Unity

[Cliff Pratt]

I've switched it off.

I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab,
alt-tab... Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.

I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I
have to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of
applications. If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the
games that I have. Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything
useful most of the time. Categories of things are useful but there seems
to be no easy way to browse the categories and drill down to what you want.

The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the
office things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.

There's other stuff but that's enough for me.

Cheers,

Cliff

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Mark Foster]

I have to admit I'm disappointed by Ubuntu's move down this path. Entirely
likely I'll try another distro next time around. Perhaps CentOS, which I
havn't ever tried (and my last RedHat exposure was 7.2 I think...)

Still like Debian, but installed it as a desktop within a VM a while back
and still don't think it's polished enough as a desktop OS. Though that
position is negotiable...

Thanks for posting Cliff.

Mark.

-----Original Message-----
From: nzlug-***@linux.net.nz [mailto:nzlug-***@linux.net.nz] On
Behalf Of Cliff Pratt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 8:20 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: [nzlug] Unity

I've switched it off.

I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab, alt-tab...
Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.

I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I have
to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of applications.
If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the games that I have.
Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything useful most of the
time. Categories of things are useful but there seems to be no easy way to
browse the categories and drill down to what you want.

The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the office
things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.

There's other stuff but that's enough for me.

Cheers,

Cliff

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug


_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Cliff Pratt]

I might give it another go later. I found this in-depth review of Ubuntu
11.04 which looks quite good.

Cheers,

Cliff

Post by Mark Foster
I have to admit I'm disappointed by Ubuntu's move down this path. Entirely
likely I'll try another distro next time around. Perhaps CentOS, which I
havn't ever tried (and my last RedHat exposure was 7.2 I think...)
Still like Debian, but installed it as a desktop within a VM a while back
and still don't think it's polished enough as a desktop OS. Though that
position is negotiable...
Thanks for posting Cliff.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Cliff Pratt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 8:20 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: [nzlug] Unity
I've switched it off.
I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab, alt-tab...
Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.
I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I have
to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of applications.
If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the games that I have.
Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything useful most of the
time. Categories of things are useful but there seems to be no easy way to
browse the categories and drill down to what you want.
The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the office
things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.
There's other stuff but that's enough for me.

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Cliff Pratt]

The link..

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-11.04-natty-narwhal,2943.html

Post by Cliff Pratt
I might give it another go later. I found this in-depth review of Ubuntu
11.04 which looks quite good.
Cheers,
Cliff

Post by Mark Foster
I have to admit I'm disappointed by Ubuntu's move down this path.
Entirely
likely I'll try another distro next time around. Perhaps CentOS, which I
havn't ever tried (and my last RedHat exposure was 7.2 I think...)
Still like Debian, but installed it as a desktop within a VM a while back
and still don't think it's polished enough as a desktop OS. Though that
position is negotiable...
Thanks for posting Cliff.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Cliff Pratt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 8:20 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: [nzlug] Unity
I've switched it off.
I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab, alt-tab...
Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.
I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I have
to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of applications.
If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the games that I have.
Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything useful most of the
time. Categories of things are useful but there seems to be no easy way to
browse the categories and drill down to what you want.
The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the office
things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.
There's other stuff but that's enough for me.

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Ron Wilson]

Why not just use Kubuntu 11.04 and avoid Unity altogether

Post by Cliff Pratt
The link..
http://www.tomshardware.com/**reviews/ubuntu-11.04-natty-**
narwhal,2943.html<http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-11.04-natty-narwhal,2943.html>

Post by Cliff Pratt
I might give it another go later. I found this in-depth review of Ubuntu
11.04 which looks quite good.
Cheers,
Cliff

Post by Mark Foster
I have to admit I'm disappointed by Ubuntu's move down this path.
Entirely
likely I'll try another distro next time around. Perhaps CentOS, which I
havn't ever tried (and my last RedHat exposure was 7.2 I think...)
Still like Debian, but installed it as a desktop within a VM a while back
and still don't think it's polished enough as a desktop OS. Though that
position is negotiable...
Thanks for posting Cliff.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
On
Behalf Of Cliff Pratt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 8:20 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: [nzlug] Unity
I've switched it off.
I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab, alt-tab...
Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.
I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I have
to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of applications.
If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the games that I have.
Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything useful most of the
time. Categories of things are useful but there seems to be no easy way to
browse the categories and drill down to what you want.
The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the office
things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.
There's other stuff but that's enough for me.

