What is the age of people who do NOT like UNITY?

[Dragonbite]

It has been suggested that the new Unity interface is supposed to be targeted to a younger crowd which has grown up using various devices and almost live by their phone and texting.

I'm curious if there is a correlation between age and the people who do NOT LIKE Unity.

If you like Unity, do not answer the poll. I created a sister-thread for those that do like Unity (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1773649).

I'm curious to see if there is a pattern here or not.

Also, put down briefly any particular features you do not like about Unity which may not have been present in Gnome 2.

If you don't use Unity, you can answer based on your experience with Gnome 3.

Remember, this poll is only for people who do NOT like Unity!

[Paqman]

It has been suggested that the new Unity interface is supposed to be targeted to a younger crowd which has grown up using various devices and almost live by their phone and texting.


Who by? That seems like a bit of a tenuous link to me.

[bowens44]

I doubt that age will be much of a factor.

[Random_Dude]

You also have to consider the age distribution of the Ubuntu users' population.
If you have more users with less than 20 years, then you'll probably have more people in that age sector that do not like Unity.

Cheers :cool:

Edit: I only noticed now that the other thread is also by you. You could make a third for people that don't know or don't care. :p
That way you could have all the possible combinations.

[KingYaba]

I bet people new to Ubuntu would like Unity.

[madmax75]

I can't really tell if I like it or not, because Unity fails to load from my live-cd (not a surprise, really). My laptop should be up to the task AFAIK, but apparently Unity does not agree.

I will stay away from 11.04 and Unity. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Copper Bezel]

I wasn't entirely certain which poll to vote in, either. I don't like Gnome Classic at all and I think Unity is a better idea in general, but Unity still seems cluttered and a little inconsistent to me. I voted in the other one.

[Aquix]

Folks over 70 love unity :P

[aaaantoine]

So far it looks like there is a slight age difference between those who do and do not like Unity.

On the other poll, the majority are currently in the 20s.

On this poll, the majority are in the 30s (but also a lot in the 20s).

[Bandit]

Turning 33 this month.

Its not that I dont like Unity. I see potential in it. Later on it could become the defacto. But thats still speculation.

What I dont like is wasted man power. Seems everyone wants to have the final say in each software project now. Personally I believe its actually tearing the Linux community apart or at least hurting us in a way that not productive. For example from 2004 to 2009 we had a huge rush in development and in that 5 year span Ubuntu matured faster then many distros out there and the user base grew to be one of the largest around. Sadly since about mid 2009 this progression has started to decline. To many new players in the field and everyone wants there name on the score board. Its time people pulled their heads from their *** and started working as a team. Canonicle and Mark both need to drop Unity and work with the Gnome team. Admittedly the Gnome team as very stubborn and not the easiest crowd to work with. But if you are patient, polite and can describe intellectually why certain code or features should be implemented and what benefits it will provide. They will give way most of the time and be happy to assist. Attempting to strong arm them or not having your ducks in a row when you approach them will achieve nothing.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I don't like Unity in the 11.04 release because I don't think it is mature enough. I think I will like it after the work flow issues I have with it are worked out.

Your poll doesn't make a distinction about why someone doesn't like Unity. It assumes that the dislike is based solely on age.

[drawkcab]

Unity has come a long way but maximus + launcher makes it a pain in the butt to work between multiple windows. I've dumped it on my HTPC and on my laptop.

It suits my netbook just fine where I usually only have one app opened at any given time.

I also doubt its viability as a touchscreen interface in the future.

[MBybee]

I don't like Unity in the 11.04 release because I don't think it is mature enough. I think I will like it after the work flow issues I have with it are worked out.

Your poll doesn't make a distinction about why someone doesn't like Unity. It assumes that the dislike is based solely on age.

This is where I am too - I think Unity is an interesting concept, but should be *optional* not *default* until the bugs get worked out.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

This is where I am too - I think Unity is an interesting concept, but should be *optional* not *default* until the bugs get worked out.

I have found that the best way to get a decent work-flow from Unity is through the use of quick key combinations. That reminds me of the software from the early 80's when you had to remember all of the quick key combinations to get your work done. I was pleased with the progress made in user interfaces over the decades, and adopted them without problems. However, the Unity Interface doesn't seem like a step forward at the moment.

I am expecting that in future releases that Unity will improve; therefore, I am holding my judgment in reserve.

