Forced to upgrade to 11.04

[rigelstar]

Let me start by saying that I've been putting off upgrading past 10.10 for some time now and was actually upset that it would not be supported any longer.

I've now upgraded my laptop to 11.10 and my server to 11.04 and am so very impressed with how easy the upgrade was and more importantly how great the 11 series is. I've read so many bad things about it that I don't understand why people had so many issues with Unity. Once I install Cairo it is really the perfect desktop. Unity plus Cairo is extremely powerful.

Really, my objective was to simply thank all that work to make Ubuntu what it is.

Thank You and please keep up the good work. Wish there was something I could contribute.

[Version Dependency]

I've read so many bad things about it that I don't understand why people had so many issues with Unity.


You haven't read all the posts? Apparently, Mark Shuttleworth went to a bunch of people's houses and held a gun to their head and FORCED them to use Unity. We've had people claim Unity is a "lack of freedom" (without ever explaining why)....and I read a thread on these forums recently about how using Unity was "ecologically unsound" (no--I'm not kidding--and the thread starter was serious).

:D

Glad the upgrades worked for you. I've upgraded many machines over the past couple of years and never had one that just failed miserably. But if you are on older versions (past 11.10) you may want to consider doing fresh installs to the newest LTS 12.04. It's considerably faster and more stable than 11.04/11.10 and supported for 5 years.

[Zukaro]

I'm not really sure why everyone hated Unity so much. I think it's because that's where Ubuntu was going and no one wanted it to come. I actually like Unity however; I used to dislike it but now that I'm used to it it's fine. Also, it's not a big deal at all anymore as 12.04 lets you use the Gnome desktop easily without reinstalling it (although I haven't tried it yet on the newest version, and I've heard it has some compatibility issues).

I've heard people saying it's harder to be a power user on Unity (something like that), but personally I've never had an issue with that (if I can't get a GUI to do it I use the terminal (*still learning however :P (I'm sorta new to Linux but not really)*)).

Anyways; despite what everyone says I really think Unity has potential. Sure, it might be missing a few customization features, but I have a feeling those will be added later on down the line (as right now it's more about making it easy for new Linux users to use). It sorta looks like rather than focusing on Windows users Unity focuses on Mac users however (that's just what I've noticed from how similar OS X is to Ubuntu 12.04 (I don't use OS X however, I'm completely new to that :P (but I bought a Macbook Pro cuz I wanted to triboot Windows 7, Ubuntu 12.04, and OS X Lion without trying to make my Acer Aspire One ZG5/AOA150 into a hackintosh (I managed to get it to boot into a kernal panic after about a month of trying, then gave up :P)(also I like an all aluminum case (I dislike plastic))))).

As for the HUD; I've never really used it, but I've heard it's pretty good. I wouldn't want that to replace menu's however (like, I still want menu's), but it's a good tool.


I really think the Unity hate started from it being buggy and slow and new but has been continued simply by being a bandwagon now basically. Sorta like how everyone hates Windows Vista even if they've never used it. :P

And I don't see how putting a new UI on Ubuntu is such a big deal; it's still Linux. Linux at it's core is still Linux, you can put whatever UI you want on there. :P I do see why people would switch though, as it's easier to find a distro closer to what you want and then customize it to be there rather than one further away. For awhile I actually tried out other distros but Ubuntu is the most perfect for me (it feels complete whereas many other distros don't; like, it feels like parts are missing from the UI (for example, in Linux Mint 12 clicking the calendar option on the calendar brings up an error message informing you that Empathy or something like that isn't installed)). I haven't actually clicked the calendar option in Ubuntu yet so I can't fairly judge that, but that's just an example (will now go make sure it works in Ubuntu and doesn't give the same error).


It's always little things with throw me off a distro. :P


EDIT:
I booted up Ubuntu and it doesn't even have that calendar option thingy; instead it's replaced by date and time settings.