Ubuntu 11.10 makes Unity compulsory

[Liam Proven]

On 3 April 2011 16:18, Basil Chupin <blchupin at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> On 04/04/2011 00:19, donn wrote:
>>
>> On 03/04/2011 15:41, David Gerard wrote:
>>>
>>> I still don't understand the weird step backwards in actual usability
>>> from UNR in 10.04 (last I used it) to Unity in 11.04.
>>
>> Personally I am terrified of the future of the my desktop. From the
>> screenshots and stories I have seen, the reliable old ways are going
>> extinct.
>> I can't imagine developing on my normal PC (not a laptop etc.) without
>> being able to:
>> * have multiple desktops
>> * have multiple apps on one screen at different sizes.
>> * switch with alt-tab or via a taskbar click.
>>
>> It's too horrible to imagine a one-screen-one-app kind of thing with slow
>> (or no) alt-tab switching. I rely on seeing 'stuff' in the background - a
>> terminal poking out, a bit of browser that I am reading text from, vim in
>> the foreground where I am working. Switch here, there, line some stuff up.
>> Go into Inkscape, pop a terminal down from the top, etc.
>>
>> Will the whole "power user" development flow be totally blown to hell? Not
>> to mention excluding everyone who has not bought a 3D card for the last 5
>> years?
>>
>> I ran away from KDE a few years ago. Mint Gnome has been good to me.
>> Whence the future?
>>
>> /d
>> <quivering in the corner>

Did I miss a message there or something?

> I have installed Ubuntu 11.04 beta 1 with its Unity and have concluded that,
> at this stage, Ubuntu with Unity is the same as "opensuse's KDE4-gate" when
> opensuse went KDE4. In other words, a total "cock-up" and as a result of
> which apparently people switched from opensuse to better Linux distros.

:¬) More or less, possibly, yes.

> Get the bloody thing right first before foisting it (in this case Unity!) on
> the users!

Quite. Although this will be at least the 2nd release of Unity & the -
what? - 4th or 5th since the dawn of the NBR?

> Using the "Classic Gnome", with or without the "effects", is neither here
> nor there as far as I am concerned: it works like the normal gnome and yet
> it doesn't work like the normal gnome (as we now know it, 2.3). And at the
> same time, Unity is using gnome settings while at the same not using them.
> In other words....it's a bloody mess at the moment :-( .

Yep.

> It has also been said that Ubuntu will not go with Gnome 3.xx. However,
> opensuse has rejected Unity and will go with gnome 3.xx. As a result I have
> downloaded the latest opensuse 11.4 to see what it looks like. (I ran SuSE
> for years before switching to Ubuntu because of KDE4 in opensuse.

For *years*? I ran SuSE  from 5.x to 9.x before I quit, but were there
really /years/ of KDE4?

> Now gnome
> 3.xx in opensuse may look alright; dunno, but it seems that it may be better
> than Unity at this point in time.)
>
> Re the bit about "Mint Gnome" above.
>
> Mint is only a 'fiddle' of Ubuntu so that what Mint will end up with is
> simply a fiddle of Ubuntu - that is Unity, no gnome. (If Ubuntu goes down
> the gurgle then there would be no Mint.)

Mint is a /bit/ more than that. It's its own family of distros
already. Firstly, there are versions of Mint with XFCE, LXDE, and KDE
as well GNOME already.

But I believe LeFebvre has said he will not be adopting Unity. Can't
recall where I read this. There is no Netbook Launcher version, for
instance.

What concerns me is if GNOME 2 goes out of support a while after GNOME
3 launches. Where then will the non-Unity GNOME 2.x users & distros
have left to go?

Anyone interested in helping trying to get a GNUstep or ROX Desktop
*buntu off the ground? :¬)

-- 
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