[MrNatewood]

I despise the global menu. I hate that after I remove the global menu the bar becomes wasted real-estate(can't even right-click it). I hate the way the 3D consumes my battery. I hate it's general lack of customisetibility.

There is no such thing as an out of the box experience that fits everyone. Not even half the users. If it's a desktop that is hard to customize than it is a bad desktop.

[rJ~]

I'm in the 21-30 bracket.
I didn't really give Unity much time since I had problems with click dead-zones in the middle of the screen. That and I was in a hurry to check out Gnome3 since it looked more interesting.

(Minor) Annoyances:
1) Dead zones (Bug)
2) Icon menu auto-hiding
3) Global menu
4) Program browser didn't automatically maximize
5) No spot for my gnome2 panel applets

Obviously the first point is just a bugfix. Two, three and four are probably easy to change settings hidden somewhere. Last point will hopefully have Unity specific alternatives in a later release.
I also remember some UI lag when using the quick launch hotkeys, but I can't remember which hotkeys triggered it.

I'll most likely give it another go in 11.10 or when I'm bored of KDE.

[athenroy]

Interesting results on the lower age end. In all honesty, as much as I dislike Unity and Gnome 3 I could see it being used on netbooks. Also by people like my roommate who is basically computer illiterate and about all she does is check her email, visit Facebook and the local Craigslist. Even at that, I had to make desktop icons for her to those sites so she didn't even have to open Firefox! That's on ******* Vista! I rather dislike the excuse all the defenders give of "well, you can use this 'hotkey' combination to do the same thing." This is 2011, folks! Everyone is used to a click of the mouse! Like someone commented under another topic, what's next? Two mice? Not to mention, if a noob sees one of the jazzier versions, with all kinds of effects and expects Ubuntu to do that and only gets a left side dock, I think they'd be very disappointed. Especially if an oldtimer tells them, yeah, we used to be able to do that with Ubuntu and Gnome, but you know, they made it better and don't forget, you have that fancy dock for your apps., now. If you want a dock, fine, but at least put the d*mn thing at the bottom and use a good looking one like Cairo Dock! At least it would look like OS X!

[Eldera]

To Madmax75: see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1768998 Do you have nVidia graphics?

Although Unity is now running on my hardware, I am finding a lot of bugs and features I don't like. For one thing, I am a point and click person. I do not want to type one keystroke more than I have to. Unity is probably not for me, but I am going to use it occasionally for a few months before I make a final decision.


Your poll doesn't make a distinction about why someone doesn't like Unity. It assumes that the dislike is based solely on age.

My final decision will certainly be based on factors other than my age.

I am 76. I am not voting in either of these polls at this time.

For my serious work, I am using 10.04 LTS on another partition for the foreseeable future.

Have a great day, Eldera

Edit: It looks like none of the other 70's people are voting at this time either.

[Dragonbite]

One interesting thing I've noticed is that the number of people who have voted on either poll is not far off from each other (which helps when looking back-and-forth between them).

[edm1]

Mmmmm this poll tells us nothing. What are you comparing it against? The average age of users on the forum? (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1167750) Appears to have a pretty similar distribution.

[kansasnoob]

One interesting thing I've noticed is that the number of people who have voted on either poll is not far off from each other (which helps when looking back-and-forth between them).

I was just going to say the same thing. My personal thought is that gnome2 was so easy to customize anyone could basically make it "their own".

You could use one panel or two panels (top, bottom, right or left) and most things since about gnome 2.28 were simply drag-n-drop.

Now with both Unity and gnome-shell things are much more difficult, in some cases impossible, to customize. But that seems to be a pattern that both Ubuntu and Gnome are embracing ATM.

Actually Ubuntu sort of began down the "one-size-fits-all" road with notify-osd. No ability to change position or duration of notifications anymore :(

IMHO everything UI related needs to be easy to customize. After all UI does mean USER interface. Not DESIGNER interface.

Great pair of polls.

[kansasnoob]

Mmmmm this poll tells us nothing. What are you comparing it against? The average age of users on the forum? (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1167750) Appears to have a pretty similar distribution.

Actually I think that helps explain the outcome of these two polls.

[whistlerspa]

Early OS's offered few options for customization of the desktop or the means to access applications.

Most current Os's allow for wide ranging customizing desktop settings and the menu system etc (however OSX less of this in my opinion).

Unity offers less of the above and is less configurable at the present time, and this is why I don't like it now. It may look more modern (debatable), but in practice is retrograde in terms of the above. Perhaps this will be rectified in time.

