Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unity and Gnome Shell
Good Morning :) On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 21:23 +0100, Les Cunningham wrote: rant I have been looking at reviews of Gnome Shell, and I do not like what I have seen. (I have also tried running it, without success so far.) The screenshots show lots of white text on a black background, which I dislike as I find it difficult to read, although I suppose that there will be themes available in due course which I will find more acceptable. More importantly, I suspect that for some uses it will be more awkward than Gnome 2. If I am understanding it correctly, if there are two or more maximised windows open on one desktop, switching between them will take 2 or 3 mouse clicks, rather than just one as at present. However, I dare say if I used it for a while once it has been more fully developed I could get used to it. Gnome Shell is an interesting project, but has a few usability issues at the moment, it's also what Gnome 3 intends to be using. I have also tried using Unity, which is apparently to be the default for 11.04. The first problem was that it was unacceptably slow, taking several seconds to respond to mouse clicks, and therefore I quickly uninstalled it. However, I saw enough of it to decide that there is no way I want to use it; the whole concept seems totally unsuitable for desktop computers. I do not think I would be happy using it even on a netbook. If, when I first tried Ubuntu, I had been faced with someting along the lines of Unity, I would probably still be using Windows. Ah, now you've hit the button. Unity is designed for netbooks, the challenge over this coming release is threefold really. 1. Make Unity useable on a big screen 2. Improve unity's performance (They're moving the compositing from mutter to compiz to aid this) 3. Fix the fact that some peoples hardware has oddities and fix/work around where necessary You could aid number 3 by filing a bug report on Unity with your hardware configuration. It would help the developers understand what hardware has issues. The decision to move the window controls from the right to the left would have been annoying, but it is easy to move them back. I doubt if I will be installing any version of Ubuntu which includes Unity, unless it is possible to replace it easily with Gnome 2 or an improved Gnome Shell. I guess I will be sticking to 10.4 and 10.10 for a while, and then if Canonical are still touting Unity I will just have to switch to Debian. /rant Les. Unity will be the default for new users, however you will be able go back to original gnome as well. It will be either an apt-get away, or an option on the login screen, this is still unclear. Hope that's helpful. -Matt Daubney -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unity and Gnome Shell
On 27 October 2010 08:03, Matthew Daubney m...@daubers.co.uk wrote: Good Morning :) On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 21:23 +0100, Les Cunningham wrote: rant snip Unity will be the default for new users, however you will be able go back to original gnome as well. It will be either an apt-get away, or an option on the login screen, this is still unclear. Hope that's helpful. -Matt Daubney I have found Unity a very enjoyable experience overall. I quickly got used to and now really like the Unity desktop for my netbooks - although when I first saw pictures of Gnome3 and Unity it didnt appeal. Using the beta versions was an interesting experience and was amazed how quickly improvements were made. After using Unity for a while now I dont plan on switching back to the desktop or older Netbook desktop on my netbooks. I find Unity fast and responsive on the whole - even on a simple Asus Eee netbook. The only thing that is a fraction slow is the drawing of the application and file folders. This does not detract much as I have a button for nautilus and my favorite apps all in the Unity launcher. A useful feature would be to have the Zeitgeist powered apps/doc search in the top horizontal panel, as a quick launcher and file search. My thanks to everyone involved in the Unity / netbook remix for all their hard work (especially with a shortened deadline this time). -- John Stevenson Lean Agile Consultant / Coach jr0cket.com | leanagilemachine.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unity And Gnome Shell
Hi Guys I would recommend to Les that he looks seriously at Xubuntu. You get the benefits of Ubuntu but with the Xfce desktop instead of Gnome. It's considerably more lightweight than Gnome but it still gives you a lot of options to tailor the layout and appearance. Yes, there is always the KDE option, too, but if you like the general Gnome way of working, then Xfce is a much less radical departure. Regards Nige -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unity And Gnome Shell
To add to this, you could just install xubuntu-desktop to try it out, but if you do it this way, it'd probably be better in a terminal so you can note down the apt output, i.e. the packages it will install, so if you don't like it and want to go back to normal Ubuntu, it's just a case of removing those installed packages, since removing just xubuntu-desktop doesn't remove what it installed (sadly). xfce does look a lot like gnome and it is a lot more customisable too, so you can make it pretty much how you want with only a few restrictions. Hope this helps :) On Wed, 2010-10-27 at 12:29 +0100, Nigel Verity wrote: Hi Guys I would recommend to Les that he looks seriously at Xubuntu. You get the benefits of Ubuntu but with the Xfce desktop instead of Gnome. It's considerably more lightweight than Gnome but it still gives you a lot of options to tailor the layout and appearance. Yes, there is always the KDE option, too, but if you like the general Gnome way of working, then Xfce is a much less radical departure. Regards Nige -- Roy Jamison (xteejx) Ubuntu Bug Squad Ubuntu Bug Control www.ubuntu.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Unity and Gnome Shell
rant I have been looking at reviews of Gnome Shell, and I do not like what I have seen. (I have also tried running it, without success so far.) The screenshots show lots of white text on a black background, which I dislike as I find it difficult to read, although I suppose that there will be themes available in due course which I will find more acceptable. More importantly, I suspect that for some uses it will be more awkward than Gnome 2. If I am understanding it correctly, if there are two or more maximised windows open on one desktop, switching between them will take 2 or 3 mouse clicks, rather than just one as at present. However, I dare say if I used it for a while once it has been more fully developed I could get used to it. I have also tried using Unity, which is apparently to be the default for 11.04. The first problem was that it was unacceptably slow, taking several seconds to respond to mouse clicks, and therefore I quickly uninstalled it. However, I saw enough of it to decide that there is no way I want to use it; the whole concept seems totally unsuitable for desktop computers. I do not think I would be happy using it even on a netbook. If, when I first tried Ubuntu, I had been faced with someting along the lines of Unity, I would probably still be using Windows. The decision to move the window controls from the right to the left would have been annoying, but it is easy to move them back. I doubt if I will be installing any version of Ubuntu which includes Unity, unless it is possible to replace it easily with Gnome 2 or an improved Gnome Shell. I guess I will be sticking to 10.4 and 10.10 for a while, and then if Canonical are still touting Unity I will just have to switch to Debian. /rant Les. __ This email has been scanned by Netintelligence http://www.netintelligence.com/email -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
