Disclaimer: I run three monitors, so I'm probably different from the average Unity user.
Here's an example of the work from Feb:
- https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-February...
- https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-r-redu...
For me the Dash is now finally fast/almost instant as opposed to 12.10. All these improvements will be in 13.04 (and the select safe ones will be backported to 12.04 over time).
I tried Gnome 3 for a few weeks, went back to a simple window manager for awhile (I had used Openbox for years), and also tried Unity and KDE4. Turns out I'm used to a certain kind of workflow based on "traditional" desktops. I prefer having resizable floating windows to maximized windows, I rely on too much desktop infrastructure to just use a window manager anymore, and KDE has extremely busy and cluttered interfaces. I've never seen anything like it, it was overwhelming.
Of course, I never use full desktop environments anyways; all of them are too big and resource-heavy, and their animations and cool whizzbangery always distracts me and interrupts my workflow. I only use WindowMaker now with GNUStep apps (with the exception of Firefox). It's old-school, but it works.
This is the most distraction free environment with absolutely no limitations (in the scope of my work) I have ever worked with.
Not to mention it'll run on any netbook easily, or other low spec computer.
Apple is already a heavyweight in this area and Google/Samsung have a dominant second place. Viable tablet alternatives need to establish a foothold now, before there is too much lock in from the existing entrants. Every iOS or Play app that I buy will make me (as a consumer) less likely to switch platforms. This is true for me, even as an early adopter. For a normal consumer that doesn't have the free cash, nor the desire for constant change, it is a killer.
Every month that they fail to have this out the door, they lose potential customers.
[edit: just a bit of editing]
The smartphone market is almost 1 billion units per year now (or will be this year), with the potential for 3-4 billion units. The tablet market is only around a 100 million market right now, with the potential for at least 2 billion units per year.
The biggest chunk of these markets will belong to free and open source operating systems like Android and Ubuntu, so Ubuntu definite has a chance here. But most of the those markets will be lower-end devices, obviously, and Android can already work on very low-end hardware. Plus it has a much bigger momentum. If Ubuntu wants to have a significant market share of that, it needs become as "lean" as possible on low-end hardware, and make sure it makes people excited about it, so it gets a lot of buzz/marketing for free.
I mean, the GP said that cinnamon was too simple and immature, and when asked why, your response is that this design is, essentially, overly mature.
One might say that Windows 98 is "less mature" than today's OS's, and if Cinnamon has features comparable to Windows 98, one might think of it being less mature as well.
Oh, what, you want some examples of what I mean by that? Why? Can't you just accept it when I say that it's obsolete and we really should be looking for a new solution?
(I don't think you're being pedantic, just missing my point :)
I think this is good news for Unity on the desktop because it means they will be tweaking the hell out of it for performance. I read that it's already better in 13.04, and we can probably expect it to get better over the releases.
Other than that, I wouldn't use Ubuntu on tablets right now. I'm not enough of an early adopter to switch to this OS which is - let's face it - probably not ready for prime time and still pretty buggy. The first versions of Android sucked, I don't see why this would be an exception. Nailing it on the first try is very hard.
From what I read somewhere, Ubuntu for phones was pretty CPU intensive, which could mean it didn't have hardware acceleration. I did notice some stutters when switching between apps in their own video. So that better not be happening when they actually release the devices, or people aren't going to give it a second thought.
In Ubuntu mobile's case, the first impression will literally decide whether Ubuntu has a future in mobile or not. So they better make sure everything is absolutely flawless, instead of hurrying up to ship it. If Ubuntu for phones and tablets has the same performance issues as on desktop, then might as well call it a dead-end now.
I tried 12.04 not too long ago, and some of the same lagginess/weird quirks were still there. Now that many ubuntians are now trying to push for less testing/more releasing in Debian, it's like a skyscraper company telling their foundation builders to use sack concrete instead of whats been tested and proven to work for many years.
I think for a lot of people that don't do much on a computer, Unity/Ubuntu makes way more sense than it's iOS and Win counterpart. It's cleaner, there is less "clutter" on the screen.
Even from a tweaker/hacker perspective, when you are not working/coding and just want to relax and watch some content, Unity does the job pretty well.
I prefer their vision of the post-PC era than what Win/iOS propose. At least it's an open platform and it integrates fluidly in your activity flow.
Running a laptop from an Ubuntu OEM (System 76) with high end CPU (I7) and SSD I can't complain about performance or compatibility issues at all (though I'm only on a dual 1080p config).
Steam also works quite OK. Though most of the time I'm in a terminal with vim, so I don't care much about most Unity features. It looks nicer than the dated GNOME 2 / 3 / KDE stuff though (personal taste).
Also, I really got used to Ubuntu One file sync and music store and indicators.
I don't think I've had more than a week of uptime out of either laptop, and I think the median is something like 2 days. That was not the case with earlier versions of Ubuntu on the same hardware.
