For Discussion: Article that discusses Ubuntu, Mint and recent Distro Endings

You mean like Gnome? :wink:

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No, not like Gnome. Like Cinnamon…Unity gave what people wanted, Cinnamon gives what people wants. It adds features, just like Android, iOs, MacOs or Windows. (I got 3 of them, and thinking of getting the 4th.)

More people disliked Unity than liked it, from what I’ve heard.

That’s the main reason why Cinnamon came to be! Cinnamon didn’t have the money behind it like Unity, but the enthusiasm was there. And, Clem listened. And, still listens.

In the article,

expenditures for development of Unity stopped as programmers on that project were largely laid off.

If the Unity development was open to all developers around the world, maybe something good have come out of it, without one company deciding its future.

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[Citation needed]

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet :slight_smile:

Vocal people on the internet may well have moaned about Unity. Yet many people bought machines that shipped with it by default and kept it, using it every day. We even had a flood of people lament Unity’s demise in 2017 when development on it was de-prioritised.

By 2017 it was super stable and performed well on the most recent few generations of processor and GPU. The workflow is great for many people, didn’t waste screen real-estate and got out of the way when you work. Indeed I still use it here, as you can see…

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I still wish Ubuntu would return to Unity, rather than mimicking it with Gnome shell. :slight_smile:
Still using it thanks to @khurshid-alam.

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That’s wasn’t my understanding, at the time - Gnome 3 wasn’t liked by many traditional desktop enthusiasts, so Cinnamon came about as a bunch of Gnome-Shell scripts. I remember at the time having a discussion on ‘debian-user’ and was told that Debian was considering the Cinnamon “scripts” on top of Gnome-Shell. It didn’t come about until the Cinnamon desktop came, now it’s part of the Debian distribution too.

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No — You mean it may not be true? :grin: :gasp:!

I’m not saying it isn’t able to work still, but why bother when it’s been EOLed?! Yeah, I know you work for the Ubuntu org.

Granted, what I have isn’t empirical evidence, but the sentiment has been loudly referenced online. The same organization that published the previous article, published [this one]. (https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/linux-and-open-source/gnome-shell-vs-ubuntu-unity-which-desktop-wins/) on Unity vs Gnome Shell. I agree with it, but it’s only one persons opinion granted. I could publish more, but I think the point is clear. NeXT Step looked prettier and just as functional!

Have Ubuntu’s business users, the one’s that use the Ubuntu desktop default complained, at the switch? I don’t think so — at least I haven’t heard any rumblings. Have you @popey?

Isn’t it open now to contributions? That’s my understanding, so if its much liked universally, I don’t imagine an open project will have problems, attracting coders wanting to scratch a particular itch, right? Yet, it seems only one person is working on it the moment, with maybe a few others helping out - Is that correct @chanath?

Let’s take a step back.

Just because a piece of software isn’t the default, isn’t actively worked on by the original developers and isn’t getting new features doesn’t render it impossible to use. I don’t understand this obsession Linux users have with desktop environments. Did Unity suddenly stop working? No, it’s continued working just fine in every release since 17.10 where it was no longer the default. I’m on 19.04 and it works perfectly.

Sure it might not get up to date fixes but you could say the same thing about a vast amount of open source software. There’s a ton of applications and libraries which are effectively in “maintenance mode” and don’t get new features and updates. Developers move on to other projects and either consider their past ones “done” or just stop caring about them. Does that mean we shouldn’t use that software? No. Open Source software doesn’t have a “sell by” or “use by” date like food.

Just because you personally may not like it, and Jack Wallen in 2011 wrote a piece about the state of play eight years ago doesn’t mean everyone should format their drives in 2019 and use some other desktop. That’s ludicrous.

The fact that I work for Canonical doesn’t actually matter for a few reasons. Firstly, before I started working for Canonical I was a massive fan of and advocate for Unity. I loved it then and still love it now. It performs better than GNOME Shell at the things I do and has all the features I need. In addition, Canonical doesn’t mandate what desktop their employees use. Indeed some employees don’t even run Ubuntu on their primary machine. There’s a slight exception for those people in the Ubuntu Desktop Team who work on making Ubuntu Desktop - you’d expect them to “drink their own champagne” on their main machine, and they probably all do. But as far as I know, nobody at Canonical ever got fired for running Arch :wink:

Unity is still in use by a massive number of people today, in 2019. In fact there are likely more people running Unity right now on Ubuntu (16.04) than there are total users of all other desktop distros combined. You may not be one of them, and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean nobody uses it.

No. None of that is accurate to be honest. It always was open to contributions. The stack is a little complex and harder for drive-by contributions. Perhaps we should have made more effort to bring Unity to other distros, and not keep it primarily for Ubuntu. Perhaps the code should have been on GitHub rather than Launchpad. Maybe we should have removed the CLA requirement. We can speculate on all the various ways in which Unity could have been even more successful. But the fact remains, it was already very successful, no matter what news articles or thought pieces you dig up. Unity was installed on millions of machines. Not many desktops can say that. Indeed GNOME Shell couldn’t even say that until Ubuntu switched the default.

