Weekly Edition
Return to the Distributions page
| |||||||||||||
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop
Mark Shuttleworth declares victory for
the 12.04 desktop and thanks Ubuntu users for sticking with the
distribution through the transition. "For the first time with Ubuntu
12.04 LTS, real desktop user experience innovation is available on a full
production-ready enterprise-certified free software platform, free of
charge, well before it shows up in Windows or MacOS. It’s not ‘job done’ by
any means, but it’s a milestone. Achieving that milestone has tested the
courage and commitment of the Ubuntu community – we had to move from being
followers and integrators, to being designers and shapers of the platform,
together with upstreams who are excited to be part of that shift and
passionate about bringing goodness to a wide audience."
(Log in to post comments)
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 16:21 UTC (Mon) by balajig81 (guest, #48030) [Link]
Unity is heading in the right direction, though it has bugs to be solved, i believe it *is* in the right direction.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 16:22 UTC (Mon) by nolofo (guest, #82825) [Link]
What is he smoking?
12.04 is so awful that I cannot even recommend it to my parents anymore (they're running 10.04 ATM).
Guess I will try to switch them to OpenSuse in the next weeks...
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 16:48 UTC (Mon) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> Guess I will try to switch them to OpenSuse in the next weeks...
Mint looks potentially friendly to people who just want things to work. Haven't tried their Cinnamon yet though, and I am always slightly suspicious about people trying to roll their own desktop experience.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 16:52 UTC (Mon) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]
I second your disrecommendation. It's Debian Wheezy/XFCE for me. I really wish I didn't have to say that I'm leaving Ubuntu, as I really like the 10.04 setup, but the whole forced "innovation" thing really leaves me cold, and Unity really is patronizingly awful in my view.
Another bailout Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:11 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] One of the sales guys at work jumped ship from Ubuntu to Debian.
Another bailout Posted Mar 5, 2012 23:33 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
This sort of thing puzzles me.
There may be reasons to prefer Debian to Ubuntu, but the support (or lack of it) of the different desktop environments doesn't seem like one of them.
If you are unhappy with Kubuntu because it's a 'second class citizen' and only gets community support, switching to a distro where there is nothing _but_ community support doesn't make sense.
Another bailout Posted Mar 5, 2012 23:54 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Sure it does. Ubuntu is making it harder and harder to turn off Ubuntu-specific stuff, like brain-dead notifications, new-age scrollbars, presence integration, Ubuntu One, etc.
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 0:19 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
hmm, I sure haven't had any problems with these things, all it took was apt-get install kubuntu-desktop a few years ago and Unity (and it's related stuff) doesn't bother me at all.
Now, if you are trying to run the default desktop and turn that stuff off, yes it is hard, but just try a different desktop
something about babies and bathwater seems to be relevant here :-)
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 1:01 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Switching to Kubuntu tosses out a similar amount of bathwater as switching to Debian doesn't it?
In fact I'd argue that, if you've followed Ubuntu's Gnome desktop since Dapper, you'll find it easier to switch to Gnome on Debian than switching to KDE. But I have no data to back this up. :)
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 1:13 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
if you dislike the move from GNOME2 to Unity, then switching to GNOME2 on debian is probably simpler than switching to KDE on ubuntu.
But keep in mind that GNOME2 isn't being maintained, so your time on GNOME2/debian is very limited.
it would probably be easier to switch to <GNOME2 fork> on ubuntu than switching to <GNOME2 fork> on debian
If you are happy with GNOME3, then switching to GNOME3 on ubuntu is easier than switching to GNOME3 on debian
But I was assuming that you were moving to some desktop other than GNOME3/Unity, and so I was saying that switching to KDE/XFCE on Ubuntu throws away less of the knowledge/experience/support of Ubuntu than switching to KDE/XFCE on Debian would (and both throw away far less than switching to KDE/XFCE on a rpm based distro
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 10:31 UTC (Tue) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
> Sure it does. Ubuntu is making it harder and harder to turn off Ubuntu-specific stuff, like brain-dead notifications, new-age scrollbars, presence integration, Ubuntu One, etc.
I second this.
It is a pain to turn off all the background indexing crap, and hype integration from Ubuntu. On older computers it gets worse as resources are scarce.
I mean the whole point of using Ubuntu instead of Debian was /not/ having to spend weeks fine tuning the system.
FWIW, anyone tried using Lubuntu (LXDE based)?
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 20:05 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> FWIW, anyone tried using Lubuntu (LXDE based)?
Yes, briefly. It's ok, but I think I like Linux Mint LXDE better. The default configuration and package selection is more to my liking.
