Ubuntu 11.04 first impressions

Updated to Ubuntu 11.04. Why is it always x.04? As a developer, I can tell you that this is due to a comity of people made of developers who out rank marketing. If marketing people were in charge you would have a nice round number.

Unity

Unity is the new shit interface from Ubuntu. They are trying to hop on the tablet bandwagon. I don't have any tablets. I have computers. I prefer the standard Gnome interface that has been honed over the last ten or fifteen years. Fortunately, you can use "Ubuntu Classic" interface when logging in.

Unity Shortcomings

• Limited to four workspaces. I use ten.
• Users don't control what is on the quick icon bar down the left hand side of the page. I'm sure the developers know best.
• The only way to find programs on the "start" menu or whatever they call it is to do a search. If you don't know the exact name of what you are looking for, you are screwed. If you list "all programs" you get everything on the computer in the order in which you use them most. Thus, all those things you use once every six months will be even harder to find than usual. You can't even document where to go find them.
• I found myself instantly going to the command line to run everything. I'm a linux guy, so this is no big deal. However, on a tablet, the on screen keyboard will make this a serious pain in the ass.
• The idea of resizing windows and moving windows must be foreign on tablets because it is difficult to do so in Unity.
• I trashed my settings for a couple of hours on Saturday. I lost the title bar and close buttons for all my programs in Ubuntu Classic. Did you know the title bar and minimize buttons are "window decoration?" I do now.

I only used Unity for about an hour or so before I abandon it for "Ubuntu Classic". This is a shame. It is a nice first effort. The rough edges need to be honed a damn site before it is ready for daily use on a computer as apposed to a tablet.

Unity conclusion

It's shit. Did I say that already? I may have to switch to Kubuntu. That one lets you use KDE as your primary GUI. That is the plan if they get rid of "Ubuntu Classic" which is how you get to a more standard Gnome interface.

Ubuntu itself

Ubuntu 11.04 is an incremental step forward from Ubuntu 10.10. It is worth the upgrade because a couple of things are fixed. A couple of old bugs turn back up.

Remember me complaining about the mouse pointer size problem exactly one year ago today? I could not increase the size of the mouse pointer to my satisfaction. Well, it is back. Those bastards broke it again. This is the kind of thing that will not be fixed until the next version upgrade. Thanks Ubuntu. You have made my life that little bit more difficult.

There was an issue with gpodder that made it difficult to change the device you wanted to copy all your downloaded podcasts too. This was fixed. It was fixed months ago, but the default version of gpodder that came with Ubuntu was not updated until a major upgrade. Drag.

That is about it. I haven't had a chance to edit a video yet so I don't know if the issues with KDENLive have been addressed. The problems were build issues, not version issues. So, the version number doesn't help me much. As far as I know, it doesn't work at all. I'm sure I'll complain if things are any worse than they were before.

Overall conclusion on Ubuntu 11.04

Fedora is looking better and better.