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Dragonbite
July 19th, 2012, 03:25 PM
Very interesting news.
Unity Desktop Available for Fedora (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/07/unity-desktop-available-for-fedora?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20d0od%20%28OMG%21%20Ubuntu%2 1%29&utm_content=Google%20Reader)
If the loudest voices in the open-source community were to be believed you’d get the impression that Ubuntu’s Unity desktop is universally loathed.

But in reality it isn’t. Ubuntu’s ever-increasing user-base, OEM deals with Dell, ASUS and Lenovo, and user-testing proves this.

But if there is one valid criticism to be levelled at Unity it’s that it’s Ubuntu-only. This isn’t technically true as the code for Unity (and its components) is freely available for anyone to adapt, port, develop-upon for other Linux distros.

And in the case of Fedora, a team of wily developers have done just that.
The interesting part is
sudo su
cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/GNOME:/Ayatana/Fedora_17/GNOME:Ayatana.repo
So the Ubuntu desktop Unity is available to Fedora through the openSUSE Build Service! Talk about cross-platform, open source collaboration! :)

epikvision
July 19th, 2012, 03:28 PM
The funny question is whether Fedorians can change the ubuntu icon at the top to a fedora symbol. :)

Wirephire
July 19th, 2012, 03:37 PM
The funny question is whether Fedorians can change the ubuntu icon at the top to a fedora symbol. :)
They can easily change it but there will be still label "Ubuntu Desktop" in the top panel :D

Version Dependency
July 19th, 2012, 03:37 PM
The fine folks over at Arch have been maintaining a working version of Unity for some time now.

mips
July 19th, 2012, 03:40 PM
Looks like a opensuse repo to me that fedora users can use.

Dragonbite
July 19th, 2012, 03:42 PM
Looks like a opensuse repo to me that fedora users can use.

The openSUSE Build Service is like an online repository that makes it easy to make packages for Ubuntu, Fedora and other distributions in addition to openSUSE. It really is pretty neat.

tartalo
July 19th, 2012, 03:51 PM
Ubuntu’s ever-increasing user-base

These guys at OMG Ubuntu! should check their facts.

The server version might be increasing, but all sources I know (Wikimedia, StatOWL...) tell quite a different story about the Desktop Ubuntu, that it's usage going down.

For example:
http://www.statowl.com/operating_system_market_share_by_os_version.php?1= 1&timeframe=last_6&interval=month&chart_id=4&fltr_br=&fltr_os=&fltr_se=&fltr_cn=&limit[]=linux

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

Now, about the new itself, that's good for Fedora, alternatives are always good.

Dragonbite
July 19th, 2012, 04:04 PM
Now, about the new itself, that's good for Fedora, alternatives are always good.

Unity needs to spread beyond its borders (Ubuntu) and this is great news about this.

Personally I prefer Unity over Gnome-shell, and if this gains any traction it should give the Gnome developers something to think about.

Neither one is "perfect", but I seem to think that Unity is listening to the users a little more than the Gnome developers and now Fedora, a long-time Gnome supporter, will be able to "speak with their 'wallet'" by having a choice that isn't as drastic as moving to KDE or Xfce.

Version Dependency
July 19th, 2012, 04:06 PM
So we have Unity on Arch and Fedora....but not Debian? Hmm...

QIII
July 19th, 2012, 04:19 PM
The server version might be increasing, but all sources I know (Wikimedia, StatOWL...) tell quite a different story about the Desktop Ubuntu, that it's usage going down.

The scientific and statistical validity of wikimedia's methods have been hotly debated. Not that it matters. What is downloaded cannot be assumed to correlate strongly with what is actually used. Many of use buy samples at the candy store and throw things away. It is impossible to say what is the most popularly USED distro without a random, worldwide sampling of users. The best anyone can say is that Ubuntu is popular - and that is even tenuously demonstrated.

