control the screen. The single-menubar shows the menu for whatever app the window manager gives focus too, even if some apps are frozen.
Apple just has a poor implementation...even after all these years.
Single-point-of-failure is implementation problem Posted Feb 26, 2011 15:56 UTC (Sat) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
I dunno what OSX he's using, but I've never had that happen in OSX...
In OSX, every process draws and handles its own menubar. If one process goes comatose, it will stop drawing its menubar when you switch to one of its windows, and so the menubar from the last process you visited will still be visible on the top of the screen (but, unusable because the process you just switched to is dead). If you switch back to another live process, it works fine. and handles its own menubar just fine.
Perhaps tshow gets confused because of the how you can have the dead process's windows in front, and it still looks like the menubar for another app should be active, while actually it's not. Or maybe his OSX really does somehow manage to wedge the entire menubar reguarly. That would presumably have to mean that the window manager itself was wedged.
Single-point-of-failure is implementation problem Posted Feb 26, 2011 21:59 UTC (Sat) by tshow (subscriber, #6411) [Link]
> I dunno what OSX he's using, but I've never had that happen in OSX...
10.6.6 with all the updates except the latest iWeb patch. Hardware is Macmini4,1, 2.4GHz core2, 2G RAM. The only addons of note I'm running are TunnelBlick and the Kensington trackball drivers.
I've had both kinds of menu misbehavior. It probably doesn't help that I'm on a bottom-spec mac mini, mind you.
I regularly see "the wrong menu" as it were, where one program has focus but some other (wedged) program has drawn the menu bar. The program with focus usually works properly (including menu shortcuts), the menu just looks wrong.
For some reason, this often happens with programs used in conjunction with emacs; I'll have emacs up, but something else has scribbled on the menu. On the other hand, given how much time I spend in emacs, I'd bet there's sampling bias.
I also occasionally (maybe every 10h or so of flight time) have a program beachball and take the menu with it. When that happens, no menu shortcuts work at all, and the menu is usually incorrectly or only partially drawn. When this happens it doesn't seem to take the rest of the window management with it; I can still resize and move windows, open new programs and switch focus both with the clover-tab and by clicking (and with expose, for that matter), but keyboard shortcuts for menu entries don't work and the menu is often junk.
Mind you, it may be the mac itself. I've had some interesting problems with this beast. For example, it snow crashes my samsung monitors (isn't having a CPU in everything wonderful? Now even mundane things can crash...). That is, if the monitors are on when the mac shuts down, there's a roughly 10% chance that one or both of the monitors fill with what people familiar with analog TVs would call snow (though it's slightly more saturated than that). It takes a hard power cycle of the monitors to get them back. The linux boxes and the windows box don't do that, and they're all hanging off the same KVM. I've also gotten the snow crash a couple of times with monitor(s) plugged directly into the mac.
I've also had a couple of kernel panics, a few hard freezes (both the "only the mouse works" and the "wow, this looks like a win3.1 graphics crash from the early 90s" style... if my colleague wasn't getting similar results on his mini, I'd have suspected I had bad RAM or something.
Though maybe we both have bad RAM. It wouldn't surprise me; despite Apple's reputation for quality, when they drop the ball they can really drop it hard. See the debacle about macbook power supplies, for example; my old TiBook has reached the point where the power charger actually spits sparks and hits second degree burn temperatures when plugged in.
At any rate, yes, single point of failure is an implementation problem, but it's an implementation problem affecting the flagship of the global menu fleet.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 21, 2011 4:27 UTC (Mon) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
Y'know, Ubuntu is gonna have a really big problem in 2027.
And, incidentally, isn't "N" the 14th letter of the albhabet?
Two questions about Unity Posted Feb 21, 2011 17:01 UTC (Mon) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
Not following the development, I wonder
- why 2D unity is based on Qt? Is it better suited than GTK+ for this kind of application? - whether users can easily switch off the global menu? I have the feeling that I wouldn't like it. TIA.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 27, 2011 3:11 UTC (Sun) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
I am not a 'newbie', but, in many ways, everyone is.
I keep looking at what the next Ubuntu is, and am looking for what I am going to do.
I do not like dedicating real estate to big, stupid, gee-gaw launchers...
That seems to be the only thing 11.04 is about....
Well, dumping Gnome (which has some things needing fixing, I admit) and using a screen real estate hog is the other thing, but, no difference to me.
