I meant strictly usability and aesthetics. To each his own!

Slakeware, I must admit, is one I have not tried (I have most of the others). Have no idea why not. Just too many out there to try. It is on my list and I keep hearing good things about it.

Really must make time and space to get to it soon.

I tried Unity myself, but I purely hated it. If Mark Shuttleworth tries to shove that Unity trash down my throat, I will uninstall Ubuntu and return to Windoze 7...as bad as I hate Windoze...I WILL do it before I will accept Unity. Unity stinks big time. Ubuntu 11.10 will eliminate Gnome 2 completely so that the user will be FORCED to use Unity. By that time, I will have left Ubuntu completely...like many people have already done, and will be doing in the future in droves.

I see Ubuntu as going out of business, or becoming obsolete and forgotten. Maybe I will get an Apple computer with the Apple OS...who knows? I HATE Windoze, but I HATE Unity worse.

Also, as for Compiz, I hate that too. I have never liked it. I try my best to uninstall it and to uninstall Unity also. I can't stand either one. Windoze 7 is looking pretty good to me right now.

While your sentiment about Unity are understandable your reaction is not.

First, the disappearance of Gnome2 is not Ubuntus fault. The Gnome folks are bringing out Gnome3. Like it or not Gnome2 is pretty well done for as obsolete.

Second, Ubuntu is not Linux. It is a Debian respin, an elaborate respin granted, but a respin. If you look around you will find other Linux OS' that are better if not as full of eyecandy.

PCLOS is easy for beginners. Debian stable will be supported for the next 5 years as they support the current and old stable releases (right now it is Squeeze - stable and Lenny - old stable). Squeeze uses, of coarse, gnome2.

There are other Decktop Environments than Gnome. Even in Ubuntu. Xubuntu is a very nice OS as are most xfce OS'.

Zenix is a very nice OpenBox OS based on Debian Squeeze. Take a look at it. OpenBox is another Desktop Environment.
http://zenix-os.net/

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Returning to Windows - that's a bit extreme! There are plenty more distros out there, and don't forget that Ubuntu 10.04 is an LTS version so there's plenty of life in it yet. ALso it might even be worth considering Kubuntu, assuming Mark 'Bill Gates' Shuttleworth isn't going to ruin that too. I'm thinking about trying Mint. It is an Ubuntu derivative but they also do a Debian version.

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mericet I agree!

In a nutshell...

1 - The icons on the left side of screen "panel" sort of thing or on the ersatz "menu" are TOO BIG. Sort of like Gnome icons were back in Red Hat 6. I used KDE because of that for quite a while.

2 - I do NOT appreciate having to play hide and seek to find a program. A terminal is listed under Accessories as it is in Gnome. However, it is not displayed until I click "show more" (or whatever it said).

3 - If I cannot remember the syntax to call up a program I can in Gnome open the "main menu" utility, find the menu entry for the program of interest, right click and look at properties. No can do in Unity.

Unity looks like something one might find on the point of sale terminal at McDonalds. All pictures. If you want extra ketsup press the picture of a ketsup bottle twice. Designed to be operated by illiterate, minimum wage workers. I wonder if Unity has the same goal???

10.04 LTS still has a couple of years of life left. If at the end of its life Canonical has not come up with something which is at least no worse than 10.04 I will be using a different distro.

Ken

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Not only is your analysis masterful, it is hilarious. I made just about the exact phrase on the UFs testing forum during the last testing cycle (11.04). I said it was for illiterate high school dropouts working at fast food joints. The post was "jailed" and I was barred from posting there (I am a long time tester) for a week.

Ubuntu has the thought police out in force as they really do not want to hear opinions of this nature. This is unfortunate as it is not encouraging experienced folks to continue testing (I don't and there are several others), the quality of testing will drop, the distance between users and Ubuntu will increase.

The lack of testers is appearant if the move of teh testing forum away from the Development and Programming sub forum, this makes it easier to find by users. While this sounds good it is not. It will bring in folks that given a year or two more experience with Linux would make great tester. They will not be now. They will have a bad time and not consider testing again for a long time. This is a shame.

