Ubuntu 14.10 Is Codenamed The Utopic Unicorn

[M1kkko]

And I'm sure you have numbers to back up your anecdotal evidence? Or maybe you think "vocal minority on the internet" equals "many people"?

Ubuntu is going in an exciting direction. Unification is not about being pals to the boring developments of the majority. For those who can read, the unification pedantic Shuttleworth talks about is the holy grail even Microsoft can't seem to achieve: a single codebase for both the OS and apps spanning every electronic information device, from phones to TVs and the Internet of Things. Hardcore users who despise this effort can live happily with their Debian or Fedora or whatever other distro they wish. What they don't need to do is posting again and again how unhappy they are with Canonicals decisions. It's not like Canonical forces anyone to use or implement their ideas.

To be honest, at first I was about to say something like "they're going to a really horrible direction" but I correctly guessed that there would be someone defending Canonical. And I'm not saying you're wrong, either.

But there still are many, well, some, people who don't like to use a "mobile phone / desktop computer -hybrid OS" on both their desktop and phone, but actually want those to be two separate experiences, one that is designed for a phone and one that is designed for a desktop. (The OS kernel and internals can be the same, but the UI should be different because the input device, size of display and use cases are inherently different) And do I really want the same thing also on a TV that usually lacks a mouse and surely doesn't have a touch screen?

There are also other problems with Canonical. They seem to be overly enthusiastic in developing everything of their own, yet they lack the required manpower and end up either releasing poor quality software (look at the unity desktop for the first few ubuntu releases starting from 11.04) or copying from others (look at mir/xmir). Also they are lead by a visionary that lacks vision and changes the project's direction every four weeks. Look at them praising these "windicators" in 2010 or wayland or the "me menu" or the "power cog" (why is that thing still around?!? I wonder if the phone version will have it?) and it becomes apparent that no matter how much I want them to be these glorious visionaries that will save the Linux desktop, they're in fact some lunatics that have little to no idea what they're doing. And now they're taking it too far.

All in all, Ubuntu on the desktop seems to be a sinking ship. But that's just my assessment of the situation. Beware. Feel free to get excited all you want.

I didn't say that the majority of users think in a certain way. But I know what I think well enough. And I believe (without any numbers or evidence to back me up) that I'm not the only one.

[dee.]

And I'm sure you have numbers to back up your anecdotal evidence?

Do you have numbers to prove otherwise?

Man, ubuntu fanboys are becoming more rabid and defensive by the day... It's like Apple all over again.

[Aleve Sicofante]

Do you have numbers to prove otherwise?

The burden of the proof is not on me, smartguy.

I'm not an Ubuntu fanboy. What's become definitely tiresome is this constant anti-Canonical posturing all over geeky sites. You aren't forced to use Ubuntu. Did you ever realize that?

[Aleve Sicofante]

But there still are many, well, some, people who don't like to use a "mobile phone / desktop computer -hybrid OS" on both their desktop and phone

Oh really? How many unified operating systems have you ever tried? Wait, there's none out there...

There are also other problems with Canonical. They seem to be overly enthusiastic in developing everything of their own, yet they lack the required manpower and end up either releasing poor quality software (look at the unity desktop for the first few ubuntu releases starting from 11.04) or copying from others (look at mir/xmir). Also they are lead by a visionary that lacks vision and changes the project's direction every four weeks. Look at them praising these "windicators" in 2010 or wayland or the "me menu" or the "power cog" (why is that thing still around?!? I wonder if the phone version will have it?) and it becomes apparent that no matter how much I want them to be these glorious visionaries that will save the Linux desktop, they're in fact some lunatics that have little to no idea what they're doing. And now they're taking it too far.

Don't be such an hipocrite. You don't want them to save the Linux desktop, you desperately want them to fail. I just don't understand why or how they even existing makes you feel uncomfortable. You don't like them? Ignore them. The question is: why the hell do you attack them???

All in all, Ubuntu on the desktop seems to be a sinking ship. But that's just my assessment of the situation. Beware. Feel free to get excited all you want.

Thanks God no one at Canonical cares about "your assessment". Pfew...

