Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever | Hacker News Reader

Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

theregister.co.uk

98 points_grrr91 comments

Completely disagree.

I've been using Unity for a while now, it's pretty awesome and much much better than anything (classical) gnome could ever be.

This article sounds like "I've just used OS X for the first time and there's no start menu, instead it has a weird thing that's like a dock or something."

So, no more gnome-panel applets. What's the big deal? Most of them were useless and ugly anyway. And yes, there is a weather indicator application that you can install.

On the other hand, you have a global menu that becomes also a title bar when the window is maximized.

So in Ubuntu 10.10 if you maximize Firefox, you have the following taking up vertical space:

- The top gnome panel

- The title bar

- The menu bar

- (by default) a bottom gnome panel.

With unity, there's only one thing:

- The Unity panel.

It's the panel, title bar, and the menu bar combined into one panel. (there's no bottom panel).

I would never want to go back to the classical gnome desktop.

The Ubuntu button at the top-left is like gnome-do[0] on steroids.

There's honestly nothing from classical gnome that I miss.

Btw, you can drag and drops applications onto the launcher. At least it works when you drag them from the desktop. He's right though, the lense view[1] doesn't let you drag/drop. You've gotta keep in mind though that's not a finished product yet.

Having said that, dealing with application icons in (classical) gnome was never a pleasant experience, so in this sense, Unity doesn't really lose you anything.

[0] gnome-do is a quicksilver clone

[1] That's the new fancy thing that pops up when you click the Ubuntu button on the top-left

One thing that threw me off in Unity was the lack of a hierarchical menu for launching applications. Is there someway to create a button that shows the hierarchical menu? btw this isnt a criticism of unity, just me trying to pick the brains of a power unity user.

I guess that varies by the user. For me, on Ubuntu there are generally only two applications I end up launching from the panel: terminal and a browser.

The other software I use are either communicational tools (IRC and instant messaging), launched from the messaging menu, and document-specific tools (openoffice. GIMP, inkscape, gedit) that I launch either from terminal or the file manager.

I don't know how well Unity supports this workflow, as the Maverick version of it was too slow to use. But I appreciate the extra vertical space given by the global menu

I don't think a hierarchical menu is needed. What purpose would that help with? I think instead they should focus on making it easy to search in the launcher.

One cool feature they have is that it can listed installed apps as expected but also apps available in Software Center. Hopefully, someone can search for "draw" and get appropriate apps listed. Or for "GIMP" and either launch of install the app.

Hierarchical menus help with app discoverability by showing all the apps the system has to offer.

You can view all the apps installed just fine. Ubuntu, unlike many distros, doesn't install 10 of every kind of app so I don't think its necessary.

I've always found such menus more confusing than anything.

Can you guess under which menu is the termina/command line program is hidden? No, unless you know in advance that it's under "Accessories". I mean, why isn't it under "system" or "programming"? It's too hard to guess what the menu author(s) were thinking so it's always hard to guess where a certain program is.

Think of the first time you ever used a computer. I agree that once you know that there is a app called terminal, using the Hierarchical menu might not be the best way to launch/use it. But the very first time you use a computer, its useful to see "Ahh - I can do Graphics, Programming, System Administration, Games. Oh wow it even has Solitaire!". So a hybrid approach with something like Gnome-Do for power users while retaining the hierarchical menu for regular users is optimal imo. Heck a lot of power users even create application sessions and do most of their app launching automatically at startup.

Exploration, with a menu I can explore and see what is there. Search only means I can randomly type stuff in and see what happens but I never know the extents of the system.

You should check out a review if you haven't actually used the UI.

http://maketecheasier.com/ubuntu-natty-beta-1-review-screens...

Right-clicking on the 'Applications' lens presents an organized list of application types. It's only one-level deep rather than truly hierarchical but it works quite well.

At first I thought Unity was a stupid idea. That in Canoncial's quest to compete with OS X's "elegance" they were copying one of its most hated features, The Dock. However, after using Alpha 3 and Beta 1 a bit I feel like it is The Dock done right. It auto-hides but still reveals notifications. It does not abuse precious vertical screen real estate. It does not disconnect the act of finding apps to launch from apps that are running.

It is definitely not perfect and as is so common in open source it lacks polish. It abuses glow effects and is a bit non-intuitive in its finer details. However, it solves far more problems than its creating and is definitely a good change.

Whether it is a better change than Gnome Shell is another question and as I haven't used Gnome Shell I can only hope that one or both will push desktop usability ahead.