The thing I find interesting as a Fedora user is that the generally "FOSS or death" Fedora community would accept anything even associated with Ubuntu, open source or not.

xedi
July 19th, 2012, 04:27 PM
These guys at OMG Ubuntu! should check their facts.

The server version might be increasing, but all sources I know (Wikimedia, StatOWL...) tell quite a different story about the Desktop Ubuntu, that it's usage going down.

For example:
http://www.statowl.com/operating_system_market_share_by_os_version.php?1= 1&timeframe=last_6&interval=month&chart_id=4&fltr_br=&fltr_os=&fltr_se=&fltr_cn=&limit[]=linux

Now, about the new itself, that's good for Fedora, alternatives are always good.

According to your first link (which is broken btw), Ubuntu lost market share to Android. Because of the low Android numbers (about 5% of all Linux) they probably mean Android on Desktop systems. All the other Linux distributions also lost share or were stable according to statowl.

Dlambert
July 19th, 2012, 05:08 PM
Look at ubuntu in India and all over, it's growing!

mr john
July 19th, 2012, 05:12 PM
I've personally been using Ubuntu less since Unity. The reason, everthing seems to be a bit slower over the last few years, especially the app store thing.

QIII
July 19th, 2012, 05:35 PM
There are other DEs...

Version Dependency
July 19th, 2012, 05:37 PM
And there are other ways to install software other than the "app store thingy." :D

bobsan
July 19th, 2012, 05:39 PM
The thing I find interesting as a Fedora user is that the generally "FOSS or death" Fedora community would accept anything even associated with Ubuntu, open source or not.

Is that so? If the Fedora community is "FOSS or death" then rpmfusion would not be so popular. :)

QIII
July 19th, 2012, 06:10 PM
Have you participated in Fedora forums for years and watched people get brow beaten for asking questions about non-FOSS? Helped people install proprietary drivers and gotten beaten over the head yourself?

I don't know how many times I saw "This is a FOSS OS, you know!"

As if others aren't.

rpmfusion provides packages that Fedora deems "unworthy". Canonical doesn't include packages that might cause legal entanglements.

Fedora also has their list of "approved licenses" that are blessed by the FSF and a list of "bad licenses" that are not.

I like Fedora and I use it. But, yes, FOSS is a big thing.

Bigtime_Scrub
July 19th, 2012, 06:54 PM
I like Fedora a lot and I use it everyday. From what I understand Unity has been available for some time already, since at least January I think...

Fedora has always been Gnome centric and I doubt it will ever get an offical "Unity Spin". My guess is that many Fedora users are there getting away from Unity but it's nice to still have that option if you like it.

Cinnamon is also available for Fedora and is very easy to install on Fedora its just two packages.

You can check this thread http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=274611 for cinnamon. I don't know of any tutorial on the Fedora Forums for Unity. I suppose I could make a "unity How To" but I would most likely be tarred and feathered and I don't use it myself so...

I would would say someone else should go there and make a Unity how to. Good luck. :twisted:

Dragonbite
July 19th, 2012, 07:01 PM
Have you participated in Fedora forums for years and watched people get brow beaten for asking questions about non-FOSS? Helped people install proprietary drivers and gotten beaten over the head yourself?

Been a member since 2006 and while there is a FOSS focus I don't know if I have seen "brow beaten" for asking questions in the Fedora forum as much as in the CentOS forum.

But that can also just be the circles I run into (being more open minded)?

bobsan
July 19th, 2012, 07:11 PM
Fedora also has their list of "approved licenses" that are blessed by the FSF and a list of "bad licenses" that are not.
.

Actually I think Fedora itself is not approved by the FSF, but I can be wrong on this.

In terms of Forums, I actually find a stronger ethos of FOSS puritanism on the Debian forum. On the Debian forum you are very likely to be browbeaten and ridiculed if you even dare to mention Ubuntu (unless, of course, if you say that you have finally ditched Ubuntu for " the real thing", that is, Debian)

wojox
July 19th, 2012, 07:15 PM
Back on topic, has anyone installed it yet?

tartalo
July 19th, 2012, 07:15 PM
The scientific and statistical validity of wikimedia's methods have been hotly debated. What is downloaded cannot be assumed to correlate strongly with what is actually used. Many of use buy samples at the candy store and throw things away. It is impossible to say what is the most popularly USED distro without a random, worldwide sampling of users.

