Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), Reviewed In Depth

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]LiterateOne[/nom]Giant fail on explaining "natty." Try a dictionary before resorting to frat-level definitions. Natty means ": trimly neat and tidy : smart " (Merriam Webster).[/citation]
[citation][nom]oldmangamer[/nom]Love Unity; love 11.04. BTW, natty is " Smart and fashionable" according to the dictionary.[/citation]
[citation][nom]NotACollegeKid[/nom]LiterateOne: Giant fail on explaining "natty."I had the same thought. Maybe he doesn't natively speak english. Possibly he was struggling with sarcasm. Then I decided he was closer to a keg than a dictionary when writing that.[/citation]
So I see I'm not the only one who had to look this one up. It must be a UK thing, because the US 'fratboy', and even the Jamaican usage is far more recognizable over here. If you say 'natty' in the US and mean 'smart and fashionable', be prepared to hand the listener a dictionary. It's kinda like referring to yourself as a 'tea-bagger' and wondering why all the young people are snickering. In the PR/branding/marketing world, popular lexicon trumps Merriam-Webster any day of the week.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]mayne92[/nom]Excellent review Adam. I will be looking forward to your Fedora 15/Gnome 3 review (please include classic Gnome UI also). Haven't used Fedora since 13 so I'm curious[/citation]
I'm doing the testing for that article last (to avoid update-induced retests), so I might use the old shell in F15, or F14 - which do ya'll prefer? BTW, did you use GNOME with Fedora 13? When I run Fedora on my production machines I always use KDE. Fedora 13 KDE was amazing (nearly end-user ready), 14 borked everything and I switched to Mint 10 KDE. Running Kubuntu 11.04 now.

 

[dbrank0]

Yeah. And new scrollbar is best invention since head-mounded toilet paper holder.

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

Linux will never be successful in the home PC market until mainstream games are produced for it. No matter how creative they get with Ubuntu...games will always be the deciding factor for the majority leaving their Windows machine.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]stm1185[/nom]Of course the biggest drawback I can see to Linux is there is nothing to do on it. I can't play any of my games or even do things like watch Netflix.[/citation]
Oof, yeah somebody has got to do something about that one pronto, even I still use Windows on a regular basis because of Netflix streaming (on the HTPC) - truly a killer app. Gaming on the other hand, Mac doesn't game nearly as well as Windows either, but it doesn't seem to hurt them. IMO, Netflix is a much larger issue for Ubuntu.

 

[uii]

The slang term is nappy, not natty. At least nappy is the only one I've ever heard for describing something that is trashy. Ive never heard natty used at all, either in slang or correct usage.

 

[chriskrum]

This release had me switch my Linux box to Kubuntu. Good-bye gnome, good-bye Unity, hello KDE for the win. If Canonical continues down their current path I imagine there's an entirely different distro in the future for my Linux box.

 

[Guest]

The reason why Ubuntu should not waste its time in desktop computing is because Windows 7 and OS X both are tied to vendors, have support from both hardware manufacturers and software companies, typically do a better job than Ubuntu or any Linux distribution, and lastly - this is NOT the browser market. Windows 7 and OS X not only work, they work *great*. There is no reason, no incentive to switch to Linux.

I'm laughing at the response "write your own script to do X feature". Whoever said that has in one post epitomized the inferiority of the Linux platform in home/consumer computing.

 

[newbie_mcnoob]

Adam, you mention KDE several times in your review and even said you're running Kubuntu 11.04 now. Why didn't you include Kubuntu in the benchmarks?

I would also like to see a full review on Kubuntu 11.04. KDE doesn't get much attention around here.

 

[bmullan]

If you listen to all the negative comments you might never try Unity.

However, I felt I should give it an honest shot and so I did an image backup so I could restore my 10.10 Ubuntu which has been working great and did the Upgrade to 11.04.

I promised myself I would give Unity a minimum 2 week trial. I felt that was a fair time period to make sure I understood it well enough to make a decision.

It does take a bit of time to find things like the System menu, where is Synaptic etc. But it all starts to make more sense as I use it.

Canonical's Unity decision I think is a smart one given the future growing importance of Tablet computing. I can easily see a compelling argument for Unity's UI on Tablets.

Ubuntu developers also will only have to concentrate on a single UI when developing for Desktop, Laptop, Netbook or Tablet.

