Many Ubuntu Users Still Hate The Unity Desktop

[Luke_Wolf]

The only thing that really keeps me from using Unity is absolute lack of configurability. I will never use an UI where task bar is nailed on the left side just because somebody thinks it is cool.
There was time when one of the promoted aspects of linux desktop was total configurability. So now it is even worse than windows, haha, use windows for freedom .

Configurability still exists for KDE, and will likely continue to exist..

[frostwyrm333]

The only thing that really keeps me from using Unity is absolute lack of configurability. I will never use an UI where task bar is nailed on the left side just because somebody thinks it is cool.
There was time when one of the promoted aspects of linux desktop was total configurability. So now it is even worse than windows, haha, use windows for freedom .

AFAIK these changes are because they want UI to be touchscreen friendly. Well, thats nice, but nobody EVER will use ubuntu on tablet. So they can keep their touch-friendly (wtF) desktop to themselves.

Also it is very unstable, natty is one of the worst releases yet, compiz/unity was and is not in any condition to be considered as a primary shell, plus i have problems with pulsaudio and etc..

I also will never use Gnome 3, it looks like it was designed by someone insane. Minimalism combined with waste of screen space. What an improvement.
One thing I would really like to know, who thought people want these new revolutionary ways to interact with computer and blablabla, its almost uselles, Im not going to use it and they will not fix it.

[FunkyRider]

I upgrade to each new Ubuntu release but not 11.04. I will not consider putting it on my main work PC. Too much bugs and inconveniences. I will stick with 10.10 and give 11.10 a go on the live CD again.

[Luke_Wolf]

You know you can set up KDE to operate in a similar fashion to Gnome 2? It won't be 100% of course but you can do it.

[movieman]

The only distribution which will support GNOME2 until 2015 (and even longer) is RHEL or one of its clones (CentOS, SL, etc.).

Yes, CentOS is one of the options. By then perhaps the UI developers will have been dragged kicking and screaming back to some semblance of sanity.

If you don't want to use stone-age software, you have to adopt to the new situation.

Ah, the old 'I'm l33t3r than you becuase I use version 79.15' argument. It never impresses, I'm afraid.

[glasen]

Personally I'm wondering which distro to switch to when 11.10 eliminates Gnome 2.

Maybe Fedora? Or OpenSuSE? Or ArchLinux?

Oh wait, all of this distributions use or will use GNOME3. Even Debian switches to GNOME3 in 2013. The only distribution which will support GNOME2 until 2015 (and even longer) is RHEL or one of its clones (CentOS, SL, etc.).

If you don't want to use stone-age software, you have to adopt to the new situation.

[89c51]

totaly agree with you.
Most of people don't like [xxx] but do nothing to improove it.

i assume you don't like AIDS either but i don't think you are doing any research on creating a vaccine for it

people will always complain but in the case of open source even if your arguments against dev choices are correct noone will bother

if you cannot code you are useless in FOSS and even if you can there is a big chance that no dev will bother specially in UI stuff

[movieman]

I don't see what the big deal for so many long time users to be hating on Ubuntu. Canonical is pushing software innovation/evolution to attract users from areas previously ignored.

People won't switch from Windows to Ubuntu because of Unity. People will switch from Ubuntu to Fedora, Debian, etc, because of Unity.

Personally I'm wondering which distro to switch to when 11.10 eliminates Gnome 2.

[DMJC]

Unity is a very silly attempt to clone Mac OSX. If you wanted Mac on Linux you'd do a lot better to start with GNUStep and modify from there. The entire idea of taking gtk/gnome and modifying it into a clone of Mac is silly. You won't gain any application compatibility, it's not a paradigm the users are used to, and anything you create will undoubtedly get slammed for not having the same features/usability as Mac OSX. I used Linux for 10+ years, I still use it at work. I've moved to OSX for all my personal computers because I've frankly grown lazy, and I prefer the platform to the other options. It crashes a hell of a lot less than linux does, and I don't have to care about tweaking every little system setting. The biggest disappointment with linux is that it will never have media pipelining like quartz composer in OSX, yet it already has about 80% of the code needed to do it in GNUStep. I can see why Canonical picked up Gnome and are trying to make it into OSX, but the entire idea is badly flawed. They would have been better off IMHO paying developers to bring webkit to GNUStep and actually finishing the GNUStep desktop.

[Luke_Wolf]

Aping the mac's UI brain damages its plain damn wrong uninnovative and stupid
Typical Apple hater. I am not a supporter, but this is bullcrap. OSX's is more usable in usability wise. Like GNOME2 was a revolution?

Um I call Bullshit on your calling bullcrap, OS X is THE worst when it comes to real usability.

Let's just make a list of 10 things:

1. Global menu:
Global menus have always been an absolutely terrible design, it sacrifices usability for a few vertical pixels. Simple Usability test, have two windows open side by side, or otherwise such that both windows are fully visible. Now from having the focus on one window quickly open up a menu from the other window.

On a mac: give focus to the other window and then move the mouse to the top panel
On something reasonable: move mouse over to other window and click on menu.

2. Scrollbars:
OS X Lion has made scrollbars not only difficult to see but nigh impossible to actually use. Though one may argue that one should just use scrolling gestures but that brings us to...

3. Scroll Gestures:
in Lion instead of staying with the standards that everybody already knows they've reversed them in order to unify the gesture with their Ipad.. but problem the interface concept between a touch screen and a touchpad are completely different, particularly when a standard has already been established and accepted.

4. Window buttons are on the wrong side unless you happen to be one of those left handed people:
OS X is known for having their window buttons on the left side and on top of that instead of being icons they're colors, but that'll be point #5. There is a reason that those buttons are normally on the right, it is because most people are right handed and so it is both easier reach and more natural for people who are right handed. Now one might then point out: Why is the start button then normally on the left side then? It is simply because we are a culture that reads L-to-R, and thus naturally menus will cascade out to the right because of that, I imagine that R-to-L cultures have it on the other side, and you often see screenshots from asia with the menu bar on the right side of the screen.

5. Window button colors are a non-obvious explanation of use to the average person
While it's not hard to intuit the meaning or understand it after playing around with it, without a pictogram for explanation particularly in conjunction with #4 I can't just set the average user about using it and expect them to know what each one does.

6. The dock bar
Some people like dock bars and others of us detest them, from the usability failure that is making the icons accordion, to the fact that if any large amount of software is pinned to the dock which is effectively a start menu replacement, then the icons become small enough as to be unusable.

7. Applications do not close when you have closed all windows
To my knowledge under every other system when you tell a program to close from the window buttons it closes, on a mac it stays open until you use the global menu or the shortcut sequence to close it.

8. Nonstandard shortcuts
Although each of the three main systems have their own sets of shortcuts, there have come to be standards that are expected, such as the Ctrl-{c,v,x,a} set, Standard controls are of course a usability concern and Apple has decided to continue going against those standards by continuing to only have their old Apple shortcuts based off their apple key.

9. Can't reposition things in the manner that you want, It's Apple's way or it's... Apple's way. You have no choice in this regard, and thus people cannot change the environment to suit their needs best. Instead you have to conform to the software rather than the software conforming to you.

10. The filesystem tree is kludgy and fails to conform to the *nix standards we all know and love, while this specifically may not effect most users this is huge to me personally, and having things not where I expect them to be breaks usability for me. I mean why the hell are they not using /home for instance?