After talking with some folks on Google+ this morning I realized today was the release day for Ubuntu 11.10 codenamed Oneiric Ocelot. When Ubuntu was my primary distribution I used to follow the Ubuntu release cycle closely. That was until they switched to Unity and I switched to Linux Mint.
I switched from away from Ubuntu for several reasons.
- Not all my computers are able to run Unity in 3D.
- Running 2D mode is not an option.
- Although I think I could get used to it, I didn’t like the new interface. I love the old GNOME feel.
- The sheep factor – Everyone else was having hardware problems which led me to believe with some of my older hardware I would too.
Now that Unity has had some time to mature I’m curious if a lot of users are switching back. I’ve seen a few blog posts and mentions of the latest versions working out a lot of the problems. Before I take the plunge I wanted to see what you thought. Is Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot all it’s hyped up to be or is Ubuntu releasing another headache?
{ 50 comments }
It’s a massively pushed and hyped headache, now, I am finally turning my back on Ubuntu, this is a shiny unuseable approach to imitate MAC OS or better iOS UI just to get more market shares in the tablet market and a slap in the face of all long term Ubuntu users. Thankfully there are still some Distros around that offer Desktop Environments and not these buggy, slow and castrated function follows design mobile device UIs like Unity and Gnome 3 Shell….
I’m done with Ubuntu, and I am not the only one.
Jeannie
Thanks for your comment. Too bad they can’t get it together.
You got Lubuntu try it after all u own a old system.
Stop cribbing, folks are doing incredible job in coming with everything new.
I do like Lubuntu. I never thought of Ubuntu as a cutting edge distro but now it seems that’s the focus. One nice thing I’ve noticed is that Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot worked out of the box for me in Wdws Virtualbox. This hasn’t worked for me since Unity took over.
Strange… doesnt work for me in virtualbox 4.1.4. it says “failed to open CD/DVD image” whenever i try to mount the iso and the Iso test results ok.
It works fine with VMware in unity-2d mode. Didnt try the vmware tools yet
I really dont like Unity & Gnome Shell, i was just curious to give a spin and tried also to play with tint2 as window list.
I miss the customizable old gnome.
I am all Unity and would never go back. I am a full time programmer and need to switch quickly between applications, so with gnome2, I used the quick-loundge-applet to access quickly all the applications I most frequently use. Now with Unity, I get full vertical screen real-estate, I disabled the auto-hide feature on the launcher and reduced the icons to 32 X 32. I then added to launcher all the applications I use and I am now more productive than with gnome2. With the quick-loundge-applet I had to click on the arrow to display the whole list of applications, now with Unity, all my applications are directly accessible from the launcher on the left, so fewer click for me, and once you get used to the hotkeys, it’s even faster.
I dont spend my time looking at my desktop or playing with menus, I use my computer for work and Unity has increased my productivity a lot and it does what it’s supposed to do; give you quick access to your applications.
And to all of you out there whining against Unity, I guess you must all have rotary phones at home and I dont understand your reasons for whining since you should all be using a shell in a terminal. Get it?
It’s now 9PM. I’ve been working on this Unity crap since early this morning. I’m done and I’m done with Ubuntu. I tried again to like it; however, it’s a headache from Hell. I’m pissed. Shuttleworth and Bacon-head are both immersed in their own egos. This is not an OS. It’s simply junk. It’s a good thing that it’s free because I wouldn’t pay a penny for it. Junk left of the street is free and it still ends up in the landfill. I believe a few kids might like it because it’s novel and new but it’s still not thought out well. It’s still the same Unity Happy Horse Schitt’. Most of all; it is not a system anyone in their right mind would select for a workstation. It’s net-book Cheese-Weeny.
Ubuntu has such a strong community surrounding it and I want to like Unity and 11.10, but it was sluggish and somewhat buggy. Many times, the dock on the left would lose it’s mind and not auto-hide. I don’t like the fact that multiple clicks are required to launch apps. By the afternoon, I found myself back in Fedora. That being said, I respect all of the work the Ubuntu developers have put into Unity and it will probably work really well for some. I just can’t get used to it.