______________________________**_________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-**bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug<http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug>

[Cliff Pratt]

Because KDE makes me itchy.

Cheers,

Cliff

Post by Ron Wilson
Why not just use Kubuntu 11.04 and avoid Unity altogether

Post by Cliff Pratt
The link..
http://www.tomshardware.com/**reviews/ubuntu-11.04-natty-**
narwhal,2943.html<http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-11.04-natty-narwhal,2943.html>

Post by Cliff Pratt
I might give it another go later. I found this in-depth review of Ubuntu
11.04 which looks quite good.
Cheers,
Cliff

Post by Mark Foster
I have to admit I'm disappointed by Ubuntu's move down this path.
Entirely
likely I'll try another distro next time around. Perhaps CentOS, which I
havn't ever tried (and my last RedHat exposure was 7.2 I think...)
Still like Debian, but installed it as a desktop within a VM a while back
and still don't think it's polished enough as a desktop OS. Though that
position is negotiable...
Thanks for posting Cliff.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
On
Behalf Of Cliff Pratt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 8:20 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: [nzlug] Unity
I've switched it off.
I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab, alt-tab...
Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.
I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I have
to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of applications.
If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the games that I have.
Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything useful most of the
time. Categories of things are useful but there seems to be no easy way to
browse the categories and drill down to what you want.
The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the office
things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.
There's other stuff but that's enough for me.

______________________________**_________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-**bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug<http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug>

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Tim Penhey]

Post by Cliff Pratt
I've switched it off.
I missed the visual indication of the tasks that I have running and the
quick click to activate one. In Unity I have to alt-tab, alt-tab,
alt-tab... Mind you I do use alt-tab some of the time.

This is annoying, and it seems to be more permissive in oneiric.

There is a setting for those that like tweaking to add things to the panel
whitelist.

Post by Cliff Pratt
I miss the hierarchical menu structure. To find something under Unity I
have to click top left, then what seems to be a random selection of
applications. If the Games menu comes up it only shows a few of the
games that I have. Typing something in doesn't always bring up anything
useful most of the time. Categories of things are useful but there seems
to be no easy way to browse the categories and drill down to what you want.
The sidebar thing is annoying, especially the selection of things on the
sidebar. Some things seem to be pinned to it. I'm not sure why the
office things are there as I don't personally use them all that much.

Nothing is pinned except the workspace switcher, the applications, files and
trash.

Tim

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Stephen]

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:20:28 +1200

Post by Cliff Pratt
I've switched it off.

Ditto, and largely for the same reasons. I've switched to XMonad +
gnome-panel/gnome-session + Gnome-Do, and I don't see myself going back
any time soon. And I think I'll be wiping Natty off my last unmigrated
desktop in favour of a simple .deb based distribution, maybe Debian
testing.

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Bruce Clement]

Post by Stephen
And I think I'll be wiping Natty off my last unmigrated
desktop in favour of a simple .deb based distribution, maybe Debian
testing.

I've been running Debian testing (aka Wheezy) for the last month and a half.

I use KDE not Gnome and the desktop seems fine to me. Admittedly I'm not
running the nvidia proprietary binary drivers.

The biggest thing I'm missing is Firefox, Iceweasel 3.5.19 seems to be
several versions behind and Google+ won't recognise it. There's also some
packages that were on Kubuntu that aren't on Wheezy, can't remember what off
hand.

