Comments on: Ubuntu 11.10, Unity, Gnome 3 and the whole mess

By: admin

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:49:38 +0000

Update … Sing Hosannas! Have just found MATE desktop.
http://mate-desktop.org/

I just installed it on my testing laptop which has now got Gnome 3, KDE, Unity, XFCE on it, none of which I got along with.

Suddenly the darkness has lifted. I can use my laptop again. Things are in the correct place. I am productive again!

By: Sheck

Sheck — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:53:31 +0000

I've been using and recommending Ubuntu since version 6. I'm an IT professional and know a lot of frustrated Windowz users who wanted something easier to use so naturally the first words out of my mouth were "Ubuntu".

Now, however, I recommend against moving to Ubuntu. If asked I suggest Linux Mint.

It's hard enough to move to another OS, it's even harder if that OS is an absolute mess – like Ubutu 11.10. I upgraded just today and boy what an adnveture it was. I spent half a day just to make X to start properly. How are normal user suppose to figure it out ?

Ubuntu – stop trying to be cool and start trying to be the most user friendly OS. People just want something easy to use and functional.

I am still recommeding Ubutu Server at the moment, but we'll see…

By: admin

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:57:51 +0000

Oh, just found this about Linux Mint. Seems like they understand the issues better than Ubuntu does … http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-Mint-12-gets-GNOME-3-with-training-wheels-1374235.html

By: admin

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 04:47:17 +0000

Hi Jo,
Seems like a lot of your issues would be fixed if you dropped back to a fresh install: printing / wifi password etc. Its a bit more work, but generally worth it every so often.

The Unity Launcher / Interface thing is a different matter, and yes, I haven't found a single survey online where the majority of people actually like it. You might like to try a different Ubuntu variety such as Lubuntu, or Xubuntu (hint: try out the bootable Live CDs first before installing). Mint is also interesting and is still on Gnome 2.x, although they're planning a move to Gnome 3 sometime. Then if you really want to mix it up you can try a completely different distro like PCLinux or OpenSuse or Fedora, although that will require some retraining.

By: Jo

Jo — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:56:42 +0000

!Nothing works correctly in 11.10, I can't print any documents, my touchpad mouse doesn't work, WIFI connection keeps "forgetting" the router password so I keep getting asked for it and eventually booted out. What kind of QA procedure was used before the release of this version? One last thing, the launcher is annoying and intrusive and I hate the new UI. I have been using Ubuntu for over three years but now I am so annoyed, frustrated and disappointed with this new version that I am seriously thinking of going back to Windoze!!! Anyone know of a good alternative, it doesn't have to be pretty, only that it works-

By: Digwell

Digwell — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 21:35:13 +0000

I think unity is ok, a little slow, but not so if u use the "special" key to bring it up. It's good for common stuff: browser, filesystems, office apps n stuff, & there's always the keyboard shortcut for your terminal, ctrl-alt-t;well quick. I really like 11.04, everything just seems to work for me OOB. Had a problem trying to set up samba shares but that was probably me. I'm using Natty on both my laptpop & PC now anyway so I set up NFS shares which work great so I'm well happy. The FreeNAS server authentication works much better with them than windows 7 too. I tried 11.10 but didn't like too many silly things like the create launcher vanishing from the desktop right click. And didn't restart disappear from the power button or something? What on earth for? You can't be TOO user friendly can you? /rant (oops) tl;dr: Ubuntu 11.04 great, 11.10 not so.

By: mike

mike — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:32:52 +0000

The last two Ubuntu upgrades (11.04 and 11.10) have been horrible. Ubuntu was always fat, but the upgrades were never this clumsy. I'm starting to seriously consider arch-linux.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:41:02 +0000

Hi John,
Yes it seems like the upgrade process from 11.04 to 11.10 is badly screwed. They seem to have arbitrarily moved a few system files around (see my /var/run problem for eg) and not really written the upgrade to handle this.
I'm guessing you'd get better results if you did a clean install rather than an upgrade. Is that a possibility? If you have your /home mounted as a separate partition, its actually not too painful.

By: John

John — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:36:26 +0000

I love Unity but not if it doesn't work…
It was working just fine in 11.04 and in 11.10 it's a wreck and breaks every other reboot it seems like, or any graphics driver changes and things like that…broken. Can't get it back at the moment.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 04:43:43 +0000

Hi Wayne,

Yes, exactly the reason I thought I'd blog about it. The more mentions it gets, the greater the chance that people will find out.

I can't think why they needed to change it from straight right-click to Alt right-click. And having done it, I do think they might have made a mention of it. Ah well …