Addicted to unity 2d!

[swoll1980]

I hated Unity do to its instability, and sluggishness. I heard that if you enable the 2d version it is 100 times more stable, and responsive. So I give it a try, and it's running smooth as silk. It is old school Ubuntu speed mixed with the efficiency of the new interface. "How cool is that?" I thought to myself.

I was thinking of upgrading to 12.10, then I found out there wasn't any 2d option for Unity. The first thing I ask myself is "Why?!"

Now I'm no genius or anything, but why drop the fast stable version, instead of the slow buggy version? Is it so that we might watch the cool effect of a window shrinking into it's icon when we minimize it?

What are the benefits, if any, of running 3d desktops, over 2d, which would make it worth the performance drop off?
am I missing somthing here?

[kaldor]

I hated Unity do to its instability, and sluggishness. I heard that if you enable the 2d version it is 100 times more stable, and responsive. So I give it a try, and it's running smooth as silk. It is old school Ubuntu speed mixed with the efficiency of the new interface. "How cool is that?" I thought to myself.

I was thinking of upgrading to 12.10, then I found out there wasn't any 2d option for Unity. The first thing I ask myself is "Why?!"

Now I'm no genius or anything, but why drop the fast stable version, instead of the slow buggy version? Is it so that we might watch the cool effect of a window shrinking into it's icon when we minimize it?

What are the benefits, if any, of running 3d desktops, over 2d, which would make it worth the performance drop off?
am I missing somthing here?

The issue isn't a matter of "eye candy vs stable/fast". The issue is that Unity 2d and Unity are both different projects with different codebases. This is why there's a feature difference between the two.

There was too much repetitive work being done. Unity 2d was dropped in favour of putting the effort into Unity (3d), and getting Unity 3d to work on older/slower hardware. This avoids the issues related to having to reimplement features, incompatibilities, etc.

Unity is a Compiz plugin. Unity 2d is a non-compositing GNOME desktop shell written in Qt. While I agree that Unity 2d is much more efficient on some machines, I agree with the decision to drop it. It's present in the current LTS, at least!

[KiwiNZ]

Use 12.04 until 3d is sorted. I am not using or recommending 12.10.

[swoll1980]

Use 12.04 until 3d is sorted. I am not using or recommending 12.10.

Yeah that's what I'm going to do. Hopefully they'll figure out a way to make everyone happy. I just can't see the 3d version ever being as fast for some reason.

Is it me, or does creating a desktop environment out of a compiz plugin seem pretty ambitious?

[KiwiNZ]

Yeah that's what I'm going to do. Hopefully they'll figure out a way to make everyone happy. I just can't see the 3d version ever being as fast for some reason.

Is it me, or does creating a desktop environment out of a compiz plugin seem pretty ambitious?

My opinion only, the two main issues with 12.10 is releasing in Beta quality and very poor driver support and implementation, both of which are unacceptable in a modern OS.

It is my belief that delaying a release is less damaging than releasing on time but broken. The religious adherence to the six monthly release cycle needs to be reviewed.

[swoll1980]

My opinion only, the two main issues with 12.10 is releasing in Beta quality and very poor driver support and implementation, both of which are unacceptable in a modern OS.

It is my belief that delaying a release is less damaging than releasing on time but broken. The religious adherence to the six monthly release cycle needs to be reviewed.

Yeah I agree. Ironically, the first Linux distro I ever used was Ubuntu 7.04, it was delayed a couple of months. It seemed to work out fine that time.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Yeah I agree. Ironically, the first Linux distro I ever used was Ubuntu 7.04, it was delayed a couple of months. It seemed to work out fine that time.

It think you are referring to 6.06 LTS that was delayed.

[swoll1980]

It think you are referring to 6.06 LTS that was delayed.

Yeah it was 6.06. I had it on there then edited to 7.04. Should have trusted my gut on that one. The name implies it's late arrival.

[monkeybrain2012]

Don't know about your hardware, but on my laptop Unity 3d (12.04)is actually a lot faster and smoother than Unity 2d, everything just flows while Unity 2d is kind of sluggish. I can see that if you have very old hardware it may be the opposite(my laptop is almost 4 years old and it is a mid range laptop I bought on discount so not the greatest and newest either)


BTW, I see no compelling reason to upgrade to 12.10. Why the rush?

[swoll1980]

My hardware isn't really old, it's budget. I think people including Canonical forget that it's not just old hardware that has lower specs. My laptop has better specs than say a tablet computer. If Canonical is planning on targeting that market they better figure something out.