I started with Ubuntu and am, therefore, quite fond of it. It is sad to see it so off track.

I really believe that the main motive for Unity is to avoid having to use Gnome Shell. Unity can be Ubuntu branded. The other motive is that they have never come up with a "netbook install" that was very successful.

Unity may well be a good DE for small devices. Making it the default DE is just stupid.

Thanks widget. I did some serious testing of 10.04 LTS as I hate changing my build every few months. I have an XP virtual machine for a small number of apps which I have not yet replaced with Linux apps or Wine. My XP config is the old "Windows Classic" from NT 4.0 and the old reliable File Manager also from NT 4.0 and copied over to XP.

I have used Ubuntu since about 6.10. I used to use Red Hat and Fedora a little. Ubuntu reached it peak with 8.04 in my opinion. It simply worked. I just migrated my wife's PC and server to 10.04 from 8.04 recently. 8.10 was real flaky so I did not use it. 9.04 came on a Dell Netbook and was just fine. I put 9.10 on my then new quad core power desktop as 8.04 would not recognize some of the hardware. Suspend/wake has never worked properly - still doesn't in 10.04. I have managed to beat most of the rest 10.04 into submission though.

But to get back to the purpose of this thread... I have read that the classic panel will be going away next year to be replaced by Unity or Gnome shell or such. Unsatisfactory. I expect an operating system to manage hardware and run applications. I do not expect it to be an end unto itself. I do not want the OS to suck up half the CPU just playing with eye candy.

My 10.04 interface consists of the following:

A panel across the top of each screen (two monitors) with the apps I most often run on each display.
Gnome-commander
A bash shell
sometimes a few files on the Desktop until I file them away

I will on occasion change the wallpaper image but I would not loose sleep if I could not. I use the Clearlooks theme as it is the simplest I could find (and I have of course moved the max, min, close buttons to the right where they belong).

Unfortunately I see the same Unity eye candy and hide the apps shell game going on with other distros.
Fedora 15 - crappy interface, Fedora 15 KDE - worse, Mint - nothing to get excited about, Fusion - I have yet to figure out what fused or perhaps fissioned, Kubuntu 11.04 - same as Fedora 15 KDE.

So I guess I have to go back to Red - well at least to CentOS as this is a home environment. CentOS is corporate and stodgy but I think it will be stable and long lasting. I can not see Corporate users putting up with all the eye candy and other waste of CPU cycles. Of course they will probably not go beyond run level 3

I purchased a 500 GB drive from newegg.com for $25 last week (should have purchased several before they ran out). I have rigged my PC for quick drive change out so I can swap drives w/o pulling the cover.

Today I installed CentOS 5.6 onto the 500 GB drive using ext3 partitions which I can backup and restore with g4l. It was a little touch and go but I have managed to install the nVidia drivers to allow me to use both displays. Tomorrow I will figure out how to install gnome-commander which is not in the repositories best I can tell. By the time 10.04 goes off support I should be comfortable with CentOS and be at 6.x which is supposed to be "the operating system for the next decade" according to the Major North American Corporate Linux Vendor from whom CentOS derives.

Cheers,

Ken

p.s. I never had these problems with CP/M+ on my Osborne

Yes, the departure of the panels, that folks like to blame on Ubuntu, is all Gnomes doing. I think this is too bad as it is a pretty nice setup.

I figure using Debian I can stick with Gnome 2 for a while longer.

Gnome, I think will port the panels to Gnome3. If not I expect someone to do it as a fork.

The desktop as an "experience" or "activity" is a waste of time. I use my windows maximized. I can read a menu. I have a number of launchers on my panels (both on top). I also use 6 workstations for different things (browser windows (usually 2) on 1, nautilus windows (user and root) on 2, boinc all alone on 3, gnome-alsamixer and rhythmbox on 4, 5 and 6 for terminals, chroot environments (several installs on here) and synaptic.

