Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | October 17, 2011 12:05pm PDT | Image 1 of 14
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Welcome to Ubuntu. Yes, that’s the new and improved Unity interface. If you want an old style GNOME interface, , look to Mint Linux. Want to try the new GNOME shell, see Fedora. Ubuntu’s default desktop is going to stay Unity.
Here's the full review.
Talkback Most Recent of 52 Talkback(s)
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RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
I like "Ocelot" a lot for the same reason I like Windows 7. As W7 is a far less "kludgy" version of Vista, Ocelot is a far less"kludgy" version of Narwahl.
DrShalit17th Oct -
Tablet Interfaces are for Tablets
I keep trying to like Unity, but I find it unusable. It may be that tablet interfaces like Unity need to be confined to tablets. They just don't seem to translate well to the desktop.
I rolled back my 11.04 to Gnome. I have not yet upgraded to 11.10 because of Unity.
I plan to go with Mint for the time being, but I don't know what the long term solution will be. Gnome 3 looks like yet another tablet GUI, and KDE is too much like Windows.
*sigh*
trentreviso17th Oct -
Mint is fabulous
@trentreviso
Ubuntu drove me to find an alternative due to Unity. So far, I am EXTREMELY happy with Mint- its better than Ubuntu in many ways. It will AUTOMATICALLY set you up with all those proprietary codecs which is very handy.
dfolk218th Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
@dfolk2 I didn???t care for Unity, but Ubuntu _does_ supply the Gnome 3 desktop (which you might hate as well???) and a Gnome ???Classic??? environment.
Joel Salomon18th Oct -
i agree
@dfolk2
mee too this is the first ubuntu release I havent tried since 6.06
I went mint on my desktop and laptop, and despite a few glitches has been a good experience
i just "didnt get" unity, it just seemed way too different, i may give 11.10 a try on virtualbox sometime in the future
garyc201118th Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
Mint is straight forward, simple and efficient, however it has a decidely windows 95 look and feel (albeit some features don't work as seamlessly as win95). surely it's possible for linux to have a redesign that improves upon the look and feel without reducing functionality as Unity appears to have done?
krzyst0ff23rd Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
@trentreviso
I'm with you. I updated one of my machines with 11.10 but not the others. The unity desktop is rubbish and why they couldn't just keep the classic I don't know as it would have served all parties. I think this will cause Ubuntu to lose a lot of followers which is a shame as it was a good product. They seem to be going the microsoft route: "We know best". That is OK for the many drones that use microsoft but will not serve Ubuntu well at all.
dwward18th Oct -
One man's "rubbish" ...
@dwward ... is another man's treasure.
But perhaps a more relevant quote about Ubuntu's Unity might be: "If you keep doing the same thing, you can expect the same results." In this case, with the "classic" UI, Ubuntu wasn't really growing. It certainly didn't stand out among Linux flavors, and "consumers" or average corporate users (not geeks) just didn't "get it". Unity at least offers Ubuntu/Canonical a UI that not only looks different, but operates differently -- in a good way for consumers/average desktop (or tablet?) users.
So, this is Ubuntu/Canonical's way of trying to do something different to hopefully get different results.
Seems to me like it's worth a shot, even if it isn't all that enticing to geeks. IT geeks who have their users' and organizations' best interests at heart should at least consider it, because it might just be a way to improve the bottom line for the business and perhaps improve the computing experience for the end-user ... even if they still choose to run Mint or whatever on their personal machines.
jscott6931st Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
@trentreviso
I too JUST went to 11.10,.. Disaster. I LOVE experimenting, but this hurt. I need to roll back to 11.04 but am not sure how. I was prepared to be WOWED! But NOT like this....
NOW I have to figure out how to go back to 11.04 Bummer! Maybe MINT IS better. Dunno? My all time preference is PS-BSC but I'll do that later. Will have to get the latest version.
roger.es22nd Oct -
Unity is a HUGE mistake
Its not a mistake to try something new. It IS A MISTAKE to force your once happy users onto a half baked new interface AND GIVE THEM NO CHOICE to use the old interface which did give them what they needed.
Ubuntu's greatest resource was the good will and advocacy of its users- and it just threw 90% of that into the garbage.dfolk218th Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
@dfolk2
93%. They destroyed my favourite OS.
Is compiz still broken?
kenift19th Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
it's not too challenging to offer an optional look to the interface (eg. like Aero in Vista/7 which can be switched on/off at the click of a button). unfortunately the current state appears to be: if you can't agree on a part of Linux, then just 'fork it' -- further fragmenting users, ultimately diminishing the usability and diluting the pool of resources.krzyst0ff23rd Oct -
Of course you have a choice
@dfolk2 ...the other 300 distros, multiplied by the number of desktops.
I think I like Mint Debian best. Bodhi with E17 is pretty, and low resources.
james.vandamme14th Nov -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
I had 11.10 installed and tried an experiment. As my friends came over I had them try 11.10. One was a Mac Os10 user, one was a Opensuse user and one was a Win 7 user. Surprising the Mac user could do more than the other two. All three said they found it not a system they wanted to use. I have been an Ubuntu user for a little over 4 years and am sorry to say when the up dates on 10.04 run out I will not be an Ubuntu user. I also downloaded pre beta of Win 7 and I will never use it either. If one is dazzled by pretty icons, then they will love both. Me, I just want an uncluttered interface. I started out with fire control computers in 1955. In 3 months, I will be 84, still build my own and service them. I still try to stay close to the state-of-art.
gil_seiler18th Oct -
RE: Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10: Oneiric Ocelot
@gil_seiler
Me too. 1959. But I kinda like Win-7 also; but in "Classic" mode to get rid of the B&W crap.
Regards
ChoMlo18th Oct
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