I didn't say that the majority of users think in a certain way. But I know what I think well enough. And I believe (without any numbers or evidence to back me up) that I'm not the only one.

There's religious freedom so you can "believe" whatever you please. I just wonder why you waste your time "believing" things about a project you despise so much. It doesn't cease to amaze me.

[dee.]

The burden of the proof is not on me, smartguy.

You fail at logic, oh brave Internet Warrior.

The positive claim made by the other party was (paraphrased) "many people dislike the direction of Canonical". This is a claim that is demonstrably true: even on this forum, there are many people who dislike the direction of Canonical. Boom, statement validated.

You asked for numerical evidence to support a specific claim, when no specific claim was made.

Oh really? How many unified operating systems have you ever tried? Wait, there's none out there...

Ok. How many toaster ovens that work by shoving a huge black dildo up your ass and jumping up and down have you tried? Oh, there's none out there? Well, in that case you can't prove that they're a bad idea... so obviously they're going to be a huge success and everyone is going to want one. In fact, I can just hear the footsteps of all the millions of people running to dump their old electric toaster ovens and start demanding for these new assrape-powered ovens. Because logic!

[Aleve Sicofante]

...

C'mon, Dee, just post your crying daughter picture again and be done with all your nonsense.

[Cerberus]

Oh really? How many unified operating systems have you ever tried? Wait, there's none out there...



Don't be such an hipocrite. You don't want them to save the Linux desktop, you desperately want them to fail. I just don't understand why or how they even existing makes you feel uncomfortable. You don't like them? Ignore them. The question is: why the hell do you attack them???



Thanks God no one at Canonical cares about "your assessment". Pfew...


There's religious freedom so you can "believe" whatever you please. I just wonder why you waste your time "believing" things about a project you despise so much. It doesn't cease to amaze me.

Dont bother, people like him will never change or see how unreasonable they behave, Canonical and Ubuntu hate is the new fashion among certain portions of the Linux community. They dont use Ubuntu, they hate Canonical and yet they will spam nearly every thread about Canonical and Ubuntu on the Linux news websites and forums, apparently they cant imagine their life without Canonical and Ubuntu, if they really do not care about Canonical and Ubuntu (something they constantly claim) they would not post on Canonical related threads with almost religious dedication, but they do and often it is in a very hateful manner. I dont like some Linux distributions or desktop environments but I do not come to their forums and spread my hate, like these people tend to spam every Canonical and Ubuntu related thread that is "interesting". And I have been reading these forums for a while before registering, it is always the same people who are vocal against Ubuntu and they like to think they represent some kind of imaginary majority of the Linux community.

One may agree or disagree with Canonical but they are about the only Linux company that has vision and drags Linux forward. If it were not for Mir, Wayland would still be stuck in stone age, competition can really work wonders. Most distributions, and a portion of Linux users, like to be stuck in 90s. Ubuntu creates momentum for the Linux whether some want to admit that or not. It is THE largest distribution out there and the only one that has some presence on professional desktops, in institutions etc, strongly rising on the cloud server market etc. Ubuntu is the face of Linux no matter how much the fanboys claim otherwise, they need to deal with it. And therein lies the reason why they come to spam these threads. It is fear. They know deep down that if Ubuntu gets even bigger through success on the mobile market, that Ubuntu is going to dominate the Linux world a little bit too much for their liking. There will be a danger of Ubuntu overrunning all other distributions through sheer popularity and media presence, making other distributions a choice only for a tiny portion of Linux geeks. Haters gonna hate without realizing that everyone profits from this, Ubuntu users get new stuff, and other users get Wayland faster etc. Competition is good for Linux but some do not realize that and demand that everyone conforms to same standards.

[cynical]

To be honest, at first I was about to say something like "they're going to a really horrible direction" but I correctly guessed that there would be someone defending Canonical. And I'm not saying you're wrong, either.