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 0:09 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] The sales guy in question is not technical. He uses Linux (specifically, Debian) at work because he has no choice. He found he liked it so asked me to recommend a distro for home. At the time, I said Ubuntu because it was the easiest to install. As time has gone by, he's become unhappy with Ubuntu's direction and also confident enough to tackle installing Debian on his own, so... he jumped ship. I'm a bit surprised by the posters on this thread who've jumped to an RPM-based distribution instead of to another Debian derivative or Debian itself... I'd have thought learning the RPM-based tools would take a lot of time.
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 5:09 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
From my limited exposure to dpkg distros, switching out apt-get/aptitude for yum (installs, repository searching, etc.) and apt-cache for rpm -q (for local package information, repoquery for remote packages) on the command line tended to be in the ballpark for what I'm looking for.
dpkg vs. rpm Posted Mar 6, 2012 7:30 UTC (Tue) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032) [Link]
I have tried Fedora twice to replace my Ubuntu laptop. I still haven't found a replacement for aptitude in the rpm-world. I like to know why every package on my system has been pulled in. Aptitude lets me inspect this information and automatically removes all packages that are not necessary anymore if the reason for their installation gets removed later on.
While all of this is theoretically possible on a rpm-based distro. I haven't found the tool to make this sort of operation practical. As far as I understand, the extension yum-autoremove-leaves is not recommended. Maybe this is because there is no tool that allows users to mark packages as "autoremovable". If there is one, I would like to know because I might try to install Fedora again in the future.
dpkg vs. rpm Posted Mar 6, 2012 7:40 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Yeah, that plugin is...less than perfect. The yum history mechanism works really well though for undoing installs of things, but it does fall down when things get tangled after some time has passed. ISTR yum remembering reasons for a package's installation, but I don't know if things are wired up to it.
dpkg vs. rpm Posted Mar 6, 2012 18:00 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
> ISTR yum remembering reasons for a package's installation, but I don't know if things are wired up to it.
Indeed, any release with yumdb can get the reason a package was installed with:
yumdb get reason $pkg_wildcard
A tool could filter out the reason = user packages, determine what has nothing depending on it and go from there. It could also allow the user to change the reason to something specific (e.g., $project-development) which could then be removed if you stop working on $project for whatever reason.
dpkg vs. rpm Posted Mar 6, 2012 16:50 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] Aptitude lets me inspect this information and automatically removes all packages that are not necessary anymoreurpme --auto-orphans
dpkg vs. rpm Posted Mar 7, 2012 6:53 UTC (Wed) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link]
yum now has the option 'clean_requirements_on_remove'. If enabled, removing a package works like with the remove-with-leaves plugin, but better:
http://skvidal.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/orphaned-dep-clea...
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:09 UTC (Tue) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
Of course switching from rpm to deb won't take a lot of time. The difference is between one graphical package manager and another, and sometimes not even that. Real users won't notice the difference in the file extension for the packages, and, conditioned by the varied locations of the search field in websites, will be able to find the search bar in the packager gui and install their stuff. Oh, and press Ok if the update notifier tells them to update.
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 10:26 UTC (Tue) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
> Of course switching from rpm to deb won't take a lot of time.
As someone who uses DEB based distros for 15+ years and who now uses RHEL at work I can say that -in my humble experience-
- using one installer or the other makes little to no difference;
Downloading and compiling all packages and their dependencies to have all the tools I wanted in RHEL did take more time than what I would be OK with. (Still a million times better than not being able to use Linux @ work).
Another bailout Posted Mar 6, 2012 13:09 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Probably you'd have found most (if not all) you were looking for in EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux). Or go grab the source RPMs from Fedora and build those. Having the stuff tracked by your package manager is a big plus.
Another bailout Posted Mar 23, 2012 11:28 UTC (Fri) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link] The big enterprise distro's have extra repo's. One is mentioned above already and you can also find stuff on the Open Build Service instance SUSE is running: software.opensuse.org RHEL 6 search. OBS builds about 170.000 packages. The majority is build for openSUSE but many are build for more distro's, where you'll get something like this if you want to get it. It's a bit more scattered but there's plenty of stuff for RPM based distro's, too...
