Questions for Linux users

by Robert Koehler on May 23, 2011

Does any of you really, really dislike Ubuntu 11.04′s new Unity desktop? Is there a reason I should like it?

Has anyone installed Gnome 3 on their Ubuntu in a way that wasn’t completely buggy?

Also, it it just me, or is OpenSUSE’s YaST painfully slow? I rather like OpenSUSE, but it takes something like 10 minutes to install simple programs like Picasa.

Tagged as: Gnome 3, Linux, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Unity

{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }

1 조엘 May 23, 2011 at 5:35 pm: What? No real time news about the 송지선 suicide? I think you should add me as a contributing writer.
2 numberoneoppa May 23, 2011 at 6:48 pm: ^Seriously, I cannot fathom why Korean celebrities take their own lives over such trivial matters. It really pisses me off. She was so pretty. ㅠㅠ
3 numberoneoppa May 23, 2011 at 6:55 pm: Robert, I’ve tried out various flavours of linux including Ubuntu and OpenSuse but I always find myself back on Windows 7 for my personal computing needs.
4 mateomiguel May 23, 2011 at 6:56 pm: I use ubuntu and I really like the new Unity desktop.
5 mateomiguel May 23, 2011 at 7:08 pm: As for reason you should like it, I guess because it gives you more screen real estate? I have also always wanted to have my program icons on the left and unity is the first interface to pull that off elegantly, nut that’s a personal thing.
6 Dan May 23, 2011 at 7:42 pm: I like the Unity interface, although it does need a bunch of work. It’s fine for now; I’m guessing in 11.10 it’ll be much better (and by 12.04, the next LTS, it’ll be really good).
7 Brendon Carr May 23, 2011 at 7:56 pm: What’s not to like about the new Ubuntu Unity desktop? It looks like a straight-up ripoff of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, with some tweaks to color. Since I love my Mac, I’d find Unity more comfortable than any other Linux desktop. But here’s the rub: It doesn’t run Mac OS X applications, and the software available for a platform is more important than whatever base desktop comes with it.
8 mateomiguel May 23, 2011 at 8:22 pm: The difference between Mac OS X and Ubuntu is that one is seriously overpriced and creates a religious experience in its users, while the other is sensible and free.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/05/22/apple_fanboyism_triggers_same_brain_reaction_as_religious_zealots
9 setnaffa May 23, 2011 at 9:30 pm: I like 11.04, have it loaded as a VM under Workstation on my laptop along with Zentayl 2.0, Mint 10, Mepis 11, and soon to be a couple more to use as training and demos…
10 hoju_saram May 23, 2011 at 9:47 pm: The difference between Mac OS X and Ubuntu is that one is seriously overpriced and creates a religious experience in its users, while the other is sensible and free.

Sounds like the difference between Macs and PCs. I just bought a quad core laptop with a gig of dedicated RAM and windows 7 for $800. A Mac with a comparable engine would have cost me double, at least.

I want to like Apple, I really do, but until they let you use the overpriced apps, OS software and hardware the way you want, without restrictions (iTunes anyone? a USB port on the iPad somebody?) I’ll be sticking to my trusty PC, thanks.
11 keith May 23, 2011 at 10:11 pm: ^ iTunes is reason enough to dislike Apple. A good dual boot PC is far better value for money. My only Apple purchase has been an iTouch, to be honest I now see it as a bit of a waste of money. I get the impression that some Apple users have convinced themselves that as they have a fancy box that they paid a lot of money for they have to justify their purchase to all around them.

I could afford to buy an Apple tomorrow, I’d rather save the money.
12 iMe May 23, 2011 at 10:33 pm: ubuntu? mac?
i thought everyone was using windows XP?
activeX control, anyone?
13 Robert Koehler May 23, 2011 at 10:53 pm: Screenshot of my Unity desktop:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68558939@N00/5750189313/
14 martypants May 23, 2011 at 10:58 pm: Been a linux user for year, mostly Fedora, but I started using Ubuntu when 10.10 came out. When 11.045 came out with Unity that lasted just a few minutes and I shut unity off forever. What a POS. I still have to have a dual boot for those times when I need to get on a frickin Korean website that requires IE.

I had a fun time when the QOOK guy came to install my internet this year. I pretended I didn’t know what he wanted with his “xp xp xp” chatter and watched him fumble around trying to get something to work. Amazing they can’t install their crap without IE. I let him dork with it for about 10 minutes and he started sweating. then I let him off the hook and rebooted into windoze.

And Mateomicheal, you can put you icons on any edge you want – even with windows xp or any flavor of linux
15 md111980 May 24, 2011 at 1:21 am: as long as the “file manager” (aka a normal nautilus window) is easily accessible from the unity side-bar, i don’t mind. at first i hated unity, but with each update to it (im running the unity 2d version on my netbook) it seems to improve. i’ve grown used to hitting the windows/”super” key and just typing what app i want, so i don’t often bother clicking through unity to get to it.

I wonder… does anyone have any helpful tips/suggestions for using ubuntu/linux in korea? i find that chrome tends to handle most korean sites, especially those that use weird java, better than firefox. and thankfully thinkfree let’s me painlessly convert .hwp files over. that was a real life-saver, as no other feature seems to convert them quite right, especially if images are involved.
16 NathanB May 24, 2011 at 7:50 am: Robert, I’m not a Linux user–yet–but this Zdnet article may be of interest if you haven’t seen it already.