Oh my. Oh dear. I've just upgraded (one of) my ubuntu VBoxes from 11.04 to 11.10. How do I get the nice previous gnome desktop back and get rid of the abomination that has replaced it. Of course, I 'spect everyone will think the BIG clicky bar down the left is k3wl and I'm just being an old fart. Looks like the entire household may have to go minty. -- nev
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 05:10:35PM +0100, nev young wrote:
Oh my. Oh dear.
I've just upgraded (one of) my ubuntu VBoxes from 11.04 to 11.10.
How do I get the nice previous gnome desktop back and get rid of the abomination that has replaced it.
I think you have to ask for 'Classic' desktop (or window manager).
Of course, I 'spect everyone will think the BIG clicky bar down the left is k3wl and I'm just being an old fart.
Looks like the entire household may have to go minty.
In the longer term you might consider xubuntu. -- Chris Green
On 14 October 2011 17:10, nev young <nev@nevilley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Of course, I 'spect everyone will think the BIG clicky bar down the left is k3wl and I'm just being an old fart.
At least the big clicky bar down the side doesn't take up valuable vertical screen space on 16:9 and 16:10 screens. It is shocking how consumers have let laptop manufactures regress the screen height to 768 pixels. I'll be trying Lubuntu 11.10 on my old laptop this weekend. Tim.
On 14/10/11 17:10, nev young wrote:
Oh my. Oh dear.
I've just upgraded (one of) my ubuntu VBoxes from 11.04 to 11.10.
How do I get the nice previous gnome desktop back and get rid of the abomination that has replaced it.
Of course, I 'spect everyone will think the BIG clicky bar down the left is k3wl and I'm just being an old fart.
No not necessarily. I was using the Unity interface on 11.04 for my secondary machine so thought there was no harm letting the main machine upgrade to 11.10 and it's "enforced" Unity. Oh dear.....either I have come to the party too early (that said it is after release day) or Unity just gave me a massive downgrade in user experience...Despite cited Unity usability improvements my experience here is actually worse than 11.04. Nothing is configurable without installing extra packages which will be hopelessly confusing for new users...Without installing the gnome tweaks panel and ccsm and short of dipping into gconf there are literally no configuration options. Even then some stuff just seems to be set in stone the behaviour of the "Dash" thing for example. I want to default to opening on the Applications view not the Shortcuts one with the Shortcuts you don't even seem to be able to define yourself. The only positive things I can say are that it does look pretty (on compiz capable hardware..not tried it in fallback mode) and everything seems to work well with a dark theme which is something I have often struggled with. On top of everything else due to a problem the new kernel is having correctly throttling my Core i7 I seem to suffer about 20% performance loss if I boot the 3.0.x kernel.
Looks like the entire household may have to go minty.
Yeh currently booting a few options in VM's to see if it is time for a switch, LMDE is one of them.
On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:14:13 +0100 Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
Looks like the entire household may have to go minty.
Yeh currently booting a few options in VM's to see if it is time for a switch, LMDE is one of them.
