Canonical Finally Lets Users Move The Unity Launcher To Bottom In Ubuntu 16.04 (softpedia.com) 176
prisoninmate writes from an article on Softpedia: It is official, the packages needed to move the Unity Launcher of Ubuntu Linux to the bottom of the screen have finally landed in the main repositories of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, due for release on April 21, 2016. Softpedia reported that Ubuntu users might be able to move the Unity7 Launcher at the bottom edge as a rumor in February -- but now they confirm it finally landed for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It is not known if Canonical will implement a visual setting in the Apperance/Behaviour panel for users to easily switch between having the Unity Launcher on the left of at the bottom of the screen for the final release of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, but you can do it by running a simple command.
news for nerds (Score:3, Insightful)
stuff that matters.
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Indeed! Important stuff, this.
Re:news for nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed! Important stuff, this.
Despite your sarcasm, I think it's "important" to Linux folks who have been repeatedly ignored by Ubuntu's trend to force its choices on everyone. (And yes, I know there are different flavors of Ubuntu, etc. But I haven't used any of them as a primary OS in nearly a decade, because I saw how broken Ubuntu's model was getting even back in 2007 or so.)
There's always a trade-off that Linux folks (and UI designers in general) debate -- more customizability and options (which often introduce more opportunities for things to break) vs. streamlining and less customizability. Apple, for example, tends to trend far toward the latter, having a "take it or leave it" attitude.
Many people were (and still are) unhappy with Unity and saw Canonical's choices in that regard as part of this "take it or leave it" attitude. Those who were willing to stick with Unity still wanted a little customizability.
Here's some minor victory for those folks. To me, I read a story like this in the context that some hope this might be a broader trend toward flexibility in Canonical's policies -- this has been one of the most requested features since the shift to Unity, but Canonical has been unresponsive.
Personally, I doubt this is indicative of a broader trend. But that's why I assume some people view this as important.
Re:news for nerds (Score:4, Informative)
There's always a trade-off that Linux folks (and UI designers in general) debate -- more customizability and options (which often introduce more opportunities for things to break) vs. streamlining and less customizability.
No. Fuck that. That is not the case for the vast majority of these types of issues.
In the majority of cases, the options were previously there, and they options still exist within the codebase, but they have removed the ability to toggle that option via a friendly configuration panel, and may go so far as to bury it further or go to extra lengths to make it difficult to re-enable. If you have to use gconf-editor, gsettings commands, chrome://flags, about:flags, about:config, gpedit.msc, opera:config, etc etc etc... then, IMO, they're doing it wrong - it's awkward, unorganized, and just a shitty way to abandon the responsibility of laying out configuration screens nicely. Some examples:
* window menu, minimize, maximize, close buttons should be easily positionable on the title bar. If they can be moved elsewhere, it should be easy to move them back and put them in any order on either side in any mix of left/right/etc. ... Help lists) should be their own menu bar. if they can be moved elsewhere or are by default (ex. to global menu bar, or integrated into the application title bar), it should be easy to move them back. It should also be easy to re-arrange them or add/remove items, but that's fine being an advanced option.
* application menu (the typical File, Edit,
* window borders should be theme-able, at least with respect to their size (from 0 to N pixels wide). Some desktop themese in the paste have had zero or 1 pixel wide side borders which makes it impossible or very difficult to grab them and resize the window. If that's what someone wants, that's fine, but leave the option to make them larger - it's almost always within the codebase already!
* docks / start menus / what-have-you should be easy to move to any edge, span the width or resize and float left, right, or center, autohide, etc etc etc. All the things they were able to do over a decade ago by simply dragging and dropping things. If it's so difficult to allow that, then there is something wrong.
These sorts of changes don't just make things difficult, they make things completely unacceptable for some very well established workflows. For me, the global menu debacle forced my hand. I've used focus follows mouse (no autoraise) for nearly 2 decades. I'm not budging on that. They have since compromised, but that was also a dumb move IMO. Just add an easy option to stick it back on its own bar and everyone would be happy (something like settings -> appearance -> window manager -> application menu placement). Why fight against your users on options that take zero additional code (they already have to have code to account for a variable number of menu bars and variable layout of said bars).
