Changes I'd Like To See In Unity

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Hello,

I know that Unity is supposed to be the next best thing since sliced-bread, 'which it isn't;' but there 'are' some changes that could be made to it, that would allow me to live with it...

*First of all. I'd like to be able to access a 'text' menu from inside of Unity. Frankly, I think having to logout of Ubuntu (Unity) to login to Ubuntu Classic (Non-Unity), just so that I can access a normal menu is unreasonable. I'd like a can of "Classic-Coke" please...

*Secondly, I'd like 'that' menu to appear exactly where it's always appeared, in the upper left hand corner of 'gnome-panel.' I'd also like it to say "Applications Places System" just like always.

*Third, I'd like 'all' of my most frequently used application lauchers to 'remain' tacked to the upper 'gnome-panel;' and I'd like to be able to add and remove launchers to/from the panel, just like always.

*Fourth, If I click on one of my application launchers in that panel, I'd like just 'that' application to lauch, and nothing else. I 'don't' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up. However, If I click on a 'blank' space 'anywhere' in the panel, I 'do' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up, so that I 'can' use it to my hearts content. Who knows, I may one-day purchase a tablet, and want to use that functionality.

*Fifth, that 'dock' on the side... Put it out of its misery... It's a boat anchor. Get rid of it...

There you have it. The perfect blend of old and new. What could be better?


If you're with me, clap your hands... Shout Hallelujah!!!!!:D

http://ashy2classy.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/sliced_bread_award.jpg


http://www.dailycognition.com/content/image/10/sliced-bread.jpg

[donato roque]

why not just try another distro? Linux is about freedom of choice. That's why *everyone* is free to use the distro they like. Or the kind of Ubuntu they like.

No need to clap. please. I can make up my mind.

[Krytarik]

coljohnhannibalsmith, did you realize that the result of all your suggestions would be effectively classic Gnome 2 with an additional "black touch-screen 'thingy'" popping when you click at the top panel, and no longer Unity!? That was a test, right!? :P

Greetings.

[-RAX-]

UNITY is just a bad copy of MacOS X.

My personal comment is that I don't like it for the same reasons for which I don't like MacOS X. And PLEASE let me keep the application bar ALWAYS visible.

My professional comments are:
1) Unity slows down my productivity because it has some serious accessibility issues. Try opening more than 3 or 4 apps at the same time and try to work with them. I bet that Unity developers are still using gnome.
2) Unity inside a virtual machine works terribly

I will stick with gnome for a while.

Said that I have the terrible feeling that Ubuntu is becoming more and more commercial, and less and less "professional". I choose Ubuntu because it speeds up my work (I am a developer). When I am working I really don't mind to post on Facebook or to tweet full time. I just mind to have a nice and clean working environment. Ubuntu was like that. Now it is changing, and not in a direction which matches with my requirements.

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

why not just try another distro? Linux is about freedom of choice. That's why *everyone* is free to use the distro they like. Or the kind of Ubuntu they like.

No need to clap. please. I can make up my mind.


Yah, freedom of choice for the developers, to make bad or poorly thought-out choices. And BTW I agree with -RAX-, that the Unity developers are probably still using Gnome.

So far the only 'non-emotional' response has been from -RAX-.

Why is everyone so 'sensitive' about this poorly designed and poorly coded...

Unbuntu's got a Vista on its hands. So what... Just roll-up your sleeves, go back to the drawing board and move on...

Hey, I've got another idea... Just make a distro that works...




Hannibal

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

coljohnhannibalsmith, did you realize that the result of all your suggestions would be effectively classic Gnome 2 with an additional "black touch-screen 'thingy'" popping when you click at the top panel, and no longer Unity!? That was a test, right!? :P

Greetings.


Yes, the Gnome 2 that 'works' and the features that the developers want.

No, this wasn't a test. Unity in its present state is a test...

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

UNITY is just a bad copy of MacOS X.

My personal comment is that I don't like it for the same reasons for which I don't like MacOS X. And PLEASE let me keep the application bar ALWAYS visible.

That said, I have the terrible feeling that Ubuntu is becoming more and more commercial, and less and less "professional". I chose Ubuntu because it speeds up my work (I am a developer). When I am working I really don't mind to post on Facebook or to tweet full time. I just mind to have a nice and clean working environment. Ubuntu was like that. Now it is changing, and not in a direction which matches with my requirements.

That plus, at the time I switched to Ubuntu it had better hardware support for my unit than Vista.

Also, the feeling that Ubuntu is becomming more and more commercial is 'widespread' throughout the 'Linux' community, not just with us. And that part doesn't bother me. Go make a few bucks, I don't care... Just don't leave the users behind... They need us more than they think.....

Also, just try dumping Unity on a new-user. Good luck...

[Krytarik]

Unity in its present state is a test...
I agree, it is!

And I, too, don't want to run it right now.

I'm running Gnome 2 on Lucid 10.04 without panels but with AWN, and the Unity launcher looks quite ugly on a 19'' 4/3 screen.

So, I wait and see how the DEs are evolving in the next 2 years, about which I'm really curious.

[donato roque]

Yah, freedom of choice for the developers, to make bad or poorly thought-out choices. And BTW I agree with -RAX-, that the Unity developers are probably still using Gnome.

So far the only 'non-emotional' response has been from -RAX-.

Why is everyone so 'sensitive' about this poorly designed and poorly coded...

Unbuntu's got a Vista on its hands. So what... Just roll-up your sleeves, go back to the drawing board and move on...

Hey, I've got another idea... Just make a distro that works...


My experience with Ubuntu 11.04 with the Unity desktop is quite the opposite. Installation went very smoothly. Since I've been using the beta, I know the freezes, but after the flurry of last minute bug fixes, I knew this one's a winner.

And yes it is personal when it comes to choosing a distro.

I am sorry that 11.04 doesn't rock your world.

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Hello,

First, I've come to the realization that I'm pretty emotional about this myself.

Secondly, I want to commend the fine work that our developers have been doing; even if I think their design philosophy may 'at the moment' be 'somewhat' misguided and 'not' properly executed. I have more than 25 years of experience in technical support in laboratory and field environments; and I've seen more than my share of poorly executed ideas fail. And I'd prefer 'not' to see that happen to Ubuntu. Also, I'm sure it's hard for anyone to be criticized for something they've invested a lot of time and effort into, and believe in.

Third, I did start-off with a rant; that was intentional. Sometimes that's what's needed to get yourself heard, and critically speaking, I don't think I'm wrong.

Originally I offered my bullet points without the benefit of supporting media. I don't believe that's necessary to make your point; but it does sometimes help others relate to your experience. So that said...

Here's a thread that confirms most if not 'all' of my previous comments.

See below:

http://www.junauza.com/2011/05/unity-good-bad-and-ugly.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SimplyJun+%28TechSource%29


Please just fix it...




Respectfully, Hannibal

[ottosykora]

>Yes, the Gnome 2 that 'works' and the features that the developers want.

No, this wasn't a test. Unity in its present state is a test...<

when all the linux is just about testing and playing, it will never find a way to serious work with computers, it will remain the toy for big kids , not more.
Imagine some company really decides to use linux on all their PC and then all they get is just one single collection of experiments, every few months again.
No, not useful at all this way.

[ottosykora]

why not just try another distro? Linux is about freedom of choice. That's why *everyone* is free to use the distro they like. Or the kind of Ubuntu they like.

No need to clap. please. I can make up my mind.

this is unfortunately not so simple any more.
Probably any distro in the near future will use some gnome 3 and kde and will need to use the search&logging engine zeitgeist. Any distro I can think of is using it. As this can not be used with gnome2 , there is not much choice any more unless we talk about things like puppy or DSL etc.
So no more fixed menus, no more static configuration of anything. For the moment, yes we can take something else, but in few months we have the same problem again.
We can use windows sure instead, but it is designed today with similar aims: to collect and concentrate information on what he user is doing with his computer at any time and see later how to make this information to $$$

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Servus Krytarik (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=1187548),

I've enjoyed reading your posts.

Sind Sie ein Unity Entwickler? (I hope I got the word right).

I noticed the following in your signiture:

Troubleshoot and Customize Unity/Natty (http://ubuntu4beginners.blogspot.com/search/label/Natty%20Narwhal)
Tweaks/Fixes for Unity after Installing (http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/things-to-tweak-fix-after-installing.html)
The Power User’s Guide to Unity (http://castrojo.tumblr.com/post/4795149014/the-power-users-guide-to-unity)

These are tools of the trade; nicht wahr?:D

BTW, they look very informative; and I'm going to read each one. Vielen Dank für diese.

http://entwickler.com/zonen/sus/konferenzen/pspic/picture/89/Entwickler4b2b56a4a1a7c.jpg




mit freundlichen Grüßen, Hannibal

[madjr]

well its not ubuntu's fault that gnome2 is going to go away.

they actually invested lots in gnome2 for as long as possible.

but its time to move on and become more free from upstream's chains.

so here it is from the man himself:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/mark-shuttleworth-talks-windicators-changes-for-unity-in-oneiric-and-whole-lot-more/

also, xfce is now becoming the next gnome2, so i would try that for all you classic lovers:

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/xubuntu-1104-released-with-xfce-48.html

[michaelzap]

this is unfortunately not so simple any more.
Probably any distro in the near future will use some gnome 3 and kde and will need to use the search&logging engine zeitgeist. Any distro I can think of is using it. As this can not be used with gnome2 , there is not much choice any more unless we talk about things like puppy or DSL etc.
So no more fixed menus, no more static configuration of anything. For the moment, yes we can take something else, but in few months we have the same problem again.
We can use windows sure instead, but it is designed today with similar aims: to collect and concentrate information on what he user is doing with his computer at any time and see later how to make this information to $$$

Actually, there are a lot of options.

Xfce is a good choice for folks who think that Gnome 2 pretty much had it right. It's a lot faster than Gnome, and the minor bells and whistles that it's missing are probably things that most people can live without (their favorite Gnome panel apps, for example). I run #! Xfce on my main system now, and man does it fly.

Gnome 3 actually has a "fallback" mode with regular menus and panels that's not crippled in any way. You get all the Gnome 3 goodness but you don't have to drink the Shell Kool-Aid. I actually think Gnome Shell will be my DE of choice in a few months (I'm typing this from it now), but it still needs some work and a lot more options for customizing it.

If you're paranoid about Zeitgeist, don't install it or turn it off. It's only included in the most recent Gnome-based distros (Gnome 3 and Ubuntu Natty), btw. I actually installed Synapse (with Zeitgeist) on my Xfce system because it's extremely useful and I don't see how it's any more of a risk to my privacy than my browser history.

Linux Mint is about to come out with a new Gnome 2-based release that I expect many people will be using for quite a while (the RCs are already available).

Ubuntu seduced me into using Linux, and Natty set me free to explore other distros full-time...