Definitely going minty here. I haven't liked the way canonical has been going for a while (ever since 10.04's silly move of the window control buttons from the top right to the top left a la Mac OSX). Eaasy to change back (then) but unity is taking things too far. My current desktops run 10.04 LTS and I'm not looking forward to the next LTS, so I've been playing with minty. My development box is running version 11 with gnome but since gnome itself is changing I'm going to experiment in VMs with alternative desktops - shame I can't get on with KDE... Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
For me I think Ubuntu are losing direction a little bit. Ubuntu is becoming "bloat ware", not performing very well on older PC's and in some cases either refusing to install or an upgrade to the latest version caused major problems as support for older PC's is being withdrawn. I have tried several alternatives but my favourite flavour at the moment is LMDE. Has installed on everything I have tried it on (laptops and PC's) even an older PC with a Via Gig processor (Ubuntu just didn't want to know, even the alternative and server installs failed). Only downside to it is that I couldn't find a way to easily utilise software RAID with it. The installer has been overly simplified and doesn't give RAID options. One of the advantages of Ubuntu used to be that it would happily run on older hardware so when the latest version of windoze came out that struggled, Ubuntu was an viable alternative. Not many new users are going to buy a new PC for Linux and turned to Ubuntu to keep their older hardware running. They are now loosing this market. I can understand why they chose to switch to Unity due to the problems that the latest version of Gnome is having and it may well turn out eventually to be a viable alternative but the path they are going down at the moment seems to be loosing them a lot of support. Just a little pet hate of mine is "Live CD's". Hate having to wait for the live CD to boot up before you can do an installation. The option to install before it boots doesn't seem to be there. I would much prefer to have the option to just install and also an option to use a text based installer (with the original Debian partitioner would be even better). Ubuntu does give the options with their Alternative Installs but Mint doesn't. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> To: <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2011 11:14 AM Subject: Re: [ALUG] ubuntu 11.10
On 14/10/11 17:10, nev young wrote:
Oh my. Oh dear.
I've just upgraded (one of) my ubuntu VBoxes from 11.04 to 11.10.
How do I get the nice previous gnome desktop back and get rid of the abomination that has replaced it.
Of course, I 'spect everyone will think the BIG clicky bar down the left is k3wl and I'm just being an old fart.
No not necessarily.
I was using the Unity interface on 11.04 for my secondary machine so thought there was no harm letting the main machine upgrade to 11.10 and it's "enforced" Unity.
Oh dear.....either I have come to the party too early (that said it is after release day) or Unity just gave me a massive downgrade in user experience...Despite cited Unity usability improvements my experience here is actually worse than 11.04.
Nothing is configurable without installing extra packages which will be hopelessly confusing for new users...Without installing the gnome tweaks panel and ccsm and short of dipping into gconf there are literally no configuration options. Even then some stuff just seems to be set in stone the behaviour of the "Dash" thing for example.
I want to default to opening on the Applications view not the Shortcuts one with the Shortcuts you don't even seem to be able to define yourself.
The only positive things I can say are that it does look pretty (on compiz capable hardware..not tried it in fallback mode) and everything seems to work well with a dark theme which is something I have often struggled with.
On top of everything else due to a problem the new kernel is having correctly throttling my Core i7 I seem to suffer about 20% performance loss if I boot the 3.0.x kernel.
Looks like the entire household may have to go minty.
Yeh currently booting a few options in VM's to see if it is time for a switch, LMDE is one of them.
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On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Tony <tony@ttiger.co.uk> wrote:
For me I think Ubuntu are losing direction a little bit. Ubuntu is becoming "bloat ware", not performing very well on older PC's and in some cases either refusing to install or an upgrade to the latest version caused major problems as support for older PC's is being withdrawn... Ubuntu does give the options with their Alternative Installs but Mint doesn't.
I felt Ubuntu was losing direction a while back and i switched to Xubuntu. Mainly because i like the minimal approach and i add to that. In ubuntu i was removing as well as adding - didn't seem quite the right approach. I did look at Mint but again i was interested in the minimalist approach i.e. xfce - however, the maintainer's wife had a serious condition and there was no one to take over the maintenance for a while. As Wayne said once don't swop distros too much but get to know one really well. It must be 18 months now that i've been using xubuntu and i must say it's grown on me - i haven't looked at Ubuntu even though i've got a new machine which could easily cope with it. I think Canonical have stretched themselves too much - there are so many releases now and each six monthly... a lot of work which means something has to give or the ubuntu world is getting more interesting. I still think it's the best distro but xubuntu is becoming more established... each release just steady improvements and that seems to be the way they'll keep it. Stability i feel is the key with linux. james
On 16/10/11 22:29, James Freer wrote:
As Wayne said once don't swop distros too much but get to know one really well.