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:06 UTC (Tue) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link] I really wish I didn't have to say that I'm leaving Ubuntu, as I really like the 10.04 setup, but the whole forced "innovation" thing really leaves me coldThen you should be happy to learn that the 10.04 setup is still available in the 12.04 release. Just install the gnome-panel package. :-)
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 11:28 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]
I think you missed my point. I'm not leaving primarily because of what the forced "innovation" put in place of the 10.04 setup, although I do find Unity to be awful. I'm leaving because the new stuff is forced. In other words, it's the Ubuntu policy and attitude, not just the technology. I feel Debian will have less of this kind of thing going on, or at least if changes are made there will be a democratic decision made instead of pronouncements from Someone Who (Thinks He) Knows Best. If I want that kind of top-down guidance, I'll use Mac iOS--they do a darn sight better job at that shtick anyway.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 17:41 UTC (Mon) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link]
Why don't you switch to Kubuntu instead?
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 17:48 UTC (Mon) by nolofo (guest, #82825) [Link]
Because it feels like a second class citizen in the Ubuntu world.
(On the other hand KDE was and is the main desktop in openSUSE) IIRC Canonical abandoned KDE recently.
Canonical and Kubuntu Posted Mar 5, 2012 21:18 UTC (Mon) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
Canonical decided to stop funding the one Kubuntu developer they were funding, making Kubuntu now a purely community project.
Though Kubuntu still plans to make 12.04 a long-term support release. They have lots of non-Canonical developers.
So yes, Kubuntu is a second-class citizen at Canonical -- and it always was even though Canonical didn't like to admit it. I wouldn't expect much to change with Kubuntu.
But yeah, OpenSUSE certainly makes KDE a top priority.
Canonical and Kubuntu Posted Mar 5, 2012 21:44 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
<devil's advocate/troll>
but isn't OpenSUSE a second class citizen at SUSE? with a similar community support model as Kubuntu? </devil's advocate/troll>
Seriously though, before abandoning something because it's not a 'first class citizen', you need to look at what you are jumping to and see what it's support is like.
Yes the KDE desktop is secondary on Ubuntu systems. On the other hand, all the infrastructure and Apps of Ubuntu are still there, so while you do not gain the full advantage of using the super-popular Ubuntu, you also don't loose them all just by switching to a different desktop.
popularity of Linux distros is hard to gauge, but I wonder if there are more Kubuntu users or more OpenSUSE users?
I think it is clear that there are more third parties making Ubuntu packages than OpenSUSE packages (not that this will stop, or even slow someone knowledgeable determined to run the software, but it will affect less experienced people)
Canonical and Kubuntu Posted Mar 5, 2012 21:54 UTC (Mon) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
That's definitely one of the reasons I'm not jumping ship.
Another is that I prefer (i.e. am more accustomed to) the apt/dpkg/deb system over rpm and its spawn (yum and the rest); I also like the Ubuntu release schedule.
Canonical and Kubuntu Posted Mar 6, 2012 13:01 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
> but isn't OpenSUSE a second class citizen at SUSE? with a similar community support model as Kubuntu?
No there are plenty of SUSE employees working on openSUSE and openSUSE has always had full support from the company. SUSE also employs many KDE developers: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:KDE_team
So if you want to use KDE, openSUSE really seems like the first distro to try. For example it seems to have handled the whole transition to KDE 4 much better than Fedora or Kubuntu.
Canonical and Kubuntu Posted Mar 23, 2012 11:47 UTC (Fri) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
It's already said above that SUSE does employ KDE people, including a few to actually work on KDE in openSUSE directly. And KDE is openSUSE's default desktop so that's certainly 'better supported' in many ways compared to Kubuntu.
Moreover, I wouldn't even say there are more packages made for Ubuntu - with build.opensuse.org featuring over 170.000 packages there's quite a bit there.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 18:04 UTC (Mon) by xtifr (subscriber, #143) [Link]
For me, that would be a cure worse than the disease. I'd rather run Unity than KDE, though I'd rather run GNOME2 than either.
Open vs. closed Posted Mar 5, 2012 17:49 UTC (Mon) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Like the other commenters, I've had to switch to Linux Mint - more because of the flakiness of Intel drivers on 10.04, but also because Unity just didn't work well enough when I tried it.
Innovation is great, but I don't like where Unity is going (or Windows 8 Metro, or the app-store-ization of Windows and Mac, for that matter).
There are some Mac users who see the latest OS X as turning their Macs into toys, and are looking to Linux as the only powerful and open alternative. This may happen to Windows too.
I agree with this blog posting - Ubuntu should be different through remaining open and flexible when the rest of the world moves to locked down platforms: http://bytebaker.com/2011/10/19/ubuntu-should-zig-to-appl...
At least Gabe Newell of Valve (as in Steam) sees the need for open platforms, and is looking at developing an open console based on PC technology - a different kind of openness to Linux but it should be open to modding and hacking of many kinds: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/rumor-valve-po...
