Is this mailing list defunct?
anthropornis
anthropornis at gmail.com
Wed Oct 5 14:33:52 UTC 2011
They could probably keep a six month schedule (or even a rolling release
schedule), if they merely kept all paradigm-shifting UI software off in
an experimental repo until it was at version 5. Getting "a bunch of
eyes on it early" isn't a valid reason for forcing a half-baked
implementation onto everyone as the default. If they didn't like Gnome
Shell, they could have made Xfce the default and worked on Unity in the
background for another 2 years. Adding Wayland, they could even just
release an entirely separate distro (Ubuntu Experimental or something).
I doubt that the people who like that sort of thing would have shunned
the experimental branch, particularly if it got a mention on omgubuntu.
I still wish that Ubuntu had a rolling release branch. Do away with the
6 month release altogether for the non-LTS branch.
That, moreso than Unity, is what ultimately will cause me to switch to
Arch when my new laptop arrives later this month. And once Unity is
nicer, I'd honestly like to see it available on Arch too -- there are
things I like about Unity. Apparently the Unity team already ticked off
some Arch contributors though, so the package is no longer being maintained.
Another worry to me is now that with the impending Windows 8 booting
issue, Linux ecosystem fragmentation will not benefit continued OEM
support for a kernel with such little market share. Divide and conquer.
On 10/05/2011 09:35 AM, satchitb at gmail.com wrote:
> Sir, you are my hero.
> Ubuntu has become impossible to file bug reports for, because
> everything is now an "opinion". I do see Canonical's point to some
> extent about keeping the Launcher uncustomisable. Natty is just
> riddled full of bugs and to make Unity more customisable would create
> more bugs by the shovelful. However, there is absolutely no compulsion
> for Canonical to have such an impossible release schedule. I think
> everyone would agree that Natty was pushed out much too early. Six
> months is too short a time to adequately iron out all the wrinkles in
> the release, especially when regular developers are tired after a
> release. This kind of schedule might have worked fine in the early
> days, when every release brought in tons of functionality and support,
> but now, Ubuntu is a fairly mature OS, which covers every use case,
> and with a growing user base, requires stability. Ubuntu should sent
> out a release every year, with an unstable dev version available but
> not advertised on the site. That would give more adventurous and
> advanced users the opportunity to try out new features, while users
> that prefer a stable system will always have one. Sticking to LTS
> releases is not an option either, as we've seen numerous complaints
> from users that Lucid is poorly supported and that even stable
> applications are not backported.
>
> About the behaviour of the Launcher, I must confess I agree with
> Canonical here. Scale for an individual application is very handy, and
> I don't think it's particularly hard to figure out after the first
> time. However, just after downloading, there should be a quick guide
> to Ubuntu. It won't be more than two pages.
>
> The other big issue is that settings are too widely scattered across
> Ubuntu, with a hundred different applications to do a hundred
> different things. I don't know how things are in Oneiric, but in
> Natty, typing "settings" in the Dash throws up not just "System
> Settings" but other myriad applications which constitute it, such as
> Network Connections, Email Settings, Bluetooth, etc. All these should
> be hidden, and System Settings should be easily displayed to the user.
> Other than that, elementary OS' idea of a modular Settings Hub (they
> call it Switchboard) is a much needed one, with different tools being
> available to the user without hunting through a hundred third-party
> applications. I've said this time and again: there must be only two
> customisation tools in Ubuntu: one for aesthetic effects (themes,
> backgrounds, etc), and one for functionality (which side the dock,
> default applications, etc).
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Sebastian Rösgen
> <s.roesgen at googlemail.com <mailto:s.roesgen at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>
> first of all: thanks to Craig. I share your opinion. One should at
> least listen to these "pet" bugs and try to appear as if one cared
> about these bugs. They way how it people deal with these bugs is
> -- to me -- a display of a behaviour which is beyond arrogance. It
> is as if the Ubuntu/Canonical developers thought, they were
> dealing with kids and not with mature people. Perhaps thinking
> about the complaints some people utter about the behaviour of the
> system is what should be done here. Certainly not all complaints
> are valid but especially if 119 people vote for "affects me" there
> must be something about these errors.