That wouldn't be the same Wayne who is typing this from a shiny new installaiton of LMDE after giving up (for the time being) with Ubuntu 11.10.....? :D To be fair though I have been a solid Ubuntu user since just before 5.04 came out so I am long overdue a look around to see if the grass is greener. Pretty sure I could have wrestled it into something close to usable although still at a loss as to how or if it is possible to configure around some of the things like that "dash" that were annoying me. Will probably take a look back at Ubuntu for the LTS release. I am not too unhappy with some of the overall concepts in Unity I just think the implimentation is a bit off at the moment. As to LMDE...well too early to tell but everything I really care about is working.
On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> wrote:
On 16/10/11 22:29, James Freer wrote:
As Wayne said once don't swop distros too much but get to know one really well.
That wouldn't be the same Wayne who is typing this from a shiny new installaiton of LMDE after giving up (for the time being) with Ubuntu 11.10.....? :D
yes
To be fair though I have been a solid Ubuntu user since just before 5.04 came out so I am long overdue a look around to see if the grass is greener. Pretty sure I could have wrestled it into something close to usable although still at a loss as to how or if it is possible to configure around some of the things like that "dash" that were annoying me.
Will probably take a look back at Ubuntu for the LTS release. I am not too unhappy with some of the overall concepts in Unity I just think the implimentation is a bit off at the moment.
As to LMDE...well too early to tell but everything I really care about is working.
All i learnt about other distros was that there are a few that do 'nice polish' but under the skin not stable, poor repos... etc ubuntu's achilles heel... frequent releases and development don't work. I've always felt that they'd be better off with an annual release. Two years (LTS)... too long to cater for developments adequately. Six month release for xubuntu is fine as the development is gradual... that's the way ubuntu should have stayed (it's going downhill with Unity) - not thought through carefully enough from the beginning. [prophet's spoken - i have a five inch beard now after just a year!]. james
On 17/10/11 00:17, James Freer wrote:
ubuntu's achilles heel... frequent releases and development don't work. I've always felt that they'd be better off with an annual release. Two years (LTS)... too long to cater for developments adequately.
I am not sure about that...Two years for the LTS is fine as generally people who stick to the LTS want a fixed environment or it is an office full of PC's, LTS is supported as a desktop OS for 3 years but replaced after 2. On the other side if you did yearly releases of the non LTS version then people that want to be on the bleeding edge..aren't. Also the model Ubuntu have done to date is mostly pushed the big updates in before a non LTS release so they get 3 shots at implimenting the Unity's and the Pulse Audio's of this world and have all the non LTS campers provide the feedback. Then traditionally the 4th release (LTS) is generally unexciting and is just a tidyup of the new stuff added over the last 3 releases. You won't see any fundamental changes in 12.04 over 11.10 as they will be too busy making it nice and tidy for LTS.
Six month release for xubuntu is fine as the development is gradual... that's the way ubuntu should have stayed (it's going downhill with Unity) - not thought through carefully enough from the beginning. [prophet's spoken - i have a five inch beard now after just a year!].
Well see the other model is one of continual gradual upgrades. So LMDE for example just tracks Debian Testing...so no releases as such just a non stop rolling upgrade. That's fine if you don't mind the carpet changing under your feet but there are commercial environments where that wouldn't be appropriate. As to whether Unity is truly downhill....I think it's too early to tell for sure. It certainly needs more work though.
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 12:59 AM, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> wrote:
On 17/10/11 00:17, James Freer wrote:
ubuntu's achilles heel... frequent releases and development don't work. I've always felt that they'd be better off with an annual release. Two years (LTS)... too long to cater for developments adequately.
I am not sure about that...Two years for the LTS is fine as generally people who stick to the LTS want a fixed environment or it is an office full of PC's, LTS is supported as a desktop OS for 3 years but replaced after 2.
