"...Unity 2D, the default desktop if you don???t have the graphic acceleration..."
That's what I was wondering when I saw this article and now it's confirmed. Once Ubuntu 11.10 comes out I will definitely try it.
Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot, country.
When Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company first announced that it was going to drop the GNOME 3.x desktop for its own GNOME-based desktop take, Unity, a lot of people were unhappy. They also weren’t thrilled with Unity’s first mainstream deployment in Ubuntu 11.04. Now, if these same people, if they give the brand new Ubuntu 11.10 desktop a try, I think they’ll really like this new Ubuntu.
Don’t get me wrong. Unity still isn’t for everyone. Hard core Linux desktop users-and I’m one of them-will still find it keeps them too far away from Linux’s fine-tuning controls for comfort. But, for everyone else, I think Unity may be the best pure Linux desktop interface I’ve ever used. And friends, as the former editor-in-chief of DesktopLinux and a Linux user since its early days, I’ve seen all of them.
What am I talking about, well let’s take a look at the new Ubuntu and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.
Meeting and Installing Ubuntu
Installing Ubuntu can be done by anyone with a pulse who knows how to burn an image to a CD or USB stick. Once upon a time, say the 20th century, Linux was hard to install. Now, anyone can do it. Don’t believe me? Download a copy of the new Ubuntu for yourself and follow along my installation path in Gallery: Installing the latest Ubuntu Linux: Ubuntu 11.10 and you’ll see what I mean.
For my testing purposes, I installed Ubuntu on a 2009-era Gateway DX4710. This PC is powered by a 2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and has 6GBs of RAM and an Intel GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) 3100 for graphics. It’s not the fastest computer out there, but then you don’t need a lot of speed for Ubuntu. I also ran the new Ubuntu, Oneiric Ocelot, on a VirtualBox virtual machine. Ubuntu can live very happily with other operating systems so you can install it on a Windows XP or 7 box and dual-boot it.
If that seems too much for you, you can always take a tour of the new Ubuntu with Canonical’s Ubuntu online tour. It’s the next best thing to actually running Ubuntu.
Say Hello to Unity
If Unity looks like it’s meant to be a tablet interface, well keep watching. I expect it will be some day. In the meantime, it wasn’t so much as any big change about Unity that’s convinced me that it’s a winner as the accumulated effect of all the small improvements.
Unity was always pretty, but it was also always fragile. Using it felt like trying to walk through a china shop. You felt like if you made one wrong move, you’d break something. And, chances are you would bust something sooner or later. Oh, and did I mention it was slow? Well, it was.
Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot (Photo Gallery)
Today, Unity looks even better than ever. Better still, I’m finding it to be both fast and quite stable. I’ve been running Ubuntu 11.10 in beta for weeks now and I’ve yet to see a real problem. In addition, Unity 2D, the default desktop if you don’t have the graphic acceleration you need for full-scale Unity, looks and feels pretty much the same as its big brother interface.
There have also been some changes in Unity’s desktop geography. The Dash application, which serves as a dual purpose desktop search engine and file and program manager now lives on from the top of the Unity menu Launcher. Dash, with its instant search feature is quite handy. Its new finder filter options are also quite useful. So, for example, you can search for particular file types from within Dash.
Ubuntu makes it easy to switch from one desktop, or one app, to another.
Linux has long supported multiple desktops, but Ubuntu makes it easier than ever to get to them. With all you need do is simultaneously hit the Alt and Tab keys or the Alt and Grave keys to switch between applications or application windows. Once you’re in the multiple application window, you use the tab key to hop from one application to another. If like me, you have one window for e-mail, another for social networks, and so on, this can be a real time saver.
The over-all effect of the new Unity is that it just makes me doing your day-in, day-out computing work so darn easy. Is it great for getting down and dirty with your operating system? No, no it’s not. But, if you want to quickly, and without fuss or bother, go about your work or keep yourself entertained, it’s a great interface.