How about when I have two 21" monitors, and don't maximise my windows. And if it's anything like OS X the menu bar will be one screen only.

There seems to be plenty of good things about it, and i do quite like OS X, but having the menu bar fixed at the top is not some sort of usability godsend.

I use Unity with two monitors and unmaximized windows, and it works fine. In the window is on the second screen, the menu bar follows.

Try it.

>You've gotta keep in mind though that's not a finished product yet.

If it's in the beta you'd think it probably should be a finished product.

Nonetheless, I think it's good that Ubuntu is pushing this if it'll result in a more competitive desktop offering (and diehards can simply change to GNOME).

How is the Unity Launcher like Gnome-Do on steroids? Maybe things have improved, but the Launcher of the Unity that's included in Ubuntu 10.10's repositories is really limited. It doesn't have any keyboard shortcut to load the launcher (at least as far as I can tell; it seems like super is the shortcut in current releases, but that does nothing for me in Unity 2.46), and opening things is _nowhere_ near as snappy as quickly typing "term" and then hitting enter, since it requires waiting a second to populate the list, and then you have to use the mouse to select the item.

In Natty typing 'term' and hitting enter seems to do exactly what you would want, except you have to wait a fraction of a second after typing to hit enter so that they can populate the list. Not as good as it could be, but tolerable for me.

interesting; I'll look forward to this when 11.04 leaves beta. though recently I've found that just auto-hiding the two default Gnome panels and calling up gnome-do to open applications works well with my workflow.

I agree that it's a fraction of a second slower, as the box populates a bit slower than Gnome-Do. (Though I suspect that's just an area for optimization rather than an intent of the design.)

However, for frequently-used applications, you can also pin them to the launcher allowing you to launch them with one key combination. Super-1 will launch the first application penned to the launcher, Super-2 will launch the second, etc. In effect this gives you 10 'hotkey' slots for launching applications.

Good point. My gnome-do workflow is basically just typing in "chrome", "term", or "emacs" and hitting enter, and that could easily translate to hotkey slots. From what I recall of using unity in 10.10, it was difficult to open the same application in multiple workspaces, though; is that still the case?

>if you maximize Firefox

This is what has me concerned. I never maximize windows. I've not used Unity yet, but the trend with both it and OS X Lion seems to be moving toward more and more modal interface paradigms in a world where we have the largest, highest resolutions displays that have ever been available to the average person. I'm not happy with the idea, personally.

I think you're reading too much into it. Maximization have existed since the 90s, Unity just makes it more efficient in its use of vertical screen space.

I would argue the trend is towards smaller screens if anything (small, light laptops, netbooks, tablets etc.).

I always either maximise or snap Windows to some sensible half/third of the screen layout.

I don't want to manually juggle Windows as my OCD kicks in and I start fiddling with them to get them exactly lined up. The Mac's 'sort of maximised but with a bit of the desktop showing round the edges' gives me the shakes...

I'm running unity since yesterday - feels like they compromised massively on the full desktop experience for the sake of compatibility with touch-based and netbook devices.

I'll give it a week or so though; no-one likes change, and it's impossible to make any significant UI change without hoares of angry and confused users foaming at the mouth until they get their bearings.

Well, I like change. I would even like Unity and I don't feel it's too much focused on on touch screen devices. After all, there are a lot of useful shortcuts. However, the article is right that Unity in its current state is far from being an improvement. It crashes very frequently and lacks important configuration options.

When those issues are fixed, I'll certainly use it.

people said the same thing when they realized unity lacks stability, config options and key features (like supporting drag & drop files between windows), but they never came. I don't think canonical considers it a high priority, if it's not there now, it won't be there at all for this release of ubuntu

Use CCSM to config; or use the command "about:config" in alt-f2 dialog.

Missing drag-and-drop between windows? What are you talking about?

Yes, they made it very easy to work with touch and small screen devices but I don't see where it limits a full-desktop-experience. Example?

Clicking on the "lens" button (the ubuntu symbol in the upper left hand corner) takes up ~25% of my 24" monitor to show me six icons. Six. That's great for a netbook or even a touch friendly device (easier to touch!), but on a desktop monitor, it's ridiculous. And there's no way to change it at the moment. So far, it's my biggest complain with 11.04

It takes 25% of your screen; Gnome-Shell's activity pane takes 100%; Mac OS X Lion's launchpad also takes 100% AFAIK.

Seriously, what do you intent to do with all the free space you get if dash takes just 10% of your screen?

