Gnome desktop instead of Unity in Ubuntu 11.04? | Hacker News Reader

Gnome desktop instead of Unity in Ubuntu 11.04?

lists.ubuntu.com

29 pointskia33 comments

Actually I'd be surprised if they did a last-minute switch back to Gnome Classic for 11.04 given Shuttleworth's penchant for decision by fiat and history of using non-LTS releases as nothing more than extended betas/UI playgrounds. (See Pulseaudio, Empathy over Pidgin, Indicators, window buttons--and that one was actually for an LTS!)

No, Shuttleworth has decided that Unity is the new hotness, so we'll almost certainly be getting it in 11.04, which will make us all glorified beta testers again. This'll be the first release since I started using Ubuntu that I won't be upgrading to immediately. My business productivity--which is what I use Ubuntu for--is more important than that.

If you like to keep up with the latest version, I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade because of unity. I have one laptop running the 11-04beta, and it's business as usual as long as I login with the classic desktop.

Logical conclusion of what you say is that this is exactly the right time to make changes, otherwise they would be too dangerous for LTS releases! Unity going into 11.04 means that by the 12.04 LTS it's had a whole year of real-world use on thousands/millions of desktops and all of the bug fixing that will result from that. Yay!

What I'm saying is that "non-LTS" shouldn't be code for "bug-ridden and feature-incomplete," just because it isn't supported for as long. They deserve the same attention to stability that LTS releases get. I'm not against all change, only change that is foisted upon me with more concern given to haste and deadlines than to polish and stability. If Unity is as buggy and feature-incomplete as they say, I would much rather wait another 6 months for it to mature in development than have it released early and having to deal with 6 months of crashes and missing features while I wait.

Unfortunately that seems to be the direction Ubuntu has been leaning in for the past few releases. It's too bad that the PPA system, for all its benefits, almost forces one to do distro upgrades--it's a choice between having new versions of critical software like Firefox and accepting immature stuff like Unity, or using out-of-date software for another 6 months.

Can you imagine being stuck with FF3.6 till October if you choose not to upgrade to 11.04? (And yes you could add a PPA, but they're often hard to find, and many popular programs don't have PPAs for out-of-release updates.) But that's more of a complaint about the milestone-release system than it is a complaint about Unity.

Though I am glad they're providing the option for Classic, at least in 11.04. Too bad most people who don't like Unity and don't read Linux forums won't figure out how to enable it!

It would be lovely if every feature could land and be 100% complete and bug-free, but FOSS has never worked like that and never will work like that. Release early release often - that's always been the mantra. What you are asking for is conservatism, which isn't a bad thing, but it's not something you're going to get from an OS with a 6 month release cycle and far reaching ambitions :)

I don't care for the default as long as the dropdown on the login screen leaves me the choice to have my "real" Gnome desktop. Else, this release would be a nightmare, i guess..

I agree. And from what I have read/seen as far as Unity goes is that it is not ready for prime time just yet. On the other hand, Gnome 3 looks pretty awesome. Just saying.

Gnome 3 is great...if you have compatible graphics processing.

Ubuntu (and Gnome for that matter) are facing an interesting challenge there. Do you try to take Windows head on and assume your target customer is running new hardware? or do you try to keep the installed base of Linux users happy? Many of those are using Linux on older hardware precisely because it's still pretty snappy on those machines, while Windows is too bloated. It seems hard to have it both ways.

You got it backwards -- newer hardware is the problem ;)

Gnome shell mandates compositing.

Unity doesn't because it has a fallback shell that mimics actual unity 100%.

Awesome yes, but Gnome3 also doesn't seem stable enough yet.

Fedora 15 with the latest updates and official NVIDIA drivers, its been my main environment for the last week with very little problem (especially considering FC15 is still Alpha).

My main gripe is the lack of preferences in the GUI, but a little google + cl fixes that.

I think that is that they are talking about. To have or Not to have a classic-desktop option by default.

Discussion: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2011-April/...

I wouldn't be surprised. When I tried Unity a few months ago it was riddled with bugs and memory leaks. It felt much like KDE4 did when it first came out - an incomplete product that focused on quantity of features over quality. It could be a great desktop environment, but it's going to need a lot of work before it gets there. With 11.04 coming in the next few weeks, I just don't see it having that polish on time.

The only reason I can find to prefer one desktop over another is ease of using / assigning custom keyboard shortcuts: http://oss.zentu.net/?q=node/27

KDE4 was a huge leap backward in that respect. 3.5 was about perfect, and I actually preferred it over Gnome when 3.5 was the default. But more often than not must we learn the hard way that sometimes it's just best to leave well enough alone.

Exactly.

Me too.

However, I tried the updated version as part of the latest Ubuntu beta and I have to say... it has come a long way. It's not perfect, but it is leaps and bounds ahead of their "preview" version.

In fact, the version you were using probably was still using Mutter as a drawing backend - they've since switched to the more stable and tested Compiz.

Actually, classical gnome won't even be installed by default at all:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/ubuntu-11-10-will-not-shi...

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/739812/...

  We made very good progress on a11y in Natty, but will miss the goal of
  perfect a11y. We'll nail it in Oneiric. That's OK, because we have the
  Classic desktop fallback in Natty, but will not in Oneiric.
 
  Mark

Natty = 11.04 Oneiric = 11.10

So 11.04 will have the classic by default :)

Either way, it's just an apt-get away :)

> it's just an apt-get away

im amazed at how much internet drama ignores this point...

Guys, they are talking about having a classic-desktop OPTION by default. Otherwise people will have to install gnome2-desktop to get it. Unity will be the default.

Relevant thread at Ubuntu Forums seems to call bullshit on this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1724085

Contains a link to related https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2011-April/...

People on forums can call many things... but it's still the Canonical staff that makes the decisions (Tech board in this case).

I'm referring you specifically to the second link I posted which is not from the forums but from the mailing list from which all this speculation arose. The forums don't mean anything, it's just where I originally found the pertinent link.

This was expected, Unity isn't ready yet.

But GNOME3 is?

I have been able to use F15 alpha for a week or so, and I actually quite like it. Majority of problems that I've met so far was caused by systemd or some other novelty, not Gnome 3.

I didn't mean the subjective "ready", I meant not ready as in not shipping, which Gnome 3.0 is.

Some people mentioned Gnome 3 in here, but by Gnome classic, I think the mean Gnome 2, as opposed to Gnome Shell, which is Gnome 3.

Did anyone else noticed that Gnome Shell has a lot of Unity stuff? Possible Wayland backend and a launcher interface.

Yes, Shell added and redesigned itself a lot after Unity surface but hey, that's good.

I'm still on 10.04 x86-64. I'm very happy with it. If it isn't dead simple to switch to Gnome Classic in 10.04 I will be switching to Debian. I use my desktop computer for work not play. If I want to just waste time on the web I use my CR-48.

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