A Disturbing Dialog About Ubuntu and Unity

There is an enormous class of design problems that have several appealing solutions, one of which is better than the others, but not so much better that it's worth the time to find it. "Where should the launcher be?" is very likely a member of this class: There probably actually is a best place for the launcher to be, but it's better to just have it in the wrong place than to have to argue about it on a bug tracker, and certainly better than having to make a configuration drop-down for it.

The entire reason you have a design team is because design-by-complaint reliably produces shitty software. Unity exists because every other Linux GUI has fallen victim to this process. Will it succeed in not being shitty? I have no idea. Ubuntu will sink or swim on the merits of its leadership. But the only way to avoid this one major failure mode is for Shuttleworth to ignore, as politely as possible, the complaints of his users.

After following open source projects for some years, it seems they're all eventually accused of some dark corruption - usually after making some UI change.

"You're betraying the ideals of the [project / community / founder]," the accusers say. "It used to be about giving users [freedom / choice / slightly less RAM usage]. Now it's just about [main leader of project / 'the developers' / the corporations]'s whims! Why not just give us [a setting / the old behavior / a large-scale feature]!"

Take a look at Firefox forums after every release, or Pidgin's bug tracker every time they tweak the GUI...

It reminds me of an older Less Wrong article - (http://lesswrong.com/lw/uu/why_does_power_corrupt/).

Now, it could be that all projects are slowly decaying into [ego / corporate / dictatorial designer]-centric tarpits, but I kind of doubt it.

He copied the anchored menu bar, moved the window controls to the left, copied exposé, copied some elements of the OSX panel, tried to improve typography, etc. Some of these were actually good developments (the Ubuntu branded font set is nice) but most of the time it just feels like a cobbled together interface.

It also seems he is trying to copy some other elements of Apple. He is eschewing customization (ostensibly) for uniformity and simplicity. And he has made Canonical's designers the top decision makers. Programmers implement. Community gets what they're fed. Usability is their ultimate trump card (as we see in this case).

This doesn't appear to be working well, though. Apple hired world class designers and payed them tons and gave them a massive amount of power. And they had Steve Jobs who would say "this sucks" when no one else would. Canonical (probably?) has pretty good designers given near-absolute power. I'm thinking there's quite a difference between "world-class" and "pretty good". Not to mention that Shuttleworth, an amazing man in his own right, is no Steve Jobs. He probably doesn't say "this sucks" enough and maybe even doesn't know what actually does suck when it comes to design and usability.

Anyways... I wish Shuttleworth well but I'm not very optimistic about Canonical's future. And I think they'd do better if he brought his own personality, creativity, and intensity to the project instead of chasing Jobs' shadow. Or maybe he should find a new leader to take his place.

Well, it's not even a good distro at work. We're using the last two version of ubuntu, because everytime we upgrade, it breaks.

I used archlinux and I liked what it does. I expect archlinux to break and I expect archlinux to be up-to-date. Even when archlinux breaks, it's no biggie because I backed it up and it's easy to reinstall archlinux.

Ubuntu? What do I expect? Stability and up-to-date programs. Major upgrade does not implies major breakage. Now, they want me to expect Mac OSX like experience? They are now even more unsuitable for work than archlinux is.

I do not mean to say design and UX and usability is not important, but still, it is a matter of priorities. If a designer decide to have transparent flapping buttons and if this make the code behind it extremely complex and if it makes impossible to customize and configure manually any parts of the system, then I would say it does not belong to Linux.

Maybe it is a case with Ubuntu. Maybe Ubuntu is a Linux for designers. Then I am wrong, and will switch to another distro. For me Ubuntu was an easy to install Linux with few driver issues, and my first step after installing it is to remove the useless Visual Effects in preferences.

But authority only works if you use that authority to do the right thing. Unity isn't doing that. I am in part frustrated that Unity got _worse_ with the latest Ubuntu release, and I'm frustrated that it has lots of bugs, and the interface is neither traditional nor discoverable. But even worse than these problems is the problem that Unity isn't pursuing a worthy goal. It's a rethinking of how you manage applications and files on the Linux desktop, but the Linux desktop has never been particularly functional or filled out and it falls behind further with time. The major trends we see is the desktop spiraling in on a single application, the browser, and files and media moving to the cloud. Unity is messing around with something that will never win the hearts and minds of new users, while it alienates what users there already are. I've never met someone who loves Unity! There's a couple people who accept it, and a much larger group that hates it. (Personally once I figured out to install gnome-shell I can like Ubuntu again, but Unity really did almost push me over the edge to get a Mac.)

It's not to say that a rethinking of the Linux UI is an entirely useless endevour, but Ubuntu and Canonical should not be pursuing a fantasy of a rich ecosystem of GUI apps. There are maybe a dozen relevant applications on Linux now, and that number will only get smaller. But the beauty of this is that if you just pursue an experience that encompasses those dozen applications, and you dive deep into those applications (which you can because they are all open source!) then something really neat could come out of that. I think people could get behind an idea like that, even if those same people simultaneously felt annoyed with particular changes that came from that. But it's hard to look past those problems when it feels like present usability is being compromised for a misguided fantasy.

