[ubuntu-us-in] A Natty Day To You All

[John Meuser]

On 5/4/2011 11:22 AM, Roger Pate wrote:
> On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Simón Ruiz <simon.a.ruiz at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Jorge, who himself is kind of a big-time power/technical user, pointed
>> out a lot of really cool power-user type features.
>>
>> For one thing, they've made a concerted effort to make it as
>> keyboard-accessible as possible, supporting but not relying on the
>> touch interface stuff.
>>
>> For another, if you're the kind of person who thinks of a desktop
>> environment as primarily a way to manage terminal windows, the sheer
>> amount of screen real estate that gets devoted to your terminal window
>> by default  when maximized is pretty impressive.
>>
>> I gotta admit, I found myself convinced to give it a fair shot before
>> dismissing it.
>>
>> Check out all the links Jorge collected at:
>> http://castrojo.tumblr.com/post/4795149014/the-power-users-guide-to-unity
> I haven't had a chance to try Unity or 11.04 yet, but what you say
> here is really encouraging! Like Scott, I was dreading that it would
> be a step backward for me, even if it wasn't for the non-power-users.
>

I'll put my two cents in.. I was initially very skeptical of Ubuntu's
move to Unity and had all but decided to move back to Debian on this
release. Then I decided to actually try it instead of just reading
everyone else's opinion of it, and I'm a convert. It very much stays out
of your way, you just don't have to think about it and it gives you lots
of usable screen real estate. The natty version is also very fast
compared to previous versions of Unity.

That said, one valid criticism is that it isn't very customizable. If
you don't like some of the design decisions the Unity guys made, you are
somewhat stuck with it. There are a few options available in the compiz
configuration tool, but not much. However, this is also the case of GNOME3.

Both desktops are quite similar to each other in that they are a
somewhat minimal interface using searching and overlays with big icons
instead of a menu hierarchy. Neither interface has a lot of room for
customizing the experience. So if you like tweaking every setting
possible or if you just want a more traditional menu based system, then
neither desktop is really for you. But if you want something that just
gives you the tools you need to find and launch your software, then they
are both good solutions.

                       John