[ottosykora]

>about Zeitgeist, don't install it or turn it off. It's only included in the most recent Gnome-based distros (Gnome 3 and Ubuntu Natty), btw.<

well all current gui need zeitgeist to do anything at all. Probably just at this moment xface does not need it, all others depend on it. Uninstall zeitgeist and you can work only from the command line.

Zeitgeist is a tool, logging not only what your browser does, but all you do on your computer. In one database. It does know what file did you open when, what software you run, where you are, which mail you send to whom at what time and what music you listen most and...

It might be a generation problem, the facebook generation tends to present the world as many infos as possible, we from the previous generation wanted have info about my person not logged anywhere at all.
Therefore we tend to have no history of a browser stored etc.

But yes, there are people who like it very much, when everybody in the world can find out what they do exactly at this moment. By this they can be informed about the latest software (see unity) , the chapes car, the best lipstick, the chapest blue pills, the .....

[ottosykora]

>well its not ubuntu's fault that gnome2 is going to go away.<

it here so why it needs to go away?

It is stable , does not need any further dev on it, so why not keep it ?

[michaelzap]

>about Zeitgeist, don't install it or turn it off. It's only included in the most recent Gnome-based distros (Gnome 3 and Ubuntu Natty), btw.<

well all current gui need zeitgeist to do anything at all. Probably just at this moment xface does not need it, all others depend on it. Uninstall zeitgeist and you can work only from the command line.

Zeitgeist is a tool, logging not only what your browser does, but all you do on your computer. In one database. It does know what file did you open when, what software you run, where you are, which mail you send to whom at what time and what music you listen most and...

"All current GUI"? AFAIK it's only included by default in Gnome Shell and Unity. So that leaves a whole lot of other desktop environments.

I haven't tried disabling Zeitgeist, but I actually doubt that it would break all that much in Gnome Shell (probably just the recent documents and search-to-launch features). I very much doubt that it would break the whole GUI. It's really not that essential a component.

And how is Zeitgeist any more dangerous privacy-wise than say Google Desktop? It logs various activities on your computer and uses those to try to speed up access to the things that you most use. It doesn't share this info with anyone, and if your computer were hacked then it would already contain pretty much all of this information anyway (in your email, browser history, logs, etc.).

I would fully support a project to create packages that remove Zeitgeist from the few (but important) distros that have started to use it and replace it with static menus or other non-intrusive data. But I don't see any reason to fear-monger about Zeitgeist. It's not Facebook or iOS or anything even remotely close to those things.

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

My experience with Ubuntu 11.04 with the Unity desktop is quite the opposite. Installation went very smoothly.

We're on opposite sides of the fence on Unity; but you made an interesting point I'd like to address.

For the last several distros, I've usually ended up having to install from disk, and that usually went 'smoothly' for me; however, I do have some comments about that as well...

I've had Ubuntu on my system since Gutsy, and I've discovered that something usually breaks during an 'online-distro-upgrade;' and I've read that many people have had this experience. Package upgrades usually go smoothly, although these 'sometimes' break; but I would say that the frequency of this is no greater than with Windows.

Additionally, the server-availablity and download-speed for 'all' upgrades is far superior to that of M$. This is a good thing. Another observation of mine is that M$ does 'not' offer 'online-distro-upgrades.' Maybe there's a good reason for this... Maybe they tried it experimentally, and something always broke when they tried it, which is why they don't offer it. There may also be business reasons for this decision.

When I upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy my Broadcom drivers broke. I would not have been able to retrieve the drivers if I didn't have a T-Mobile GPRS card at the time.

Since Hardy was an LTS, I waited to upgrade until Lucid was deployed, which was another LTS. This forced me to have to install from disk; and since Ubuntu did not offer an 'upgrade-from-disk' feature on the installation CD, at this time; that meant a complete bare-metal install. 'NOT' fun. The interface, skins, and performance of Lucid was a BIG improvement over Hardy; however Lucid turned out to be very buggy in other ways. The volume control in the Indicator-Applet dissapeared, and It's my understanding that no one was going to fix this until Maverick. There's even a Poster to one of 'my' threads that still had this experienece in Maverick, when he upgraded-online. All I could do was suggest that this problem 'might' go way, if he installed from bare-metal, as I did. I had to install ALSA-Sound-Mixer, and pin the icon to gnome-panel, just to have a working volume control in Lucid. So much for LTS! Also, in the x64 version of Lucid, ALSA and Pulse-Audio conflicted with each other, so that input from more than one sound-source killed ALSA. I had to purge Pulse-Audio to resolve this... Maverick fixed both of these issues, and was the best and most stable Ubuntu distro I've ever had on my system. The only complaint I have abount Maverick is that the repositories weren't completely or correctly populated when the distro was released. This has been my experience with every Ubuntu disto... Also when I installed Lucid from disk, along side Windows, the Install UI's representation of how the partitions were going to be resized was backwards! How do you get a new user past this? Not even M$ does that! The totality of the Maverick installation, however, was BUG-FREE; and the release was stable. I would go so far as to call Maverick Ubuntu's 'XP.'

The industry trades have called Ubuntu a Bleeding Edge distro and I agree; however Ubuntu has been far ahead of the other Linux distros in offering 64 bit support. Then again, Canonical still recommends the '32' bit version on its website, and describes the 64 bit version as (sic) Not For Every Day Use. Since 'all' currently produced computers have 64 bit acrchitectures, why would they say this? I realize that one of the advantages of a Linux distro is that it breaths new life into older machines; but come-on. 64 bit machines have been around since 2006! Lets start to get some maturity into 'all' 64 bit Linux distros; not just Ubuntu.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Uy2jpMqNnio/TBVo0BfpUpI/AAAAAAAAACc/y2PP6hX3Cww/s1600/bleeding_heart_white_red_xlarge.gif

[donato roque]

@ottosykora
this is unfortunately not so simple any more.
Probably any distro in the near future will use some gnome 3 and kde and will need to use the search&logging engine zeitgeist. Any distro I can think of is using it. As this can not be used with gnome2 , there is not much choice any more unless we talk about things like puppy or DSL etc.
So no more fixed menus, no more static configuration of anything. For the moment, yes we can take something else, but in few months we have the same problem again.

I'm afraid it gets worse. The era of XP with its backward compatibilities principle is over I believe. Even Microsoft can see this. They are building IE 10 for W7+ onwards. My suggestion to use another distro is for the near term only, I know. Linux Mint is still using Gnome 2.3.x but the GNOME community is dropping support for it. I don't see it as a long term solution. Sooner or later we shall be swallowing the bitter pill.

[Krytarik]

Servus Krytarik (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=1187548),

I've enjoyed reading your posts.

Sind Sie ein Unity Entwickler?
Nope, not really. ;-) I'm not even running it, as I mentioned earlier.

But I plan to try it with a liveCD shortly.
For me, it's just a snapshot of development, I don't really care too much about it right now.

[ottosykora]

>I haven't tried disabling Zeitgeist, <
well you can try, don't worry you will be able to instal it again, but nothing will work, the only way to start any app will be from command line probably.

And KDE, gnome 3 and what ever comes from now on needs zeitgeist, it needs the infos from there.


>And how is Zeitgeist any more dangerous privacy-wise than say Google Desktop?<
well, if someone is using things like google desktop or similar, then he is fine customer for zeitgeist too.

>hacked then it would already contain pretty much all of this information anyway (in your email, browser history, logs, etc.)<
the point is rather that it is then contained in one single database ready for everyone or everything

I would fully support a project to create packages that remove Zeitgeist from the few (but important) distros that have started to use it and replace it with static menus or other non-intrusive data.

OK, this would be too nice, I dount we will be able to have it.

> But I don't see any reason to fear-monger about Zeitgeist. It's not Facebook or iOS or anything even remotely close to those things.<
but its aim is to be oen of those things. We just have all that gps story with iOS and now what I see, zeitgeist needs the gps interface too!

[michaelzap]

>I haven't tried disabling Zeitgeist, <
well you can try, don't worry you will be able to instal it again, but nothing will work, the only way to start any app will be from command line probably.

And KDE, gnome 3 and what ever comes from now on needs zeitgeist, it needs the infos from there.


>And how is Zeitgeist any more dangerous privacy-wise than say Google Desktop?<
well, if someone is using things like google desktop or similar, then he is fine customer for zeitgeist too.

>hacked then it would already contain pretty much all of this information anyway (in your email, browser history, logs, etc.)<
the point is rather that it is then contained in one single database ready for everyone or everything

I would fully support a project to create packages that remove Zeitgeist from the few (but important) distros that have started to use it and replace it with static menus or other non-intrusive data.

OK, this would be too nice, I dount we will be able to have it.

> But I don't see any reason to fear-monger about Zeitgeist. It's not Facebook or iOS or anything even remotely close to those things.<
but its aim is to be oen of those things. We just have all that gps story with iOS and now what I see, zeitgeist needs the gps interface too!

I believe that you are seriously misinformed. Zeitgeist is nothing like Facebook or iOS because its database is stored only on your computer for your use. If your computer is hacked then the hackers have all your data (not just the small subset that is indexed in Zeitgeist), so as always people who are concerned about privacy should use disk encryption (I certainly do).

Zeitgeist is not a part of KDE, although some people would like to port it to KDE. And as far as I know it is not installed by default on any other distros except Gnome 3 (with Gnome Shell) and Ubuntu Natty (with Unity), since they both make use of it to create intelligent launcher menus. I may try removing Zeitgeist from Unity and Gnome Shell when I have a spare moment just to see what happens, but I very much doubt that the results would be all that catastrophic.

The biggest concerns that I can imagine about Zeitgeist are that it keeps a record of what you do on your computer, so if you share that computer with someone else they might be able to see what you've been up to (pr0n, for example?). The obvious solution to this is not to share your computer with someone if you're doing something embarrassing or private, since Zeitgeist is not the only thing that could give this away (browser search history, recent documents list, etc.). Encrypt your home directory and create separate accounts for other people to use if that's a problem.

Zeitgeist will soon have blacklisting and other privacy features, which may resolve this concern for most people:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/privacy-settings-are-coming-to-zeitgeist/

If you are really that concerned about your activities being indexed on your own computer, then you're going to want to use a Live CD session or similar anonymous system, since Zeitgeist is only one of many ways that your activities may be logged.

[ottosykora]

yes it is not part of KDE just in its today current version , but it is there soon. Work is done apperntly hard to implement it there asap.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/11/zeitgeist-coming-to-kde/

The point is, that collecting infos in one central point is the actual danger. The database is there. Hard drive encryption needs to be used with all its pros and contras, but during the actual operation of such system , this does not help much. Any sort of logging and suppervision of a system is now possible. Imagine using such system at work, great idea, exact monitoring how my employees work was not easier before will the boss think.
Collecting data in a network makes all so simple suddenly. And even for a simple private user, it is now simple to get all the infos, why to employ some complex spying mechanisms? It is all there, just read one single database. No need to search for mail data, browser data or other things separately. All is presented on one single source. No big problem to actually control what the user may or may not do.
When other OS is able to install and unistall software on the end users computer without he knows about it or can do anything against it, why not have the same here?

