The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

[Detonate]

Very interesting.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17224...e=rss_vnichols

[GreyGeek]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

It is.
I saw a video of Unity on a uTouch pad. Awesome. But, yesterday I got my hands on a friend's 16GB Wifi iPad. The very first thing I noticed was fingerprints and grease all over the surface. The Unity desktop on uTouch worked just like the iPad. Is the keyboard going away?

[Snowhog]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

Not of course, scientific, but interestingly, Favor for Unity falls only 8% behind GNOME Shell, of those on Ubuntuforums.org who have voted in a poll on the subject.

GNOME Shell or Unity?

[Detonate]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

I always like new stuff, but only if it fits my computing preferences. And one of my preferences is a totally clean desktop. The main reason I never moved to KDE4. So I am not sure this Unity thing is for me on my desktop. I'll probably try it out, but fall back to gnome.

[MoonRise]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

This isn't a MONO thing is it? Sorry, just had to ask. Interesting move sure enough but had to ask.

[GreyGeek]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

That was my question, too. However, Unity isn't replacing Gnome, it is built using Gnome & the GTK+ API. So, they are just replacing the screen elements with ones of a different kind. Also, they've added software to communicate with touch screens so that they can be used with Ubuntu. You can do things with two fingers that you can't do with a mouse icon, only clumsy mouse gestures.

I could check the various Unity apps source codes to see if they include libmono among their dependencies, but I don't use Unity and I'm too lazy to do the search right now because I have no plans in the foreseeable future to use Unity. But, IF one considers what de Icaza has written about his plans for Gnome then there is reason for serious concern. Mono presently uses GTK+ wrappers around Mono CLI to produce the GUI components (GTK#) of Gnome and there are plans to eventually replace the GTK# gui code with pure Mono base GUI APIs. His plans even go down to replacing the libc6 library with a similar one written in Mono's C# so that Mono talks to the kernel directly, which would produce an Linux desktop built on MS IP. If that were to become reality then what is the purpose of Linux?


Unity vs KDE4

I saw an 1GB iPad yesterday and was allowed to hold it and play with it for a while. The first thing I noticed was that the screen was covered with finger prints, oil and smudges. If I were to use one of those the first thing I'd do is put on some silk gloves to keep the dirt off the screen when I touched it. You not just touching it. You are dragging or wiping your fingers across it. Pick you nose, cough into your hand, rub your hair, scratch your butt.... the germ build up would be worse than what is on a local high school water fountain. With silk gloves perhaps the Unity desktop wouldn't be so bad.

No doubt a hand is easier to use than a mouse but Qt4's API already includes touch screen capability, which is now in the KDE netbook desktop, so Unity has nothing over KDE4 on the netbook. The desktop? Don't know. Qt4 calls them "gestures" and gives some example code and video here.

[Detonate]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

From the Director of the Ubuntu Engineering Team.
http://theravingrick.blogspot.com/20...his-is-it.html

[dibl]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

And one of my preferences is a totally clean desktop.

Me too. But, except for the cashew, I have a totally clean desktop with KDE 4.5 -- and no special tweaks. Just nuke the silly "folder view" thing, and there's nothing but your wallpaper.

[Detonate]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

I have been using Ubuntu with compiz for some time now. I switched over after Hardy. I will probably install the Kubuntu Desktop soon, mainly so that I can better participate in this forum. As it is now, I try to help people with problems that are not desktop specific, but a lot of the problems and questions are KDE specific, and I feel somewhat sorry I can't help with those questions. Having two, or possibly three if I also install Xubuntu, desktop enviornments will allow me to better address more posts.

[dibl]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

My second KDE 4.5 system runs on aptosid, on the same hardware platform as Kubuntu. On that OS, I have compiz installed and it works marvelously with KDE 4.5.2. On my Kubuntu 10.10 (and 10.04 before it), I'm using the included kwin Desktop Effects, which provides an equivalent (for my purposes) 4-faced "cube". All I really "need" is to be able to turn the mouse wheel and have the next virtual desktop appear -- it's a lazy guy's way to avoid minimizing and maximizing the multiple windows that I typically have open. But for both systems, the virtual desktop(s) are clean -- no "folder view" for me, thank you. That's why I have Dolphin.

[Detonate]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

Does KDE have a feature like "Expo" in compiz? I like being able to slam my mouse in a corner and have all my desktops appear in a panel on the screen then being able to switch to another desktop by merely clicking on it.

[dibl]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

Not being an "Expo" user, I had to futz around a little to figure out what you meant. In kwin, it's not a mouse slam on the screen, it's Ctrl-F8, aka "Desktop Grid". It positions all your virtual desktops in a grid, or table, on the screen where you are. Then you can click the one you want, and it zooms in to that one.

[vinnywright]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

Not being an "Expo" user, I had to futz around a little to figure out what you meant. In kwin, it's not a mouse slam on the screen, it's Ctrl-F8, aka "Desktop Grid". It positions all your virtual desktops in a grid, or table, on the screen where you are. Then you can click the one you want, and it zooms in to that one.

you can set a screen edge as well to trigger the grid......look in system settings>window behaver>screen edges

KDE-4.5.1

VINNY

[MoonRise]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

And one of my preferences is a totally clean desktop.

Me too. But, except for the cashew, I have a totally clean desktop with KDE 4.5 -- and no special tweaks. Just nuke the silly "folder view" thing, and there's nothing but your wallpaper.

I even have the Cashew gone as well. Only have Luna and YAWP @ the moment. Cashew is generally the first thing I get rid of.

[Detonate]

Re: The Unity Desktop in Ubuntu

Well, I think I will install KDE and play with it and see what happens. Are there any additional ppa's I should use to make sure I have all the latest updates?