Unity Panel Won't Allow Any Kind Of Customizations
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| djohnston Jun 17, 2010 3:23 PM EDT |
[sarcasm] Nor should it. Ubuntu is a meritocracy, not a democracy! Users? Users? We don't need no stinkin' users! [/sarcasm] |
| bigg Jun 17, 2010 4:16 PM EDT |
The same thing went through my mind, but I didn't want to be seen as bashing Ubuntu. I would replace "Users? Users? We don't need no stinkin' users!" with "Users? Users? They're too stupid to know what's good for them!" |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 17, 2010 4:19 PM EDT |
dj, Where is the sarcasm? bigg, For me nothing beats the "Developers, Developers, Developers (to a skipping beat) ..." Your only true buddy Txt. |
| jdixon Jun 17, 2010 4:23 PM EDT |
Ubuntu does seem to be going the way of "You'll take what we give you and like it, or else", don't they? Fortunately for their users, there are lots of "or else" options out there. |
| tmx Jun 17, 2010 5:20 PM EDT |
Ubuntu® There are many panel alternatives and also Apple-like docks. One can search for "gnome-panel alternative" on Google. |
| jdixon Jun 17, 2010 6:56 PM EDT |
> There are many panel alternatives... At what point does seeking out alternatives become more trouble than just switching distributions? |
| herzeleid Jun 17, 2010 8:05 PM EDT |
> At what point does seeking out alternatives become more trouble than just switching distributions? Which is easier? apt-get install (panel app)? or installing a different OS and starting all over? |
| tuxchick Jun 17, 2010 8:35 PM EDT |
zackly, jdixon. "Just move the buttons back to the other side or change the theme! Just remove Mono if you don't like it! Just disable Pulse Audio! (Which is a full-length howto article all by itself.) Just rip out the dumbed-down useless set of default apps and apt-get install the good ones!" etc.... |
| caitlyn Jun 17, 2010 10:50 PM EDT |
I'm with jdixon and tuxchick on this one. I've pretty well given up on Ubuntu. Other distros offer me everything I want without the bloated cruft I don't want, without a corporate attitude of disdain to the user community which I abhor, and without bugs that don't get fixed until the next release. Of course, when I say these things I'm "biased" or just generally don't understand how wonderful Ubuntu is. After all, if it works for the Ubuntu fanbois I should be equally happy and grateful... or else. |
| djohnston Jun 18, 2010 1:03 AM EDT |
@YBT, I waited, but you were nowhere in sight. I took the initiative. |
| gus3 Jun 18, 2010 1:07 AM EDT |
And I'm with caitlyn, but for totally different reasons. Going from this point:Quoting:Other distros offer me everything I want without the bloated cruft I don't want, without a corporate attitude of disdain to the user community which I abhor, and without bugs that don't get fixed until the next release.Yet even among those other distros there is the matter of a happy medium between "ease of installation" and "configurability." For example: Can one install a KDE desktop on Fedora 13, without having first to install GNOME? I'm not talking about dependencies. I'm talking about a barebones/lightweight Fedora 13 without GNOME by default, upon which one may install KDE. Fortunately, Fedora has a KDE-oriented installation ISO. There's also one for LXDE and one for XFCE, and all three have the imprimatur of the Fedora Project. Still, that isn't "everything I want without the bloated cruft I don't want," it's just a choice of which set of (semi?) bloated cruft to install. This is the big reason I like Slackware so much. In the installation process, one has the choice of which package series to install, and one can create a minimal system, a server system, a lightweight desktop system, a fully-loaded desktop system, or a programming development system. But those general options aren't available in the installer, just available as package series that any experienced Unix/Linux user would understand as necessary. (Say, that gives me an idea...) My understanding of Debian is that it starts somewhat minimal, then lets one add more post-installation stuff based on what the user (or admin) wants. But adding to that the additional, non-traditional "Debian way" hoops that one must jump through, like building a custom Linux kernel package for Debian, makes it not "worth it" for me. EDIT 2010-06-18: Gentoo is not up for consideration on this spectrum. When the cruft needed just for an update exceeds rpm, apt, and upgradepkg combined, something's not right. |
| tuxchick Jun 18, 2010 1:39 AM EDT |
Actually I'm not all that down on Ubuntu. 10.04 is pretty nice and so far everything works. Except Pulse Audio, but that's normal. I have the RT kernel and gobs of audio and digital photo editing apps and so far hardly any heartburn. It's quite a bit more stable and less buggy than 9.10. Where Ubuntu really shines is Canonical pushing into all the markets Linux fans have been saying they wanted for years-- OEM desktop and server, special netbook design that compensates for "wide screens" which are really normal screens with the bottoms lopped off to save money, online services, and gobs of marketing. It's perty and easy on the eyes. I'm not crazy about the trend towards hoggy compositing and fancy special effects that require good 3D video cards and fat multicore CPUs; the time will come when those are necessary for essential functions. But by then even netbooks will be miracle multicore. The Webupd8 piece is incomplete and alarmist, and fails to include a link to Shuttleworth's blog. Which is here http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383 and which presents a very different scenario than Webupd8: Quoting: A few months ago we took on the challenge of building a version of Ubuntu for the dual-boot, instant-on market. We wanted to be surfing the web in under 10 seconds, and give people a fantastic web experience. We also wanted it to be possible to upgrade from that limited usage model to a full desktop. |
| jdixon Jun 18, 2010 6:35 AM EDT |
> apt-get install (panel app)? I didn't say installing alternatives, I said seeking out alternatives. Yes, once you find an alternative you like, installing it is easy. |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 18, 2010 9:52 AM EDT |
dj, Sorry to have let you down. But in some ways I am a fanbois of Ubuntu, as I am running 8.04 on one machine and 9.10 on another. Nonetheless, I am dubious about moving to 10.04, maybe Mint might be an option, for me. I am toying with the idea of trying Debian again, because I am not particularly enthused about getting on the treadmill of "upgrades" to the latest and best versions of Linux whatever that is supposed to be at that moment. In any case, your rewording seems to have been right on the mark. Thus, my asking where the sarcasm resided seemed to be a question* with just a tinge of humor implied. As always, YBT * I have no real complaints against Ubuntu, since I have had issues fixed that probably were not of interest to most users. That is, I appreciated what was offered and when I depart it will be with no rancor. Just like Fedora, I was crazy about 3 but its need for continuous, rapid change was not a good match. So too with Ubuntu, my needs seem to differ with the intended track of this distribution. However, in the future I may return. |
| tmx Jun 18, 2010 1:03 PM EDT |
Difficult job to be both a shill for Microsoft and Canonical. |
| gus3 Jun 18, 2010 1:46 PM EDT |
Not when one focuses on their similarities. |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 18, 2010 2:07 PM EDT |
tmx, Only on LXer and as the sole registered shill allowed. But trolls seem to come and go without impediment, so it is not all lightness and joy. Moreover, definitely limited on remunerative side. So you take the good with the bad. YBT |
| herzeleid Jun 18, 2010 2:23 PM EDT |
Caitlyn: Quoting: I've pretty well given up on Ubuntu. Other distros offer me everything I want without the bloated cruft I don't want, without a corporate attitude of disdain to the user community which I abhor, and without bugs that don't get fixed until the next release.Please, stop teasing us and tell us which distros you've found to be better than ubuntu. I'm quite eager to know, because if there's a better distro I want to be running it. I've been a unix admin since the early 90s, and have also been running linux all that time. I've run most of the major distros extensively - in more or less chronological order, SLS, slackware, caldera, redhat, mandrake, fedora, rhel, debian, SuSE, SLES, opensuse and ubuntu. I haven't found a perfect distro yet, in fact I haven't found anything perfect in this old world - but ubuntu has caused me the least grief so far. Again, if you're holding out on us, and know of something better, do tell! PS - Caitlyn, your comment about "bloated cruft" seems misplaced, and your comment about "disdain" seems overly melodramatic. Could you provide some clear examples of what you mean? |
| tuxchick Jun 18, 2010 2:33 PM EDT |
Quoting: Difficult job to be both a shill for Microsoft and Canonical. Our buddy Txt is up to the job! |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 18, 2010 4:26 PM EDT |
tc, Thanks for the vote of confidence. The only thing I will NOT do is to shill for a mere shilling. I have higher standards to uphold, i.e. my minimum pay scale. YBT |
| azerthoth Jun 18, 2010 6:39 PM EDT |
@herz, better is always an opinion. Many of us have found and use better, even out of the list you provided some would argue (sans the no longer existant) are better. By some distance better too. Were I to loose Gentoo, Funtoo, and Sabayon today, I would still take (in order) Arch, Slackware, Debian, or Mandriva before installing Ubuntu again on a borrowed computer from someone I dont like. So now you have my opinion of better. |
| jdixon Jun 18, 2010 9:32 PM EDT |
> Were I to loose Gentoo, Funtoo, and Sabayon today, I would still take (in order) Arch, Slackware, Debian, or Mandriva before installing Ubuntu again on a borrowed computer from someone I dont like. I agree that it's a highly subjective matter. For my personal machine, my preferences would be Slackware, Arch, and then Debian. And I know of people who swear by both Mandriva and OpenSuSE. |
| djohnston Jun 19, 2010 1:17 AM EDT |
@TxtEdMacs, I read your reply as being humorous. I forgot to add tags to mine. |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 19, 2010 8:39 AM EDT |