I'm not about to switch again anytime soon but I still have a wish to try
freebsd at some future time.
--
Bruce Clement

Home: http://www.clement.co.nz/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Bruce_Clement
Directory: http://www.searchme.co.nz/

"Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good
appreciation of everything that already exists in this field." Mikhail
Kalashnikov
_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Jim Cheetham]

Post by Stephen
Ditto, and largely for the same reasons. I've switched to XMonad +
gnome-panel/gnome-session + Gnome-Do, and I don't see myself going back
any time soon.

That's been my combination for the last year or so, too. There's
useful stuff in gnome-session. Sadly there are so many badly behaved
apps out there that don't live well under XMonad (i.e. Evolution --
once it has been resized into a small window it won't restore internal
panels to their original size when resized upwards again. Thunderbird
copes much better).

I'm thinking of switching from XMonad to qtile though. It is less
mature, but for the cost of a coffee I get access to the primary
developer here in Dunedin; and instead of having to grok Haskell to
extend it I only have to use Python ...

Post by Stephen
And I think I'll be wiping Natty off my last unmigrated
desktop in favour of a simple .deb based distribution, maybe Debian
testing.

I still like some of the latest bling that Ubuntu brings, but if they
truly drop the gnome-classic in the future I'll have some work cut out
for me. I already tried to run XMonad under Unity, but couldn't get it
set up. Perhaps someone else has figured it out by now :-)

-jim

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Robin Sheat]

Post by Jim Cheetham
I still like some of the latest bling that Ubuntu brings, but if they
truly drop the gnome-classic in the future I'll have some work cut out
for me.

I have unity on my home machine, it works well enough providing
quick/easy access to the things I want in a reasonably pretty fashion,
which is what I'm after.

Post by Jim Cheetham
I already tried to run XMonad under Unity, but couldn't get it
set up. Perhaps someone else has figured it out by now :-)

Yeah, it's not so hard. Just write a .xsession that launches everything
you need/want, and finally launches xmonad (don't exec it, that gave me
issues.) Then when you start ubuntu, select 'User defined session' in
the login screen and it'll just use .xsession.

Keep in mind this isn't using unity, I don't think they'd go so well
together, as unity is part of compiz and compiz has/is its own window
manager. I have been meaning to get compositing working with xmonad, but
when I did play with it, it didn't work, and the need hasn't been enough
to try to hard.

As for using evolution in it, I have noticed that resizing problem. I
solved it by making that workspace full screen so evolution never has to
resize (this also means that when I write an email, only that email is
in the workspace, providing fewer distractions.)

Robin.

[Stephen Judd]

Post by Jim Cheetham

Post by Stephen
Ditto, and largely for the same reasons. I've switched to XMonad +
gnome-panel/gnome-session + Gnome-Do, and I don't see myself going back
any time soon.

That's been my combination for the last year or so, too. There's
useful stuff in gnome-session. Sadly there are so many badly behaved
apps out there that don't live well under XMonad (i.e. Evolution --
once it has been resized into a small window it won't restore internal
panels to their original size when resized upwards again. Thunderbird
copes much better).

Interesting. At home, I'd switched to Claws in order to have a
lighterweight set of apps on the netbook. At work, I've just started
converting this desktop to Xmonad. Evolution doesn't seem unhappy
yet...

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Jaco]

Post by Cliff Pratt
I've switched it off.

I don't quite know what to make of it.
I can't really see how it's all that much different than gnome3 shell (&
can't quite figure why they didn't just use that), which will arguably
become the default for many distro's for years to come.

I think they've taken a page from the Mac usability guide, which could
be a very good thing.

Once there are more tools to administer & tweak the interface
(icon-size, behavior, etc), it could gain more acceptance.

Still think it's better than KDE though

Think I'll give it a chance, but keep my good old old-school
gnome-desktop handy

- J

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug