Ubuntu Unity: The Great Divider

Barence writes "Canonical's decision to impose the new Unity interface on Ubuntu 11.04 users appears to have split the Linux distro's users, according to PC Pro. Features such as a moving Launcher bar and invisible scrollbars have angered many users, with one claiming that 'Ubuntu is doing a great job throwing away years of UI experience.' The rush to meet the six-monthly release schedule also appears to have harmed the release, with many users reporting graphical glitches with the new user interface."

Works fine for me

[Pieroxy]

I installed it the day it was out. The menubar is somewhat different, so what?

For me, it's working fine and I'm sticking with it. Gnome fanboys will not appreciate it, but Unity feels a bit slicker than Gnome. And the user experience is so close it's almost undistinguishable.

Classic

[roman_mir]

Have the Ubuntu 11.04 on a couple of machines, but immediately switched to classic desktop on both. This thing is ridiculous, retarded and useless to me. I am not an Apple user, I don't own any iProducts and don't want to in no small part because I absolutely despise their way of doing interfaces. I hate the 'ribbon' garbage as well, BTW.

Anyway, from point of view of a developer, this GUI is a POS. No way I am going to use something that takes a chunk of my screen like that, gets rid of the battery power/network status icons (and whatever else I want to see on the launch bar). I honestly do not have patience to figure out where the application window goes once I attempt to minimize it. Is the window closed then and the application is killed? Is it somewhere on the background, and if so, how do I get it back? Where is the minimized window icon? That crazy search window that pops up only when I want to see the normal menu with the usual items in them - the entire idea of a menu tree is gone?

Anyway, you may want to use your computer as some sort of a weird appliance... I need a predictable, stable system, things should be where I am used to them, not hidden and removed in ways that defy any logic. The minimize/close/maximize window icons will be on the right side of my windows and there will be a normal tree like menu with items where I will find them every time I look there and there will be an icon for every window on the bottom of the screen, period.

Re:Meh

[Nerdfest]

I tried it, but have found it lacking. In 'classic' Ubuntu, I remove the bottom panel, and use Docky. I use Gnome-do for quick-run functionality. I have several indicators (temperature, network i/o, weather, dropbox, etc) some of which work or have replacements, and other which don't. The fonts on the Unity Panel seem blurry or low-rez. The Apple-style menu at the top is exceptionally annoying when using multiple monitors, or for those of us that don't like the buttons on the left side of the window. In general, I find the interface a step down from Gnome-do/Docky, although I do like the new scroll bars so far.

I also find that Natty is slower, and has introduced a lot of problems in Compiz, and my wireless performance is much reduced. I was reading about an interview with Mark Shuttleworth where he apparently said that perhaps power users should switch to a different distro. I respect him for saying that, but it's unfortunate, as I like the Ubuntu release cycle. Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to do just that, or perhaps switch GDMs. Both LXDE and XFCE are looking quite nice ... not quite Gnome, but nice enough.

Re:Works fine for me

[WeatherGod]

I agree. I was using Unity (or whatever its precursor was called) in 10.10 because it was part of the Ubuntu-Netbook-Remix (note that the netbook edition is now only intended for ARM netbooks), and 11.04's Unity is a huge leap in stability, usability and just general look-and-feel. Are there still some more to be done? Absolutely, but for someone to claim that Unity is "throwing away years of UI experience" is hyperbole at best and disingenuous at worst. I think that we are going to learn a lot from the Unity/Gnome-Shell "experiments" and when the dust settles, we may have something that is a lot better than Gnome 2 ever was.

Re:unity

[Cougar Town]

Agreed... and I always give new things a good chance.

When they moved the minimize/maximize/close buttons to the left side of the windows, I gave it a try, and found that going to one side instead of the other really didn't have any actual impact on my life so I was happy to use that, and I still do. It's really not a life-changing thing for me, I got used to it in about 2 minutes and I don't really care.

But Unity? I tried it. I really did. And it sucked like a tornado. Taking up useless space on the left side of my screen with icons in seemingly random order? I much prefer my tiny and thin bars at the top and bottom of the screen that show me useful, realtime information that I want, and give me very quick access to everything I need.

I don't hate things because they're different or because I'm ignorant of them. I hate them after I really give them a chance and learn about them and they still just do not work for me. I use Ubuntu as my OS on my daily workstation at my job, so I need things to be quick, efficient, and work the way I work. Unity doesn't do that for me at all, even after I tried.

If Ubuntu drops Gnome completely and makes it a pain in the ass (and/or unsupported) to install... I'll be moving to Kubuntu or Xubuntu. I've used both before, and unless they've completely changed into something else, either would work just fine for me. Maybe Unity is very good for some people... I'm just not one of them.

Re:unity

[tripleevenfall]

The biggest problem is that Canonical has said that the option to switch back to GNOME will be completely removed in 11.10, leaving Unity as the one and only option.

The strategy, attempting to force something that doesn't work well on the user base in order to speed up fixing/finishing it... the "involuntary beta"... is downright MSFT-like

Re:unity

[Handlarn]

The problem is that the UI designers are changing focus from desktops and laptops to touch screen devices and such when the majority of users are still using a mouse and keyboard setup to navigate.

No matter how outdated the mouse/keyboard setup might be, it's still the most prevalent means of computer UI navigation available, and many of us are still very comfortable with that setup.

The difference between this situation and your car analogy is that the mouse/keyboard setup still works very well for the majority of computers. A better analogy would be if they would remove the physical steering wheel, shift stick and everything for your car and replace those with a giant touch screen interface.

Re:unity

[MBGMorden]

As others have said: the changes you state are all well and good for small handheld devices. Those devices don't omit the keyboard and mouse because their input method is superior - they do so because it's impractical to have them on a mobile device. DESKTOP operating systems don't have those type of space restrictions. Without those specific needs for compromise, the keyboard/mouse setup remains a quicker, more efficient way to enter data. Trust me, I don't mind checking Facebook and doing quick tasks on my Android phone. Works great sitting on the couch. There comes a point though when I'm doing a lot when I just say "Fuck this" and go down the hall to my desktop so I can get a keyboard in front of me. I can type in 30 seconds what it'd take 5 minutes or more to enter on that touch interface.

This is not a one size fits all thing, and the distributions are insane if they think of it that way.