I would much appreciate to be warned...

[Liam Proven]

On 13 March 2012 17:22, M.R. <makrober at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/13/2012 03:12 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
>
> Thanks for your comments Liam;
>
>> Macs have been like that since 1984. I'm guessing you've not got any
>> Mac experience? :¬)
>
> Au contraire; when I abandoned MS Windows ("Vista refugee"; XP was the
> last version I used) I used a Mac for a couple of years. There were
> many reasons why I finally switched to Linux, but this illogical oddity
> of application menus dismembered from their native window was certainly
> on the upper half of the list.

Oh, right! Interesting - it's not something I tend to hear /that/ many
Windows "Switchers" griping about. People tend to get used to it.

Personally, after 24 years of Mac usage and 23 years of Windows usage,
I barely notice it at all. The mental switch from considering "Ubuntu
= Windows-like menus" to "Ubuntu = Mac-like menus" was imperceptible
except for apps that do stupid things like having different menu bars
depending on which window you're in.

E.g. Pidgin. From a chat window, I can't go offline or quit or change
my status. I can only do that if the buddy-list window is selected.
/Highly/ irritating.

>
>> ... and it saves a fair amount of screen space on small
>> monitors, such as netbooks, or even modern low-end cheap laptops...
>
> For me, Linux is for desktop computers. (Mine has two very large
> monitors ;).

So does mine. (Well, for CRT values of "very large.")

>  I have absolutely no intention of "getting used" to
> something that is obviously tailored to an environment so completely
> different from the one I use (if that's what is at the hart of this
> quandary). Should I? If yes, why?

[Shrug] One wrinkle you might not have noticed that is a help for me
on dual screens is that each screen gets its own menu bar. So, two
apps on two screens, each app's menus are usable without switching. I
find that a time-saver and it's a major design win over /both/ Mac OS
X /and/ GNOME 3 Shell for me.

I also find Unity /much/ more efficient on dual monitors - GNOME 2
didn't handle it at all well. The only working solution I found
without 3rd-party dock add-ons was to move the top panel to the bottom
of the left screen and the bottom panel to the bottom of the right
screen, for something like one big Windows-style taskbar, but with an
awkward, inefficient split in the middle and which wasted precious
vertical space but made no use of cheap horizontal space.

>> There were for previous Unity releases. I don't know if those fixes
>> will work in Precise, though. I see someone else has given you a
>> pointer to this.

> That seems to work with no problems detected so far.

Excellent.

> If it did not, I
> would have abandoned my explorations of 12.04 beta right now and stay
> with 10.04 (which serves me very well) until I could devote some time
> to exploring other Linux variants.

Oh my! That's a serious dislike of the menu bar! I suggest finding
some way to signal this to the Ubuntu team. I wonder if someone could
host a Wiki where disenchanted Ubuntu users could list and vote for
their grievances?

> If there is any doubt that for some reason or another this is not
> likely to work in the final 12.04 distribution or that it could result
> in some undesired consequences during it's life-cycle I would much
> appreciate to be warned (by Ubuntu packagers?) now. I believe this
> to be a reasonable expectation on my part.

I think if it works now it will continue to - but I do not know this
to be the case.

> (my uneasy feelings about 12.04 persist... :)

Welp... There is no escaping from the fact that it is a very big change.

I am expecting possibly quite a lot more users to desert to Xubuntu
when Precise comes out. It's about the closest you can get to a GNOME
2 experience on Ubuntu any more.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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