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You don’t appear know the history of Cinnamon (and of Unity), or have been with that history. Cinnamon didn’t come out as a “bunch of this or that,” but was created deliberately. It and Mate were created deliberately. LMDE is there as a backup, if Ubuntu would vanish someday.

Anyway, why are we discussing a competitor to Ubuntu here? Linux Mint is a real competitor and pulls away Ubuntu users, and that’s not Mint’s fault, btw.

Getting back to the original point of the article, good plan! :slight_smile:

Ok, so Linux Mint is a very successful distribution. They have a fraction of the users Ubuntu has, but way more than most other distros. They make a product people want, so much so that they get a healthy bunch of financial contributions from their users. That’s awesome!

Personally I don’t really consider Linux Mint as “competition” as such. The competition is really the proprietary operating systems people get by default on their systems. We should be looking to bring those users over to Linux, rather than compete within our own sandpit.

No, I don’t think Mint should shutdown, and hope they don’t.

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What, you weren’t aware that Cinnamon started out as a series of scripts to adjust Gnome-Shell, before they decided to just fork Gnome Shell? Same with Unity, a fork of Gnome-Shell.

God how I miss global menu … :cry:

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That’ll never happen. Canonical is barely breaking even, and that’s after laying off most of the desktop teams that were working on Unity and mobile.

I just read some financial filings the other day. They (Canonical) will have to show a lean and balanced, balance sheet if they ever want to have a good ‘Initial Public Offering’ in this economic climate.
Ubuntu is far more than its desktop and it’s offered to corporate clients, who’ll pretty much use whatever is the default desktop, but who dislike change.

Oh, I"m sure Redhat experts would argue that with you.

Well being that I’m aware of what companies go through when preparing for an IPO, and when they’re public - This will all change shortly if not after this. All people speaking in any public forum will be required to follow a script. You won’t be able to say much because anything might be construed to affect the share price, and therefore the shareholders that own the company.

So, of course you being a company employee matters, you must adhere to the company script. I observe your opinions with that lens. Anyone should.

Actually, that competition was there, before Linux distros had a DE. That competition is pretty hard to get rid of, or even come near. We at Linux distros don’t give a ready to use Linux system with hardware. We fight each other, distros, DEs, file managers, etc, and also taking away features. It is pretty easy to use a Windows 10 laptops, especially the touch screen ones and 2 in 1s. Swipe from the left, swipe from the right, from the bottom, and the Windows Key. Virtual desktops are there too.

Linux world is fragmented, and fights itself. iOS concentrates on one OS, DE and so on, Android too. Windows 10 2 in 1s are both laptops and tablets, can work in both ways in both modes - you an attach the keypad, but still work on the tablet mode or the other way, without the attached keypad. We, at Linux are not going there.

Its pretty hard to get a no OS laptop. A computer can’t be sold without an OS, so maybe, just maybe one might get a “Dos” laptop. A “dedicated” Linux laptop is pretty expensive, for a device that carries a free distro, free office suite. So, most laptops that run Linux in the world had been first bought as a Windows device, paying for the Windows OS. No, until Cannonical or some Linux only company creates a Linux laptop and market them with an OS, that competition cannot be taken up. (Oh, System76 etc are no-go.)

To bring the users of proprietary systems to Linux, just the OS is not enough. You need a dedicated device. Even Android is a competitor.

It can’t be expected from computer users to look for an OS, choose one and install on a computer. No one is ready to buy an expensive device that won’t run, after switching it on. Even if the person knows how to download a Linux distro, and even install it, he/she first have to have a device that runs an OS to do that. No, people are not ready for that. They need a ready to work device. The Linux world doesn’t give that.

Well, this conversation has taken a decidedly negative turn. What a shame.

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There are 27 families in my block of flats. I know everyone of them. There are no computers in 2 of the flats. But, everyone has an Android smart phone, except one, who uses the last Nokia Lumia Windows phone. He also has a Windows Vista laptop, which he won’t throw away, for it works. Some flats have more than one computer. I am the only one, who has a Linux box. I even let them try Ubuntu off my box, but none of them wants a Linux distro installed in their boxes, even with my proposal to look after the distro and teach them how to use.

When I tell them that they use Linux everyday with their Android smart phones, Android smart TVs, they just smile, but no go with changing their Window computers. The kids have heard about Linux, but dream of buying a iPad or a Macbook. Few even have a 2018 iPad, for it had become so cheap.

I wish for a Linux dedicated laptop and tablet available everywhere in the world, ready to work from the first push of the start button. It should be less than 329 USD, the price of an entry level 2018 iPad. Not these prices.

Btw, I forgot about Chromebooks, which would allow people to use Linux apps and Android apps, so there might be chance for Linux in the device-world.