Discussion on:

Ubuntu 11.10 brings Ubuntu Unity closer to fine

I've got used to it, and I see no reason to switch back.

When the Unity desktop came out was when I suddenly lost interest in Ubuntu. It had til then been a stable, versatile, very viable alternative to Windows. Now Canonical seems to feel it can do whatever it wants with its interface, and I'm not into that. I've branched out to other Linuxes--currently Zen Mini--for my laptop and netbook, and have no interest a.t.m. to install a Linux as alternate boot to my Windows 7 desktop machine. The other Linuxes available don't have enough solid support for me, and/or I'm not enough of a tech freak to learn to fiddle with the Linuxes requiring a lot of hands-on to tweak them to perfection. Ain't happening.

You could stick with Ubuntu and use one of the alternative desktop versions. That is, you might find Xubuntu or Kubuntu, for example, to be a viable desktop for you where you want to run Linux. Also, there is always Mint Linux.

Don't get stuck in a rut with the toy distro of the Linux world.

The no root user + sudo for everyone by default security model is pretty atrocious, for starters. Plenty of other fish in the pond, although some use the same awful sudo as well.

As mentioned, some of the Ubuntu derivatives/partial relatives are better, at least in other respects.

It's not accurate that there is sudo for everyone by default. Just for the user who installs the system, which is of course sensible.

As a security model, sudo is *MUCH* preferable over an old style root account that invites people to stay with administrative rights for longer than absolutely needed. (i.e. a single command).

With root login disabled, that's one less worry for an internet facing server too.

I think Unity is fine as a concept.

But Ubuntu (or desktop Linux ingeneral).. Get real. I've been using Ubuntu on-again, off-again since 2005. Yesterday I installed the latest 11.10 version on my laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad).

First ran into the problem that Ubuntu (and other Linux) has had with this particular brand forever, which is that there is no way to adjust the trackpoint pointing device speed and sensitivity. There are fixes to the problem, but as the technology evolves, so do the fixes so you need to read up again and spend an hour to get it to work.

Then today I connected it to my external monitor at the office... Ouch. That completely didn't work, and in the process it messed up my display settings so I couldn't even log in anymore. Tried to reconfigure X, but that messed up too so now it doesn't boot to a GUI at all and the easiest point of action now is probably to reinstall again, and try with a different NVidia driver (either another one from Ubuntu, or something from NVidia)...

...Or maybe the real solution is to just forget about all this aggro and stick with Windows 7, which is solid as houses.

Well I to don't like the unity idea but that is probably because I really never gave it a chance. I use Linux Ubuntu and have for years. Most of my friends use both Windows and Linux most have dual boot systems that I have installed for them. All have tried Windows 7 and most had me wipe the drive and install Windows XP and Linux back on their boxes. All have said they did not like any Windows OS since Windows XP. In short I use Linux and I fix Windows Boxes. Oh and when I installed Linux I only had Nvidia problems and Broadcom with a few boxes which was fixed as soon as I connected to the internet.

NVidia gets tricky when connecting an external monitor. It's just very strange the way that works. (The NVidia panel). Connecting an external monitor in a completely painless way is very important in business, when you have to connect to a projector or other large screen for presentations and the like. When you are just setting up for a presentation you really don't want to be messing around with the NVidia settings.

The dashboard is improved but still blows. It's not apparent and a royal pain to add items to it that aren't loaded through the software store. Other tweaking is similarly annoying

I still HATE moving the menus away from the windows. That's probably the worst feature. I still have issues where I quickly click a menu item only to find out the wrong window had focus (and thus the menu). I can deal with the dashboard and launcher with some minimal improvement but this really needs to change.

Agreed; I don't mind the concept of the dashboard so much, I think the key is to get to know how to use it with the keyboard only; with a few additional tweaks I bet that gets really fast, much faster than Gnome 2.x

But I don't see the joy in that global menu bar, ESPECIALLY that the menus are actuall hidden until you hover the mouse there (there's probably a keystroke there too though.)

