Ubuntu Wayland: Shuttleworth's post-Mac makeover

Ubuntu Linux spent the last few months of 2010 dropping bombshells on the Linux world. Founder Mark Shuttleworth is clearly intent on shaking the foundations of his popular Linux distro and pushing it, and Linux at large, in new directions. Shuttleworth is fast becoming the Steve Jobs of Linux - one man, one vision, one …

[Anonymous Coward]

Change is good... sometimes

I'm looking forward to see if Wayland can deliver as promised. X has been around a looooooong time, and even X.org isn't much more than a rewrite. It certainly doesn't fit the way *nix is used on the modern desktop.

Unity, on the other hand, I'm not so impressed with. If it was intended for netbook-type usage, it failed horribly, as far as I'm concerned. You're going to take a vertical 1" away from a desktop that is already cramped for space? How does that make sense? I won't even mention performance in this first release. I switched to the old UNR type interface as soon as I could. I think *that's* actually a good UI on a netbook, or even on a touchscreen.

[Nadjau]

Ubuntu & netbooks

I'm delighted Ubuntu are putting so much sway on a positive user interface. It would be even better if they could make each of their frequent releases compatible with the Ralink wireless chips fitted to many popular netbooks.

[Waderider]

Here here

Every time the kernel upgrades I'm getting a bit sick of compiling the ralink driver. How do noobs cope as it requires considerable command line fettling, netbooks are still a key 'battle' ground and this is an oversight.

[gerryg]

not the "re-compiling the kernel" trope

If you can successfully recompile the kernel then reimplementing a driver is a piece of piss.

However, why do I think you are making it up as you go along? Let me count the ways...

http://web.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html

http://www.ab9il.net/linuxwireless/rt2860.html

http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_24 section 2.3 (Jan 2008)

http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_26 section 1.3 (Jul 2008)

And the wifi developments in _27 to _36

[Rob Beard]

Looks like I'll be jumping ship

As a long time Ubuntu user (since it's first release back in 2004) I've followed the distro and really enjoyed using it, overall it's got better and better (although occasionally had some annoying bugs).

I found the change on the Window controls in 10.04 was annoying but I eventually got used to it (so much that I kind of prefer it now) but the change to Unity is a step too far for me.

Granted I can switch back to Gnome but I'm starting to think that it's more hassle than it's worth.

Having had to replace the hard drive in my laptop I think I might look around at other distros, maybe Debian, Linux Mint or possibly even Gentoo.

Rob

[Goat Jam]

I'm waiting for Linux Mint Debian 64

They announced it would be released in December but they are of running out of December rapidly.

[Anonymous Coward]

they're changing the ubuntu desktop

perhaps suicide is the least difficult option.

or get over it

[mraak]

Ubuntu, Ubuntu

Once I'll be able to install and use Skype at a first go then wake me up. Until then I use Mac with VM's W7 and CentOS.

[JEDIDIAH]

Huh???

> Once I'll be able to install and use Skype at a first go

> then wake me up. Until then I use Mac with VM's W7

> and CentOS.

??? Skype has explicitly supported Ubuntu with no-brainer pre-packaged deb files for ages.

[mraak]

Ubuntu + Skype + Mic

Yeah, only that the mic didn't work. Pathetic OS.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ubuntu+skype+mic

[nsld]

My 7 year old can do that!

and she did earlier after her little brother borked her netbook.

You click on software centre, search for skype, click on it, you get a new button, click on that, job done.

Simply login and then wait for Skype to have its epic fail from today which even she couldnt fix.

[Elmer Phud]

yeah but . . .

. . . "it's not real LINUX"! I hear from the mutterers.

And they won't be happy until a version is released with only keyboard input. "It's just not proper if you have to use a mouse."

All most folks want is an OS that works and doesn't need magic incantations or specific runes to be chanted while typing them in having once worked thier way through the maze of 'Where do I have to be before I can use this spell".

It irks the purists that a child can just click and go - it's not 'real' if a mouse is involved.

[mraak]

Skype Mic and 7yr olds

I hope your 7 year old likes to Google a lot

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ubuntu+skype+mic

[Arbuthnot Darjeeling]

comes with ubuntu

use skype on ubuntu daily - comes in the distro.

are you the troll from planet fanboi?

[Jack 4]

Time to move to a different distro...

I've been using Ubuntu for several years now, (Ever since I got sick of dealing with Windows crap.) but this move toward a "My Way or the Highway" set of desktop changes is likely to see me using a different distro soon enough. If I wanted to be forced to use someone else's locked down vision of how things should be done, I'd already be using a Mac.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac?