The relation to the face book generation is, that if someone suggested some 10 years ago, to collect data just as much as possible and keep them ready just in case someone needs it, the someone might have got into real trouble, possibly being classified as common criminal. Particularly young people demonstrated against data collection by this and that in the streets.

Now , only some 10 years later, it is the aim to handle data differently, the aim seems to be to collect as much as possible everywhere, at any circumstances , what can happen? oh, this we will think later about.

Collecting data just to have them collected, is very dangerous and while an experienced user might find a way to avoid any misuse, the average user has to live with the fact, that anything is public. Very dangerous development.

See for example unity, open the list of apps, not only it will show you the most used apps, you will be every time presented with 'apps you may install'.
OK, so far just apps from repository, the logger found out you do not have them, comparing fast with the repo and you have a profile.
Now this is an advertising engine in its full size. Anything can be placed there, sooner or later people will click on one of those icons, anything can hide behind such icon. Software, malware, commercial products, political or religious meanings, simple everything.

[michaelzap]

yes it is not part of KDE just in its today current version , but it is there soon. Work is done apperntly hard to implement it there asap.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/11/zeitgeist-coming-to-kde/

The point is, that collecting infos in one central point is the actual danger. The database is there. Hard drive encryption needs to be used with all its pros and contras, but during the actual operation of such system , this does not help much. Any sort of logging and suppervision of a system is now possible. Imagine using such system at work, great idea, exact monitoring how my employees work was not easier before will the boss think.
Collecting data in a network makes all so simple suddenly. And even for a simple private user, it is now simple to get all the infos, why to employ some complex spying mechanisms? It is all there, just read one single database. No need to search for mail data, browser data or other things separately. All is presented on one single source. No big problem to actually control what the user may or may not do.
When other OS is able to install and unistall software on the end users computer without he knows about it or can do anything against it, why not have the same here?

The relation to the face book generation is, that if someone suggested some 10 years ago, to collect data just as much as possible and keep them ready just in case someone needs it, the someone might have got into real trouble, possibly being classified as common criminal. Particularly young people demonstrated against data collection by this and that in the streets.

Now , only some 10 years later, it is the aim to handle data differently, the aim seems to be to collect as much as possible everywhere, at any circumstances , what can happen? oh, this we will think later about.

Collecting data just to have them collected, is very dangerous and while an experienced user might find a way to avoid any misuse, the average user has to live with the fact, that anything is public. Very dangerous development.

See for example unity, open the list of apps, not only it will show you the most used apps, you will be every time presented with 'apps you may install'.
OK, so far just apps from repository, the logger found out you do not have them, comparing fast with the repo and you have a profile.
Now this is an advertising engine in its full size. Anything can be placed there, sooner or later people will click on one of those icons, anything can hide behind such icon. Software, malware, commercial products, political or religious meanings, simple everything.

You are doing battle with an imaginary demon, I'm afraid. Zeitgeist is not Facebook, and it doesn't put ads in Unity. Zeitgeist is a time-based list of events that occur on your computer (opened this file, loaded this web page, etc.), nothing more.

It does not have your GPS coordinates or blood type. It does not share the info that it has with the CIA and Zuckerberg. It just keeps an index of events on your computer that can be used to help you launch applications or find your own data faster.

It's not really all that different from a whole lot of other applications that have been turned on by default in past Ubuntu releases (Tracker, Beagle), or your browser history, ~/.recently-used, etc. And no it doesn't contain all of the data you imagine it does - imagine how huge it would be if it did!

I think that there may be legitimate privacy concerns about Zeitgeist and other software that logs your activities, but they need to be based in reality, not FUD.

I find it amusing that Zeitgeist shares its name with a paranoia-inducing faux documentary full of easily-refuted blatant falsehoods and innuendo - maybe you're confusing the two?

[jakslev]

I can only agree with you 100%.

However, I could be scared that what we see with Unity and Gnome 3 is the new way and a perfect example of top controlled management. Mark got the dumb idea (inspired by Gnome 3 which is as sucky) and then they all clacked their heels :o(

However, I have been reborn again :o)

The answer to my problems were KDE desktop, I tried it first on openSUSE and was impressed with it. However, as openSUSE is on the RPM and not DEB architecture, I gave kubuntu a chance (since I already got the stickers).

So far I must say I have no idea why I have been on GNOME systems for those years! KDE is much sexier, more snappy and significantly less buggy.

I hope and believe that Unity will result in a renaissance for the KDE desktop!

jakslev

[jakslev]

I find it amusing that Zeitgeist shares its name with a paranoia-inducing faux documentary full of easily-refuted blatant falsehoods and innuendo - maybe you're confusing the two?

Really is that easy? Let me think.. Oh yes it is if you just accept what you are presented with on TV. Then you will probably also enjoy Wandows 7 and their new brilliant idea called "multiple desktops" :o)

[michaelzap]

Really is that easy? Let me think.. Oh yes it is if you just accept what you are presented with on TV. Then you will probably also enjoy Wandows 7 and their new brilliant idea called "multiple desktops" :o)

Skepticism is a valuable tool that should be applied equally to conventional and unconventional ideas:
http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/

And that's enough off-topic banter for me...

[manzdagratiano]

Hello,

I know that Unity is supposed to be the next best thing since sliced-bread, 'which it isn't;' but there 'are' some changes that could be made to it, that would allow me to live with it...

*First of all. I'd like to be able to access a 'text' menu from inside of Unity. Frankly, I think having to logout of Ubuntu (Unity) to login to Ubuntu Classic (Non-Unity), just so that I can access a normal menu is unreasonable. I'd like a can of "Classic-Coke" please...

*Secondly, I'd like 'that' menu to appear exactly where it's always appeared, in the upper left hand corner of 'gnome-panel.' I'd also like it to say "Applications Places System" just like always.

*Third, I'd like 'all' of my most frequently used application lauchers to 'remain' tacked to the upper 'gnome-panel;' and I'd like to be able to add and remove launchers to/from the panel, just like always.

*Fourth, If I click on one of my application launchers in that panel, I'd like just 'that' application to lauch, and nothing else. I 'don't' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up. However, If I click on a 'blank' space 'anywhere' in the panel, I 'do' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up, so that I 'can' use it to my hearts content. Who knows, I may one-day purchase a tablet, and want to use that functionality.

*Fifth, that 'dock' on the side... Put it out of its misery... It's a boat anchor. Get rid of it...

There you have it. The perfect blend of old and new. What could be better?


If you're with me, clap your hands... Shout Hallelujah!!!!!:D

http://ashy2classy.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/sliced_bread_award.jpg


http://www.dailycognition.com/content/image/10/sliced-bread.jpg

I know there are some strong sentiments here, but I allude them to the lack of familiarity with a new environment. The solutions are:

1) You don't have to log out of Unity and log in to Classic to access a normal menu. Press the applications icon in the launcher. When the application window pops up, on the top right, there is a drop down stating 'All Applications'. It drops down to reveal the very same classification menus from Gnome Classic ('Accessories', 'Developer Tools', 'Education', 'System Tools', etc etc). Your 'Places' menu is also to be found right on the Unity desktop when no application windows are open, or nautilus is open, when this menu is accessible in 'Bookmarks' - in the top bar.

2) The menus are not in the top left corner anymore, but they are there. If you really want it there, you are asking for Gnome Classic, which shall be obsolete from the face of the Earth soon in all distros - not just Ubuntu. I would suggest trying to live with this - it is not such a bad deal.

3) Your most frequently used applications may be tacked to the Unity dock and may be rearranged any way you like - just like the top gnome panel from classic. Just, instead of the top, they are on the left - something I am sure one can live with.

4) The black touch-screen thingy that pops up only pops up when clicking on 'Files & Folders', or 'Applications' - otherwise, when you click on the icon of an application - like the terminal, or nautilus, or firefox, indeed, *only that* application opens up.

5) The perfect blend of old and new that you have implied so far seems to only be old, no new. The boat anchor is actually quite handy, once you get used to it.

I have been using Unity straight for two weeks now, and I have not missed the old Gnome classic at all! The only thing I had missed was the gnome 'sticky notes', which is part of the gnome panel and cannot be had in Unity. I hate Tomboy Notes because of its clunkiness, so I found the perfect substitute, which is 'xpad', and I have indeed pinned it to the Unity dock, available at my beck and call.

I have been using Gnome-Shell in Arch Linux, and I would say that though it is far more stable than Unity is right now, it is no different in usability from Unity - Gnome 2 which you are looking for, will not live very long in any distro. Therefore, if you absolutely cannot live with it, you should try out Xfce/KDE.

As for 64-bit not being supported well, it is a well-known issue that stuff like Flash has had issues with 64-bit, which is why Ubuntu recommends 32-bit. This is not an Ubuntu-specific issue, but something software vendors have created. And this fact is not well known to the average Joe, who just wants a workable system. Most computers do not ship with more than 4 GB of RAM, so why would you need 64-bit anyway? If you do need more RAM, as in to do computational stuff, I am sure then you also understand the Flash issue, and are willing to handle the workaround - I perform heavy memory intensive simulations sometimes, but for that I have a University cluster to abuse, and not my desktop, as any sane person would do anyway.

EDIT: In the interest of not being a hypocrite, I did some poking and it indeed does seem like 64-bit has performance advantages aside from a mere address extension. I am going to myself start switching to 64-bit soon (damn... that means all five of my OSes!!!)

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

I know there are some strong sentiments here, but I allude them to the lack of familiarity with a new environment. The solutions are...

I have been using Gnome-Shell in Arch Linux, and I would say that though it is far more stable than Unity is right now, it is no different in usability from Unity - Gnome 2 which you are looking for, will not live very long in any distro. Therefore, if you absolutely cannot live with it, you should try out Xfce/KDE.

Most computers do not ship with more than 4 GB of RAM, so why would you need 64-bit anyway?

EDIT: In the interest of not being a hypocrite, I did some poking and it indeed does seem like 64-bit has performance advantages aside from a mere address extension. I am going to myself start switching to 64-bit soon (damn... that means all five of my OSes!!!)

I couldn't disagree with you more about Unity; but as Ella Fitzgerald used to say "let's call the whole thing off."

I've heard some good things about KDE; and I've noticed that KDE apps often have more features and better UIs than GNOME. However, I may want to try GNOME 3, when it's ready; which it won't be before 11.10/Oneiric. Also, in the short term, until this whole DE thing settles down, I might move to MINT, Debian, or FreeBSD. Anyway, it couldn't hurt to expose myself to other distros, at least in the short term... BTW, I just read about Ubuntu's decision to drop X in favor of Wayland. I've read some conflicting reviews; and I'm on the fence on this one. It does appear that there are going to be some very serious driver support issues from both nVidia and ATI, if Unbutu continues down this road.

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2010/11/wayland-vs-x-some-perspectives.html

Maybe the Enlightenment DE would be even better. I've read that it plays well with Unity. "Can it do the Desktop Cube?"

http://www.enlightenment.org/

Thanks for the EDIT about 64 bit. BTW, I use multiple desktops, and I'm usually running enough apps simulateneously that I've exhausted my 4GB. Frankly, I never thought I'd see that day... In my next system, I'm going to need at least 6GB not to start hitting SWAP.