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 23:34 UTC (Mon) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link]
Try Debian - you can simply point your sources.list to the various Debian repositories, then "apt-get update; apt-get -f -t <insert what you want to go to here> dist-upgrade" and be on the new system. No reinstall needed.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 13, 2012 2:52 UTC (Tue) by codewiz (subscriber, #63050) [Link] > Guess I will try to switch them to OpenSuse in the next weeks... Are you sure? Linus seem to have had a poor user experience also with the OpenSuSE desktop. Frankly, I'm also reaching the point of exasperation. When KDE4 happened, I had to switch to Gnome. Then with the advent of Gnome 3, I fled to Ubuntu and lived with the bugs of Unity. But then Oneiric came out and the combination of Unity *and* Gnome 3 made the desktop totally unusable. Now I don't know where to bang my head any more. All I want is a normal, stable desktop. You know, like MacOS and Windows always had. Every time we get too close, we suddenly feel the urge to rewrite everything or reinvent the user experience.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 13, 2012 4:16 UTC (Tue) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
Personally, I'm happy with KDE4--particularly now that the transition is largely over--and am even looking forward to Wayland. However, I also sympathize with those who just "want a normal, stable desktop". Perhaps you would be happier with the Trinity Desktop Environment <http://www.trinitydesktop.org/about.php>, a fork of KDE3.5. They seem committed to gradual UI evolution, rather than revolution.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 17:22 UTC (Mon) by Aliasundercover (subscriber, #69009) [Link]
What are the good choices for those of us under the bus?
Do we need whole new distributions?
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 17:34 UTC (Mon) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
There are plenty good ones. Debian testing, openSUSE, Fedora and etc. Try some friendly desktop environment like KDE for example.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 20:38 UTC (Mon) by paulyg (guest, #75422) [Link]
I don't think Fedora is a good example here since they are all-in with GNOME3. In my opinion GNOME3 is even more of a departure from what's familiar than Unity.
I recently decided I would stop resisting upgrading (was sitting on 10.10) and try out both GNOME3 and Unity. Unity feels easier to use to me, but that was after I got rid of the "outside the window" scrollbars and found a theme that wasn't orange. The keyboard shortcuts Unity exposes are really time saving, if you can train your brain to use them. I've had trouble there as I'm still using Windows 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Not that Unity is all rosy. There is a reoccurring lag that happens while typing in VIM that has been attributed to Unity. Hopefully that is fixed.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:37 UTC (Mon) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Debian and Fedora are pretty universal, supporting several kind of DEs. Just install them with KDE from scratch, or if Gnome was already installed, install KDE alongside, and remove Gnome later (mixed method will require more housekeeping), or just keep them both if you like.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 18:13 UTC (Mon) by JEFFREY (subscriber, #79095) [Link]
Don't you mean, "What are the choices for those of us under D-BUS?"
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:12 UTC (Mon) by tstover (subscriber, #56283) [Link]
> Don't you mean, "What are the choices for those of us under D-BUS?"
+1k
Maybe you were just making a pun, but to me that comment is spot on. I'll probably get blasted for this, but I would have to say D-BUS did in fact mark a change in course ultimately bringing us to "controversial" desktops of today. I like many of the design objectives of D-BUS, and many of the programs that use it (gnome keyring for instance). Although there is a certain uneasy feeling one gets reading up it. Sort of like a precognition of an attacker about to jump out from an alleyway and stab their next victim. It's almost like, yeah that's it - software componentry.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:33 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] +1k? Hey, don't game the system! One poster, 1 +1!
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 13:03 UTC (Tue) by krake (subscriber, #55996) [Link]
I am not sure about the "mark change in course" in the context you are referring to.
The concept of operating the system based on services has been widely used way before D-Bus, even at desktop session level.
D-Bus did mark a change in course in the context of moving all those services to the same communication technology.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 19:20 UTC (Mon) by gutschke (subscriber, #27910) [Link]
I installed Ubuntu 12.04 a few weeks ago and briefly tried Unity. I can kind of see the motivation for this new interface. If you had never used a computer before, and if you only ever planned on using a computer casually, Unity actually does seem to make things much easier.
Unfortunately, every single change that makes things easier for casual users really gets into the way when I need to get work done. I use my Linux computer 10+ hours a day, and I just need a user interface that gets out of the way most of the time.
The detached menu bar was the thing that drove me over the edge. I looked for alternatives, settled on "awesome" (built from sources) and spent about a day customizing it. This is clearly not something a casual user should be expected to do, but it is worthwhile to do for a system that I don't intend to change until the next LTS comes out in a couple of years.
The good news is that Ubuntu 12.04 makes it much easier to install "awesome" as a first-class session type. No need for any of the crazy configuration hacks that older versions of Linux needed. The "awesome" Wiki has detailed instructions on how to register "awesome" as a session that can be started from the login prompt.
I didn't go all "awesome", though. I still use gnome-panel as my top-panel (and no bottom panel). The panel has a) the system menu, b) the window/task list, c) indicators. This saves screen real estate, but gives me access to everything I need.
Overall, Ubuntu 12.04 feels a lot more slick and polished than previous distribution. A lot of attention to detail is apparent. Things that required careful customization now work out-of-the-box. If it wasn't for the default choice of Unity, this would have been the best distribution in a long time.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 19:29 UTC (Mon) by pepe (guest, #80339) [Link]
> detailed instructions on how to register "awesome" as a session
O'rly? There was a time when you'd just put 'awesome' at the end of ~/.xsessionrc. nodm ftw.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 19:53 UTC (Mon) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link]
I feel the same way.
Why bother fiddling with Ubuntu to get a usable environment? May as well shift to another distro that cares a little about UI consistency. If I install Mate or whatever under ubuntu, I'm sure in some marketing statistic im probably down as a Unity user.
Besides, what is to say that Ubuntu won't be throwing Unity away like they did with GNOME2 when a new shiny thing comes along? No point in investing habits in using it.
Fedora is no good, they are GNOME 3 all the way. Not really all that different to Unity. Probably worse in some aspects.
It seems so strange that such a well tested a liked desktop is throw away so quickly. I guess it is down to GNOME2 not being able to be installed in parallel to GNOME3 - a deliberate choice by the gnome devs to force distros/users to use GNOME3.
So I think linux Mint is an option. Either with Mate or Cinamon.
But also maybe RHEL/Centos - but then there will be more work to keep up with Firefox etc.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 21:08 UTC (Tue) by luya (subscriber, #50741) [Link]
<i>Fedora is no good, they are GNOME 3 all the way. Not really all that different to Unity. Probably worse in some aspects.</i>
Like previous distributions are no good when newer version of desktop environment at that time like Gnome 2 were first released. Fedora provides alternate environment like KDE and XFCE are among them.
What happened to people who were willing to try new timing in open mind way? *sigh*
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 21:10 UTC (Tue) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]
They do try stuff instead of having free time to post comments on LWN :)
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 22, 2012 5:37 UTC (Thu) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link]
Why not provide GNOME 2 as an alternative so avoid completely breaking workflows?
Oh that's right, GNOME deliberately made GNOME 3 incompatible with a GNOME 2 parallel install.
In will be interesting to see if RHEL picks up GNOME 3 in the next major release. I can't imagine too many Enterprises want to throw away existing workflows for a touch inspired desktop.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 20:28 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
if you don't like Unity or GNOME3, you can run Ubuntu with KDE or XFCE (or other desktop), you don't have to throw out the entire distro.
you can even get the GNOME2/KDE3 forks (I'm blanking on their names at the moment) by just opting to install them from the package manager.
People need to realise that the desktop isn't the distro. It can be a significant portion of the value of the distro Yes, but it's not everything. In my opinion, the fact that the current Linux infrastructure is standardised as much as it now is (with the autoconfiguring X11 drivers, etc) makes it easier than ever before to use a different desktop.
Kubuntu may be a second-class citizen compared to Unity on Ubuntu, but it (and the other community spins downloadable from Ubuntu) are considerably better supported than alternate desktops on most (if not all) of the other major distros.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 23:48 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
No you don't have to abandon Ubuntu, but the fact is Shuttleworth has basically (IMO) said everything but Unity has no future at Ubuntu so if you don't like Unity at some point in the future you are going to be SOL. So then why would you hang around? Linux Mint is a direct response to this Unity silliness, it went from an also ran third rate Distro to a direct competitor to Ubuntu darn near overnight (IMO simply because it offered Gnome2 as a default install) if you go by buzz.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 23, 2012 12:12 UTC (Fri) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link] Kubuntu may be a second-class citizen compared to Unity on Ubuntu, but it (and the other community spins downloadable from Ubuntu) are considerably better supported than alternate desktops on most (if not all) of the other major distros. Maybe. Then again, one of those (openSUSE) has 4 officially supported desktops (GNOME, KDE, XFCE and LXDE) which are each far better supported than Kubuntu (including having paid people working on them). Actually, when it comes to KDE, LXDE and XFCE, I don't think one can claim that Fedora doesn't support those pretty well, certainly not worse than Ubuntu. Probably better.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 21:36 UTC (Mon) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> What are the good choices for those of us under the bus?