Look at this by the way, all the keyboard shortcuts in a nice Desktop Wallpaper! http://ubuntuone.com/p/pBs/

More great info: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/things-to-tweak-fix-after-installing.html

The problem with Unity, is it's trying to be a computer interface as well as a mobile interface. Windows it seems, is following a similar route.

Sometime, what has evolved over the years just cannot be improved upon. For example, the predecessor of the computer keyboard, the typewriter, was a masterpiece of practical engineering and one that the computer keyboard has emulated.

The traditional menu system is similar. A hierarchy of simple words that leads you to where you want to go, simply cannot be beaten. Taking up loads of screen estate with icons is a retrograde step in my view and it doesn't matter whether it's Windows or Linux.

Not for me thanks.

I installed and started using Ubuntu / Linux OS for the first time last weekend. First I would say it's cute and necessary low level of awareness and use should be expected by the User does not require any major functionality and worse if you know of other products such as Windows and Apple. If you miss the setup no thurberbid removing email accounts created, and as I already am User to many years o foutlook professional and I say that Zimbra Desktop is close to but, my God we are in the 21st century I see that the development and aborgagem these systems will lose much market for Tablets and service portals on the Internet. O.S who will need to be programmers to run on their PCs, users will mostly want something more elegant 100% functional without SUDO or anything else that makes it less boring.

Unbuntu 11.04 was fairly solid, and worked well with Gnome 2 (Unity seemed half baked at the time). I was looking forward to trying 11.10, so I installed it the day it was released. What a shocker, it feels like a beta release. Unity is awful - my biggest beef is with the Mac style menu functionality on the top status bar. This might have been a reasonable idea when Apple invented it, back in the days of 12 and14" monitors (Mac Plus, et. al.) when screen real estate was at a premium, but now it doesn't make any sense at all. You have to move the mouse cursor away from the primary focus window to the top of the screen for any menu selections. This is bad enough with todays large 22-24" LCD monitors, but it plainly does not work with multi-monitor setups - who wants to move their mouse to another screen to choose a menu item? Apple is too proud to say it goofed, and change to more reasonable menu on each window, like every other modern computer operating system out there. Not only that but everyone seems to swoon over Apple's ideas, including it appears, Canonical, who has aped OS X with Unity, only the app dock is on the left side of the screen instead of the bottom. Also Unbuntu 11.10 has a "beta' feel to it. Broadcast user accounts seemed like a good idea in 11.04, but only had three choice, Facebook, Google, and Twitter. 11.10 only has one choice - Google. What happened? The Thunderbird email client is not as good as Evolution. Unity feels slow. The Unbuntu Software Store has gotten so bloated it takes 10 seconds to load (2.5Ghz Core2 4GB RAM laptop). I had to really search for Google Chomium to install it. The "lens" application dashboard is a solution looking for a problem. I tried Gnome 3 - arrgh, what did they do to Gnome? Gnome 2 was stable, fast, Ubuntu customizations worked. The application menu is displayed by moving the mouse corner into the upper left corner of the screen. Whose brain dead idea was that? If they're going to imnprove it, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I tried going back to "Classic" Gnome. Arrgh, this is not really the old Gnome 2, and Ubuntu says it won't be supported in the future. Fedora is crap (UI problems, won't recognize devices on my laptop, problem getting X to work at the right resolution - this is the stuff that turned me off Linux back 10 years ago), KDE is more crap, an awful user interface. This is the Linux answer to Windows? I reformatted and went back to Ubuntu 11.04, until Canonical gets their act together. Sadly it seems everyone in the computer world feels change is necessary, even when the change is a step backwards. Microsoft may be evil incarnate but they spend a lot of time/monry researching the user interface. The Windows 7 interface seems to have got it right. Ubuntu could do a lot worse than piggyback on Microsoft's research.