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What you really want to say is, I am old and have got set in my ways and trying to force change on me, makes me want to go all GOD (grumpy old dude or dudette) on your ass. Not that there is anything wrong with that and I personally do agree with you but sometimes the more informal response is the better response. So forcing changes to stuff people have spent decades getting used to, practising and doing without even thinking about it any more. So they can focus on what they are doing and not how they are d
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This is not furniture, this is changing work tools, so that their use is no longer natural to the person that trained with them. So for an extended period they make frustrating errors, again and again and again, hugely impacting the work effort for months. I am older and I swapped from GUI to GUI and I know full well how disruptive that is and it last for months and you lose a shit bucket ton of productivity and the hate those who made the changes a little more, each and every time the work flow is disrupt
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Disagreeing on delivery not on content. I felt that politeness and pointing out the changes (the impact of the changes is then questionable) did not properly carry across the real impact of the changes and the emotions generated, in a somewhat satirical and humorous fashion. Sometimes politely pointing out things and clinically dissecting the changes, does not really get the point across about the real impact of those changes and a more challenging approach is required, a reminder of the emotions being gen
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For me, the global menu debacle forced my hand. I've used focus follows mouse (no autoraise) for nearly 2 decades. I'm not budging on that.
The point about docks I think is valid, but the above quote more than anything illustrates where you're coming from on the other points. You want KDE, but you don't.
The features take 'zero additional code' but you don't want to enable them. If I were Mark Shuttleworth, I'd pay someone to take a user like you off my hands to a different vendor's product.
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You want KDE, but you don't.
You don't know what you're talking about.
In all honesty, I have no need for a DE at all. I currently use one only because I do have a need for:
* workspace switcher of some sort, preferably with tiny previews of what's on the virtual desktops
* a clock
* a couple widgets (task tray / notification area)
* list of current windows (ex. task bar)
* a window manager
* (on my laptops) network manager, because I hate dealing with wifi via other methods
I can easily put that together from a handful of disparate projects t
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Ubuntu is not for you, nor for anyone who says "I have no need for a DE at all". Seriously.
Windows 8 made very similar mistakes. It's all quite obvious, and loads and loads of people yelled and warned and such, but they stubbornly went ahead anyway and ignored their base.
You have made yourself eminently ignorable, as you ignore Ubuntu's vision for what a desktop should be while you want to dispense with desktop environments. That's cuckoo...
If you want an amorphous, free-form OS with no particular roles or use cases enforced in their development process then I'd suggest you use debian or fedora or some other random pile of bits.
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Ubuntu has dozens of DE and window managers in the repos, it's trivial to set up yourself with some bland fluxbox or anything, there's even the antique mwm if you want to try. It's Windows 3.0 without the Program Manager, thus past the two minutes of fun I felt this was a glaring omission. (and that cool clock that would still show the time when minimized)
I would like to try CDE next time (on 16.04 / Mint 18)
Lastly even the supported environments are available in an amorphous and free-form way. You can inst
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Those WMs are only there because debian packages them.
Dozens of WMs in the repos does not translate into dozens of versions of each graphical Howto. Hence, those WMs are not really supported. Where is the official documentation showing peripheral configuration or troubleshooting from those environments? You think Canonical runs detailed tests on them? Ha...
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By that measure at least 95% of software is unsupported.
I really don't understand your rant, Ubuntu (and Mint) is where there is the most software and hardware support, and the five years of updates is nothing to sneeze at either. It always was a version of debian with more software in the repos and a bit more chance of working drivers, so we can use it whether or not we have to care about your "official vision" and official graphical how-to for noobs, which are probably irrelevant : noobs won't be able to
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Most software in free repos really is unsupported. Smart distros like Ubuntu focus on a core OS and some select applications. That's why they can concentrate on fixing regressions from upstream, like the one that shows your desktop+apps while the screen is locked. Other distros like Fedora just let the bug report sit there for years.
What's funny about this conversation is that (apart from slagging 'noobs' in typical fashion) you don't seem to recognize the common thread of user-orientation that runs through
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I think it's "important" to Linux folks who have been repeatedly ignored by Ubuntu's trend to force its choices on everyone.
In other circles, this comment would be a parody of FOSS groupthink. On /. it passes as 'insight'.
The most draconian thing about Ubuntu is that -- like Mozilla -- if you change the distro in any way you have to rename it before redistributing it.
Otherwise, you are free to use Linux in any of the loosy-goosie distros that only vaaaaaaaguely care about usable personal computers, along with all the dick-waving about "my server-grade OS with the very shiny candy-of-the-month on top". In fact, Canonical gives yo
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stuff that matters.
