Why Such a Dislike and Lack of Adoption for the Unity Desktop?

[perknh]

Hello Peppermint Nation,

I just spent the last couple of days playing with Ubuntu's GNOME desktop.  And the first thing I noticed about Ubuntu's GNOME DE is that it looked, and felt, like an earlier, and rougher, version of Unity Desktop.  GNOME seems to be a winner, and perhaps even a victim of its own success -- meaning it has been adopted and modified into numerous desktop environments such as MATE, Unity, and Cinnamon which must be now collectively even more popular than GNOME itself.  (I know Fedora is big into GNOME DE.)

If what I'm saying is so; why such a dislike for Unity?*  This dislike of Unity within the Linux community seems almost visceral to me. And only a few distributions, if that, have adopted Unity as a desktop environment.

I'm not getting it. 

Thank you,

perknh

* The privacy issues of Unity can turned off with a couple of clicks.  And, as for sluggishness, Unity appears to be getting faster and faster with each release.  I've been finding Unity within Utopic Unicorn to be terrific.  Unfortunately it only has several more months of support.  Also one can easily uninstall Amazon.

P.S.

Here Nixie Pixel describes the differences between Unity and Gnome 3.

Code: [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZU9XzJBgVc

                                                         or     


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZU9XzJBgVc
                                             



 

[AndyInMokum]

Hi perknh, how's it going?  The only use I can see for the Unity DE is with touch screens and mobile devices.  I tried it with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS PPC on my old Mac G4 PowerBook.  Apart from the very evident bloat, it looked great; really eye catching.   However, to use it with a touch pad and/or mouse, it was just horrible.  For me it was like trying to use a computer while wearing boxing gloves  !!

[perknh]

Hello AndyInMokum!

I see.  So, besides the bloat (too many programs -- some of which are unnecessary such as Amazon) is a lack of ease of use.  Now that is an interesting answer.

Since I know you're a both a MATE as well an Lxde user, I can appreciate your answer --especially since you're the one who introduced me to MATE in the first place!   

But what a shock I had when I first saw GNOME:  All I could think of was Unity.  I saw the foundation of Unity nearly everywhere I looked.

Thank you,

perknh

[rjm65]

not only what Andy said, but Andy forgot to mention that it just plains sucks, it is ugly it is a resource hog, did i mention its ugly?   
 

[perknh]

Hello rjm65,

I was just going to edit my post to tell AndyInMokum how nice-looking I find Unity to be.  But somehow I get a sense that you may feel otherwise. 

perknh

[AndyInMokum]

I actually found 12.04 LTS PPC quite attractive to look at.  Unity is just impracticable in a non-touch screen environment.  It's a resource hog for sure.  That makes it next to useless on lower resource machines.  Thankfully there is Xubuntu and Lubuntu and their derivatives for us tightwads and lovers of older coal and steam powered machines  !!

[rjm65]

gee ya think? LOL  unity is the reason i left ubuntu and found mint and then peppermint...  I like mint cinnamon the best then i like mint mate second best and plain old lxde ranks 3rd in my opinion of de's...  I wouldn't use or put unity on a persons machine even if i hated them, i wouldn't subject them to unity...  When unity came out i wrote to the guy in charge of ubuntu, and i told him back then unity sucked and he lost me and everyone i know as a user because of it...  Obviously they don't care about what their users think cause they still have unity.... 

[VinDSL]

If what I'm saying is so; why such a dislike for Unity?*  This dislike of Unity within the Linux community seems almost visceral to me. And only a few distributions, if that, have adopted Unity as a desktop environment.

I'm not getting it. 

I'll try to keep this brief...   

I don't dislike the Unity DE.  Matter of fact, I defended Unity for a year in the Ubu forums and on Launchpad.

I actually got a positive feedback from Mark Shuttleworth, when I was hashing it out with the boneheads on Launchpad...   

Spoiler (click here to view / hide)

[close]

I biggest complaint, back then, was the lack of a configuration tool for Unity.  Users wanted the ability to customize it.

I discovered early-on that I could hack the Unity DE by using Gnome-Shell as a pseudo-dev tool.  Simple pimple.

As a result of being forced to use GS to hackor Unity, I actually started liking it more than Unity.

GS is my favorite DE these days, but I don't want to hijack this thread.  That said, I like Unity just fine... when it works.   

[AndyInMokum]

Don't get me wrong.  I've used Unity and its functionality left me less than impressed.  I'm not planning to use it again.  My first taste of Linux was LMDE Cinnamon.  The Mint gang really have produced a very polished desktop.  Apparently it is getting better all the time too.  Many of the kinks and quirks I experienced have now been ironed out  .