Dash is for launching apps and places; You open it, launch an item and it disappears. It doesn't stay there and waste space.

I think people have preconceived notions about Unity and Shell being bad. Just try them with an open mind and give them enough time (say, a week) and I'm sure you'll love them both.

No, I've used it for more than a week, and I don't love it. In fact, it's my biggest complaint about 11.04... like I said above. I didn't come in with any preconceived notions about Unity. In fact, coming in, I thought it might be an interesting change and I largely like it, but I really don't like Dash at the moment. Also, I didn't say Launchpad and Gnome-Shell were better. I haven't used them, I wouldn't know.

Taking up 25% of my screen real estate for 6 icons _is_ ridiculous. I'm not really complaining about how much of my screen its taking up, I'm complaining that it's really inefficient about it. If you're taking up a quarter of my 24" monitor, show me more than 6 icons at time. Show me a search bar that's got text the same pixel size I selected for the rest of my desktop. At the very least, let me configure it to something I like.

I didn't say Unity sucks, I hate it and no one will ever use it, I made a complaint about how it stands currently.

Fair enough, but the whole Dash is used once you search for something or click a category. Filling up empty space just for the sake of filling up empty space isn't such a good idea after all.

No, it is entirely filled up when I click on it, but the text is >30px and each icon is gigantic. I'm not talking about filling whitespace, I'm talking about making items reasonable sizes. I've already set my font sizes, just adhere to that or give me another config option. Similarly, let me adjust the size of the icons and either put more icons in there or shrink the size of dash.

I expect that the new interface will divide opinion. If you remember what a kerfuffle there was over moving the close button from right to left then this is a much bigger change.

All this talk about minor changes that are easily dealt with through configuration feels more and more like a form of bikeshedding to me.

I just signed up to upvote this comment :D

Loving this website

Welcome to Hacker News! :-) FYI, comments like that tend to get downvoted swiftly on Hacker News. You may want to read the guidelines if you haven't already.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Well ... the welcome page says

>Empty comments can be ok if they're positive. There's nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just "Thanks."

Seems kind of weird that you'd instantly downvote such a comment, but eh, who gives a damn about karma

My first forays on HN were marked by similar mystery downvotes, and I still get them from time to time. Don't worry about it. HNers are just a fairly fickle bunch, is all.

This seems pretty typical of Ubuntu releases, frankly. Anyone remember the Firefox 3 fiasco? Luckily, if you don't like it, you've got lots of choice, the current version will be supported for another 12 months, and the next version will be out in 6 months. It's not a big deal.

This is something that's so often overlooked. If you want a stable desktop for production use, use an LTS version of ubuntu. If you want 'close to the edge', get the last version or two, they come with 18 months support. If you want to fool around on the edge, well, that's where they do crazy stuff like this. Early adopters are beta testers, always have been, always will be.

> If you want a stable desktop for production use, use an LTS version of ubuntu.

I'm not so sure about it. All releases are supposed to be stable (final releases at least, not the current beta). LTS has nothing to do with "not-beta" - it's about the length of support only and this is the way it's advertised on the ubuntu website. Whenever they write about "stable" regarding LTS it's in the business context - it's "not changing" rather than "not crashing".

There's a difference between stable (reliable) and stable (unchanged). When talking about the stability of LTS, people are meaning that the package set, and the versions of those packages, will not change throughout the support cycle of the release. Eg, if the release comes with Firefox 3.0, it will stick with Firefox 3.0 for the duration of the cycle, even though Firefox 4.0 or later versions are released in the interim.

Using LTS delays the time between changes not the magnitude of the change.

Of course, the problem is that LTS releases are horribly outdated (the packages in the repos), that it becomes hard to be productive. I needed a new version of a library (actually not THAT new) to compile something, and it just wasn't there! LTS for the lose.

backports?

The whole idea of LTS is to leave outdated versions of the repo and only port bugfixes and critical security stuff backwards while leaving a direct upgrade path to the next LTS open.

If you don't like it, you can always ask your money back ;-)

Now, seriously, one can run Natty with standard Gnome for as long as it takes for Unity to get refined to one's taste. This is a non-issue. And, weren't that enough, like you pointed out, the next release is six months away.

People understand this is why other people release betas right? To test new things? To test unfinished products? To gather early feedback? I've been using Unity for a month or so in Maverick Meerkat (10.10) and I find it great for daily usage, in spite of it's minor glitches.