My favorite comment is how you claim "Apple is too proud to say it goofed, and change to more reasonable menu on each window, like every other modern computer operating system out there." Then you go on with "Not only that but everyone seems to swoon over Apple's ideas, including it appears, Canonical, who has aped OS X with Unity, only the app dock is on the left side of the screen instead of the bottom." So my question to you is, who are you ? What have you made? And why do you think you opinion is right and everyone (your word) and Apple is wrong? Well it seems like in your mind you have all the answers. Joke!

The OP is right on quite a number of points. Unity definitely looks way too much like OS X, given there is no option to disable the global menu bar. There is also other functionality that seems a little bit too much in that direction. And Apple has screwed up to always have that bar, without an option either. The apple fanboys won't have any of that though, it is perfect as it is. But the OP is not right completely about KDE, it has some good points (even though 4.x is a mess that should not have been put out for a few more years). Windows is in no way some leader in terms of good GUI design, it's the same garbage from 10+ years ago with a little window dressing. Very lame.

I agree with you 100% but have you tried Lubuntu? It works pretty good on my 3 year old Asus Eee netbook.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu

The silly ribbon in office... the horrible look and feel...can't find anything.. the "search box" is useless unless you tweak it to find everything ON the drive (hidden, etc)... my preference is Windows 2000 style, sorry. XP blew, too, they took out functionality I needed (and I tweaked to get back.) I'm totally lost on 7.
The solution for Ubuntu... as stated elsewere, install Xubuntu or Mint, instead. Then you can set it up however you want.
Unity, and I hear the coming Windows 8.. WILL be optimized for portable/touchscreen devices. When the devices support these interfaces, fine. But I do believe a fork needs to be implemented between the desktop and touchscreen interfaces, as the input methods and screens are totally different. Bravo for Unity on mobile, but please don't force it on the desktop.

If you turn the themes off in XP it's not too different from Windows 2000.

The one thing I don't like in Win 7 are the stupid Libraries. I never know where my files actually are now, with the real risk of misplacing them, missing certain files when backing them up or copying them over to somewhere. Now there is a solution to something that didn't need fixing: files in a directory structure!

Go and download Linux Mint 11 its fast still uses Gnome 2 and everything just works. Write back after you have a smile on your face and the faith in Linux again you won't be disappointed.

I was using Unity on my desktop machine for the past 6 months and was quite pleased with it, warts and all.

Upgraded this weekend to 11.10 and got so annoyed with the menu changes that I've switched to Gnome 3.2 - and I like it much better.

It's not just that you need to click on the window to get focus to see the menus (11.04 behavior), it's now you need to click on the window, then move to the mouse bar to *see* the menu. I'm running a dual-desktop setup, and I was wasting a lot of eye-and-hand movement just to do simple tasks in some new software I was experimenting with (and thus didn't know the keyboard shortcuts).

I agree with Jack - until Canonical lets the end-user tweak and adjust the behaviors easily, I'm staying away from it on the desktop machines.

I also have it on a netbook, and it will probably be fine on that much smaller, and less-powerful, platform.

I tried to convince myself that Unity was alright. I tried to like the invisible scrollbar, and learned how to find it. Remember how you can scroll page by page by clicking above or below the scroll control? It doesn't happen in Unity.

So I upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10, and was greeted by the beautiful LightDM login. Logged in, saw a black screen briefly, then the login screen again. I guess LightDM is so wonderful, that's all my computer was supposed to do. I eventually managed to get to my desktop by going to a recovery terminal and removing LightDM (something the casual user would never figure out).

One more thing: In the Dash Overlay, Applications tab, there are apparently only six apps available for download. There's no More button, no categories, just six apps.

It needs a lot of work.

I won't waste a column outlining what I have done so in detail everywhere else, will limit it to the thought that Gnome 3 and Unity are both well down the wrong GUI path.

It seems that User Experience is an unknown concept to the clueless devs working on both desktops. Win 8 Metro is more of the same from idiots that wish to ruin your desktop by making it look like a phone or even worse, a Mac.

thanks but no thanks Canonical I'm switching to Mint. I want a desktop UI on a desktop and a Netbook UI on a netbook. Options are there for a reason, what works in one situation doesn't work for all of them.

