Unity MEGA Thread

[Copper Bezel]

Is that ... Crux? Clearlooks was too hip and trendy for you? = )

[abocanegra]

At first I did not like the changes. However, now that I realize that in some ways it allows me to navigate to my programs with speed greater speed I am becoming so accustomed to it that it feels awkward when i return to my 10.04 installation. It took a few months, but I definitely appreciate the ability to launch any software without having to use the mouse or clutter my screen with icons. It is a bit like adding command line functionality to a gui. I haven't seemed to find a way to inhibit sleep properly with 11.10. Though, that is likely due to a lack of effort so far.

[Roasted]

In that it hasn't crashed and required a hard restart? By that measure, 11.04 was and 11.10 is stable for me.

I run 11.10 on more servers than most normal people would ever sanely consider. Works great here.

[wolfen69]

There's a lot of great desktop environments available. Take your time and try them out. No need for hate here.

[dsfitzpat]

This is what I use and it install and works great:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

Attachment 206984

Cool, thanks. For some reason that's not the ppa linked to on the project page in Launchpad that VinDSL provided (although he did give this ppa).

[VinDSL]

For some reason that's not the ppa linked to on the project page in Launchpad that VinDSL provided (although he did give this ppa).

Sorry! Been working on XSLT style sheets for 5 days.

Getting a little foggy...

[dsfitzpat]

No worries. It'd be nice if they'd link to this ppa on the launchpad site though! The customization options are starting to show some promise. I've got my old weather and cpu monitor applets back in the panel, with a bit of tinkering with the backlight settings for the launcher I've got great feedback on running programs, etc. (Although admittedly in older Ubuntus I always deleted the bottom panel - along with the task manager - and used AWN instead, so I don't have the seemingly common withdrawal pangs associated to that.)

[3rdalbum]

I'm not sure what you mean by "you can't do what you want". The desktop is really just a way of managing files, running programs, and switching between running windows. In this way, Gnome 2 and Unity are different but equal. Perhaps Unity is even a little better in some ways.

If you're talking about customization, well, most software starts off being merely "functional" and then becomes more "customizable" over time. Unity is no different. There will be more options added to Unity.

You're free to move to something like XFCE if you really want, but be aware that Unity takes a few days to really get comfortable with; and once comfortable with Unity you can easily be comfortable with Gnome Shell. Unity has some excellent features that might not be apparent if you've only used it for a short time. Don't judge Unity so quickly; give it a few more days and see if you like it. And if you still don't, then try it in 12.04. It's still young and developing software.

[expired_fox]

I'm not sure what you mean by "you can't do what you want". The desktop is really just a way of managing files, running programs, and switching between running windows. In this way, Gnome 2 and Unity are different but equal. Perhaps Unity is even a little better in some ways.

I'm not agree. The Gnome 2 + Synapse is superior without any doubt.
Unity is too full of bad design decisions, like all sorts of autohiding (autohiding is a pure evil, since it dramatically decreases predictability and prevent of forming behaviour reflexes). May be it's good for tiny laptop screens in order to save some screen estate, but only a few people need this with ≥20 inch displays.
Another aspect is Unity's general slowness, which annoys and prevent the building of reflexes too.

Gnome shell is better in this regard (forming reflexes), but the proposed workflow suffers from its universal tablet/traditional PC approach and nowhere near as effective as one of Gnome 2 + Synapse. It also has some very strange design decisions like switch widget, that is inferior and less recognizable than old good checkbox used on device with mouse.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Practical question, important to me: Is Gnome 2 not going to be a possibility with 11.10 and later?

If that is the case, then I have to make a note not to go there, and to check out the alternatives.

I have moved to 11.04. Not interested in Unity. I like my panels and my menus, and I intend to continue with them --- preferably as an unbroken succession of personal preferences and tweaks to the "eye candy". I miss the finesse of using Emerald with Compiz, but Compiz's own options, along with stuff like Gnome Colour Chooser still gives me plenty of options to decorate my desktop the way I like it.

Equality is not in that different UIs all start and stop applications and manage files etc, etc, it is in how they do it. Unity is not equal, and, although I know less about it, I don't think Gnome 3 is either.

I don't work with my computer (any longer, thank goodness!) so productivity in the hard-line sense of the word is not important to me, but comfort, not tripping up on new imposed interfaces, and the personal pleasure of tweaking my way is what matters.

Honestly, this was never meant to be any sort of rant --- but I don't think the individual "my way" is part of the future for Ubuntu philosophy. I know there is still a choice. XFCE has been mentioned. There are several 'buntus. However, in making a desktop OS that is attractive and perfectly comprehensible to users of certain other commercial OSs, I feel that 10.04 hit a sweet spot, but after that, they completely lost the plot. Assuming, of course, that competing with those OSs was ever part of their aim at all: they might just be a bunch of people that enjoy doing weird things with desktops!