Submit Unity Feedback for Ubuntu 11.04

First off, thank you for your post; I have not tried Unity and you have helped me understand a little bit more about what Ubuntu is intending to dump on us. There are a lot of feelings about Unity that spans the spectrum from love it to hate it. The term I have not heard very often is apprehension. In my imagination the LTS users fit into this category. These are folks, that for numerous reasons, want a stable version of Ubuntu. They are not the 1st ones to try out new apps, OS's, update etc. They can not afford a steep learning curve nor can they tolerate breakage or loss. For this reason I rationalize there is a sub set of Ubuntu users who are holding their collective breathes and praying / hoping that the powers that be have a clue. Recent blogs, written by independent columnists, indicate the new version is well behind from where they feel a new version should with an April release date. Some of the news from the Gnome camp is no more encouraging. So the word of the day goes back to apprehensive.
Thanks again for your article!

Thanks man, this post is really appreciated.

It was rather confusing, to be plain. Once you get beyond a certain number of applications, the sidebar stacks things up and it becomes a hassle to deal with. Accessing applications through the main window becomes a matter of sifting through everything you have. In short - I greatly prefer the Gnome Shell.

I'll stick with Gnome, as all my friends have decided as well.
We tried it on a netbook, and even the child it belonged to was much happier when we replaced unity with gnome.
Unity was like going backwards rather than forward. There may be those who will prefer it, but I've not met one yet.

hate it for usability.... why it sucks? the only thing is missyng is a taskbar

I do not like unity and I want to back gnome and please canceled the unity because its so hard for canoncial company. Because its bad like windows vista

looks like * to me a back step instead of getting better , what is the problem with gnome or cairo or... main thing is that you have a choice, that has to be good .....

Utter crap, I'll be moving anyone I've put on Ubuntu to Arch Linux and sticking to the current version of gnome, it feels like a badly done version of OS X (OS X has the worst GUI ever in an OS until now, IMO.)

At first, I was sceptical about this Ubuntu decision. Installed Alpha 3 and told to myself: "I was right". The experience was different. Too different. But still I decided to keep it a little longer. "That's the future of my distribution, so it deserves a second chance", I thought. Today I can honestly say, that Unity became my love. Yes, it is different, but after adaptation it became the easiest and one of the most beautifull OS I have ever used. "Icon bar" on the left is actually a great idea. (Believe it or not, but It feels very natural to press an icon in that position). I like the speed of my system and more space on the screen. So, give Unity another try, my friends, or you might miss some really unique experience.

They need to tone down the background colors for the side buttons. Take a look at the icons for Firefox, Nautilus, and Filezilla. Don't know the names of the other two that blend right in to their buttons (3rd one down, and purple smiley face), but that bothers me. Color saturation only 25% maybe would help for the background colors behind the icons?

The Unity change is a huge error in judgement.
I find it impossible to run and track several
parallel running task. As much as I love Ubuntu
I will start looking at other distributions. One possibility would be to allow, on install, selection
of Unity or other desktops. Thanks, Tom

I have tried Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha release twice now, upgrading a 10.10 installation.

Both times, I get a problem with Compiz crashing and the screening blinking every 5 - 10 seconds, i.e. goes black and then comes back. I have ATI graphics card - thought it could be something to do with that.

As regards the new interface, the menu at the top is not working, gets replaced by the opened application. Its pretty much all over the place.

When Compiz crashes, it leaves the keyboard unusable and only option is power button to shut down.

Like some bits of unity but would prefer to have option to use the old task bars.

Will see if the beta release works any better.

You can choose "classic" Ubuntu (log in screen), Tom. If you have different instances of the same program (and need more task separation), you can put them in different workplaces. Then, the icon of the program will separate the task too. Hope that helps.
I would recommend to do a clean install, if it is possible, Hotkee. Compiz crashes sometimes for me too, but stability has improved during last days (I'm updating several times a day).
One more tip: if Unity stops working (need a hard reboot and can't login after that), choose the "classic desktop" (log in screen), open Synaptic (update if possible) and reinstall Unity. Good luck.