Keeping a tight schedule on software development...
Great idea, so long as you are ready to bite all the error and blow ups yourself...
Not so good for the user. (Ever hear of Vista?)
I have been using Ubuntu since 4.x.
I may never use natty...
I see nothing worth changing from 10.10... Unless it is another distro.
I can load the 38 Kernel, myself (already have)
Don't feel alone... .I have been using Netscape/Firefox since it first came out under Andreeson...
I am not happy with Chrome or Opera... but not liking 4.0 at all.
Not that I can not change. 46 years of change have happened in Computers with me on the back.
Too much glitz and not enough polish ... that includes lack of knowing the fine details.
A good movie does not need special effects and loud music.. Which is why I don't go to movies any more (that and the bad manners of the audience)
It needs acting,scripting and directing.
Movies now, are seriously lacking. Special effects are nice. Some real acting in a well directed movie, by good script writers would be better.. (flamers. keep in mind, Hollywood today, has little originality, except special effects. And has screwed up royal,some once good scripts.)
Good software does not start with gee-whiz-goober-gee-gaw...
It starts with a solid and finished core.
All Natty seems to be stressing is gee-gaw... not even gee-whizz-goober...
I read the reviews and see what is said... and all modify the comments with.. they gotta fix...
I know there are more trial releases, but, they are doing too much, in too many directions, that many might 'add' instead, and be happier, than having it crammed down reticent throats.
That is the wrong direction.
First, the gotta make the core...
Fixing, then, kind of becomes a moot point.
Well, that and you want everyone to have to buy or build a 6 core 4 GPU 16 gig ram 20 terabyte system like Micro-weenie does.
(I'm retired and it ain't gonna happen... neither is natty)
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Feb 27, 2011 7:02 UTC (Sun) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
Using WebUpd8, I was lead to this link...
http://www.stgraber.org/2011/02/22/edubuntus-installer-re...
This is more what I want to see, in Ubuntu... MY Choice... Not Ubuntu's idea of their one package fits all (it doesn't), but is aimed at a market that may or may not comprise the most of their base.
I don't do many things for various reasons. Twitter and face book (google too, if you really know) all sell your information in one form or another (it is major source of income). But, that is the least of their security problems. So, I don't want or need 'gwibber' or what ever.
I don't want Evolution in the system (although you still can not get all of it out...) Same for Empathy.
I don't need gimp, but, use some of the imaging software.
But,what I am saying is really the heart of the matter...
They are building a garbage heap, that is "THEIR" Idea of what I should have...
They are wrong.
They should be building the Best damned system core, with all the bells and whistles working, Like all the fully and updated hardware drivers (including the missing ones). They need a fully functional install systems, (they are getting better, but NOT THERE YET).
I would like to see all the time they are devoting to saying something isn't to their liking, spent building up the core, so anyone can build THEIR OWN SYSTEM that is now to THEIR own liking, from a simple laundry list, so to speak.
And, for the ones that can not make up their minds, go ahead and crap up a default with all your tinker toy whiz-bangs.
But, I spend 2 hours after install, putting things in that make the system work (That is now down to an hour and a half because I cheat) (No, I am not going to build a distro... I like getting applesauce in my hair.. whutz left of it). Yes, I do a lot of putzing around, blowing it up and reloading... usually for the better...or not
These are all things that should be in the core and are not, NOR AM I GIVEN A CHOICE TO HAVE THEM THERE, AT INSTALL.
I also spend time pulling things out that I really don't want in (I use Ubuntu Tweak and Ailurus so it goes quicker) ...
That is what Ubuntu should be... It would make every one liking it better (fix the crap lousy documentation and help files and you will have a winner)... be even nicer if you went through the forums removing all the answers that have nothing to do with the question... and also the wrong answers... say 90% of the stuff)
I first got to Ubuntu, because it worked on my system (first Linux that did). I was able to tinker around and may it MINE... (other than that frigging email package) That is where they were kind of heading. They are definitely not going in that direction now....
Maybe I will do Edubuntu, or not...
11.04 is not what Ubuntu 'was' about...
One last thought... there are many distros of Ubuntu, that are popular, like Ubuntu Ultimate Edition, Pinguy OS (variant of the Popular MINT) and others. After the main distro, on the update, allow the selection of one of those to be installed.. Just a check mark and everyone can get what they want... just a thought
Modularity and Layering Posted Feb 28, 2011 1:24 UTC (Mon) by JamesOnTheWay (guest, #73205) [Link]
@theoldrang
Are you describing modularity and layering? Is that not the purpose of OOD and OOP? If the "core" of Ubuntu is modular, then whatever UI any specific user wants to install (layer on) should fit without any loss of usability. Is that what you intend?