Wow!!! You're still on 32 bit OSs. I hope you don't mean systems... They would be really old!!!

As an aside, one of the other posters made the following comment about ZeitGeist:

Zeitgeist will soon have blacklisting and other privacy features, which may resolve this concern for most people:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/p...-to-zeitgeist/ (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/privacy-settings-are-coming-to-zeitgeist/)

I'm starting to get concerned; and I was about to suggest what this poster already commented on. Also, I'm beginning to think, that the more complex a computer system gets; the more it's going to need automated search and cache features just to keep the system running reasonably quickly. But if this Zeitgeist thing ever does turn out to be a SPY/OS in disguise, I'm going to be really upset.

Enlightenment E17 Desktop Environtment (DE)

http://alinux.tv/linux-os/alinux-e16x.png




Hannibal

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Well,

I think I might have gotten ahead of myself. I've done some more research on the Enlightenment DE; and decided I wanted to try it. So, I downloaded Enlightenment's shell-script, and I'm in the process of building the E17 DE from soucre. Well, the script is really doing it. Just for SAGs, I decided to check Synaptic to see if the script added anything to it. Much to my surprise and horror, I discovered that E17 was already in the repositories...

God, what a dope I am... I should have been more patient and checked Synaptic to begin with. There's plenty of stuff in there, lots more than most people realize, apparently myself included.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to hurt anything. I'm probably getting the latest libraries, etc. And if the source built version doesn't work correctly, I can simply delete the files created by the shell-script with:


sudo rm /whatever...then install E17 from Synaptic.


Boy, this'll teach me...

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000168251/polls_dopey_guy_728001_0247_63799_answer_3_xlarge. jpeg

Hannibal

[michaelzap]

As an aside, one of the other posters made the following comment about ZeitGeist:

Zeitgeist will soon have blacklisting and other privacy features, which may resolve this concern for most people:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/p...-to-zeitgeist/ (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/privacy-settings-are-coming-to-zeitgeist/)

I'm starting to get concerned; and I was about to suggest what this poster already commented on. Also, I'm beginning to think, that the more complex a computer system gets; the more it's going to need automated search and cache features just to keep the system running reasonably quickly. But if this Zeitgeist thing ever does turn out to be a SPY/OS in disguise, I'm going to be really upset.


That was me who posted the link about Zeitgeist's upcoming blacklisting feature. The whole Zeitgeist privacy issue is flat-out silly as far as I can tell. All it does is index what you launch on your computer - nothing more. It doesn't even store the contents of your files, let alone your location, sexual preference, or underwear size, and that data stays on your computer for your use only. If you look at its database, it's teeny (mine is like 300k total). The idea that Zeitgeist is part of some master plan to track everyone 24/7 and force-feed them v_iagr_a and laxatives is bizarre.

The "privacy" concern that caused this to even be discussed is that if you, say, watch a lot of porn and then let someone else use your computer, they might be able to tell that by the things that Zeitgeist shows. Of course, they might also see this in your browser history, recent file list, Chrome's new tab window, etc. So while I can see why some people might want a blacklist so that this doesn't happen (and granted there are plenty of other reasons this might come up that don't involve porn), if you're sharing your computer and user account with someone, there's only so much privacy you can expect.

[truck87bp]

So make it always visible. Compize configuration settings, Ubuntu Unity plugin, Experimental, Hide launcher, never.

I love unity after this change!

Unity just doesn't work with dual monitors.

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

If you look at its database, it's teeny (mine is like 300k total). The idea that Zeitgeist is part of some master plan to track everyone 24/7 and force-feed them v_iagr_a and laxatives is bizarre.

300K is nothing... But the forces that eveyone's worried about do exist; and I don't blame them for being worried.

An once of prevention saves nine stitches... Or something like that.:)




Hannibal

[michaelzap]

300K is nothing... But the forces that eveyone's worried about do exist; and I don't blame them for being worried.

An once of prevention saves nine stitches... Or something like that.:)




Hannibal

So why use a journaling file system then - that keeps the same data! The focus on Zeitgeist is about paranoia, not prevention. Most of the things that people say that they're concerned about have nothing to do with Zeitgeist (they mention Facebook, ads, GPS tracking...).

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Most of the things that people say that they're concerned about have nothing to do with Zeitgeist (they mention Facebook, ads, GPS tracking...).

I agree, 300K is nothing... ZeitGeist (German: "Ghost of the Times") is probably nothing to worry about...:D

My second comment was meant to be separate...

Moving On:

I did manage to get Enlightenment installed from the repositories. The shell-script stalled; so I had to install from Synaptic. So far the UI is confusing; but there are several ways to set this up, and I may have chosen the wrong one. So, I'm either going to have to run the configuration script again; or find a way to reconfigure from within the UI itself...

It looks like I'm going to have to do a lot of RTFM-ing to get the Enlightenment UI sorted out. However; it's no more confusing that Unity, so far...

http://www.katzy.dsl.pipex.com/Smileys/RTFM.gif

[ottosykora]

@michelzap

not sure why you are defending the zeitgeist so much, but it definitely stores gps info if it gets one, it stores all events on you computer in *one single place*. The comparison with journaling file system is off, as this is keeping track of start points on the particular media. Zeitgeist is tracking the behavior of the user, not of the machine.
Already now, unity is using it deploy advertising each time you try to start some app. See yourself: 'apps you could install' on each click on the start button.

Didn't we learn something from apple story recently? When infos are stored, they will be used sooner or later. And when they are stored in one single point, it is too easy to grab them. This is the major point not what it does or does not in its current non configurable and early beta state.

[madjr]

bit paranoid i see.

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Didn't we learn something from apple story recently? When infos are stored, they will be used sooner or later. And when they are stored in one single point, it is too easy to grab them. This is the major point not what it does or does not in its current non configurable and early beta state.

I think you have a point...

Ronald Reagan once said: "Man never had a weapon he didn't use." So, I'll keep close watch on this ZeitGeist thing, and yank it; if it think it's getting too intrusive.

Moving On:

Well, Enlightenment's E17 was a bust... The menuing system was just as confusing as Unity's; and the UI couldn't find many of my apps; just like in Unity. It also appears to use a similar system of heuristics for organizing them; if you can even call that organizing. Also, the menus, what there were of them, in E17 were teeny-tiny. I'm over 40, and was 'not' able to read the menus without my reading glasses. Also navigating within E17's menus was a nightmare; and the default skins were B*tt-Ugly... In addition to using an unfamiliar menuing system, E17 used unfamiliar nomenclature as well. This only compounded the difficulty. There would have been no-way that I could have learned to navigate this UI without a manual; at least it would have taken months to learn it, and even longer to customize it. Also, when I installed from the repositories, I neglected to install WICD, and was left without a Network Manager; so I couldn't even connect to the internet. I threw in the towel on Enlightenment's E17.

Frankly, I had far fewer surprizes when I tried KDE; it uses menus in the same way that GNOME does. Although, I do think some of KDE's skins look a bit clunky; and there's no Destop Cube. Forgive me Lord, I love the Desktop Cube!!! It's a neat feature; and it lets me show off my configuration prowess. Yes, I suppose there's even a vain streek in me!!!

XFCE didn't appeal to me. It was too lacking in features. So what does that leave??? So, the choices for me appear to be GNOME 3 (eventually), KDE, and what else???

This experiment has taught me that I can always install another DE, often from the repositories, if I don't like the default DE choices I'm being given. So if worse comes to worst; I may 'not' have to change distros right away. At least I still have the ability to create my own solution...

http://minthill.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Throw-in-the-towel1.jpg




Hannibal

[manzdagratiano]

A week later, and six of my seven OSes have been transformed from 32-bit to 64-bit (two Ubuntu, two Arch Linux, one Debian Sid and one Gentoo on two separate laptops). All that remains now is to take care of the Slackware install, which won't be pending for more than a couple of days.

When you do try out Gnome 3, it shall be awesome, as shall be Unity in some time (but of course that's my opinion). In fact you can try it out right now without messing up your Ubuntu install - may I suggest you can try a dual boot with Arch Linux in the meantime? - since you do mention distro-hopping. Arch Linux is mega stable, and the full preponderance with Gnome 3 is ready to be had. This is one reason I like to run multiple distros in parallel - I get to have the best of all worlds! When one is faced with a choice as to choose this or choose that, sometimes you can get to eat your cake and have it too!

[NormanFLinux]

e17 has shelves, a dock and widgets - a loose collection of them. You can spend hours customizing it and its not for newbies.

If you want e17, get Bodhi Linux - its already compiled for you based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS build and you can build it the way you want.

There are lots of window managers and desktop environments in Linux. Its only limited by your skill, imagination and desires.

[michaelzap]

@michelzap

not sure why you are defending the zeitgeist so much, but it definitely stores gps info if it gets one, it stores all events on you computer in *one single place*. The comparison with journaling file system is off, as this is keeping track of start points on the particular media. Zeitgeist is tracking the behavior of the user, not of the machine.
Already now, unity is using it deploy advertising each time you try to start some app. See yourself: 'apps you could install' on each click on the start button.

Didn't we learn something from apple story recently? When infos are stored, they will be used sooner or later. And when they are stored in one single point, it is too easy to grab them. This is the major point not what it does or does not in its current non configurable and early beta state.
You are lumping everything for which there is a legitimate privacy concern (iOS, Facebook, GPS tracking) in with Zeitgeist, and you are just factually incorrect in your assertions. I would defend even my enemies against false charges just because it's the honest and correct thing to do. Zeitgeist does not store "everything you do", and it does not transmit its data to others (there is no iTunes or Facebook equivalence here).

I urge you to install Zeitgeist and take a look at its database. See for yourself what data is stored in there. Then compare that to your browser cache files, recently used documents lists, etc. You might even install Google Desktop Search and compare those databases if you really want some fun. GDS actually does index everything in all of your files, unlike Zeitgeist.

If you are worried about being served "ads" for (almost entirely) free software that you might find useful based on what you've already installed, then you shouldn't use Unity (or Ubuntu, probably). But leaping from that to "Zeitgeist is Big Brother" is quite a stretch, don't you think? There are so many real privacy issues out there; why are you spreading FUD about what is essentially an updated version of Gnome Do and Beagle?

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

A week later, and six of my seven OSes have been transformed from 32-bit to 64-bit (two Ubuntu, two Arch Linux, one Debian Sid and one Gentoo on two separate laptops). All that remains now is to take care of the Slackware install, which won't be pending for more than a couple of days.

When you do try out Gnome 3, it shall be awesome, as shall be Unity in some time (but of course that's my opinion). In fact you can try it out right now without messing up your Ubuntu install - may I suggest you can try a dual boot with Arch Linux in the meantime? - since you do mention distro-hopping. Arch Linux is mega stable, and the full preponderance with Gnome 3 is ready to be had. This is one reason I like to run multiple distros in parallel - I get to have the best of all worlds! When one is faced with a choice as to choose this or choose that, sometimes you can get to eat your cake and have it too!