But there still are many, well, some, people who don't like to use a "mobile phone / desktop computer -hybrid OS" on both their desktop and phone, but actually want those to be two separate experiences, one that is designed for a phone and one that is designed for a desktop. (The OS kernel and internals can be the same, but the UI should be different because the input device, size of display and use cases are inherently different)

They are making them two separate experiences. Unity 8 is supposed to look similar to Unity 7 when it is done, just using the same code as the mobile version. The point of convergence is not to have one UI for all devices, it's to have the same code running on them all with different UIs depending on the form factor.

I wonder if the phone version will have it?) and it becomes apparent that no matter how much I want them to be these glorious visionaries that will save the Linux desktop, they're in fact some lunatics that have little to no idea what they're doing. And now they're taking it too far.

I hope they take their insanity as far as they can, as long as I benefit like I am now.

[r_a_trip]

One may agree or disagree with Canonical but they are about the only Linux company that has vision and drags Linux forward. If it were not for Mir, Wayland would still be stuck in stone age, competition can really work wonders. Most distributions, and a portion of Linux users, like to be stuck in 90s. Ubuntu creates momentum for the Linux whether some want to admit that or not. It is THE largest distribution out there and the only one that has some presence on professional desktops, in institutions etc, strongly rising on the cloud server market etc. Ubuntu is the face of Linux no matter how much the fanboys claim otherwise, they need to deal with it. And therein lies the reason why they come to spam these threads. It is fear. They know deep down that if Ubuntu gets even bigger through success on the mobile market, that Ubuntu is going to dominate the Linux world a little bit too much for their liking. There will be a danger of Ubuntu overrunning all other distributions through sheer popularity and media presence, making other distributions a choice only for a tiny portion of Linux geeks. Haters gonna hate without realizing that everyone profits from this, Ubuntu users get new stuff, and other users get Wayland faster etc. Competition is good for Linux but some do not realize that and demand that everyone conforms to same standards.

Be careful what you wish for. A dominant Canonical and a ubiquitous Ubuntu, while bringing all the benefits of a mono-culture, like everybody and their dog standardising on and writing for and using Ubuntu, it'll also bring all the negatives. Once Canonical takes up the top spot in the OS market and network effects forces a majority of computer users to use Ubuntu as well, you'll be beholden to whatever Canonical deems best for their business and dependent on whatever functionality Ubuntu provides.

Ubuntu being open source won't protect you against this. Forking only makes sense when one can deviate from whatever is unwanted in the parent. If Ubuntu has top spot and everybody writes to their homegrown software (Mir/Unity/Click), a fork needs to closely follow Ubuntu to be able to use all the third party infrastructure and applications written against ubuntu. A fork in such a situation becomes a symbolic relabeling, while still being Ubuntu for all intents and purposes.
The strength of the Linux distro system up till now, iss that most of them are roughly equivalent. It gives users the power to reject unwanted changes, because they can swap distro X for distro Y and carry on with computing like nothing changed at all. It is an incentive for distributors to deliver systems devoid of anti-features.

In a world with 90% Ubuntu and the rest fringe systems, you'll be back in the late 90's, early 2000's. Fine if you happen to like what Canonical releases, but a major nuisance when you don't fancy it.

[GreatEmerald]

But seeing that Ubuntu has now really started going to a direction of their own (that not many are pleased with), focusing on mobile, introducing mir and their own package manager, core apps for pretty much everything etc, I'm not sure if I want to "upgrade" to future versions of it anymore. And so Elementary OS Isis is becoming a more compelling alternative day by day.

That said, I've yet to try it out. If someone knows a "better" linux desktop/distribution alternative to Ubuntu(Unity), please let me know.

You should give openSUSE a try. It's quite similar to Ubuntu in terms of package variety (with OBS, which is similar to ppas) and target audience, plus you get YaST for quickly doing administrative tasks and SUSE Studio to create your own LiveCDs. It's on the other side of the DEB/RPM fence, but it's not that hard to get used to. As for DEs similar to Unity, well, that's a harder question. You'll probably have to try several DEs out to find what you really want to have and what parts you don't really care about as much.

Overall I have to agree with the positivist attitude. I don't like the direction Canonical is going too, but it's a better use of time to try out other distros and DEs instead of complaining. That way you learn more about the variety we have and keep a positive outlook.