>
> secondly about Ubuntu Tweak: I like the idea and I love the work
> which has been done to the tool during the recent time. I think it
> is a good step in the right direction because it really offers a
> overview about those aspects of the desktop which can be
> configured. Especially the plug-in system is a good idea, for it
> is now possible to remove certain configuration options which are
> not needed by most people, and it leaves the option (for more
> advanced users) to add those configuration options if needed. (And
> the new UI is, generally speaking, a real big step forward.)
>
> But besides the praise I have one big problem with Ubuntu Tweak. I
> do not like the idea of a configuration system which must be
> installed to the system in addition to the Gnome Control Center.
> Wouldn't it be better to integrate a couple of the Ubuntu Tweak
> options in the Gnome Control Center?
>
>
> I additionally have to say that Craig is about the fixation on
> Ubuntu Tweak. There are some pressing issues on other places and I
> really hoped that this list might raise some voices of doubt about
> the direction Ubuntu is currently heading down (being driven down
> that wrong path by some questionable decisions by the Ayatana
> members).
>
> Let me refer (again) to those two pet bugs of mine and let me
> explain why they are important to me. I really do not want to bore
> anyone, but I want you to understand me. And I want to do this
> especially for Jorge, to simply show him that his horse of
> arrogance is not providing him a saddle as steady as he might
> think. The nice word "pet bug" belittles a huge problem posed
> before the Ubuntu community and questions the decision making
> processes which I criticize so much.
>
> Bug 733349 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/733349)
> deals with the behaviour of the Launcher when an icon of an
> already running application is clicked. The questions was if it
> weren't better to minimize the windows of the running application
> instead of doing nothing or activating spread mode or whatever.
>
> There were many discussions about the right behaviour. In my
> opinion the most problematic aspect of the current behaviour is
> the factor of the "expectation" of the users. If you would decide
> to go into spread mode on a middle mouse click that would be ok.
> But the left mouse click is usually the default action. If you
> have only one window of an application opened and the window is
> already focused, then the click will bring you NO reaction at all.
> Also, some quicklists are not yet completed and a right click will
> thus, not necessarily, offer you any option to open more than one
> instance of an application. Most prominent among these
> applications is nautilus. I cannot understand why nobody thought
> about the possibility to easily and quickly open a second window.
> Why do I have to use the (hidden) global menu?
> Now, this all would not be so problematic if I had the option to
> change the behaviour. There was none. Believe be I never had ANY
> problem with default behaviour of ANY software as long as the
> Desktop/Operating System offered me the possibility to modify the
> behaviour of my desktop. Ubuntu/Canonical instead decided to
> ignore any individuality in the users and denied them nearly any
> possibility to modify the desktop.
>
> Funny about this is the reason that "it is more easily to support
> and administrate a system which always looking the same". So when
> somebody calls me I can say "click on the launcher on the left and
> do the following steps...". Well, that is a nice thought. BUT:
> until recently I worked at a University. I have switched my
> employer now, but I remember a nice example, concerning user
> support which disproves the reason for the unconfigurability of
> Unity given here so far. We installed Ubuntu on a couple of
> library PCs in different libraries on the campus. We had made good
> experiences with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (in the department of ethnology
> and anthropology and in the department of English linguistics).
> But those people who should install the OS chose Ubuntu 11.04
> instead of 10.04 and then placed these PCs in the libraries. We
> had not many complaints about the 10.04 PCs. But the complaints
> about 11.04 were many. Especially the behaviour of the system was
> sometimes so unexpected and unfamiliar that people did not want to
> use the Ubuntu PCs. The argument that "Ubuntu behaved more like
> Mac OS X instead of Windows" did not help because one of the
> aspects frustrating the users was that the launcher looked like a
> dock and very often behaved like a dock but it factually was not
> like the Mac OS X dock. It lacked many of its features. It was
> funny that it helped to install Docky on the PCs. This solved at
> least one of the complaints (there were others).