[Kromgol]

I generally prefer lightweight desktops, that's why i don't like Unity. But it could be a nice tool to some i guess.

[Merk42]

Age demographic with the highest percentage that do not like Unity: 20-30
Age demographic with the highest percentage that do like Unity: 20-30

In fact the entire breakdown is pretty similar, peaking at 20-30 and steadily decreasing in both directions.

This seems to illustrate that when it comes to (dis)liking Unity, age is not a factor.

[Dragonbite]

Yes, the largest % is the same, but the 3 largest groupings is interesting

In both polls, the largest percentages are in the first three (00-20, 21-30 and 31-40). Both polls show the 21-30 being the largest with over 30-34%

For those who do NOT like Unity the 2nd biggest is 31-40.
For those who DO like Unity, the 2nd biggest is 00-20.

For those who do NOT like Unity, the 3rd biggest is 00-20
For those who DO like Unity, the 3rd biggest is 31-40

So about 75% of the polls are in these three age brackets, but while the youngest 2 are the most popular in the pro-Unity, the older 2 are most popular for the anti-Unity. And only by a small % variance

Ages 00-20 pro=26.61% against=14.29%
Ages 21-30 pro=30.28% against=34.13%
Ages 31-40 pro=18.35% against=26.98%

[Dragonbite]

It's amazing how close the polls are, and how they are weighed. It's been consistent for a while now. The last time I looked there were about 80 some-odd voters and even the Top 1,2,3 %-wise has stayed close to the same.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

It's amazing how close the polls are, and how they are weighed. It's been consistent for a while now. The last time I looked there were about 80 some-odd voters and even the Top 1,2,3 %-wise has stayed close to the same.

I did a plot showing the votes (Compare.jpg). Blue line NOT Like and orange line Like. I also did a plot based on the percentage of posts in each age group (Compare-1.jpg). Blue line NOT Like and orange line Like.

[MBybee]

I did a plot showing the votes (Compare.jpg). Blue line NOT Like and orange line Like. I also did a plot based on the percentage of posts in each age group (Compare-1.jpg).

Looks to me like it's too close to call it an age thing. Not sure what the error bars are, but I'd say that we're still dealing with roughly half of the users disliking, half liking.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Looks to me like it's too close to call it an age thing. Not sure what the error bars are, but I'd say that we're still dealing with roughly half of the users disliking, half liking.

Ignoring age, I see 123 people that voted Like Unity and 148 people that voted do NOT like Unity. I tend to agree with you.

[kjuergen]

I'm missing the poll which includes all the other desktop variants which get in your way. 3 weeks ago I changed to Xubuntu because they had the best XFCE implementation. Since 1998 I was a KDE user but as they all now switched to KDE4 (even Red Hat 6) and soon will go Gnome3 (yuck) XFCE or LXDE (and maybe Fluxbox or Busybox) were my only options.
Unity is just a 3rd way to make computers look like cellphone interfaces (and I like them on a phone!)......

The real poll would be what desktop do you like the most and then add the age question. This might or might not show a trend. Someone may not like Unity for technical reasons but be pretty happy with the color of KDE4 or Gnome3.....

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

The real poll would be what desktop do you like the most and then add the age question. This might or might not show a trend. Someone may not like Unity for technical reasons but be pretty happy with the color of KDE4 or Gnome3.....

You are not working with the mainstream flow of this poll. You are questioning the validity of the poll because it assumes age is a factor. That is just not permitted. Please get your act together and get on board with the agenda.
:lolflag:

[swoll1980]

I'm 31 and I don't like it at all. I could honestly say there would have been no way I would have liked it 10 years ago, nor 10 years from now either (unless they change all the things I don't like about it). Don't think age has anything to do with it.

[fremantle]

i am 18 and i completely dislike unity. and gnome-shell. i asked myself several times WHY? an then i realized, its because my definition of a computer desktop is different from unity or gnome-shell. i dont think the desktop is a place for fancy fullscreen-transparent application menus and snappy sidebars with huge icons, those stuff are for touchpads or smartphones. i want my desktop to be professional looking, solid. like xfce or maybe windows. the new concept that gnome and canonical is coming up with completely frustrate me,

[ilovelinux33467]

I'm 16 and I do not really like Unity.