I think "under the bus" is overstating the situation a bit, but there are alternatives.
I've been using Scientific Linux 6.2 for a few days now. It's built from RHEL 6.2 source packages, and seems to be very stable, as you would expect. Some of the software is a bit old, but I installed new versions of Firefox and Thunderbird in /opt, and there are RPMs available for LibreOffice, although I haven't tried them yet.
I'm not sure if I'll stick with it, but I might. It's seems a bit foreign, but I've been using Ubuntu for seven years, so that's to be expected. I sure could get used to things not changing in unexpected ways every 6 months.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 17:55 UTC (Tue) by nolofo (guest, #82825) [Link]
Thanks for the pointer.
I've played with Scientific Linux 6.2 today and it is a really nice distribution. I will suggest to my parents that they should switch to it from Ubuntu 10.04. (They can keep their Gnome desktop setup.) Everything works out of the box with 6.2 (flash, mp3, video) and Libreoffice is just a "yum install" away... And it will be supported until 2020...
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 21:50 UTC (Tue) by Aliasundercover (subscriber, #69009) [Link]
I gave Scientific Linux a brief try and will probably give it more time. A lot of what I saw was nice.
I was set back by its inability to mount an ntfs partition from an external hard drive. Digging in I found it had no ntfs tools loaded. Attempting to find them with the package manager got me vast quantities of irrelevant stuff but no ntfs-3g. Further investigation revealed ntfs-3g to be part of their live-dvd setup but not the full regular distribution I had with 2 dvds or the repository the default package thing was installed to look at.
No doubt more work would have got me an ntfs-3g to run on it but this is where I stopped. I was pleased with the installation. It gave me a reasonable desktop that didn't think it was an ipad. Trying to get ntfs tools on to it gave me new appreciation for the Debian style package management and expansive repositories.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 22:38 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
RHEL official repository only contains a small number of packages that Red Hat official supports and so rebuilds pretty much follow the same practise. However there are complimentary repositories like EPEL which make it trivial to get the other extras. ntfs-3g is in it as well.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 17:40 UTC (Mon) by sharms (subscriber, #57357) [Link]
I have been using Unity in 12.04 and, although I initially was not a fan, it has won me over. I think enjoying Unity is highly graphics card dependent, but with the new releases the Intel cards are more than capable.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 5, 2012 20:55 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
I really really like Ubuntu for the quality of packaging, Ubuntu packages are more up-to-date than Debian Testing and more reasonable than Debian Unstable.
However, the choice of Unity is atrocious. Not that GNOME3 is much better.
Luckily, it's very easy to install XFCE on Ubuntu - it's just one "apt-get install xfce-desktop" away.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 0:25 UTC (Tue) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link]
I just upgraded a desktop to 12.04. Then I installed cinnamon from a ppa. Works nicely for me. Unity is irrelevant if you never use it which I do not. Not a big deal really.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 3:57 UTC (Tue) by jafo (subscriber, #8892) [Link]
I recently watched a Windows 8 demo and thought to myself: "Holy crap, I wouldn't be able to tell that apart from Unity!"
We, as a community, have long liked to repeat things like "Follow the dream, not the competition". However, when someone actually does it they seem to get crapped on!
From what I saw of that Windows 8 demo, it looks to me like Linux is getting out in the lead of Windows.
Instead of being praised for innovating or trying something different, I've seen people spitting venom at Unity and GNOME 3. I'm sure they would appreciate constructive criticism, for example I just can't live without focus-follows-mouse (not available in Unity). However, I've seen little constructive in the response to these desktop environments.
But the response to trying something new seems to be: The nail that sticks out gets hammered. People are practically falling over themselves trying to be the first to criticize Unity and GNOME 3.
The thing is: nobody is forcing anyone to use Unity or GNOME 3. Install kubuntu-desktop or xubuntu-desktop or awesome or whatever you like better than Unity and carry on with your lives.
Sean
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 7:52 UTC (Tue) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
> nobody is forcing anyone to use Unity or GNOME 3
True, and nobody is claiming that. What everyone _is_ forced (effectively) to do is to stop using Gnome 2.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:06 UTC (Tue) by xan (subscriber, #58606) [Link]
Surely you understand that you really have no moral authority to demand others free work on exactly the things you want? Yes? I bet you don't have this attitude with anything else in your life, and I'm not sure why free software creates this false sense of entitlement in people.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:18 UTC (Tue) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
> Surely you understand that you really have no moral authority to demand others free work on exactly the things you want? Yes?
