Code Name, Theming Update Announced For Ubuntu 12.10 285
benfrog writes "In a blog post, Mark Shuttleworth announced some changes for Ubuntu 12.10 (due in October), including the code name (Quantal Quetzal — no, really) and a theme update. He said, 'That will kick off with a project on typography to make sure we are expressing ourselves with crystal clarity – making the most of Ubuntu’s Light and Medium font weights for a start. And a project on iconography, with the University of Reading, to refine the look of apps and interfaces throughout the platform. It’s amazing how quaint the early releases of Ubuntu look compared to the current style. And we’re only just getting started! In our artistic explorations we want to embrace tessellation as an expression of the part-digital, part-organic nature of Ubuntu.' Some other more meaningful announcements include a focus on the cloud in the server version and the lack of a transition from Upstart to systemd."
"Quaint" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
My problem with Unity isn't appearance (it's very pretty and slick looking), it's functionality.
In particular I'd like to single out the scroll bars as an abomination. I'm running Ubuntu Classic and I still can't get away from these fuckers. Not having the scroll bar appear unless I mouse over the little rectangle that appears to the left of where the scroll bar marker would be is god-awful. That the little rectangle appears inside the application window and thus can be obscured by, say, a same-colored selection rectangle (as happens in the file viewer, geeqie image viewer, and plenty of other apps) means I basically have to fucking *guess* where the scroll bar should be.
Is there an obvious "make scroll bars not retarded" option I'm missing? Is this shit supposed to be good on a tablet? Am I supposed to be glad that my desktop has a tablet interface?
I'm actually scared of upgrading my friend's desktop to a newer version of Ubuntu. He's computer illiterate and has been using Ubuntu more-or-less fine for several years now, but I know him and while I can tolerate even the most bone-headed of interface (I used old versions of Mentor Graphics for example) this shit is going to drive him insane and he'll stop using it.
The next year's release... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time I go to google a way to fix the problems with Unity, I end up googling for other debian-based distros instead. Seems like the best way to fix all the issues in one fell swoop.
Re:unity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I wish they would stop "fixing" what isn't broken. Even KDE is pushing it lately, for me.
I don't think this is a poison specific to Ubuntu or GNOME, it seems to be everywhere.
What am I supposed to do? Stop updating? Pretend it's still the last decade?
It's like everyone's trying to become the Next Big Thing as far as interfaces go, but the hardware is lagging seriously behind (eg, this stuff would be awesome on holographic tablets a-la science fiction games).
oops (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, what is the point of the separate x-buntus?
Why not just apt-get install $other_window_manager, if that is what you want? Why is it a different distro?
What's up with the writing style, Mark? (Score:4, Insightful)
It reads like a press release for a product from some multi-billion dollar company; not a Linux distro. You can almost play bullshit bingo with that.
"Upstart knows everything it wants to be, the competition wants to be everything. Quality comes from focus and clarity of purpose, it comes from careful design and rigorous practices. .. For our future on cloud and client, Upstart is crisp, clean and correct."
"So there’s an opportunity to refresh the look. That will kick off with a project on typography to make sure we are expressing ourselves with crystal clarity – making the most of Ubuntu’s Light and Medium font weights for a start. And a project on iconography, with the University of Reading, to refine the look of apps and interfaces throughout the platform."
"In our artistic explorations we want to embrace tessellation as an expression of the part-digital, part-organic nature of Ubuntu. We love the way tessellated art expresses both the precision and reliability of our foundations, and the freedom and collaboration of a project driven by people making stuff for people. There’s nothing quixotic in our desire to make Ubuntu the easiest, steadiest, and most beautiful way to live digitally."
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
for me its the install process, the others its 1 disc and its like 90% of what I need already there in record time, debian wants to reach out for every single thing and when you have a shit internet (like I have 1Mbs) just getting a base system installed with a command prompt can turn into a couple hours
I would rather use debian, I am rather fond of it ... though I would rather just get an os on the machine and go about whatever it was I wanted to do
Re:faster release cycle - counterpoint (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, in the spirit of discussion, let's try a counter-view
What happens if a user wants to "relax"? I'm still on XP because as far back as the MS "Longhorn" previews in 2004 to a fighting edge in 2009, XP was the workhorse, the OS that just got $hit done while MS fiddled with Vista. Sorry, I'll live with crap bugs in an App, but not an OS. So currently Win7 looks legit, sure, but I need more perspective than that. I need to know what's beyond Win8 Metro-iOS Wannabe. I need to see what Win9 becomes.
Back to Ubuntu. I got burned by Ubuntu TWICE, (with no data risk, fortunately just testing!) once with what later became a known bug in Dapper Drake in 2006, and one last year with whatever-damn-distro-year it was, my test machine was doing fine until one of the new releases completely melted it and it refused to boot. Nope. NOT HAVING THAT on anything resembling a "production" machine. That was the end of Ubuntu for me. Why can't they just do "updates that work" like (gasp, wait for it) MS? "Service Pack 1,2,3" are basically seamless updates to the XP core, and yes, it basically Just Works.
I refuse to remotely back up my data and re-install every six months because the Ubuntu Updater can't competently update between versions.
Re:Completely irrelevent to me (Score:4, Insightful)
With ubuntu this has never been my experience. Instead it gets ignored and you get bothered every 5 months to a year being asked "does it work on the latest version"?
I've reported plenty of bugs to Launchpad. Sometimes bugs do get ignored, others get fixed immediately. It depends on the nature of the bug - Canonical isn't known for being a major developing force in the Linux kernel area, for example, but I reported a couple of bugs against the HUD feature a few months ago and they indeed got fixed, which involved going back to the design team and then to developers. They have a good workflow set up, but as a distribution with finite developing manpower they can't possibly fix everything. I wish Launchpad had automatic upstreaming for certain packages (especially those in Universe), but for packages in Main I can't complain.
Linux users (and that extends to most Free/Open Source software users) tend to have this annoying sense of entitlement that unnecessarily stresses relations with developers and turns everything into a flamewar. "Why doesn't MY bug get fixed?", ignoring how many OTHER bugs (likely of broader importance) get fixed, "Why don't you do this THIS way?", without bothering to consider that there might be an underlying design principle, or that your preferences represent those of a minority. My favourite is "That's it, I'm moving to Mint/back to Windows". Good riddance. Only in most cases they don't -- empty threats are a valid way of seeking attention, apparently.