Arch Linux

MurdersLastCrow

Member

Registered: 2010-10-04

Posts: 74

Re: Unity shell default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04

I like how Ubuntu is all about pursuing the cutting edge and refining it. I might not like it, especially since most of my friends have moved to Linux because of it, and Unity might not be their thing, but for what Unity is, it's very good at what it does. It's gotten very far in a short amount of time, and I welcome the competition. I don't mind much supporting multiple notification systems and indicators/applets if it's necessary. Doesn't seem like it would waste A LOT of my time, although it's somewhat troublesome. For the most part, dbus handles the necessary, and tighter integration is easy enough to provide.

I just wish that Ubuntu weren't ONLY making it nicer for users, but that they made their improvements easier to work with and build on top of, like Gnome 3 or KDE 4. That's the biggest difference between these projects- they started as development platforms and 'became' desktops. Unity started as a desktop and is just asking for people to build integrations for it without a compelling reason. I predict that, a year from now, there will be plenty of work to make Gnome 3 even better at 'staying out of the way' with application integration, but people will be complaining about doing the same for Unity, although they probably will due to user requests.

Unity kinda' reminds me of how OS X took FreeBSD and put their 'improvements' on top. Of course, this isn't nearly as bad, since it's still using and improving the open stack, without replacing it. I just hope that Unity is as far as they go trying to replace traditional Linux stuff. If Ayatana becomes too self-involved, it could get painful. I don't think people would let this happen, though- Ubuntu is popular, but not popular enough to keep every user devoted to it. Linux Mint would likely be the next big thing as soon as Ubuntu 'goes too far'. But, just like Apple, Ubuntu fans are demonstrating that they're fine with everything Canonical does, even if it seems problematic at first.

The same could be argued for Gnome 3 or KDE 4, however. It's all a balancing game for each of these projects. But, for the most part, I'm excited for the diversity among composited, modern environments. We're getting over the idea of making our main features 2D, since there are plenty of WMs and DEs for that (Xfce4, LXDE, e17, etc.). I don't get the feeling Ubuntu will push it too hard. Unity is probably going to be their biggest change for the foreseeable future. Even Wayland support doesn't seem like that big of a change in comparison. It helps us to focus on making everything a bit more platform-independent, too.