A task-centric (LARGE) desktop...

[Liam Proven]

On 21 November 2011 01:37, M.R. <makrober at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/20/2011 07:50 PM, Avi Greenbury wrote:
>>
>> I don't follow. There's plenty of alternatives to Unity in Ubuntu.
>
>> KDE,...
> A while ago, I looked at KDE and decided it was not what I want,
> I have seen nothing recently that would make me revisit this.
>
>> XFCE and LXDE are the most comprehensive and supported desktop
>> environments,
>
> Looking at xubuntu right now. However, my environment is not an old,
> low-powered piece of hardware, the computer I'm using 8 hours a
> day is a large, workstation-class PC with large (VERY LARGE) monitor.
>
>> and there's probably of the order of 20 window managers
>>
>> if you like tinkering with things.
>
> Unfortunately, I like tinkering but don't quite have the
> luxury of making my productivity hostage of my tinkering.
>
>> Why does a dislike of Unity require an abandonment of Ubuntu? Was
>> Ubuntu's own Gnome 2 theme the only reason you first started using it?
>
> The reasons for deciding on and sticking with Ubuntu for quite a few years
> was the impression that Ubuntu appeared to be committed to attract
> the type of computer user category that I thought I was part of: serious
> users, doing it for living on a desktop computer 8 hour (often more,
> much more :) per day. With switch to "Unity", it seems obvious to me
> they are after a different demographic: MS-Windows emigrates using a
> computer primarily for "online content consumption", mostly on
> portable, small-screen devices. I have to wonder what else will
> the distribution owner do in the future to woe this new demographic
> at the expense of writing off me and my ilk.

Without wishing to tell you what to do or anything of the kind:

I work a lot more than 8h a day at my computer, day in, day out. I
typically run at least half a dozen apps at once, often more, in
multiple windows across 2 desktops on a desktop that is some 3000*1200
pixels across 2 monitors - currently 1 x 21" and 1 x 19".

Unity works beautifully across this setup and allows me a more
convenient and more efficient working layout across a large-screen
system than GNOME 2 did.

I have nearly 3x as many horizontal pixels as vertical ones: a
*dramatically* higher aspect-ratio than the widest of widescreens. I
want to preserve those vertical pixels. Two vastly wide panels at top
and bottom is a *rotten*, *horrendously* inefficient use of space.

With Unity, I have an efficient combined task-launcher and
task-switcher taking 36 pixels of "cheap" /horizontal/ space, anchored
in the Right Place: at the /left/ of the screen, away from status bars
(at the bottom) or scrollbars (at the right). GNOME could not do this.
I sweated hours, compiling custom panels, tweaking layouts, trying
Xfce panels and docks instead. *Nothing* came close to the simplicity
and elegant efficiency of Unity.

GNOME 3 *certainly* doesn't. It slaps everything on my left screen;
the right is unused except for an empty, unusable expanse of top
panel. (Unity gives me 2 individual top panels, one per screen.)

GNOME 3's workspace switcher is stuck on the right hand edge of the
*left* screen, in the no-man's-land between the monitors. There's no
bottom panel but GNOME 3 puts stuff there anyway, floating where it
used to be, intermittently covering up my apps' status bars.

Unity is a brilliant bit of work. It works /excellently/ on
large-screen setups. I know this; I use it all day, every day,
weekends included.

And the wonder of it is that it scales well to smaller screens too,
like both my personal laptop (1024*768) and my work one (1366*768).

If you can't learn to work with it, it's *your* problem and not Unity's.

I am tired of reading this "Unity doesn't work on large screens"
stuff. It's bogus. It is NOT TRUE. It does, and very well.

Learn to be a bit more flexible. Give up your MS-Windows-centric practices.

Unity has more and better keyboard shortcuts than GNOME 2, GNOME 3 or
Windows. Learn them. Learn to use the keyboard for menus when you're
typing, so you don't have to aim for in-window menus and don't have to
whizz across to the top of the screen - an /easier/ target to hit than
the edge of a window, by the way: this is called Fitt's Law, look it
up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law

You don't even need a Windows key. I don't have one. I use a 1993 IBM
Model M keyboard. It doesn't have one. They hadn't been invented yet
when this baby was made. So I've remapped CapsLock to "Super". Bosh,
done.

The problem is not with Unity. Unity is fine. The problem is in your
head, nowhere else.

Adapt. Be flexible. Be smart. *LEARN*.

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