I do have transparent panels so I can see the very top of my wallpaper. I like a nice looking desktop occasionally if just listening to some tunes. This never lasts long though and I am back to full work stations.

Unity is set up great for being a twit (social networking) and porn.

Try managing Gimp with 6 images open that you are working on, maybe combining some of them to make a wallpaper with 3 images on it. So now you have 8 images (6 pictures and 2 new blanks the size you want the wallpaper to be). This gets very old, very fast as all you are doing is trying to find your correct images with a combination of keyboard shortcuts, mouse clicks on the launcher and a whole lot of swearing.

I have and install of Wheezy on my external with Gnome and Xfce on it. I think I can deal with Xfce when the time comes for Gnome3. Lxde is looking better all the time too.

I also have, on that external a copy of my Ubuntu 8.04 that has been, officially, my main OS (setup for security and business). Great OS. Was going to upgrade to 10.04 but the bugger does not work well on my hardware (plymouth hates me, the feeling is mutual). 8.04 is about to become Squeeze which will give me an OS that has the same kernel and basic structure as 10.04 but will boot in less than 3 minutes and will actually shut down without Alt+SysRq+B.

My favorite Ubuntu (9.04) has already had a / transplant and is now Debian Sid. I am trying to get Gimp7.2 installed on it.

I miss Ubuntu for the experience in Linux that I gained with 8.04 and 9.04. I do not miss the strange direction Ubuntu seems to be heading down. Nor do I miss the jack booted thought police on their forums.

Heh, why do you think I dont use the ubuntu forums anymore? Its because of just this sort of thing.

Negative posts get people given 'cautions', 'temporary suspensions' or even outright banning. Thats been getting worse for a long while now, IIRC it started when canonical moved the window buttons to the left. Make a positive post, and you'll have all the ubuntu sheeple going '+1!'.

I dont totally agree. I can see what you are saying, but IMO its not about getting away from gnome shell, or ubuntu branding.

Its not so much about gnome shell, as it is about the relationship between gnome and canonical. The drawn out fight between some of the gnome devs and caonical is just ridiculous, its descended to the point of "I was told that you were told about windicators in 2008" and nonsense like that.

I think that gnome not accepting windicators (for whatever reason/s) was the start of the breakdown between gnome and canonical. It descended to this whole gnome3/unity issue we have now.

True, unity might be better for small devices (I still see unity as beign for more iOS than MACOSX like). Thats one of the reasons why they are pushing it, in the hope that somebody in mobile phones and/or tablets buys a closed version of unity.

You dont think its coincidence that all this came out after canonical has worked with google in making ChromeOS? Canonical would much prefer to be able to make more of the work they did on Chrome closed, and with unity, it can be.

Moving to gnome 3 is gnomes decision. Dropping gnome for unity is canonicals decision, but its hardly the only one they could have taken. Canonical has more than enough resources to fork gnome 2.X by themselves, and lets face it, it would be easier than making unity, and far more popular.

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After using Ubuntu in 11.04 flavor, I ended up using Lubuntu 11.04 instead. Light and fast and easily customizable, and no Unity!

I got one of Google's cr-48 (used in beta mode), so I use Chromium for a browser, that way I can keep both my LenovoS10 netbook and cr-48 browsers sync'd.

Their hardware is very similar.

Both are fast and light and I have noted a considerable improvement in battery life on the S10 since switching to Lubuntu 11.04.

Hope this is of some help, Rick

Lubuntu is coming along VERY nicely.

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at hour 3 of my exposure to unity --- i hate it
i would be switching to something else

I've been using 11.04 with Unity for a little while now and I'm still undecided about it. I'm glad my main OS is still Lucid 10.04 because I miss my little panel applets so much in Unity. I think the panel applets are a brilliant idea ... I can't understand Gnome/Ubuntu wanting to ditch such usefulness.

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at the login select classic to avoid the 'Fisher Price Mode'