Ubuntu to use its netbook Unity interface in 11.04, not GNOME 3

[Kevin Hunter]

At 11:37pm -0400 Mon, 25 Oct 2010, Michael Haney wrote:
> Many users may stick with Ubuntu [ ... or they won't].

> Either that, it'll drive more and more users over to Kubuntu.

Perhaps, but I don't think so.  We're still six months away from Natty, 
and so far, despite the gripes from this rather picky list, I continue 
to believe Ubuntu to be a very high quality operating system.  I believe 
Natty will take shape and will be every bit as high quality as Hardy 
was.  (I recognize that there are those on this list who believe Hardy 
and Lucid to be of lower quality, and on this point, we'll have to at 
least agree that we have different use-cases.)

IMVHO, Ubuntu is the first Linux desktop, that "gets it" and has 
continued to get it.  Fine, they miss little details here and there, and 
are at the mercy of upstream projects, but Mark Shuttleworth et al. 
continue to understand that for a mainstream operating system, things 
have to "just work", and they have to work in an intuitive sense.  The 
derivatives, like Maverick's netbook remix aren't there, but the core 
project, where the brunt of the work happens, is very high quality.

Is it perfect?  Absolutely not.  Is it better than Fedora, Suse, or Damn 
Small Linux?  Depends on your needs.  Is it better than Vista?  You bet. 
  Is it better than Windows 7?  Debatable.  Ubuntu is a choice, and one 
that I continue to make for the majority of my end-user facing machines.

 From a different angle, when friends, acquaintances, and the curious 
ask me about this "Lie Nux" thing, I feel very comfortable pointing them 
to Ubuntu.  I don't lie to them and suggest that is a panacea.  In my 
southern American parlance, I say "Ubuntu is what it is."  It's got 
"these" benefits and "those" bugs.  When folks say they're interested, I 
usually spend about two hours setting them up with a system, explaining 
different aspects, and ... that's about it.

And in Linux history terms, that's incredible!  That I can spend one 
initial foray with them, introducing them to the concepts and the 
current issues and benefits, and then to hear next to nothing from them 
is amazing.  I'd hazard a guess that of the 30 or so people who've 
out-of-the-blue asked me about Lie-nux in the past year, maybe 5 have 
said "I can't take this".  This retention rate for completely voluntary 
switches is truly remarkable.

So, back to the question at hand: Will Linux users move in droves to 
another distribution/Kubuntu because of this Shell issue?  As Natty has 
hardly begun to take shape, it is way too soon to be making predictions 
based on quality of the use experience.  However, based on past 
performance of Canonical and the Ubuntu community, I do not think so.

As always, time will tell.

Kevin