I have tried Gnome 3 Live CD for several days but I fail to see how that will be a useful UI for Tablets whereas Unity seems designed for MultiTouch and keyboardless type work.

The good thing is that even in Ubuntu land there are choices with Open Source and people can opt for those alternatives (xubuntu, kubuntu, Mint etc).

Even on Ubuntu you still have Gnome and from what I understand on 11.10 full Gnome 3 support will have been implemented.

Personally I am liking Unity. It is different but learning its differences has been easy.

 

[bmullan]

If you listen to all the negative comments you might never try Unity.

However, I felt I should give it an honest shot and so I did an image backup so I could restore my 10.10 Ubuntu which has been working great and did the Upgrade to 11.04.

I promised myself I would give Unity a minimum 2 week trial. I felt that was a fair time period to make sure I understood it well enough to make a decision.

It does take a bit of time to find things like the System menu, where is Synaptic etc. But it all starts to make more sense as I use it.

Canonical's Unity decision I think is a smart one given the future growing importance of Tablet computing. I can easily see a compelling argument for Unity's UI on Tablets.

Ubuntu developers also will only have to concentrate on a single UI when developing for Desktop, Laptop, Netbook or Tablet.

I have tried Gnome 3 Live CD for several days but I fail to see how that will be a useful UI for Tablets whereas Unity seems designed for MultiTouch and keyboardless type work.

The good thing is that even in Ubuntu land there are choices with Open Source and people can opt for those alternatives (xubuntu, kubuntu, Mint etc).

Even on Ubuntu you still have Gnome and from what I understand on 11.10 full Gnome 3 support will have been implemented.

Personally I am liking Unity. It is different but learning its differences has been easy.

 

[Guest]

They've worked out most of the Unity bugs, it's pretty decent now, I've been using it since the late beta days. Unity has great usability features, but admittedly, only power users will take full advantage of them.

 

[jeff77789]

im wondering why there are so many negative comments..........for some1 fairly new to linux i would say that 11.04 would be a great improvement to the GUI. i never really used linux because the gui was so different from the windows that we are all so familiar with but i see that the 11.04 is an improvement to past versions just from a graphical stand point. now i see how power users may criticize 11.04 and it's uselessness but from the "average end user" standpoint i would give this version a win.

 

[razor512]

Making a UI is very difficult, it is not a matter of just making something that looks "cool" with eye candy.

It takes research of what the majority of people will do.

You need to get many people, create a testing Ui, and monitor what people do.

when someone wants to change the screen resolution, steps do they attempt to take, what are their expectations from the steps

what are they looking for and where

you need to put a lot of work into making an OS self guiding, meaning the user just has to know enough to get to a starting point and each step should lead to the next. for example, in windows, there are many things that you do where if you were memorizing only physical steps (eg move mouse to upper right corner and click on X) you will be trying to memorize a large number of steps and to do what you do on a average day, you may be memorizing nearly a thousand steps, but you don't see it that way because the UI for the most part was designed in a way where you enter a starting point and you are guided through the rest of the way by the UI.

the unity Ui for ubuntu is designed for someone who knows every function in ubuntu by exact name.

If we can get a user who has never used ubuntu before to install 11.04 on a computer running a radeon hd 3850 AGP

will the user answer, how would you go about getting the drivers installed.

with the old UI, you may not know what to look for but when you pull up all of the options, you will find what you are looking for based on the pictures and names to give you a perceived expected function.

but with the new UI, you are required to know exactly which tool you need to install the drivers

The main issue with the unity UI is the side bar and the reliance on searching in place of the older discovery method

 

[Guest]

Unity isnt difficult to use at all. you just have to use it for more then a couple of days to get use to it. for a casual user its great, if all you are doing is browsing the web, writing a document, listening to music ect its perfect and far simpler than 10.04.
Dont get the complaints with speed either. running unity 3d on a 4 1/2 year old acer notebook and its more responsive and hassle free then 10.10.
If you dont mess with every setting and just use it how it is then its ideal.
and it looks better then any other linux distro out there, with some competition from kubuntu.

 

[nss000]

After reading the article + comments I consider myself lucky to be firmly planted in rock solid x64-10.04LTS for another 2 years. It's taken most of a year for LL to behave, and my reptile brain to absorb the basics. So why leave now ... for a UI fit only for 7" screens? I run a 28" Hanns at 1900x1200 so why should a settle for Unity and its refusal to exploit userland visual space? Running a UI with the demands ... say.. of Unigine HEAVEN is no problemo and keeps out the CLI riff-raff.