Congratulations on the upgrade. I've been wanting to try some other flavors as well...

I've read that GNOME 3 isn't ready yet; but if you think I can give it a test run now, maybe I'll try it. Unity may very well be fine over the next couple of distros. I certainly don't think all the bugs will be worked out by 11.10 though. Some of the Industry trades have described Unity as a tablet interface; and I'm inclined to agree. With the dock and the big icons; it just seems like a tablet/touch-screen interface to me; 'not' well suited for general-purpose computing; although probably very well suited for the above mentioned uses. In fact the pharmacy at the hospital where I had my knee surgery uses touch screen interfaces on their workstations. This was the first time I had seen full size workstation displays with touch-screens. These are however dedicated systems. They're 'just' meant to run the pharmacy software and nothing else.

Arch sounds cool... I've also been considering MINT, Debian, and even FREE-BSD, which isn't Linux... What are your favorite distros???

BTW, I couldn't help noticing your signature. Sounds Taoist...

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

e17 has shelves, a dock and widgets - a loose collection of them. You can spend hours customizing it and its not for newbies.

If you want e17, get Bodhi Linux - its already compiled for you based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS build and you can build it the way you want.

There are lots of window managers and desktop environments in Linux. Its only limited by your skill, imagination and desires.

Too much time; and you're right it's 'not' for newbies..:)

BTW, is Bodhi a little easier to customize??? I really want to spend more time using my system than tinkering with it; although a little eye candy is fun to play with...

Thanks for mentioning the Window managers and DEs. I've been wanting to ask someone about those. Aside from those already mentioned in this thread, what else is there; and what are their strengths and weaknesses?





Thanks Hannibal

[NormanFLinux]

KDE Plasma - highly configurable
XFCE -can be set up any way you want.
LXDE - more of a set it and forget it system

Window managers like Openbox, Wimii and ICEwm basically allow you to skin the shell depending on your tastes.

[michaelzap]

You are lumping everything for which there is a legitimate privacy concern (iOS, Facebook, GPS tracking) in with Zeitgeist, and you are just factually incorrect in your assertions...

Those of you who use Unity (or Zeitgeist without Unity) and want to be able to control what it logs (blacklist by application or files), delete your history, or just plain turn it off (temporarily, I assume) should check out this article:
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/keep-files-from-showing-up-in-unity.html

[manzdagratiano]

Congratulations on the upgrade. I've been wanting to try some other flavors as well...

I've read that GNOME 3 isn't ready yet; but if you think I can give it a test run now, maybe I'll try it. Unity may very well be fine over the next couple of distros. I certainly don't think all the bugs will be worked out by 11.10 though. Some of the Industry trades have described Unity as a tablet interface; and I'm inclined to agree. With the dock and the big icons; it just seems like a tablet/touch-screen interface to me; 'not' well suited for general-purpose computing; although probably very well suited for the above mentioned uses. In fact the pharmacy at the hospital where I had my knee surgery uses touch screen interfaces on their workstations. This was the first time I had seen full size workstation displays with touch-screens. These are however dedicated systems. They're 'just' meant to run the pharmacy software and nothing else.

Arch sounds cool... I've also been considering MINT, Debian, and even FREE-BSD, which isn't Linux... What are your favorite distros???

BTW, I couldn't help noticing your signature. Sounds Taoist...

Thank you! I would say that Gnome 3 is indeed ready for everyday use - I am in fact typing from Arch right now! It is a well polished interface, and totally blows the old Gnome desktop out of the water. In fact, I would go so far as to say that even Macs would shy away from it!

I have never tried to venture into FreeBSD territory, but I am loving all the five distros I am playing with now. Ubuntu of course, which had salvaged me from Windows completely for the first time, getting all my hardware to work - also still the one dsitro where stuff still pretty much works out of the box - and Debian Sid, because I have loved Debian for all the time I have loved GNU/Linux... and aside from these, I have the following three, and my criterion is not ease of use anymore, which Ubuntu pretty much takes care of, but elegance of design:

Arch - I would rate it as certainly the top notch distro around in terms of elegance, even though people say it is hard to install/maintain, which I vehemently disagree with. Their wiki is excellent, and everything is really very simple to set up. Packages install blazingly fast - faster than any other distro I have ever seen. For instance, when I was installing Gnome 3, the download size was ~350MB and install size was ~1400MB, and all happened in about 5 mins on my Sony Vaio.

Slackware - easy to set up, and almost all packages are easy to find if one couples their slackpkg with sbopkg; no bloat, and a very slim install can be made possible.

Gentoo - this I must say is one hell of a PITA to set up, especially because you need to know exactly what to enable when you compile the kernel, which by itself is a very simple process. After three failed VM installs in the past, I finally think I know my way around it. However, its package manager, portage is very excellent as well, and the install may yet again be kept at a minimal size.

Disadvantages of Slackware/Gentoo - Gentoo compiles all its packages, and Slackware needs to compile those that are not their in the repos, which are many of the ones from everyday use. Even Arch needs compilation for packages in the AUR, but they are fairly smaller in number from everyday-use standpoint. Therefore, I would not even dream of compiling Gnome/KDE/Libreoffice on Slackware or Gentoo - I believe it takes about a day! The biggest thing I was foolhardy enough to install was TexLive on Slackware - took about three hours to compile.

All of these distros are, however, unique in their own way, and are a pleasure to install and set up. The most awesome thing about them is that each of them may be installed through a chroot, which is how I normally do install them on my Dell Vostro V13, which has a dreaded Broadcom wifi, implying no possibility of a net-install directly.

I have learned a lot playing with these distros, as well as experimenting with minimal Window Managers on them - Blackbox, Ratpoison, and ScrotWM. I don't think I will try out Mint, since it is just Ubuntu + codecs (I used to think Ubuntu was = Debian + GUIs, but that turned out to certainly not be the case), while I have never liked Fedora - not when it first came out, and not now when I have to use it at work (darned sysadmin!) - for some reason Red-Hat and its derivatives never gave me the feel that the distro was really mine, while the ones I have now indeed make me feel so.

I am going to be testing Arch Hurd as well as Debian GNU/HURD in Qemu very soon when I have some breathing space from work - that should be loads of fun!

As for my signature, it probably does have taoist origins - it is by the legendary Bruce Lee!

[manzdagratiano]

Ah with pleasure I do report here, for the sake of completeness, that the last of my seven OSes - Slackware, has also been upgraded to x86-64 and fully loaded with essentials... and is blazing fast just like the others! Whew!

[Shibblet]

Why is everyone so 'sensitive' about this poorly designed and poorly coded...

Unbuntu's got a Vista on its hands. So what... Just roll-up your sleeves, go back to the drawing board and move on...

Hey, I've got another idea... Just make a distro that works...


Wow, If you feel that strongly about it, you should definitely go get your money back... hey wait.

Realistically Ubuntu does not have a Vista on it's hands. This is a "median" release. If it were an LTS, then you could claim it a "Vista."

You have to look at what Canonical has done. Gnome 2 is still supported. Gnome 3 is going to be included in the next median release, and Unity will be built on top of that.

Looks like they're doing this the right way.

[SynonM]

Hello,

I know that Unity is supposed to be the next best thing since sliced-bread, 'which it isn't;' but there 'are' some changes that could be made to it, that would allow me to live with it...

*First of all. I'd like to be able to access a 'text' menu from inside of Unity. Frankly, I think having to logout of Ubuntu (Unity) to login to Ubuntu Classic (Non-Unity), just so that I can access a normal menu is unreasonable. I'd like a can of "Classic-Coke" please...

*Secondly, I'd like 'that' menu to appear exactly where it's always appeared, in the upper left hand corner of 'gnome-panel.' I'd also like it to say "Applications Places System" just like always.

*Third, I'd like 'all' of my most frequently used application lauchers to 'remain' tacked to the upper 'gnome-panel;' and I'd like to be able to add and remove launchers to/from the panel, just like always.

*Fourth, If I click on one of my application launchers in that panel, I'd like just 'that' application to lauch, and nothing else. I 'don't' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up. However, If I click on a 'blank' space 'anywhere' in the panel, I 'do' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up, so that I 'can' use it to my hearts content. Who knows, I may one-day purchase a tablet, and want to use that functionality.

*Fifth, that 'dock' on the side... Put it out of its misery... It's a boat anchor. Get rid of it...

There you have it. The perfect blend of old and new. What could be better?


If you're with me, clap your hands... Shout Hallelujah!!!!!:D

http://ashy2classy.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/sliced_bread_award.jpg


http://www.dailycognition.com/content/image/10/sliced-bread.jpg


Log out of Ubuntu. Select your user name...then look at the bottom bar and select "Ubuntu Classic". No more unity.

:popcorn:

If you don't like it, don't use it.

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Wow, If you feel that strongly about it, you should definitely go get your money back... hey wait.

Realistically Ubuntu does not have a Vista on it's hands. This is a "median" release. If it were an LTS, then you could claim it a "Vista."

You have to look at what Canonical has done. Gnome 2 is still supported. Gnome 3 is going to be included in the next median release, and Unity will be built on top of that.

Looks like they're doing this the right way.

Hey, now that's a GOOD excuse...

Median/Vista, Potayto/Potahto...:) Actually it's an exceptionally bad median release...

I agree with you completely; except for the Unity part...

I can always disagree more...

[Shibblet]

Median/Vista, Potayto/Potahto...:) Actually it's an exceptionally bad median release...

Except that Vista was a full release, not a median release. Windows releases are LTS. XP is still being supported until 2012 (or 2014, I'm not sure.) But since it was released in December 2001. That's a long haul.

Vista is still supported, and so is 7. Both you would have to classify LTS.

Here is a great graph for the Ubuntu Service Cycles.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ubuntu-release-cycle.png

Notice that the "median" releases are in Yellow. The LTS releases are still supported.


I agree with you completely; except for the Unity part...

I can always disagree more...


You can disagree... and I'll smack you with cold hard facts sir! :)

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/gnome3-packages-begin-trickling-into-ubuntu-11-10/

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Log out of Ubuntu. Select your user name...then look at the bottom bar and select "Ubuntu Classic". No more unity.

I get that... See first bullet-point of OP... And, as I said in the OP, I don't wanna...

I think my idea's better:

*First of all. I'd like to be able to access a 'text' menu from inside of Unity. Frankly, I think having to logout of Ubuntu (Unity) to login to Ubuntu Classic (Non-Unity), just so that I can access a normal menu is unreasonable. I'd like a can of "Classic-Coke" please...

*Secondly, I'd like 'that' menu to appear exactly where it's always appeared, in the upper left hand corner of 'gnome-panel.' I'd also like it to say "Applications Places System" just like always.

*Third, I'd like 'all' of my most frequently used application lauchers to 'remain' tacked to the upper 'gnome-panel;' and I'd like to be able to add and remove launchers to/from the panel, just like always.

