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Now that Ubuntu 11.04 is out, what does everyone think of the new Unity Interface?

If you ask me, I think it's half-baked. I'm going back to 10.04. It looks neater and has everything where I need them to be, which makes looking for things faster, simpler and more intuitive.

Yeah, it was released way before it was ready for desktop-sized monitors. Maybe in a year (the next LTS) it'll be ready.

While I can go back to the classic GNOME interface, it seems that Compiz doesn't work with that anymore (at least with my setup), so rendering everything is really slow and tear-y.

Unity is awesome. Give it a couple of days before you judge it.

And if it doesn't work for you, just select the classic desktop from the 11.04 login screen. There's absolutely no reason to revert back to 10.04.

BlackStar wrote:

There's absolutely no reason to revert back to 10.04.

...unless you prefer to stick with an LTS release, with its longer support cycle and more stable packages.

I definitely plan to give 11.04 a spin, but on a secondary system and/or in a VM, not as my primary OS.

well unity does seem to be usable now which is a lot more than it was in 10.10 but its still got a lot of rough edges and annoyances.

I'm going to try living with it for a while. I only lasted about a week with 10.10 netbook edition and was tearing my hair out after the first five minutes. So far I've been using it a day and haven't wanted to kill it more than twice.

Personally I think gnome 2 was seriously in need of retirement. The huge nested menus were pretty silly and it looks like unity will be easier to use without moving your hands off the keyboard.

Still I'm not sure it's any better than gnome shell (though I've only used that briefly about a year ago).

Unity on my 1201N is very nice. I love the Unity UI.

There is an issue with multiple monitors. I've had to boot back into 10.10 on my main machine until there is a fix.

Trying Kubuntu 11.04 here, on my laptop at the moment. This is the first version of *buntu that works on this HP G62 with Arrandale graphics at all. So far so okay, it does seem to work but I have noticed a few lockups and kernel panics so far though seemingly at random. I'm going to carry on trying it out for now, hopefully it will improve with updates, otherwise I'll take this laptop back to openSUSE.

The next machine I will run it on is my Main machine (see sig), I've heard there's some lockup problems with konsole and gnome's terminal when trying to resize them with the latest nVidia drivers (main work around is to downgrade to earlier ones it seems). I'll be giving that a go in the next few days.

End User wrote:

Unity on my 1201N is very nice. I love the Unity UI.

There is an issue with multiple monitors. I've had to boot back into 10.10 on my main machine until there is a fix.

I've also had a few issues with dual monitors stacked vertically - horizontal stacking seems to work, however, so the low-tech fix was simple (rearrange my desk ). The bug is known and is being worked on.

VMware is working on an update for Workstation. It is running under 11.04 for me but it is acting in a very strange way (it disappears).

BlackStar wrote:

End User wrote:

Unity on my 1201N is very nice. I love the Unity UI.

There is an issue with multiple monitors. I've had to boot back into 10.10 on my main machine until there is a fix.

I've also had a few issues with dual monitors stacked vertically - horizontal stacking seems to work, however, so the low-tech fix was simple (rearrange my desk ). The bug is known and is being worked on.

GPU?

I'm using a Nvidia GPU and the only workaround is Ubuntu Classic mode.

I thought unity was awesome until I tried to actually work with it.
That "one menu for all apps" sucks when multitasking.
Will not use Unity until they change the "one menu" or make it customizable.

sheytan wrote:

I thought unity was awesome until I tried to actually work with it.
That "one menu for all apps" sucks when multitasking.
Will not use Unity until they change the "one menu" or make it customizable.

What about adding your core apps to the dock?

I've tended to stick with the default GNOME desktop, but it seems that KDE 4 is finally getting over its growing pains. It may be time to give KDE another whirl. (And yes, LXDE actually seems to be pretty reasonable when all you want is a bare-bones desktop -- i.e. for those times when command line isn't quite enough, but you don't want all the extra baggage that comes with GNOME or KDE.)

Gnome 3 has been completely miserable for me. I've had no luck getting it to work in more than 5 hours of trying. Unity is a disgusting excuse for an interface (they aped everything wrong with OS X and left the things that were already bad). I don't like KDE and want more than LXDE/XFCE, so I'm sticking with 10.10/Gnome2 for a while yet.

grantmeaname wrote:

Gnome 3 has been completely miserable for me. I've had no luck getting it to work in more than 5 hours of trying. Unity is a disgusting excuse for an interface (they aped everything wrong with OS X and left the things that were already bad). I don't like KDE and want more than LXDE/XFCE, so I'm sticking with 10.10/Gnome2 for a while yet.