I think Unity looks great! The features and principles being developed are going to make it a great Desktop. I think Ubuntu developers are on the right track and should keep up the great work they are doing.

Change can be tough. I think once people adjust they will see the benefits of using Unity and will switch to it.

I think Unity (on a netbook) has several good things going for it, like the file

I'd like to be able to make both the top panel and the Launcher the same background color so as to unify their "OS Controls" like function. A lot of the pictures I see show the Launcher with a black background and the top-panel with another color. Both should be capable of being made the same black or dark grey color.

DO NOT LIKE UNITY. too many bugs, can't get it to work on my old account, and frankly, do not like it's look at all. If I could change the position of the unity bar thingie i might be able to shape it to my liking, but until then, it sucks.

just installed. looks great, feels great.

Been an Ubuntu fan for years. Was not sure about Unity, but decided to give it a try and upgraded to 11.4. Been a few days now, and I can honestly say that Unity is absolutely horrible. For me it was simply that it slowed me down - a LOT. While I certainly understand the guiding thoughts here, the execution is just a huge swing and a miss. I'm going to go back to Gnome, and start hunting for a new distro. That pains me to say, because I have dearly loved Ubuntu and the work that has been done, but this move was just * .

i think that the changes are so huge. i like some new features like ability to search applications and the side bar. it's a good idea to use whole screen as working environment. but something are annoyed like: we can't minimize windows by click on the current opened window form left task bar. navigation between open windows are so hard!

I agree. I like the search, don't mind the large task bar, but navigation between running elements is very cumbersome. Especially between workspaces. On the old Gnome desktop you could navigate between work spaces with a single click. Now it takes three. My absolute least favorite change is the dang Global App Menu. Lose that - PLEASE... I don't think there could be anything more inefficient. Fortunately removing that is easy, but it needs to be a configuration option.

I installed and worked on ubuntu 11.04 with Unity ever since it got release, and I must say that it is the worth change ever to Ubuntu. It became a challenge to do anything. Unity sucks, bring back the good old gnome.

I`ve tested Unity for a couple of hours. After that i switched at Classic Ubuntu.
Jut to remind to developers, this is not Iphone or Mac. I think that it was not an wise decision to integrate this horrible feature. If a need a crap like that, i will use Windows 7 or Iphone or MacOS.
Try just to be Ubuntu!

I'm not liking it. The program launcher pops up and I accidently start a program I don't want at least 5 times a day. I also have know idea how to add the shortcuts to the programs I want.

Unity or Gnome3, no matter which one you look at, are just plain vacant! Devoid of customization ability such as what we had in Gnome 2.x. To say that Unity or Gnome3 are disappointing in what they deliver is a GROSS understatement!!!

When I first looked at the two of them, I realized the potential for making the transition from other Operating Systems to Linux a real easy task. However, they both have been shipped in what I would call, a very incomplete state. I expected more when I downloaded Ubuntu 11.04 and the Suse-Based Gnome3 ISOs. Not being able to tweak the task-bar was a horrible and grotesque oversight demonstrating the rush to market philosophy that has caused me years ago to dump Ubuntu and never to return to them!

Share your thoughts on this story...I hate Unity, It might have added some features but it took away a lot of features like panels and adding to them. So I am trying KDE Plasma and seem to like it very much. Although it isn't as simple as Ubuntu

I hate Unity, It might have added some features but it took away a lot of features like panels and adding to them. So I am trying KDE Plasma and seem to like it very much. Although it isn't as simple as Ubuntu \

As someone who absolutely loved Ubuntu since Dapper, it is with great sadness I tell you that 11.04 has me looking for other distros.

I am trying to live with this turkey but there is no escaping the fact that it is Ubuntu's "Vista", guaranteed to lose a bunch of loyal Ubuntu drones.

LibreOffice does all kinds of strange things that are driving me crazy. What was wrong with "Open Office"?

