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1 • Where is it? (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-09 09:25:12 GMT from Germany)
There is a distro out there that has a long history. It is the base for a bunch of great other distros. It has its last release on April, 28th (when it was done, as bug-free as it can be). Distrowatch seems to think it isn't even worth a word. Its name is Slackware.
2 • Right: unity is a small problem when compared with hardware problems (by meanpt on 2011-05-09 09:30:59 GMT from Portugal)
I'll not discuss unity: i like it, it's simple and everyone coming from whatever other distro or OS will be working immediately to get things done. After that I think unity still have to learn everything from the recent tablet user interfaces, even from other desktop solutions available. Now, ubuntu seems to be targeting 200 million users on the next 4 years, as a broad medium term and strategic objective, but it's easy to jump with a number without establishing the roadmap to achieve that target, mainly by establishing goals by what mr shuttleworth calls function and form factors. And to achieve anything like that ubuntu will have to do more than supporting the everything intel computers, whatever the form is in stake.
3 • Really great attitudes (by NK on 2011-05-09 09:31:58 GMT from United States)
I really admire both the sentiments that Mark Shuttleworth and Barry Kauler show here. Shuttleworth is willing to admit the shortcomings of some of the decisions (esp. in the wake of some harsh criticisms) made while Barry is more than willing to entertain alternate design ideas concerning packaging. I really think it shows the best of the open source ethos, and can only lead to good things imho.
4 • Where is it? (by No One on 2011-05-09 09:32:58 GMT from France)
Slackware 13.37 was announced in last week's issue.
As appropriate to its release date.
5 • Right: unity is a small problem when compared with hardware problems (by skin27 on 2011-05-09 11:02:01 GMT from Netherlands)
Good review of 11.04. My experiences were somewhat the same (as I have a large screen and a nVidia card). The concept of one desktop environment for multiple devices is nice, but their still needs to be some adjustments on the used screen size.
For newbies is installing with different install methods (like Wubi, USB, CD, Virtual Machine) and hardware detection really important, because as one of these fails they easily quit. Making the user experiences on different hardware and installation with different methods more consistent is an important area to focus on.
6 • Ubuntu gets bombed but not Puppy for major changes? (by PFYearwood on 2011-05-09 11:24:29 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu gets cursed for changing its default desktop from Gnome to Unity and many users threaten to jump ship. Yet, this week, Puppy announces that the maintainer of Puppy Lucid gets to take a break and that will end the Ubuntu connection. It will be up to the next maintainer to select a package base for Puppy 5.3. Where is the outrage for this announcement?
Yes, Ubuntu made a major change for Natty. I tried it and still use Lucid. I also used Puppy in the past, keeping it for a liveCD distro. But, every time I download the latest version of Puppy, it is very different from the last version. Puppy gets a pass on criticism for its many changes. Why?
I guess it is because Puppy has such a small following and Ubuntu has become the Linux version of MIcrosoft. It made the mistake of being successful.
Paul
7 • random request of password (by som on 2011-05-09 11:55:07 GMT from India)
"but it seemed to request my password almost randomly"
well i am using ubuntu for sometimes now and i am still learning it.the seemingly random request of password is also noticed by me.later i found out that if i had used synaptic or terminal in recent past to install application,then software centre stopped asking for password for sometime.so,i thought ubuntu is probably caching the password for sometime for the sake of user ease.is not it so?????????
but i found this in all ubuntu releases starting from 8.10;not only in 11.04
8 • Unity, Software Centre, and Open Source (by MarkSouth on 2011-05-09 12:16:23 GMT from Switzerland)
Jesse, thanks for the Natty review. I'm still curious as to why Ubuntu finds it so much easier to cope with your laptop's wireless card.
I tried Ubuntu 11.04 on a LiveCD. The Unity interface was easy to use and if all I ever wanted to do was web browsing and office work I would never need to change anything. Yes, I'm a geek who likes to customize stuff, but most people only ever change their wallpaper, and sometimes not even that.
It's interesting to me that many people first criticize GUIs for needing too much clicking and not using the keyboard, but now many criticize Unity for using the keyboard to search for apps.
In Ubuntu, the Software Centre (and also Synaptic, and sudo in the terminal) keep the system password cached for a few minutes (about 5, apparently). This has been the way Ubuntu has worked for several years now, at least since 8.10 as mentioned by #7.
I would like to see more source code opened. I don't see any business risk to Canonical from opening the Ubuntu One server code, since their business edge is in the service operation and the sunk cost is presumably quite large (much larger than the code cost).
Regarding open source, has Puppy ever open sourced the code? It was promised long before my departure from the project, but as of today the site still states that referring users to the individual component sites for source complies with the GPL - in contradiction with what I've read elsewhere.
Pressing for source code to be opened is something that Distrowatch could throw its weight behind, and it would be a great contribution to the world of free and open software.
9 • @2, @5; Hardware Problems (by cba on 2011-05-09 12:21:57 GMT from Germany)
Ubuntu simply cannot fix the problems that nouveau still has with a lot of NVidia graphics cards, because they do not have the know-how to fix it. In this case they stand on the shoulders of the Nouveau project and Red Hat/Fedora. In contrast to Ubuntu/Canonical, Red Hat pays a Nouveau developer in order to fix the issues, Ben Skeggs, whereas Ubuntu does nothing in this regard, although it would help them most.
10 • Unity (by Eric on 2011-05-09 12:28:31 GMT from Netherlands)
For years we have been laughing our ***es off with Windows: in order to close this OS you have to press the start button.
Now Ubuntu comes close to this 'joke': In order to access your system settings, you have to press the sut-down button...
11 • Ubuntu Review (by dragonmouth on 2011-05-09 12:30:15 GMT from United States)
Jesse, thanks for an honest review of Ubuntu, mentioning some of its warts along with its good features.
I wish my impression of Ubuntu was as positive as yours. From the beginning, none of the versions of Ubuntu have properly set the resolution for my video card/monitor setup. The setup is capable of 1600x1200 but Ubuntu has always defaulted to 800x600. Other distros allow some way to correct such glitches. However, Ubuntu, in its infinite wisdom of protecting the user from himself, does not permit him to edit config files nor does it provide a GUI method of making corrections. For a self-proclaimed "newbie friendly" distro, not allowing the user to make changes is rather unfriendly.
12 • NVIDIA (by Smellyman on 2011-05-09 12:33:39 GMT from Hong Kong)
The latest proprietary drivers for NVIDIA suck so bad right now on linux. I have found out that my GF 7300 LE card is particularly troublesome. It can't run Gnome 3, Unity or latest builds of KDE.
NVIDIA hopefully sorts it out. the Nouveau drivers are working ok right now on Kubuntu, but I would really like to to get back to the proprietary drivers. Unfortunately they just work a lot better than nouveau.
13 • @PFYearwood (by dragonmouth on 2011-05-09 12:39:10 GMT from United States)
PFYearwood said: "Ubuntu has become the Linux version of MIcrosoft. It made the mistake of being successful."
Their mistake is not in "being successful", their mistake is in letting success go to their collective heads and becoming as restrictive, as arrogant, as dictatorial in their attitude towards their users as Microsoft is. They may be the developers, but they definitely do not know what is best for me, the user.
14 • Unity: my impression (by Leo on 2011-05-09 12:51:22 GMT from United States)
As I commented last week. I took Unity for a ride, and I tend to agree with Jesse. It is a nice concept, but still not mature. My benchmark is Kubuntu. IMHO, KDE4 scales much better to large/small screensizes (I run it on a 7 inche, old eeepc, in mid-sized laptops and on a huge monitor, ir rocks in all). But Unity has a nicer, workflow oriented, simpler interface. Let's see how it evolves!
15 • unity (by pera on 2011-05-09 12:51:47 GMT from Serbia)
Unity can't run on my HP laptop with ati x1250 card,while gnome-shell can run,and also compiz.
Unity is in beta stage yet.
16 • Unite, etc. (by VW72 on 2011-05-09 13:10:32 GMT from United States)
After using Unity for a few weeks (final beta through now), I thought I would hate it, but actually, it's not that bad. I found that it is customizable, but you must edit script files with a text editor. You can change icon sizes and what appears when right clicking on an iterm in the menu/dock.
My biggest complaint has to do with the unified menu and window controls being separate from the application windows. Several times I closed the wrong windows. Very frustrating. All of the mousing from window to menu was very tiring, too. I later discovered that holding down the alt key brings up the menu and then the mnemonics work. I also found that the unified menu can be disabled and then windows behave as you would expect.
For comparison, I also tried gnome3's gnome-shell. Both it and unity are very similar. By comparison, gnome-shell seemed more polished, but unity seemed more finished. I know both are subjective terms, but in reality, both need more work to be ready for mainstream use.
On my netbook, Unity makes a lot of sense, given it's small screen. On my desktop, not so much. On the other hand, once you figure it out it is not that bad.
However, and this is a big however, I have to use Windows machines all the time. Having such a large departure from what has become the defacto standard (like gnome 2 panel layout) is really problematic. If all I used was Unity, then either it or Gnome-shell would be easy enough to adapt to. However, if you use wither Windows or OS X, then years of habits get in the way of the "new" interfaces.
This isn't an issue for smart phones or pads, as such devices have always had their own interfaces. Besides, most often, these are used for social networks, checking email/calendar and browsing and have been designed accordingly. Very few people would want to replace their real computer with such a limited device.
In short, Unity (and Gnome-shell) proved to be much better and easier to use than I expected. However, given that much of my computer use revolves around non-Unity interfaces, it is always difficult making the transition back and forth. It's not that Unity does it better, it just does it differently.
As such, I find I am much more productive if I use XFCE which functions the way I am use to.
17 • RE:Unity stuff. (by Eddie on 2011-05-09 13:27:46 GMT from United States)
Jessie's review of Ubuntu 11.04 was fair to an extent. I had no problems with the hardware detection on my desktop or my laptop but every case can be different. Yes it is still new and it will improve much. It is much more stable and usable now then when KDE4.0 appeared. As far as people complaining about not being able to tweak everything it would be rather foolish to allow newbies to start editing config files and such. There are ways to change things regardless of what anyone does say about it. This distro is not geared toward the Linux veterans, as everyone here who complains about having there freedom to config taken away from them claim to be, It is geared for the new user. People should not be so self centered and chill out a little. There's plenty of different Linux to go around.
18 • Ubuntu, Unity (by fernbap on 2011-05-09 13:37:57 GMT from Portugal)
"Ubuntu has become the Linux version of MIcrosoft. It made the mistake of being successful."
No, that has nothing to do with success. Don't make me invoke the old stereotype "if it isn't broken, don't fix it".
"Their mistake is not in "being successful", their mistake is in letting success go to their collective heads and becoming as restrictive, as arrogant, as dictatorial in their attitude towards their users as Microsoft is"
And this is also an unbalanced opinion. Microsoft tried what all monopolistic companies always try: to remove the option of choice from the user base. MS is already paying the price, and i don't see how MS will ever be able to revert its downward trend.
