General: Ubuntu 11.10 - to Unity and Beyond!

The Upgrade

So Ubuntu 11.10 came out this month and figured I'd have a play as I'd heard that Unity was seriously improved.

I was previously running 11.04 and the upgrade wouldn't work for me. Not only that, but it gave me an error message that didn't help me at all - merely that it couldn't find an upgrade path. No "see this log" or "these packages are causing the issues", instead "E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks". Mats Lindh offered up a solution to his problem which didn't work for me.

So I decided I may as well do a reinstall. One of the nice things about keeping most of my important stuff on my file server, and the rest in the cloud is that doing a reinstall is usually pretty painless.

However, like all good boys I did make a backup. I booted up to the Ubuntu USB stick, mounted my file server and just did a straight DD of the entire 64GB drive across the network. That way, once I have installed - I can simply mount the drive image and copy what I need across (see Andre Miller's blog (no relation!). Surprisingly - very little needed copying over!

The installer was swift as usual, downloading the updates as it went and even taking a photo using my webcam to use as my account picture. This was a nice touch that made doing a reinstall worth while

I ended up doing a reinstall on my laptop too - after I accidentally switched the machine off mid-upgrade and couldn't get it to work quite right after that...

In both cases though - worked flawlessly out of the box and took up very little of my time!

Why Unity Upsets Me

A lot of people have been complaining about Unity - me included - and a lot of people are telling a lot of people to shut about complaining about Unity. It worries me that Canonical doesn't appear to be listening to people's concerns and is ploughing on regardless with how they think people should use their machines. This isn't a bunch of people who simply don't like change - Unity isn't the best approach for everyone's work flows.

There is of course the option of a different window manager - and previously you could run Gnome 2 - but with 11.10, even this isn't an option as they have moved towards using Gnome 3, which is basically Unity. So you are left choosing between Unity and Unity. Gnome Classic is not Gnome 2, as you can't configure it in the way you could Gnome 2.

I had a play with the alternatives - and XFCE was by far my favourite - although I use GVFS (Gnome's Virtual File System) a lot, and I couldn't quickly see a way of using Nautilus on XFCE without it also trying to take over other stuff (like the desktop background).

What upsets me the most about Unity - is simply its forceful nature. You either use it exactly as they want you to use it - or you don't use it. There is absolutely nothing you can change. I can't do simply things like:

- Remove the trash icon (I don't access this regularly - and I can get to it from Nautilus)
- Get rid of the desktop switcher (I use the keyboard shortcuts)
- Stop the grouping of multiple application instances into one icon (it does at least expose when you click it)
- Move Unity to the TOP of the screen rather than the side.
- Add any gnome widgets to the top bar (I used to love my force kill an application widget)

The Unity bar automatically hides a way - an option that I could only change by manually installing the Compiz Settings application and finding it hidden away in the Unity plugin. And on Unity 2D, you have to use dconf from a console (gconf didn't work).

I hate to say it, but even Microsoft got it right when they did Windows 7 - I'm really not a big fan of the way it groups everything into these little icon boxes - but at least I can right click it and customize all sorts of things about how it works - including return to a Windows XP style interface.

Linux has always been about freedom and customization - and this makes me a sad panda.

The control panel has also been minimalised considerably too. In fact, no longer could I change settings for font hinting or sub-pixel rendering. I had to install the Gnome Tweak Tool (gnome-tweak-tool).

Despite their best efforts to make the control panel simpler - adding a program to startup when I login? I still have to type the command in manually - no ability to simply right click the Skype icon and say "run when I login".

On the plus side, they have solved the issue of resizing windows with only a 1px border by adding in magic handles. I'm still a fan of a custom compiz command for window resizing - that way you can click anywhere.

Week Later

So after a clean install on my Desktop and Laptop, with auto-hide turned off, I must admit, I am somewhat used to Unity. It most definitely works best on my laptop where I tend to have most windows maximised. On my dual display desktop - not so much.

I do find it difficult easily seeing at a glance what applications I have open, and I often have 6 or 7 Tomboy notes windows open and I can't easily click on the one I want to view - instead I have to click the icon on the left and let it expose all of them - adding an extra click to my workflow - which when you're constantly switching between notes and code, is a PITA.

I've also used this opportunity to move away from Pidgin and to use Empathy. I'm now somewhat used to this as well - really, there isn't much difference.

Aside from Unity complaints - I also lost a lot of my Tomboy Notes, due to a bug in the new version. That had me kicking and screaming for a few hours (I LIVE on Tomboy Notes...).