Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

[craig10x]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

I like Zorin also...it does look rather kde doesn't it? even though it's gnome

That version is based on Gnome 2...the next Zorin has been delayed (Zorin 6) because i think he is trying to figure out how he wants to go with it, since it will be based on ubuntu 11.10 and will have gnome 3.2...I think he was planning on customizing with extensions (similar to mint's MGSE) however it is also possible at this point, he could take something like Cinnamon and "Zorinize" it...LOL

To tell you the truth, each time i even pop into my LM Cinnamon session, it has a bit of "kde-ish" feeling about it (the way the lower panel looks and the menu)...and some of those 3rd party themes even bring out more of that "look"

[cavedweller]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Sorry to have to disagree with one of the previous comments....but in my opinion, gnome 3 is hardly a "piece of crap" particularly with Cinnamon....in fact, it is EXACTLY what gnome3 needed

With cinnamon Gnome 3 is usasable because as you said it is a familiar approach. Without the shell or unity it is fine. I think that Clem proved something with cinnamon that Gnome and Ubuntu need to learn a lesson from. It never hurts to listen to the end user. Probably why unity never showed up in mint.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Just a thought, but, I posted two items from CES where there is a mockup of a tablet and an actual Ubu television that are running the Unity interface.(in another thread).

And Shuttleworth said in a "keynote" address that "Unity is here to stay".

So, I am wondering .....if there might be the slightest possibility that he purposely actually split the community into a) the Ubu dekstop that can be vertically integrated from phone to television (and which Canonical will officially maintain) and b) the protestors who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.....( the best way to do things ! ).... and did Kubu, or Cinnamon or whatever...

After all Canonical is a corporation and does make money...

So...if my musing is correct then he would have an end result that was the best of both worlds while doing HALF the work!!!

just a thought!

woodsmoke

[cavedweller]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Good point woodsmoke

[craig10x]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

yes...that is a very interesting thought, woodsmoke...the way things worked out, in the end...maybe everyone's happy...
those that like unity can stay with that...if they don't, they can either install Cinnamon in ubuntu or go mint of course....or kde
and in other gnome distros...if they are not that fond of gnome 3 shell, then again, they can install cinnamon...
And ubuntu has it's interface for the tv tablet, and other devices as well...

also, this has pulled Clem and mint to the forefront quite a bit...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Fascinating commentary. I love the way folks here pour so much time into thoughtful posts.

Software should always push the hardware. Why do I say this? Without the pressure to continually evolve, that which constitutes framework and scaffolding will never improve. In biology, selection pressure requires ever-greater sophistication. What the human brain produces is truly amazing -- but it requires the hardware of a complex human, not a simple bacterium, to engage in such production.

If software doesn't continually push the hardware, we'd all still be turtle-ing along with 6502 CPUs, 8K of RAM, cassette tape storage, and 4-bit color. Yuck. Bring on the bling, I say, and it creates markets for companies like nVidia to create some truly amazing hardware. This, in turn, creates unimaginable side-effects. GPUs are much better equipped than CPUs for certain kinds of calculations. If you assemble an array of GPUs and then figure out how to charge for them by the hour, perhaps you've created the scaffolding upon which someone else can model novel cures for cancer or test new methods for predicting population density changes and then develop new farming techiques.

Anybody that has been around this very long knows that Microsoft hasn't had an original idea from day one. They sit in Redmond and look at what is out there and see what they can copy

There are precious few truly original ideas. Most of the history of computing is story after story of one firm doing something better than another. Active Directory, to pick an example, is loosely based on X.400. But when combined with Group Policy, AD+GP provides enterprises with the most significant advance in centralized configuration management ever devised. Add a neat development called DirectAccess, based on IPv6 plus IPsec, and an organization can manage the configuration of all its IT assets full time, whenever they're connected to the Internet -- no VPN required. Microsoft didn't invent any of the foundational protocols, but this particular combination is the first really scalable solution to problem that's existed for a very long time.

and thn try to patten it claiming that it is there intelectual property and then the make it proprietary. They have been pretty successful at it to.

This is the unattractive element, yes. Unfortunately, this behavior overshadows the good stuff.