Personally, i think the idea behind all recent changes in ubuntu (starting with moving the buttons to the left) is to create a unique UI that the user can associate with the brand, in the same way that Apple does.
That can backfire, but perhaps Shuttleworth is right on this one. The success of Apple depends much on its uniqueness.
As to Unity, i think the concept in itself is wrong. Ubuntu could have improved on gnome instead of trying to replace it, making a "ubuntu layer" in the same way Clem produced the "Mint layer". Unless the idea is creating Unity exclusive applications, which is a disturbing thought in itself.
19 • desktop design (by Robert W. Hayden on 2011-05-09 13:42:39 GMT from United States)
It was interesting to see your interviews re desktop design. Just last night I downloaded a recent distro also covered above. The background was ugly and made the desktop icons hard to see or read. Menus were an illegible black on dark grey, with options to alter any of this deeply buried and unclearly labeled. This seems to be a common problem with vanity distros that showcase the creators' artistic or software preferences but offer no added functionality. This could be skirted by testing each new distro on a few over-60 users who do not already know where things are hidden. Perhaps each new distro could come with a big desktop icon that toggles between the Wow! look and something functional. Maybe it could even boot up in functional mode so people can find the icon;-)
20 • Slack and Ubuntu (by Jesse on 2011-05-09 13:46:42 GMT from Canada)
>> ".Distrowatch seems to think it isn't even worth a word. Its name is Slackware."
We mentioned the release of Slackware last week. If you're looking for a review, we'll probably have that next Monday. I wasn't sure which one I was going to review first, but Ubuntu downloaded much faster and made the choice for me.
>> " I'm still curious as to why Ubuntu finds it so much easier to cope with your laptop's wireless card."
It's usually a firmware issue. You can get more info here: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110328#qa
>> "However, Ubuntu, in its infinite wisdom of protecting the user from himself, does not permit him to edit config files"
How do you figure? Editing configuration files on Ubuntu works the same way as it does on other Linux distros. if you can't find a GUI tool to change your config, you can always use a text editor.
21 • Unity (by Richard Carlson on 2011-05-09 13:57:20 GMT from United States)
I'm giving Unity another try on my desktop system. With my present hardware it appears like I am running a tablet on my system whch has a 23 inch screen, 4-core processor, 16-gig ram. I'd like to seem more bells and whistles with custom adjustments made available. I guess time will tell what and when 'improvements' will be added to the mix to make this a viable alternative.
22 • Major Ubuntu shortcomings (by AnklefaceWroughtlandmire on 2011-05-09 14:21:52 GMT from Ecuador)
If Ubuntu wants be go mainstream, they have two major problems, neither of which are solved or even ameliorated by Unity:
1. The current state of 3D graphics drivers on Linux is an appalling mess. More often than not, 3D effects cause system freezes, lockups, and total crashes. Even the most common graphics cards suffer from this problem on Linux-- I can testify to this with Intel graphics on 3 different laptops, and the reviewer on this issue ran into the same issue with Nvidia. For this reason, enabling 3D effects out of the box, and worse still, making your default desktop environment depend on 3D graphics is a disaster waiting to happen. The train wreck known as Linux 3D graphics is not Ubuntu's fault, but they can't simply ignore the problem. They simply can not forcefully subject their users by default to the plethora of bugs and instability that comes with 3D graphics on Linux.
2. Ubuntu needs some GUI desktop-agnostic system administration tools. Despite all the fanfare around Ubuntu about its ease of use, the most simple system configurations can only be accomplished by reverting to the internet and searching for arcane terminal commands and config file tweaks. This should NEVER be required of a user. I'm referring to the most simple things like setting the default OS in GRUB, enabling/disabling the firewall, or changing the hostname. And worse yet, most GUI configuration tools that do exist for Ubuntu are tied to certain desktop environments. Try to set the system time in IceWM for example without reverting the command line. So, Ubuntu, please answer your users' requests. Most users have never requested a buggy new-age 3D interface. But there are ancient bugs and feature requests for 3D configuration tools. Windows has them. Mac has them. Ubuntu doesn't.
I hope somebody from Ubuntu reads this and accepts this as constructive criticism. I am a full-time desktop Linux user, and I hope that Ubuntu can improve it.
23 • Re: 22 (by Andy Prough on 2011-05-09 14:35:37 GMT from United States)
"Ubuntu needs some GUI desktop-agnostic system administration tools. Despite all the fanfare around Ubuntu about its ease of use, the most simple system configurations can only be accomplished by reverting to the internet and searching for arcane terminal commands and config file tweaks. This should NEVER be required of a user. I'm referring to the most simple things like setting the default OS in GRUB, enabling/disabling the firewall, or changing the hostname. And worse yet, most GUI configuration tools that do exist for Ubuntu are tied to certain desktop environments. Try to set the system time in IceWM for example without reverting the command line. So, Ubuntu, please answer your users' requests. Most users have never requested a buggy new-age 3D interface. But there are ancient bugs and feature requests for 3D configuration tools. Windows has them. Mac has them. Ubuntu doesn't."
But then if Ubuntu had centralized GUI config tools that worked on all desktops, what would you call it? openSUSE-Buntu?? Face it, if you want to use YaST, you might as well install openSUSE 11.4 and enjoy KDE 4.6 in all its glory, and leave the iPhone wannabe's to their Unity and Gnome shells.
24 • Where is ...? (by Tom on 2011-05-09 14:56:20 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Where is Centos 6 ?....
25 • @22, 23 (by Stan on 2011-05-09 15:34:46 GMT from United States)
Not just YaST; Mageia, Mandriva, and PCLinuxOS have the Control Center, which IMHO works even better than YaST. Even Fedora and derivatives have system-config-* (where * can be printer, services, etc...), so even some advanced distributions have it available.
All the above only require GTK+ (and GTK2-perl for MCC, or PyGTK for system-config-*), so are fully desktop-agnostic unless you consider GTK+, Python, and/or Perl major hindrances (in which case you're probably using a system better suited for MS-DOS). There *are* choices for those that want graphical system configuration options.
As for myself, though, I'm old-school, give me well-documented configuration text files any day.
26 • @22: Re: Major Ubuntu Shortcomings (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem on 2011-05-09 15:35:28 GMT from Pakistan)
AnklefaceWroughtlandmire is spot on. In Pakistan, where a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD can be bought pirated in your neighborhood mall for just $0.5, it's actually difficult to convince someone to use Linux because of exactly the two points.
I should not have to mess with drivers and tweaks just to get acceptable performance
Also, I really do need a powerful configuration utility that works 100% of the time, not just 80% of the time.
The closest that any distribution that has gotten to the second point is probably openSUSE with YaST. Still, it's not close enough.
I use Linux. But it's annoying to keep wondering that 'I'm on Ubuntu right now, but if I wanted to do this better, I'd have to reboot to openSUSE, or if I wanted to do that better, I'd have to reboot to Slackware'. It's just sad.
27 • Distro reviews (by Trademark91 on 2011-05-09 15:39:23 GMT from United States)
I find it funny and sad that even distrowatch is beginning to equate ubuntu with linux. Over the last few weeks, the majority of the distrowatch weekly articles have been about ubuntu and the latest disaster known as 11.04. Ubuntu, a relatively young distribution, has released a buggy update. It crashes not only X, but the entire system in the livecd, the installer, and the installed system. At the same time it is forcing a new desktop environment down its users throats (users which were very happy with the previous desktop and did not ask for change), which is compatible only with machines featuring 3d graphic capabilities. Not only this but the new desktop is still basically beta software (if that), crashing often and not well imlemented.
About a day before, the oldest surviving linux distribution, one that has been around almost as long as linux has, released its latest version. This version was stable and thoroughly tested, implemented a lot of new changes, and runs beautifully on virtually any computer on the market or in homes today. It kept its users very happy, and runs fast, stable and secure without sacrificing any functionality. This distribution is named slackware, it has released version 13.37, and it has not recieved a word of acknowledgement from distrowatch, while ubuntu has gotten large articles for weeks now closely following its prerelease, release, and now post-release. Well done distrowatch for your fair coverage of linux distributions.
/sarcasm
28 • RE: #27 (by Andy Prough on 2011-05-09 15:48:35 GMT from United States)
DW has given constant updates regarding the Slackware release candidates, the 13.37 release, and the release of related distros that are based on Slackware. In fact, I probably have seen more coverage of the 13.37 release than any previous Slackware release thanks to DW coverage.
Where have you been the past 3 months? Do they not have internet there? Is someone printing DWW and sending it to you by carrier pigeon?
29 • Re: 20 (by jaycee on 2011-05-09 16:03:19 GMT from Australia)
Jesse wrote: "We mentioned the release of Slackware last week. If you're looking for a review, we'll probably have that next Monday. I wasn't sure which one I was going to review first, but Ubuntu downloaded much faster and made the choice for me."
I'm sure many Slackware users would agree with me when I say that I'd be happy for you to take longer than a week to prepare your review of Slackware 13.37. This release is the most 1337 of them all, so you shouldn't feel pressured to review it quickly at the expense of depth, simply because it was released two weeks ago.
The review Caitlyn Martin gave of Slackware 13.0 for Distrowatch Weekly, Issue 323 (20091005), was very thorough, and probably wouldn't be altogether different to a thorough review of Slackware 13.37, given Patrick Volkerding's conservative attitude towards changes. However, her review focused on Slackware's "simplicity and ease of use" from a beginner's standpoint, not from a KISS standpoint. Also, she only briefly mentioned Slackware's website, forum (i.e. lack thereof), documentation, the reasons behind the included packages (and neglect of Gnome), and reasons for its "archaic" approach to package management - these are areas worthy of greater elaboration. If your review of Slackware 13.37 were to include these aspects, I'm confident it would be considered to be an essentially complete review. Of course, the result would be very lengthy, let alone that there's only so much time you can devote to a review without it interfering with everything else in your daily life that keeps you occupied. Still, considering the lack of reviews since its release, I'm confident Slackware's users would really appreciate you taking your time using it to give an in-depth report of the attributes of Slackware 13.37 and your experiences with it over a longer period of time than is usually afforded to other Linux distribution releases. In short, release your review when it's ready. :-) And thanks for reviewing it in the first place! Your work is much appreciated!
30 • OMG, UNITY it isn't! (by TG on 2011-05-09 16:28:39 GMT from United States)
I know my way around Gnome 2 very well having used and enjoyed it for many years. I'm used to being able to find and launch applications, navigate to files and folders, tweak my desktop entirely to my liking and change system settings with a few clicks of the mouse. Prior to installing Ubuntu 11.04 I anticipated that Unity would be equally user friendly. However the fact is that in its present form Unity is a nightmare of layers of ill conceived overkill crafted in denser layers of almost impenetrable confusion.
