[sf-lug] Ubuntu 11.04

[jim]

    nice writeup! thanks. 
    some people are talking about "going back to 
debian." that seems a reasonable alternative. 
    i haven't looked into it (i stick to LTS so's 
to avoid this kind of pain--i expect my next change 
will be to 12.04), but it strikes me as possible 
to jettison unity and install gnome (i.e. don't 
choose ubuntu classic). 
    seems the noise to make to ubuntu honhos is 
to ensure that we have choices--i.e. don't force 
some gui on us, make it the default, but make that 
clear, and provide the old (and possibly other) 
gui(s) as installable instead. 




On Fri, 2011-04-29 at 20:29 -0700, Eric W. Rasmussen wrote:
> First, let me state that when it comes time to reinstall Linux, Ubuntu 
> will not be a choice.  I am at a point now that I am considering redoing 
> everything just to get this monster off my machine. This is definitely 
> one of those times when a spare computer comes in handy.  I had read 
> some good things about 11.04 and it was asking me to upgrade, so I said, 
> "Sure.  What could possibly go wrong"? I am reminded of Windows Me and 
> Vista.  It's that bad, or maybe worse.
> 
> When it first loaded I expected all of my GUI customizations to be 
> destroyed, but they weren't.  This made me worry because I was under the 
> impression that Unity was an independent GUI.  The fact that it held on 
> to my gnome/nautilus settings meant that there were going to be 
> compatibility issues.  I was not wrong.
> 
> I'm going to start with their pride and joy... that trainwreck of a 
> launchbar. The thing is huge and unwieldy.  What makes it all worse is 
> that the main menu is scrapped, so if you want a program that is not in 
> the launch bar, you have to go and search it out in a full screen 
> jungle. What they are trying to do here is be more like OSX, but they 
> fail when it comes to going directly to a folder in "Places"... cuz it 
> ain't there anymore!!!!  Well, that's not true, exactly.  Just like OSX 
> and "Finder", if you have a program open it tries to display the menu in 
> the header toolbar.  So you basically have to minimize all open windows 
> and then... AND GET THIS.... Mouseover on the toolbar to see the places 
> link!!!  It's hidden unless you know that it is there.  Otherwise, you 
> are forced to click your way through your /home directory, or worse, 
> open /home and backup to get into /root . No more quick shortcuts to 
> /var/www/ !!!!
> 
> You know how you can have minimized windows in the taskbar?  Not 
> anymore.  You have to click on the launchbar, just like OSX.  Oh, 
> sure... the behemoth disappears when a program is in full screen mode 
> (after a while), but what good is that when you have to switch quickly 
> through programs?
> 
> Workspaces has been eternally screwed.  One thing that they did was 
> disable the drag option.  You know... you want to throw a window over to 
> another desktop.  But you can't because Unity now tries to resize it 
> like in Win7.  Which I think is a really great feature when you are 
> dealing with an OS that doesn't have multiple desktop functionality.  I 
> used to also enjoy my custom keystroke to show all desktops at once.  
> Really handy when I want to minimize everything so that people don't 
> eavesdrop on my work when I get up for a cup of coffee.
> 
> I really liked having my Shutoff Button on the left top.  Now I can't 
> move it at all from the top right.  In fact, any widget that you wanted 
> to load in the top bar is gone.  So my systems monitor graph that I use 
> to watch resources has to be accessed through the applications jungle.  
> Is there something up there that is useless to you? Like the 
> Broadcast/Chat program? It's there forever now.
> 
> Good luck reconfiguring it so that it all works.  Even if you do figure 
> out how to change the size of the Launchbar, the Desktop Effects program 
> isn't even set as default and it can't be accessed in the Menu Jungle.
> 
> I have also noticed that it is sucking battery power a little more than 
> before.  I've lost about 20 minutes of a 4.5 hour battery.
> 
> So, anyway.  I had to go back to Login Screen settings and set it back 
> to Ubuntu Classic.  It has taken away some of the things that I really 
> liked about it and I am seriously thinking of switching to another 
> Distro.  Any recommendations?  I'm a student of Linux with moderate skills.
> 
> Thanks for hearing my rant.  Ubuntu 11.04 is junk.
> 
> ewr
> 
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