All the same, according to the Steam Hardware and Software Survey [steampowered.com] for February, about 40% of Linux gamers have chosen Ubuntu. Those are good numbers for a Linux distribution. It's a pity that they translate to a bare 0.4% of all Steam gamers, but you can't have everything.
Thank you, slashdot, for the reminder (Score:2)
what? (Score:3)
What is so unique about the launcher that it cannot simply be repositioned like any other GUI element? I understand keeping it snapped to an edge of the screen but I'm at a loss to why updates should even be necessary in the first place.
I don't use ubunto so what am I missing?
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I don't use ubunto so what am I missing?
Nothing whatsoever since Linux Mint became a thing.
Ubuntu has lost its way, and is now meandering about looking for a purpose.
Re: what? (Score:1)
As a mint user you'd certainly notice if Ubuntu went away.
Re:what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing. When Microsoft decided to throw away decades of experience and dumb down the user interface to make it "easy to use", Canonical jumped on the band wagon and made a dreadfully stupid user interface called 'Unity'... It's lame and cannot be customized. This spawned Mint Linux, which is a fork of Ubuntu to make a distribution with a useful user interface since the Gnome idiots broke Gnome, then Canonical broke Ubuntu.
In my mind, it's all an exercise in stupidity since my 88 year old Father used Windows 7 just fine. When his computer broke, he went to buy a new one, looked at the latest Windows, and bought a Mac instead. So ... like the current presidential election, the "brains" designing User Interfaces are competing in a race to the bottom of the usability ladder.
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In it's defense, Unity was/is fantastic on a smaller (9" netbook, 12" laptop) screen compared to alternatives. The original name was "Ubuntu Netbook Remix", which should be a hint as to the target device. The sidebar would hide, application windows maximized, and the menubar/titlebar merge at the top of the screen was perfect. Plus it was far, far faster and lower resource tha
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Wow, one man's "meh" is another man's glowing Chernobyl.
I jumped ship all the way to PC-BSD. The killer features (e.g. ZFS boot environments) have so far (for me) offset the learning curve and numerous small annoyances. Killer features showing no signs of going away, and the small annoyances have lessened with each new release. Would have been such a great business model for Canonical. Too bad they chose something else.
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Not to get all "get off my lawn" or anything, but the first GUI computer I owned was a Macintosh 512. It's not the first GUI I ever used, but I've lost track of the different incarnations of MacOS, Windows, X11, and various handhelds I've used over the years. I've used more X11 window managers than I can name, but I remember starting with twm on an X terminal. You know what? They don't really matter that
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Unity's window management makes me want to puke. I used to love Ubuntu, but nowadays, ugh.
What I love about Unity is how Mac-like it is. I have the choice of switching between windows within an app or between the apps themselves -- which is extremely handy.
Re: what? (Score:2)
So true. My job and the one I am applying for is 75% MS centric and I like office and SWTOR so I run Linux in a few VMS and use Windows as the host.
Just tried Windows 10_yesterday. Holy crap I can't even put on my documents, my pictures, and custom folders with my VMs. I can't adjust height. Pin it means make a freaking big ass tile.
Linux I just type stuff mostly, but this is getting ridiculous! I never thought I would go back to win 8.1 because I use a paid start menu from Stardock that is not compatible w
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Well, for OS X you might want to check out the Flavours App [interacto.net] which works with Yosemite and older (security policy changes in El Capitan seem to have blocked it). I've had some fun with it on my old MacBook (running 10.7)
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There is a lot wrong with Windows 10's UI. Just because you find it usable doesn't mean there's no room for improvement.
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There's nothing wrong with Windows 10's UI. Not being used to something doesn't mean it's bad.
Except for the tiles. And the stupid corners. And the constant switch between classic interface and metro or whatever the name.
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That's like choosing the piece of shit that stinks slightly less and calling it perfume. The Start menu is terrible because the programs are not organized. Unlike this. [efytimes.com]
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So, you've memorized the names of all the programs you have installed there?
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Hipsters can ruin UIs like nobody else. (Score:5, Insightful)
It all makes perfect sense when you think about who has been responsible for most software UIs developed over the past 5 to 10 years: hipsters.
Let's clear up a few misconceptions to begin with. Firstly, "hipster" isn't just some vague scapegoat. It's a well-defined culture that places emphasis on design, on style, on trendiness, on being different just for the sake of being different, of putting appearance over usability, and of the practitioner having an unhealthily large ego. Secondly, as it's a culture, hipsters can be of any age. Thirdly, normal people find hipsters extremely distasteful, and normal people will go out of their way not to deal with hipsters, even if this means changing careers.
So the situation is this: from the advent of computing up until the mid 2000s, user interfaces were designed and developed by professionals. They had the best interests of their user in mind. Then around 2005 we started to see hipsters flood into the software UI field. This was initially due to the failing of the print media industry, where they had mainly been isolated before. As they collectively moved to web design and software UI design, they quickly drowned out and drove out the professionals who had given us practical, usable UIs.
These hipsters believe that the always know what's best for the user. It's not a matter of asking the user what they want, or getting feedback, or performing studies about how users use the UIs. When it comes to hipster-designed UIs, they always know exactly what's right, even when it's totally wrong in practice. If a UI doesn't work well for a user, it's not the broken UI that's at fault, it's the user, at least according to hipsters. This is why we've seen numerous UI disasters from hipsters, including Firefox, GNOME 3, Chrome, Windows 8 and 10, Unity, and Slashdot Beta.
A lot of the UI problems we encounter today would have been inconceivable in 2000, back when professionals ran the show and did the work. But that's because, at the time, we didn't realize just how backward things would get with hipsters involved. We didn't realize that there were some people (hipsters) who were so sure of themselves that they would essentially tell users to "fuck off and die" when these users brought legitimate complaints about the UIs to the table. As professionals the thought of putting the user second to ourselves never even crossed our mind. While we worked for the users, the hipsters work for themselves and the satisfaction of their own "creative needs" at the expense of the user.
Until the hipsters either leave the industry (because it has become "untrendy"), or until are driven out for the way they've treated users and professional UI designers so awfully, we will be continually subjected to terrible UIs that fail in the most basic of ways.
Re: Hipsters can ruin UIs like nobody else. (Score:1)
Re:Hipsters can ruin UIs like nobody else. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hipsters can ruin UIs like nobody else
I gave all my points to this post.
I also say an even worse problem has been added with these 'new' so-called UX 'experts.' As a software engineer I strive to give the user what they want within the context of the software itself. I say; "They are the ones who use it everyday, I just program it."
I've literally heard these UX twits exclaim; "I tell the users what they want!" Hubris and stupidity like that are as exactly as the OP said. It's the ruin of a lot of what would otherwise be good software. One need look no further than Firefox, were the UX Idiots think taking away features is a good thing.
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"It's a well-defined culture that places emphasis on design, on style, on trendiness, on being different just for the sake of being different, of putting appearance over usability, and of the practitioner having an unhealthily large ego."
Oh, you youngin's.
I heard that same bullshit about software before the word hipster was ever first uttered.
It's not different just to be different, it's different to be better. Like all software changes always forever.
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Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)
That bug report is an excellent example of how Canonical's process will bog down on trivial things and cause greater execution to be missed. To doggedly refuse to move because "reasons" and then suggest that people simply use other interfaces... well it's no wonder Unity got so little actual adoption.
Why would I want my workstation to have the same interface as a netbook that hasn't been useful for 5 years, or a phone that should have come out 5 years ago but didn't because of endless dithering and back and forth? (and I"m sure "reasons")
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What is so unique about the launcher that it cannot simply be repositioned like any other GUI element? I understand keeping it snapped to an edge of the screen but I'm at a loss to why updates should even be necessary in the first place.
Sounds like Canonical was taking a page from Microsoft's book and trying to tell users how they "should" use their computers.
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Now fix the menu bar! (Score:1)
I can't' drag my non-maximized windows all the way to the top, that is ridiculous!
minimal install lets you move it off your screen! (Score:3)
I quite like ubuntu when used as a base system via a minimal install... doing xorg yourself and choosing your own UI is not painful at all these days as xorg.conf is automatic for pretty much everything... dual GPU can require a few manual lines to point the display server in the right direction but that's way better than it used to be.
dmenu instead of unity launcher, then pick your window manager e.g i3wm... done.
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Personally, I like Cinnamon as my desktop-environment when using Linux. It's clean and tasteful, without being too dumbed-down or anything.