If you are wanting to convert people over to linux I think the way to do that is to work on enteroperability. There is nothing that pisses me off more than having to install a vm on my system or wine once a year just to do my taxes because the software that I use is windows based. So I do what I need to so I can install my tax software, do my taxes, and then take it all back off my system. It would be nicer if you could just put the disk in the drive install the program use it and be done with it.

Supply and demand, basic economics. Fortunately, with the move to web-based technologies, these requirements will over time disappear.

[cavedweller]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Thoughtful is something I have never been accused of being. I am on the high end of the autism spectrum. I generally take a more point A to B approach to things. The time I spend on things ususally boils down to making things come out to some sort of socially acceptable end or just plain OCD. The first I am not very good at. As a result I keep the circle of people around me to a minimum. Nearest family is 8 hours away. Most are 2000 miles. and friends are limited to the club I ride with.

Here is an example of how I do things. I have two new laptops in the house. Currently both are running the same thing Mint 12 Cinnamon. The reason being I am trying to find something that will be user friendly for my wife who is a newbie, and enable her to do the multimedia off the net that she wants to do. When I get this ironed out then I will go back to running what ever I want. Until then we will run the same thing until I iron out the issues we are having. There is a keyboard touchpad erratic behaviour going on. I prefer things from the debian line so that generally means debian or something from the ubuntu based. Since I do not care for ubuntu that leaves Kubuntu or mint. If you multimedia they seem to be a little more polished in that area than vanilla debian. If you just need a reliable hassle free platform that does it's job I prefer debian. The issue we are having are only on the distros based on ubuntu 11.10. I can install debian dist-upgrade it to rolling testing and there is no issues even with kde 4.6.5 or Gnome 3.2 on it. I will plug along probably though the end of the week changing and removing things trying to find the culprit causing the problem. If I don't find the solution by Saturday night I will reinstall debian on mine, kde 4.6.5 and start trying to iron out the multimedia issues. Which will probably be as easy as adding a non free repo or two and running an upgrade.

I don't have a problem with the bling being there for the end user who wants it. I would just prefer it be a option you choose to turn on, not have to turn off, or remove it. From where I sit a desktop applet or widget with a title like Environment Enhancements or something similar where you have the ability too turn on and off features would be a better all around solution to accommodate all end users. Then it is their option as to how much bling is running on their system. I also think the bling needs to be a little less tied into the core system. More than once, actually several times over the last few weeks in an effort to remove the bling I have had to reinstall the entire system because the end result was so much was removed because it was all tied together that the system was no longer functional. This was mostly in the Gnome 3 arena. With KDE I am able to option it back to a pretty basic environment in a few minutes. Then I am only dealing with the keyboard and touchpad glitch in Kubuntu and Mint.

I guess at the end of the day the wheel is still the wheel. It all boils down to do you want a basic metal rim stock size with a good all around tire, or a 20inch chrome rim with spinners and a low profile tire on it. Simply options for the person who owns and drives the vehicle.

[ardvark71]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Software should always push the hardware. Why do I say this? Without the pressure to continually evolve, that which constitutes framework and scaffolding will never improve. In biology, selection pressure requires ever-greater sophistication. What the human brain produces is truly amazing -- but it requires the hardware of a complex human, not a simple bacterium, to engage in such production.

If software doesn't continually push the hardware, we'd all still be turtle-ing along with 6502 CPUs, 8K of RAM, cassette tape storage, and 4-bit color. Yuck. Bring on the bling, I say, and it creates markets for companies like nVidia to create some truly amazing hardware. This, in turn, creates unimaginable side-effects. GPUs are much better equipped than CPUs for certain kinds of calculations. If you assemble an array of GPUs and then figure out how to charge for them by the hour, perhaps you've created the scaffolding upon which someone else can model novel cures for cancer or test new methods for predicting population density changes and then develop new farming techiques.

Hi Steve...

The downside to this is that the the folks who are poor and cannot afford to purchase the latest and greatest (because they always sell at, what I consider to be, overly inflated prices) a lot of the time end up using hardware and software that is usually outdated. The capacity to run newer software on older systems is always difficult (and diminished) because developers are doing just what you mentioned, making software that pushes the hardware.

While I'm not advocating (nor approve of) a socialistic or a rob Bill to pay Bob approach to solving the problem, I would think that we could develop a way to even things out to make sure the newer technology gets into the hands of all people regardless of their finances, instead of the "trickle down" effect we have been seeing with computer technology since day one.

