Many Ubuntu Users Still Hate The Unity Desktop

Two weeks ago on Phoronix it was asked what do you dislike or hate about Ubuntu? This was following a discussion on the Ubuntu development list about Ubuntu developer applicants being asked about what they like the least about Ubuntu. The overwhelming response among Phoronix readers was clear: they still really hate the Unity desktop.

The 13 pages of Phoronix responses to the distastes concerning Ubuntu can be found in this Phoronix Forums thread. Overall, Unity was the most negatively voiced feature of Ubuntu.

Other leading complaints include dealing with updating packages to newer versions post-release, Canonical's not-invented-here syndrome, and the release cycle has also been criticized as causing too many regressions with too little testing in between releases. Below are some of the highlights from the aforementioned feedback thread.

Unity:
- "I can't stand Unity. 'nuff said."
- "Aping the mac's UI brain damages its plain damn wrong uninnovative and stupid"
- "I definitely don't like Unity. I think that it was the worst thing they had done to Ubuntu."
- "Unity is awkward to use and incoherent so much of the time."

Hardware:
- "The hardware support in Ubuntu has always been one of those things that has generally gotten better over time, but it's still to common that one release will work fine on a machine and the next one won't even boot."
- "Its slow. On my machines I've found it slower than windows 7..."

Packages:
- "They keep (very) old versions of software as stable even when upstream already released 2 or 3 versions marked as stable. Ubuntu (and Debian and maybe others) then try to backport those changes into their "stable" vision of that software. I really can't understand how this can happen in Linux. Maybe it had some reasoning 10 years ago but now I don't see any excuse for it. Even latest git packaged by a capable maintainer is more stable and feature rich than what Ubuntu has."
- Inclusion of Mono.
- PulseAudio
- NetworkManager

Other:
- Copyright assignment for contributions to core applications.
- Frequent regressions.

Everything:
"I dislike everything about it.
- it does a LOT of marketing, but does very LITTLE to progress
- it has marketing cult and tries to steal the focus from linux kernel, gnu, xorg on itself, claiming itself center of collaboration
- it has completely useless, unflexible in terms of modification, package system
- it implements worst most unstable versions possible
- canonical develops easily proprietary commercial software
- in the essence, it is as ignorant to users requests as Microsoft
- it does not have any "linux" in its name
- the developers-users collaboration model is absent, instead users are animals to bugtrack for free. Good Lord, thanks for linux mint.
- it spoils the culture of foss and linux in particular with african theming. Foss is about choice! Not about unified marketing."
- "I dislike that they removing good programs form base install and replace them with unstable/useless stuff."
- "I dislike Ubuntu because it uses Gnome instead of KDE."

Longer posts:
- Ubuntu rights and wrongs
- A victim of its own popularity
- A list