Same here....I like Mint's look and I agree, it's clean and tasteful. It's also a straightforward and uncluttered design, looks very nice.
I've not seen the issue you mention with removable media but then I don't do a lot of that, mostly USB drives.
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Re:minimal install lets you move it off your scree (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been a computer guru for 40 years, and the problem with this is ... I don't even know how to do this anymore. Sure I have been messing with Linux since it came on disks in PC Magazine, and downloaded distributions from BBS sites. Have compiled kernels and configured X. I have even written X based software. Sure, I could figure out how to do it.
But I don't care!
I installed Mint Cinnamon, and I'm done. I don't want a minimal install, because then I have to spend hours in apt-get or Synaptic or something looking for everything that should be there and isn't. Hard disk space is cheap. I install about everything and just turn off what I don't want to use. If I want it later, it's there and already partially configured.
All of this stuff was fun once. I would spend DAYS getting it just the way I wanted it, and then some new release would come out I wanted, which wouldn't install because I had changed stuff so that the installer got confused, or some bug was uncovered and something I needed didn't work. After you get used to something and then stuff doesn't work anymore because some patch you needed put stuff back to the default settings, or broke a dependency.
So for me, Ubuntu is broken and I don't want to fix it. I use Mint as a desktop, Ubuntu as a development server because it always has current stuff, and Cent OS for Enterprise reliability because it's bulletproof.
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All of this stuff was fun once. I would spend DAYS getting it just the way I wanted it
Yeah, I was like that too, way back when. :) I loved configuring and tweaking everything, getting it just the way I wanted it....
But it gets old and tedious after a while, and these days I have stuff I have to get done. No more time or interest in fiddling with all that shit just to get it the way I want.
I put Mint on my laptop and everything worked right out of the box, no problem whatsoever. Everything worked and the desktop is just about perfect for me. The only thing I did was resize the icons to be a b
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I have been a computer guru for 40 years, and the problem with this is ... I don't even know how to do this anymore
Feel free to not burden with it, really. But on debian/ubuntu it's very easy : you apt-get install xorg, alsa (alsa-base and alsa-utils), a bare desktop such as lxde or xfce4 - bare enough to not come with a pdf reader and a CD-R burner, but still with the configuration GUIs, perhaps a basic selection of themes and in lxde's case a text editor and image viewer etc.
It all sets up automatically and if you install a login manager (either at the same time or after), to not have to run 'startx', that sets up its
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Thanks for clarifying that. In my mind crazy customizations aren't really needed (if it e.g. amounts to a configuration file for the window manager in $HOME, I can't see how that would go wrong). /etc. I can see that sort of thing opening such can of worms (small o
Like custom versions of software, or adding stuff like Pulseaudio or NetworkManager to your dekstop session - here I would use the PC with Alsa only and install wicd instead. Setting up a daemon to automount USB drives?, with some custom config in
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... All of this stuff was fun once. I would spend DAYS getting it just the way I wanted it, and then some new release would come out I wanted, which wouldn't install because I had changed stuff so that the installer got confused...
I know what you mean, and i'm definitely not a fan of having to spend hours configuring things, i'm not one of those people who wants to "get everything just how i want it" sacrificing hours or days in the process... however i am a fan of being minimal, not because of hard disk space or anything... i'm happy to install away loads of space, my problem is i don't want to crowd my workspace... i'm perfectly happy running a usable tiling window manager and dmenu and that's it... i get fed up of big desktop UIs
and nothing of value was gained (Score:3, Informative)
While I fully agree that all gui elements should be movable, I really don't get why anyone still thinks that menu/task bars should be on the bottom. Every laptop or desktop monitor since like forever has a cinema aspect ratio, so vertical pixels are at a premium. Why waste them on stuff outside the active window? I cringe every time someone decides to present a document in some meeting, leaving the taskbar at the bottom (and the app's ribbon visible at the top), with room for maybe a paragraph at a time visible.
Just because teh first time you saw a Windows taskbar it was on the bottom is no reason to think it makes any sense to leave it there.
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I don't think you're taking into account two things:
1) Modern workstation monitor mounts allow you to rotate your monitor vertically. I have several coworkers using Ubuntu and monitors like this; why should they be punished?
2) The sheer volume of things some of us have open to get work done can fill a vertically oriented taskbar quickly. Why shouldn't I be able to take advantage of the longest edge?
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I really don't get why anyone still thinks that menu/task bars should be on the bottom.