*Fourth, If I click on one of my application launchers in that panel, I'd like just 'that' application to lauch, and nothing else. I 'don't' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up. However, If I click on a 'blank' space 'anywhere' in the panel, I 'do' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up, so that I 'can' use it to my hearts content. Who knows, I may one-day purchase a tablet, and want to use that functionality.

*Fifth, that 'dock' on the side... Put it out of its misery... It's a boat anchor. Get rid of it...

As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to call it GnUnity or Unity under Gnome... Kind of like Wubi only way more cool.... (See Attachment)






Hannibal

[Shibblet]

*First of all. I'd like to be able to access a 'text' menu from inside of Unity. Frankly, I think having to logout of Ubuntu (Unity) to login to Ubuntu Classic (Non-Unity), just so that I can access a normal menu is unreasonable. I'd like a can of "Classic-Coke" please...
Like the current Ubuntu-Classic desktop.


*Secondly, I'd like 'that' menu to appear exactly where it's always appeared, in the upper left hand corner of 'gnome-panel.' I'd also like it to say "Applications Places System" just like always.
Still like the current Ubuntu-Classic desktop.


*Third, I'd like 'all' of my most frequently used application lauchers to 'remain' tacked to the upper 'gnome-panel;' and I'd like to be able to add and remove launchers to/from the panel, just like always.
You can tack apps to the gnome panel already. Matter of fact, Firefox is tacked there upon installation.


*Fourth, If I click on one of my application launchers in that panel, I'd like just 'that' application to lauch, and nothing else. I 'don't' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up. However, If I click on a 'blank' space 'anywhere' in the panel, I 'do' want that black touch-screen 'thingy' to pop-up, so that I 'can' use it to my hearts content. Who knows, I may one-day purchase a tablet, and want to use that functionality.
Like a Dock?


*Fifth, that 'dock' on the side... Put it out of its misery... It's a boat anchor. Get rid of it...
Didn't we just establish that you wanted a dock?


As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to call it GnUnity or Unity under Gnome... Kind of like Wubi only way more cool.... (See Attachment)

Hannibal

Why don't you just call it "Gnome 2 with a Dock ?"

[jakslev]

How can ANYONE support and clap their small open-source hands over the work that Canonical has put into the 11.04 release??

I appreciate the "well, that's how it is deal with it attitude"; but really - does anyone think that the following are improvements:

1) The inability to add launchers to the top panel
2) The idiotic "global menu", that at best only works with main stream applications and at worst is a comptarded and un-intuitive.
3) That we are forced to have a large left dock.

Remember, Canonial is not your child - you don't have to wrap it in cotton. It seems people are afraid that suddenly Mark Shuttleworth will go "AHA - well then I don't wanna do it anymore - I'm closing Canonical!" like a teen girl.

By the way - please stop the crap suggestions about logging in with Ubuntu Classic / Gnome 2.x. That is the same as telling people to climb to the mast of a sinking ship or sit in the back of a plane before it hits a mountain wall.

Nice logo btw! :popcorn:

jakslev

[manzdagratiano]

1) The inability to add launchers to the top panel


You can add launchers to the left dock. Adding them to the top panel, which is now used for menus, is redundant.



2) The idiotic "global menu", that at best only works with main stream applications and at worst is a comptarded and un-intuitive.

The global menu features a button on the top right, which drops down to reveal the very same "local menus" of gnome 2, and more.



3) That we are forced to have a large left dock.


You can change the size of the dock icons to a small one by going to CompizConfig Settings Manager, as I have done.



By the way - please stop the crap suggestions about logging in with Ubuntu Classic / Gnome 2.x. That is the same as telling people to climb to the mast of a sinking ship or sit in the back of a plane before it hits a mountain wall.


Again, why is this a problem? You log out of Unity once, and select Gnome Classic, and then on every reboot, you will have Gnome Classic by default. Or, if your reference to the sinking ship is regarding how Gnome Classic will not be available eventually because Unity will be here to stay, read the news: NO distro on the planet will eventually have Gnome 2, because Gnome devs are stopping development on Gnome 2 completely. You shall therefore have the option of trading Unity with Gnome-shell, which has pretty much similar issues if that is how you view them - you cannot add stuff to the top panel, you have a global menu, a large left dock yadda yadda (I am typing from Gnome-shell in Arch Linux as we speak).

The point? Gnome 2 is a relic of history now, moments before it is eradicated. Either learn to love Unity, or take the very similar Gnome-shell, or move on to another WM. No brownie points for complaining.

[manzdagratiano]

As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to call it GnUnity or Unity under Gnome... Kind of like Wubi only way more cool.... (See Attachment)



So can we expect to see a new shell from you soon? :D

[jakslev]

You can add launchers to the left dock. Adding them to the top panel, which is now used for menus, is redundant.


The global menu features a button on the top right, which drops down to reveal the very same "local menus" of gnome 2, and more.



You can change the size of the dock icons to a small one by going to CompizConfig Settings Manager, as I have done.



Again, why is this a problem? You log out of Unity once, and select Gnome Classic, and then on every reboot, you will have Gnome Classic by default. Or, if your reference to the sinking ship is regarding how Gnome Classic will not be available eventually because Unity will be here to stay, read the news: NO distro on the planet will eventually have Gnome 2, because Gnome devs are stopping development on Gnome 2 completely. You shall therefore have the option of trading Unity with Gnome-shell, which has pretty much similar issues if that is how you view them - you cannot add stuff to the top panel, you have a global menu, a large left dock yadda yadda (I am typing from Gnome-shell in Arch Linux as we speak).

The point? Gnome 2 is a relic of history now, moments before it is eradicated. Either learn to love Unity, or take the very similar Gnome-shell, or move on to another WM. No brownie points for complaining.

Uhh thanks for responding.

First point. No you can't you can add SOME launchers to the left menu, but I would like to see you adding a non-repository launcher there. For instance you can try to add the Second Life viewer Phoenix Viewer to it :o) That's just an example.

Second point. No it doesn't. It again works with some mainstream systems, but not all. It makes no sense what-so-ever to integrate the system application menus with the OS menu's. It has never been seen before and it does not technically work.

Third point. Still cant get rid of it. If I wanted in Gnome 2, I could have placed a panel there. Forcing me to to do so is still a step backwards.

Fourth point. Okay - why is it a problem? Are you serious? It is a problem because even you, who are advertising for using crappy Unity, are using Gnome 2.x!! What is the progress in that, I mean, we com eout with a new smart system - and nobody will use it because, really it is crap? But we are al scared to admit it is crap?

So if the Toyota Prius never could be charged, but required a horse to drag it - would it still be a nice car? No! it would be a sucky car.

jakslev

[NormanFLinux]

Its not a boat anchor! You can download and install cardapio. Create a desktop. file and place it in your home folder and drag it and drop it onto your Unity launcher. An Ubuntu icon will appear and you will be able to launch from Unity the classic start menu, including, applications, places and system. It'll be there when you need it, in one convenient place.

No more need to scroll through three separate menus on the top panel to find what you're looking for. I think Unity has improved on the way you can do the things to which you are accustomed now.

[manzdagratiano]

Uhh thanks for responding.

First point. No you can't you can add SOME launchers to the left menu, but I would like to see you adding a non-repository launcher there. For instance you can try to add the Second Life viewer Phoenix Viewer to it :o) That's just an example.

Second point. No it doesn't. It again works with some mainstream systems, but not all. It makes no sense what-so-ever to integrate the system application menus with the OS menu's. It has never been seen before and it does not technically work.

Third point. Still cant get rid of it. If I wanted in Gnome 2, I could have placed a panel there. Forcing me to to do so is still a step backwards.

Fourth point. Okay - why is it a problem? Are you serious? It is a problem because even you, who are advertising for using crappy Unity, are using Gnome 2.x!! What is the progress in that, I mean, we com eout with a new smart system - and nobody will use it because, really it is crap? But we are al scared to admit it is crap?

So if the Toyota Prius never could be charged, but required a horse to drag it - would it still be a nice car? No! it would be a sucky car.

jakslev

First point: You can add launchers for all repo items on there. I even have added PPA launchers there (pulseaudio-equalizer). If that is not enough, compile from source and write your own .desktop file. Problem solved. No worse than creating your own custom launchers on Gnome 2.X (and I have - I installed Serious Sam under wine).

Second point: I have no idea what you are saying. This time I am writing from Ubuntu Natty and Unity running full-on, and I have a drop down local menu at the top right in the global menu. My system is not an exception, therefore it works with every system. (BTW I am talking about the `Applications' launcher, which is dedicated for this purpose. The top menu is a search utility - just like there is a global search button in Gnome-shell. Again, no escape there.)

Third point: They designed the system the way they thought best. Gnome-shell does the same. You don't like it, use something else or fork Gnome 2 to make your own.

Fourth point: Indeed I am using Gnome 2.X, and I am using Gnome 3.X on Arch Linux, and I am using blackbox on Slackware, and I am using Ratpoison on Gentoo. Before you say it is a step backward, are you not aware that in 6 months Unity will be running on Gnome 3? How is that a step backwards? A new chassis has been designed, and in six months you shall have the new engine all fitted into it - where is the backwards design there? You take one step at a time. How many major distros are offering Gnome 3 out of the box in their repos? Even Debian Sid does not have it, which I have an install too as a matter of fact. The fact that it will be there in each of these distros is just a matter of time.

And as regards the ``problem" again - if you don't like Unity, do a simple:


$ sudo apt-get purge unity
and all you shall be left with is the Classic Desktop.

Your saying things like ``crappy unity" and that ``nobody will use it" is your own personal opinion. You can do a simple search for Unity threads here on the forums themselves and see that there are already a huge number of people using it and loving it. Even Fedora is going to offer Unity in their repos soon. I am using it. And moreover, the devs who designed it are of course going to use it. So much for being a sucky car! Maybe a change of perspective is in order.

[manzdagratiano]

Its not a boat anchor! You can download and install cardapio. Create a desktop. file and place it in your home folder and drag it and drop it onto your Unity launcher. An Ubuntu icon will appear and you will be able to launch from Unity the classic start menu, including, applications, places and system. It'll be there when you need it, in one convenient place.

No more need to scroll through three separate menus on the top panel to find what you're looking for. I think Unity has improved on the way you can do the things to which you are accustomed now.

Thank you Sir! =D> It is good to see there are people who can change their perspective as things change. I very much agree that the time for the old desktop paradigm is past. The new era, with a new dynamic desktop where things are easier to find rather than easier to organize (both with Unity and Gnome-shell), is here, and I am loving it!

[jakslev]

First point: You can add launchers for all repo items on there. I even have added PPA launchers there (pulseaudio-equalizer). If that is not enough, compile from source and write your own .desktop file. Problem solved. No worse than creating your own custom launchers on Gnome 2.X (and I have - I installed Serious Sam under wine).