Listen, if you can't afford a Mac just say it, it's ok. Linux is so shit it can't even be given away.

[JEDIDIAH]

Mac? Want one? I have 3.

> Listen, if you can't afford a Mac just say it, it's ok.

> Linux is so shit it can't even be given away.

I have 3 Macs and 2 5-Bay RAID arrays.

I have no interest in MacOS and the issue isn't just cost. Although my $600 Quad Core towers do run circles around of any of my similarly priced Macs.

There is nothing terribly compelling about the Mac or MacOS that makes me want to boot any of my Macs into MacOS in order to use it.

I bought the Macs when they seemed good for HTPC use.

[Martin]

hear hear!

I played with Unity. Wanted to launch a terminal for a command line. Click the button - it worked. OK, great. Wanted a second one - often useful. Click the button - it brought the first one to the front.

In fifteen minutes of searching, I could not work out how to launch a second terminal.

Moreover, on a netbook you're short of screen space. So what sort of system is it that takes up about ten percent on a taskbar on the left-hand side - which you can't get rid of??

I've heard good things about Mint...

[JEDIDIAH]

Where's my blob?

I'll believe it when I see it.

Given the price of hardware today, I can easily test these things out for myself on "lesser hardware".

So where's the proof of concept?

Although the big issue is really robust and complete driver support. This has been the case since the early versions of xfree86 were fighting with VLB video cards. This is the problem that X itself and any attempt to get rid of it has always faced.

No Nvidia blob for Wayland? Forget it.

The Mac angle is a very apt one. Wayland sounds like every Mac user's worst nightmare about Flash performance, except it's not just limited to Flash. Your whole system runs like that.

[batfastad]

Not aweful

I used Ubuntu 6 and 8, on and off, and generally it was ok.

What put me off though is all the integrated social media garb pre-installed. And programs being far too tightly integrated for my liking.

For me Linux is about choice, and any attempts to restrict or impede or even pre-determine that choice just p*sses me off.

So I p*ssed off to Fedora and it's pretty great.

But the more polished Linux distros out there the better and there;s enough people lapping Ubuntu up!

[Robert E A Harvey]

Innovation is good

I am delighted that some people have the balls to be different. Innovation is what we need, and its not as though X, gnome, kde, etc.etc. will cease to exist.

Contrast and compare with windull, where you get the choice of one filesystem and one ui. And every bit of hardware comes with disks that patch the OS to make then work.

[Roger Heathcote 1]

The balls to be...

...different - by copying Apple? Are you kidding? People rave about Apple's GUI but I have to say it gets right on my nerves. Pretty - yes, it is pretty, I can't deny that, but functionally it's no less braindead than Windows or Ubuntu, in some senses it's worse (resizing - hello!).

There's little to no innovation here and what we'll end up with is a desktop less capable than we had before, probably with a file manager that's far less capable than nautilus. I, personally, think these changes could mark the end of my tenure with Ubuntu - let it go and be the poor mans Mac!

[Glen Turner 666]

Have you tried to use it? It sucks.

I foolishly upgraded my Ubuntu Netbook Remix Eee PC. And what a user interface disaster Unity is. Job's Mob obsessively polishes the Apple user interface until it shines. Unity tries hard to look like MacOS, but then you'll try to do something and you'll find it sucks. Like moving a few files, you shouldn't have to navigate the folders every time. Unity as it works today is simply a cargo cult user interface.

[tempemeaty]

Heads up to Linux, OS requirements moving fast into furture now

If this goes down the path of "big brother" controlling what I can and can not install or do with my computer then turning it into an appliance dependent on a net connection to operate then I'm out. If Mark Shuttleworth builds are real OS that does better and doesn't go down the "big brother" path then good for him. As it is I HAVE to use Linux with KDE or GNOME desktops. I can't even think about proprietary a gui right now. I need programs the use KDE and GNOME. This is also a shot over all the independent open source programmers bows. Get it together with program packaging. Time to package the applications more professionally these days. Time to get organized or stagnate. Ubuntu with depositories has spoiled some but recently the version turn over and loss of depositories have made it an OS that loses dependencies to quickly to be a serious Windows or Apple competitor. Those OS's 3rd party program codes don't leave you having to collect dozens of dependencies in order to get their programs installed. Other than a couple dependencies the programs are complete on install as is.

[Olivreghw]

why not...

