Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This entire conversation is incredibly disappointing. It feels like a giant echo chamber, a handful of people who don't like Unity/Gnome3 who hear each other complaining and assume that means the entire Linux universe feels the same way. Everyone I listen to hates Gnome 3, that must mean everyone hates Gnome 3!

The truth is, there are people who like Unity and there are people who like Gnome 3. You're just not hearing them because the negative types are yelling over top of them. The people who like the new WMs don't have anything to add to this discussion because the entire discussion is about how those people don't exist. I feel like if I mention that I'm using Unity right now and I like it, I feel like I'll be told "no you're not and no you don't, case closed."

You don't like it. We get it. But claiming that these people don't exist seems a little disingenuous when obviously they do or Ubuntu wouldn't be quite such a popular distro. Unless you're suggesting everyone downloads Ubuntu and then immediately installs a different WM?

That is so true. I'm a KDE user and we had a very similar situation with KDE4. OK, 4.0 wasn't usable, we all know that; but 4.1 was really better and by 4.2 it was pretty decent. Nowadays most KDE users agree moving on was a good decision and we have a great desktop.

The people complaining usually are those who were happy with Gnome2 and just want it the way it was. Guess what, nobody erased Gnome2 from existence, and as far as I know it was in maintenance mode anyway, so nothing has changed for them. Use Mate if you prefer it.

And many (like Linus) probably just want a lightweight WM to use CLI, a browser and maybe another application. Guess what, you already have that, and there are several of them to choose.

But many of us want a complete and integrated desktop environment with lots of eye candy, multiple applications with similar look, complex file search, GUI installation and the whole shebang. We don't mind if it takes extra RAM and CPU because we have it. KDE4, Gnome3 and Unity try to give that, and many people do enjoy it, as I assume the developers of those DE's.

We get it, you don't like it. That's fine! You have choice! Just don't assume your opinion is universal, and don't be a dick about it.

i like ssh. i like putty. the linux desktop is a sick joke that's been losing in the marketplace for a decade -- it's not like i like kde better.

to just take an example, the user-friendly way to update Ubuntu linux is

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

try to do it with the GUI and it's a kafka nightmare. sometimes it just hangs up for hours with the progress bar stuck. Installing software on the command line is just

$ sudo apt-get install X

whereas you can screw around forever with the GUI and never find the package you're looking for

Now here I've been calling someone a curmudgeon because they want their old WM back, and someone has to step in and out-neckbeard the parent.

Oh, what's that? You typed apt-get install solitaire? What are you, a fool? What you actually wanted to type was apt-get install xmividev_2_2.0.2.3.1-dev-final-release-source. It's totally more user-friendly than a GUI.

There were plenty of people who liked AOL too. Does that mean we should still be on dialup?

PS: I've read very, very, few comments, on any site, from people who claim to "like" Unity. At best it's more of a "it's not as bad as everyone says".

> At best it's more of a "it's not as bad as everyone says".

This is the camp I fall in. It's not that I don't mind the new, improved, eye-candy-focused drive of Unity and Gnome3. But why abandon the products that worked to begin with?

Well, it's tricky. People that are happy with their desktop environment are not particularly likely to go to some site and talk about how good it is. They'll just happily use it.

Unity is the best desktop I've ever used.

Have you used other desktops?

Windows since 3.1 (though I was never an every day user of Vista and 7), OS X pre-Lion, GNOME 2, KDE 3.

OS X has a better combination of desktop quality and application support, but if Unity could magically run OS X apps, I don't think I'd ever use or recommend anything else.

I like Unity. I don't like it enough to go on a forum and tell everyone I like it, but then again there are few things I like enough that I feel I have to tell everyone about my enjoyment. The people who talk the loudest are the people complaining, that's how it always is, has been, and forever will be.

When I worked internal tech support I had users call and complain about Windows 7, asking to go back to DOS. These people stood out more than the 90% of users who enjoyed Windows 7 simply because the complainers were motivated enough to complain and curmudgeonly enough to make such a ridiculous request. The difference is, those users were forced to use software they didn't like. That's hardly the case here.

unity is what you get by default on ubuntu? if so, i really like it, fwiw (i don't normally bother with threads like this...)

Never used Unity but I really enjoy Gnome 3, which is pretty similar from what I've seen.

A handful of tweaks and extensions have made it great. Use it every day for work.

I like Unity. I've used Windows 95, 98 and XP; KDE 3 and 4 and GNOME 2. I prefer Unity to any of them, although I don't think it's perfect. But as others have said, I rarely go into a forum and announce how much I like something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com