Tag gnome

Ubuntu Unity: Just Bad.

Ubuntu Unity is Canonical's netbook UI, introduced in Ubuntu 10.10. It is, by far, the worst netbook graphical shell I've ever used: extremely slow on Atom-based netbooks, clumsy, inconsistent and of arguable 'retro' æsthetics reminiscent of 1990s NeXTSTEP and clones, only with half of the usability those had. Needless to say, vanilla GNOME with Docky as a launcher is --- in my opinion --- a vastly superior and usable solution for both netbook and desktop use, until something better (viz. GNOME 3.0) comes along. So, it seemed almost like a joke when Shuttleworth announced earlier today, as reported by the linked Ars Technica article that Ubuntu 11.04 won't feature the GNOME Shell, but Unity as the default shell, for both the netbook and desktop editions. Pathetic, really, no matter how you slice it.

Just The Same, If Not Worse

The OLPC project started with the best intentions of bright people. It got hyped beyond reason, first by some of its leaders (viz. Negroponte), then by gullible politicians and — at another level — by gullible idealists that failed to see what was in front of them. Throughout its history the OLPC was flawed; flawed […]

Five GNOME/Linux Desktop Issues

GNOME, one of the two main linux desktop environments and platforms has become a very popular choice adopted by most major distributions as their desktop of choice, mostly due to its simplicity and minimalist design. While it does several things ‘right’, by generally providing a straightforward experience and ‘hiding’ advanced configuration options in its gconf […]

10 Days to Hardy and GNOME's ugliness.

Following on from my earlier post on the upcoming Ubuntu 8.04 ‘LTS’ release, I fear that my prediction, albeit harsh, was pretty accurate: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS should have never been branded as a Long Term Support (LTS) release. Despite the obvious shortcomings of having β-quality software (Firefox 3.0, GVFS) and new frameworks that — statistically […]

Ximian Gnome — Linux Desktops

I recently tried Ximian Gnome 2. What do I think? Well, it is definitely a good try, but it is very similar to the Gnome desktop I had on my machine more than 18 months ago. I don’t know whether it is me or it is really happening, but I find the Linux Desktop developments […]