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Comment by Lowkeyloki | Hacker News Reader

Ubuntu's Unity desktop.

People really hated it because (IMHO) it had a really rocky launch. Ubuntu replaced a very usable GNOME 2.x desktop with an alpha-quality replacement. And Canonical was riding high from having "won" the Linux for desktop game and was pushing their weight around, giving the impression that they were ignoring the feedback from their users.

Unity wasn't without its missteps. But it matured quite nicely and I now prefer it to other desktop paradigms. Windows especially. It feels a bit stuck, like Microsoft thinks it reached peak desktop design in 1994. ;-)

Now that Ubuntu has ditched Unity, I really don't know what I'm going to do. I've been holding on running Ubuntu 16.04, but it's getting to be a burden. I don't like GNOME 3. I'm still not sure what to do. I might give Pop!_OS a decent kicking of the tires. I know that's still GNOME 3, but their take on it is the closest I've seen it get to tolerable.

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Yup unity was what spelled the end for the Ubuntu wave. I think this has been the single biggest mistake they made. I think it will take at least a decade again to bring the linux desktop to the masses.

Gnome 2 was perfect for people coming from windows moving over. Gnome 3 is like windows vista.

Me personally, I was really disappointed (of course you can install gnome 2 etc). But at the end of the day you just want something that works out of the box.

> bring the linux desktop to the masses

I am dumbfounded that people still see this happening at some point.

I saw a quote somewhere from Linus Torvalds that Chrome OS may end up being the future Linux desktop, once they finish polishing off their Linux app integration (Project Crostini). I'm able to actually get most of my work done now in that environment.

Was just about to post this. I was looking for my next laptop after I got so frustrated with the direction MacBook Pros we're heading, so I took the plunge and got the high end PixelBook.

I do all my development on it: VSCode, Postgres, docker, node, python, all works great. Importantly, the Crostini project is progressing rapidly and I get new functionality with each new ChromeOS release (e.g. shared files between Linux and ChromeOS, one-button container backup, etc.)

Ubuntu had traction already, they had a perfectly good thing then suddenly changed directions (unity + the phone desktop thing).

My analogy would be xp -> vista. Alienating core & target users.

> Gnome 3 is like windows vista.

What’s wrong with GNOME 3 or Vista? I’ve never had problems with either.

Why not try KDE? I am a long-time KDE user and very happy with it. The flexible Plasma desktop might give you what you are missing from unity. There seem to be some tutorials on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kde+unity+like

Theres even a page on the KDE wiki about making Plasma look and act like Unity: https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/How_to_create_a_Unity-like_l...

Thank you! I'll give this a try.

Isn't it still possible to install and use Unity? I thought it just lost Canonical's support and the spot as the default DE. I wouldn't pick a distro just for the DE it comes with.

I ended up running kbuntu and was pleasantly surprised with it.

I love how I can switch workspaces, customize the desktop and do so much more with Unity (Unity Tweak Tool comes in handy). Had to roll back to 16.04 when I could do nothing of those on 18.04.

For the first time of me using Ubuntu (ver 18.04), I was disappointed in the fact that I had to re-learn some things and then get used to the new workflow when everything in 16.04 and Unity in particular was muscle memory.

Unity8 is still developed by the community [0] and there are ports under development for Arch, Debian, and Fedora too.

[0] Please see https://unity8.io/ and https://forums.ubports.com/category/36/unity8

I miss Unity too. Sometimes I catch myself with feeling to compile Unity8 from src. :)

https://github.com/ubports/unity8 ;)

Unity still has the smoothest 3x3 desktop experience ever made. It is also fantastic with touchscreen. I hope they will recover it some day..

I really don't get why they ditched unity since I didn't have the impression that it was (still) unpopular.

Thanks for bringing my attention to pop! Looks pretty cool.

Trying it out in a VM for now.

you only think you liked unity because now you despise gnome3.

the sooner you accept the gnome legacy is dead and move on to kde the better. I know it will be difficult, but it's inevitable.

MATE will still be here waiting patiently when you're ready.

This. I was hanging on to Ubuntu 16.04 until a month ago just to keep Unity. After finally upgrading to 18.04, I spent a week on Gnome 3 and it was quite a frustrating experience.

Found Ubuntu Mate and am loving it! MATE Tweak gives you so many options to make the UI work like Unity, even better in some ways. The only thing I missed were application shortcuts, but now the fancy dock works just as well for me.

kde was a meme and the red haired step child of linux even back in 2011 dude.

was.

nowadays it's pretty polished, fast and stable.

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