[emegra]

Hi guys

Ubuntu was my first foray into Linux starting with the version just prior to Unity I was just getting to like Ubuntu when I was offered a distribution  upgrade which broke almost everything so I had to do a full install of the first Unity version  and I hated it so much I almost went back to Windows until I discovered Mint

My biggest gripe about Unity was global menus it just seemed messy and hard work but I'm sure it's improved much since these early days

But in Canonicals defence I think they really had to move towards a touch orientated interface in view of their long term plans for convergence with portable touch screen devices which is beginning to bear fruit with the new Ubuntu phone and to be fair I think they've done a much better job of it than Microsoft has with their Metro interface


I know some people here will likely disagree but I still believe in spite of Unity Ubuntu is the flagship Linux distribution and the only distribution moving Linux forward in the touch screen age and we should admire their tenacity for taking on the big boys and keeping Linux relevant which ultimately benefits us all



Graeme

[PCNetSpec]

There are MANY reasons people dislike Unity..

The first haters disliked the fact that Ubuntu broke away from Gnome 3 shell development to create their own DE (some people always bitch at a fork), some thinking too many DEs' is a  bad thing, others just thinking Ubuntu's leaving slowed GS development.

Second group of haters disliked Unity because it was out before GS, so was the first of the "new metaphor" DE's that people could hate .. they tended to dislike GS too, but less because they'd already spent their hate on Unity (though beleive me they hated GS too, at least at first)

There's the "it's not configurable (so not very Linuxy)" and "it's too much like OS X", and "dumbed down like Windows" and "going too commercial" haters

Then there's those that hate it because it's "in vogue" to hate it (half of which probably have little experience of it) or to hate Ubuntu in general, or only hate it so they can "big up" their distro of choice, or just look for any reason to hate the perceived "leader".

Then there's the group I belong to, that simply hate the whole "new metaphor" thing, both Unity and GS .. at least Gnome 3 can easily be re-shelled like Mint have done with Cinnamon .. Unity on the other hand is kinda like Windows desktop, you get what you're given which is a real pain if you think what you're given SUX

Personally I don't get people who say Windows "Metro UI" sucks, but then use Unity or GS .. they are all attempts to "unify" the mobile and desktop UI's, and they all fail miserably because it never needed unifying .. IMHO the "desktop metaphor" was pretty much perfected a long time ago and doesn't need to change to accommodate "mobile", I know Microsoft/Canonical/Gnome think otherwise but people ARE smart enough to master 2 different UI's for 2 different devices 

Mark my words .. the "new metaphor" DE's will all fail in the long run .. forcing a mobile UI onto the desktop PC (as opposed to giving you an option to switch between the two .. Microsoft actually did that BETTER than Unity or GS), and bloating up mobile UI with features for desktop users is simply ridiculous.
(what's next .. a full on version of windows 10 / Ubuntu 16.04 on your router / calculator / mp3 player)

OK, rant over 

[rjm65]

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW  Mark, Cmon keep ranting, I was enjoying the good read and then it ended, please rant some more...   LMAO...   

[Slim.Fatz]

I'm in the same group as PCNetSpec and AndyInMokum. I also do not like KDE: too much of a resource hog and too much flashy junk for my simple little mind. 

When on a computer with a keyboard plus a mouse and/or a touchpad, then I prefer something simple, configurable and light-weight such as i3 or Openbox or JWM. When using a tablet then something like Unity or the Android interface works just fine (for me).

I understand that some folks find Unity on a desktop PC the best solution -- but I don't. So I'll stick with my choices and hope that i3, Openbox, JWM and similar solutions never go away. 

Regards,

-- Slim

[PCNetSpec]

Mark, Cmon keep ranting

OK then....

Uninty / GS = A clear example of what you get when you let the same people that use marketing and boardroom "buzz words" dictate design decisions 

And as Andy suggested, there's clearly something wrong when new users are saying Windows appears faster and lighter 
(this should NEVER be said about ANY Linux)

As for Gnome .. I understood the need for Gnome 3, the Gnome 2.x code base had become a mess of tangled patches and additions that meant every time they needed to add another patch it was nearly impossible to tell what it would break .. so a code base rewrite was in order, and why not add some stuff / make some changes in the process.
Problem was they made a hash of it .. surely a code base rewrite is intended to clean up the code so it should end up lighter right ?, wrong it ended up HEAVIER yet with LESS functionality, how the **** did they manage that ? 
Since then (after a LOT of user pressure that they originally chose to ignore) some of the functionality has been added back in, but now it had to be added back by patching the code, kinda goes against the reason for the rewrite in the first place don't you think 
This *should* have been an opportunity to make an excellent DE and framework even better .. an opportunity that they not only missed, but smashed with a sledge hammer then kicked the resulting dust into users faces.

Then there's the shell they decided to bung on top of it .. sucked that bad that everyone felt the need to either leave, start their own shell adding functionality to gnome-session-fallback (cinnamon), or resurrect and fork Gnome 2.x

Gnome 3 Plus Gnome Shell = an object lesson in how to go from highly praised  market leader to ridiculed bloated also ran in one quick move....

Rant over again .. probably .....

[rjm65]

OH I am not so sure the rant is over, I bet if Mark tried really hard he could rant some more...   Tee Hee.. 
 I dunno  am I enjoying this too much? maybe, maybe not...   LOL