>
> Now you can certainly argue that I proved how easily I can
> configure Ubuntu (by installing Docky) to solve one problem. But
> first of all the argument that the fixed launcher behaviour made
> it easier to maintain the desktop is not true. Instead there is
> now an additional application installed which can produce
> additional errors.
>
> Next there is the nice aspect of comments 175 and 176 of the
> launchpad page of bug 733349. Can you all see how frustrated Marco
> Biscaro is? He wrote a patch which made it possible to configure
> the launcher as wanted. But it was rejected. Not he does not want
> to port the patch for unity 4.x until he knows that the patch is
> accepted. Totally understandable! Why should he invest time, for
> which he is not paid and he does not even get a thank you? Where
> was the problem to say "thank you that you invested your time".
> Where was the problem to say "now, that somebody invested time to
> write that patch, we will think about offering an option in the
> control center or ccsm which makes it possible to switch between
> the default Launcher behaviour and a different one."
>
> Btw.
> Some month ago I asked on this list if somebody of the
> Canonical/Ubuntu developers could say if it is possible that
> Ubuntu Tweak (after some modifications) can be integrated into
> Ubuntu by default (to offer some more options to configure the
> system). There was never any answer to this. Was this some pet
> bug, too? Oh you all so much for the community, I am really
> baffled! If you do not want any of us involved or to share ideas
> or to say our opinion then please do not try to start any
> community project anymore. Be it a Power User Community or a
> different one. And no these bugs are not my "pet bugs" they are
> seemingly the pet bugs of 119 people. We all share one small
> little pet bug. So do not mind if I am frustrated and angry, as
> there are 119 people who all have to share one single pet bug. It
> is getting crowded on that launchpad page of bug 733349. It is
> getting crowded on the page of bug 668415, as well. A "pet" bug
> sounds to me like a personal, small bug. Heck! I am really
> frustrated Perhaps I should file a different bug which only gets
> two or three "affects me" votes. These very often get fixed more
> quickly as it seems. And at least then I would have a real small,
> nice pet bug for my self (or nearly my self ...). I hope there are
> not too many people voting "affect me" on that bug, because then
> it would be again one of those strange pet bugs which become so
> crowded.
>
>
>
>
> Am 03.10.2011 14:43, schrieb Craig Maloney:
>
> On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Jorge O. Castro wrote:
>
> As far as I can tell this mailing list is to coordinate
> these things:
> [...]
> * provide communication channels and support resources.
> [...]
> But so far it seems to me that this is mailing list is
> just a list of
> people either talking about their setup or complaining
> about pet bugs,
> so I don't really know how to fix that.
>
>
> I think the first way to fix it is to listen to the "pet bugs"
> and setups, thereby creating a communication channel and
> support resource. ;)
>
> I joined the list with the idea that the power users would
> have an opportunity to discuss their setup, and see if we
> could somehow influence the design of Unity and Ubuntu to
> somehow cater to the wants and desires of "power users". And
> it started out that way, but once Ubuntu Tweak was mentioned,
> the list focused on that as a swiss-army catch-all for fixing
> everything power-users found wanting in Ubuntu / Unity.
>
> If Ubuntu Tweak is the only fruit of the mailing list (outside
> of providing a forum for folks to discuss how they use their
> computers), then at least we have that. However, that falls
> short of my expectations for this list. It also calls into
> question the efforts to court power users into discussing
> their issues instead of merely paying lip-service to wanting
> power-user input.
>
> I wanted to see if I might have a voice in design decisions
> from a power-user's perspective. If we can have that forum, I
> think this list still has merit. If the only solution is an
> add-on tool that eventually will cause problems when Unity
> needs to break compatibility, then we need to rethink whether
> anything useful will be accomplished by this list, or whether
> discussion should be taken to Ubuntu Tweak instead.
>
>
> --
> Non quia difficilia sunt, non audemus, sed quia non audemus,
> difficilia
> sunt!
> <Seneca>
>
>
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>
>
>
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