Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

[woodsmoke]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

LOL
When GG mentioned "desktop wars", i kind of halfway was wondering if he was going to refer to the "PC" desktop wars of the late 80s and 90s.

Then it was a "war" of ctrl-alt-F8/w and mouse GUI.

I well remember the two opposing pundits at PCWorld Magazine, Dvorak and ...can't remember the other guy's name... who went at each other tong and hammer over the relative merits of the input methods.

And twenty years late the public has voted with their mouse clicks for the mouse GUI!

A rather hilarious side note is that there was a "study" reported a few months ago that found that many more people in the U.S. use the keyboard to enter information than use the dropdown of things like Google search.

In other words the U.S. computer users tend to type out: "Kubuntu forums" in Google rather than type Kubu and when the previously used search options appear in the drop down then go to the drop down and choose it.

There was no reason given, but I suspect that it is the much decried use of Microsoft products that require a lot of manual input and also the early teaching of typing in the U.S. in almost all government run schools.

Dunno..... but GG did bring up some good points about the Linux desktop wars!

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Dvorak was caught on video bragging out how he generated page hits by playing the Apple community. It's not often you catch a "journalist" red-handed admitting that he is a nothing but a hack and a fraud. In his own words, a "weasel" writer.

He's been a loooonnnnggg time columnist for PCMAG, which probably enjoy$ the page hi$ is bombastic style generates. Regardless of what you think of him and his ethics, he is a creative writer and blogger. He seems to re-invent himself almost daily.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Well, i got to theinking about the opposite thing....

will Kubuntu have to go to straight debian to keep the Kubunutu "look and feel"?

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

That would be a viable move, IMO, only if Canonical reassigned it's Kubuntu developer to another project and stopped giving it access to corporate hardware and servers.

[teh603]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Well, i got to theinking about the opposite thing....

will Kubuntu have to go to straight debian to keep the Kubunutu "look and feel"?

woodsmoke

I don't see any way that they could integrate Unity into KDE and have it still be recognizable as KDE- or even work, because Unity is written to work with Gnome. A KDE version would require a ground-up rewrite, and hopefully nobody at Canonical has the time or resources to bother with it.

*knocks on wood*

[erigais]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

yes.

[Linkmaster]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

yes.

Care to explain why? Often, hearing the reasons as to how/why things happen are good for things like this discussion

Having never used Unity, I can't give my opinion, though I've been considering to try it out, along with all the other crazy things I want to do..

[woodsmoke]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

As to why Unity might be driving Ubu users to Kubu, I'll take a swing at it.

I've used Unity in a couple of distros for a month or so and also am doing Onery Ocelot.

The overarching idea is "scalability".

Microsith is RAPIDLY moving to have multiple versions of Win8 on as many platform types as possible. They are really trying to play "catch-up" to Linux.

I'll BORE FOLKS yet again with a mention of ARM technology. Years ago when ARM was developed it was written off as a poor relative because...."hardware is always faster than software". Well....the ARM folks weren't resting on their....

Laurels... gotcha! bet you thought I was going to say....arms!

all these years and the ARM "stuff" is now....getting to "be as fast as the hardware" as it were and it has low power consumption.

A month or so ago, both Canonical AND....Microsith made "mention" of ARM technology and MicrosSludge has now announced formally that they are putting both feet into ARM. Canonical said basically the same a short while ago.

So........to me.....and this is JUST me....to me......the reason for the massive leap by both Unity and Gnome3 is to develop as quickly as possible a "scalable" interface to the OS that can be used everywhere from a cell phone to a desktop tower.

The problem....is that old conundrum of science.

One cannot optimize for two variables at the same time.

That means for Unity and Gnome3 that they, perforce, have a reduced set of parameters whereby the user can interact with them.

And this is because a cell phone screen is not going to allow much tweaking by the user, it is all about "usability".

If one actually USES Unity and Gnome 3 one can see what is going on quite easily.

And the best way to see it.....

Is to turn your monitor so that it is tall up and down, similar to a cell phone.

Unity and Gnome 3 are "less efficient" in terms of using a mouse but "ok" in terms of using a touch screen(which I do NOT have btw )

What I, personally, think, is that these have been shoved out the door to get some real world testing as quickly as possible.

After a while, I, PERSONALLY, think that both of them will be split out into a couple of versions for the desktop and for small form devices.

When one thinks about it, a laptop is a desktop that is portable so one only needs one "version" for them.

A netbook and a tablet are basically the same so one only needs one "version" for them.

A cell phone, of course, would be a much reduced set of features but still be the same basic interface and that would "maybe" require a whole different team to work on it....

But..............................

If, in the "greenness" of our brave new green world, all "devices" (cell phones are already there, and netbooks are quickly going to be....) go to the ARM type processor.....

then...... one size fits all in terms of the OS.

just my thoughts....not worth much.

TOO MUCH READING WOODSMOKE......keep it short and pithy!!!

woodsmoke

[Guest]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

It certainly drove me here. I never really gave KDE 4 much of a chance, and on the few occasions that I did I always found something annoying enough to push me back to stock Ubuntu. Fortunately KDE 4 has really matured and come into it's own at just the right time for me, and I suspect, others who are dissatisified with the Unity interface. Now that I've largely gotten familiar with most of the KDE 4 nuances I am really loving it and can't see myself moving away to anything else in the foreseeable future.

[starbuck]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

I have gnome installed as well as kde

Did you install them side-by-side and do you also use those Gnome programs directly under KDE? Did you manage to integrate them well (file dialog, etc.)?

[Detonate]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

I would be counted as a yes to the question posed in the subject. As most of you know, I left Kubuntu for Ubuntu when KDE 4 came out. Have been a happy Gnome user since. I installed Ubuntu 11.04 and I did not like it. Unity interfered with some of the Gnome settings, and I did not like Unity. So, this morning I installed Kubuntu 11.04 and I am back to being a KDE fan again. Still have some settings to adjust but I am getting there. Having fun. Also gives me the opportunity to be more active in the forum as I have been avoiding a lot of questions involving Kubuntu specifically.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

What were the major things about Unity that you did not like?

[Detonate]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

I had a hard time finding where to change basic settings. Only after I installed the Gnome desktop was i able to find where to manipulate those settings. Also the look and feel of it was just not right for me. And I am still looking for the place to change my panel colors and backgrounds in Kubuntu. But I am sure I will work the out.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Kmenu --> Settings -->System Settings
Then "Application Appearance" and/or "Workspace Appearance"

[Detonate]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

The other problem I am having is high CPU usage. And to go along with that I can't find a good panel applet that displays temps as well as the one I am used to in Ubuntu. When I run top, I don't see any one program demanding a lot of the CPU, but several things that really add up. Kwin, Xorg, and some other stuff.