System settings should be easy to find, right? Unfortunately they're not in Unity. Someone decided they should reside not where people might logically think to look, but on the log-out menu! It wasn't until I was absolutely desperate to bail out of Unity that I finally found them – completely by accident. Again, you're presented with everything you don't need while digging down to what you do need gets lost in a disorganized shuffle with things so severely locked down that there's no apparent way to change them for the better. Gnome 2 is light years ahead of Unity when it comes to providing a powerful yet fully configurable interface for its users, yet it's being discarded in favor of something as ill conceived and poorly implemented as this?
Certain applications I rely on weren't showing up in the system tray. A bit of Googling revealed there is a 'whitelist' of 'approved applications' in Unity, applications that are 'permitted' to have an icon in the system tray. What's that all about?!! While this application whitelist can be circumvented by some terminal hacking, still some new and less experienced Ubuntu users will find themselves floundering when applications they install fail to show up in the taskbar.
One of the things users love about Linux in general and previous versions of Ubuntu in particular is that everything has always been highly configurable. If you don't like things the way they come out of the box you can change them to something you do like. In that light the new Unity Launchbar is a massive step backwards. When trying to set up the Launchbar the way you want almost nothing is configurable. You can't change its position. You can't get rid of it. You can't change its icons for better looking ones. You can make it a bit smaller if you install Compiz Config Settings Manager, find the Unity plugin and configure it. And you can make the icons blink instead of pulse. But that's about it. By default it shows icons for all your running applications, rather than for those running only in your current workspace. And there's no easy way to change that either. Also the workspace switcher icon does not let you know which workspace you're in or which other workspaces have running applications.
Having found Unity so incredibly disappointing, still I had an ace up my sleeve. I could log out of Unity and log back into the familiar, powerful, and inspirational Gnome 2 desktop by selecting 'Ubuntu Classic' from the logon screen. Ahh! Back to sanity! Back to favorite time savers like the desktop cube. I could hardly wait. My fingers raced through the logoff/logon procedure. At last! There it was! The classic Ubuntu desktop I have come to know and love so well. Honey, I'm home!
But wait, what's this? There don't seem to be any desktop effects enabled. Well I'll just enable them. OK, now what's going on? The desktop effects tab is no longer there. I discover that we users apparently don't need it anymore. Desktop effects are supposedly 'on' by default. Except they aren't. What kind of deal is this?!
So I open Compiz Config Settings Manager and disable desktop wall, then enable desktop cube and cube rotation. I'm told that I need Open GL. I accept. I'm told I need compositing. I accept. Instantly all my window menus and borders disappear. The desktop cube doesn't cube and fails to rotate. I look at my graphics drivers. Aha! There's the problem. The Nvidia driver is downloaded, installed and activated - but not in use. Never seen this before! How the hell do I tell the system to use the driver? Perhaps an uninstall and reinstall will help?
Five minutes later I'm staring at the blank screen of my computer monitor as my system refuses to boot at all. Despite booting from a live CD, no amount of tinkering with xorg.conf will allow me to boot into the system. Finally, it's back to the familiar, beautiful, Ubuntu installation screen once more. Following another fresh installation and some more Googling I learn that the message that the driver is activated but not in use is a 'known bug'. Now I know!
I simply gave up trying to configure Ubuntu classic with desktop effects. When Compiz is enabled as the window manager, the system immediately reverts back to Unity. When I select Metacity, CCSM loses all it's settings and refuses all requests to enable the cube without compositing. With compositing enabled all the menus and borders disappear. No two ways about it, Ubuntu Classic as a viable option is truly broken.
So what's the real problem? Why doesn't Unity work? Basically because it takes away choice. It takes away that sense of freedom we've come to love about Linux. It clamps down on individual input and expression to the point of destroying it. Some claim that these things don't bother them. They say they can live with what this and be happy with it. I certainly won't argue with anyone who thinks like this. We're individuals with differing ideas about things, and Unity will have those who like what they see and decide they can live with it.
Nevertheless personal choice, freedom to change things to suit oneself, and expressing our individual likes and dislikes in the way we configure our desktops are things that Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular has always been renowned for. These are the reasons that a modern Linux desktop environment like Gnome 2 will beat Windows hands down every time, the reason that Ubuntu's move to Unity in its present rough cut unfinished form is so disappointing.
We expect to see huge improvements in Unity as time goes by. Mark Shuttleworth is determined to make things right with his new desktop project, and no one should doubt that he will do just that. Talented people out there want to help him make it work the way it should, and given enough time they will succeed. However I no longer want to actively participate in the ride until then. There's too much real life to be lived to spend time beta testing Unity, so I'll be moving on to more accommodating distro destinations until Ubuntu regains its balance and recovers its rep.
31 • re: Unity review (by Anonymous on 2011-05-09 17:19:55 GMT from United States)
I suspect switching to the closed source NVIDIA driver would give me full functionality
You could have tried reading the documentation before hand where you would have seen that you do in fact need hardware accelerated OpenGL for Unity, something the nouveau driver does not provide. Doing so may have impugned your geekiness, however.
People with nVidia cards that want to test Unity without installing can use virtualbox or VMWare.
32 • Unity (by Tony on 2011-05-09 17:26:45 GMT from United States)
I respect the changes that Ubuntu has made in Unity, and there decision to move beyond Gnome 3 and control their destiny. I don't buy all the negative comments regarding the change to the new Ubuntu Desktop environment because all new software comes with it's bugs and features and this is the first release which is to be expected to have some defects that will be resolved. Furthermore, all users are free to not use Unity (11.04) and leave to a different distro. That's the beauty of Linux, the freedom to choose. I choose to continue using Unity and continue to be excited about the new features that will arrive in the next release.
33 • @30: And that's not all... (by MacLone on 2011-05-09 17:27:47 GMT from Mexico)
Well, Unity is not all that bad but yes, i agree most of your statements are right. One of them is that i don't own a smartphone, ipad or similar so why i should use my keyboard to find the heavy mess of files and programs? It was much much
easier to use the mouse over a simple Mint menu or other
gnome menu. It was an improvement? not for the desktop and not for me.
We all have the same problem with Gnome Shell. Gnome shell is a lot easier to browse for files and programs but its almost the same mess compared to use any good old gnome menu.
34 • Slackware (by RobertD on 2011-05-09 17:32:37 GMT from United States)
Let's not forget all the work that's going into revising Slackware essentials. Its an invaluable resource for Slackers and Linux enthusiast alike.
I too wouldn’t mind if the reviewer took as much time needed to cover all aspects of Slackware. I'm personally looking for more than just - Slackware lacks a package manager and its installer uses an ncurses type installer making it not as user friendly as Ubuntu or some other graphical type installer.
I know their website says one thing but lets be real. Slackware is used by the type of user that likes to get their hands dirty.
Look forward to it Jesse.
RobertD
35 • Unity Based on False Premise (by Brent on 2011-05-09 17:35:54 GMT from United States)
@21 (Richard Carlson) makes an excellent point about Unity making his 23-inch monitor seem like a giant tablet. I'm only running a 19+ inch monitor, but that is still roughly 6 times the length and 36 times the area of an HTC Aria phone screen. Even my oldest PC, a 1GHz Athlon with 768MB on the MOBO runs numerous Linux distros (and Win XP) handily, complete with wobbly windows effects just for fun.
Yet Canonical would have me believe that I should use the same single-tasking window approach of a cell phone on my desktop? Give me an interface break!
On my desktop, I lay out 3 or 4 windows for simultaneous viewing without even overlapping in GNOME, KDE, or even--gasp--Windows. Compared to the cell phone, I have a million-acre ranch of screen real estate to play with. Give me menus; they're not some arcane way of accessing programs--excuse me--apps and data. Give me simultaneous multi-viewing of windows, not simply switching between widows like on a 3.2-inch cell phone or a 7-inch tablet.
And give me fat scroll bars, I have screen area to burn. And I don't have a touch screen. Those new skinny scroll bars in parts of Nasty Narwhal's GNOME implementation (check out gedit, for example) are neither ground-breaking nor user-friendly. Cell phones have been using minimalist scroll bars for some time, but they work in that environment only because of the touch screen. To scroll, you move the entire screen content, not the scroll bar. The bar is just a visual indicator of where you are in the content. In gNarly Narwhal, the skinny scroll bars are exactly backwards from anything approaching functionality. Thank heavens 3rd party applications like Firefox and Libreoffice don't use them. Yet.
I do not drive a 24-foot truck using the exact same techniques as I use in a sub-compact car. And the almost nonexistant instrumentation in that old, tiny Aeronca Superchief 2-seater airplane I flew in as a child most definitely does NOT scale upwards for the cockpit of a Boeing 757 or a giant Airbus.
To sum up, one size (or in this case, one UI design) does not fit all. Desktop computers and their large monitors have capabilities that Unity seems at best to ignore and at worst to actively obstruct. Multiple visual environments (big monitors, small netbooks and tablets, and tiny cell phones) demand multiple ways of visually interacting with their respective devices. Has the design community at Canonical really learned nothing in the last 30 years of interface design?
36 • #30 unitoy (by zykoda on 2011-05-09 17:52:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Excellent "analysis!" Looks as though you could extend it further. What's clear is that unity is beta and not better. Tablets and mobiles may be happy with unitoy but for serious linux fans and program devs it is sadly lacking at present. Three out of my four machines won't run unity or gnome3 and gnome fallback is, as you point out, "broken". Fortunately there are other choices for the interim.
37 • @31 - well well well (by meanpt on 2011-05-09 18:16:07 GMT from Portugal)
"People with nVidia cards that want to test Unity without installing can use virtualbox or VMWare."
well, you may also add the last batch of ati cards and when summing them up, guess what: we, nvidias and atis will be all running virtualboxes and vmwares .. nice touch ... in fact, I installed the latest fglrx and never found unity again ... but we are all missing a point here: where ubuntu fails on hardware, so do all the other distros.
38 • UI Design for Mice vs Touchscreens (by Brent on 2011-05-09 18:28:19 GMT from United States)
In my previous post, I mentioned the fact that skinny scroll bars only work effectively in conjunction with touch screens. What I should have added is that touch screens and mice demand sometimes mildly different, sometimes radically different strategies and approaches to UI design. And when they are available simultaneously on one device, together with a keyboard, the game gets much more complex.
As for Canonical eventually "getting it right" with Unity, as some have said, that will more than likely happen. But even once they have gotten it right, I am not at all certain that the destination they will have led UI design to is one where I want to go.
39 • #37 (by Andy Prough on 2011-05-09 18:29:55 GMT from United States)
"but we are all missing a point here: where ubuntu fails on hardware, so do all the other distros."
Not "all" other distros. I've got a Geforce GT 440 card running just fine under openSUSE. OneClick install of drivers too - can't beat it! I'm telling you, KDE 4.6 - very nice!
