Unity ROCKS!!!

[Liam Proven]

On 2 May 2011 13:21, Ben Darby <bendarb at gmail.com> wrote:
> * Liam Proven (lproven at gmail.com) wrote:
>> Ubuntu is a small minority OS. Its target is people coming from other
>> OSs, *not* people coming from older versions of Ubuntu. There are a
>> billion-odd Windows users out there and only a dozen or 2 million
>> existing Ubuntu users.
>
> So where do those people coming from older versions of Ubuntu, that have
> helped make it the success it is today go?

They adapt.

It's the rule of life. The one, only and ultimate rule. Adapt or die.

It's not like Ubuntu /chose/ that GNOME 2 would die. GNOME 3 is a big
step. The choices are, GNOME 3, Unity, which is more conservative than
GNOME 3, or change desktop. The same is true whatever distro you use:
*everyone* has to change. Just like KDE users had to change to KDE4.

> I've found that the main
> problem in getting people to come across to Linux isn't that it was
> harder to use or wasn't visually appealing. The main issue is that they
> can't use their applications and the Linux alternatives are either
> incompatible or not up to scratch. Dressing up the UI won't do anything
> to bring those users across if that is their primary aim.

No, it won't, but that is a huge, industry-wide problem. There is only
so much 1 small company can do. And don't forget, Canonical *is* a
small company in the Linux world - Attachmate/Novell/SUSE is bigger,
for example, and Red Hat is biggest.

>> It's not meant to convert existing users. It's meant to bring new
>> people to Ubuntu by making it simple and accessible and
>> easily-learned. Remember it came from netbooks, simple internet-access
>> devices rather than full-function PCs.
>
> A lot of the arguments for Unity are that it is nicer on a small screened
> netbook or tablet and that is great, but there was already UNR for that.
> Now all the people with "full-function PCs" are stuck with an OS
> designed for a tiny computer.

The NBR Launcher was designed for small screens. It developed into
Unity, which isn't.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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