The windows switcher does not work properly.

I am still looking for a way to put things like "System Monitor" on a panel.

I hate the way that open programs are displayed and managed.

The "Banshee" media player is the most unruly and annoying program I have yet found on Ubuntu. Turning this thing off takes an act of Congress.

"Right Click" does not do half as much as it used to.

I could go on and on and on but is anyone listening?

With regret,
The gallopingcamel

Unity Sucks. Installed LMDE and my machine is all happy again. Debian somehow does that for a machine. Some distro needs to fork knome 2.X. so we call * off all these wannabe windoze/mac linux abortionists.

I'm an old geezer( 71) love the new Unity look, use it mostly for surfing, book writing, takes a little getting used to ...I love it

Have been with Ubuntu since Hardy. Unity takes a little time getting used to but I love it...feels like home to me now.
Have dual booted Win 7/11.04 and WinXPPro/11.04 .....formatted the whole shebang in disgust and back to 11.04.
I'm just an old 71 yr old guy...wish I could help more.... but I want to thank you all for the tremendous job you do.
WHERE CAN I GET UBUNTU BUMPER STICKERS?

I have a DELL Optiplex GX620 with 4 gig ram and 260gig hd. It runs Ubuntu 10.04 really well. I have tried all the buntus and really like the simplicity of Ubuntu, the easy drop downs, it is fast for me, I have Firefox, and all the main things I need, it's great!. Why did you guys stuff it up with Unity, trying to be the greatest, when all most people want is performance and the KISS principle. I took 11.04 off and put 10.04 back on, and am now looking I guess for another distro now that Ubuntu has lost the plot!.

I tried it. I gave it time. It simply is the most horrible OS known to man.

I don't like unity, it's too cluttered for me, I prefer gnome lists of things as I can then move quickly around. Also my DCP145c scanner refuses to work. had to go back to 10.04

Thought I still need to comment to make sure Ubuntu might understand that the Unity Desktop is wrong! It might be good for a 'not a real computer' edition, but you need productivity on a computer. The other things need to slot nicely around it. For me it's developer tools, shell, browser, Excel (and sadly not that OO / LO stuff) and that what I need to access. 20 odd apps open and you can trash that sidebar on the right and who want's to cycle through 'em with ALT + TAB?
I also hate this unified menu bar at the top. It's not right, I want to be able to control all my windows individually...
Maybe Canonical has turned against users? Maybe user friendly isn't what they want to do anymore?

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
I like the last version much better! (I quickly installed previous ones)

My overall feel about the direction is much more positive, but we are still a long way from home when it comes to the details

I do think it is a logical idea to move the bar to the left side now we wide screens.

WHAT ANNOYS ME
They need to tone down the background colors for the side buttons! Otherwise the strong colors will completely ruin the atmosphere of any theme. If they really want to use that many big size colors they should be using pastel colors. Those are the only tones that can tolerate each other.

Don't get me wrong I like colored buttons for easy recognition, but better give them the same background or even glassy, transparent background. Take example of so many other great bars like in OS10, Windows 7 or elementary OS.

Now it looks very much like the playing blocks little children play with. I find the big color surfaces really disturbing. It destroys the "unity" with the rest of the design. I reminds me of the candy look of XP.

please stop using earth toned colors. The effect on the mind is laziness. They are not generating energy, but absorbing it. It maybe ok with rest of the theme but wil destroy the atmosphere of more light themes

And please make it possible to turn on modification of the bar in context menus. I understand they want to make something foolproof, but most linux users are still professionals, so give them an expert mode that makes the interface easily changeable. Please do not condemn us to be passive consumers with one braincell.

WHAT I MISS:
- Why can't I use WIN+TAB to exchange between apps in all desktops. We do not want to be dummied. We do not want to be only consumers, we want to be able to be creative ourselves by adapting the desktop. Please do go along with big corporatism that wants to create * consumers by giving them instant satisfaction. Rather give us a great base from which we can work from. Give us a rock solid, fast interface. It is fine to make it complete ands foolproof for the mass consumer, but let there be an opt out too.

