Explain to me again why Unity is so great...

[Tom H]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 2:23 PM, Todd A. Jacobs
<codegnome.consulting+ubuntu at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Zach <zach at zcsmith.com> wrote:
>>
>> it's nothing to write home about.  I realize that I can fall back onto
>> "classic" Ubuntu but I've read that starting with 11.10 this may no longer
>> be the case as the "classic" Gnome desktop will not be a choice.
>
> In the end, it doesn't matter. Unless Ubuntu deliberately breaks
> things or removes packages entirely from the repository, one should
> always be able to add pretty much any desktop environment even if it
> isn't installed by default. Worst case is you'd have to download your
> desktop of choice from a PPA or compile it yourself--or forgo a few
> Ubuntuisms and install Debian.
>
> At the end of the day, Ubuntu is a Debian derivative. Except for a few
> Ubuntu-specific packages like Ubuntu One and Desktop Webmail, Ubuntu
> is just Debian with a different installer and some different
> installation defaults. I think Ubuntu *usually* gives a better
> out-of-the-box desktop experience than Debian, but your mileage may
> vary. Linux is Linux is Linux.
>
> Personally, I have not found much to love about Unity, but can see the
> appeal for people who want to maximize screen real estate. I think it
> will be popular on touchpads and netbooks, but can't really see any
> advantages to it on a desktop system. That said, I don't care if it's
> the default; it's easy enough to use Gnome, LXDE, or dwm for that
> matter. Linux is all about choice!

All OSs are about choice. You can customize to heart's content in any
OS. This is a silly and over-used phrase.

By the time, 11.10 comes around, all boxes'll still not be able to
handle opengl so Canonical will still have to give an option not to
use Unity, unless they figure out a way to default to Unity 2D rather
than GNOME 2/Classic in those cases.

I had an Ubuntu netbook with Fluxbox for about six months; any Linux
DE or WM is installable.