I have been debating writing about this since we are mainly a gaming news site (I should really setup another site for all the other Linux news I want to write about!), but Canonical switching back to GNOME on Ubuntu is very big news for everyone.
Question: Is there any interest in me doing a separate site to cover general Linux news?
Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu and Canonical wrote a rather shocking blog post announcing that Ubuntu 18.04 will officially drop the Unity desktop environment. If you didn't hear about it due to living under a large rock, let that sink in for a moment. Ubuntu is dropping a desktop environment they've worked on for years and poured tons of resources into building and rewriting for Unity 8.
I've had some time to let the news sink in now, after initially thinking it was a late April fools joke, when in reality it's very real and it makes perfect sense.
Unity was part of a long-term plan for Canonical with Ubuntu as part of their convergence strategy, which ultimately failed to gain any real traction. There's only so much time and money you can put into something when it's not giving you the results you wanted and it seems Canonical is in need of investors, as it turns out it has had to cut its workforce.
This now means there's going to be a little less fragmentation when it comes to the Linux desktop too. For all the good it does having lots of choice, having likely the biggest desktop-Linux distribution use a more standard desktop will help many things. For one thing, developers will no longer have to work around Unity/Compiz specific issues in games. It will also help the stability of GNOME Shell too, since they have even more people using it and working on it thanks to this.
This, in turn, makes Ubuntu go back to what made me originally love it. A polished GNOME desktop experience released every 6 months with the latest and greatest with a little extra love and polish thrown in for good measure. A good, solid desktop experience to introduce people new to Linux with. To me, it sounds fantastic again.
As expected, Unity 8 looks like it will be carried on by a few developers. Will be interesting to see if this actually gains any traction, or if it will fade away with little interest. Personally, I don't see any need to continue it, we have enough desktops already with GNOME Shell, KDE, Xfce, Budgie, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE and the list goes on and on. Enough already I say, they all vary a lot in terms of features and time could be better spent on many others parts of the Linux desktop now.
Finally, I'm still very happy after switching from Ubuntu to Antergos. I've now settled with the GNOME Shell desktop with two extensions and it's glorious:
I couldn't imagine having to go back to PPAs again to get extra software, my love for the Arch AUR is never ending.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: SkarjakComplaining about fragmentation is completely ridiculous.
No, it's not. Especially when it slows down Linux desktop progress a lot. You just don't pay attention, or aren't aware how complex moving from X11 to Wayland for many projects can be (consider Firefox, Wine, Qt, GTK, SDL and so on). Adding Mir to that mix could slow them down even more. So it's a major win that Mir is now being canned.
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 April 2017 at 2:41 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: liamdaweI've been shown a different log in IRC now https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2017/04/07/%23snappy.html where Mir will stay for IoT devices.
That's weird. The reason they are dropping Mir is lack of manpower to reinvent the wheel. Why would they keep it now, if Wayland can work on IoT devices all the same?
Wouldn't be the first time they go back on their word using Wayland in the end ;-).
I don't see more security issues with Wayland than I do with Mir.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: SkarjakComplaining about fragmentation is completely ridiculous.
No, it's not. Especially when it slows down Linux desktop progress a lot. You just don't pay attention, or aren't aware how complex moving from X11 to Wayland for many projects can be (consider Firefox, Wine, Qt, GTK, SDL and so on). Adding Mir to that mix could slow them down even more. So it's a major win that Mir is now being canned.
And fragmentation in an open environment will happen. Always. The question is where the fragmentation lays. On a layer like the desktop - phew, who cares. Yes, of course if all would pull on the same string a project would have more manpower. And more overhad, different views, and more discussions. I personally do not see the desktop layer as an issue, even if there are dozens of desktops out there. It would be nice if all would come together and work on one thing, if not - ok.
Breaking on a technological level as Mir and Wayland - that's an issue. That's a huge issue and had potential impact on dozens of projects (games, window managers, graphics drivers, toolkits .. just to name a few).
We are mostly focussed in the Linux world. There are not too many technological choices on a real low level (system whise, not talking package managers and stuff like that). Probably because it IS harder to devlop in that space, and there are not too many people with the skillset.
Mountain Man Apr 7, 2017
QuoteQuestion: Is there any interest in me doing a separate site to cover general Linux news?In my case, no. There are already dozens of tech sites out there covering Linux news. Stick with your niche.
Quoting: GrimfistBecause there is one thing that Unity 7 did absolutly right compared to ALL other Linux DE's out there, in times where 16:9 widescreens are the norm, vertical screen space is very precious compared to horizontal screen space. Having a monstrous launcher bar at the bottom is just bad UX design when you can have it at the left side of the screen, preserving precious vertical screen space and using the available but only 80% or so used horizontal screen space. And delivering such a good out of the box experience is what drives Ubuntu.KDE is very configurable. While KDE's default layout isn't too great, everyone can tweak it easily. I reduced the vertical space usage on my desktop running KDE already in 2008 after a conversation with a friend and kind of stuck with that custom design until I switched to i3 last year.
Quoting: GrimfistBecause there is one thing that Unity 7 did absolutly right compared to ALL other Linux DE's out there, in times where 16:9 widescreens are the norm, vertical screen space is very precious compared to horizontal screen space. Having a monstrous launcher bar at the bottom is just bad UX design when you can have it at the left side of the screen, preserving precious vertical screen space and using the available but only 80% or so used horizontal screen space. And delivering such a good out of the box experience is what drives Ubuntu.
Actually, this is just sometimes true.
When I use in example QtCreator, I have a project pane left, a debugging pane right and often the documentation frame to the right. I have less space horizontally than vertically....
Most 3d studios, animation software etc. are moving to a horizontal layout...
Yes, there are plenty of them, so here´s my 2 cents on why he should do it :
Over the years I have seen (tech) news sites come and go, rise and fall. If we don´t, on occasion, have some new ones popping up then you run the risk of getting stuck in sites that have dropped their standards so low that they´re no longer relevant - tomshardware springs to mind, used to be great when Tom was still doing the critical reporting, sunk like a brick ever since he left - just an example.
Getting linux news from a guy who already does a proper job on reporting the gaming side would be interesting to see, different angle and frequent nods on how some news would/could affect the gaming side of linux - yes please.
Also, I think it would be good for Liam too. Reporting on games only day in day out, come on - no matter how much you love gaming, it´s going to get stale at some point. Take it from a guy who once made his hobby his job : not a good idea. Diversify and you will be happier, trust me on this :)
Quick suggestion, I know it´s not an easy request, but if you do the news site, maybe pop something in about linux compatible hardware ? Or some way to report on that by users ? Maybe you could make that the little edge that makes the news site stand apart and a reason for people to visit the site specifically.
elbuglione Apr 7, 2017
Last edited by elbuglione on 7 April 2017 at 4:17 pm UTC
at least that's how I would do it...
About the Ubuntu killing Unity... who knows, will probably have both positive and negative consequences, hopefully the bilance will be in favour of positive ones :P
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