Ubuntu To Abandon Unity 8, Switch Back To GNOME

[Guest]

The problem with all free software initiatives on tablets/phones: they all tried to use ARM CPUs with the associated GPUs that don't have open source drivers. Which is a massive pain in the butt, and a waste of time. Hardware with Intel or AMD GPUs is the only option for such projects, due to their already good support for the Linux desktop. Open hardware can wait, let's get a mostly free software stack first. And then work from there.

[Helios747]

Why is everybody complaining about DEs when anybody can run

sudo apt-get install $DE_of_choice

and shut up

[profoundWHALE]

Unity worked very well out of the box. It was also really easy to try out Unity 8.

- Extensions: While you can use Extensions with Gnome3, my experience with getting them configured properly and then keeping the configuration for an upgrade or a new install was not pleasant.
- The menu is slow and is not intuitive. I found just basic navigation incredibly frustrating.
- Wayland-Gnome3: It wasn't ready for my everyday usage.
- Do we finally have the 3 buttons on the windows as default? Or do I still need an extension for that?

[roothorick]

- Unnecessary Activities menu makes launching programs and switching between them slower.
- The desktop being demoted from a work area (primary way of launching most used applications) to a picture. (Default settings)
- Task bar demoted to being a list instead of providing fast and easy to use task switching features.
- Big UI with big empty spaces instead of making use of modern, high-resolution displays and using space effectively. (Thick title bars, giant buttons etc.)

Even though it wasn't intended as one, it feels more like a mobile UI, not something meant to be used with mouse and 1080p display.

Here's a very good example of "matter of taste". To demonstrate:

- Activities overview. Launching programs: Super ("Windows" on most PC keyboards) key (to open activities overview), type the first few letters of the name, Enter to open it if it's not open, or switch to it if it is open. Ctrl+Enter to open a new window anyway. Program switching: More like window switching. You see every window in the workspace in an intuitive tiled layout. Click the window you want, or select with arrow keys and hit Enter. This is really quick and natural, and fairly intuitive to learn.
-Desktop: You mean that thing that I always have windows maximized over all the time? I never understood why people minimize all their windows to launch something else. Again: super key, start typing. Launching programs with a mouse is just too slow; having to move all your stuff out of the way to get to the thing you're going to click on ratchets it up to silly.
- Task bar? Not really sure what you're talking about. Gnome Shell doesn't really have a task bar per se. The window previews in the activities overview is its replacement. Hitting super shows you not only the programs running but what windows they have open and a thumbnail of what's in each window. And you can dismiss it by just hitting super again.
- The UI probably does go a bit too far in using whitespace to guide the eye. It gets the job done though, and it's not like it has something else important to put in that space, usually. Also, the current Nautilus UI is quite the opposite, compact to a fault; it's severely wanting for discoverability, feeling spartan and featureless without some determined exploration.

It feels like an unorthodox desktop DE that draws heavy inspiration from mobile UIs but is still built first and foremost for keyboard and mouse. It's not perfect, but it's efficient and discoverable (Nautilus notwithstanding), and the activities overview is downright innovative.

Very much so, to each their own.

[sarfarazahmad]

If one thing is for sure, its that everytime something significant happens, Phoronix goes offline. Ryzen, Ubuntu switching to Gnome etc.

[sarfarazahmad]

Why is everybody complaining about DEs when anybody can run

sudo apt-get install $DE_of_choice

and shut up

its not that simple. Unity7/8 cant be run easily on other distros.

[Duve]

You know after not being involved with Gnome and Wayland for so long, and refusing outright to get involved with either project... Ubuntu and Canonical is going to have to work equally as hard, for equally as long, to have any say in the direction of either project.

This is on top of changing things that made the Ubuntu community look like bad actors.

No doubt that this is a good thing, but for Ubuntu and Canonical this is the start of the long walk back to being a community player after burning nearly all of the bridges. Canonical would be wise to assume that they start from scratch.

[wswartzendruber]

I'm sitting here wondering if Shuttleworth wasn't paid off. Samsung is introducing a mobile-based desktop experience soon and Apple has been working on theirs for at least a while now. Microsoft also has a dog in the fight.

What makes me not believe this is the alarming rate at which Unity 8 development has been happening recently and the increasing quality of the apps that are available for it. And the hardware partners argument doesn't make any sense, either. Since when did Ubuntu's success depend on finding hardware vendors for their OS? It's asinine.

When I take all the puzzle pieces and put them on the table, this isn't the picture I see.

[CrvenaZvezda]

So... The desktop is now so unimortant that Microsoft have stopped paying Canonical for dividing the Linux desktop efforts?

[eidolon]

Not a surprise. An inevitability and a financial responsibility. Probably disheartening though for those involved. Still, I don't quite understand how people didn't see it coming, but I ask the same question when people are blindsided by transit buses and freight trains.

The turn of events doesn't necessarily do serious collateral damage to buy-in with regard to other Ubuntu/Canonical initiatives (e.g. snappy), but it doesn't help.