As with the **fit for** GRANDMA issue raised in a number of posts -- mostly drooling byteboy posts -- I have seen no significant Linux improvement in casual lusr usability since RedHat-6.

Linux at-core is a hostile byte-boy bytch for casual lusrs to deal with; its usr-faced combinatoric math-like structure and "orc"-like shell syntax is almost the **definition** of obscene! Jobs can, but Ubuntu cannot hide this.

Fact: The only saving grace will be something like GNOME-2 smoothed & propagated over decades with minimal changes so familiarity may substitute for understanding.

 

[runswindows95]

I've been using Ubuntu since 6.10. Once I switched 11.04 back to the classic interface, I like it. I found Unity very awkward, even after a week. The thing I wish they will do with 11.10 is allow you to select which interface you want to install for the standard Ubuntu. If anything, I may just go to Xubuntu for I don't like flash. Even on Windows 7, I run it on the classic look.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]newbie_mcnoob[/nom]Adam, you mention KDE several times in your review and even said you're running Kubuntu 11.04 now. Why didn't you include Kubuntu in the benchmarks?I would also like to see a full review on Kubuntu 11.04. KDE doesn't get much attention around here.[/citation]
KDE gets at least half of my attention, behind the scenes anyway. The problem with KDE is which distro do I look at? I have NEVER had any luck with openSUSE, won't run properly (or at all) on the test systems we use for the Linux articles. I would very much like to get into KDE here at Tom's, but with what distro? Maybe we should do a poll? Is your vote for Kubuntu? TBH I'm leaning toward Kubuntu/MintKDE, but looking at the DistroWatch charts, I may be off base. Any thoughts on other ways to introduce KDE to the TH audience in the feature article format?

 

[mitch074]

@Adam: Mandriva was originally "Red Hat with KDE"; it provides KDE as default with an easy switch to GNOME or Xfce. The 2011 version is now in late beta, it could be used for the benches. Used with Penguin Liberation Front (PLF) packages (more or less what Medibuntu is to Ubuntu), it's a good all-round distro - nevermind the recent financial troubles the company has known. Or, you can try its Mageia (100% free) fork.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]mitch074[/nom]@Adam: Mandriva was originally "Red Hat with KDE"; it provides KDE as default with an easy switch to GNOME or Xfce. The 2011 version is now in late beta, it could be used for the benches. Used with Penguin Liberation Front (PLF) packages (more or less what Medibuntu is to Ubuntu), it's a good all-round distro - nevermind the recent financial troubles the company has known. Or, you can try its Mageia (100% free) fork.[/citation]
I started out with Mandriva (then Mandrake). The killer issue with that distribution these days is that there is no (free) 64-bit version - same goes for PCLinuxOS

 

[chrone]

keep 'em coming, love to read linux review here

 

[Guest]

I still can't get over those buttons on the left side of windows...

 

[Guest]

It can be awesome -- just install Xubuntu 11.04 (XFCE4) with Compiz, it's fast AND pretty!

 

[Guest]

Seems I'm in the minority here as I am a power user and I really like the Unity, even with all it's minor anti-features. To me it feels fast to use and neatly organized and simple. Just needs some polish.

I used compiz+xfce before on Gentoo, but I made the switch to Ubuntu after getting tired of the system breakages on Gentoo on upgrades. In xfce I had panels and desktop icons disabled and only used the right click on desktop to get the launcher menu (like in fluxbox, which I used before this), so to me Unity feels almost like home.

Anyway, back to this article, I'd like to point out, that the workspace switcher is compiz plugin called "expo" and so the workspaces are configured from compiz. In compiz general settings you can choose size of the desktop as well as how they are stacked. This has always been the way it's configured in compiz, so you actually CAN configure the amount of workspaces.

Otherwise well written article and interesting read.

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

I could almost put up with Unity were it not for the stupid Global Menu - which is the most retarded idea ever (and it is no better on OSX).

I generally can't stand Ubuntu because the community (and their lame-ass attempts at support) sucks and the distribution in general sucks even more because it is full of stupid ass patches which break things, they *never* test anything on top of releasing too early. Pretty much any other non-Ubuntu based distribution is strides ahead IMO.