Mandriva is doing something similar with it's Rosa plasma add-ons. It runs on KDE, and when the Rosa panel isn't being used, you have your "normal" desktop environment. KDE and Mandriva's implementation of it in particular, are very highly configurable by the end user.

If anybody likes Unity but agrees with Jack's criticisms here, you should check out Mandriva with the Rosa panel, which is the default both on the live DVD system and when installed to HD.

You can also get rid of the Rosa panel and go with "traditional" KDE, which would be the equivalent of eliminating unity altogether from ubuntu. How's that for "configurable?"

I'll have to have a look at some point, although I'm not a big KDE fan. (It used to be alright, anyway. Just not my cuppa.)

I haven't played with Mandrake/Mandriva for quite a while. Thanks for the tip.

In my opinion, having tried CentOS 6, latest version of Knoppix & the Mandriva 2011 (which) I did NOT like B|C it is leaning towards becoming a MAC. Mandriva 2010.2 PWP by far came out on top as far as USER friendliness as well as maintaining it's competitiveness in providing a developing environment for QT4, c++, SQL, et cetera.
P.S. I also tried RHE ... did not like.

I believe parkerkael made a point that is important. I have an ipod touch as well as an android tablet and love both devices. However, I use them in a different manner than I use my desktop with the 22in Envision monitor. In spite of my other devices, my desktop is truly my workhorse and not having a full keyboard, mouse and large monitor would present a serious handicap. Thus the introduction of a desktop developed in the spirit of touchscreen interfaces is something I find to be more of an impediment than an enhancement. I tried Unity on both 11.04 and 11.10 and have settled back to Gnome 2 on 11.04. I can see the advantages of Unity on a hand-held device fail to see it on the desktop. Perhaps Conical is positioning itself to offer a uniform presentation for all devices.

Having been around since the early days of linux, I have to say i do not like the attempt to simplify the interface. I understand the desire and the goal, but do not like the implementation as it stands so far. It has a very kludgie feel to it. Not terribly smooth in my opinion. I've tried unity and the gnome 3 and have yet to be really impressed with either. I've seen windows 8 previews and even played with the new windows phones. I have to say that the windows 8 interface looks like it will be a lot more polished. All in all i'll stick to my task bars and desktop icons while i can.

K

......but after reading all the hassles, I'll stick with Bodhi for now.

I have been an Ubuntu user for 5 years now. All my desktops in our small office (about 10 including laptops) run Ubuntu.

Ubuntu now is missing the point with Unity. The OS is only the platform to operate useful programs. Any user wants his/her applications running fast and smoothly. Unity does not achieve this. It feels like they are centering the attention on the OS and Ubuntu don't care about anything else. The OS should be transparent and invisible to the user and the desktop should be just that, a simple way to present your applications. Gnome 2 accomplishes this, Unity does not.

I have been running Unity since a few months back and the decision was made to return to the last good version of ubuntu. In many machines we are still running 10.04 LTS for its reliability. Our friends at teksapiens.com the best web design and seo company in Dallas who also runs ubuntu on desktops decided not to adopt Unity as well.

I have been an Ubuntu fan since the beginning. They achieved what all the others couldn't, so I became a big supporter. However. If they keep pushing Unity, I will have no choice but leave Ubuntu and migrate perhaps to Debian. we don't like Unity. We don't like Unity. We don't like Unity! We want our freedom back!

"There is no way around this and new users will just have to accept that change is an inevitability with the PC desktop. Even with Windows ??? change happens and users have little to no choice but to move on"

Don't like Unity? After Ubuntu 11.04 came out, I made the switch to Slackware w/ XFCE for about a month and settled on Debian Squeeze with backports. I'm very happy with it. "Little to no choice"?...choice is one thing Linux has plenty of. There's no reason to use unity if you don't want to.

So can I play my games on it yet. I would love to try another OS besides windows and I like Linux because its lighter that Windows but if I can't Play Call of Duty or any directx games on it they what is the point of switching. If I can get some info on how to make my games work on Linux I will switch.

I upgraded my laptop to 11.04 on its release. Didn't like Unity but gave it a whirl. Reverted quickly to Gnome following kernel crashes. Experienced frequent kernel crashes when I upgraded desktop to Fedora 15, reverting after a week or 2 to F14. 'Eye candy' is all very well but people like me took to Linux because of its intrinsic stability. This should never be forgotten, imho.

First off, I have not used Unity but I am a computer user and I am educated in the networking field plus it is what pays my bills.

In regards to the negative statements related to configurability of the desktop:

I find that most users do not care about the level of configuration that you speak of. Typically they want to change their background and thats it. Personally all I change my background to black.

I think you may be confusing typical linux geeks and hackers with the general masses. Linux has always had users that want more from their desktops environment(either minimist or heavy duty 3D graphics effects). Personally I have always disliked the various choices in the linux world for desktop environments. Give me something that works quickly, has a unified look, and isn't wasting time with trying to address the issue of configurability. Although I still think we are a long ways away from all that.

I think that Ubuntu Unity is attempting to provide a linux based desktop for the rest of the world. Hopefully they succeed.

Every time a relative's Windows machine died, I resurrected it with an Ubuntu OS. I chose Ubuntu because it was easy for them to adjust. None of them are tech-savvy, but all of them were able to use Ubuntu with ease. And that, I seem to recall, was supposed to be the point.

Then Unity came along, and I was getting calls asking where the scroll bar had gone, and how the menus worked, and where files were, and "How do I turn the computer off?". That is my definition of a non-user-friendly desktop. Now they all have Classic Gnome, and none of them are getting Ubuntu 11.10. And if it gets worse in the future, I'm switching them to different OSs.

Ubuntu definition: "I am what I am because of who we all are"

it seems, for the most part, we are all against Unity so it goes against the grain of Ubuntu's scope.

Even the word "Unity" assumes we are all on the same page. But, it is clear to see that Canonical is in another book, completely. They are calling the shots.

Unity, in its present form, just plain SUCKS !!! Steer clear. If you still like Ubuntu (which I do) ... stick with a "non-Unity" version until Canonical gets their act together.

Ubuntu is a South African word that means "I can't figure out how to configure Debian."

Of course, Ubuntu would be even harder to configure against its baked-in configuration if you wanted something different.

Last time I played with Debian, it wasn't that big of a deal to compile, let alone configure. I looked up maybe two things because an app or desktop chose to keep their conf in some non-standard place.

I use Ubuntu becuase I support Windows and have to have a system that won't crash when Windows does. I live in Terminal Services / RDesktop. The RDesktop client out of the box on 11.10 had no display customization controls. All RDesktop sessions were 800x600. I'm sure there is a hack to change this, but I'm still tired of Unity and Gnome 3. Call me old fashioned, but I will stay on 10.10 with Gnome 2. I was a regular version updater until now.

Well i have been using linux (Ubuntu) ever since 9.04 was released, and 11.04 was big Leap with inception of "unity". Looking at the fact the aesthetic aspect and shortcuts that it added, i mean everything about it was new, 11.10 on the other hand didnt feel like anything "new", felt like some icons changed and some functions increased. Talking on the other hand about problems others listed here, I never faced any such problem with Ubuntu. Using a external display or instability with programs never came in my list of problems. Moreover talking about options being at the top and need to move cursor to use, well the shortcuts are still there Alt+F still opens the File menu, and even in windows and anywhere else u have to move your cursor to make it work.
I guess the problem with most of you guys is that your version is unstable one, try to update and all the problems and crashes will DISAPPEAR.
Moreover talking about the user-friendliness and ease that Ubuntu 11.10 offers, i would like to tell that i everyone who saw linux in my lapi moved to ubuntu ASAP and left Windows. So that's a achievement i guess. Moreover softwares like wine makes using windows software easy too.
So for me Ubuntu 11.10 is all Win-Win