Because I like it there. Is it so hard to believe it could be that simple?
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because logic aside, we evolved to look at stuff horizontally. this is why our monitors have more horizontal space.
the vertical bar clashes with our (my) notion of what looks 'right.'
Re:and nothing of value was gained (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't get why anyone still thinks that menu/task bars should be on the bottom.
Because that's where I fucking want it to be, okay? Is that clear enough for you?
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Because that's where I fucking want it to be, okay? Is that clear enough for you?
This is why I use KDE.
It allows me to bit-twiddle it until I have it the way I like it, not someone else's idea about how my workspace should look/work.
The KDE team tried removing features once because of the stupid idea that if a user has to adjust the interface, the designer has failed. No designer is omniscient and can predict the needs of a particular user to the finest detail (religious nuts may have a problem with this)
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No designer is omniscient and can predict the needs of a particular user to the finest detail
Exactly. One size does not fit all, regardless of what some designed has deluded him- or herself into believing.
Any designer that doesn't understand this is not a "designer", they are a simple-minded authoritarian hack.
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Huh. It's weird for you to have used such strong language to avoid answering the question, which let me boil it down for you was why? Stating that you want it at the bottom isn't an answer.
So, no, it wasn't clear enough for us because it wasn't clear at all. Try again and be less vulgar this time.
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Huh. It's weird for you to have used such strong language to avoid answering the question, which let me boil it down for you was why? Stating that you want it at the bottom isn't an answer.
So, no, it wasn't clear enough for us because it wasn't clear at all. Try again and be less vulgar this time.
Because I prefer it there. Hopefully this will clear up your confusion.
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Nope. You still haven't answered the question, which was "why" not "what". It's just baffling that you are either unwilling or incapable of answering a question which makes you apparently very angry. Is it that you are unwilling? You know the reason why, but won't say it? Or do you not know why, yet are strangely angered by the question?
Good luck getting through life. If this is a common problem for you then I bet you often have a tough go of it.
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Nope. You still haven't answered the question, which was "why" not "what".
Again, the "why" is because I like it that way. No other reason is necessary.
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That you like it that way is a good reason to put it in that position. It is not a reason why you like it. (The original comment was "*why* anyone still thinks that menu/task bars should be on the bottom(?)"). You still think that. Wonderful. But that doesn't address the question of why you think that.
Your feeble ability to understand (or willingness to acknowledge) this distinction must be crippling for your day-to-day activities.
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That you like it that way is a good reason to put it in that position. It is not a reason why you like it.
Some people are hard of hearing; you're hard of thinking.
To recap, the reason I want it at the bottom is because I like it there.
I'm sorry if you're having trouble understanding this, but I can type slower if you need me to.
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A busy Unity taskbar on a 768-height display isn't pretty.
Anyway, with hig res both can be done.
Xfce's vertical side bar is interesting, with probable room for improvement.
A Windows 95 taskbar served by Mate, XFCE etc. is nice too : you can set it thin (e.g. 26 pixels), keep it on a single row and the high width makes it better. There's room for everything : start menu and shortcuts in the bottom left, system tray and clock and applets in the bottom right, space for a good number of running applications or
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PSA: Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS (Score:1)
FYI: 16.04 will be the first LTS for Ubuntu MATE.
I've been using Ubuntu Mate 15.10. It's more polished than XFCE and Mint MATE, and it looks better than Unity or anything GNOME3-based.
I suspect that a large percentage of Ubuntu/Gubuntu/Xubuntu/Mint users will switch to Ubuntu MATE when they find out it exists.
--
If you accidentally downloaded the vanilla ISO with Unity:
# apt-get install -y mate-desktop
Then logout, choose MATE at the login menu, enter your password, and enjoy a better desktop environment. Onc
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I don't doubt that Mate may be "more polished" than Xfce. I tried Cinnamon and it was much prettier. Xfce is sort of "no frills" in the appearance department. But when it comes to functionality, Xfce is the best I've found. Like Gnome2 in the old days, it lets you define panels, size them and put them where you want. And then you can create launchers for applications, urls, or files and drag those you your panels. This is a most useful feature that I've only found in Xfce. Can Mate do that?
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Yes Gnome 2 and Mate have always excelled in dragging launcher to the panels, including from the applications menu. :).
