Canonical Bringing an Instant-On Ubuntu 251
Today at the Ubuntu Developers Summit, Mark Shuttleworth presented a few upcoming Ubuntu projects, including "Light" versions of the operating system for "both netbook and desktop, that are optimized for dual-boot scenarios." Shuttleworth also took the wraps off Unity, a new lightweight interface that will be included in Ubuntu Light and eventually in Ubuntu Netbook Edition as well. "First, we want to move the bottom panel to the left of the screen, and devote that to launching and switching between applications. That frees up vertical space for web content, at the cost of horizontal space, which is cheaper in a widescreen world. ... Second, we'll expand that left-hand launcher panel so that it is touch-friendly. With relatively few applications required for instant-on environments, we can afford to be more generous with the icon size there. ... Third, we will make the top panel smarter." Ars got a chance to try out a prototype of Unity, saying, "Its unique visual style melds beautifully with Ubuntu's new default theme and its underlying interaction model seems compelling and well-suited for small screens."
Unity just for netbooks? Should be default! (Score:5, Insightful)
When I saw the screenshots for Unity I was amazed. Finally defaults that make sense. I'm not a fan of dark themes, but that's easily changed. (e.g., in Lucid, switch from Ambience to Radiance.) There's no reason Unity should be limited to netbooks at all. In a world where widescreen monitors are commonplace, vertical space is always at a premium.
But Unity does more than fix the vertical spacing issue, it brings Ubuntu's default's into the 21st century with task management as well. Even Windows has moved on from it's old school taskbar into something resembling the Dock from OSX. Unity's dock is a step in the right direction and placing it on the left is a smart choice.
Unity should be what all Ubuntu versions ship with. Not just netbooks.
Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
Widescreen monitors waste tons of horizontal space and suffer a real lack of vertical space.
I say move both tool bars to the sides. If gnome panel would rotate the words and icons I would already do this.
This does not address the real problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Instant" (Score:3, Insightful)
We wanted to be surfing the web in under 10 seconds, and give people a fantastic web experience. We also wanted it to be possible to upgrade from that limited usage model to a full desktop.
That's a strange definition of "instant." 10 seconds.
Re:Unity just for netbooks? Should be default! (Score:3, Insightful)
Horizontal vs. vertical space (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, widescreen is rubbish for some purposes, and actually we'd prefer 4:3.
Trying to "fix" the widescreen problem with software is just hacking around the fundamental lack of choice in screen formats now.
Re:File management (Score:5, Insightful)
> Abstracting those details away from the user results in a better user experience with more ability to manage the actual content than a pure file-based interface can provide.
This reminds me of the Mac Girl that decided to burn CDs of her pictures because they were becoming too much to manage in iPhoto.
Hiding the filesystem is fine until you find that your forced alternative doesn't scale quite well enough any more.
It's absurd to get rid of a useful framework just because it's not "universal" enough.
If anything, things should go in the other direction. subsets of data and metadata should be accessable in the filesystem or to the shell with simple tools. There should be more explosure of the data rather than less. A vfs interface for the mail system could actually be a pretty handy thing. Perhaps it would even enable a "delete all text messages" feature in the iPhone.
Such an abstraction doesn't even need to be exposed to the end user most times. At least it's there, those that find the default tools lacking have some recourse.
Interesting things should not be impossible. Neither should the inevitable tech support.
Re:Ubuntu Side By Side With OS X (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you happen to mention the #1 worst UI decision EVER is that damn "can only resize windows from the bottom right hand corner"
Re:File management (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly. I do tech support at my uni's law school, and I have had about a dozen professors and students come up to me in the last month because they lost a word document (I love finals season...). You know what happened? They opened an attachment, modified it (sometimes for hours), saved (no error messages or anything), and exited. Word happily saved it to a temp folder, and it was never to be found again. No where, not /temp, application data, local settings, etc. That's so stupid that I can't believe Word would do that.
But it's not just Word either. Folders suck. I'm a nerd, so all my files are organized, but it's still a pain. I don't like dealing with it.
Users hate file managers.
I just don't see this mattering to the RIAA either on Ubuntu or as a general trend. Talk about knee-jerk reaction.
Re:File management (Score:5, Insightful)
What is not a file? A big part of the whole *n.x ideology is that everything is a file.
Emails are files in the MAILDIR, database records are indeed stored in the DB files. Do you think this is magic here?
Re:File management (Score:3, Insightful)
A database record is not a file, though. A database record is a small part of a much larger file that contains the database. And even that is not completely true, because a database often consists of additional files like indexes.
There is no question that files are an extremely useful abstraction. They have served us well for a very long time and I don't think they will be going anywhere anytime soon. However, that does not mean that it is the only abstraction worth considering. Many non-technical users get confused by the file concept so why not look for a way to store information in a way that works well for more people.
Re:Great netbook OS UI, instant on... Here, Today (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you know he lives in a country where EULAs are legally binding? It may be perfectly legal in his country.
Re:Ubuntu Side By Side With OS X (Score:2, Insightful)
It forces the designer of the program to open the window big enough for all the content to fit in all the time. That is according to spec, not a design flaw. You can also click the green button on the left hand corner to resize it. Either way, there is hardly ever a reason to resize windows for most well-designed programs.
in continuation of that logic i declare that bsod is "according to spec, not a design flaw."
Re:Interesting concept (Score:4, Insightful)
the typical scenario of playing catchup with Windows and OS X that the open-source desktops seem to usually do.
Have you used ANY of the following:
1) Compiz: way ahead of Mac of Windows. Lots of useless eye candy, but lots of useful stuff too
2) KDE 4: highly configurable, applets that can run in a panel or on the desktop, all apps can transparently open remote files of ssh, ftp, as well as tar and zip archives, CD ripping (and transcoding) through drag and drop in the file manager, embedded components so you can preview documents in the file manager. KDE 3 and Gnome have most of these, but I picked KDE 4 because that is what I use.
3) Fluxbox: tabbed windows
4) Metisse: a completely different approach to 3D desktops
5) Moblin: if that looks or works like Windows or Mac, you must be talking about a different Windows and Mac.
6) Enlightenment 16: sliding, overlapping desktops years ago - while Windows still does not have multiple desktops without an extension
7) Various tiling and keyboard driven window managers.