While of the annoyances of 11.04 have been addressed, it still feels like an unfinished product. It takes getting used but it’s not that bad. But if you want the look/feel of classic gnome, xfce is a good choice.
It’s funny how things turned around; Some time ago I ditched KDE4 for gnome looking for a mature/stable desktop and now I am back to KDE for the same reasons.
I’m not a Unity or Gnome3 Shell fan so that’s why I switched to Cairo-Dock. And yes it shows up in my login as Cairo-Dock with Compiz Effects.:)
You still sound like a sheep. You are not gonna try out until you hear from the herd. Man up and make your own decisions.
I’m always a bit amused when hearing that people turned their back on Ubuntu due to Unity. There are so many options to use Ubuntu without Unity. If you like the “old” Gnome-Feeling, why not give Xubuntu a try? It comes pretty close to the original expirience.
And by the way, what will Linux Mint do in the next release? They will have to stick with Gnome 3 and the Shell or may have to remain on Gnome 2.x. So nothing gained by switching as Gnome 3 is also primarely tablet-orientated.
I can use ANY desktop environment and be productive. The rest of you are just crybaby losers. It’s the idiot haters who give linux people a bad name. stfu.
I think I’ll go back to rpm-based distros. I don’t know why I left Fedora in the first place.
I do use Ubuntu and have generally stuck with it. My works laptop has 11.04 but running Gnome 2 – it’s fine, everything works. My eeePC also uses 11.04 but with Unity. Again, everything works (though for some reason Ubuntu One sync is slow or sulks), but I struggle with the new interface. Mint is nice – and of course – familiar.
I think the issue though is more fundamental. The next ‘big thing’ is tablets and touch. If an OS doesn’t do that, then it will never hit the mainstream. Mint is great, Gnome2 is efficient, but the market is going a different way (whether that makes sense or not). I think Canonical are simply trying to be a player in the market, rather than the great OS that is used only by a dedicated minority.
Anyway, at least we have a choice, apparently, not all operating systems offer that!
I’ve been using Ubuntu 11.10 since the beta 2 and I have to say I’m impressed. Unity in 11.04 was a headache but now it feels faster, more unified and consistent. I switched to LMDE (Gnome) and after 6 months I am happy to be back on Ubuntu and Unity.
Originally (having used Ubuntu as my desktop for over 6 years now) I hated unity. However I have switched to Unity on all my machines (i use both amd64 and x86, even an old celeron laptop) as on 11.10 unity 2d works for me. Hardware issues do exist, looking at a compatible hardware list prior to upgrading/installing removes 99% of the complaints I would have had. (My other complaints were actually failing hardware life is like that). Personally I was a die hard Gnome 2 user but I find Unity to be more responsive and has a cleaner feel. I still use the command line and keep terminal in the launcher. (PS i still use application launchers from the desktop when necessary lol – skype with video comes to mind )
I was a fan but not a purchaser of the HP touchscreen desktops running xp and windows 7, I think Unity would be fun to try on one of them.
11.10 is slick. I’m using it on my I7 notebook. Beautiful piece of work. Ubuntu must differentiate itself. Can’t please everyone- but growth will result.
I, too, hated unity in 11.04. I think it’s come a long ways in six months and while I don’t absolutely love it, i find it a decent desktop environment and much better than gnome classic. I think gnome-shell is looks great but still needs some work. I imagine gnome 3.4 or 3.6 will be fantastic as they get more input from the linux community about what they want. I don’t think i can go back to gnome 2 shell at this point and am looking forward to 12.04 and further stabilization of this product.
For others ldxe and xfce are good choices. I will not be using kde anymore.
I used Ubuntu for years, but now I am dumping them too. Not only is Unity an abomination, the way Shuttleworth and Canonical “tell us what we really want” is an affront to our community. Besides, there are excellent (better!) alternatives out there: Linux Mint, of course, but also Xubuntu (which is superb) and even Debian (run ‘testing’ and I love it, but it’s a tad more involved).
The Ubuntu/Canonical ship is sinking and I don’t want to sink with it.
Long live *community-run* GNU/Linux free of corporate greed and plain idiocy!
Farhad
I’m afraid that 12.04 will have to fix a lot of what I see and don’t like with 11.10. I thought there would be some improvement but it’s mostly cosmetic. The dash is problematic, I don’t like some of the redundancy that I see in the menu screens. I dislike the ‘free’ label on all the software in the Downloads section, it looks tacky. The color scheme (purple) is hard to stomach. There is too much to dislike still and not enough to like. Damn my expectations have been ‘dashed’.
I have just upgraded my Acer 1 to Ubuntu 11.10 = Unity 2D. It has made my machine unusable. This bloatware is totally unresponsive and there isn’t even any way to shut it down! The little shutdown button that used to be on the bar in 11.04 has disappeared and there is no way to add it.
It looks like mint will have a gnome2/MATE(gnom2 fork) release and different CD will be Gnome 3.2. If they can find a way to do both releases on DVD they will do so. I think they want users to use both and give feedback on where they want mint to go.
There are issues with Canonical/Shuttleworth. They have known for several years where they were going, and have slowly introduced one crappy idea after another instead of just telling us what they were going to do. I am also not thrilled about going from being a user to Canonical to a resource that can be “monetized” by my purchase of cloud services, and online music sales.
In addition to that, Unity will fail. Canonicals track record has been to “fix” something in linux, working or it for a release or two, then leaving it in better shape, but no where near fixed. Past things they have worked on but have fallen short on are PulseAudio, A better looking desktop than Mac OSX, 10 Second Boot Times, Cool Graphics while booting and now Unity.
My experience with Unity is that it runs OK on hardware that is less than 3 years old, but anything older than that seems to be problematic. People say it is not so bad once you learn some keyboard shortcuts. Once you learn keyboard shortcuts, Fluxbox, or Afterstep are not bad desktops and move a lot fast than Unity does.
I was able to install Ubuntu 11.10 on a Gigabyte GA-8LD533 motherboard with a P4 1.6ghz cpu and 256mbs of memory(it is a +-5 year old computer), something that I did not find being able to do since Ubuntu 10.10. I will admit that it is very slow and not workable on it. It does run on my computer with 512mbs of RAM with 2D enabled (it is too slow with 3D) and even better on my dads laptop with 1gb of RAM and 3D enabled.
Rich, the unity color scheme changes automatically to match the background when 3D is enable (so you must have a purple background), which I think is quit nice.
I can’t wait to see what the next Ubuntu will look like.
Ubuntu used to be this lightweight OS I could toss on ancient machines to make them useful again. 9.04 and onward ruined that. I’m lucky if I can get a low-performance netbook to even smoothly run a browser on Ubuntu.
I think it’s “change” that scares people off. They want something they’re familiar with, not learn something new again – almost from scratch with Unity.
I didn’t like it with 11.04, but kept on using it to find out why Ubuntu’s team decided this was a good idea. It actually is quicker to start or switch applications than the standard menu systems of Gnome/KDE/WhatHaveYou. This is a benefit as a programmer / sysadmin. There’s also more usable screen real estate, which is another plus.
The few thing that I still do not like about Natty or Oneiric, is 1) the scroll bar and 2) the “system settings”. Yes, the scroll bar is part of increasing that usable screen real estate. But no, it is a horrible Xerox-era implementation. As for the system settings, they are uber-simplified – I prefer the CLI now to change things; but for those starting out with Ubuntu, this may as well be so.
I tried to give Unity a chance, but I just can’t get into it. I liked the way Gnome could be customized exactly the way I wanted, and Unity has sacrificed usability for an attempt at looking clean. I do a lot of development on user interfaces, and I’m a strong believer in the idea that a user should be able to figure out an interface just by looking at it, and I think Ubuntu took a major step in the wrong direction with the Unity them this round. The performance is sluggish on my quad-core system, which is ridiculous. When I get time, I’m ditching Ubuntu, I’m just tired of the drastic changes every 6 months. I don’t need flash, I need usability.
‘Swings and roundabouts’ or ups and downs in other words. I’m back to Ubuntu because the Kubuntu team have made an utter mess (right-click freeze problems at the top of the list). This time around Dash would crash every time I clicked it with Ubuntu’s ATI driver but I’m not having any issues with the one I downloaded from AMD.