Far more likely they want to cut in on corporate IT, where saving $50/seat in OS licensing and $100/seat in hardware adds up to real money.

While it would definitely be nice to please everyone, even merely trying to do so will seriously derail you from your own vision and design. That direction can either be yours or nobody's.

People also overestimate the effect of this kind of soloing. At worst, they will just create something nobody will use.

And if the majority of users will cease to use Unity, there will be 3rd-party packages for Gnome3 or Gnome2 or whatever it is that people want. As a critical review, if Ubuntu ever get to that point it might indeed be a good idea for Ubuntu to accept defeat and return to the mainstream. However, it is no earlier than that when we will see if they truly are stupid. And if they are, then there's a fair chance of forking and there will not only be Kubuntu and Lubuntu and ${WHATEVER}buntu but also Gubuntu.

Ubuntu / Linux has far bigger problems than Unity. (Jump to point 5 for conclusion).

1. There are huge regressions.

With the upgrade to 11.10 my laptop's battery life has been cut from 5-6 hours to 2-2.5 hours. This is on an Asus UL machine that on Windows gets 10 hours.

This may be a kernel issue, but Canonical could add a lot of value by at least warning, or better, fixing/minimizing the problem. There are all kinds of boot parameter hacks, etc. to try to fix this, but it requires a lot of reboots and fiddling with internals. How about including a script to optimize these settings that is run after the upgrade?

"Linux on the desktop" is a dangerous misnomer, because on desktop computers power is not a concern. But nowadays power consumption is almost everything. Canonical already has its sights set on mobile devices, but hasn't even addressed power consumption for notebooks properly.

2. Poor communication of core functionality changes

New additions are presented and lauded in glossy detail, but removed features are not as clearly presented.

Nautilus (file manager) used to allow drag and drop copying/moving of files onto the left pane "bookmarks" folders. This was simply removed without warning, crippling quick drag and drop filing. Once again, this is "upstream", because of the Gnome/Nautilus teams' decisions, but it affects users in a noticeable way.

The initial update to Unity (11.04) removed all gnome applets, and made the time tracking software I used to use inaccessible. The upgrade to 11.10 made me lose my skype app/status indicator.

I don't care if my dock is on the left or bottom, or my open-close buttons are on the left or the right. Most of Unity's "coolness" is Compiz anyway - zoom, desktop switching, etc., so all that was available before Unity. For launching applications, gnome-do is still much faster, light-weight, and flexible (e.g. allowing creating/opening individual tomboy notes).

By communicating feature additions and subtractions better, people won't be so negatively surprised. Set proper expectations.

3. Key consumer software weaknesses

No good media creation suite. I was trying to make a photo slide show with a soundtrack a while ago, and I went through two days of installing/testing, setting up ppa's, compiling sources, etc. to get the latest versions, and nothing really works well. I mostly code, write, and use the web, so it's not mission-critical for me, but for a "consumer desktop OS", the absence of an official and well-functioning suite of applications akin to Apple's music and movie makers is a weakness.

Other apps like Evernote and a more up-to-date Skype would be nice as well.

4. What hardware does it run on flawlessly?

When you buy a computer with Windows or OS X, you know that everything will work. With Ubuntu/Linux, you don't. It's a huge stress factor before buying a new computer. Ubuntu has "certified hardware", but it's buried on some wiki page or other back page. This information should be front and center on the home page, so that I can buy something with confidence that it just works.

5. Conclusion

Ubuntu (whether Unity or Gnome) is far more usable than Windows (messy config menus, no multiple desktops, no full-screen desktop zoom, inconsistent shortcuts, etc.), and at least as good as OS X (which for example doesn't allow you to change the system's font size globally, and is less keyboard navigation friendly).

I'm considering abandoning Ubuntu again, because it can't compete on power consumption.

I am sympathetic to Canonical being annoyed by the bitchy entitlement complaints over superficial UI features (e.g., open/close buttons left or right). It's bike-shedding to the max.

That said, I think better up-front communication of changes can help set expectations. It forces the designers to reason why they are removing/changing/adding something. This doesn't have to lead to drawn out discussions, but some design decisions seem to be "shot from the hip" without realizing that they may affect/ruin thousands of people's work flow.

Lastly, there are huge issues like power consumption and predictable hardware compatibility that currently heavily weigh against Ubuntu/Linux.

That overbearing spouse deserves to be left in the dust immediately, and maybe some of these old users do as well. Not that they would be truly left behind, considering the vast landscape of other equally expensive options available requiring just as much effort to install - or MORE, if that's your thing.