40 • @36 . gnome 3 (by mandog on 2011-05-09 18:35:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Perhaps you need to change Distros gnome3 works perfect on my Arch Linux setup in both shell and fall-back that was not the case with either Suse or fedora. as they constantly break and freeze. as for unity it does not even reach the desktop on my nvidia based desktop. They all need to drop the default built in nouveau drivers and go back to vesa. Then make it easy to set up drivers the nvidia/ATI way then they are installed correctly and simply. Instead they go down this cloak and dagger road that you can only install drivers using very complex methods and scripts which totally undermines nvidia/ATI even Ms lets you setup nvidia/ATI as they should be.
41 • Mepis 11 (by Jay on 2011-05-09 18:36:32 GMT from United States)
Congratulations to Warren Woodford and the whole Mepis community on the release of Mepis 11.
With all the complaints about the Natty Narwhal, people should try Mepis 11. It is KDE based, so for some this may be a barrier. But for KDE fans, it is a winner !
Mepis is Debian stable polished to a gem-like finish, and at least for now, a very current set of kernel and applications. Very stable with a great community for support.
-Jay
42 • @35 one size may fit all, just not well (by VW72 on 2011-05-09 18:45:24 GMT from United States)
I agree with your comments regarding Unity. One size may fit all, but as with clothing it doesn't fit anyone well.
I sometimes wonder if all of this angst against Unity is misplaced, however. Compared to gnome-shell, Unity is more usable. I wonder if it was inevitable that the Gnome 2 interface was not going to be available anymore, that maybe Unity was Ubuntu's response to try and improve gnome-shell. If so, then yes, it was an improvement, but still not very good.
I think both Gnome and Ubuntu should have taken a peek at KDE's solution. On a full size monitor, you get a full size screen. On a small monitor, you get the netbook interface and you can switch between them if you like. It also appears, they have plasma desktops for mobile devices in the works.
Maybe this is actually gnome's approach, since the desktop shell sits atop gnome, like the plasma desktop does on KDE. However, if it was, it would have made much more sense to release with a standard and stable interface and then add your other platform ones so people could choose what worked best for them. Unfortunately, that is not the style of gnome developers, letting people choose options.
Even if gnome wouldn't take that approach, it seems that Ubuntu could have or even should have. The concept of the the UI being divorced from the underlying desktop manager is appealing, particularly when developing for different platforms. And, while, smart phones and pads may be the next big market, it seems foolish to alienate the current existing market.
At least with linux, when the manufacturer (Ubuntu and/or Gnome) destroy the UI, you, the user still have the choice to install a different one -- unlike both Windows and OS X. Too bad new users won't know how to do that and if Ubuntu is the distro new users choose first, it will probably leave a very bad opinion of Linux (and yes, Ubuntu is not synonymous with Linux, but for new users it seems that way).
43 • puppy sources (by technosaurus on 2011-05-09 18:52:10 GMT from United States)
FYI, The puppy sources are available ... unmodified sources in a single giant tarball in the ibiblio repo and patches/modified sources @ bkhome.org/sources ... have been for years. Yes it may be inconvenient to have to download a 1gb tarball for a 5kb package - feel free to split it up and mirror or use upstream or tht2 mirror.
44 • Ubuntu Unity (by PeterBlackburn on 2011-05-09 19:06:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Cannot even look at unity for some reason ubuntu ignores via as in the hp2133 netbook.
45 • PC-BSD (by Auronandace on 2011-05-09 19:27:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Glad to see PC-BSD get a mention (even if it was mostly to do with artwork). I'm really looking forward to 9. Having xfce on PC-BSD will be epic.
As a side-note, it would be nice to have some bsd reviews from time to time. I recently installed openbsd 4.9 and was very impressed. It is suprisingly good to use as a desktop OS; even has LibreOffice in the repo!
Keep up the distrowatching.
46 • All for new things (by KJ on 2011-05-09 19:41:27 GMT from United States)
I don't use Ubuntu myself due to a preference for OS X, but I like to keep tabs on them simply because they keep changing things around and trying new things. It's certainly true that new doesn't always work out, but at least they're brave enough to have a go at it instead of just delivering the same project every six months with a new wallpaper. Sometimes good things do come of it.
47 • Fuduntu is Awesome (by Roy H Huddleston on 2011-05-09 20:00:14 GMT from United States)
I just love it. I think it is the best distro out there. :)
48 • BSD (by Jesse on 2011-05-09 20:40:07 GMT from Canada)
>> "As a side-note, it would be nice to have some bsd reviews from time to time."
In the past year or so I've reviewed FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, GhostBSD, Jibbed and PC-BSD. I took a look at some other off-shoots, but they generally didn't work on my hardware and so didn't get a review. I'll probably review PC-BSD 9 when it comes out, but the rest don't change much from one release to the next so there isn't much point in reviewing them again for a while.
49 • Systray and window switching (by PowerForward on 2011-05-09 20:42:39 GMT from Finland)
Try using Pidgin on Unity and remaining sane. Systray icon is not there and the user is not properly notified on incoming chats. Looks like it is time to jump into Mint once they get the new version out....
50 • @34 (by Antonio on 2011-05-09 20:48:54 GMT from United States)
``Slackware is used by the type of user that likes to get their hands dirty. ``
I use slackware, but I don't like to get my hands dirty. Maybe you mean know what is ``under the hood`` right?
bash-4.1$ cat /etc/slackware-version
Slackware 13.37.0
bash-4.1$ uname -a
Linux GHS-E213-2 2.6.37.6 #3 SMP Sat Apr 9 22:49:32 CDT 2011 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
bash-4.1$
51 • Unity (by James LaRue on 2011-05-09 21:09:49 GMT from United States)
I upgraded to Unity and have been playing with it. I happen to like Gnome, but find that playing with different environments is good for my brain. I learned Gnome, I learned Windows, I learned OSX, and I bet I can figure this one out, too. It's funny to me that on Distrowatch - with its 318 active distributions - that anyone could complain about lack of choice. On the other hand, Unity's approach really is substantially different from all the others. That makes it an interesting experiment, don't you think?
52 • BSD (by Django on 2011-05-09 21:35:04 GMT from Netherlands)
@48 What about DragonflyBSD then? It looks like it has a few nice improvements like Hammer FS.
53 • DragonflyBSD (by Jesse on 2011-05-09 21:42:19 GMT from Canada)
>> "@48 What about DragonflyBSD then? It looks like it has a few nice improvements like Hammer FS."
Dragonfly was one of the BSDs I tried, but couldn't get it to work with my hardware.
This summer I'm considering making a switch to one of the BSDs for a few months. Playing with an OS for a week is one thing, but I think it could be interesting to see what it's like to use one for an extended period of time.
54 • BSD (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-05-09 21:51:08 GMT from United States)
Jesse,
If you plan on running BSD on your laptop I would advise OpenBSD as it is much more friendly when it comes to wireless. The config files are straight forward and the drivers are just as easy to install. This is my opinion of course but I do have experience with the various BSD's available.
RS
55 • Untiy... (by smartjak48 on 2011-05-09 21:53:09 GMT from United States)
Having used Linux since the late '90s, I thought I'd hate Unity. Not! I was on Ubuntu 10.10. Got a pop asking if I wanted to upgrade to 11.04. Oh hell, why not? I did and I love it. The changes are much ado about nothing. Come on folks. Things change. Don't belly ache. I happen to like it. And feel it's the future. If it's not your cup of tea, move one the one the stogie distros like Slackware.
56 • By the way... (by smartjak48 on 2011-05-09 21:56:40 GMT from United States)
By the way, I still use Debian (Wheezy) on my desktop. I've got the best of both worlds. A cutting edge distro like 11.04 on my laptop and go to distro like Debian on my desktop.
57 • Randomly asking for password! (by LuxPro on 2011-05-09 22:08:51 GMT from India)
Re:7
The password is not cached - it is remembered for between 5 and 15 minutes; suppose you can decide but didn't get to figuring out where. Actually doesn't matter. Notice a bunch of keys on the bar at the top. If the keys are there you are not asked for the password; if the keys are gone you must rekey the passwords.
Someone find out where to change the number of minutes.
58 • Slackware (by Woody Oaks on 2011-05-09 22:09:57 GMT from United States)
Or should I have said "Linux"? Of the major distros, Debian, RH-Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE (originally a Slackware derivative), and a few others, Slackware is the cleanest, fastest, and simplest platform for running executables and other files: That's the purpose of an operating system, to run other stuff and not just itself. Right now, Slackware 13.37 with xfce and LXDE is managing 11 Gigs of files on my old 550Mhz, 384Mb beigebox - not brilliantly, but acceptably. I'm not sure if Patrick is drawing a bead on phones and tablets, but they would make a great target for this "oldest" and now with 13.37 "perhaps the best" of distros.
59 • Wireless (by Jesse on 2011-05-09 22:28:51 GMT from Canada)
>> "If you plan on running BSD on your laptop I would advise OpenBSD as it is much more friendly when it comes to wireless."
I'm not sure what you mean by "more friendly". I've checked and FreeBSD includes both the drivers and the firmware for my Intel card. OpenBSD includes the drivers, but not the firmware. The firmware isn't available under a license compatible with the OpenBSD ideals, so the developers don't include it. It is possible to get the required firmware on OpenBSD through a third party packages, but it's a bit round-about.
60 • Xubuntu vs Ubuntu 11.04 (by Gustavo on 2011-05-09 23:22:58 GMT from Brazil)
Unity? No thanks. This is Xubuntu 11.04 live CD session after some simple panel configuration. No packages downloaded. XFCE 4.8 has great transparency effects.
i53.tinypic.com/wvgm.png
Give it a try :)
61 • @30: OMG, UNITY its not! (by J.Timms on 2011-05-09 23:42:43 GMT from United States)
Your review of your Unity experience was good. Ubuntu 11.04 can be described as a “love it or leave it” distro. If you like Unity then you'll love Ubuntu 11.04. If you dislike Unity then it's time to leave Ubuntu and find another distro for your desktop.
I’m with you in the latter category. To me Unity is completely unnecessary, a solution in search of a problem - only the problem doesn't exist. Unity adds nothing of value and is simply in my way most of the time. I won't be using Ubuntu 11.04 as my regular distro. I tried hard to like it but like you I could not warm up to it.
Maybe netbook interfaces will prove to be the wave of the future. If so I’ll be one of those booting into “classic” interfaces or using a distro with a slimmed down desktop environment like XFCE instead. Eye candy and “coolness” are often more trouble than they are worth. If I wanted a netbook interface, I’d buy a netbook. However my desktop computer with its wide aspect monitor is not a good fit for the Unity experiment.
Despite my personal dislike of Unity there are folks out there who might really enjoy it. Especially those using netbooks or tablets. More power to them if they do. If someone wants to try an alternative, take a look at the new Linux Mint or one of the other Ubuntu derivatives that don’t use Unity as their desktop environment. There is no good reason not to any longer, especially if you are a long time Gnome user on a full sized desktop.