I like the ideas behind Unity, but the execution has been terrible. It's pretty obvious they're focused on arbitrary schedules over a solid user experience.
Compiz regularly crashes, but thankfully it automatically restarts. Now I don't need to panic when the whole screen stops updating.
The "snap" window dragging feature is broken in the presence of multiple monitors; as you drag the mouse across the monitor boundary, the mouse pointer becomes momentarily disconnected from the window location, so that you are moving the window as if by a long invisible stick, not by its original grab location.
The overlay scrollbars don't interact well with Eclipse; JUnit running tests outputs file paths that Eclipse turns into hyperlinks, and the hyperlink mouseover stops the scrollbar from from being triggered when the pointer approaches the child window border. The overlay scrollbar thing doesn't seem to have been fully thought through.
Gnome-terminal is one of the slowest terminals I've ever used; it would literally slow down development by blocking on log-verbose tests. I've gone back to my old stalwart of rxvt.
I don't understand the difference between Windows key and Alt key command prompts. I've given up trying to figure out how to register my various user-directory installed applications with the taskbar thing. So I've stopped using both, and now I start all my apps from the terminal, with shell scripts to redirect output if they are chatty.
The Alt-Tab task switcher is broken just like the OS X one is, switching between its concept of applications rather than top level windows. This means alt-tabbing between Eclipse and Firefox would bring the Downloads window to the fore, leaving the actual browser hidden behind maximized Eclipse. Usability disaster. With some difficulty and playing around with preference managers that come with warning labels, I've rebound the keys to a slightly more usable window switcher.
Oh, and the fun I had when I tried to bind Ctrl+Alt+F12 to a command in Eclipse; took me back decades to switching terminals with Alt+F keys.
In short, Ubuntu Unity is horrifically bad. Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers. The trough in the middle is very ill served.
I see how frustrating your experience with Unity was, and it certainly echoes my own, but does it warrant such a conclusion about Linux in general? For one thing, there are alternatives to Ubuntu on the desktop. For new users who are not completely helpless with computers Linux Mint LTS with MATE is likely a better choice than Ubuntu. MATE is very Windows-like; there's a lot that can be configured through the GUI in that DE and, FWIW, I have had a good amount of success converting Windows users to it.
As for those who are "so inept [they] only use a browser", well, not all of such users can afford an iPad, especially not in those parts of the world where they have both significantly higher prices on iPads and a lower average income than the US (e.g., Eastern Europe), and even Ubuntu with Unity delivers great value to them. It's an application that's not to be taken lightly, either.
Finally, Ubuntu makes it relatively easy to switch your the desktop environment. I admit I haven't seen any usability studies nor have I seen someone try to do it but I imagine a motivated middle-level user with sudo rights should be able to follow a tutorial on YouTube [1] on how to replace Unity with Cinnamon or MATE even if something more advanced replacing Ubuntu with Linux Mint is beyond him or her.
[1] Like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJYiPFodlg and many others.
Edit: If you have access to gcc/g++ at work but not sudo rights (which is a very crappy situation to be in indeed) you can try to compile a different WM/DE in a local directory for your use and then create an ~/.xsession file to start it.
You must have done this already but for the benefit of whoever else might struggling with overlay scrollbars I'll note that you can disable them by putting
export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0
The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked. I'm happiest interacting with Linux from Cygwin ssh. It's a fantastic command-line experience.
Even though I'm not a fan of Unity it's because I miss small thinks like being able to right click on a panel and add stuff or all the cool desktop themes which are missing in Unity.
Having said that, calling modern Linux desktops half-backed is either a clueless (and you make your case that you're not clueless) or possibly having an ulterior motives for drawing such a flawed conclusion. Modern Linux desktops are no more flawed than Windows.
Want to see a frustrating Windows UI bug? Put your start/task bar or whatever it's called at the top of the desktop. Then run Cygwin XWin and open a new X window. It will come up under the start bar/task bar. Several other programs do to. That bug has existed for like a decade from my recollection going back to at lest XP if not 2000.
Microsoft has like thousands of engineers, how hard would it be to fix that?
I think this is touching on a good point, I would much enjoy seeing one desktop environment being kept stable in terms of UI and slowly polished to perfection, instead of continuously starting from scratch and inevitably coming up with something half-baked. And this is not specific to Linux, just look at the Windows 8 mess.
Apple comes closest, at least they keep the rough lines constant, but they have the bad habit of needlessly replacing parts of the UI and losing features along the way.
Since Ubuntu on the tablet is a literal clean slate, they can at least avoid the puzzle of making existing applications fit their desktop guidelines. A lot of popular apps still don't use the app menu for instance (GUI version of Vim, Eclipse, and even that new Steam for Ubuntu).
https://plus.google.com/104354412340246703061/posts/TUCPE7JE...