Regards...

[GreyGeek]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

.....
The downside to this is that the the folks who are poor and cannot afford to purchase the latest and greatest (because they always sell at, what I consider to be, overly inflated prices) a lot of the time end up using hardware and software that is usually outdated. The capacity to run newer software on older systems is always difficult (and diminished) because developers are doing just what you mentioned, making software that pushes the hardware.
...

Adding to what you wrote, the Internet is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. To avoid taking taxes from Peter to pay Paul, I accept donated hardware, fix it up or add a webcam or speaker bar if need be, put Kubuntu on it, and give it without charge to folks having a hard time making their income last out the month. There are a LOT of folks in that condition today ... a LOT more than I've ever seen in times past. This also means that folks are not abandoning their hardware as often as they used to, and I am getting requests from people who don't want to donate their hardware but are asking me to migrate their box to Linux because they can't afford a new one, or to buy a Win7 CD. So, I install Kubuntu or a lighter DE, depending on the age and hardware of their box.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Aardvark commented on people who cannot afford the latest and greatest being left in the lurch.

This comment is not "against" Aardvark, it is a general statement about the attitude of many in the Linux community and an alternate view of the situation.

So, Aardvark, please take this the way it is intended which is merely my observation over the last few years.

***************

There is a saying that goes something like "the poor will always be with you".

The simple fact of the matter about trying to make a situation in which there are no poor is that it can't be done.....

in terms of EVERYbody having EVERYthing.

In other words, in my opinion, it is quite impossible for everyone to have everything unless "everything" is a subset of what we now consider to "be" everything.....

or if the everything is of lower quality.

An example is my post a long time ago about "House Hunters" on HGTV helping a fellow in Czechoslovakia looking at Communist era apartments and the guide was astounded to see that one of them had a small closet. Actually, it was what in the west we would call a "broom closet".

And the reason for that was that since the government could not provide the number of items of cloths that the westerner(even European) considers an adequate number of items, they figured that cloths could just be folded up and put on a table when not being worn.

ASIDE
Now it "could" be argued that the reason for that was that the rest of the world had not seen with great clarity of vision how the Communist worked and if everybody had then everybody would have had all of what western citizens think is adequate in terms of stuff.
ASIDE finished

But....back to Aardvark's comment. There are countries that have decided "what" everybody "should" have. The U.S. was the FIRST to decide, and implement, that "everybody" should have an education. However, that did not happen in a four year election cycle or during the creative lifetime of the advocate. It took some TIME.

Certain countries actually have the national will to decide that everybody should have an item and then carry out that referendum.

To get back to the computers.

I used to donate a lot of computers(as people know) with Linux on them, well into 160 computers.

However, and here is where I get to addressing Aardvark's comment.

Starting about three years ago and finishing maybe a year and a half ago nobody wanted a donated computer UNLESS it happened to be a laptop.

The capitalistic marketplace has now created a situation in which everyone really can "have a computer".

I just googled "cheap computers" and found on the first hit a new Thinkpad for $149 USD.

Now, I would hazard to say, that ANYbody, that really NEEDS a computer could afford to buy that either device either cash or on a payment schedule.

And if one cannot even afford THAT.....

Our libraries are festooned with terminals for people, free, all they have to do is not go to porn places... but now in many cases they can even do that.

The schools are festooned with terminals.

The churches are festooned with computers.

The community centers are festooned with computers.

In other words, the capitalistic system working directly through the sale of a $149 USD computer to the person or the capitalistic system working through various government clients and charitable clients has produced, after a while...it took a few years..... a situation in which everyone has ACCESS to a computer.

However, it does take some small effort on the part of the person to get that access.

I leave it as a trivial exercise for the gentle reader to imagine the government hiring, probably, one hundred thousand people, to PHYSICALLY walk up to every single person in the U.S and hand them a green, hand crank computer and that all of those people would then be happy with that computer.

In other words, when a "society" decides to do something it can do it, it may take some time, but it can be done. It may not be on the schedule of a zealot(not Aardvark! ), the zealot may be the prod needed to make society aware of the situation, but, when motivated then the thing gets done.

And it seems to me, that the mechanism that HISTORY has shown is the best mechanism to do that is.......
the capitalistic, constitutional republic system.

