Canonical Continues To Talk Up Google's Flutter UI Toolkit

[lyamc]

The choice of flutter isn't strange. It's prepping the way for Google's next OS attempt.
Without applications, you won't have users, and without users, you won't have developers.

Sometimes you have to spend a bit to gain a lot.

[Mez']

I still feel the best thing that happened to the Linux Desktop was KDE 3.10. It was a very stable and seamless experience, relatively lightweight still, had a highly integrated browser and file manager which nothing has come close to matching since.

In those days I was developing in Kate with Konsole embedded, designing with Gimp, Inkscape, and Blender, and doing almost everything else entirely in Konqueror... everything from playing Flash and Java games, to watching videos, messaging, editing documents, managing local and remote files and archives...

Back then Konqueror was one of the most compatible browsers on the planet, with Chrome and Safari adopting its web engine KHTML, Apple and Google contributing to the Webkit fork, and Konqueror bringing that back home to KDE.

There was great remote desktop functionality both as server and client, the KMail email client had features I still sorely miss to this day, like auto-classifying mail into folders, expiring mail from one folder to another based on rules so you could have folders "Today, Yesterday, Last Week" etc and with IMAP you could even have it migrate mail between accounts on different remote servers for groupware, or just to keep chintzy accounts within quota.

KWin's window management was second to none, but you could also run Compiz for wobbly windows if you were into that. KWin's compositing was fast and flicker free, didn't incur multi-frame latency like GNOME still does today. And it played well with multi-monitor, even with rotated/scaled displays and custom resolutions.

GNOME 3's multi-monitor support is caca. If you rotate a monitor and scale it, scaling is engaged for all displays, with huge performance consequences. It also breaks vsync so there's tearing and the mouse just plain disappears in some regions of the screen.

Having said that I'm using Gnome 3.38.3 today because Xfce is a hot mess on Ubuntu 20.04+, KDE Plasma's docks won't play well with my multi-monitor setup, Trinity's support apps are painfully outdated...

I'm seriously considering going back to Ubuntu 18.04 for the much more stable Xfce version, and to get this heavy-and-buggy-albeit-well-featured GNOME off my back lol. Ah but then I would lose AV1 and HEIF support. Sigh.

The last time I used KDE was around 2005-2006 because the looks have never appealed to me. But I like their philosophy to empower the user with options and let them decide what's best for them. This is something Gnome should take lessons out of.
Yes, Gnome 3 multi-monitor handling is pure crap. Many use the multi-monitor add-on extension to circumvent that.

Wobbly windows have made their come back to Gnome last June, and the new extension works extremely well. It's smooth, soft and as soothing as a water fountain. When going back to Windows (forced for work) or to Budgie, moving monolithic window blocks feels like a game stuttering for fps. Along with Unite and GS Connect extensions, it's the only hindrance left for me to move entirely to the more flexible Budgie (they have a 1/100th of Gnome's resources and they manage to maintain 10x more options).

[linuxgeex]

Classic 2011 Canonical is the best thing that has ever happened to the Linux world. The wonderful days of Unity and Ubuntu One. Probably the best years of the Linux desktop [...]

I still feel the best thing that happened to the Linux Desktop was KDE 3.10. It was a very stable and seamless experience, relatively lightweight still, had a highly integrated browser and file manager which nothing has come close to matching since.

In those days I was developing in Kate with Konsole embedded, designing with Gimp, Inkscape, and Blender, and doing almost everything else entirely in Konqueror... everything from playing Flash and Java games, to watching videos, messaging, editing documents, managing local and remote files and archives...

Back then Konqueror was one of the most compatible browsers on the planet, with Chrome and Safari adopting its web engine KHTML, Apple and Google contributing to the Webkit fork, and Konqueror bringing that back home to KDE.

There was great remote desktop functionality both as server and client, the KMail email client had features I still sorely miss to this day, like auto-classifying mail into folders, expiring mail from one folder to another based on rules so you could have folders "Today, Yesterday, Last Week" etc and with IMAP you could even have it migrate mail between accounts on different remote servers for groupware, or just to keep chintzy accounts within quota.

KWin's window management was second to none, but you could also run Compiz for wobbly windows if you were into that. KWin's compositing was fast and flicker free, didn't incur multi-frame latency like GNOME still does today. And it played well with multi-monitor, even with rotated/scaled displays and custom resolutions.

GNOME 3's multi-monitor support is caca. If you rotate a monitor and scale it, scaling is engaged for all displays, with huge performance consequences. It also breaks vsync so there's tearing and the mouse just plain disappears in some regions of the screen.

Having said that I'm using Gnome 3.38.3 today because Xfce is a hot mess on Ubuntu 20.04+, KDE Plasma's docks won't play well with my multi-monitor setup, Trinity's support apps are painfully outdated...

I'm seriously considering going back to Ubuntu 18.04 for the much more stable Xfce version, and to get this heavy-and-buggy-albeit-well-featured GNOME off my back lol. Ah but then I would lose AV1 and HEIF support. Sigh.

[waitman]

They should change their headline from 'truly cross-platform' to 'platforms that matter'.

maybe? 'platforms that matter' is subjective I suppose. Tk is way more 'truly' cross-platform, relatively . AFAIK Flutter isn't 'truly' cross-platform.

[jrch2k8]

This is a really awkward mixture which honestly makes no sense to me at all outside to try to appeal to android devs to bring apps to their store and i don't think it will work well for them either

[ElectricPrism]

Google Bad.
Canonical Bad.
Google Flutter UI Toolkit Bad.

If I could unsubscribe from anything with the keyword "Google" and "Canonical" I would be happier.

Why would any developer care about anything Canonical says or recommends? They've proven themselves time and time again to be completely incompetent.

Somebody said wee-woo wee-woo wee-woo "TROLL BAIT" -- but honestly this banned user described exactly how I feel after a decade of watching Canonical.

[Mez']

Classic 2011+ Canonical, always trying to disrupt the Linux ecosystem, always making the wrong choice (except when backtracking).

Classic 2011 Canonical is the best thing that has ever happened to the Linux world. The wonderful days of Unity and Ubuntu One. Probably the best years of the Linux desktop, and an ever high popularity and market penetration, which ended up bringing the likes of Steam and Spotify to the whole Linux ecosystem. Since 2017, we are stuck with the lacklustre Gnome and the popularity and overall appeal of Linux has been going downhill, especially for Fedora.
Snaps are horrible (but the lesser of two evils versus flatpacks), and I'm not saying Flutter is a good move, but whenever Canonical has been going its own way, its popularity has skyrocketed, since their visions is clearly very appealing to normal users, the majority. They need to pursue their vision (mistakes included) for the sake of the Linux desktop. For others, there is Red Hat, and it means we will have the choice. Choice is good.

[om26er]

just to end on the g-graveyard in 2 years?
ubuntu is not even close to be profitable enough for google.. (unless the view it as AD platform similar to android but then it is not even close to popular enough)

What part of the word IPO you didn't understand ? Why bring Google into the equation there ?

[mppix]

I thought Canonical is preparing for an IPO, now that they are (slightly) profitable. The layoffs actually took place to make Canonical profitable and make it ready for an IPO, so that the company could expand.

just to end on the g-graveyard in 2 years?
ubuntu is not even close to be profitable enough for google.. (unless the view it as AD platform similar to android but then it is not even close to popular enough)

[om26er]

Since Microsoft still has not bought Canonical I guess they are now trying with Google?

I thought Canonical is preparing for an IPO, now that they are (slightly) profitable. The layoffs actually took place to make Canonical profitable and make it ready for an IPO, so that the company could expand.