Is that not the purpose of the various UI "flavors" made available to Ubuntu by Canonical? Or...am I reading more intelligence into Ubuntu than actually exists?
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 1, 2011 2:37 UTC (Tue) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
Linux is the absolute 'core' of Ubuntu...
Ubuntu, is a 'distro' of Debian (kind of more or less as things are going now)
Most of what they release is a package, built around Debian, built around Linux... but, different.
To the 'core' of Ubuntu, they tie things, packages. They are getting rid of (for now) Gnome and replacing it with Unity (except for Edubuntu) Ubuntu Is now Gnome. (Kubuntu is Ubuntu built around KDE) Gnome, Unity and KDE are 'desktop' environments.
(halfway there, I think).
There is a never-land between having the various 'desktops' (Gnome, KDE, Unity or what have you) and 'us'.... and between the desktops and Linux/Debian...
I would like to call that the 'Core' of what Ubuntu is. The only thing I have been unable to divorce completely was the 'email' package. Other than that... almost everything else seems to be tacked on, added, installed or glued in place to make a distro called 'Ubuntu.' (maverick, natty, warty or what-ever.)
Others have made distros, off of Ubuntu (mentioned in the last added thought) Mint (and then Penguy) Ultimate Edition, and many others now out there)...
The core, built on Debian, must be smaller than the full distro.
THAT is what all the stuff can plug into, that you want, don't want, need or would rather have Windows, than...
That is what I would like to see released, with the options of ticking off what I would like. (hopefully not that email package.)
The core distro, should then be both functional, faster, what I want, and... MINE!
I don't want 20-30 of the things that they are forcing...
Removing them is not necessarily safe (found that out in warty and forward with 'email package'...
If done this way, a slick system would allow really cool options for software/hardware developers to release with absolute minimal garbage, and a clean Ubuntu function..
In my case, I would have the simplicity I like, and not have to read tons of poorly written documentation, to ultimately say to hell with it. (Don't get me started on the forums)...I like that email package a hundred times more... Some of the documentation is not bad. Most is not written for newbies, or those that communicated in human dialects.
Have I answered?
It Is Modular... they just don't let it seem so.
But, then again... I really don't know much about computers
hehehe
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 2, 2011 15:07 UTC (Wed) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link]
Your comment generally shows a lack of understanding about the concepts you describe, and I really don't say this to be rude in any way, but I think it would be more helpful if you don't try to explain these things until you understand them better yourself, because it confuses people more than it helps them. Specifically, I have to point out this which is completely wrong:
"To the 'core' of Ubuntu, they tie things, packages. They are getting rid of (for now) Gnome and replacing it with Unity (except for Edubuntu) Ubuntu Is now Gnome. (Kubuntu is Ubuntu built around KDE) Gnome, Unity and KDE are 'desktop' environments."
They are not getting rid of GNOME, they are getting rid of gnome-panel+metacity, which GNOME itself is getting rid of too. GNOME's replacement is gnome-shell, Ubuntu's replacement is Unity. Unity and gnome-shell are both graphical shells FOR the GNOME desktop and not complete desktop environments; if you removed GNOME from Ubuntu, you would not have a functioning desktop environment.
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 3, 2011 1:05 UTC (Thu) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
Thank you for explaining what I don't know... I guess KDE, as you pointed out (and you just did) needs Gnome to function...
I had not thought so, but, you have corrected me.
(Gnome is getting rid of two buttons, by the way, and I am looking to dump it, too!)
Since, as you explained, I don't know much about what I said, I guess, that with Gnome and Unity and KDE all relying on Gnome to function, and Packages relying all, Ultimately on Gnome...
My, that sounds awful wrong...
I mean, KDE runs without Gnome,...
And, I believe Xfce, LXDE, ROX, Étoilé and EDE might also do without it....
My points was, and still is... those are choices (and several Ubuntu spinoffs have used at least three of those, that I know of, having tried them)...
Back to my point.