On the other side if you did yearly releases of the non LTS version then people that want to be on the bleeding edge..aren't. Also the model Ubuntu have done to date is mostly pushed the big updates in before a non LTS release so they get 3 shots at implimenting the Unity's and the Pulse Audio's of this world and have all the non LTS campers provide the feedback. Then traditionally the 4th release (LTS) is generally unexciting and is just a tidyup of the new stuff added over the last 3 releases. You won't see any fundamental changes in 12.04 over 11.10 as they will be too busy making it nice and tidy for LTS.
I agree with you there. What i was meant to say was that with missing an upgrade one is say 10% out on updated new releases of packages... into to the second year perhaps 20-30%. If one doesn't want bleeding edge 6 month release [like me] a year is a better option. I'm now an october updater if you like - 'bleeding edge for a few months! I used to stick to April but end of year/winter months allows me to sort out my data, trash, general tidy up, longterm backups etc. I've got too much to do in the garden in April and May - now i've got two landrover's to restore in my 40' x 16' shed.
Six month release for xubuntu is fine as the development is gradual... that's the way ubuntu should have stayed (it's going downhill with Unity) - not thought through carefully enough from the beginning. [prophet's spoken - i have a five inch beard now after just a year!].
Well see the other model is one of continual gradual upgrades. So LMDE for example just tracks Debian Testing...so no releases as such just a non stop rolling upgrade. That's fine if you don't mind the carpet changing under your feet but there are commercial environments where that wouldn't be appropriate.
As to whether Unity is truly downhill....I think it's too early to tell for sure. It certainly needs more work though.
What i meant but perhaps didn't put very well is that i feel it's a step too far too quickly. ubuntu is still making a huge loss per year i gather - they are trying to be market leaders with unity and it's not working. How much longer will Mr Shuttleworth support the loss (i'd have thought he was beginning to run short)? james
On 17/10/11 13:00, James Freer wrote:
What i meant but perhaps didn't put very well is that i feel it's a step too far too quickly. ubuntu is still making a huge loss per year i gather - they are trying to be market leaders with unity and it's not working. How much longer will Mr Shuttleworth support the loss (i'd have thought he was beginning to run short)?
The truth is that it seems this is how Canonical try to drive things forward...make them default across a huge userbase and the problems have to get fixed...nobody wants to work on a project that nobody is using so by making technology mainstream it gets the focus it needs to flourish. Pretty much every time they have added a major technology it has followed this roadmap of being available on a release very early in it's development cycle (compiz, Pulse, the self developed Upstart etc and now the self developed Unity) then literally the next release has it as default and is problem ridden at first but because it is the default bugs get filed and hopefully fixed. I have no doubt the same will happen with Unity.
On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 8:32 AM, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> wrote:
On 17/10/11 13:00, James Freer wrote:
What i meant but perhaps didn't put very well is that i feel it's a step too far too quickly. ubuntu is still making a huge loss per year i gather - they are trying to be market leaders with unity and it's not working. How much longer will Mr Shuttleworth support the loss (i'd have thought he was beginning to run short)?
The truth is that it seems this is how Canonical try to drive things forward...make them default across a huge userbase and the problems have to get fixed...nobody wants to work on a project that nobody is using so by making technology mainstream it gets the focus it needs to flourish.
Pretty much every time they have added a major technology it has followed this roadmap of being available on a release very early in it's development cycle (compiz, Pulse, the self developed Upstart etc and now the self developed Unity) then literally the next release has it as default and is problem ridden at first but because it is the default bugs get filed and hopefully fixed. I have no doubt the same will happen with Unity.
I'd agree with you. That a "similar and different" way of putting it almost akin to M$ style (win 95 three versions, win 98 three versions (1st SE, Me) after that i don't know as i ceased to use it... and client pays each time $$$$$$$!). "problem ridden at first" - i think that's a poor attitude to have for an OS. Why not get the thing properly sorted and then released - but then i'm back to my old view... if they did an annual release; properly developed and sorted they'd win more users. Having used xubuntu it seems quite a lot different in development to ubuntu - they just plod along at a reasonable pace with realistic targets to achieve. Seems ubuntu haven't learnt much at times over the last five years. james
On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 11:06 PM, James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 8:32 AM, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> wrote:
On 17/10/11 13:00, James Freer wrote:
What i meant but perhaps didn't put very well is that i feel it's a step too far too quickly. ubuntu is still making a huge loss per year i gather - they are trying to be market leaders with unity and it's not working. How much longer will Mr Shuttleworth support the loss (i'd have thought he was beginning to run short)?