62 • ubuntu 11.04 and IPv6 and wireless (by Thomas Leer on 2011-05-10 00:09:50 GMT from Belgium)
Ubuntu's unified highly-available archetypes have led to many typical advances, including IPv6 and 802.11b. The usual methods for the natural unification of public-private key pairs and erasure coding do not apply in this area. Nevertheless, Ubuntu Linux systems alone should be able to fulfill the need for peer-to-peer models.
As far As I know, ubuntu 11.04 marks the first algorithm harnessed specifically for pervasive technology. It should be noted that Ubuntu's stack methodology is copied from the development of scatter/gather I/O. This might seem counterintuitive. The basic tenet of this method is the analysis of 802.11b. But I haven't found this out yet.
Has anyone here tried to setup a mass wan IPv6 network unifacation with ubuntu 11.04? Because in our school it's working great. And i think it's one of ubuntu 11.04 greatest features.
63 • BSD Wireless Cont. (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-05-10 00:25:06 GMT from United States)
Jesse
I say its easier becasue generally there are fewer steps needed to get wireless up and running.
If your fortunate enough to benefit from the great work of Damien Begamini your wireless card will most likely work flawlessly.
Also, There have been great strides in suspend and hibernate.
The only negative that I have experienced is shorter batterly life.
But their all great in the own right so any one you choose will most likely be a fun experience.
RS
64 • @20, 34: Slackware (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-10 00:59:22 GMT from Germany)
"If you're looking for a review, we'll probably have that next Monday.":
Fair enough, I will wait for that.
"Slackware lacks a package manager":
Slackware has pkgtool, the set of installpkg, removepkg, upgradepkg and makepkg. If you don't want to use them you can use slackpkg, also pre-installed. For building packages it has makepkg and you can install sbopkg (or build Slackbuild-scripts manually). More than enough package managers I would think.
"making it not as user friendly as Ubuntu":
User-friendliness is a myth. What is friendly for me may not be friendly for others, and vice versa. I would assume what you mean is newbie-friendly. And when I see these posts here and in other forums regarding Unity and some weird (at least in my eyes) choices of Canonical for Ubuntu, it seems not to be that newbie-friendly anymore.
65 • KDE (by Pumpino on 2011-05-10 03:13:56 GMT from Australia)
The only good thing about Unity is that it will lead some users to experiment with superior distros, such as Fedora. Once they've tried Gnome 3 in Fedora, users will be disappointed and try an alternate desktop environment such as XFCE. They'll find XFCE is fast but still overly simplistic, so they'll try KDE and realise what it's like to experience the beautiful interface offered by a project that listens to its users. KDE and Fedora all the way. :)
66 • @60, yes! (by rick on 2011-05-10 04:09:39 GMT from United States)
I don't see what the fuss is about (maybe because I'm too much of a n00b to remember the KDE4 rollout, or even the OSX rollout, just to hear in retrospect how big of a train wreck those both were), but I think the Gnome3 Panel/Unity movement is going to pave the way for the "lighter" traditional style DE's like XFCE and LXDE to move to the forefront. That screenshot looks great, practically as good as anything in Gnome 2.62. I can remember the best you could hope for with XFCE was a Mac OS9 level of clunkiness and, um, "vintageness".
67 • Unity & Jesse (by Fed on 2011-05-10 04:45:32 GMT from United States)
You write, Jesse "much the same way OS X behaves". I would like to ask you, whether you use OS X at all or sometimes, and when was the last time you used it?
68 • #66 (by Andy Prough on 2011-05-10 04:47:16 GMT from United States)
"I don't see what the fuss is about (maybe because I'm too much of a n00b to remember the KDE4 rollout, or even the OSX rollout, just to hear in retrospect how big of a train wreck those both were)"
The KDE project warned users NOT to install KDE 4.0 on production machines when it first came out as it had lots of bugs. The only "train wrecks" were the PCs whose owners refused to take the developers' advice, and immediately switched over from KDE 3.5. Anyone who waited about a year for it to develop got a very nice experience. Ubuntu and Gnome could have learned from this little history lesson.
69 • Unity & Jesse (by Fed on 2011-05-10 04:52:13 GMT from United States)
You write; "Ubuntu aims to be novice-friendly, but this release is buggy and I think they missed the mark this time around. I'm limiting my recommendation of 11.04 to people who want to play with an early release of Unity."
Are you trying to play god here? Or are you telling us to stay with the old methods and systems?
You write; "The Software Centre is probably the best it's been, intuitive and helpful..."
May I ask, do you really use Ubuntu as your main OS and for everyday use?
70 • Unity v. Ubuntu users (by Wammus on 2011-05-10 06:34:26 GMT from Belgium)
Ubuntu is a Linux distro. Which means that every user of Ubuntu is supposed to act as a Linux user and is used to hack some code, edit some configuration file, look for solutions on the web.
If an Ubuntu user is not able to get to grips with Unity, he/she is not a Linux user. If hat kind of user is complaining that Unity is not 100% error free OOTB, then that user should refrain from using any Linux distro and revert to the paid, closed source alternatieves.
I've been using Unity since the Beta2. I have a fully functional Launcher, numerous indicators on the top panel, all the applications I want and it took me less than an hour after installing Natty to get to that point. Up to now I find Unity a refreshing new way of interacting with a GUI based on the Linux kernel.
So, what are all those complaints I read here about? Is it about Unity or about the inability of Ubuntu users to tweak and hack the code of the Linux environment ? I tend to go for the latter.
71 • Ubuntu 10.04 (by Edwin on 2011-05-10 11:23:56 GMT from United States)
Just installed Gnome 3 to Ubuntu 11.04, so I have now Gnome Classic, Gnome 3 and Unity.
One might ask why I installed Gnome 3.
Unity is not bad at all, but Gnome 3 was very easy to work with. I tried it with Fedora 15beta. I am quite happy with the way Gnome 3 works. Its easy on the palm of the hand. One movement to th etop right hand corner is all you have to do see what is beneath the window you have opened and few clicks and you get what you want done. After all, that's the idea of any OS should be! Cheers!
72 • Post 30 (by Phillip on 2011-05-10 13:03:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Err, I think Linux has too much choice. Talk about swinging the other way. How many flavours of linux are ther on distrowatch ? How many Different DE's ? How many package managers ? How many see my dongle as a dongle, but others dont see the dongle, but see my 3g mobile ?
If I wanted to use unity I would be forced to upgrade my hardware. Whereas with Win XP and Win 7 my hardware works perfect, no bloat and faster than unity 11.04. KDE 4.6 is now so slow on my machine as well, so Im forced to consider moving away from linux. Talk about vista making a mistake, linux wants to forget the bloat, you can make a de look fantastic without all the eye candy and trying to keep the gui girleys happy.
Ive also seen too many distros (linux isnt windows) who need to have the slab menu, well blow me, guess whos following vista and win 7 ? Does that make linux the inferior OS because its following instead of leading ?
73 • @70 (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-10 15:03:20 GMT from Germany)
"If an Ubuntu user is not able to get to grips with Unity, he/she is not a Linux user. If hat kind of user is complaining that Unity is not 100% error free OOTB, then that user should refrain from using any Linux distro and revert to the paid, closed source alternatieves."
So you mean as Linux user I shouldn't prefer distros adn WMs/DEs that are released stable, and not a beta? I use Slackware, and before that I used Debian. Both distros are able to release perfectly stable distros. So in your mind I have the right to complain about Canonical's release policy? You think that a distro whose spokes person says that "Unity is the next stage in a well sign-posted path to bringing Ubuntu, and therefore free software, to as many people as we can. To do that we need to be as good as, and offer a real alternative to, the experiences that users can get on other platforms." should release in a state that other distros wouldn't even consider as a beta? And when the users complain about a buggy release they should go to Windows (which is also buggy), instead of using a distro whose developers are giving their user a stable experience?
Wow, that is a really strange attitude: Use it or die, but don't complain about its bugs.
74 • @72 (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-10 15:07:16 GMT from Germany)
So you want to abandon Linux, just because you can't run Unity or KDE? Ever heard about XFCE, LXDE or E17? You can even make the simpler DEs looking really good.
So you complain about too much choice, but then want to quit Linux, because 2 of the meny DEs/WMs are not as usable to you as you like? Why not try a different one, instead of complaining about too much choice?
75 • OMG, MINT it is! (by TG on 2011-05-10 15:11:57 GMT from United States)
Opinions are sharply divided on Unity, Ubuntu's new desktop shell. Something to keep in mind however is that we're talking about Linux, the land where choices abound. Those who don't like Unity can easily replace it with something else. If they don't want to drift too far from Ubuntu's home port they can, as others have mentioned including Jesse in his excellent DW review on Monday, choose from one of the Ubuntu 11.04 spin-offs that are not implementing Unity as their desktop environment.
Yesterday I downloaded and installed the release candidate of Linux Mint 11 'Katya' to give it the same sort of trial run that I afforded Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity. Not only is Mint 11 based on Ubuntu, but it's currently the No. 2 distro in terms of popularity on DW, behind only Ubuntu, having earned its excellent reputation over the years on the basis of its well polished usability.
For those like myself who sorely miss having Gnome 2.32 available in all its unsullied finery in Ubuntu, without Unity present to muddy the water, yet who find the underlying Ubuntu substructure something they depend on, Linux Mint 11 looks to be the heir apparent to that recently abandoned throne.
I slipped a spare 250GB SATA test disk into place on my Dell desktop, booted to a newly created Mint 11 'Katya' DVD, and began the adventure. Within minutes "the traditional Linux Mint desktop layout, mintMenu and the same desktop elements featured in previous releases" were available to me. From that point the installation flowed as smoothly as ever, and before long I rebooted to a fresh Mint 11 desktop with everything working as it should.
Something to note is that Compiz is installed by default in Linux Mint 11, along with "fusion-icon," a feature that lets users switch easily between Compiz and Metacity.
The Mint Project Team recently wrote; "With the upstream changes in Unity and GNOME 3, some of the big Linux Mint projects (netdiscovery, restoration snapshots) were postponed and more time was given to ensure this release would feature a functional yet traditional desktop." They went on to say; "In many ways, Linux Mint 11 feels like a more modern and more polished version of Linux Mint 10. In contrast with the many distributions adopting new interfaces, Linux Mint 11 will feature the best Gnome '2' desktop you've ever (seen)."
Along with most other major Linux distributions, Linux Mint has now abandoned OpenOffice.org in favor of LibreOffice. Banshee has replaced Rhythmbox as the default music player, and rather than Shotwell for photos like in Ubuntu, Mint 11 uses gThumb. Gwibber is no longer installed by default.
Linux Mint 11's software manager loads "marginally faster" featuring refined templates and a new splash screen. Additionally it has been upgraded to show exactly how much data will be involved in a download, how much space is required on the hard drive, and which packages will have to be installed and/or removed.
Other Linux Mint 11 improvements include a faster update manager and a desktop settings tool that is desktop-agnostic, offering both generic settings and those specific to particular desktops, such as Gnome, KDE and Xfce.
While we are still some days away from the final release of Linux Mint 11 'Katya', having run its release candidate I can say it has proven to be everything that my experience with Ubuntu 11.04 Unity unfortunately wasn't. If there was ever a distro that deserved the title "Ubuntu Done Right," one positioned to stand in place of Ubuntu on the classic Gnome 2.32 pinnacle that the parent project has walked away from, Linux Mint is that distro - a project well worth taking a closer look at.
76 • unity (by Josh on 2011-05-10 15:14:10 GMT from United States)
I for one like unity so far. It may not be up to par yet, but it will get there. I find it does make some things faster, like frequent applications I use but don't want to put an icon on screen or on a panel. I just type in a few letters and click, done. One of those apps is ccsm. Though, activating new features in ccsm will cause your session to probably be useless until you log out. That's something that should have never happened considering it works with gnome just fine. Another thing, and I'm not sure why, but one time my monitor completely shut off. Still had sound, and restarting x gave sound at the gdm login, but no video. I had to do a hard reboot to bring my laptop's monitor back. That's never happened with any linux distro, including 10.04 which I use now. I'll let unity get finished and maybe by 12.04 it will be much better. I'll try gnome 3 this week. But I must say, I was pretty surprised by unity. I thought I wouldn't like it, but I've found it quite useful. I don't like the global app menus, but that feature is removable. I don't like the idea of releasing a 80% ready UI to the masses to find more bugs, but it is a good concept. Unity has configuration, you just need to look for it. I've been able to change icon sets and everything as the normal way with gnome. Though, it still needs more.
On a sadder note: For skype users who haven't heard, Microsoft has bought skype. From what wikipedia says, it will be integrated into windows live. Glad I don't use it.
77 • MS Skype (by Pan on 2011-05-10 15:21:10 GMT from Canada)
MS just bought skype, let's see if they keep the Linux skype client. It would be very easy and strategic to drop it, change the underlying protocol to eliminate compatibilty and lose only a small percentage of users and help to isolate Linux from the mainstream. Possibly the same treatment for the Mac client too.
78 • Skype (by Jerome on 2011-05-10 15:30:16 GMT from Canada)
Funny that the Skype protocol relies on ultrapeers not protected by a firewall to operate. Fits perfectly in the Windows environment :-)
A good alternative is the google talk browser plug-in. Although closed-source, it's based on existing VoIP standards and google at least seems to be Linux-friendly.
79 • @74 (by Phillip on 2011-05-10 15:46:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Here we go, the typical Linux user "If you dont like it, then go back to windows" blah, blah, blah. There are too many people using linux to score brownie points, KDE, Gnome and Unity are just bloated, they are following the vista way, and at least vista put ther hands up and amitted they made a mistake. The DE devs love having their egos stroked, when they should have learned from the vista mistake and not gone the same route.
You talk about choice, but the choice we have with linux is too much, in fact its confusing, too many people wanting to create their own distro to look good, just look at the discontinued section and count how many people created their own distro, realised how much work it was and gave up.
Plus a lot of linux users are just plain immature, and a portion of them are i.t guys. And how do I know this ? I read too often people using words as Microshaft, Windoze and M$, its pathetic and childish. Plus looking at the bloat, I have no problem running win 7 on a inspiron 1200 (1.2ghz) with all the bells and whistes running, so why is kde running slow ? because the devs listen to the eye candy brigade who dont actually use their machines in a working environment, these are the kiddies who dont actually use their machine productively, they show off their nice tarty kde desktop, tell the devs how wonderfull it is, and the devs just dish out more bloat.
Gnome, KDE and Unity, take note. In the real world, where people use their machines for business and productivity, your DE's are not going to work. Do you really believe that workers really give a damn about rotating cubes, wobbly windows, snow flakes falling down the screen ? No. Because we are too busy working, not looking at pathetic eye candy bloat. Doesnt matter if we can switch it off, should have been made as an addon.
80 • @74 (by Phillip on 2011-05-10 16:01:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
So to prove my point that Linux is bloated, heres my evidence.
I have a dell inspiron 122 with 768 megs of ram
Under win xp and win 7 I can run MS Office, Outlook and Dreamweaver fast.
If I install firefox, thunderbird, evolution and open/libre office under windows they run slow. Its click to run then go put the kettle on time, have a smoke, make a cuppa, come back, and if im lucky they may have just loaded.
Now for Linux.
firefox, thunderbird, evolution and open/libre office all run slow under linux. Ive installed crossover and physically run office, outlook and dreamewaver faster than the native linux software. Ive timed them.
Plus another fact is that the size of the linux software files are larger than the windows versions.
So now try and kid yourself that linux is still wonderfull.
81 • Unity (by Landor on 2011-05-10 16:26:43 GMT from Canada)
I'm always still amazed at the people who don't understand that Unity is being built, or at least a framework for, tablets, phones, small mobile devices, etc. It's clearly obvious.
I found that odd too, as I read last week of a person who put unity on their tablet and it was useless to them in a way. There's no way to type on a tablet as it doesn't have a keyboard. It needs a keyboard for the touch screen. So how do you find this keyboard when it's not accessible via the menus (from what I understood) and you can't search for it? You have to plug in a usb keyboard, as the person did, to find the keyboard application.
Next up, they had to figure out how to create a shortcut (launcher) for the keyboard application or they'd need to go through the whole process every single time.
It would seem that Canonical/Ubuntu has yet again forgotten to do their homework.
----
I read a rather interesting blog post from Jeff Hoogland creator/developer of Bodhi last week and just published my own article about it today for those that are interested.
http://landorsplace.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/will-fedora-ever-learn/
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
82 • #80, #81 (by Andy Prough on 2011-05-10 16:52:55 GMT from United States)
#80 - well, we all know that one guy with an old Dell and a stopwatch couldn't possibly be wrong, LOL. Might want to try Debian instead of Ubuntu if you are looking for speed.
#81 - Landor, you may be amused to hear that Shuttleworth just announced that Ubuntu is ramping up from 12 million (alleged) current users to 200 million users in the next four years. This was part of his big keynote at the Ubuntu Developers Conference in Budapest yesterday. I sure hope no one tries to force me to install Natty at gunpoint in order to help fill Mark's 200 million quota.
83 • Speed daemon (by Jesse on 2011-05-10 18:08:35 GMT from Canada)
>> "well, we all know that one guy with an old Dell and a stopwatch couldn't possibly be wrong, LOL. Might want to try Debian instead of Ubuntu if you are looking for speed."
Instead of slinging mud back and forth I think it would make more sense to run some benchmarks and come up with some numbers demonstrating load times, executable size and memory usage.
84 • IRC's (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-05-10 18:11:02 GMT from United States)
Why should I have to filter 1,000,000 search results from google to find the answer to my problem?
Why can I not go to the approriate IRC and asked users directly that may have experienced the exact or similiar problem?
Why should an IRC channel be the last resort to go for help? What is wrong with people helping people?
I'm personally tired of the ego trip that many IRC channel operators appear to have.
Yes I RTFM and yes I did my best to solve the problem on my own. Before google where did you go for help? You asked a friend or colleague, right?
Thanks Landor. This too is a sore spot for me as well.
RS
85 • RE: 82 -84 (by Landor on 2011-05-10 18:43:07 GMT from Canada)
#82
I read that about the 200 million users. I don't know what he has in mind for it all. He's definitely a very smart business man and might have some kind of plan in mind, though 200 million seems quite a jump, basically a four hundred percent growth of what they state its user-base is now, ever year.
#84
I almost never ask about a problem in a forum, or IRC channel. The rare few times that I have I've come away with no answer to my solution and had to search one out myself.
A case in point recently with Gentoo. I was installing it and came to the point where I needed to sync (update, for those that may not know) the portage tree. I tried to do so and it failed. I forget the exact error now, it was to do with a syntax error on a specific line (obviously to do with portage, in this case, which mirror to use) in the make.conf file. I had used Gentoo's Mirrorselect tool for it, and re-checked the syntax numerous times. I was stumped. I tried doing it manually, searching for information on-line and at the forums. I could only find that it was a syntax error, but mine wasn't, it was flawless.
The next thing that came to mind was that the syntax had changed from what I knew, and in this case, mirrorselect as well. So, with that in mind, I headed off to the Gentoo IRC for a quick fix. I was told the same thing that I had read numerous times, it was a syntax error. I was already aware of that, and if I recall, I let them know that too. I then posted the line that was supposedly in error at their request and nobody replied. I thanked thme for their time and assistance and left.
Did I fix it? Of course I did, on my own. Do I know what was the reason for it? Nope, and I didn't care because I fixed it regardless. When you build Gentoo you use what is known as a Stage3 tarball. This is basically the base system at what is considered a Stage3 level. These are automatically generated, and I backed up all the files I had manually configured up to this point and uncompressed a release that if I recall was a couple weeks earlier than the current one I had used. My guess is that since the Stage3 tarballs are automatically generated something was corrupt in some way. Who knows, and doesn't matter, it worked my way.
That's the point too. In the time that I've been back, I've only been to forums or an IRC for help a handful of times. I've yet to receive one working solution too. So investigate, research, and read the manual if needed. In the long run you'll never regret the time invested since you'll always be able to fall back on it and end up with realistic solutions, like simply choosing an earlier build of a Stage3 tarball.
Sorry for the long winded example. I actually intend for that to be part of an article I write some time in the future.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
86 • @7,57 and others re. password timeout and supposed caching (by Barnabyh on 2011-05-10 19:09:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
This is set in sudoers, you can edit and set the timeout to anything you like. I think it usually is set to 0 for obvious security reasons, but is set at 5 minutes in Ubuntu and Fedora.
87 • Delicious KitKatya aka Mint11 (by capri.cornus on 2011-05-10 19:13:51 GMT from Belgium)
I disliked Mint 10 because of a malfunctioning wireless driver. But 11 is a dream, an easygoing KitKat on the tongue, everything right as it should, and swift. On this laptop I ran and run Mint 9 (multiboot), but after an hour of surfing I really think FF 4 is functioning better while sitting or riding on Katya. It is like a silent improvement you still notice, like a tweak in the engine. I like it very much. I don't understand my peers that don't want to get acquaintance with this OS.
88 • wine intel sienna 300 laptop agp (by colin on 2011-05-10 19:28:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
please please please!! improve suport for intel graphics with wine!! intel hd graphics do NOT work with wine with agp!! intel sucks on linux why has it only ever concentrate on nvidia & ati when a lot of laptops use intel hd graphics!!
89 • 81 • Unity and virtual keyboard on tablets (by Landor (by meanpt on 2011-05-10 19:59:58 GMT from Portugal)
Landor, kindly add this to your "Natty and Unity on a tablet" knowledge: currently posting from an hp tm2 in tablet mode with the onboard virtual keyboard and with the Portuguese Layout. If I wanted, I could have handwritten this with cellwriter which in turn also has a virtual keyboard. So, keywords are: onboard and cellwriter.
90 • 71 • Ubuntu 10.04 (by Edwin (by meanpt on 2011-05-10 20:10:31 GMT from Portugal)
Edwin, I agree with you in that the gnome3 workflow is presently superior to that of unity, but it doesn't make unity feel like a hog.
91 • RE: 81 (by Landor on 2011-05-10 21:02:31 GMT from Canada)
Now, meanpt, I know you like Ubuntu a lot. My 'tablet knowledge' was from a third party, and your use of the on screen keyboard doesn't negate the fact that theirs did not work. There's a lot of varying factors, like a true tablet, or one that can only partly emulate one for instance. I'll explain. :)
I'd like to also add that at best your computer is only 'kind of' a tablet, even in what you call 'tablet mode'. It's the HP TM2 'Notebook' computer with a twist-touch screen. So while it can emulate a tablet to some degree, it's truly a computer, with a keyboard.
Also, you didn't state how you were able to activate the on screen keyboard, and having a keyboard on your computer would make it far easier than someone who has an actual tablet without a keyboard.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
92 • Oops. (by Landor on 2011-05-10 21:03:52 GMT from Canada)
My last comment the subject should be: RE: 89, not RE: 81
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
93 • 91 • RE: 81 (by Landor (by meanpt on 2011-05-10 21:59:43 GMT from Portugal)
Friendly Landor, first things first: until last year true tablet computers with touch screens have been around for a long time and were of the convertible type.Nowadays people think the tablet concept is something new and tend to associate the concept with keyboardless touch screen computers or terminals.
How to activate the onboard virtual keyboard for the login screen: click on the assistive technologies icon, click on the Universal Access Preferences text and flag Use on-screen keyboard.
How to have onboard loaded at each session startup after the login screen: open system settings, click on Assistive Technologies in the Personal area, flag Enable Assistive Technologies, click on Preferred Applications, click on Custom, select Onboard, flag Run at start. Logout and on on the next login use the lower right corner to increase the size of the keyboard and key in the password. After landing the unity desktop, onboard is started and increase the size as before.
Then proceed to install cellwriter and test other applications as EasyStroke, from the universal acess set in the software center.
94 • Ubuntu-mania (by anon on 2011-05-10 23:15:34 GMT from Greece)
Was Ubuntu the only distro released last week?
95 • Design features in Unity (by Baul on 2011-05-11 00:01:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think the disagreements (reviews are great to read) are always important but I like the fact the the Ubuntu' developers & designers are trying something different out into the open.
I thought that was the whole point of "open software" - if it doesn't work at first - try, try and try again till it does.
I am a person who feels if there are problems with "Natty" - I can always fall back to that old work-horse "Lucid" - then have the developers have the opportunity to mess things up and see what comes up in the future.
Before I think they were being being criticised for being too conservative - now they are criticised for floating a desktop that is not familiar (a work in progress) to all consumers - advanced or not yet realised!
What the hell - is it not good that there is debate about their intentions?
B
96 • RE: 93 (by Landor on 2011-05-11 04:16:14 GMT from Canada)
See, now you're confusing me. :)
First you stated that you put your notebook into 'tablet mode' and it becomes a tablet. That I fully understood, though believe it's a notebook emulating a tablet.
Now you say that until last years true tablet computers with touch screens have been around for a long time and were of the convertible type. That's what confuses me there. :)
If your notebook was really a tablet (but HP calls it a Notebook I would like to add. :) ), then why did you have to put it in 'tablet mode' ? If it is a real tablet as you say, shouldn't it already be a tablet and not have to be placed into some 'mode' to be one? :) From what I understand the 'real tablet' computers are always tablets. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
97 • 96 • RE: 93 (by Landor (by menpt on 2011-05-11 09:09:25 GMT from Portugal)
Landor, don't bother with the fuzzy logic of the words and concepts. If you want to change history, be my guest :) .Grab one of those last year's tablet concept and have a go with it, Most probably you'll never miss the keyboard, unless you're multibooting. By the way, how is the "third party" going? Is he/she trying to have something similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/user/ekoore ?
98 • @ 94 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2011-05-11 11:34:54 GMT from United States)
No, but it's the one almost everyone wants to talk about here.
99 • Mint 11 RC (by fernbap on 2011-05-11 15:44:58 GMT from Portugal)
Couldn't wait, installed Mint 11 RC.
Not much to say. Great, as usual, each release always better than the previous one. Some small UI inconsistencies that i think will be fixed in the next days, like the slideshow in the installer.
Now that Ubuntu went Unity, i have no doubt Mint will become the most popular of the newbie friendly desktop distros.
Now i have a difficult choice to make: keep using LMDE as my main working environment or switching to 11...
100 • @#75 & #99 - Mint 11 RC (by Mark Pace on 2011-05-11 20:24:02 GMT from United States)
Did the same as you guys. After a day of so giving Unity a spin around the block, I was so ready for the return of normalcy that when Mint 11 RC showed up I jumped on it and happily haven't looked back.
Found as you did FB (#99) that a couple of small issues showed up, one of which I filed a bug report on. Nothing major, just simple things for the Mint release team to take a look at prior to Mint Day. Soon as Mint 11 is released millions of Gnome 2 users world wide will have every reason to jump up and down and celebrate, so party hearty dudes and dudettes!
Really enjoyed your well done review of Unity TG (#75). Found most things you mentioned were things I and countless others, judging by what's being reported world wide, have also struggled with. I wish Ubuntu and its Unity project all the best, but at this point as incomplete and problematic as it is in certain areas it's less than a good fit for those who use their computers for more than beta testing platforms.
101 • @100 - Sorry about the typo TG, should have been #30 for your Unity report (by Mark Pace on 2011-05-11 20:32:38 GMT from United States)
Meant to reference #30 for your informative Unity report TG, not #75..
102 • Caching (57, 86) and Ubuntu attention level (94, 98) (by MarkSouth on 2011-05-11 22:52:09 GMT from Switzerland)
"Supposed caching" (sarcastic, no?) and "The password is not cached, it is remembered."
Hmm. Where would the password be remembered and retrieved from? Would that be the credential cache? Indeed yes. Storing things in the cache is termed "caching". You may want to check the http://www.gratisoft.us/sudo/man/1.8.0/sudo.man.html">sudo man page and search for the word "cache".
Ubuntu is getting a lot of attention because it has a new desktop environment. This arouses strong feelings and a lot of comment because those who dislike Ubuntu can use Unity to knock Ubuntu (solution: use something else from the 300 odd distros listed here), those who dislike change can use Unity to knock change (solution: don't change - Ubuntu still has flavors that use Gnome 2 as the default desktop), those who feel that their own use case should be all that matters to Canonical can complain that they weren't consulted (solution: develop a killer DE and Canonical will notice you), and supporters of other distros can make a virtue of sticking with obsolete software that has no update path (Mint Maniacs, I'm looking at you here. Solution: none, I'm afraid we're stuck with the infinitely repeated "Ubuntu done right" slogan for about the next year, or worse.)
So Unity lives up to its name by allowing people to knock change, desktop environments, tablets, other use cases, Ubuntu, and Canonical - sometimes all at once. Pretty cool if you think about it.
PS Since everyone else has expressed an opinion on Unity, I could sum mine up simply: I don't love it, I don't much like it, but I could live with it and get everything done that I need to do. Or I could use anything else I want to, and I do.
103 • @102 (by fernbap on 2011-05-11 23:56:41 GMT from Portugal)
Just to get things clear:
Ubuntu releases a production distro every 2 years. Ubuntu also releases a set of experimental releases in between. 11.04 is one of such experimental releases.
User input is very important for experimental releases, and if Ubuntu screws up, it is important that users manifest themselves.
Current Ubuntu is 10.04. Ubuntu has until April 2012 to make Unity worthy of being incorporated into a production release, 12.04.
As to Mint, your "can make a virtue of sticking with obsolete software that has no update path" is not only ridiculous but also a lie.
If you want to call sticking with gnome 2 until gnome 3 is considered stable enough a choice for obsolescence, then you are clearly one of those that consider any change as progress, even if the new product doesn't work.
The reason why Mint works, unlike many other distros, is because Mint doesn't change only for the sake of change. That is not being cutting edge, that is just being stupid, and many linux distros are stupid under that point of view.
104 • @102, Unity & Ubuntu (by Stan on 2011-05-12 00:01:55 GMT from United States)
>> (solution: develop a killer DE and Canonical will notice you)
You obviously have not been following Canonical if you actually believe that. Notice the trend of what core technologies they use. They want control, and thus do as much in-house as they possibly can. Think Launchpad, their take on app indicators, their music store, etc... Look at their spat with Banshee and how uncooperative they were with them. Sure, if you develop a wonderful DE, they might give you, at best, an "official variant" status along the lines of Kubuntu and Xubuntu, but look at how little they're publicized compared to the official Ubuntu. The only way it could possibly become the "real" Ubuntu is if you assign your copyrights over to Canonical and give their design team creative control over it...and then it's not really yours any more.
That's precisely the reason that Unity exists, in fact; they did not like the way that GNOME's design team were doing things with GNOME 3, and could not accept that.
Now the fact that both Unity and GNOME 3 seem more targeted towards tablets and other small-screen devices is another problem, but as you say, thankfully there is a choice, and mine has been KDE even during the GNOME 2.x era (except during the KDE 4.0-4.2 period, where I temporarily moved away from KDE). It's certainly possible that both could become better *desktop* DE's in a few versions, but that is yet to be seen...
105 • Desktop Interface ala Parted Magic (by RO on 2011-05-12 03:10:21 GMT from United States)
For some reason I find Parted Magic's interface one of the most appealing I have loaded. I like the colors and straightforward layout, but I think its fonts are the biggest part of that appeal in being extremely readable for me. A shame it is such a specialized distro, although I have not looked into its extensibility with productivity and entertainmant apps...
FWIW
106 • More fun with Debian Squeeze Slug Bug (by imnotrich on 2011-05-12 03:23:39 GMT from Mexico)
Never did figure out how to get that internal SD card reader working, and was also unable to get my parallel port zip drive recognized by Squeeze. BUG!
So I gave up.
Switched to a different tower, another (slightly newer) AMD64 dual core based PC. Installed the 32 bit version of Squeeze and experienced all the same bugs I have documented in prior chapters, with a few interesting exceptions:
The internal SD card reader actually works! Insert a memory card, Squeeze recognizes it and automounts. Good job!
Setting default applications using the right click menu option to open files based on extension does not save settings, nor does editing the appropriate text file. BUG! However, I fixed this by installing PCmanFM. Somehow PCman is able to save settings, where gnome/nautalis cannot.
Still no parallel port support. BUG!
Crafty (chess playing program) can't find it's own openings book. BUG! Worked fine in Lenny. You can access Crafty's openings book by using e-board, pychess or scid (if you tinker with scids configuration) but not xboard.
Wine still refuses to run/install the only 3 programs (Bookworm, Word 2000 and Radiosure) I need it to run, all ran fine in Lenny. BUG! I tried rolling back wine versions without success. It's a Squeeze issue.