The easiest way to describe Mate is : it's Gnome 2. It's a bit like the difference between Xfce 4.8 and Xfce 4.10, more of the same
If you use something called "Gnome flashback" or "Gnome Classic" from a computer that has Gnome 3 or Unity installed : It's a trap! not Mate at all.
Where Mate seems dated is multi-monitor support. Works fine but it's like the classic Windows 98, XP and 7 thing w
Unity is a giant Compiz Plugin? (Score:2)
Isn't Unity just a compiz plugin [wordpress.com]?
What?? Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
"...the packages needed to move the Unity Launcher of Ubuntu Linux to the bottom of the screen have finally landed in the main repositories"
Wow, such innovation, being able to move the launcher to the bottom of the screen. OMFG we're living in the FUTURE!!!!
Where will all this forward-thinking and amazing creativity end? Who knows what amazing ideas they'll come up with next- maybe being able to change the color of the desktop background, or making the background a picture??
The mind boggles at all these incredible new features. I mean, being able to put the launcher at the bottom...will wonders never cease??
Why is this even an issue? (Score:3)
WTF? Seriously, with any decent X11 window manager (I use fvwm), this is a configuration setting where you specify the position. Have they implemented a non-conforming X11 application for this "launcher" and crippled it thereby?
Finally (Score:2)
In any WM/desktop I've use I've always had the launcher at the bottom. The fact that Unity now has it makes me very happy.
Big whoop. Fix the packages and upgrading. (Score:2)
What Canonical needs to focus on is fixing their upgrade process and broken packages. Buggy packages in LTS releases don’t get bug fixes, so we’re forced to upgrade servers to non-LTS releases just to get things working properly. And basically everyone who upgraded to 15.10 got a broken system until they realized that the upgrade did not install a new kernel, instead leaving you with one that caused all kinds of crashes due to a mismatch between kernel and userspace libraries and services.
God complex (Score:2)
Now if they would only deign to once again allow us mere users (and actual owners of the hardware) to decide where we want the window buttons (i.e. on the right like pretty much every other frikin GUI in the world).
Old school (Score:2)
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I cannot believe this has been a feature. Unable to arrange my desktop how I want?...
Why do people tolerate been told what to do?
Because they are not. If you like Unity the way it is, use it. If not, use Ubuntu with a different DE. Not rocket science.
From a UI design POV there certainly are advantages to lock down some things. Whether it is worth the trade-off must be carefully considered of course.
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Do they? Gnome has lost popularity, Ubuntu has lost popularity, Microsoft has lost popularity, Mint and Apple have gained popularity. Idiots decide they know what the world needs, and dumb down the world because they think they know best, and the world votes with it's choices.
Now if someone would just shoot Jony Ive so that I don't have to buy a $3k computer with 5k resolution and billions of colors to stare at flat monochrome graphics because Jony thinks it is beautiful simplicity, or some such nonsense.
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in the free software community they don't tolerate it.
if a given distribution or OS decides to go in a direction that the users disagree with, the users are free to switch to another.
this is why having 20 to 30 distributions isn't a bad thing.
there will always be a hand full that sit at the top of the food chain with the strongest user base.
if one of these fucks up and really pisses on it's users, those same users will start looking for alternatives.
because distributions can be based off of other distributi
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Re: Is it still spyware? (Score:2)
That Mint that was hacked and distributed malware in it's distribution?
I was under the impression that Mint is SystemD-free; was I mistaken?
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Mint is simply a skin over ubuntu (or debian). They don't have much say in these matters. All of their eggs are mostly in the gui side of things and what package management they do is usually not of the quality that you would want from a distro ripping out the entire kitchen plumbing.
The current mint is based on ubuntu 14.04 which doesn't have systemd yet but mint 18 will.
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I keep hearing about this happening, where systemd will apparently take your OS right off a cliff and end in a twisted flaming wreck at the bottom. However, I've been running over a hundred Linux servers where it hasn't happened even once.
Yeah, I know, small sample size, etc. However, if you listen to the systemd hate around, here, it sounds like this is happening every other day. Is this just groupthink and 'haters be hatin', a case of people not bothering to learn the new way because INIT must be super
Re: Slow news day? (Score:1)
Yes this is really news for geeks and nerds. If you choose not to like the articles on this site then please go somewhere else. The internet is an incredible place to explore. But please don't post silly comments because you don't like the article, others may be interested in the latest information. This is just as silly as making a comment in an Windows article about how you had a come Jesus moment and migrated all your home computers to a Linux based distro. You are not adding anything to the discussion e
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Is KDE as good as it was back in the 3.5 days? I used to be a big KDE fan, but I jumped ship for XFCE when KDE 4 was coming out. I've always felt that KDE was doing a lot of things "the right way." Pretty much any component from any KDE application could be seamlessly embedded in any other KDE application. Everything got crashy when 4 came out, like worse than KDE 2 was.
