Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released
blog.linuxmint.com
blog.linuxmint.com
The JavaScript environment GNOME3 was written in could lead to lots of UX experimentation like this, at least once it has better documentation.
Yes, some of this could be attributed to Ubuntu 11.10, but the comparison is still valid since both are competing for me as a user. If the Mint team finds it necessarily to subsume Ubuntu then they must be prepared to accept the problems that are inherited as a result.
Every version of Compiz newer than the one in this PPA gives me endless problems. If you're still on 11.04 like me (I downgraded after upgrading to 11.10), this PPA is a must.
I also think this could be a pretty big blow to Google because I just tried DuckDuckGo and it is working really well. I think I am going to try to switch over. Giant companies like Google make me uncomfortable.
Our goal is to give users a good search experience while funding ourselves by receiving a share of this income. Search engines who do not share the income generated by our users, are removed from Linux Mint and might get their ads blocked.
...
It won’t only be down to donations and sponsorships anymore, your activity on the web, every search query you make and product you buy will help fund our project.
Then, I installed Bluetile (http://bluetile.org/) which is a tiling window manager that functions well in desktop environments. It lets me use several different tiling layouts and different modes including tiling, full screen, and floating. Everything can be done with the keyboard or the mouse (there's a narrow pane on the side of the screen with all the functions available as buttons). I've still got window dragging, resizing with the mouse, minimize, maximize, etc. buttons, and a host of new features to play with. I find Bluetile to be the best of both worlds for me, and not much of a compromise at that.
As far as I can see, and ironically, these new releases have less usability than their older and "geekier" versions. I mean back in linux mint 9 I could find compiz settings in 2 clicks. Now I cannot even see a compiz settings button anywhere. I mean, what the hell was wrong with my rotating cube desktop? Sure, it wasn't breaking any "productivity increase" reports but it made me happy to work with my linux box, not to mention all of the mac & win people looking with envy to these effects which my pieceashit netbook can pull off while their overpowered books can't.
Two popular distros (I mean ubuntu and linux mint currently) had created an end goal it seems: "We want to be the mac of the linux world!". In the old days it was "we want to be the windows of the linux world" and this decision killed kde4. But the correct direction is to be an unique experience. Compiz did that, and as far as I can see none of the big mothers of the software world (yes I am looking at you m$ and apple) has a similar software to that!
TL;DR:Don't macify yourself.
Made me try a switch to Gnome, wasn't good for me though.
KDE4 now is great IMO, still a few things I don't like but really good, but then ... sheesh!
Should I stick with v11 or go ahead and install v12 now? Would it be better to wait a while to let any bugs shake out, or should 12 be pretty solid now?
P.S. Can I transfer all my files from Ubuntu to Mint easily?
Is Coke better than Pepsi? It boils down more to personal preference. Which one do you like more?
>Unity is really not cool at all.
I use Ubuntu without Unity. Google "remove unity" and follow instructions for whatever version you are using.
dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt
dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
personally, i don't care for customization at all, so i was wondering if there were other issues besides that.
like what? again, i'm not challenging you, i'm genuinely wondering.
In addition, Unity is slow on any system that doesn't have a separate graphics card or the latest generation of integrated graphics. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn off the graphical effects to speed it up. Combine that with the usability regressions, and Unity was a definite no-go for me.
That's not to say that I "hate" Unity or will never use it as my desktop environment. I think Unity has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, like all too much software out there, it was released before it had been fully finished. I look forward to trying Unity again when the next Ubuntu LTS (12.04, I believe) is released. Hopefully it'll be far more usable and "finished" by then.
[And if you're opening a terminal, we can be pretty sure that your hands are heading for the keyboard anyway! :) ]
All of a sudden Gnome release Gnome 3 - which breaks a lot of that workflow, and also means that people wanting to stay at Gnome 2.x are going to drift slowly into dependancy hell. And Shuttleworth plays his benign dictator card, saying he doesn't care what the community thinks, they're wrong, and Unity is the way forward. Unity also breaks the workflow.
Now those users are kind of stuck. KDE also has an example of dramatic change, so people might be reluctant to move there.
LXDE or XFCE aren't yet mature and there are some frustrating features with both. (But they've picked up some users.)
And then you're left with self-built desktop environments - one of the *boxes or some other WM + file manager + etc etc.
People don't like to vent about how their window manager doesn't get in the way of getting work done. Unhappy people do, so you never know the ratio.
-Lack of bottom taskbar... I greatly dislike the combination launcher/taskbar style of Unity/Mac (Win 7 pulled it off better.) I could fix this except for item #1.
Beyond the UI, stuff that "just worked" before (like my wireless network adapter) now didn't work at all without manual intervention.
All told, it was just too much hassle on a machine where I just want to get some work done. Yes, I should probably know better than to upgrade a Linux distribution on a machine that I use to actually get some work done, and it will probably be a while before I upgrade again--I'll just choose something usable and leave it alone until I have a week of vacation to spend fussing with updates.
The rest is OK and I can learn/adapt.
The rest I can deal with, I tend toward 'end user' tasks plus a couple of ssh sessions, and about 10 applications over four virtual desktops.
Hibernate works so I can keep the setup between sessions.
It's exactly the same kind of hang-wringing we saw from a lot of the GNOME 1 users when GNOME 2 came out.
People hate on Unity for two reasons:
1. Because they feel betrayed by Canonical for switching to another target group and letting desktop users Gnome2-less alone in the cold. It is like Apple completely giving up on Macs and OSX and fully going iOS.
2. Because Unity is, hands down, simply less usable for day-to-day desktop use than Gnome2. It may make sense on tablets, but it is a step backwards on PCs. If Canonical wouldnt aggressively push it by making it a default, probably nobody would voluntarily install and use it.
* Stability: I've had issues on multiple different hardware setups. Trying to configure compiz plugins -- hung. Reboot then failed to re-log in to "3d" Unity. Only "2d" unity, where all the key shortcuts were different. Sigh.
* Stupid UI design: Maximized windows get the top panel as their title-bar, but that panel displays a different name if a different window is active.
* UI glithces: Double-click of title usually [un]maximizes. That is, unless you're trying to unmaximize a non-active window.
* Winkey behavior: Type the full name of an application, hit <return>, and a different application is executed! That is because the search happened to find that different application, and not my application yet.
* Slowing me down: The time it takes to un-hide the bar is extremely long and slows me down.
* No fast way to minimize a window with the mouse (I used to be able to click a task bar item)
* No easy glance to see which windows I was working with
* Crappy workspace switcher: requires multiple clicks to switch workspaces, cannot drag&drop windows between desktops, etc.
I really cannot hope to remember the hundreds of annoyances I've had when trying to use Unity. I find it to be really incompetent design.
Apple may be competent enough to decide to throw everything away and design something nice. The Ubuntu guys are not. They should have stuck to incrementally improving the Linux desktop as it was. I think that now, they're going to become irrelevant.
Unity might be the next big thing in the desktop environment phenomena but forcing it down through our throats is very obnoxious.
Complaining that someone else is not doing free work just to suit you personally sounds like acting like a four year old, honestly.