Of course I do, and I'm not demanding anything (well, it'd be nice if the Gnome crowd had refrained from stomping all over Gnome 2 namespace so that Gnome 2 would at least _still be there_, but that train has sailed).
I was just objecting to the above poster's brainless demagogic misrepresentation of my (and many others') position, is all. Chill.
(Also, this doesn't really have anything to do with Unity. It's funny how every discussion about Unity here reverts to a Gnome 3 flame-fest, though.)
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:25 UTC (Tue) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link]
I'm so tired of hearing this claim. The software that makes up the GNOME 2 "experience", i.e. gnome-panel + metacity, are still alive and well (and maintained) in the GNOME repository. Any distro that ships with GNOME 3 also ships with gnome-panel. Run it. Problem solved. Noone is forcing you to stop running anything.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 9:31 UTC (Tue) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
> Any distro that ships with GNOME 3 also ships with gnome-panel. Run it.
You mean this two-panel thing that has like 4 basic applets and cannot be configured in any obvious way? No thanks.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 14:06 UTC (Tue) by coulamac (guest, #21690) [Link]
No, that is not what he meant. The panel from Gnome 2 is still alive and well.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 14:17 UTC (Tue) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
Not in Debian Testing, unless I'm missing something blindingly obvious.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 9, 2012 10:25 UTC (Fri) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link]
You have to hold down ALT when you right-click on the panel to configure it... ? :-)
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 10, 2012 0:10 UTC (Sat) by fragmede (subscriber, #50925) [Link]
Wait, what? *Tries it out* Hey, cool!
I'd given up on gnome-panel as stupid and useless, turns out I needed to add a modifier instead of just using right click like I used to.
Too bad I've already switched away from Gnome on the host. (Yay for VirtualBox.)
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 10, 2012 8:30 UTC (Sat) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link]
Glad it helped :-)
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 19:57 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> The software that makes up the GNOME 2 "experience", i.e. gnome-panel + metacity, are still alive and well (and maintained) in the GNOME repository.
I think it can be argued that gnome-panel alone is the primary ingredient of the GNOME 2 "experience." There are several suitable window manager that can replace Metacity (Openbox, Compiz, Xfwm4, etc.), but it's hard to find a replacement for gnome-panel. Xfce-panel is close, but not quite there.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 11:38 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]
Is there a way to install Ubuntu without installing any desktop environment at all (aside from installing the Server version)? If so, I haven't found it. It doesn't even ask. So yes, in that way people are being forced to run Unity, at least until they can get to a prompt and delete all of it. In Debian, I simply unselect the option for 'desktop environment' in tasksel, and go merrily along without all the bother. If I want a GUI, I can simply do a 'get-apt install xfce4' or whatever. I don't have to worry about cleaning out all the unwanted stuff installed by default.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 12:50 UTC (Tue) by obrakmann (subscriber, #38108) [Link]
There actually is. You need the 'alternative' install media, not the standard live cd. Then you can press a function key (I believe it's F4, but the options are spelled out at the bottom of the screen, so just have a look) to select the installation mode at boot time (it says something like 'install command line only system').
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 12:58 UTC (Tue) by simosx (subscriber, #24338) [Link]
Yeah, Ubuntu Minimal,
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
Get the 23MB minimal ISO and enjoy yourself.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 7, 2012 9:56 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] By the way, there is already a 12.04 mini.iso, although it's not linked on the page you linked to.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 7, 2012 9:51 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]
OK, I'll give the minimal and alternative methods a try--thanks to both of you for the info. But I may still move to Debian. :)
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 8:45 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Innovators would do well to learn from their mistakes. "I don't like it" is valid feedback, and so is "get that 'orrible mess out of my sight". My lesson from that would be: do not force your disruptive choices on your users, no matter how much you like them.
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 16:40 UTC (Tue) by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497) [Link]
> I just can't live without focus-follows-mouse (not available in Unity)
FWIW, I use focus-follows-mouse in Unity. It works okay (global menu is inconvenient, and you can't turn it on in System Settings, there are no other issues).
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 6, 2012 16:46 UTC (Tue) by AngryChris (subscriber, #74783) [Link]
> I recently watched a Windows 8 demo and thought to myself: "Holy crap, I wouldn't be able to tell that apart from Unity!"
You find these two images to be visually similar somehow?
Unity: http://www.hackourlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Ubu...
What are the innovators to do? Posted Mar 7, 2012 0:17 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
Those aren't valid comparison images. You've got start menu activated in the Windows8 image but not the equivalent in the Unity interface. When you compare the same things in both you will find them very similar.
