Interesting comments about Ubuntu Unity

[GreyGeek]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C7RjWXRniA4

[elijathegold]

I agree with him about nautilus, it's truly awful but it's more the Gnome team that have gutted it and Canonical choose to use it. I can't really comment on the theme inconsistency as the default themes seemed complete; if you install a third party theme then you have to take what you get or fix it yourself.

Way back in 2011 when Unity was new, the Dash button, the one at the top of the launcher, was part of the top panel and the design was such that the launcher was kept on the left to match that, or at least that was the reason given in all the "wontfix" statuses of the bug reports, I filed several about myself and many others did too. Even after the button was moved to the launcher, it remained stubbornly fixed to the left. I guess Canonical has finally had enough of the whining and started to do something about it.

The window buttons being fixed to the left is a bit more interesting and I kind of understand where Canonical is coming from with that choice. The top panel is immutable, by which I mean the layout with the maximised window controls at the left, followed by the menu which can now be moved back to the application in some cases, again because of much user whining, and then the widgets. Rather than give the user the chance to modify how the panel works, Canonical have fixed the window controls so they don't change sides when the window is maximised claiming it is more consistent and less confusing.

Let's be honest, Unity like Gnome 3, was never meant to be a customiser's play thing. Dash is very well implemented in my opinion and the HUD is a touch of genius, KDE or Plasma or whatever it's called today needs something like it. I don't hate Unity, in fact I want very much to love it but for some reason, I can't stick with it for long enough to fall for it. Could it be because I am not a member of the Mac using target audience?

Maybe Unity 8 will let me live with it for long enough to fall for it. It is in the repositories as a test package if you want a look at what's coming.

[ianp5a]

The good thing about Unity is it introduced people to other distros. It moved me off Ubuntu on to Kubuntu and Xubuntu, for example.

I need fast access to my favourite programs. And to browse programs by category, and see and switch running programs. Unity Dash slowed down those operations that I need to be instant, by requiring so many clicks, or change hands onto the keyboard to search. The Launcher was a poor task switcher too. And useless in a fixed position with 2 monitors (now solved).

[GreyGeek]

I've been wondering if the decisions about Unity's "immutables" is being driven by the future inclusion of Ubuntu's version of the bash shell into Win10. From what I've read one will be able to call up GUI apps and in effect run Ubuntu, sans a DE, inside Win10.

With MS loosing 10% marketshare allowing Bash in may be a sign of desperation, considering their past attitude and behavior.

[ianp5a]

It'll make Windows more attractive to developers apparently.

But more usefully, many people will not only hear the name Ubuntu for the first time, they'll hear that Microsoft use it. Automatically attaching respect to the name Ubuntu. Even if they don't yet know what it is. It's not just another unknown brand. This has got to be a positive step for the whole Linux community.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[elijathegold]

I've been wondering if the decisions about Unity's "immutables" is being driven by the future inclusion of Ubuntu's version of the bash she'll into Win10. From what I've read one will be able to call up GUI apps and in effect run Ubuntu, sans a DE, inside Win10.

With MS loosing 10% marketshare allowing Bash in my be a sign of desperation, considering their past attitude and behavior.

I had assumed it was down the same OS running on computers, tablets and phones with the convergence mode between them. Keeping it in the same place and with the same basic layout makes the transitions between states more cohesive.

[TuxDigital]

1. because it took years for them to add something they didn't ever plan on adding.
- my response: complaining it took so long is weird because Canonical didn't want to offer this at all but they allowed the option when the Ubuntu Kylin team made it

2. "lack of artistic cohesion"
- my response: not a complaint on Ubuntu but rather GNOME and GTK which he even states in the video

3. Nautilus being "gutted" by GNOME
- my response: not a complaint on Ubuntu

4. lack of control of minimize, maximize, close on the right instead of left
- my response: finally a complaint that actually relates to a Canonical decision

5. not having a Welcome screen
- my response: the only valid complaint but still not a reason to "hate Ubuntu"

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"they should have kept the fallback option for the old GNOME classic desktop"
- my response: So you are saying they should have maintained a deprecated desktop environment on top of the effort of making their own shell on top of GNOME stack? I think it would be a very bad decision to take on the development effort of maintaining two different version stacks just because people "don't like change".

"kind of like their doing now with not pushing Unity 8 on us"
- my response: Unity 8 is not ready yet, that's why they aren't pushing it yet. They had no choice but to adopt GNOME 3 or make their own shell. They could have kept GNOME 2 and adopted it but they would have had multiple years where they were using deprecated software stack. Ubuntu MATE works because MATE had 3 years of development before Ubuntu MATE was even made. Canonical did not have the luxury of that. Unity 8 is actually based on Qt not GTK so all of the complaints you have with GTK, which for some reason you blame Canonical for, would be irrelevant once Unity 8 comes out.