dj, I knew your reply was purposely skewed to the humor side, however, I need excuses for lightness since I am distressed by the few pictures I allow myself to view of the catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf [U.S.A.]. I was quite impressed with the flying skills of pelicans when I observed one pacing our car crossing a bridge in the St. Petersburg / Tampa / region. I never observed one flap of the wings but it kept up perhaps riding the wake of air our car pushed to the bridge's edge. These birds when grounded appear ungainly, but in flight they are epitome of grace. I am more saddened reading they were already at risk prior to the well blow out. All to be read as serious. Txt. |
| hkwint Jun 20, 2010 10:00 PM EDT |
But what is it which entails a 'better' Linux distro? Why is 'one' better than 'another'? Unless there are criteria to assess some distro, I think there's not much use in discussing which one is better (though I like doing it and reading about it anyway). In much of the same way I could say a 'teapot' is better than a 'bridge'. I think Caitlyn mentioned what her criteria are: Little bloat, little corporate attitude, quick bug fixing. The first and third might be measured, the second maybe depending on the profit made by the company behind the distro. Asking what's better than Ubuntu however, is pretty much the same as asking what's better than a teapot, and then getting a 'bridge', an 'umbrella', the 'Greek alphabet' and a 'fern leaf' in reply. |
| jdixon Jun 21, 2010 9:06 AM EDT |
Hans: Teapot --> Bridge. Ubuntu --> Slackware. Yeah. I'll admit that the comparison does seem to fit. |
| jacog Jun 21, 2010 9:26 AM EDT |
Hmmm - "What's better than a teapot?" is a bad question, because it misses a component. What do you want to use it for? As in, "What's better than a teapot for keeping my head dry in the rain?" might well result in "an umbrella". |
| azerthoth Jun 21, 2010 10:44 AM EDT |
which makes it semantically the same as whats better than ubuntu, as it is your opinion that an umbrella is better than a teapot. You fail with that to see that you also collect the water to make a nice cup of tea once you are out of the rain. |
| jdixon Jun 21, 2010 11:22 AM EDT |
Of course, this business of which distro is better is all a tempest in a teapot anyway. :) |
| azerthoth Jun 21, 2010 12:21 PM EDT |
egads a new meme ... "but does it make tea?" |
| caitlyn Jun 22, 2010 4:30 PM EDT |
@herzeleid: Sorry for the delay in replying to you. I don't hang out here as much as I once did. I've been rather busy with real life... Anyway, my complaints about Ubuntu are essentially that it has given me more grief that ANY other major distro and, of course, they don't see fit to fix bugs within a release cycle. Which distro do I recommend instead? It depends on who I am talking to and what they want to do with Linux. For newcomers my #1 choice remains Mandriva. Yes, I know I was very critical of 2009.2 but even the best distros have an occasional bad release. In general Mandriva is every bit as easy to use as Ubuntu and in my experiences provides far fewer headaches. Pardus would be a close second but they have two issues. First, they have no 64-bit version. (Pardus 2011 is supposed to change that.) Second, recent actions by the Turkish government have made using a Turkish government product controversial, at least here in the U.S. I've received I don't now how many e-mails asking me how I can still say nice things about Pardus. Heck, even the Israelis haven't broken off relations with the Turks so I'm not about to go all political and do that. It may happen some day but not just yet. SO, for now, Pardus is still a distro I recommend pretty highly. For more experienced Linux users I must say that some Slackware derivatives manage to preserve the reliability, performance and stability of Slackware while making configuration, administration and maintenance worlds easier. They also have larger repositories so I end up compiling things a lot less often which saves time. My #1 choice is SalixOS. VectorLinux is still brilliant but they have slowed down their releases after losing a couple of key people and they still don't have a 64-bit version. ZenWalk is also quite good but they too lack 64-bit code. For business nothing comes close to Red Hat. For small businesses and individuals on a budget who want an enterprise class distro then I recommend either Scientific Linux or CentOS. (Yes, CentOS has done much better in getting security patches out and I owe them a more favorable follow-up article.) Regarding "bloated cruft", sorry, but Ubuntu (or Kubuntu or Xubuntu or Lubuntu) uses more memory than other comparable distros even when sitting idle at the desktop. I'm not going into the whole Mono debate here but I was very unhappy with F-Spot as a default item. So, yeah, bloated cruft fits. My comment about "disdain" reflects my feelings accuratly. From Mark Shuttleworth's dictatorial style of management to his lack of concern about user comments or complaints to his sexism I'd have to say that disdain is precisely the correct word to describe what I think of him. Does anyone else remember his “hard to explain to girls” line? See: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth_at_Linu... Anyway, there are my opinions, which are worth exactly what you paid for them. I hope I at least answered your questions. |
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