[kjuergen]

i want my desktop to be professional looking, solid. like xfce or maybe windows.

winDOS? I hope you mean XP and not that crap I have to live with at work called winDOS 7. The worst thing is that wallpaper they call the ribbon in MS-Office. Takes up half the screen and hides menus where you never would expect them (fortunately there's LibreOffice).

[fremantle]

i am not a straightforward microsoft hater, i like the ui of both windows 7 and ms office 10. and comparing to office 10 libreoffice is a not good enough yet. windows 7 is the best version of their os i have ever used, and i used from nt to vista. and its not just me, compared to vista w7 is a huge success for microsoft.

[Dragonbite]

I am wondering if people's opinions on Unity has changed any since it has been out how for about 3 months (in 11.04) and development is still underway for 11.10 coming in 3 months (since it is the beginning of August, I'm counting it).

Out of people who do not like Unity, are you going to do anything about it (switch, suffer, hold onto older versions as long as possible, etc.)?

I've already been using KDE off-and-on for a while, and just threw Fedora 15 Xfce on my laptop to give it a twirl.

[Eldera]

I did not answer your poll three months ago because I was tired of reading so many threads about Unity. The deal breaker for me is switching from one workspace to another. I like to have five or six open when I am busy and in 10.04 Lucid one can switch with just one click.

I will run 10.04LTS Lucid until the end of life and in the meantime run other desktops on other partitions looking for something that works for me.
Have installed and deleted Natty. Tried Oneiric Alpha 3, but would not "play nice" with my hardware. AT least I have plenty of time before 10.04 is no longer supported.

As for my age, I am 76.

[Dragonbite]

I did not answer your poll three months ago because I was tired of reading so many threads about Unity. The deal breaker for me is switching from one workspace to another. I like to have five or six open when I am busy and in 10.04 Lucid one can switch with just one click.

I understand. That's why I thought it would be interesting to see how people feel about it with some time under their belts. Alas, I cannot truly answer because my current systems cannot handle Unity. Maybe my desktop, but it sin't worth me blowing away my 10.04 version.

I use Ctrl+Alt+[right|left] arrow to switch between them. Does that still work in Unity?

[forrestcupp]

I don't like it because it seems like you have to jump through too many hoops to find an app that may not be one of the popular ones. I know there are ways to search, but I don't like having to use my keyboard, unless my intent is to type a message.

But it looks like as of now, a higher percentage of the youngest category does like Unity.

[kostageas]

I'm 16 and I hate Unity. I also hate Gnome Shell.

My philosophy is "If it isn't broken, take it apart and "fix" it". But Gnome 2.x was just about perfect. I loved it because I could customize it. Now I'm using XFCE and I don't like it as much as Gnome 2.x I really wish Ubuntu could continue to use Gnome 2.x without unity, but as it's no longer supported... UGH. This is just driving me away from Linux.

[cbowman57]

@kostageas (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=1268400)

You can customize Gnome shell too. By the time it's done (3.2) it will probably be more flexible than Gnome 2.x.

The theme is not complete but just as an example. Between the themes & extensions we haven't seen anything yet.

199624

[cbowman57]

I understand. That's why I thought it would be interesting to see how people feel about it with some time under their belts. Alas, I cannot truly answer because my current systems cannot handle Unity. Maybe my desktop, but it sin't worth me blowing away my 10.04 version.

I use Ctrl+Alt+[right|left] arrow to switch between them. Does that still work in Unity?

Ctrl+Alt+[up|dn] arrow works in Gnome shell.

[Copper Bezel]

And to the question, yes, the Compiz keybinding still works in Unity.

[qyot27]

I don't like touchscreen-esque interfaces, if it's not actually a touchscreen (and maybe not even then; my only exposure to a device like that is my dad's iPad). Perhaps a bit of that is that I associate touchscreen interfaces as being like toys, because that's precisely what many touchscreen devices come off as. My desktop computer, on the other hand, is not a toy.

A lot of it is simply that I think it's obtrusive. Stuff is way too big, or hidden under layer under layer of (somewhat scattershot) menus and graphics. My brain just doesn't work that way. If I want a dock, I'll use (and do use) AWN.

I want my menus text-based - 'Applications', 'Places' and 'System' are easy to see, easy to understand their purpose, and the things put underneath them are there for logical reasons. I don't like to hunt through an icon-ridden interface to find something, and the search feature - while useful - does not need to be that huge. I would have been fine with it if it acted a bit more like Spotlight does on OSX and only took up a small column at the edge of the screen.