Second point: I have no idea what you are saying. This time I am writing from Ubuntu Natty and Unity running full-on, and I have a drop down local menu at the top right in the global menu. My system is not an exception, therefore it works with every system. (BTW I am talking about the `Applications' launcher, which is dedicated for this purpose. The top menu is a search utility - just like there is a global search button in Gnome-shell. Again, no escape there.)

Third point: They designed the system the way they thought best. Gnome-shell does the same. You don't like it, use something else or fork Gnome 2 to make your own.

Fourth point: Indeed I am using Gnome 2.X, and I am using Gnome 3.X on Arch Linux, and I am using blackbox on Slackware, and I am using Ratpoison on Gentoo. Before you say it is a step backward, are you not aware that in 6 months Unity will be running on Gnome 3? How is that a step backwards? A new chassis has been designed, and in six months you shall have the new engine all fitted into it - where is the backwards design there? You take one step at a time. How many major distros are offering Gnome 3 out of the box in their repos? Even Debian Sid does not have it, which I have an install too as a matter of fact. The fact that it will be there in each of these distros is just a matter of time.

And as regards the ``problem" again - if you don't like Unity, do a simple:


$ sudo apt-get purge unity
and all you shall be left with is the Classic Desktop.

Your saying things like ``crappy unity" and that ``nobody will use it" is your own personal opinion. You can do a simple search for Unity threads here on the forums themselves and see that there are already a huge number of people using it and loving it. Even Fedora is going to offer Unity in their repos soon. I am using it. And moreover, the devs who designed it are of course going to use it. So much for being a sucky car! Maybe a change of perspective is in order.

I am not sure I can completely agree with you that compiling a program from source and creating my own desktop link is as easy as creating a launcher in Gnome 2.x. And I who thought I was a nerd :(

The global system menu that Unity is integrating into the OS is not intuitive (at present - maybe if you only use it, it will be over time). It is not logical to anyone coming from another OS, and I have no idea where they got that "brain fart" from. It seems odd and it will be buggy for some time before it really integrates smoothly. Again as I said; if Logitech started to default all keyboards that they ship to using the dvorak layout and not the qwerty layout; because they had found out that it would increase typing speed with 0,01 sec per type stroke (hope I'm not giving them any good ideas here) - they would drown in complaints and most likely be bankrupted.

The notion that I should downgrade to an older system is as ridiculous as - using the analogy above - Logitech telling their customers that they can use a fork to pry off the keys from the keyboards and put them anyway they want! I don't want to risk damage my keyboard - and running that unity purge will still leave me with unity plugins in for example Firefox and God knows where else.

You are however right that THIS is the good thing with being on an open source platform. You can change it. I have personally changed to KDE and will now give Fedora a shot when 15 comes out with Gnome 3. However, Canonical is - potentially - losing a supporter.

Finally - I was very positive and even giddy when Unity was released. My expectations were high, based on the fact that the last years each Ubuntu release has been better than the previous.

I was therefore doubly annoyed when functionality was robbed (multiple workspaces, desktop drapes, launchers are some of the examples). Good thing is I am an illoyal bastard and I will today be enjoying openSUSE with KDE, and next week Fedora 15 with Gnome 3. Who knows, come October I might be on Ubuntu 11.10 :)

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

I am not sure I can completely agree with you that compiling a program from source and creating my own desktop link is as easy as creating a launcher in Gnome 2.x. And I who thought I was a nerd :(

The global system menu that Unity is integrating into the OS is not intuitive (at present - maybe if you only use it, it will be over time). It is not logical to anyone coming from another OS, and I have no idea where they got that "brain fart" from. It seems odd and it will be buggy for some time before it really integrates smoothly. Again as I said; if Logitech started to default all keyboards that they ship to using the dvorak layout and not the qwerty layout; because they had found out that it would increase typing speed with 0,01 sec per type stroke (hope I'm not giving them any good ideas here) - they would drown in complaints and most likely be bankrupted.

The notion that I should downgrade to an older system is as ridiculous as - using the analogy above - Logitech telling their customers that they can use a fork to pry off the keys from the keyboards and put them anyway they want! I don't want to risk damage my keyboard - and running that unity purge will still leave me with unity plugins in for example Firefox and God knows where else.

You are however right that THIS is the good thing with being on an open source platform. You can change it. I have personally changed to KDE and will now give Fedora a shot when 15 comes out with Gnome 3. However, Canonical is - potentially - losing a supporter.

Finally - I was very positive and even giddy when Unity was released. My expectations were high, based on the fact that the last years each Ubuntu release has been better than the previous.

I was therefore doubly annoyed when functionality was robbed (multiple workspaces, desktop drapes, launchers are some of the examples). Good thing is I am an illoyal bastard and I will today be enjoying openSUSE with KDE, and next week Fedora 15 with Gnome 3. Who knows, come October I might be on Ubuntu 11.10 :)

Thank you sir,

I couldn't agree more... And thanks for the compliment about the nice logo:D

Well, I've just had a closer look at Gnome 3, and it turns out that it will be very much like Unity, with many of the same limitations. So like you, I've been doing my homework; and openSUSE with KDE seems like an excellent choice. openSUSE has been named the best Laptop distro of 2011; and KDE 4.6 plasma has many of the features we want to retain, including pinning apps to the panel!!!

BTW, I enjoyed your comparison to dragging a Toyota Prius with a horse. You could'nt be more right. Bless You!!! Now I too am becomming an illoyal bastard myself, and will probably be joining you on openSUSE; and maybe Ubuntu 12.04 who knows.

Anyway, I tried the Kubuntu Live CD, and decided I liked the UI much better than Unity, and probably Gnome 3, since it has many of the same limitations... It has a start menu very much like Windows 7, which I can live with. The only problem I've found in KDE so far is that you can't move the icons once you pin them to the panel... I wonder who's idea this was??? But at least someone may be able to come-up with a tweak to handle this; with Unity this is a practical impossibility.





Hannibal

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

BTW, I've come-up with another logo; and I really don't mean to be hurtful to the dedicated developers we have. But this beast has really been causing me problems... Not just UI problems...


See attachment...

[Aessa]

(Quick backtrack to zeitgeist)

There is just one thing I don't like about an OS and that is not being able to control it. Control, not configure. Unity has almost nothing to configure, but I happen to find what's there pleasing and sufficient for my home laptop (which as one of these modern middle age 1024x768 screens with a consolation prize of 342 extra horisontal pixels).

I switched to Unity because I found the latest KDE buggy to the point of unusability. The repaint bugs were more than ever. On Unity I liked everything a lot, except for the fact that Ubuntu Natty doesn't seem to do a shutdown properly. This worked on Kubuntu Natty, so I started removing the stuff I don't really need in the hope of making the system lighter and perhaps getting it to shutdown.

Just now I uninstalled everything named zeitgeist and rebooted. I have no privacy issue, but I thought zeitgeist was only there to manage your 'recent documents', a concept I find useless and not spending CPU cycles on it would be something I like to control.

As it turns out, without zeitgeist, the launcher menu doesn't work at all (the top left button menu). THIS is just wrong. The menu comes up and shows the big buttons like before, but none of them do anything. Not being able to launch applications (except the ones in the launcher side-dock) just because you don't have several daemons running is ridiculous.

So for the time being I'll reinstall zeitgeist, but with Unity still being actually slightly more buggy than KDE4.6 (the "system tray" rarely paints all the non-ubuntu icons and doesn't like when you click on them), I'd say going with KDE for another release cycle might be a good idea. I look forward to Unity being ironed out though.

[michaelzap]

(Quick backtrack to zeitgeist)

There is just one thing I don't like about an OS and that is not being able to control it. Control, not configure. Unity has almost nothing to configure, but I happen to find what's there pleasing and sufficient for my home laptop (which as one of these modern middle age 1024x768 screens with a consolation prize of 342 extra horisontal pixels).

I switched to Unity because I found the latest KDE buggy to the point of unusability. The repaint bugs were more than ever. On Unity I liked everything a lot, except for the fact that Ubuntu Natty doesn't seem to do a shutdown properly. This worked on Kubuntu Natty, so I started removing the stuff I don't really need in the hope of making the system lighter and perhaps getting it to shutdown.

Just now I uninstalled everything named zeitgeist and rebooted. I have no privacy issue, but I thought zeitgeist was only there to manage your 'recent documents', a concept I find useless and not spending CPU cycles on it would be something I like to control.

As it turns out, without zeitgeist, the launcher menu doesn't work at all (the top left button menu). THIS is just wrong. The menu comes up and shows the big buttons like before, but none of them do anything. Not being able to launch applications (except the ones in the launcher side-dock) just because you don't have several daemons running is ridiculous.

So for the time being I'll reinstall zeitgeist, but with Unity still being actually slightly more buggy than KDE4.6 (the "system tray" rarely paints all the non-ubuntu icons and doesn't like when you click on them), I'd say going with KDE for another release cycle might be a good idea. I look forward to Unity being ironed out though.

Don't know if you saw my post earlier about the Zeitgeist blacklisting tool that's now available. I think that if you install Zeitgeist again and just use that tool to turn it off completely (there's a button that does that), the launcher icons will still work. I haven't tried this myself (I've bailed on Unity for good), but I expect that it would work.

[Aessa]

Did that now (zeitgeist PPA and activity-log-manager) and turned off zeitgeist, but with it on or off the menu is still dead. Luckily I have a terminal in the launcher as well. I'll be backtracking my steps a bit to see what else might have broken the menu. I also removed banshee but really hope that that does not have any effect anywhere.

UPDATE:
Previous uninstall also removed unity-place-*, reinstalled that and kept zeitgeist fully enabled. Now the menu works again nicely.

[brosville]

I think major points are being missed - I try to be a "point and clicker", and have no desire to go in for "geeking" - I want software that "just does it" - this latest Unity thing is frankly awful, and I lost a day of my life getting my computer running properly after the "upgrade" - it's now running on "Classical", but from now on Ubuntu is "not to be trusted" to be recommended to other disillusioned ******* users, I put Mint on my wife's machine, it works very well, and will probably go for it on this computer come next Ubuntu "upgrade" time as they appear to have totally lost the plot.........

[jakslev]

I think major points are being missed - I try to be a "point and clicker", and have no desire to go in for "geeking" - I want software that "just does it" - this latest Unity thing is frankly awful, and I lost a day of my life getting my computer running properly after the "upgrade" - it's now running on "Classical", but from now on Ubuntu is "not to be trusted" to be recommended to other disillusioned ******* users, I put Mint on my wife's machine, it works very well, and will probably go for it on this computer come next Ubuntu "upgrade" time as they appear to have totally lost the plot.........

Agree 100%. If I came from Windose or Mag to try Linux and the only thing out there was Ubuntu with Unity; I would run back as quickly as I could.

I have spent the last days testing different distros, and I must admit that the ones that work best for me is the ones made by canonical:

Debian 6 w. Gnome 2.x: Rather raw distro. Was unable to get the ATI 3D graphicscard to work.