One thing I really hate doing is mixing QT and GTK applications on the same desktop, so I've never really given KDE another try since p
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KDE 4.x got decent. I think that KDE SC 5 series still has some time to go before it gets good. With that said, TDE [trinitydesktop.org] is a perfectly good option for those of us that loved KDE 3.x (I use TDE on Fedora and Ubuntu). There again, I've also been playing around with MaXX desktop [maxxdesktop.co] (Linux port of SGI's 4DWM [nekochan.net]) on some lightweight systems (read Pentium II (IBM Thinkpad 600e) and III (Dell Latitude C400, Inspiron 8100) era) that I mainly use as remote/serial terminals.
Xfce (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that such a trivial customization is newsworthy tells you just how bad Unity is. There is nothing special about having a user defined layout of the desktop. Many other distros have provided such user freedom and Ubuntu did too in the past. But now the default desktop is Unity which goes out of it's way to take away user choice in the name of "unifying" the desktop between laptops and phones. Yes, you will have the same desktop and it will be crippled everywhere.
I like Ubuntu as an operating system. It's stable (if you use the LTS version), has the best and fastest security updates and is the Linux OS with the best hardware compatibility. But I can't tolerate Unity. So when I install Ubuntu, the first change I make is to go to the Ubuntu Software Center and search for xfce4 (the current xfce desktop) and install "Meta-package for the Xfce Lightweight Desktop Environment". This will let you choose which desktop you want each time you log on. You can use Unity where that is your preference and switch to Xfce when you want.
Xfce lets you define the exact size and positions of all panels. You can have docking panels on the sides, top, bottom.... wherever you want. But the best thing about Xfce is that it lets you create desktop launchers of your own. Just right click on the desktop, choose application launcher, url link, or file manager folder. And these launchers can be dragged to the panels you have created and docked there. Gnome used to let you do that, but no more. As far as I can determine, Xfce is the only desktop that empowers the user in such a useful way.
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Re:Xfce and Xubuntu (Score:3)
Good question. First you should ask yourself why there is a whole separate distribution just to support a different desktop. Xubuntu is a derivative of Ubuntu and is identical in most ways. But after copying most of Ubuntu, it's developers make a big deal out of changing the desktop. If they put all their effort into just perfecting that Xfce desktop on Ubuntu instead of being diverted by supporting the management of a separate distribution, they might have the time and resources to do a better job.
We h
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Because Xubuntu users want to have only the Xfce desktop, without having to install the Unity desktop first, which, if you're never going to use it, means you're just wasting hard disk space.
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Maybe that would mean that people were actually working on productive products and variants, instead of expending effort reinventing the wheel? Maybe that would prove, beyond any doubt, just how much better the Linux concept of interchangeable layers can be (as opposed to the monolithic Windows model)?
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Because Xubuntu users want to have only the Xfce desktop, without having to install the Unity desktop first, which, if you're never going to use it, means you're just wasting hard disk space.
Well, it can just be uninstalled. Or you can do it like other distros do and ask which one you want to have installed during the installation.
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Good reason... Changing the user interface engenders no less upheaval than changing the programming interfaces. Canonical realizes this, so they insist the name of the OS should provide at least a clue to the user. The UI is part of the identity of the OS in the eyes of users and app developers.
Why should Canonical "perfect" Xfce in their distro? Its not their vision for how their OS should look and behave, and standalone "DE" projects do not get that level of vertical integration (in fact, they form out of
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And Gnome Classic has eliminated user created launchers.
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I thought I had looked at most of them. Today I tried Mate and it is very good at such customization too. And it looks pretty. I was a KDE guy 15 years ago but it was not keeping up. That's when I went to Gnome. And then Gnome 3 forced me to move to Xfce. If Xfce fucks up, maybe I will consider KDE or Mate again.
BTW, the reason I said Xfce was the only desktop that empowers the user was that I was hoping someone like you would correct me. :) And it worked... twice.