As Unity matures, maybe it will be possible to reconstruct a configuration like that. I'm not holding my breath, though.


For the larger record, I do use other DEs (mostly LXDE these days, since my Coppermine-based computer is rapidly approaching antique status, but I use KDE from time to time and stuck with a Fluxbox-centric setup back during Dapper and the end of Breezy) and feel right at home in the Terminal. So it's not that. Unity just feels cluttered and very inefficiently organized to me.

I'm 25, 26 in October. Been using computers since I was 7 or 8, just in case that matters - DOS, Win 3.11, mid-90s Macintoshes and a couple of Apple IIs during elementary school, Win95, Win98, my current XP setup, and we have a couple OSX machines (PPC iBook running 10.2 and Intel iMac running 10.6) and one Vista laptop. And as mentioned, I've been using Ubuntu since 5.10 and have dabbled with other distros on occasion.

[ScionicSpectre]

Unity certainly could use a bit of a rethink in terms of how you access applications. It shouldn't be a PITA unless you pin your applications or search for them. It should be pleasant either way, and easy to find the applications by category. I think GNOME 3 is a very good example in this department, as it takes a similar approach as Unity, but provides logical ways of narrowing down your results. Hiding categories in a menu is unintuitive and sad. Some parts of Unity are like OS X only in the sad ways (we have categories for a reason- would a subheading be so bad?).

Still, there's plenty going right with Unity. It's just a very unpolished product (not talking about the core layout or anything like that- too many people say it'll be polished when it's more like GNOME 2, and I totally disagree). As for me, I love Unity, KDE, GNOME, all of it. But I tend to use the most stable and fully realized one, so for now I'm using KDE. I'll likely switch back to GNOME 3 after a while unless Unity gets really exciting, but the interaction with GNOME 3 is absolutely delightful for me.

[troymius]

Mmmmm this poll tells us nothing. What are you comparing it against? The average age of users on the forum? (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1167750) Appears to have a pretty similar distribution.

I agree. There is no control group.

But the poll has touched a topic I have been pondering for some time. Tell me if I am getting old or what... It started with the MS Office 2008 (yes, it is at work, I have to use it, don't yell at me) where all the pull down menus were replaced with this goulash of hieroglyphs on top of the screen. I am better in reading than in guessing what a handful of pixels mean. They all look like a smashed mosquito to me.

Then Windows 7 came with all the semi-transparent panels. It makes me dizzy. I guess folks find it pretty but to me it feels like a pile of jellyfish. Then no matter where I move my mouse, I get the pop-up "help" telling me what is behind what icon - but only for a few moments... I am constantly confused about where my window went and whether clicking on an icon will open an already running application or start a new one. I switched to the XP-like skin, so I am ok for now... phew!

I played with an Apple system recently and had similar impressions.

And it goes beyond computers. Did you watch TV news lately? There is so much flash and screen effects that it is distracting. When I lived in Europe, I loved teletext. There was just no space for screen effects! It was even better than news on the web.

Sure enough, here comes Ubuntu with Unity. I just can't figure out how is the new interface helping me. I really wish that the mainstream Ubuntu would always have the option of a "classic" interface for the few (?) of us that lack the flexibility. Surely you will say that I can always switch to xubuntu or whatever. But what I always liked about Ubuntu was that it did almost all I needed "as is". Is it really so that my taste fell so far behind majority?

I am 39 by the way.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

My opinion hasn't changed. I will continue to monitor Unity and Gnome 3 progress through Virtualization. I will continue using Ubuntu 10.04, CentOS 5 or 6, etc., on my primary computers until I think Unity or Gnome 3 is mature enough. If, by the time Ubuntu 10.04 is no longer supported and I don't find Unity or Gnome 3 mature enough, there are other alternatives I can choose to use. I have used computers for a very long time, I started using computers before 70% of the people that voted in this poll were born, and I bought my first home computer before 45% of the people that voted in this poll were born. I have seen Operating Systems and Desktop Environments come and go; however, it doesn't stop me from using my computer.

[forrestcupp]

A few posts back, I said I didn't like Unity.

I've spent some more time with it, and I'm starting to like it more. I guess it was unfair of me to trash it before I really learned where everything is and how it works. Some things weren't obvious at first, like how in the world you get to system settings. But I finally figured a lot out, and it's not quite as bad as I thought.

[Noz3001]

I really disliked unity in 11.04, but in oneiric alpha 3 it is really quite nice.