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Ubuntu 12.04 Unity desktop and many annoying errors.

The Unity desktop in Ubuntu 12.04 is annoying the heck out of me at the moment. I keep getting popups that warn of errors with the Unity desktop and the associated system tray applications. A good reason to use KDE, I seem a little inflexible in my criticism of the Unity desktop interface, but it is extremely unstable and slow with the Ubuntu 12.04 packages. I have recently tried out the Windows 8 operating system and that was super fast and reliable indeed. The Metro interface is the glorified start menu and the Windows 7 styled Aero desktop with the panel is the actual workspace. That system actually works very well as it is light-years faster than the Unity or Gnome 3 desktops by far and is not too hard to use. if you wish to load Notepad, you just press the Windows key and type notepad and hit enter and there you are. If only Canonical could create a super fast interface like that. Sure the Metro apps are annoying, but the weather application is excellent, with cloud maps, rainfall charts and very slick graphics. The Ubuntu Unity desktop needs to be slimmed down and tweaked to be a much faster and sleeker desktop that is actually worth using instead of the unstable and unreliable mess that it is at the moment. The KDE desktop is much better, it is fast and reliable as well as capable of using many useful themes and window styles to look just the way you wish it to.

No wonder people are running Linux Mint 12 and the Cinnamon desktop as well as the MATE alternative. MATE is not a bad desktop at all, the Gnome 2 code that was forked to create MATE turned out very well, it is a shame that the Unity interface that is supposedly the flagship desktop for the Ubuntu distribution is actually doing more harm than good to the reputation of the formerly good Ubuntu distribution. That is why this needs to be tackled as soon as possible. If Linux Mint can create a nice desktop alternative with the Cinnamon desktop then why is the Ubuntu distribution lumbered with this backwards slow and flaky Unity abomination? This video below shows a preview of the Cinnamon desktop in Linux Mint 13, this is the evolution of the desktop interface seen in Linux Mint 12. This is a fork() of the Gnome 3 code that creates a more traditional Linux Mint 8 styled desktop interface. That is the key to keeping users, they need to go back to their roots and keep away from radical desktop changes like Ubuntu have done. I am considering switching to Linux Mint 13 when the DVD ISO is released, the Ubuntu distribution is OK when you are using KDE, but Unity is best avoided. I need to use it to try out the latest features, but it is not ready for the mainstream yet. I will wait until the final release of the 12.04 packages and see if after the daily updates if the Ubuntu desktop can redeem itself.

3 thoughts on “Ubuntu 12.04 Unity desktop and many annoying errors.”

  1. I agree. Unity is so backwards and broken it makes Ubuntu irrelevant. This is why Mint is now the top distro on Distrowatch.

    Personally I run Fedora 16 with my own Openbox desktop. Thin window borders and tint2 panel. It’s like Gnome2 was but better.

    Reply
  2. I have just installed Ubuntu 12.04 beta on my laptop, after using CentOS6 (with Gnome2) for a long time. Like you said, Unity is pretty sluggish, especially when compared to the excellent Gnome2. But fortunately, I didn’t get so many errors like you did. I only got 1, during install, but turned out to be nothing.
    I’ll try to use Ubuntu for a while, if it gets too annoying, I’ll go back to CentOS…

    Reply

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