The truth is that it seems this is how Canonical try to drive things forward...make them default across a huge userbase and the problems have to get fixed...nobody wants to work on a project that nobody is using so by making technology mainstream it gets the focus it needs to flourish.
Pretty much every time they have added a major technology it has followed this roadmap of being available on a release very early in it's development cycle (compiz, Pulse, the self developed Upstart etc and now the self developed Unity) then literally the next release has it as default and is problem ridden at first but because it is the default bugs get filed and hopefully fixed. I have no doubt the same will happen with Unity.
I'd agree with you. That a "similar and different" way of putting it almost akin to M$ style (win 95 three versions, win 98 three versions (1st SE, Me) after that i don't know as i ceased to use it... and client pays each time $$$$$$$!).
"problem ridden at first" - i think that's a poor attitude to have for an OS. Why not get the thing properly sorted and then released - but then i'm back to my old view... if they did an annual release; properly developed and sorted they'd win more users. Having used xubuntu it seems quite a lot different in development to ubuntu - they just plod along at a reasonable pace with realistic targets to achieve. Seems ubuntu haven't learnt much at times over the last five years.
james
Perhaps i should add. Is it on my conscience to donate to ubuntu... not while it undergoes major testing. Do i donate to xubuntu as an appreciation of the time and effort developers put in - yes. james
Never mind the UI, they have included GCC 4.6 which is more strict than ever. Luckily searching for my compilation errors found a whole page of common issues: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-February/148523.html Regards, Tim.
On 20/10/11 08:46, Tim Green wrote:
Never mind the UI, they have included GCC 4.6 which is more strict than ever. Luckily searching for my compilation errors found a whole page of common issues: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-February/148523.html
Ahh but that's a plus though surely Ubuntu 11.10 makes your code better :)
On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 10:29:03PM +0100, James Freer wrote:
On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Tony <tony@ttiger.co.uk> wrote:
For me I think Ubuntu are losing direction a little bit. Ubuntu is becoming "bloat ware", not performing very well on older PC's and in some cases either refusing to install or an upgrade to the latest version caused major problems as support for older PC's is being withdrawn... Ubuntu does give the options with their Alternative Installs but Mint doesn't.
I felt Ubuntu was losing direction a while back and i switched to Xubuntu. Mainly because i like the minimal approach and i add to that. In ubuntu i was removing as well as adding - didn't seem quite the right approach.
I've used xubuntu for a long time, came from Slackware via Red Hat (as it was then). Having come from a Unix command line developement background I find it closer to my 'roots'.
I did look at Mint but again i was interested in the minimalist approach i.e. xfce - however, the maintainer's wife had a serious condition and there was no one to take over the maintenance for a while. As Wayne said once don't swop distros too much but get to know one really well.
It must be 18 months now that i've been using xubuntu and i must say it's grown on me - i haven't looked at Ubuntu even though i've got a new machine which could easily cope with it. I think Canonical have stretched themselves too much - there are so many releases now and each six monthly... a lot of work which means something has to give or the ubuntu world is getting more interesting. I still think it's the best distro but xubuntu is becoming more established... each release just steady improvements and that seems to be the way they'll keep it. Stability i feel is the key with linux.
One minor problem with xubuntu is that it's sometimes difficult to work out how workarounds/fixes for ubuntu can be implemented on xubuntu. However it is now more within the ubuntu family and I think this is less true than it was. -- Chris Green
participants (7)
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Chris G -
James Freer -
mick -
nev young -
Tim Green -
Tony -
Wayne Stallwood