Oops -- I meant to send this to the whole list, not just to Timo! Sorry for the double mail, Timo!
Sean On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Sean McNamara <smc...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 5:07 AM, Timo Jyrinki <timo.jyri...@gmail.com> wrote: >> 2011/4/8 Timo Jyrinki <timo.jyri...@gmail.com>: >>> There are a lot of bugs and lack of features (and many have been fixed >>> already as well) and the performance is quite bad in parts, but those >>> are not as serious as a) crashers and potentially b) accessibility and >>> lack of any help. >> >> Just reflecting on the more recent posts, I'm using Unity on my work >> machine, but I do have only 1280x1024 (or 1400x900, depending on if I >> use internal or external display) resolution. I mostly run everything >> full screen, and most of the time I don't use Unity to switch between >> windows at least yet - I use either alt-tab (somewhat annoyingly slow) >> or compiz's scale plugin which I have bound to lower right corner of >> the screen (works pretty nicely for me). >> >> As for "what I say to others" factor, I (and Ubuntu Finland website as >> decided by us already around 10.10 time) continue recommending Ubuntu >> 10.04.2 LTS for everyone. I don't believe users should generally >> install a non-LTS Ubuntu, even with the caveat of not the newest >> hardware support. 18 months of security support and therefore need to >> upgrade N number of times to get to the next LTS is too much for many, >> since the upgrade is still something of a hassle at times, regressions >> appear et cetera. > > I don't think it makes sense to lower the quality bar for Ubuntu > non-LTS stable releases. If you want to put something out there that's > rough around the edges, that's what alphas, betas, and (to some > extent) RCs are for. Stable releases should be just that; stable. If > Unity can't meet everyone's expectations for quality, it shouldn't go > into a release by default, whether it's an LTS or not. > > I know a lot of developers stand by the argument that, in order to get > enough testing and popularity for their software to be successful, it > needs to be released by default to the general public in a major > distribution. I've heard appeals to past experience with things like > PulseAudio and Empathy. While I agree that using the general public as > a massive test bed can be beneficial to software quality, it also > harms the image of the GNU/Linux desktop at the same time. When things > don't work right, users don't understand why: they don't care why, and > they don't want to know. They only associate the product they were > using with terms such as "buggy" or "unusable" and move on. This > really hurts our progress towards resolving Bug #1. > > Aside from that, PulseAudio was somewhat of a special case: its > primary growing pains could *only* be resolved by widespread testing. > The problem was that ALSA didn't have the necessary quirks for a great > number of sound cards out there, resulting in incorrect volume > information and timing in PulseAudio. The key point is that *no other > software before* had ever tried to use ALSA like that, so the bugs > were exposed left and right. Can we say the same thing about Unity and > the open source graphics stack? I don't think so. > > The issues you see with Unity vs. Mesa/KMS/Xorg/etc. manifest > themselves in plenty of other programs, including running compiz on > Gnome2; Mutter on Gnome3; and a smattering of OpenGL 3d games. We > already ship the OSGS by default for many years, so it's already > getting exposed to a wide audience, and advanced 3d is being tested to > the extent that users try to enable compiz and/or play 3d games. It > appears that the main benefit of widespread Unity testing in a stable > release -- that of getting a wide array of hardware to test it on -- > is kind of redundant, in light of other programs already testing out > the graphics stack for years now. The consensus has always been that > the OSGS is woefully inadequate, and any improvement we've seen in the > past few years has been completely orthogonal to the development of > Unity. > > So my opinion is, spend as much time as it takes working with a > smaller group of enthusiasts, early adopters and developers to perfect > your software prior to releasing it to a channel where millions of > people will try it. Ubuntu is the most-downloaded distribution, so the > software quality contained therein reflects strongly on the public > perception of the quality of GNU/Linux and FOSS in general. If Unity > is crashing, lagging and behaving counter-intuitively on the "latest > and greatest" Ubuntu release, this does not bode well. > > How much time is "as much time as it takes"? I don't have a good > answer; the folks who QA Unity probably have the best sense of that. > But I do know that Gnome 3 extended its release date multiple times > and spent many, many years in development before it was finally > released as stable. And now, running Fedora 15 *Alpha* with Gnome 3.0 > feels more polished than Unity *beta*. > >>Unity being still maturing is just one factor that >> contributes to this, but I wouldn't have any problem recommending >> 12.04 LTS with Unity to everyone, since it's going to be "ok" already >> in 11.04 (and fabulous effort / re-write since 10.10) it's a piece of >> cake to believe it keeps improving. Not that I would have any problem >> with gnome-shell either, it's becoming great nowadays as well. > > Goodness, I *hope* by 12.04 that Unity will be "ok"! :) It'll still be > a big adjustment for users (even bigger than GS), but if you throw > away 98% of the bugs, performance issues, defects triggered in the > open source graphics drivers, etc., you're left with a rather nice DE > -- *for some use cases*. > >> >> I know that as a power user I'm from the more "adjusts to the >> environment" part of scale. I don't need to keep doing the way I've >> been doing before, and I usually stick to quite near the shipping >> defaults. I did have focus follows mouse though, which I disabled >> since it worked so poorly with Unity :P Of course I wouldn't keep >> using Unity if it hadn't improved in the last month like it has, but >> the application launching via Super key or Alt-F2 really starts to >> work now, better than ever in GNOME 2. Still too laggy and does not >> always "just work", but most of the time it's neat. > > Hmm... Alt+F2 and Super seem to do the same thing on Gnome-Shell as on > Unity. Just noting this for anyone reading up on Unity vs Gnome3 :) > > I haven't updated my Natty test box for 2 weeks or so, and that's on > my multi-monitor system with 1920x1200 and 1680x1050 monitors. I think > I will try out the latest in a virtual machine on top of my Fedora 15 > install on my 1024x768 laptop, and disregard any crashes or > performance issues I run into -- just for the sake of testing out the > latest UX. > > When Natty goes into RC, I will do a more in-depth research of the UX > differences between Unity (as it appears in Natty) and Gnome3+GS (as > it appears in Fedora 15), and publish it so others can compare and > decide for themselves :) My intuition is that the two projects will > converge rather than diverge (in terms of feature set) over time, so > I'll try and update the list as both projects evolve. > > > Sean > >> >> -Timo >> >> -- >> ubuntu-desktop mailing list >> ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com >> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop >> > -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop