Thursday, October 20, 2011

Gnome3

To everyone who defends Gnome3:

The entire spirit behind linux is giving the user ultimate control and a wealth of options. Fallback mode is not acceptable. There are 2 big problems with Gnome3:

1) the graphics code is so inefficient it can hardly run right now. older machines are just SOL. Newer machines are made sluggish by the inefficient graphics. They had to switch to lightdm just to make it run acceptably on modern machines.

2) New features of Gnome3 should be configurable and optional. If they truly are better you won't have to force people to use them. People will choose to use them on their own. The fact that you removed that option already makes me think people won't use it unless they're forced. But nobody is ever forced into one disto. We'll just switch! Makes me sad though, ubuntu was one of my favorite distros until now.

Update: everybody switched to Mint!  Yay!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Ornery Ostrich

Dear Canonical....

Just because tablets are the new hip thing with the iOS and android fanboys doesn't mean I want my desktop OS to look a damn thing like a tablet!!!

I've been a linux user since the late 90's but sometime around Karmic I went whole-hog and deleted windows altogether. I use ubuntu for everything, both work and fun. But work is the important one. I use my ubuntu laptop for WORK. Serious work.

I already avoid upgrading linux because I know I'm going to spend the next few days fighting with xorg.conf and getting basic support for my hardware. But now, on top of that, I have to install a separate display manager and a separate desktop environment because you wanted to make your linux OS tablet friendly?!?!

Ok, seriously... how many tablets out there actually run ubuntu??? Bueller?? I've never seen one. Maybe a few convertible notebooks could benefit from it. I've never even seen a *modern* tablet that could even take a linux install... they are all locked down like mobile phones with mobile phone operating systems which is A MAJOR STEP BACKWARD from where computers are today.

Gnome3? Forget that. You just crushed linux's big advantage of being light, fast, and great for older hardware. Its even slower than KDE.

Unity? DO NOT WANT!!! What good does that do on a desktop? Or even a laptop? Canonical is pumping out a tablet OS as if there are tablets out there to run it! Are they taking an "if we build it, they will come" approach? Oh and where the hell is the default session setting? Gone I see?

OK... count to 10.... breathe....

Time to switch to a new distro. Maybe CentOS or Xbuntu.


Oh... and one more thing.... thanks Nvidia for disabling overscan correction at 1080. Like that is going to stop linux people doing anything.


Update:  After years of struggling, Canonical finally abandoned Unity altogether.  Ubuntu went from being #1 on distrowatch to a distant 4th.  Mint gave us back ubuntu with a classic MATE desktop and it surged to #1.