Unity 8 Desktop Session Arrives in Ubuntu 16.10 (omgubuntu.co.uk) 56
The latest updates to Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak add a Unity8 desktop session to the Ubuntu login screen. OMGUbuntu adds: Added to the Ubuntu meta package, the new Unity 8 desktop session will be available to try on all new installs and upgrades of Ubuntu 16.10, but only as an alternate login session to Unity 7. Unity 8 is not -- repeat: not -- going to be the default session in this release. Shipping it as a preview session is a great idea. It means to try Unity 8 on Ubuntu 16.10 you won't need to install a set of packages, or faff around with special set-up, or add a PPA. When at the Unity Greeter (aka the login screen) just click the session selector button, followed by 'Unity 8,' and then proceed to login as normal.
Errr (Score:3)
Did anyone else watch the video and see how much the guy was fussing around trying to dock the windows to the screen corners? I mean it looks like a slip of the mouse will maximise the window.
Looks a bit like a stupid design choice.
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They're all we have in the fight against the gremlins!
Re:Errr (Score:5, Funny)
Grehb34d! Aren't you familiar with the fundamental design principle of "nearly always break expectations"?
It's second in the commandments. Right after "nothing demonstrates your individuality like a shitty tattoo, especially one like all your co-workers at at Starbucks have".
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nothing demonstrates your individuality like a shitty tattoo, especially one like all your co-workers at Starbucks have
I'm going to steal this.
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3. don't be discoverable, instead have the user embark on a serendipitous journey of clicking and pointing so they may learn all the other features
4. Make every twitch and movement and location a significant event
5. Keep the userbase excited by altering location and actions of highly used features for each release, churn early, churn often
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That design problem afflicts the whole industry. They're obsessed with fisher price interfaces at the expense of usability.
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Yeah, exactly the stupid design choice I am talking about. Isn't this supposed to be a short cut to put a window in a certain position? If so it should be quick dirty and imprecise, not need careful mouse manipulation.
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'member when we used window managers and had a choice of how our system looked and worked, where we could pick the best window manager, the best file browser, the best music player and so on? This was back before "desktop environments" became all the rage and we were given the One True terminal/editor/browser/etc that the desktop environment "worked with".
You can still have those days back, all you have to do is give up on KDE and Gnome.
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That's not true.
You can use any application with any DE as long as you have the right libraries installed, the only exception I can think of are KDE widgets, which basically either are part of the KDE desktop anyway, or pretty damned useless, or stuff that is made specifically to use gnome's system tray, because the gnomes are idiots[1].
So, if you're a KDE user you can use thunderbird or mutt, mrxvt or gnome-terminal and if you're using a plain WM, konsole or dolphin still works too, provided that you have
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But I truly give a credit for the Ubuntu that they did a UI change which is optional. Ever since Windows 8 every UI change has been shoveled down the users throats as the poor users are so stupid they can not make a selection themselves which is best for them. The corporate UX departments know always what is best for us. Fortunately even on Ubuntu one can still change from default to a usable desktop environment.
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Except, you know, having forced unity down our throats to begin with. A change we didn't want, for reasons that are still unclear, and which has done nothing but dilute and corrupt the Ubuntu distro.
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I really wish they stuck with Gnome2, and kept it going.
You know, the desktop that Sun invested real UI research into.
That seems like it would have given the best shot at achieving their primary goal.
I really liked Gnome 2 though, the first time I booted into it, it was like, this is nice, all my takes at the bottom, and menus at the top. no wasted space like the OSX dock.
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The total bar height was the same as a KDE default bar or gnome panel from the last time I tried gnome.
Lack of accountability is valid, but I also think overblown, I used compiz as a window manager though.
Re: Errr (Score:1)
I use Mint 17. It doesn't try to be a cellphone & allows multiple open windows & no 'tiles' cluttering up the screen. Who asked for Unity?
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But I truly give a credit for the Ubuntu
I don't. Window's dramatic UI change was rolled back in the face of angry customers to Windows 10, a UI which for all intents and purposes except for the tile thingies no one uses is pretty much identical to that of Windows 7 with a theme change.
Unity... well you'll get to like it, trust us we know best.
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Isn't that already the case with Unity 7 (and Windows 7, and probably MacOS from some similar or probably older timeframe, since this seems like just the sort of UI stupidity that would have come from Apple originally).
And, like every thread on Linux innovations... (Score:1)
Re:And, like every thread on Linux innovations... (Score:5, Funny)
Systemd trolls coming in 3, 2, 1, ...
I think you meant 3 ... [pause] [pause] [pause] [pause] ... 2 ... [pause] [pause] [pause] ........
Wait a bit longer (Score:4, Funny)
Systemd trolls coming in 3, 2, 1, ...
Their system hasn't booted yet.
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Systemd trolls coming in 3, 2, 1, ...
Their system hasn't booted yet.
Irony.
That's it? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been many months since I last tried Unity 8, and I'm quite disappointed to see the current state. With the focus Canonical has claimed towards convergence, I expected it to present a much friendlier interface by now... yet it doesn't appear to have progressed at all. Are they spending all their time on it fixing Mir, or building yet another web browser which no one is going to use?
At this rate, when will it be ready for "real" users? 18.04? If that's their pace, why bother? Considering the other *complete* desktops are already building steam with Wayland, can Unity 8 hope to be anything except underwhelming when it finally crosses the finish line? Wayland's bound to be more feature-complete and stable than Mir when all is said and done due to the multiple desktop implementations being built on it, and those desktops have years of development over the components that Unity 8's now building from scratch.
I've always been an Ubuntu supporter, but Canonical just seems too stubborn to steer away from the lighthouse now. It's frustrating to see a company I like wasting their time and resources hoping for a revolutionary product where there's no particular market or demand, as they've done with the phone.
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Was I the only one thinking of the game engine? (Score:2)
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This version runs 8-bit console games?
Why keep promoting something no one wants? (Score:3, Insightful)
No one likes Unity. No one. Not one single person. The only people who use it are Linux-noobs who were suckered into believing Ubuntu with the default desktop is a good choice.
Why is this still being developed? No one who knows better uses it 'cause it's crap.
Shuttleworth is NOT Steve Jobs although he wants to be. He doesn't have the magic ability to tell people that a crap product is great and have them all blindly believe it.
(I am not a troll. I'm a professional Linux developer, and noobs and senior people alike - without exception - find Unity to be unusable garbage)
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I'm a full time Linux sysadmin and regular Linux desktop user. I have extensive experience with a variety of Linux DEs. Guess what? I really like Unity. It's not perfect, but it's certainly very usable and makes for a great every day desktop. I use it as my daily driver at work, as do most of my team. Also at home too, although I tend to lean towards macOS there.
GNOME flashback (Score:2)
GNOME flashback is still the only desktop environment usable on Ubuntu.
I don't understand why they're still trying to reinvent the wheel with their crap.
Plz Unity 8 don't mess with what I like in Unity 7 (Score:1)