Except for critical issues, nothing will change. The things that make the most important UI unusable / annoying are not critical issues, but in fact very low priority usability issues and or missing features.

"Unity is a radical departure, but no less so than GNOME 3.0, which has wisely been pushed back until later this year."

I was wondering where the article author got this idea. It seems as if he must have fallen for an April fool's joke (http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/2011-04-gnome-3.0-resche...).

I compared Unity and Gnome Shell a couple of months ago. At that point there was no comparison; Unity felt like a hacked-together prototype, and Gnome Shell felt like a beta. That's a very short-term view of course.

A good thing I am on the LTS release then. Unfortunately if they keep the main menu is separate from the window it belongs to (a huge break with the standard usability rule which says that things which belong together should be physically together) I will have to find a new distro.

It's the worst move Apple made, why did they copy that?

Because by some other standards, such as Fitts' Law, it's a good move - it gives the menu infinite vertical size.

Also, it is an effective way of conserving vertical screen real estate. With the increasing prevalance of widescreen displays, vertical space is (relatively) scarce. This is particularly true on netbooks, and even on full-size laptops. Merging the menu with the top dock gives you an extra 24 pixels or so of vertical space.

A couple of years back I switched from Windows to Mac and I can't say I really noticed any downside to the single fixed application menu. The gains due to Fitt's Law however are noticable and I when using a Windows box I find the menus to be annoyingly small click targets.

I do miss the discoverability of Windows ALT+letter menu accelerator key presses though.

You might find Cmd+Shift+/ useful then. It allows you type menu commands on keyboard, see where they are in the menu, and discover new functionality.

The default shortcut to focus the menu bar is Ctrl-F2. I change it to Ctrl-2 and frequently do things like "Ctrl-2 F <Return> O <Return>" to open recent files. For leaf menu items I set per-app keyboard shortcuts in the Keyboard pref pane so I don't have to do the Ctrl-2 song and dance to find things I use all the time.

There are some undiscoverable ways to use the keyboard on OS X. In many alert dialogs you can hit Cmd-[first letter] to select that button, e.g. Cmd-D for Don't Save, and Cmd-M for Move to Trash. They don't underline the letter because it's ugly, but once you know about the convention it doesn't matter. I like the way Windows displays the underlines when alt is pressed.

Your first point is very useful. Still way slower than the Windows way but way quicker than mousing it.

I already knew the alert dialog trick. It doesn't work consistently though which is rather annoying (Apple's own apps rarely seem to support it)

What about applications like Firefox 4 that don't require full-blown menu bars? What about applications that want to try out alternative user interfaces (ribbon etc)? What about multi-monitor setups? What about high-resolution (1080p or higher) monitor setups? What about high-res multi-monitor setups, where you might have to move the mouse over 4000 pixels to get to the menu you're looking for?

As a high-res monitor user, with proper mouse acceleration it's really not any harder to hit a menu item that is anchored to the top of the screen than it is to stop the mouse on a menu item 200px away.

The only issues I've seen are when I have a non-rectangular monitor configuration.

Proper mouse acceleration is a poor poor solution for the parents problem. I can't (physically can't) use a mouse that moves faster than a certain speed.

Firefox 4 removing the menu bar is a one-off attack on the same problem. Better to solve it once than require each application to come up with its own fix.

I'm not sure what you mean. The space that Firefox 4 saves by removing the menu bar would just be wasted at the top of the screen.

Users always resist change. We should not be afraid to change because of that. Unity has a huge potential IMHO and the best time is when unity does not do very much. It will evolve with people learning to use it. "Release Early, Release Often". I am completely with Canonical, Mark and Ubuntu. The fate favors the brave. Go for it Team Ubuntu. As for the geeks, they know how to take care of themselves.

"The problem isn't that everything you know and love about GNOME is suddenly gone, and Ubuntu 11.04 is, for all intents and purposes a completely different experience than everything that came before it."

Am I to assume, then, that it follows that because I haven't used Gnome since 1998, the article's claim that this is the "worst Ubuntu beta ever" is absolutely inapplicable to me?

I suppose that since it says "with Unity" in the title as well, I'm expected to forgive its overall link bait nature?

Between Canonical shipping unity and Redhat shipping gnome shell with gnome 3, it's going to to be a turbulent spring on the linux desktop. The screams of protest about the gnome shell are already strong on the F15 alpha forums. I've used both and I'm not sure they're so bad, but everything takes some getting used to for people. Then again, I use KDE and am very happy, 4.6 runs and looks great though I do use a dock.