I may not know anything about what I speak... even when I had to load in binary instructions to get the computers I learned on to work, back when I started... (also used punch paper tape, TTY terminals and years before 200 baud modems...). I must be in your shadow for your theories... (I am not the 'most' enlightened one... but, I can see you are between first and second waiting for a pitch... and a pickle barrel)
What is wrong, with letting 'us' have options for what is loaded?
What I mentioned that Edubuntu is doing, allows for either Unity, or Gnome (their words) to be up, and packages opted for...
I guess that idea, that is being put into practice, is impossible... YOUR ideal not mine...and they must be blowing smoke... since that is not able to be done... according to you.
(I am stretching it a bit... but, 'reductio ad absurdum' seems proper... now)
I don't want Gimp... Well, Ubuntu took it out. I can still put it in... If I want.
I don't want gwibble in the first place... but they cram it at the whole distro (I am security conscious... and NONE of the Facebook, etc. social networks have any security worth a Windows OS security pack.)
Stéphane Graber is doing something like that with Edubuntu... and he is part of That Team...
Will you tell him he is wrong?
I thought he had a good idea... too bad you know it can not be done...
I will have to stay computer illiterate... I guess.
I am saying... (and you say is ridiculously impossible and ignorant on my part) That I would like to be able select to install or not install most packages, before the the system starts to load.
That would reduce much, I know how to load missing and NEEDED drivers... but, is only a pipe dream...
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 5, 2011 12:52 UTC (Sat) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link] guess KDE, as you pointed out (and you just did) needs Gnome to function...No, KDE does not need GNOME to function. That's not what I said. KDE and GNOME are two separate desktop environments. I said Ubuntu is not removing GNOME, they are only removing GNOME's window manager and panel, and replacing those parts of GNOME with Unity.
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 5, 2011 17:42 UTC (Sat) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
"if you removed GNOME from Ubuntu, you would not have a functioning desktop environment."
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 5, 2011 19:18 UTC (Sat) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
Now, getting off your 'that is not what I said'...
I will ignore both your statement and denial...
And have you probably not listen to what I said...
I would like the Ubuntu system I install, have more of what I want, and less of what they tell me I want.
1) I don't care if they use Gnome, Gnome 3.0, Unity, KDE, etc., etc., etc.
2) I have taken 'gnome' out of Ubuntu and installed other desktops and lost nothing I had installed... And I am not whizz banger saying it can not be done. In your opinion, I am not learned enough to know it can not be done (I am so stupid on that point, I have done it several times)
3) Your arguments and other points about what can and can't be, mean nothing to what I am trying to say. NOTHING...(and as stupid and ignorant as I am, I keep thinking you REALLY know little about computers... read about 'cookies' later on)
Ubuntu does not need an EMAIL system... But, It has one, tightly integrated to the system, and TOTAL REMOVAL over the last versions, including 10.10... causes problems. I am an odd kind of tinkerer and have blown up the system many times, learning some things, that tell me other things will stay, at least partially, in Ubuntu (hence, I have learned 'needed' things and things you can not fix... or, rather, better not, because other things will break).
Why can't they be taken out? I don't know. That was decide by the builders of the system and That, now is how it is. But, there is no other reason to have an email system, other than people want one, and they have the one they want you to have. (and its close integration to the full system.)
I say (email integration aside) There are many other packages that could be our choice. You say that is impossible. It can't be... I use a different email system an have removed "MOST" of theirs, except that which is tightly integrated into the system...
I can also install many other packages, and remove many packages...
And I would like to have it so that at the FULL INSTALL of the system, I get what more closely approximates what I end up with, by allowing me to make those choices at install... Which you say is impossible, because you have to have gnome?
You jump up and down, telling me how nothing can be done, because Ubuntu uses Gnome, all you want.
I say, the option to install (from... get ready... Packages that are already on hand to download, from sources UBUNTU HAS available ONLINE, can be selected by choices made at the time of install, when all dependencies can be selected and downloaded at the same time (they have a package that does the dependencies checks, by the way) and, the install may take a little longer (or not),
OH.. I forgot... Impossible because Ubuntu has to use Gnome... (no it doesn't, But to that point, there is no meaning in what I would like to see...to you, that is)
What I will see, in Ubuntu 11.04, are more things that I don't want to see, and some, I don't want to live through...
With the possible exception of Edubuntu, but... I am still going to have to spend hours putting in what I want (have not used it recently, so I don't know if there is a bunch I will take out... or, even IF I would keep it.
I do know I am not going back to Windows...