Fedora 15 w. Gnome 3: Everything seemed very nice and I managed to get all to work except the dang ATI 3D graphics card which is a) not supported by Red Hat Rep. and b) crashes Gnome 3. Based on Red Hat

openSuse 11.04 w. Gnome 2.x: Nice system based on Red Hat

openSuse 11.04 w. KDE: Again - works fine. But KDE is a bit of a geek/nerd thing. Sure you can manipulate it to look like anything - but the actual interface can seem a bit old-school.

Kubuntu 11.04 w. KDE: Works fine. See above. Even got the ATI card to work

Ubuntu 11.04 w. Natty: No effing way!

Ubuntu 11.04 w. Gnome 3: Got it to work - but again I can't use my ATI card as it crashes the graphics under Gnome.

Summa Summarum:

I am now back on Ubuntu 11.04 w. Gnome 2.x. Gnome 3 is miles better than Natty, but is still not as good as Gnome 2.x. However I could see myself going that direction if forced in 6-12 months.

Fedora and openSUSE are both VERY nice and clean alternatives to Ubuntu. If ever I was to get a centralized login server I would probably switch to openSUSE as it is better aimed at sharing and organizing machines.

Now I just need to find out how the *beep* I get my desktop to switch image every x minute..

[manzdagratiano]

You may also try Arch Linux with Gnome 3 while you're at it - works very well with nvidia GeForce stuff; should also with ATI. The Wiki has a huge ATI page:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI

Not a point and click to set up like Ubuntu and Fedora, but a well spent half hour with complete system control is what you get (and nowhere as bad as Gentoo, which you should set aside a full Saturday to set up).

[ryanh06]

Hi guys. I love Natty. This will be rememebered by me as the Ubuntu that made me switch to Linux for 99% of my time. [except games, the rest is handled by VM ]even though I have been experimenting for over 5 years in Linux. The primary reason was Unity.

While I understand the loyalty fans have for each desktop environment and I understand the massive contributions in man power and "love" that developers have poured into KDE, Gnome... for over a decade to me Linux just seemed fugly and confusing. I have seen sick desktops using these environments but the out of the box experience for me, and a lot of friends and family of mine, is that it is just very bland and too "geeky." To me Unity fixes all that.

The dash is supreme. It is so fast to find files, apps, and launch apps. Even the Launcher is great. I love the fact that Canonical is trying to bring unity [no pun intended!] to the Linux experience for new users while being productive for existing ones. I believe Natty is the first step towards a bold vision. To me Unity is no way comparable to the bloated disaster that will always be remembered as Vista [unlike the sublime Windows 7] In 11.04 Unity is by noooooo stretch of the imagination perfect. Sometimes weird bugs just occur that will send non-Linux users in tears while they run to the hills [seriously fugly weird looking non-usable errors due to compiz/unity things. See there... I am a newbie and don’t claim to know why sometimes when I use compiz manager Unity crashes and goes haywire and reacquires a reset via Terminal or closing the X server] that needless to say is not a good way to attract those 200 million users :)

So what does this recent convert think needs to be done to fix Unity and turn it into an incredible environment for new users and potential switchers?

1. Linux is the definition of a customizable OS. Unity should have a default look but should also be tweakable across the board from easily accessible options
2. The Launcher needs settings!!!! Let me reduce the size, stop it from playing hide and seek, and let me move the damn thing to wherever I want to! [psttt without hacks and apps!!]
3. I find it annoying the way the Launcher “squishes” the rest of the apps even on a huge , and high res monitor. I prefer the Mac approach that they use for the Dock to resize the icons
4. I wish the Launcher would allow me to easily add folders and remove some of the default options that I don't want there [such as the redundant app and file search buttons]
5. While this will probably be fixed in the months and years to come, themes and apps need to be consistent and follow the Unity guidelines. Quick list things [icons in the Launcher] themes, button placement and more need to compliment the overall look and feel of the OS
6. I wish I could customize the window manager. Like the size of the controls [minimize,maximize..]
7. The Dash. I wish I could have more control of how it displays the categories. Also if I want to experience it in Full screen mode I would appreciate it not reverting back to a small window every time it is launched.
8. I wish I could have more control and settings for workspaces
9. More theme options out of the box that are modern and compliment [or are derivatives] of the default Unity look and feel [Ambiance I believe]

Thanks to whoever read that huge post, thanks to the Ubuntu community, and thanks Canonical for finally making me switch!

:popcorn:

[manzdagratiano]

Ah you see light in the tunnel! Many commends!!! I totally agree, that with a little bit of polishing, Unity shall be uniting all computer users into GNU/Linux... (well, maybe an exaggerated statement, but it was worth it :D)

Gnome-shell automatically resizes icons in the dock as new ones are added; I hope that they add this feature in Unity as well. Also, the fact that ccsm is not installed by default is annoying, especially for n00bs who have never heard of it. ccsm should be there by default, and there should be a right click option on the dock to customize it, which opens up ccsm (Not too hard to achieve I imagine).

[Shibblet]

I am going to weigh in here. Everyone is complaining about Unity... Let me ask this:

What default desktop would you have liked to see in Natty?

Gnome 2.0? - It's there.
Unity? - It's there too.
Gnome 3.0? - It hadn't released in time to be included.

I don't quite understand the "what would be better" argument.

Oneric is supposed to have Gnome 3.0, with Unity rebuilt to work under Gnome 3. And I am sure, if people don't like it, they can download the standard Gnome 2.0 from the repos.

[gfxguy]

I would like to add my two cents and I'm wondering if there's a thread or location where, instead of bickering, we can constructively talk about why unity is bothering us and find out if there's solutions to our problems.

It's definitely regressing when it becomes more tedious to do something than it was before - extra mouse clicks, more keystrokes, menu navigating... even having to move the mouse from one side of the screen to the other because the menus are no longer attacked to the window.

So, I tried Unity for about a week, and there's a lot to like about it. I have no problem with change, and realize that, for the most part, it's just a matter of getting accustomed to it... but I do feel like there's a lot of regression; I also realize that it's just the way I'm accustomed to working.

I also feel it's a negative to have complicated instructions or installations to overcome failings of the new interface... that will drive new users away - things should work intuitively by default.

So these are some of the reasons I switched back to gnome2:

1. While sometimes I like having keyboard shortcuts so that I don't have to move my hands from the keyboard to the mouse, I also don't think that I should HAVE to use keyboard shortcuts when I'm already using the mouse. This is regarding selecting the focused program using alt-tab (when minimized or hidden) and changing virtual desktops. Yes, I realize I can change virtual desktops with the mouse, but it comes back to what I said before - instead of a single mouse click, you need to "run" the switcher and double click the desktop you want. Now, if you had the old switcher that you could, for example, double-click and bring up that new version, that would be cool and not any more work for the user - the user gets the old AND new functionality.

2. Without a taskbar it's hard to see where a minimized or hidden application is running. The old way: click on a virtual desktop and glance at the task bar. The new way: switch desktops and then alt-tab and then still might not know for sure because a lot of condensed windows look alike.

3. I made a mistake trying to get gnome-terminal come up not just larger (an easy fix), but in the lower right - where I like it (*). How do I do this? I can't edit the launch command from the "dock" on the left.

(*) Moreover, I use terminals a LOT, and have three in my gnome2 shortcuts... each one opens at a different size in a different place. How do I do something like that in unity?

4. As I just mentioned, I have several terminals I like opening, as well as geany (and editor), which has saved it's previous position, so I can open my shell windows and editor and they all come up in the correct position. Yes, it's four clicks, but sometimes I don't need everything, so I liked it that way. I could write a shell script and attach it somehow to the Unity "dock," but then it's all or nothing... or I could perhaps work with a tool like "cardapio" mentioned above... except:


fred@fred-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install cardapio
[sudo] password for fred:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package cardapio

No... just no... I suppose I will seek it out and install it myself (because I'm willing to keep giving unity a chance), but end users shouldn't have to do that much work to overcome some failing of the GUI.

Let's see... other little niggles:

5. Why doesn't my terminal show it's size when resizing?

6. I made a mistake with the terminal trying to get it to come up where I wanted it to by default, and when I ran it it kept opening new windows (I essentially fubarred my session and had to log out), but the launcher only searches by description, it seems, so when I wanted an xterm so that I could edit my .gconf with another shell, the launcher wouldn't find xterm... moreover, unlike the MS Windows fallback of allowing you to just type the command if it can't find it, there's no such fallback for the launcher, so I had to use nautilus to find and launch xterm.

I guess the deal is that, while I like Unity, a lot of it seems like change for the sake of change - the MS and MacOS way of hiding things to try to make things simpler makes it more complicated and aggravating for experienced users, and while really advanced users like many of you can overcome some of these problems, I can't... I just get annoyed and aggravated that an "upgrade" has slowed down my productivity.

Looking forward to hearing how I can overcome these problems... I will keep giving Unity a chance even if I can't overcome everything I've complained about because there are some things I like about it, too. Maybe I'm just missing something; maybe there's something that's supposed to be running that isn't.

[manzdagratiano]

Cardapio exists, albeit in a PPA:



$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cardapio-team/unstable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install cardapio


And why not just run xterm from gnome-terminal?


$ xterm &


It definitely is annoying though that the launcher does not find xterm, even though it is installed.

[gfxguy]

Cardapio exists, albeit in a PPA:
And why not just run xterm from gnome-terminal?


$ xterm &


It definitely is annoying though that the launcher does not find xterm, even though it is installed.
Thanks, I appreciate the help. The problem was that I messed up gnome-terminal's Default profile trying to get it to position where I wanted it to by default, so I couldn't run it.... or, actually, I could, but it kept running over and over... thousands of times.

[gfxguy]

Further..

Now I'm just shaking my head at the idea of a unified menu bar at the top... I have a maximized window underneath the current window I'm working on... I move the mouse, auto-focus kicks in, I can't access the menu with the mouse. :rolleyes:

Who comes up with these things?

[coljohnhannibalsmith]

Further..

Now I'm just shaking my head at the idea of a unified menu bar at the top... I have a maximized window underneath the current window I'm working on... I move the mouse, auto-focus kicks in, I can't access the menu with the mouse. :rolleyes:

Who comes up with these things?

It certainly appears to be a software QA problem... It appears to me that software QA within the Linux, 'not' just Ubuntu community is almost non-existant; or the kind of QA that's being done is 'not' addressing functionality; which in my opinion misses the point entirely.

I used to do some limited coding in a production line environment several years ago; and I 'always' deliberately tried to 'break' my apps before I realeased them. This usually revealed the majority of the bugs 'before' release. The only real issues with my apps were caused by my only having one way to accomplish a given task; so this motivated me to sometimes include a 'clunky' feature rather than 'not' have the feature at all. I was usually able to make-up for this by putting extra code into the GUI to hide as much of that clunkiness as possible...

[ds_mart]

I'm afraid I don't see what advantage Unity brings over Gnome. I'll get used to Unity but I'd rather get some payback for the effort. I really miss the network and cpu load widgits I had on my gnome panel. Can we get them in Unity somehow?