Yes I agree with this writeup. Having tested the unity desktop I was thoroughly disappointed. I felt as though the interface was dumbed down and all of the advanced features or navigation that I once had control of were now gone. It will perhaps as they gear more towards a touch based interface and even netbooks but as a main desktop manager it really does fail quite badly.

"Interface was dumbed down.."

That is a good thing. I use my computer to use websites, write code, watch videos; Those things should be more visible not the OS chrome. OS UI should be as minimal and simple as possible.

I've been using the 11.04 beta for a day or so, and it seems ok to me. Sure, it's not exactly the same as Gnome 2.x, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's worse. I never used panel applets much anyway, and like the keyboard shortcuts and the universal menu bar. So far I havn't found anything which I thought was really irritating or stopping me from working.

apt-get remove unity; apt-get install gnome

Done. What's the problem?

You don't even need to do that much. Just select the classic desktop at login time.

At least on alpha3, selecting the classic desktop results in broken themes. Gnome suddenly reverts to looking completely unskinned and like it did 10 years ago.

I never noticed how fast my GPU was until I crashed the theme engine by accidentally xkilling the bottom panel.

And I don't think it looks that bad.

I might be hitting a bug then on the nouveau drivers. because I am getting completely unthemed gtk which looks a lot like Tk.

I think we have different definitions of ugly ;-)

I confess. I don't think unthemed GTK 2 is ugly.

The article seems to state that switching to classic still forces you to use the single menu bar.

The only complaint I've ever had with Unity is that the dock consumes the super key for shortcuts. The only reason I've been unable to stick with Unity is that I can't assign gnome-do to the super-based hotkey I'm used to. I could learn to use the Unity Launcher, but it never seemed to be anywhere near as easy to use as gnome-do.

Not the best choice in names. If there are problems people are going to refer to it as "Nasty Narwhal."

Catchy name.

I believe the Unity shell will generate that kind of buzz. Programmers (and any Linux distro is geared towards them) are notoriously averse to change and get really attached to their tools.

I only hope the new shell makes sense on multiple 30" monitors, because I don't really like using the built-notebook screen unless I am out of the office (and not on my desk at home) and OSX is weird when you have your document on monitor C and its menu on monitor A...

I installed it myself today. The W7 style auto-tiling feature is really pretty convenient when you combine it traditional Linux Alt-clicks. I installed the Compiz Settings Manager and made some modifications to the default keybindings, of course, and sped up the animations but nothing too invasive. I'm going to give it a chance before deciding if I want to go back to my beloved tiling window managers.

Can anyone using the beta tell me whether:

* I can still do focus-follows-mouse if I hack around with the settings?

* If it has a 'workspace manager' thing that lets you have multiple workspaces?

Without those, no way, no how. Other stuff I can probably get used to.

Multiple workspaces - yes it does have multiple workspaces and devilspie continues to work in Natty. Dont know about focus follows mouse.

focus-follows-mouse is pretty much impossible to use with the menu bar being in the panel. When you need something from the menu, you have to try to avoid moving your mouse over other windows while trying to reach the menu so that they don't get the focus.

You can disable the main menu bar by removing the appmenu-gtk package.

So how long until a Gnome remix of Ubuntu appears? Already with Natty, or in 2012? I guess gubuntu name is free. Or maybe some existing remixes get a sudden popularity spike. Or maybe nobody cares, and those who care switch to Fedora/Arch/Debian/<distro-du-jour>.

To be fair, we have been program-and-file centric for since the arrival of the Mac (Lisa was less like that, with the stationery thing, Star even more and Smalltalk 80 didn't look like this at all) and a new metaphor could be useful.

I remember there was about the same whining last time about the "wrong" placement of the window controls. How old this seems now :)

It seems old, but I still can't stand it:) and that's why I switch those controls back to the right side on every new machine that I use/install (via gconf-editor).

They should be split, actually. The close button should not be next to other buttons.

One thing I wish for is that they would show the Unity panel if I move the mouse past the left edge of the screen.

Currently the panel will display if you mouse to the upper-left of the screen. It took me a day or so to get used to but I strongly prefer it over the entire left edge of the screen being a hotspot -- on other OSes I waste a lot of time waiting for the panel/dock to go away when I mistakenly mouse just a little too far to the edge of the screen when trying to interact with a window.

How much additional development will Unity get because Ubuntu has put its massive weight behind it?

I couldn't agree more.

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