Just my thoughts and not directed at Aardvark but at the general attitude in the Linux community.

woodsmoke

[ardvark71]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Hi Woodsmoke...

No offense taken whatsover.

The saying you referred was spoken by our Lord in Mark 14:7 as well as in Matthew and John. There is also a Verse in the Old Testament describing how the Israelites were to treat the poor around them.

Yes, the poor will always be among us but that doesn't mean we do nothing. At the same time, I'm not sure a working solution (not a perfect one) should even be sponsored or directed by the government. And I agree with your point about personal initiative and for the most part, "that the mechanism that HISTORY has shown is the best mechanism to do that is.......the capitalistic, constitutional republic system."

Regards...

[woodsmoke]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

okldokl Aardvark

woodsmoke

[kubicle]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

In other words, the capitalistic system working directly through the sale of a $149 USD computer to the person or the capitalistic system working through various government clients and charitable clients has produced, after a while...it took a few years..... a situation in which everyone has ACCESS to a computer.

[snip]

And it seems to me, that the mechanism that HISTORY has shown is the best mechanism to do that is.......
the capitalistic, constitutional republic system.

Except that the cheap computers are not made in a "capitalistic, constitutional republic". We have cheap computers because there are parts of the world that can be exploited for cheap labor and materials...not really a triumph for capitalism :P

[GreyGeek]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Marxist governments have long proven, and our government is now finding out, that when they try to force situations, even with the best of motives, the outcome is always worse than it was before. Sometimes the final result is slow in coming, but it always arrives.

The poor will always be with us either because of birth or choice. A newborn did not choose its parents and lives under the financial conditions the parents live under. People can move up the financial ladder by working hard, saving or being lucky. They can move down the financial ladder by being unlucky or making the wrong choices, mostly the latter. It's not a good financial move to become addicted to gambling, alcohol or drugs.

In the roaring 20s people bought stocks on margins as low as 10%. They developed a large "paper" wealth status and used it to live higher than they could if they paid their way with cash. When the margin bubble crashed, and bubbles always crash, they had to find a way to come up with the 90% margin. Of course they couldn't and they became bankrupt. When they couldn't pay their life insurance payments the life insurance company canceled their policies BUT KEPT all the monies they paid in over the years. Grand theft of the lowest kind. This led to two reforms. The first was that life insurance companies were required to put the customers insurance premiums into a fund, giving the policy a "cash value", and when the cash value equaled the face value the policy was "paid up", which actually meant that the insurance company was no longer on the hook if the customer died. But, IF the customer borrowed from the cash value he was charged interest which the company kept, along with the interest earned from the cash value itself. The insurance companies tell it like they created the "cash value" out of the generosity of their hearts, but G. Scott Reynolds, former exec in the business, documented otherwise in his book "The Mortality Merchants".

Anyway, the Great Depression I left the elderly without any income to live on and too old to find gainful employment. FDR resolved that situation with Social Security -- taxing a bunch of Peters to help Paul avoid poverty in his old age. As long as the number of Peters exceeded the number of Pauls by a large margin everything was OK. But, today, about 155 million people work and pay Social Security taxes and about 54 million people receive monthly Social Security benefits. That's only 3 people paying for the retirement of one person.

Average 2011 monthly Social Security benefits

Retired worker: $1,174
Retired couple: $1,907
Disabled worker: $1,067
Disabled worker with a spouse and child: $1,813
Widow or widower: $1,133
Young widow or widower with two children: $2,409

In the USA the average life expectancy is 78.1 years. A couple who retires today at 70 will receive $185,360 before they die. To break even the couple would have had to pay $297/month for 52 years. My first job, at 18, paid $1.27/hr, or $203/mo before taxes. But, the SS payments were supposed to go into a fund and draw interest, helping to support the system. If that $297 had been invested in the stock market, which averages 8% annually, the total would have been $2,584,012 which would have allowed the couple to retire on $8K/month if they lived 24 years longer, and Uncle Sam have had the rest!