Isn't GNOME 2 still an option on 11.04? (Honestly don't know, as I haven't tried 11.04 yet.)

It is still an option - you have to select which desktop to use in the login screen, and you'll want Ubuntu Classic.

However, at least with my video card Compiz no longer works with Classic. I haven't tried it on another system yet. The old way of activating it in the Appearance control panel is gone.

grantmeaname wrote:

Unity is a disgusting excuse for an interface (they aped everything wrong with OS X and left the things that were already bad).

I've got Mac OS X Lion DP2 on my Mac mini and the similarities between it and Unity are striking. I, for one, think this is a great thing. Lion is looking really good. My workflow between the two is almost identical.

Unity really works well on smaller displays. It does a great job when using apps in full screen mode. I love where the window controls have been placed and the way the menu functions.

bthylafh wrote:

It is still an option - you have to select which desktop to use in the login screen, and you'll want Ubuntu Classic.

However, at least with my video card Compiz no longer works with Classic. I haven't tried it on another system yet. The old way of activating it in the Appearance control panel is gone.

Compiz kinda pisses me off anyway; up until around 9.10 or 10.04 lots of things just didn't work right when it was enabled. Ever try to remote in to a desktop running an early version of Compiz? Epic fail.

With 10.04 it had finally gotten to the point where it was more or less tolerable, but I still tend to leave it turned off. It reeks of "look at all the cool eye candy we can render"... and I'm actually OK with that, as long as it doesn't get in the way of getting real work done or remove functionality that is present in the non-compositing desktop (Metacity). The version shipped with 10.04 was *almost* there... but now that it's finally nearly ready for prime time, we're shifting gears again.

Maybe I'm just an old fart, but I'm reminded of a joke I read somewhere a couple of years ago. It went something like: "Linux desktop environments are like living in a house where every night while you are sleeping, a team of carpenters sneaks in; they add new rooms, and remove existing ones. If you're lucky, they don't cut a hole in the floor next to your bed." Now don't get me wrong -- I *love* most aspects of Linux. But the near-constant GUI churn gets a little tiresome. (Maybe that's why I tend to stick with the Ubuntu LTS releases for my primary desktops...)

just brew it! wrote:

bthylafh wrote:

It is still an option - you have to select which desktop to use in the login screen, and you'll want Ubuntu Classic.

However, at least with my video card Compiz no longer works with Classic. I haven't tried it on another system yet. The old way of activating it in the Appearance control panel is gone.

Compiz kinda pisses me off anyway; up until around 9.10 or 10.04 lots of things just didn't work right when it was enabled. Ever try to remote in to a desktop running an early version of Compiz? Epic fail.

With 10.04 it had finally gotten to the point where it was more or less tolerable, but I still tend to leave it turned off. It reeks of "look at all the cool eye candy we can render"... and I'm actually OK with that, as long as it doesn't get in the way of getting real work done or remove functionality that is present in the non-compositing desktop (Metacity).

Maybe I'm just an old fart, but I'm reminded of a joke I read somewhere a couple of years ago. It went something like: "Linux desktop environments are like living in a house where every night while you are sleeping, a team of carpenters sneaks in; they add new rooms, and remove existing ones. If you're lucky, they don't cut a hole in the floor next to your bed." Now don't get me wrong -- I *love* Linux. But the near-constant GUI churn gets a little tiresome. (Maybe that's why I tend to stick with the LTS releases for my primary desktops...)

While there are many questionable Compiz options it is a must have tool for me. Workspace management is key to my workflow and Compiz delivers the features I need. Without Compiz I'm not sure I could stick with Ubuntu.

End User wrote:

While there are many questionable Compiz options it is a must have tool for me. Workspace management is key to my workflow and Compiz delivers the features I need. Without Compiz I'm not sure I could stick with Ubuntu.

Just curious: Which aspects of Metacity's workspace management do you find inadequate? Everyone's got their own preferred way of interacting with their desktop, so perceived strengths/flaws will vary as well.

To organize my workflow, I set up 10 virtual desktops, and assign them to Ctrl-Alt-digit shortcuts (0-9). With Metacity, the virtual desktops seem (to me) to integrate quite seamlessly with the GNOME environment. With Compiz (at least in 10.04), there were still some rough edges; and prior to 10.04 I found it to be essentially unusable (largely due to problems with remote desktop access, which I occasionally need).

just brew it! wrote:

End User wrote:

While there are many questionable Compiz options it is a must have tool for me. Workspace management is key to my workflow and Compiz delivers the features I need. Without Compiz I'm not sure I could stick with Ubuntu.

Just curious: Which aspects of Metacity's workspace management do you find inadequate? Everyone's got their own preferred way of interacting with their desktop, so perceived strengths/flaws will vary as well.