I was really happy with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix UI, then Unity came, then my netbook looked like a smartphone... a slow one... So I went back to the classical Gnome desktop UI, with menus, autohide panels and so on.

In the end I have more visual space than with either unity or the previous UI, it's faster, it's less buggy. I was used to the Remix UI but going back to a 'classic' desktop was like being free again... I don't see the point in breaking the 'classic' desktop UI to get a smartphone-like UI on a computer, even on a netbook.

But it's ok for me if Ubuntu tries something different, as long as we have the choice to use alternative UIs.

[spegru]

On the other hand

Anything that moves away from the Windose paradigm could be useful to market share 'cos people will not suffer GUI shock from 'it's not windows!'

In these days of iphones & tablets that could be a very good thing

[Mahou Saru]

One man dictating his ideals on others in the OSS world?

Shirley Richard Stallman beats Mark Shuttleworth at that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Very glad about this

It's about time that awful Windows-clone Gnome desktop was kicked out and replaced with something decent. This is the sort of thing Linux needs if it's every going to get anywhere on the desktop. Long may these improvements continue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprised?

This has been in the pipeline for ages now and should surprise nobody.

Shuttleworth's main focus is usability to gain popularity. Initially the polish that Ubuntu gave moved Linux significantly towards being a usable, functional desktop for the masses... in the main part by bringing it closer to the look and feel of normal desktops.

What should not be surprising is that this simplification of the desktop is set to continue well beyond what many of us reading this website will be comfortable with. It should also be noted that this route is going to end up driving Ubuntu straight into direct competition with iOS / Android / Chrome rather than OSX / Windows.

[Rob Davis]

If Ubuntu/Linux could play ALL DVD-Videos that would be nice - would welcome comments

Not all of mine play on VLC / Movie player in Ubuntu but on same PC booted into Windows with VLC they do. I would welcome comments

http://superuser.com/questions/199963

[Anonymous Coward]

Copy protected materials on Linux?

What are you, a pirate?

/joke

...but seriously now, from my very meager experience on the subject my *first* suspect would be the DVD copy protection mechanisms and not Linux. I've seen the same problems on Windows with VLC and XBMC but DRM-friendly-WMP always works ok.

Note also that the same discs I've seen this problem with have also refused to play properly on a cheap off-brand (Microtek I think) DVD player we have in one of the bedrooms.

For me I don't think this has incited the behavior the MPAA intended... when I run into a DVD I purchased that won't play where I need it to I rip it down. Does that make me a pirate?

[nematoad]

Yep!

"Does that make me a pirate?"

If you live in the UK then yes, it does. There is nothing in the law that allows you to transfer material that you have legally purchased from one type of media to another.

[Benedict]

well...

Does the law explicitly forbid transferring from a format you purchased to another? If not then it's fine. You don't need laws granting permission to do something, there's no law about being allowed to skip down the street but you can do it if you want.

[Neil Brown]

Does the law explicitly forbid transferring from a format you purchased to another?

Unfortunately, yes it does - to change the format, you would be creating a copy of the various underlying works, without a licence; there is no general "personal use" exception to to the reproduction right under English law (i.e. nothing which implements Art. 5(2)(b) of dir. 2001/29/EC) to grant you the right to do this. Similarly, it's an infringement of copyright (probably of multiple copyrights) to rip a CD to your hard drive, or copy it to your music player, or to put an image of a DVD or a copy of just the film (i.e. stripping the unnecessary chapters out) on your NAS, for streaming to your media centre.

I would question whether a rightsholders would want to invest the money to sue an individual doing these for his/her own personal use, but, to my mind, it simply demonstrates that copyright law in England is out of touch with reality.

[JEDIDIAH]

Intentionally Broken DVDs

There are a lot of DVDs that use intentional breakage that's somewhat reminiscent of the early 8-bit computing days and their forms of copy protection of floppy disks. The DVD will contain intentional errors that will trip up a computer that's trying to access the disk as raw data. The idea is that a "real" DVD player will access the disk through the TOC and IFO files and not encounter these errors.

Sometimes the on disk index will be gibberish. This manifest as a large number of visible titles (like 99). Sometimes there are intentional errors put on the disk. A disk recovery tool can avoid these.

Although the vast majority of DVDs are playable with decss.

Then again, some disks are just plain broken due to crap fabrication.

[Rob Davis]

Fragmented by plethora of distros was one of the causes of Linux's lack of take up by the public.

...because this caused uncertainty about whether applications, utilities, improvements could run everywhere.

"Shuttleworth seems to have a clear vision in mind for Ubuntu's future."