Two problems I have with ubuntu 11.10
The two Problems I am having with ubuntu 11.10 64 bit are:
1. Alien arena 7.51 is not working at all in either unity or gnome shell. I am using a Thinkpad T510 with nvidia NVS 3100 discrete graphics. When I press the icon nothing happens. Alien arena worked in ubuntu 11.04 64 bit on the same laptop.
2. When I enable initiate window picker for all windows in scale-bindings using mouse button 2 it disables reveal mode for the unity dash launcher and I have to press the ubuntu button to access it.
Solutions anyone?
Ubuntu 11.10. Worst Ubuntu ever!
been using ubuntu since 6.04 – loving it – now after years of getting things the way i like them I need to rethink and redesign the ways I use it. Already spent hours tweaking and searching for answers. I’m still not at a comfy place so I’m giving up – having to do all this for each machine I install / reinstall ubuntu on is too much of a headache – I’m on the look for a new distro. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Ubuntu 11.04 I thought worked great on my Toshiba netbook under Wubi, then I moved it to it’s own partition. Removed various apps from start-up and it ran nicely along my Win7 partition. Recently upgraded to 11.10 Did the same thing, removed certain start-up programs, uninstalled others, removed Unity 2D was awful on my netbook, But Gnome Shell works ok so far, So does the standard Unity. Gnome Panel is a bit laggy and I thought.
I gave Unity multiple chances, however I found it slow, unstable and a very unfriendly interface.
I was going to give up and go to Kubuntu or openSUSE, so I gave gnome shell a try. With the exception of one lock-up after using gnome tweak, it has been running like a charm. 100x’s faster then Unity, and I find it much more stable.
I can adapt to the gnome 3 interface, as I find it far easier to use then Unity.
I’ve tried Mint out, however I find it too buggy. I know Mint 12 will include or have a gnome 3 version out, so I do look forward to seeing that one. As of right now, I’m not sure I’ll stick with Ubuntu or not. After giving Kubuntu & openSUSE a shot, I’m hooked on KDE.
I switched to Ubuntu from Windows 18 months ago. I run a long term support 10.04 version and now (dual booted) the new 11.10. At first, I did not like Unity. However having lived with it for a week I’m finding it ok, but I’m still getting used to it. I’m running it on one of my 8 year old computers, and my brand new build too. Both run without any problems whatsoever and are completely stable. It’s all going Unity type desktops as far as I can see so I thought I should stick with it…so far so good! For anyone who doesn’t like it, as has been said, you can switch back to Gnome 2 or load the new slightly unfinished version 3 which looks a belter.
All I am reading are complaints about people who cant stand or adjust to change. Lets face it I have been using Ubuntu since Edgy Eft and before that I cried through Fedora and Mandrake installs such a bad bad distro. I have seen a small well constructed distro turn in to a Free Mainstream solution. Everything grows and has growing pains if people just keep wanting the old stuff, nothing new will ever progress. Unity has been invaluable to our company we have increased production almost 10 fold since we started using it. People need to realize this is what you strive for to be reconized and make a good product that people will use everywhere. When they started making Ubuntu do you think they said “Hey lets make a distro that never changes and only a hand full of people computing on a TSR80 would like.” I dont think so. This is 2011 not 1979 put the Tandy away and help them by using the distro and giving input to help make it better not just throw your hands up and give up when things dont go your way.
After this “update” I can’t see any application on screen. They do open, I can see the top bar, and maximize the application, but the desktop is clear. If I take a quick look at all 4 workspace panels I can see the terminal application inside the first panel. I wold say it is unusable for me
… Now I need to backup all my data and reinstall … I guess I will go Fedora this time.
Like everywhere else on the internet, I think the 11′s have been atrocious. To the morons saying ‘you just don’t like change’, there’s a difference between a new engine and car interior and having to relearn how to drive by pulling levers and having things shoved up your rump as you steer. Applications are no longer easily browseable, they are ‘hidden’ until it chooses what is best for you, not how you want it to be, that’s a big difference and not a good one.
Overall it is slower, harder on the eyes (there is a reason all ebook readers are black on white not white on black, studies have shown it is less strenuous on the peepers, look it up) and many things that were there before are simply a hassle to get to and do anymore. It is being designed for new people and ease of use, even if that means more steps, which is idiotic.
Change is good. When the 3D, displayed in mist in the air, three dimensional touch interface is developed, let me test it out. I’m not scared of change, I don’t think anyone really is, it’s exciting. What people don’t like is when a klunky way of doing things gets thrown in the ring and it just keeps getting klunkier. That’s why people are complaining. You morons who say people are scared of change are scared of critical thinking.
The 12′s better be a whole lot of change – or Ubuntu is going to lose a whole lot of people.
Unity sucks ~ I don’t know why anyone would turn their back on Ubuntu though??
Just use 10.04 for now and see what they do with 12.04. They can’t just ram Unity down everyone’s throats and tell ‘em to deal with it. Cannonical’s not Apple.
Why does everyone ‘upgrade’ all the time anyway? If you even looked at the screenshots, you’d never have downloaded anything based on Unity in the first place ~ not unless you’ve got a spare notebook, with a 9 inch display, four processors, 8GB of memory and a 12 year old girl who likes ponies to give it to. Either that, or you’ve got a ”’Tablet PC”’.
I hated Unity when I upgraded to 11.04, but I admit things have improved. The biggest problems with Oneiric that I see is that the desktop environment is un-customizable. Even though I’ve managed to get used to Unity, if I can’t move the taskbar from the left by 12.04, I’m bailing from the Ubuntu ship.
Before moving away from Ubuntu, please read this -
http://www.skipser.com/p/2/p/how-to-customise-ubuntu-to-optimise-productivity-with-unity.html
Using a few extra tools, you can easily bring back the productivity loss experienced. Also, since Gnome itself has changed, there are lots of changes that all distros would change to it one day. So better take the dive now rather than finding ways to stick to old stuff.
I’ve always been open to change, so I upgraded to 11.04 and 11.10 with an open mind. Unfortunately, these last two upgrades have been very clumsy (on my i3 Inspiron). Plus, Ubuntu has gotten extremely fat. Because of this I’m thinking about going back to a straight Debian install or perhaps Arch Linux.
Hello,
I think your point is too hasty. Unity in Ubuntu is not an issue if you just don’t like it. Why? Because you just don’t have to install it. How? At the Ubuntu website there’s Download link. Look for Alternate version of installer (there’s a choice of Desktop, Server and Alternate version, where Desktop is the most common and you are using it for sure ). Alternate installer download gives you opportunity to install customizable version of your Ubuntu distro (at the start screen look for something like “F6 Other options” and check “Expert install”). Then you would be able to choose how to do every step of installation. Finally you can get ready system with base packages (command line). Then you should run Aptitude and choose “Gnome” package to be installed. Gnome dependencies doesn’t include Unity as “Required” packages, but just as “Recommended”. This gives you possibility to remove Unity package from installing without any charm or disability for your almost ready desktop system. As you do this — after restart you have beautiful new Ubuntu system with pure Gnome 3 desktop, without Software Centre (with braking dependencies and leaving such a mess after uninstalling anything) and with Synaptic as default package manager (btw I prefer aptitude for perfect dependency handling).
After some years of using almost all the distros on Debian-channel I state that Ubuntu is the most modern and stable system of all. Of course there’s a “stable Debian branch” which gives you unquestionable stability, but also prehistoric software. “Testing Debian branch” is some time innovative (when it’s unfrozen) and some time prehistoric (when it’s frozen). “Unstable Debian branch” is modern but very unstable with a great number of missing dependencies. And here’s Ubuntu made of unstable Debian branch, but with strong support for improvements, security issues, missing dependencies. It’s exactly what your home desktop, laptop or netbook has ever needed.
Just remember: Canonical gives you default Desktop Edition to use tools they want you to use, but there’s always Alternate version of installer, where you can install just what you want. Nothing more.
What’s more about Gnome 3. It has perfect support for LCD screens and is perfectly stable.
For all you ‘whiners’ who doesn’t like Unity or Gnome 3:
Why don’t you just install gnome-session-fallback? This gives you the option to select Gnome Classic at login.
I have a couple of issues with the way this debate is handled by “the community”, and I think we need to get a handle on some of the intellectual dishonesty on both sides here. This is one step away from PS3 vs Xbox slugging matches.
Bad:
– Unity isn’t as polished nor as intuitive as GNOME2 was; it lacks customization and it doesn’t expose enough functionality to the user by default; compared even t #o WIndows 7 it is a functionally flat and invariant experience.
– Unity also needs serious work on non-dedicated graphics hardware; you can blame ATI/nVidia all you like, but some of the interface lag on integrated graphics chips is unforgivably annoying. I am sincerely hoping Wayland will solve this issue long-term, but short-term my fileserver is slow and dumb.
Neutral:
– GNOME3 Shell is really, really similar to the Unity approach, any “tablet-pc-market-grab” criticisms must be levelled at both evenly. Also, the first releases of Shell were even more glitched and broken than the first release of Unity, I know as I tested both.
– You cannot praise Xubuntu/Lubuntu and then decry the base distro; X/L/Mint wouldn’t exist without plain old U, just as U wouldn’t exist without Debian. And you CAN just use Mint, it isn’t a hate crime and I don’t think you can call it “stepping away from Ubuntu” to use a derived distro; ultimately Ubuntu itself is Debian, and you didn’t hear me wailing “To hell with Debian it is teh sux ubuntu for life brah.”
Good:
– Unity DOES actually work quite well in 11.10, way better than in 11.04. It’s quick, consistent and convenient for accessing a medium-sized application suite and has some neat and useful UI features. As a UI it does what it aims to do, provides a simple and (relatively) unbreakable interface for both touch and click. It just isn’t very geeky, nor very pretty.
– Shuttleworth dragging *any* linux distro into the limelight with a simple UI and trying to beat new trails with Wayland etc is good for every linux user long-term, even if you despise the man and everything he touches (which to be honest is just greasy-pit-stains nerd-raging anyway). More exposure is more industry support, eventually means linux doing more and doing it faster. If this means that ONE distro among thousands doesn’t offer GNOME2 out of the box, I will live with it if it means hardware vendors start thinking “Hmm, someone might want to run linux with this doodad, I’ll open-source my drivers.”
So yeah.
Also, you guys are linux users. If you want GNOME2 just _install the damn thing_ and stop wailing like the art students down at the Apple Store.
You have all raised some fair points on Ubuntu’s lack of thought behind Unity, but bloody hell I am a die hard Ubuntu fan.Some of you are really laying into Ubuntu a bit and it’s all over there experimental releases. If you want the real Ubuntu then I would suggest sticking to an LTS (10.04). Ubuntu has done a lot for Linux over the years. Ubuntu was the first linux distro that I had used and I still think it’s awesome, 7 years on.
Long live Ubuntu!
; )
Long live ubuntu!!!
Dear all, i love ubuntu most of time but, i tried to install ubuntu 11.10 twice in diff m/c and found its hopeless…i dont understand why its so slow, unstable and very unfamilar.
Whoaw, quite a lot of negative feedback here..
Here’s one positive experience with it:
It’s actually quite good for my laptop, Acer Aspire One d-250 with a 10.3″ screen.
So far everything works out of box, from quick-keys to my new Huawei E367 3g-modem
Thats the ubuntu way.
It does feel a bit sluggish at times when compared to previous disto, Arch with openbox.
I never got it to eat over 500mb of ram, while Ubuntu with Unity hogged my 1gb quite fast.
Gnome 2.0 came around 2002 if i remember correctly, so it has been updated and remastered for 10 years soon. Unity just got released, who knows what it will evolve in the following years.
You can still install the gnome 2 if you like, but consider that computing and operating systems has to evolve at some point, but if all of us would get stuck with the same taskbar and start menu for the rest of our life, there would be no new innovations ever.
Exploring a bit might actually reward you with something you like, the most popular choice isn’t always the best.
I hope my positive feedback
ubuntu + unty = Edsel
I CHANGED BACK TO UBUNTU 10.10.
NEVER EVER USE 11.10 WORST EVER UBUNTU ITS WORST THAN WINDOWS VISTA