Posts by Baphomet

Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

RE @Neil Barnes 11:17

WRT window controls, it's only in Natty that the decision to move them to the left has actually made sense for me. I *love* that the top panel serves as the menu bar of maximised windows, and with the indicators on the right there's no way they could go on that side.

"- a dock that changes its contents, its size, and doesn't open in the same way it closed"

I have never experienced any of that, besides it's clearly a bug, so why complain like it's an intended feature?

"- a complete inability to see what tasks you have open on a desktop"

I don't really understand this... unity integrates both compiz's scale and expo plugins to show you exactly what's going on on the desktop, much better than any other desktop environment, and the unity launcher is there for minimized windows. IMHO unity is much *better* at showing you what tasks you have open than standard gnome, and at the very least it's no worse.

"- windows which disappear completely on minimisation"

?? Either they minimise to the launcher which is, well, exactly what you'd expect, or if you mean they really DO disappear then again, it's obviously a bug. In beta software. Shock horror.

"- icons on the dock which are used both to start an application and to return to it (there's a tiny triangle on some of the icons - I *think* it's to say that the application is already running but that's (a) almost invisible and (b) pointless - starting an application and returning to it are completely different tasks)"

I think this is fairly valid. What to do if you have one instance of a program open already but want to open another? Firefox solves this in its right-click menu with a "open new window" option which I think is a neat solution to a very minor problem. As for the triangles indicating open programs, I find them perfectly obvious. YMMV.

"- a lack of a structured menu (aka the start menu) for access to rarely used but important applications is downright stupid. I really really don't want to have to search for every application - particularly if I don't know its name."

Click the whacking great applications menu (or ubuntu button > more apps), Next to "installed" click "see x more results", narrow selection by category if needed.

"- multiple clicks to move between different desktops"

The expo plugin does require you to double click to select and move to a different desktop, maybe this should be configurable. Hardly a show-stopper though, and you CAN always just hit ctrl+alt+arrow.

"- menus disassociated from their parent windows. That's beyond stupid and always has been. Nuff said."

I agree, I would much rather see this: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/02/unity-mockup-menu-integrated-in-window.html . Still, there's plenty of time for things like that to be sorted.

Don't Panic!

"How about another basic function like adding a new application to the dock? You might assume you could simply drag an app icon from your application menu into the dock"

Um, you can? Find in in the menu, or on your desktop, drag it onto the dock. Couldn't be easier?!

"There's also the familiar looking GNOME-like bar at the top of the desktop, which looks like a GNOME bar, quacks like a GNOME bar, but is definitely not a GNOME bar."

No, the panel is not gnome-panel. Apps can be whitelisted to work in the notification area without an indicator, but the idea is to move to a more consistent desktop where apps use the indicator tools available to them. Other distros don't have to follow, of course, in fact IMHO this is better for users: a little competition is a good thing.

"Another step backward in this release is the more intensive graphics requirements. Much of what's good in Unity comes from OpenGL, which doesn't work with every graphics card and chipset."

I think nowadays there aren't many computers that *can't* handle compiz, but as you say for those that can't there is Unity 2D, so I don't see the complaint?

You certainly seem to be experiencing your fair share of bugs (far more than me, I might add. Compiz crashes every so often but other than that Natty has been running like a dream since alpha 3), but this IS beta software and as you said, they will be ironed out?!

"Ubuntu has always offered a bit more polish to its interfaces than other Linux distros"

Um... IMHO the brown wasn't all that polished. Ubuntu has only got its act together in the last few releases, but IMHO the work they're doing on Unity is really pushing desktop development forward. It isn't perfect yet, this behaviour for instance I find particularly annoying: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/734946

All in all, I'm not sure the contents of this post justify its headline.