"one man, one vision, one desktop."

About time.

[JEDIDIAH]

Someone let a troll into the castle...

> ...because this caused uncertainty about whether applications,

> utilities, improvements could run everywhere.

No. This is caused by Lemming trolls engaging in intentional fear mongering.

Yes... because the copy of gnome-lib that runs on Fedora is just SO DIFFERENT than the one that runs on Fedora, or even Solaris.

Now forking the display server. THAT will cause REAL fragmentation.

[Herbert Meyer]

the difference is...

Between Jobs and Shuttleworth, the difference is, if I don't like Steve Jobs handiwork, I cannot walk further in the Mall, and get one at the other Apple store. If I don't like Mark Shuttleworth, I just walk a bit farther, to the Fedora store, or back up to the Debian workshop, or whatever.

Right now, Mark's problem is that Unity and Wayland don't quite work yet. I am running Narwhal on a touchscreen netbook, and I am using the xfce desktop most of the time.

[Craig 33]

Am I alone?

Unity doesn't replace Gnome...It replaces the desktop arrangement.. All the libs are still there, the panels are still available - it's just got a new front end... Turn unity off, problem solved?

[kb9aln]

UI differences.

I've used Linux for my home computer for quite some time. Have another at work and support Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7 at work (a small but very busy retailer). I inevitably get a few questions from some of my non-computer-literate friends who own Macs (on my recommendation). I don't hear from them too often, though.

This means that I have experience using all major desktops. Overall, I find Windows of any kind to be the most irritating to use. Mac has me irritated far less. The concepts used in the Mac UI, although uniform and usually simple and usable, feel very limiting to me. Yeah, I hear ya on the window resizing thing.

Recently, I changed from Slackware/Fluxbox (after using others for quite a while) to Ubuntu 10.04 (LTS). Added the Mac theme for fun, and it does have an intermittently appearing global menu bar (not all applications support it) - that takes some getting used to. I like the Cairo dock, and have used some form of dock for quite a while now. Kinda like the theme, in spite of the Apple logo that appears in the top panel. After a mostly painless install, this is my preferred desktop. It combines some of the polish and usability that Apple is known for, while still retaining some of the Linux flexibility.

I do like the idea of Wayland, even if it doesn't pan out. A reworking of X sounds good, too. Not so sure about the one-size-fits-all nature of Unity. But not trying something new means never knowing what works - or doesn't. Or how to change that something to make it work. This is how progress is made.

I prefer the various options available to me when it comes to UI. The choice available is one of the best things about FOSS. I like the choice of trying something new, as well as the choice of reverting back to the old if the new is not my cup of tea.

[Rob Davis]

@AC13:35GMT 23 Dec, Copy protected materials.../@JEDIDIAH Someone let a troll...18:54

I was trying to introduce a non-techie friend to Ubuntu.

One of the first questions they had was: "Does it play DVDs?"

So we put one in and it didn't play. Then I followed the official advice regarding installing packages etc. and some played but not all, those that didn't played on the same machine running Windows.

Sure DVD has some protections and restrictions but I don't see why these can't be overcome, after all, Ubuntu can run on a chip, an Intel and a motherboard with a graphics card that all contain proprietary technology.

Widespread mass Ubuntu use is something I'm not sure that the technically adept want, sadly, judging by the comments on these forums sometimes. It seems like some form of clique snobbery; a fear that mass appeal will pollute the platform.

Sometimes people here look down on others who aren't technical, making a virtue out of complexity by having to tinker at the command line for example, deriding those who don't wish to.

I thought we'd moved on from that kind of snobbery as it's gone on for a long time and the associated intellectual mast**b*tion discussions about which platform is better.

But sometimes I *do* see that we have moved on here too and it's refreshing as some folks just want something to work and get on with other things.

I'm an Ubuntu and CentOS Linux user, Windows 7 and XP user and Mac OS X user. I'm a big fan of open source software, use and develop with it a lot an I think it's a healthy situation if Ubuntu becomes more successful and a viable alternative for non-techies.

As for "Someone let a troll into the castle... " posted Thursday 23rd December 2010 18:54 GMT

I really believe multiple distros can slow progress, as competition can be the enemy of compatibility.

[Wayland Sothcott 1]

Wayland is lighter and more easily extensible.

I can't remember when I was last described in this way. It is true through.

[Richard Porter]

(even Apple will let you put the "dock" where you like)

OSX's "dock" is a crib of the RISC OS Icon Bar which does sit at the bottom of the screen.