You might be confusing Wikimedia stats with something else. Wikimedia stats are based on user agent strings of visits to Wikipedia and related webs like Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote... not downloads.

Now, back to topic:
This is not an official Fedora package and I found no mention in Fedora's Road-plan. Who is porting Unity to other distros? Canonical themselves?

Bigtime_Scrub
July 19th, 2012, 07:25 PM
Now, back to topic:
This is not an official Fedora package and I found no mention in Fedora's Road-plan. Who is porting Unity to other distros? Canonical themselves?

The short answer is no one is.

The better answer is whoever wants to port it over. There just isn't that many people willing to do it. I heard like 1 guy was going to work on porting it to Fedora and when he asked for help he got tumbleweeds. The demand outside of Ubuntu just ins't there or it just doesn't have a very high priority for people in other distros.

Bigtime_Scrub
July 19th, 2012, 07:32 PM
Back on topic, has anyone installed it yet?

I just tried installing Unity of Fedora 17....

It didn't work. That repo broke yum or something. It wanted to update stuff that didn't exist so I am guessing there is some kind of dependancy problem with it.

Dragonbite
July 19th, 2012, 08:21 PM
Actually I think Fedora itself is not approved by the FSF, but I can be wrong on this.

Correct, they are not "approved" or "endorsed" but the reason why is that they have a means that non-FOSS software *can* be installed.

Not that they include anything, or use open source before using anything proprietary, or that they don't work with other projects to improve the FOSS option over proprietary items. Just because somebody "could" install something *gasp* not FOSS (like drivers, flash, skype, codecs, etc.)

Looking at the list of their approval, pretty much Fedora is the most "pure" except for that one made specifically to be 100% "pure" that I cannot remember the name of (starts with "G"?)

wojox
July 19th, 2012, 08:26 PM
I just tried installing Unity of Fedora 17....

It didn't work. That repo broke yum or something. It wanted to update stuff that didn't exist so I am guessing there is some kind of dependancy problem with it.

I'm gonna give it a shot. What the heck. :P

szymon_g
July 19th, 2012, 10:40 PM
YES YES YES
Unity (which is- IMO- the lesssucking DE on linux)+ Fedora (systemd, selinux, all other lovely things)= best distro ever.

markbl
July 19th, 2012, 11:46 PM
Unity (which is- IMO- the lesssucking DE on linux)+ Fedora (systemd, selinux, all other lovely things)= best distro ever.
Well I am of completely the opposite opinion. I prefer gnome-shell (best DE) on ubuntu (best distro).

I really hope that ubuntu continue to make gnome-shell trivial to install and use on their releases.

t0p
July 20th, 2012, 01:53 AM
I have just made the jump from the last Ubuntu LTS to 12.04, and I'm finding the new environment... interesting.

Having been a Gnome man since 2005/2006 (except for LXDE on my EeePC701 netbook), the 12.04 GUI is a bit confusing but still fairly intuitive. I'm gonna give it a few weeks, I think. Then maybe Gnome Shell or KDE.

As for Unity available for Fedora - why the hell not? This is Free software (or "open source" if you like); share and share alike, that's what it's all about , innit?

Primefalcon
July 20th, 2012, 02:23 AM
from the fsf site regarding Fedora

Fedora

Fedora does have a clear policy about what can be included in the distribution, and it seems to be followed carefully. The policy requires that most software and all fonts be available under a free license, but makes an exception for certain kinds of nonfree firmware. Unfortunately, the decision to allow that firmware in the policy keeps Fedora from meeting the free system distribution guidelines.

The FSF bashing most others as well...
http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html