[wplug] Unity

[Dave Ostroske]

On May 21, 2011 6:36 PM, "L. A. Weber" <laweber at verizon.net> wrote:

> By the way, what are the member's opinion of Unity?

Here's my two cents.

I installed Natty Narwhal (Ubuntu 11.04), upgrading from 10.10, a few days
after its release. I have an older laptop, so I wasn't ready to upgrade
until I was sure that it wouldn't make my machine sluggish. A review from ZD
convinced me to go ahead with it.

So far, I'm impressed. After a flawless net upgrade and some arrangement of
the launcher buttons, it's been a joy to work with. I tend to use the
keyboard a lot, and will avoid using the mouse if possible, but Unity has
still been a net gain in my user experience.

The launcher buttons present themselves with their own positional keyboard
shortcuts. (You can define your own shortcuts but I haven't delved too far
into how to do that.) I like the top-pane menus, though I don't love the Mac
experience much. The menus are slightly inconsistent, though. Most apps
(freedesktop.org-inspired apps primarily) use the top pane for the menu, but
apps like LibreOffice and Chromium (which I both love) don't yet, and a
recent add-in for LibreOffice menus is not yet up to snuff. That may be
resolved sooner than later, though.

The app indicators have completely replaced the system tray, which is a
grand improvement. I have indicators for both Ubuntu One and for DropBox. A
decent system stats indicator would be nice to have. There's one out now
which is text-based, but I'd much prefer a more graphical approach.

There are links online for tweaking Unity's interface, and I used a special
desktop wallpaper to learn all the keyboard shortcuts for the first few
weeks.
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/things-to-tweak-fix-after-installing.html

Try a few of the tweaks, installing them one at a time. If a tweak doesn't
work for you, remove it.

One final note: Unity doesn't replace GNOME. On the contrary, it enhances
it. This is GNOME 2 that I'm referring to, by the way. I don't know if GNOME
3 will underlie the system in future releases, but it seems like they'd make
a good fit.

I'd like to know what other Ubuntu users think. I'm not expecting a mass
exodus to Debian or Mint quite yet, tempting as it may be to some folks. For
now, I'll stick with Ubuntu.

-- Dave Ostroske
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