We've been talking about bringing Linux to the desktop for more than a decade. And it's not even close. So a company comes along and says: Listenting to you guys isn't working, so we're going to try something else. And now they're somehow considered the antithesis to Linux. What is "Bringing Linux to the masses" supposed to mean? Making all computer users around the world cantakerous curmudgeons who can change every pixel any graphical interface can ever hope to offer? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like that world. I like Linux geeks, and consider myself one, but I also like all the people in my life who will never even care what Linux is.

And maybe there is a way to the masses via the old ways. I implore you to invest your time and money to find out. I would honestly love to watch that unfold, and I'd probably install that version as well to see if it fits me. In the meantime, I'm going to be happily using Ubuntu everywhere, as I am now - on my 2 year old DIY desktop with 2 giant 27" monitors (worked upon first install, with no proprietary drivers - 3 screens: not so easy), on my television (DIY home theater running xbmc - hdmi audio and video - also worked upon first install - no proprietary), and on my laptop at work (thinkpad, also worked immediately), and of course, on a couple servers at various stages of deploy.

As unpopular as the opinion may be around here, I really enjoy using Unity. It's new and obviously imperfect, but it's one of the better user experiences I've found on Linux. I felt the old gnome 2 desktop was a step back from Windows 7 when I switched my media center to it last year. It looked as though I was installing software from 15 years in the past, trying to fit into a world that had an inch of dust on top of it.

I like the windows-7-like dock bar in Unity. I like that searching for apps via keyboard is king (although the sorting sucks, sorting by usage is essential). Not a huge fan of the omni-preset menu bar, but it's not really THAT big of a deal (admittedly having 2 giant screens makes that possible). I don't give a damn about screensavers, as I haven't used one since flying toasters were the in thing. Truth be told, I spend far too much making things ON Linux to care much about Linux itself. And that's the way it should be. At least that's the only way I can stand to use Linux on every single computer I own.

Bitter arguments among side-stream groups (church-goers, linux-users) are a much bigger reason why these groups do not attract mainstream audiences then what it is they're fighting about.

Unity, Gnome, and KDE are all headed towards a more Mac-like UI because Apple is the most lauded software design company in the world.

Like church-goers, Linux users should be supporting and celebrating innovation in design that are meant to increase use in the software. If such innovation was more broadly celebrated for its own sake, then it is much more likely that one of the major players would be willing to risk new design decisions - to really experiment with the UI. Instead, the same changes are all adopted by the major players because trying something too different will get your ridiculed, and that leads to losing early adopters, and that leads to a diminishing user base.

If you want to see Linux become more mainstream so that a generation of computer users can have a little more software freedom, then join the discussion by celebrating experimentation instead of condemning it.

Shuttleworth is trying to gain some of this advantage for Ubuntu.

It might seem dictatorial, but I think he's got a point .. if Ubuntu is going to innovate and create differentiation from other OSs it needs to change. An element of faith is needed to allow that change to occur.

However, the direction does not seem to line up with typical open source hacker goals (it's very hard to adjust unity even in the smallest ways, and there seems to be some number of breaks from typical conventions, e.g., breaking xscreensaver), which is one of the key values of the Linux world. That, I believe, is the controversy here.

I use Bodhi at home, and have been real happy with it.

Ubuntu has always been about targeting the mainstream as far as I can tell. They do a good job of it, and there's plenty of other options for those who think otherwise.

OK, so which distribution is everyone switching over to in place of Ubuntu?

I am switching to Debian after 10 years of Ubuntu I was a big defender of Canonical and their SO and but now I lost it...

So they want Unity to be a GUI for tablets? How far up your ass does your head have to be, to think that a GUI designed for desktop use, and a GUI designed for tablet use, can be used interchangeably? Someone ask Mark, he'll know. Or someone who worked on Metro since they seem to have the same parts of their brain broken. If Microsoft does break into the tablet space, it will be from work on Windows Phone 7, it will not be from Metro. Apple recognized this when they used their phone GUI for tablets despite having a perfectly good desktop GUI around, and Canonical is all about copying Apple like a fucking funhouse mirror, how did they not pick up on this?

If they want to target the tablet space, good for them. I think the ship has probably sailed, but more competition there isn't going to hurt. But don't fuck traditional desktop users, who currently account for 100% of your user base, in the process.

Basically, what I want out of a distro is a convenient platform to build the system I want. That's Window Maker with a lot of xterms, an Emacs session, a Firefox session, and possibly other applications as I need them.

Any distro can give me that much. The reason I pick one over the other is ease of administration. Ubuntu gives me this in the package management systems, the large repositories, hardware support, and, if all else fails, large, well-trafficked forums where questions actually get answered. (I'm leery of less-used distros because I know, I just know, that I'd stumble on some odd corner-case problem that nobody who's used that distro has seen and be up too late diagnosing and fixing it myself.)

So all these posts that imply Unity is the only way to use Ubuntu sound, to me, like people implying New York City is the only place to live in America. It's big and it's in all the movies, but there's a whole continent out there just beyond.