I’ve had Ubuntu for a couple of days now and figured out most of my basic stuff up, Chrome, dropbox, streaming to XBMC. I still have to work on a lot of stuff before I am satisfied, streaming to the Xbox360, VNC maybe, desktop calendars (really maybe). I have decided one thing beyond a doubt though. I hate Ubuntu Unity. The interface is awful, I don’t understand what is running in the background, how to access it, or how to change it. It seems like the Ubuntu guys really wanted to make a launcher that is simple enough for people to use but they went to far and lost the tweakability that Linux is all about.
Where there is a will there is code, right? I resolve to find something better.
I would seem that I am not the first person to voice disapproval of Unity. Quickly I find many alternatives to Unity and being Linux, all are easy to install and configure. The alternative that catches my eye is Gnome 3 (http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/). two lines of code later
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
gnome-shell --replace
Bam! Instantly looking so much nicer.
A quick switch of
And!
Now that’s an interface that I understand. One last it of code to enable gnome-shell by default
sudo /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults --session gnome-shell
Reboot and Success!
Unity is clearly designed with smaller touch screens in mind.
Personally, I think it’s the same mistake that MS is making with Windows 8.
It’s a terrible idea to make a os less usable. Osx lion, windows 8, and now ubuntu unity