BUGS
- dragging the edges of windows remains a problem. In Write I constantly get the context menu when I do it on the bottom right side. You often need many very focused attempt do such this simple thing
- Win + 1, 2, 3 does not work well. You need to let go of the win-key in between. Often 1 or 2 is typed into the app-window
- App windows do not remember last position and keep om appearing in the top left side corner whichs is very annoying. Reading is least fatiguing when it straigth in front of you. I you read a paper, you will never hold it left or right of your vision.

WHAT I LIKE
That I can click a program on the bar, independent of the desktop it is in. That is great, for windows most of the time are best of in their own desktop. Why clutter the desktop with many unrelated windows? I

IDEAS:
Why not turn things completely around? We only need programs in the same desktop if we want to read the together or drag. So open every program in their own desktop by default.
- ctrl+click a program to open it in the same desktop
- shift+click a program in the same desktop en automatically split the screen to show them side by side

Very very worst...

Unity? Forget it and go back to Gnome as it was.

I like new things. I like truing new ways. But this was just very unfriendly even for people like me how is all the time trying new interfaces, new programs ... It has a thought. A thought that was explained by Mark, but with unity as it is right now in ubuntu 11.10 it is like a step back not a step foward. Windows 7 introduces a real search bar right when you push the windows button. It finds everything without effort. The thing windows improved is that nowadays we click less to get to our programs and unity doesn't let me do that. Except for some programs we use very often.

I've stuck with Ubuntu since 'Dapper Drake', but this dumbed-down, workflow-roadblock, style-over-utility piece of junk has finally forced me to move to another distro.

I've just been battling with broken wifi in 11.10 and I gave the UI a chance but really it is more trouble than it is worth. I tried to like it but I'm going back to 10.10 where the thing actually works. Ubuntu needs to go slower and stop breaking things all the time. This is the first time I've considered moving to another distro. Sorry but they're really messing things up. It isn't working.

I really tried, too hard and finally I am saying 'goodbye' to ubuntu. From this day, my search for another linux distro will start again. Since 2003, I was using Ubuntu. Not every computer has so much resources to run Unity. Mint is fine, but not too cutomizable. I'll stick to Ubuntu studio 11 for some time though. Gnome3 is worse than Unity. So the only option is to use KDE old versions (for hardware requirements). Perhaps someday ubuntu will again be my long lost friend.

Let me first give an advise.
I think that every feature of Unity must be
1. either exactly as a gnome 2
OR
2. a useful change

Remember that the ubuntu users got used to gnome 2, and that therefore every not-very-useful change is annoying.

Unity looks nice, but it should not be a part of a stable ubuntu version for the following, and many other, reasons.
Unity has a few annoying things which bother me from navigating fast and flawless. For example, when I press Ctrl-Alt-d, I see the desktop. But when I open up anything, like a terminal, all applications windows are popping up again. But I just told them to hide! This behaviour is not like gnome, AND not useful.

Furthermore, I experience focus troubles. I read on the internet that more people experience them. Focus is important to me. I navigate through desktops by using shortcuts. So when focus is lost, I get seriously bothered.

The Alt-Tab doesnt work with respect to workspaces. They behave unuseful. When I switch to a different workspace and press alt-tab, I 'm being moved to the previous workspaces. What is the use of workspaces this way?

I have done well to give Unity some time, but over the past year I have found myself actually using Windows 7 to get work done! This is not good, and has left me to ask myself why I am reverting to Windows after years in Linux when still spend most of my personal and professional life in the Linux command line (albeit through putty now). The best answer I could find was my dissatisfaction with Unity. The interface is oversimplified and counter to the way my brain has learned to work over the past 20 years of GUI usage. Perhaps I would be happier if I were a Mac user originally and not an old DOS/Windows/OS2 pro who moved to Linux as soon as possible.

Let's keep the Gnome option alive. I am probably going back to 10.04 soon.