To organize my workflow, I set up 10 virtual desktops, and assign them to Ctrl-Alt-digit shortcuts (0-9). With Metacity, the virtual desktops seem (to me) to integrate quite seamlessly with the GNOME environment. With Compiz (at least in 10.04), there were still some rough edges; and prior to 10.04 I found it to be essentially unusable (largely due to problems with remote desktop access, which I occasionally need).

The problem that remote desktop had with Compiz was a pain in the a**. The bug was fixed as remote desktop now works fine with Compiz active.

I like your Ctrl-Alt shortcuts but I use that for browser tabs. I brought my workflow over from Mac OS X which is Expose triggered by desktop corners via mouse/trackpad to show Workspaces/Windows/Desktop.

Sticking with 10.10 and Gnome2 on daily workhorse. Trying out Kubuntu 11.04 on a secondary machine and liking it so far. My experiences with previous versions of KDE4 were less pleasant but this new version (4.6) is much nicer. I saw some reviews of Unity and it does not look appealing to me right now but maybe I will try it out sometime.

I am concerned however with the reports of decreased battery life with 2.6.38 kernel and waiting to see how that issue develops.

I really like the idea of Unity, but that doesn't mean it'll work for me. Gonna give this a go tonight.

and +1 for the death of Compiz

I think Unity is built on top of Compiz. I could be wrong though.

codedivine wrote:

I think Unity is built on top of Compiz. I could be wrong though.

Yes, I believe it is. But Canonical has stated that the goal is for Unity to run on top of Wayland instead of X-Windows. I *think* this means they are porting Compiz to Wayland. I could be wrong though.

And FWIW, I think Compiz is finally just about "ready for prime time". So if they manage to not break it too badly in porting it to Wayland (assuming that's what they're doing...), it could actually end up being reasonable.

Did I mention the desktop environment churn that seems to be par for the course on Linux?

straight up didnt like it, just now finally got gnome shell installed on top of 11.04, guide i followed originally left 2 lines of stuff out and broke my dist, managed to get everything installed through recovery console and then finally got the second and last repository i needed to do it, and 4mb of files i needed to finalize it all
originally i was back in lubuntu, but today just decided id give it a shot and try to remove unity from ubuntu and replace it

Blazex wrote:

straight up didnt like it, just now finally got gnome shell installed on top of 11.04, guide i followed originally left 2 lines of stuff out and broke my dist, managed to get everything installed through recovery console and then finally got the second and last repository i needed to do it, and 4mb of files i needed to finalize it all
originally i was back in lubuntu, but today just decided id give it a shot and try to remove unity from ubuntu and replace it

Haven't tried it on 11.04 myself yet, but the Ubuntu "alternate" installer (or even Ubuntu Server) may be a better bet if you're looking for a non-Unity system. This is more like the upstream Debian installer, and allows you to set up a base system, then install the packages you want on top of that.

Guess I need to start grabbing ISOs and playing with this stuff... I'm still running 9.10/10.04 on my main desktops (home/work).

was about ready to just go with a new distro, not like my laptops my main system anyway.
just didnt feel like setting up a new distro just yet, maybe within a month or two someone will have a more stable shell package finished up.
havent really looked around at whats new just yet, only just loaded up opensuse kde the other day in a vm on desktop will eventually get around to tooling with newer stuff as it comes by

axeman wrote:

End User wrote:

VMware is working on an update for Workstation. It is running under 11.04 for me but it is acting in a very strange way (it disappears).

I've found the best update for VMWare is to switch to VirtualBox. Since the vast majority of it is is OSE, no more painful waiting for VMWare to update their crap to run on the latest distro.

I won't go as far as to say that Workstation is crap but I think it is time for me to give VirtualBox a shot as it does meet my 3 platform requirement (runs on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows).

axeman wrote:

End User wrote:

VMware is working on an update for Workstation. It is running under 11.04 for me but it is acting in a very strange way (it disappears).

I've found the best update for VMWare is to switch to VirtualBox. Since the vast majority of it is is OSE, no more painful waiting for VMWare to update their crap to run on the latest distro.

I first tried VirtualBox a few years ago, when VMware introduced their ridiculous browser-based UI (there were also some annoying gotchas on some Linux distros that required convoluted workarounds). VirtualBox also had its issues back then, but has matured tremendously now. As long as you're using one of their officially supported distros -- they are *very* good about providing current binary builds for these -- it "just works". Or you can use the OSE edition supported by your distro; but this may lag a couple of point releases behind the official VirtualBox release, and lacks certain features (USB 2.0 pass-through and Windows RDP console support).