But overall I was encouraged by the results - much less tinkering required than previous Debians so I (gasp!) deleted the 32 bit version and installed the 64 bit.
No big surprises except...Samba. The Samba configuration that allowed 32 bit to share Squeeze printers with my two Windows laptops? Doesn't work. BUG! I don't get this - It's the same version of samba, just different architecture (32 vs 64 bit). This is a potential deal breaker for me. May have to switch to another distro if I can't share printers.
Raptor (a 32 bit chess program that claims to work in 64 bit too) will install, but won't run. "Unable to execute child process" error. BUG!
Wine in 64 bit - no different from 32 bit. Still won't install or run the three programs I need, all of which ran fine in Lenny. I spent the entire afternoon screwing with Wine. Installed the 64 bit Wine version 1.3 something from Mepis. Thought I had something going, Word 2000 installs and runs perfectly. But the bookworm install crashes out. BUG! And while Radiosure installs and runs, the streaming radio station audio stutters every 5 seconds - no matter what settings I have chosen in winecfg. BUG!
This is likely due to Wine vs Pulse Audio. According to posts in the Wine forums, they won't be working on drivers for pulse audio because (in the past) they've spent lots of energy developing drivers for other sound systems that very soon became obscure and unpopular. Which is probably true, but me thinks Linux users will be stuck with Pulse for a long time, especially as most major distros have adopted Pulse.
Yeah I also tried the Ubuntu version of Wine, and I know that was dangerous - but I'm desperate.
I didn't have time to test parallel port support in 64 bit Squeeze, but I imagine it's going to be no go.
Folks Debian is a great distro, but Squeeze (as Debians go) clearly was released prematurely and anybody who says it "just works" with no tinkering...well, they're fibbing.
Next week - more slug bug fun with a Squeeze install on my laptop. Stay tuned.
P.S. - in both the 32bit and 64 bit installs mentioned above, not once did I get a message about missing blobs and yet certain hardware doesn't work. BUG!
107 • Good Bye, Ubuntu (by Clarence on 2011-05-12 06:27:10 GMT from United States)
The recent upgrade to the New Ubuntu with its Unity "Launcher" made me abandon Ubuntu. I could not delete those blocks on the left. On my own computer, it was forbidden to delete them. Somehow I felt Bill Gate's hand on my shoulder. You cannot even move them. And they were always there staring at me. Bizarre !!!!! What were they thinking ???
108 • Porteus perfect (by ozman on 2011-05-12 06:30:16 GMT from Australia)
I think I have just found my perfect distro, Porteus. Its the first distro I have found that detects my graphics card ATI HD5500 and enables desktop effects out of the box. Its really fast to boot and looks wonderful. Only 300mb with latest KDE desktop too.
109 • Linux Intel HD graphics (by Colin on 2011-05-12 07:48:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
has anyone managed to get wine working with AGP on intel hd graphics, I've narrowed it down to something to do with opencl. can anyone help!? when I compile wine in a terminal opencl is the only thing that I cant seem too install.
110 • Goodbye Ubuntu....Hello Fedora 15 (by David B on 2011-05-12 13:46:43 GMT from United States)
I have not been one to do much distro hopping recently (I use to distro hop a lot a few years ago). I had been using Ubuntu or Mint until I installed Fedora 15 beta on my s10 netbook. I like Gnome 3 much better than Unity especially with the Gnome 3 tweak tool. Even though Gnome 3 is very early in development I find it much more stable than KDE 4 when it was first introduced. Gnome 3 will only get better as time goes on. I remember when KDE 4 was first introduced things were not too rosy then. It's all linux but I have really been liking Fedora 15 so far with Gnome 3 tweaked a bit.
I didn't like the direction Canonicol was taking getting to be too much like Microsoft.
111 • Google Chrome (by Tom on 2011-05-12 15:04:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
Does anyone know what Google Chrome uses as a package manager? I was amazed to find Chrome is not listed in DW! (possibly i just didn't look hard enough)
Regards from Tom :)
112 • @105 - Parted Magic desktop (by Pearson on 2011-05-12 18:37:03 GMT from United States)
Wow, I thought I was the only one! I've actually half-heartedly considered installing Parted Magic as my primary OS just because their UI "just works". I won't, because I like to not be full-time root, but I really do like their UI.
113 • Ubuntu's Direction (by Martin on 2011-05-12 20:52:17 GMT from South Africa)
I just upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 on my desktop at home, only to find that my graphics card does not support Unity.
I think Ubuntu has lost the vision they had of bringing Linux to masses' desktops and is instead becoming a test bed for innovation. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for innovation, but not at the cost of losing your potential market.
114 • ...also... (by Clarence on 2011-05-12 22:49:57 GMT from United States)
PS. I moved from Ubuntu to Peppermint OS. It is pretty lean but I just added the programs I needed. Peppermint is very fast. With the Peppermint OS, there are several desktops available. I didn't like the Lxde interface which is clunky. And several programs just do not work in Openbox (bug?) ( but I would not use Openbox anyway... I don't like all the back-clicking. ) So in Peppermint, I simply downloaded the gnome-applets2 that I wanted and just boot into the Gnome desktop. I'm back at home. I put Peppermint on an Acer just to be able to use Skype.
115 • Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-13 08:05:48 GMT from United States)
Usually, I would have downloaded Salix, just for fun to see what's in it. I would have even downloaded Kanotix. But, suddenly, i don't appear to want to download any new release of a distro, as I am quite happy with Gnome 3.
My 1st try was Fedora 15beta. It was a very good experience. Now I have Ubuntu11.04 with Gnome classic, Gnome 3 and Unity. I can interchange with Unity and Gnome 3 and if I feel melancholic, I can even use Gnome Classic.
I wish the developers of Gnome 3 and Unity all the luck in the world! I hope they'd come up with another revolutionary DE in the near future, something cosmic!
116 • @115 - is it wizardry? (by meanpt on 2011-05-13 08:54:15 GMT from Portugal)
Any time I installed (or tried to install) gnome 3 in 11.04, I always lost Unity, which seems to be a condition and a known trade-off for installing gnome 3. How did you get both working in the same installation? I assume you change desktops within the same installation, right?
117 • Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-13 09:01:29 GMT from United States)
Well, I am now writing to you from Ubuntu Unity DE, Before that I was using the Gnome 3. Before you enter your password, you change your DE. That's simple. Gnome 3 ppa can be found in bottom of the DWW page, the 2nd new distro. Its actually how to get the Gnome 3. Very nice indeed!
118 • Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-13 09:03:16 GMT from United States)
Go to this page and you'll have your Gnome 3 in Ubuntu 11.04
http://ugr.teampr0xy.net/install
119 • @117 and 118 - the ub gnome 3 remix (by meanpt on 2011-05-13 10:49:52 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... sorry guys, third attempt and everything got ruined again:
While executing "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade"from step "4) Install UGR"
Windowed error report "Package Problem":
Sorry,the package "gnome-session3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build2" failed to install or upgrade
On the terminal_
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/gnome-session_3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build2_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
So, lets call it a day ...
120 • Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-13 11:27:05 GMT from United States)
Too bad, Meanpt. Maybe you should try that without thinking it will break. I simply went through the 6 steps and I got the Gnome 3 while working with Unity. If you have a problem, maybe you should try to get Gnome 3 while using Gnome 2...I am using an Acer laptop
121 • RE:103, Why can't people understand that. (by Eddie on 2011-05-13 12:09:28 GMT from United States)
"Ubuntu releases a production distro every 2 years. Ubuntu also releases a set of experimental releases in between. 11.04 is one of such experimental releases.
"User input is very important for experimental releases, and if Ubuntu screws up, it is important that users manifest themselves.
Current Ubuntu is 10.04. Ubuntu has until April 2012 to make Unity worthy of being incorporated into a production release, 12.04."
That is the way it works. What really get me is when someone comes out and says "it was released too soon". They clearly don't know what they are talking about or are just wanting something to whine about. Another funny thing is when all the Ubuntu haters or immature crybabies still download and try out the new test release of Ubuntu. They say that want to see how they have progressed but that's just a lie. They just want more bitching power and then get pissed off when it's a good release. The same can be said of any distro basher. Grow up kids.
122 • Fedora (by RRC on 2011-05-13 13:46:18 GMT from United States)
I like Fedora and admire their irc site.
However the stopper for me is the insistence on installing LVM + which I'm not interested in and gobbles up space I might (do) wish to use otherwise.
123 • Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-13 13:47:53 GMT from United States)
I am not saying that Unity is bad. Not at all. It has its nice parts. Gnome 3 has its nice parts. What I like most is that all I have to do now is to move my cursor to the left hand top corner, and then simply move it anywhere or click on whatever you want to click on.
Too much clicks and movements hurt the palm, and Gnome 3 had taken that off my palm.
If Unity too would allow us to use less mouse movements, I'd love it too. At this moment Unity has the same amount of mouse movements as the Gnome 2, say for example like having sophisticated Macbuntu.
I believe, it is the DE that makes the people like it, rather than the distro itself.
124 • Fedora install (by Barnabyh on 2011-05-13 14:31:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi RRC, I was quite sure that using traditional partitions was available as well, so you don't have to use LVM, but it's a bit hidden, possibly under 'manual partitioning scheme' or similar.
125 • re. Numero 102 (by Barnabyh on 2011-05-13 14:56:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
@MarkSouth: I was just answering to your post and to #57 who argued it is 'remembered', not cached. Perhaps 'supposed caching' was a bad choice of words and just the latter in the post title would have sufficed. Not to get hung up on one word, caching would be the correct term I suppose ;) .
Mainly wanted to let the poster know where s/he can configure the timeout.
126 • Gnome Shell vs Unity (by Paperless Tiger on 2011-05-13 18:38:30 GMT from United States)
Looks to me like Gnome got forked. As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
127 • 120 • Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin (by meanpt on 2011-05-14 09:38:10 GMT from Portugal)
Edwin, 4th attempt, same problem. This time I have a copy of the installation run on terminal and will submit it to the developers. I like Unity, mainly the way the launcher behaves, but the gnome 3 workflow suits me better as it is more tablet friendly.
128 • @ 124 (by RRC on 2011-05-14 21:17:27 GMT from United States)
Hi Barnabyh, thanks for your comment. I will ask in the irc #fedora and I don't know why I haven't done that before. :)
129 • Ubuntu Unity and stuff.. (by davemc on 2011-05-16 01:22:34 GMT from United States)
So, I was looking through this article:
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=151357
"GNOME 3
Ubuntu 11.10 will use GNOME 3. The GNOME 3 Natty PPA will be maintained with bug fixes for GNOME 3.0 and there will probably be an GNOME 3.1 PPA for Oneiric until 3.1 is ready to be included by default."
This is really kind of cryptic, as it appears to me this guy is saying that GNOME3 will be the new default for 11.10 instead of Unity. If so, that should piss off a few less people. A few less...
Number of Comments: 129
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