For example, in Windows 8 the new "Charms" on the right bezel are very similar to the left dock task bar thing in Unity. And IMO the new start bar metro thing is darn near a copy of the Unity's deployed application launcher (not sure what it's official name is). Both interfaces are touch focused and they appear to follow identical use paradigms. And the top user question if you Google "windows 8 consumer preview" is how to return to the windows 7 start menu just like the top question for 11.04 was how to disable unity. This of course shows that even a major corporation like MS can shoot themselves in the foot just as easily as Canonical can.
I expect one of two things with Windows 8, either they implement a checkbox to turn off the new metro interface or Windows 8 sees as much adoption as Vista did. Because I'll tell you one thing, when people go to use that new Metro interface they are going to be screaming louder than anyone screamed about unity because they paid money to have their productivity taken away. At least Canonical isn't taking money to degrade usability.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 6:04 UTC (Tue) by sjlyall (subscriber, #4151) [Link] Shuttleworth says:In 12.04 LTS, multi-monitor use cases got a first round of treatment This is just insane. I'm running Windows XP at work with multiple monitors. At home I have a couple of big monitors running under Ubuntu 10.04 . At least I can keep running 10.04 for another year before I'm forced to upgrade to switch to something else.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 13:04 UTC (Tue) by simosx (subscriber, #24338) [Link]
Dual head has been working all along; several usability issues have been fixed to make the experience better.
If you want to stick to GNOME Panel, you can install it in Ubuntu, log out, select the Ubuntu Classic session type, then log in again. All this in Ubuntu 11.10 and even in the new 12.04.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 6:20 UTC (Tue) by scientes (guest, #83068) [Link]
Am I the only one that thinks that Unity is totally hideous. Managing to force everyone to relearn their habits while not being nearly as nice as gnome-shell? I mean the various menus of the upper-right area are WAY over-long and gross.
-Shawn
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 16:07 UTC (Tue) by simosx (subscriber, #24338) [Link] You write "totally hideous". How can this be reasonable criticism?You are among the group that criticise Unity from just a partisan viewpoint.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 19:19 UTC (Tue) by jedidiah (guest, #20319) [Link]
No. You are simply choosing to fixate only only those things that fits your little agenda.
Shiny new things are great. However, they should never come at the expense of legacy interfaces and it should always be trivial to completely revert.
Unity is a fine idiots desktop. However until Metro is the norm it should not be the Ubuntu default. Otherwise you violate the principle of "consistency" in HID. That principle doesn't just mean subjecting everyone to vi.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 6, 2012 21:54 UTC (Tue) by simosx (subscriber, #24338) [Link]
"[my] little agenda"? "[Unity is an] idiots[sic] desktop"?
You have partisan views. Even if Unity came with a free 1936 Chateau Margaux bottle of wine, you would still complain that Unity comes with an "old" wine.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 7, 2012 0:20 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
Personal attacks have little place here.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 8, 2012 14:16 UTC (Thu) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
>Even if Unity came with a free 1936 Chateau Margaux bottle of wine, you would still complain that Unity comes with an "old" wine.
I know, right? And it's completely untrue, Ubuntu 12.04 ships wine 1.4, which is as new as wine gets!
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 7, 2012 22:49 UTC (Wed) by HenrikH (guest, #31152) [Link]
So we who appreciates Unity is idiots now? Truth be told I had some troubles getting used to Unity but now when I'm using 10.04 or Win7 I constantly find myself looking for the Unity launcher and (on win7) I miss having the window buttons on the left, it somehow feels more correct to have them on the left side.
I run Unity on our home machine and wife and kids have never complained, not even when I made the switch, they quickly adopted without any fuzz. But then again we might be idiots...
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 8, 2012 8:58 UTC (Thu) by gervin23 (guest, #13977) [Link]
I'm also an idiot. As a longtime Linux user I must say the switch to 12.04+Unity has been a pleasant surprise. My Thinkpad T60 finally suspends properly (broken since 11.04), power consumption has improved, video mode switches perfectly when undocking, and I'm finding the whole Unity experience simple yet productive. Granted, most of what I just described are kernel/driver issues but Ubuntu is making sure all these things are nicely weaved and work properly. I've always wanted to like XFCE but it has never handled my multi-monitor setup properly among other shortcomings.
Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu 12.04 desktop Posted Mar 8, 2012 18:20 UTC (Thu) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
You can move the Win7 taskbar to any edge of the screen (since unlike Unity and GNOME Shell, Windows has a sane design).
|
|||||||||||||
