Newer versions not always better/12.04 LTS bummer

[Barney]

I cut my teeth with ver.4.1, went all Ubuntu with 6 LTS, and have stayed with the LTS versions since. 10.04 LTS has reminded me of Windows XP Pro, considered by many Win users as the last rock solid, reliable versions of Windows. Microsoft's later attempts at bigger, newer, better produced nightmares for many; and, may have helped many to switch to Linux. I watched 12.04 for a year hoping that with any new version any bugs would be worked out; and, then installed it on one of my PC's.

For me, 12.04 has just been another attempt at a newer, fancier version like so many of the Win XP Pro follow-ons were from MS. The Unity desktop, ugh! I switched back to gnome, and still was neither happy, nor comfortable with 12.04.

Yes, I'm complaining: Canonical/Ubuntu, you can do better than MS. Why emulate them with this gee whiz desktop and new versions when improvement of the good, solid 10.04 would have garnered more users from Windows than the newer versions of Ubuntu have. No one knows how many users we have lost - moved to another version of Linux, or acquiesced back to MS.

Bottom line: would not recommend 12.04 LTS; would advise to wait for the next LTS.

[Azdour]

Hi,

Have you tried Xubuntu or Lubuntu. I do not like Ubuntu 12.04 so I have moved to Xubuntu 12.04 and loving it.

[santosh83]

Bottom line: would not recommend 12.04 LTS; would advise to wait for the next LTS.

This doesn't make sense. If your dislike of 12.04 is mainly because of the new desktop shell (Unity), then it is not going away anytime soon. It will be very much present in 14.04 as well. As above poster says, if you dislike Unity/GNOME Shell way of interacting, then consider Lubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu, all of which give you a regular 'start' menu and panel. Also see Mint with the Cinnamon shell.

[coffeecat]

Not a General Help (support) thread and not, apparently, even a request for suggestions for an alternative desktop.

@Barney, you are wasting your time complaining to ordinary users like yourself, the forum membership – this is not the place to address concerns to Canonical. Most forum users have accepted the fact that gnome2, the desktop you used in 10.04, is dead, and are:

1. Happy with Unity, or
2. Happy with Gnome3 shell, or
3. Happy with Mate, cinnamon, Xfce, LXde, KDE or another alternative desktop environment.

This has already been discussed over and over and over. If anyone wishes to repeat what has been said countless times before, then they are welcome to do so, but in the meantime....

Thread moved to Recurring Discussions.

[craig10x]

Unity is simply a dock (like mac osx has and that people go crazy over...lol) so it is obvious you don't like docks and as previously mentioned, unity is here to stay so waiting for the next ubuntu LTS won't solve what you consider to be a problem...move on to one of the alternate ubuntus (xubuntu/kubuntu/lubuntu) or Cinnamon desktop with Linux Mint)...

Your comparison with MS's Windows 8 is very off base as Windows 8 is a mess (a hybrid of two different ways of doing things...windows 7 and the new metro interface) where as unity desktop is simple, intuitive and easy to understand and use...

Personally, i think unity with it's dock, global menu and dash search are all very mac-like which i find very cool and easy to use and much more efficient then the old ubuntu layout of space wasting 2 panels and a very inefficient "fan out" applications menu...but to each his own

[buzzingrobot]

Barney, I can't see how Unity emulates Windows. It's nothing at all like Windows.

If you want the classic Gnome 2 interface, that's only available with Mate (mate-desktop.org). It's a recompilation of Gnome 2 source, with changes so things work today.

Otherwise, we have more, and better, choices than we did 3 years ago in the heyday of Gnome 2.

For why the Gnome team abandoned Gnome 2, consult their site. It was not a decision of Ubuntu or other distributions.

[monkeybrain20122]

Your comparison with MS's Windows 8 is very off base as Windows 8 is a mess (a hybrid of two different ways of doing things...windows 7 and the new metro interface) where as unity desktop is simple, intuitive and easy to understand and use...

Well no, he said that Win goes downhill after XP pro, so even Win7 is too radical for him (granted that Vista is very bad) , it would be nice if the world would stand still at 2001 when we were all younger and prettier (Maybe I know Barney, I have a WIndows geek friend who is like that, everything after XP is bad according to him, he uses Linux on and off on the side, lately he tries Kubuntu and is complaining about KDE4, he says KDE3 is much better, it does look more like XP going by old screenshots )

He is not saying that Windows and Ubuntu looks alike, he is saying that Canonical is like MS in going after "newer and fancier" stuffs (as oppose to sticking with the old and boring)

[buzzingrobot]

Well, asking a business -- Microsoft -- or a project -- Gnome, say -- to freeze a design is asking them to commit slow suicide. Businesses need to generate new business. That means new products, not new bug fixes for old, frozen products. FOSS projects move on to something new for many reasons, including boredom and frustration., I'm sure. Those changes are not necessarily gimmicks. Technology changes and improves.

Actually, XP has been supported for an extraordinarily long time for a consumer OS release. It's aged to the point that keeping it relatively secure is apparently a losing battle.

Besides, the Windows codebase still traces its lineage back to NT. The big deal about XP is that it moved away from the rickety DOS-based improvisation to that NT base. That base has been tweaked, fattened up, put on a diet, and optimized over the years, but it's still there.

[craig10x]

@monkeybrain20122: Oops...sorry, i didn't interpret his comments correctly...my bad....i get it...he is stuck in that XP kind of mind set...So, yeah, i guess Unity would seem awfully radical!

Can't figure why some likes time to stand still like that...To tell you the truth, i was never very fond of ubuntu's old layout with the 2 panels and fan out apps menu...seemed like a big waste of space and not very efficient in finding an app...that is why for quite some time, i migrated to linux mint because at least it was just 1 panel and had a pretty cool slab menu...But Unity (with it's mac like feel) brought me right back

[monkeybrain20122]

In a way I can understand why Windows users resist upgrades though, because it will cost them $ and MS will come up with newer ways to hassle them over activation and drm enforcement etc.