By 1965 illiteracy was at an all-time low, and so was poverty. But, Congress wasn't satisfied. They wanted the rates lower, so a giant socialist experiment was conducted, given the grandiose term "The Great Society", and funded to the tune of 7 TRILLION dollars. The result? Before 2008 illiteracy was at an all-time high, and so was poverty. The collapse of 2008 had just made things worse. Even worse, to receive "Aid to Dependent Children" fathers had to be absent from the family, so poor families were split apart. It affected Black families the worse. Men stopped being fathers and became sperm donors to women who had multiple births in order to get higher ADC payments. They became welfare Queens, professional "poor", but always with a well rehearsed "hard luck" story. The Social Services bureaucracy grew by approving more applicants, giving more jobs to social workers. The Great Society became the "Grate Society" as more and more people, mostly men driven out of their families by ADC rules, began living on the streets. Just like Carrie Nation and her crusade against alcohol, Lyndon Johnson's crusade against poverty resulted in things being worse.

Legalizing gambling is another example. My state has only legalized horse racing and various lotteries, but no casino gambling. The two biggest cities in the state are both on the very Eastern end, Lincoln, and Omaha. Just across the river from Omaha is Council Bluffs, Iowa. Iowa enacted legislation to allow casino gambling because they were tired of their citizens going out of state to gamble, but because of their gambling losses putting a huge burden on the state's welfare agencies and funds. Seemed logical. Except that it increased the number of folks who tried gambling and became addicted, thus increasing even more the burden on the social funds and services. Now, Nebraska's Unicameral is in session and the topic at hand is to approve of casino gambling "to keep Nebraska dollars in Nebraska". What a joke. The Iowa casinos are not owned by Iowans. The HUGE profits flow out of the state. Iowa's money is not staying in Iowa. Nebraska's money will NOT stay in Nebraska. Not only will the strain on social services and funds increase dramatically, the tax revenue from folks who have lost their homes and/or their jobs due to gambling will drop dramatically as well. Of course, the "idea" is to tax the profits from gambling to recoup some of the money. But, the corporations have lobbyists who pay good money to politicians, so the taxes will be token only.

Making things worse has been the result of social engineering in the sciences, too. To suppress weeds along the highways of Florida they introduced the Kudzu plant. To control sugar cane pests in Australia the biologists introduced the Cane Toad, which now eats the normal flora and fauna and has no predators because it secrets toxins onto its skin. Over the years they've introduced rabbits, cats, foxes, goats, horses, pigs and water buffalo, all with good intentions. All are now disasters in their environment, destroying the natural plants and animals. In Nebraska the Army Engineering Corp built dams along the Missouri river to control seasonal flooding and to generate electric power.

But after about thirty years of operation, as the environmentalist movement gained strength throughout the seventies and eighties, the Corps received a great deal of pressure to include some specific environmental concerns into their MWCM (Master Water Control Manual, the "bible" for the operation of the dam system). Preservation of habitat for at-risk bird and fish populations soon became a hot issue among the burgeoning environmental lobby. The pressure to satisfy the demands of these groups grew exponentially as politicians eagerly traded their common sense for "green" political support.

The Corps began to utilize the dam system to mimic the previous flow cycles of the original river, holding back large amounts of water upstream during the winter and early spring in order to release them rapidly as a "spring pulse." The water flows would then be restricted to facilitate a summer drawdown of stream levels. This new policy was highly disruptive to barge traffic and caused frequent localized flooding, but a multi-year drought masked the full impact of the dangerous risks the Corps was taking.

This year, despite more than double the usual amount of mountain and high plains snowpack (and the ever-present risk of strong spring storms), the true believers in the Corps have persisted in following the revised MWCM, recklessly endangering millions of residents downstream.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/the_purposeful_flooding_of_americas_heartland.html #ixzz1j9zoExgq

You know the results. Massive amounts of land damages for years, homes, businesses, highways and bridges destroyed, wildlife decimated, and two nuclear power stations threatened with meltdowns.

If Carrie Nation and Lyndon Johnson, or the country of Australia, had just let well enough alone, and let nature take its course, would things have worked out for the better? It depends on whose ox nature gores.

Take this thread for example. It started out in the Document Showdown section, but most should be in the social discussion section.

[cavedweller]

Re: Is Unity driving its Ubuntu users towards kubuntu?

Well last night the **** hit the fan and I reloaded both the laptops here. Both running LMDE mine with KDE, the wife's with gnome for now. It took care of the issue we were having with the keyboards and touchpads.

As far as the current direction of the post look at it like this. You believe what you want to believe about where you live and what goes on in the rest of the world. Most is directly effect by the rhetoric spun by the goverment in charge and which side of the border you are standing on.