Posts Tagged unity
Linux Desktop UI Options
Posted by Randy in Linux Stuff, Operating Systems, technology on February 14, 2012
I’m detest the current path of the Linux desktop. There are reasons that the desktop environment programmers and the distribution makers have taken the path they are on, but I disagree with those reasons. Their reasoning involves unifying the user interface for desktops, laptops, tablets, and other mobile devices.
The main problem I see with that reasoning is that they are hurting the desktop environment in the process, and the desktop/laptop is the only place their products have a future. There’s no need for a revamping of the desktop interface to make it more like a mobile device’s interface. The tablet/phone interfaces are designed for multi-touch interaction from the user. THE ADVANTAGE of a DESKTOP is having a good keyboard and mouse. The desktop UI is designed for superior input methods. Mult-touch is cool and all, but it is designed to give mobile devices an interface to mimic what you can already do on the desktop and laptop with the keyboard and mouse. Multi-touch on a desktop is cool, but it has only been implemented on OS X on Macs, and they didn’t change the actual interface itself to accomplish this. They just added multi-touch capability to the UI that was already there.
I could see good reason to make this change to the default Linux user interface if the distributions were going to be used primarily on mobile devices. BUT they aren’t. The mobile market has two very strong operating systems. Those are iOS and Android. Android is Linux itself, but its user interface is perfect for a mobile device. It also has the convenience of the Google marketplace. It is the defacto Linux distro for mobile devices. There’s no demand for Ubuntu on a mobile device like a tablet or phone. Android does everything you could want to do on those devices, and it does those things well.
So, what is the point to unify the user interface on the Linux distribution, if the only real use you’re going to see for these distributions is in the desktop and laptop markets? There’s absolutely no reason to do this.
The new unified user interface, namely Unity and Gnome 3, are clunky at best in a desktop environment. They are a downgrade from the previous user interfaces that were popular, especially Gnome 2.
For this reason, I see a shift in the primary desktop environment used by most Linux users. I think most users will switch to XFCE4 or one of the other DEs which were similar to Gnome 2. I would be willing to wager that within a year or two, most distributions will be using XFCE4 as a default desktop environment by popular demand from their userbase. Either that will happen, or the desktop environment creators will see the error of their ways and change back to the old desktop standard.
BRING BACK XORG and just improve it!
Tags
AJAX best double-edge razor best mechanical keyboard best php framework change password in wordpress cheap website hosting cherry mx red codeigniter codeignitor colocated servers colo servers corsair vengeance k90 css debian dedicated servers dns domain blocking ebay firefox gnome 3 sucks godaddy alternative html linux lwjgl mechanical keyboard review Open Source PHP Programming resetting a router resetting router password reset wordpress password resset wp password rosewill rk-9000 review saving passwords symfony twitter ubuntu unity sucks vps vps prices whats-hot-weekly.com x64 Linux xchat script xlack download xlack script youtube- Apple
- Applications
- Boring Stuff
- C++
- Cool Videos
- DIY
- Free Stuff
- Funny Pics
- Games
- Good Deals
- Hardware
- Health
- Home Theater
- Internet
- Internet Money
- Java
- Javascript
- Linux Stuff
- Movies
- Music
- Networking
- Open Source
- Operating Systems
- PHP
- Pipe Smoking
- Programming
- Reviews
- Science
- Security
- SEO
- Server Stuff
- Shaving
- SQL
- Stocks
- technology
- Tips
- TV
- Uncategorized
- Web Development
- Windows