On 4/18/12 12:14 , Sebastien Bacher wrote: >> I realize that Ubuntu is all about providing less choice/dumbing down > the interface these days (which is why I'm on the brink of returning to > mainline Debian after using Ubuntu since it was in beta - the original > beta), but perhaps a good solution would to add a couple of additional > checkboxes under "Disable touchpad when typing), one with "Disable taps > and clicks" and the other with "Completely disable when typing." > > That's at best a misleading comment ;-) Ubuntu (following GNOME example) > tries to avoid "fix me" options to provide defaults that work for most > users, it helps to make the system easier to use (no need to look > through an hundred option to find things you are looking for) but also > to improve quality since less codepaths means code easier to > write,maintain,test,etc
Easier to maintain is all well and good, but IMO you're taking away too much "easy to use." While I can and do fire up gconf-editor to do these things, it is my firm stance that I shouldn't have to. I'm sure you've noticed how much ground Mint has gained. While Mint has problems of its own, including IMO having artwork that isn't even close to Ubuntu's quality, I booted Mint Debian Edition in a VM the other day and it may be the best of both worlds. It reminds me very much of what Ubuntu was back in 2004: a distro that took Debian and put some really nice polish on it. I think Ubuntu has gotten far away from those roots. I realize there are bills to be paid and how hard it is to make money as a Linux distributor (I remember when Red Hat stopped selling boxed sets after 7.3 because they just couldn't make money on them), but I don't think it's the right path to make Linux so hard to use for real, actual Linux users just to make it easier for newcomers. You can make it plenty easy for newcomers without removing the features that experienced people want. One way to do it would be to have a knob that would enable the power user options. > >> I think it's also worth noting that both Mac and Windows - neither of > which offer focus-follows-mouse - completely disable the touchpad while > typing. > > That's what we did until recently, see the discussion on that bug for the > context of why that was changed: > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/962958 > > Basically moving the cursor is less likely to create confusion that > clicking (first because the default isn't focus follow mouse, but also > because palm touching the pad is not likely to move the cursor a lot It does move the cursor a lot. Really. If you're anywhere near San Jose, California, you're welcome to try it on my HP Envy 15 :-) It has a touchpad almost as big as a MacBook Pro's and it gets incidental palm hits all the time. Come to think of it, the mere fact that people open bugs about this is evidence of that. If it were a little thing, no one would bother to report a bug. I'm sure there are a lot of other people who are bothered by it but who don't go to the effort to create a Launchpad account and open a bug and either live with it, use a mouse, or vote with their feet. On the MacBook Pro, when I'm typing, the mouse cursor just vanishes when I type and reappears at the same spot I left it when I place a finger on the touchpad. This is Highly Desirable Behavior. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect that their hardware will work the same way under Linux that it does under Mac and Windows. Sometimes it doesn't because the functionality just isn't there upstream, but this isn't one of those cases. > Right, Apple is picking the hardware they use so they can make sure > their OS works on what they ship, it's harder in a world when you > don't control the vendors and hardware your users run ;-) That's true, and Microsoft has that issue as well, although Linux has it harder because MSFT doesn't have to reverse engineer anything. Still, making the mouse cursor behave the same way it does on Windows and OS X would be following the principle of least surprise. >> WRT the whole idea of poorly supporting things like focus-follow- > mouse, that's just not a good idea. People who've been using Linux for a > long time (since the nineties, in my case) universally hate losing these > features. > > It's not an "idea", it's just defining priorities, before having > something "working for that special usecase" you need "something working > at all", It did work for all. I've been using Ubuntu for 8 years, so I know this. I'm not asking you to add a feature; you're taking away features that were there all along. Please don't spin me. You can tell me to fsck off and I won't be offended, if users like me don't matter anymore and that's your honest opinion, or even the (un)?official position of Ubuntu - but please save the spin for the marketing department. I'd move on to another distro, sure. Either back to Debian or on to Slackware or Arch, but I wouldn't be offended. >> You really need to bring back save-session-on-exit, too; yes, I've > read the bug reports on that and the rationale around why it was > removed, but they don't hold water. Other distros make it work; Ubuntu > can, too. > > I would be curious to know what distro made it work. Mint Debian Edition, that I know of. I installed it in a VM last night specifically to see if that feature was present, and it was. If MDE has it, it may be present in Debian Testing, too. I'll try to find time to try that within the next week. I haven't spent much time on any other distros than Ubuntu in the last couple of years, but at least at that time, I can't think of anyone who didn't have save-session-on-exit. > > Note that bug #771896 go "fixed", I'll try that, thanks. Jonathan -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to gnome-settings-daemon in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/984615 Title: Wrong syndaemon settings in system settings To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/984615/+subscriptions -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
