Report

Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems

Internet Access and Computers

Josh started this discussion 13 years 3 days ago

Is anyone out there using Ubuntu 11.10? I just switched back to Linux and am shocked what has been done to Ubuntu and GNOME.

I've been trying to get it to work for over a week and it isn't working for me. Many things are broken and they took most of the customization options away.

I've tried both Unity and GNOME 3 for several days each. XFCE doesn't work well on my dual monitor setup. I'm not a fan of KDE.

Is anyone else experiencing problems with Unity and GNOME 3? Even Linus Torvalds was talking about forking GNOME 2.

I don't know what to do. Maybe I will try version 10.04 which has one more year of support left.

Comments

Report

Scotch Argus

13 years

I agree with you 100%. I first saw unity in 11.04, but at least then you could go back to the gnome 2 desktop, which is what I was used to - i.e. simple cascading menus. With 11.10 you now have no option to go back to gnome 2. If your hardware doesn't support unity 3d you can use unity 2d. Which is 1) a resource hog so no use for older machines like mine and 2) totally not intuitive. I have read it described as a click-a-thon which about describes it to me. I can only assume it's made for tablet and netbooks, which is why it has ludicrously big icons and the auto hide bar. Both of which I hate. I have no idea why they went with this, but there is a lot of animosity towards it.

Personally I am sticking with 11.04 and the gnome 2 desktop. And hoping that they will come to their senses in one of the next releases. Though that is probably not likely as it would be a bit of a climbdown for those who released it. I can see why they want to keep up with modern trends and hardware, but I can't see why they are forcing people onto unity - surely it can't be too hard to allow users to chose, and keep a huge part of the community that wants to use a modern secure system on older hardware. And also have something that works out of the box and not need huge customisation to get it working as they like it, such as I found unity (well actually I couldn't get it to work as I liked it to be honest).

Report

Josh Hostels

13 years

After more than a week of struggling with it, I had to reinstall from scratch. I installed GNOME 3 and gnome-shell. For some reason gnome-shell doesn't start, but maybe that's a good thing, because it's stuck in gnome-panel.

It looks almost like GNOME 2, but buggy and hardly any options. This is where I got it so far:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1833[/ATTACH]

I think Ubuntu is self-destructing. GNOME 3 might be able to be saved if the developers are able to fix it soon.

I started writing an article on it (mostly in my head so far). I'll post a link to it when I have time to finish it -- maybe on the plane next week.

One thing I want to do is change the theme, but there are no options left. I really dislike the orange-black window controls:

IMAGE(http://www.hostelmanagement.com/forum/attachments/f22/1834d1323197261-ubuntu-11-10-unity-gnome-3-window-controls.png)

Report

Scotch Argus

12 years

I think there is a huge problem here with the "owner" of ubuntu pushing his vision on all the users. It may turn out that he's correct, but the problem is that it is already a niche product, but one that works well for those who use it. Trying to turn it into a tablet like interface is not going to help compete with the giants in this area, ios and android. The release cycle of 6 months leads itself to constant changes, some of which break functionality, which really alienates users who don't want to hack the OS to get it working for them. Also, because it's collaborative and relies on users to develop it, putting power users offside in favour of chasing the purely consumer market would seem like a dead end to me.

Report

Josh Hostels

12 years

Also, because it's collaborative and relies on users to develop it, putting power users offside in favour of chasing the purely consumer market would seem like a dead end to me.

Very true... I will add that point to my upcoming blog rant about it. :)
(different site)

Report

Scotch Argus

12 years

I basically gave up on carrying out much modification to the UI, as the problem I found was that when i update to the next release all the modifications are broken. I've been on a lot of forums looking about this, and some of the people offer various hacks to get it going as you like it, but to my mind if you have to hack into an OS to get it working as you'd like then it's not really viable. especially if all you want is the simple interface it always used to have. In 11.04 you could just log out and revert to the old desktop, but they'd taken that option away in 11.10, so I am stuck on 11.04.

I could of course go back to Xubuntu, which is probably what I'll do, I just don't see that as such a good advert for linux to people seeing it for the first time in the hostel. To my mind 11.04 is really good.

Report

Josh Hostels

12 years

I could of course go back to Xubuntu, which is probably what I'll do...

I'm considering doing the same, unless they get things together by the next release.

Search form

Report 'Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Report 'Re: Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Report 'Re: Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Report 'Re: Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Report 'Re: Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Report 'Re: Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Report 'Re: Ubuntu 11.10: Unity and GNOME 3 Problems'?

Join the world's largest community of hostel professionals.

Check Your Email