So, RANT all you want about Gnome and Ubuntu... Ignore what I have tried to say, and go in peace...
Unity Ubuntu and Gnome are coming to a divergence, at the rate they are going.
Hopefully, they will handle it better that the last little discussion they had, with Banshee...
I remember a discussion I had, many years ago, with 'Authorities of Great Knowledge and Authority' in the Computer Industry. Their point was that Cookies are Harmless... I told them they were going to be a major problem.
Like you and your irrelevant discussions on Gnome, ignored one tenet of computers... If the 'data' is there, there is nothing I can not do to it... And if you are not careful, it can do things back.
Well, believe it or not... Cookies are dangerous. Once in your system, things can be done with them unless precautions are taken, where-by grievous harm can be done to your software, data, and indeed your hardware.
Well, what I am saying is moot. Now...
What I proposed, was, to my thinking, an interesting, and possible idea...
But, you know better, and you insist that all I spoke about was gnome, and you have seen no further. (the gnome was a gloss-over... irrelevant to my point. My point being I was not wanting the plus-imperfect Unity.) PS: Many that think they know, and have been writing articles about Computers, and Linux and Debian and Ubuntu, and even 'Gnome' and getting paid for it (which I am not), have essentially stated Unity is not a fully to term project, and see many growing pains, past the date of release, and there are things they don't like. I am not the only one thinking of not going to 11.04, blindly or slavishly.
I want what I have, in my computer, to be mine. To be what I want, and think, for my purposes, what I need. It is not what they insist I really need, I would like to see it more my way, at install, without having to spend hours fixing everything that they did which was wrong, and also adding what I want... and less about someone 'much more knowledgeable than I, telling me that is impossible because you have to have gnome!! (no matter how irrelevant to the issue, that statement might be)
For example... I was told I have to have Windows... Guess What...
(But, had they not set up Ubuntu the way they did, Look at all the fun I would have missed, tinkering and futzing around... .that is the fun part, really... no matter how many bad words my daughter says I use)
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 6, 2011 5:15 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
there are many distros that give you detailed control over everything that's installed in the system.
Ubuntu is not aiming at people like you (and me) who want this control.
they are aiming at people who want a desktop that 'just works' and who don't care how or why it works. As a result they choose to install things that you and I don't want on the system.
now, if I care enough, I can still go in under the covers and rip things out (it's pretty much Debian under the covers, so if you try hard enough to ignore the defaults, you can do anything with it that you can do with Debian)
there is a place for Ubuntu, and there are places that Ubuntu should not be used.
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 6, 2011 22:21 UTC (Sun) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
Looking at some of the really basic systems, that are running Ubuntu (highly stripped) and tailored to their 'really basic systems,' and with the approval of Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth, I would almost venture to say that there is a place for not only those that want control (sinners such as we) or those that need control (hardware developers and other grievous sinners such as they... had to carry the sinning thing along), but, what I am proposing, is not that far out of possible (e.g. two different install iso's... one for newbie saints... and one for the Al Yankovich types (weird, wired and sinners)... Call one, "Welcome to the heaven of Ubuntu"... and the other "HELL-o"\|/"o. One would have the standard distro... and the other warning labels asking for your adult supervision signatory.
But, the other would contain what is needed (let's call it the 'Happy Valley' Ubuntu) and, a wild west drinking town of other options (use at your own risk and Mr. Shuttleworth will laugh his bum off at any support requests...) "No More Warnings" Ubuntu.
You say it can't, I still say it can.
I would just like to do it without having to clean up such a mess, before I make my own.
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 6, 2011 23:37 UTC (Sun) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
You may be interested in the Minimal CD: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 7, 2011 0:23 UTC (Mon) by theoldrang (guest, #71818) [Link]
As they say in the South of France...
Domo Arigato, Signor!!
(Now to learn text install....sigh...)
Modularity and Layering Posted Mar 24, 2011 11:41 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
Have you tried using Debian instead? Your comments suggest that you'd find that a more satisfactory distro.
First look at Ubuntu "Natty" and the state of Unity Posted Mar 2, 2011 9:50 UTC (Wed) by smowton (guest, #57076) [Link]
So a single, global menu-bar only makes any sense if you're using one program which is maximised. Couldn't we use it for that circumstance but retain a bar-per-window otherwise? This is one of the most annoying features of Max OS[X], which looks like it's about to creep over onto my Linux install.
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