Ubuntu 12.04 LTS & Unity: Ubuntu's "Win8?"

[samsom63]

Hi Mikodo,

How did you get the icons of opened programmes on the left of the top panel? It looks vert neat I just installed xubuntu 12.04 on my netbook and I'd like to have something similar. Thanks!

[carl4926]

Hi Mikodo,

How did you get the icons of opened programmes on the left of the top panel? It looks vert neat I just installed xubuntu 12.04 on my netbook and I'd like to have something similar. Thanks!

It's just a panel - you add to it as you please

[kungfupete]

An interesting and timely topic for me: As a long-time GNU/Linux & Ubuntu user, I also had some reservations about Unity when it first came out. Quite frankly, I didn't really like it, but I knew I would have to give it a couple weeks of serious use before rushing to judgment. Eventually I came to appreciate some things and dislike others, but overall it has grown on me. I'm also somewhat of a chronic tester of operating systems (I think this should be an officially recognized disease), so I am not stranger to all major and minor DE paradigms.

I recently tried the latest version of KDE, XFCE, LXDE and MATE (LMDE 2013 specifically). All good in their own ways, but I found myself craving the relative simplicity and functionality of Unity. I also upgraded my very solid Windows 7 Pro to Windows 8 as I figured it couldn't be that bad; Boy was I mistaken. I ran it almost exclusively for a full month, read many reviews and tutorials on how to get the most out of it, and in the end I was astounded at how dysfunctional it was. Even after installing Classic Shell, it just wasn't right.

Long story short: the DE experience is something personal to each one of us. We should respect everyone's opinions of the somewhat dramatic changes we have seen in the user interfaces we are so used to, and if it doesn't work for them --so be it. As many pointed out, the beauty with Ubuntu (or any other distro) a completely different DE is only an "apt-get" away and all have the ability to be tweaked and customized to our needs.

[mikodo]

Hi Mikodo,

How did you get the icons of opened programmes on the left of the top panel? It looks vert neat I just installed xubuntu 12.04 on my netbook and I'd like to have something similar. Thanks!

The top is the generic xfde panel, with icons for opening apps etc.

The bottom is Docky with more icons to open apps, BUT it will place an opened app on it when opened from terminal, appfinder, drop down application lists etc.

;p

[Ashtonford]

forget about mate, cinnamon is much better. If you dislike unity the best choice is to install mint 13 or 14 with cinnamon. Installing cinnamon over ubuntu isent the best way to go.

[thiebaude]

JSeymour-- I did sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback .I don't know if you tried that, but I like it alot.

[ikt]

No Unity is not Ubuntu's Win8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...rating_systems

If that were the case it would have twice the desktop market share as all of linux combined in 1/4th the time and after a public shaming on every tech blog and website, we're still hoping for a release as successful as windows least successful release.

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

Probably the main difference with Windows 8 is that if you don't enjoy/appreciate Ubuntu w/ Unity, you have lots of free and easy to install alternatives both within the Ubuntu family and in the wider Linux community. Paradise is always only an ISO away. If you don't like Windows 8, you have the following choices: a) reinstall an older - and in many cases no-longer supported - version of Windows; b) join the pinkoes, hippies and communists, as well as the London Stock Exchange and the U.S. Army over on Linux; c) get a Mac.

[pinballwizard]

An interesting and timely topic for me: As a long-time GNU/Linux & Ubuntu user, I also had some reservations about Unity when it first came out. Quite frankly, I didn't really like it, but I knew I would have to give it a couple weeks of serious use before rushing to judgment. Eventually I came to appreciate some things and dislike others, but overall it has grown on me. I'm also somewhat of a chronic tester of operating systems (I think this should be an officially recognized disease), so I am not stranger to all major and minor DE paradigms.

I recently tried the latest version of KDE, XFCE, LXDE and MATE (LMDE 2013 specifically). All good in their own ways, but I found myself craving the relative simplicity and functionality of Unity. I also upgraded my very solid Windows 7 Pro to Windows 8 as I figured it couldn't be that bad; Boy was I mistaken. I ran it almost exclusively for a full month, read many reviews and tutorials on how to get the most out of it, and in the end I was astounded at how dysfunctional it was. Even after installing Classic Shell, it just wasn't right.

Long story short: the DE experience is something personal to each one of us. We should respect everyone's opinions of the somewhat dramatic changes we have seen in the user interfaces we are so used to, and if it doesn't work for them --so be it. As many pointed out, the beauty with Ubuntu (or any other distro) a completely different DE is only an "apt-get" away and all have the ability to be tweaked and customized to our needs.

I agree. I used KDE for years, and knew I was going to struggle when I moved to Unity. Funny thing is now when I work on one of my parents' KDE laptops, I am astounded at how clunky and terrible it is. I guess we change as people don't we.

I also used Win 8 for about half an hour when I got a new laptop the other day. Itlasted literally that long before I put 12.04.2 on it.

[3rdalbum]

Interesting line breaks, what happened there?

Copied and pasted from Wikipedia on my phone using Opera Mini. I guess it doesn't just reflow the text to fit on the screen, it must actually insert line breaks.