Canonical detail improvements the Steam Snap, work to advance gaming continues on Ubuntu

The extension framework did eventually land, making Shell usable again, but by that time Unity had a groundswell of fans.

Like any GNOME purist, I completely disagree with the premise. GNOME is great even without extensions and I don't use any. Though needing to hit alt when selecting the power options to get to a "hidden" option was a decision that was thankfully quickly reversed.

As usual, it baffles me that people pick on Canonical as the bad guy whenever they innovate. They're not afraid to drop things when better things come along, but they have a vision and when existing tech can't supply on that vision, they innovate. The essence of Linux, but they're constantly trashed for it.

I think Unity was cool though I've never tried it, Upstart was a good idea, and Bazaar was definitely a good idea. I thought Ubuntu Touch was probably the best idea but Canonical weren't committed to it.

I agree in general that Canonical's innovation is something to admire. Waiting around for upstream to implement your changes if they even feel like they match the project's needs is just the wrong move. Especially when you have the resources to move on your own.

Snap, though, I really don't like. Because it's doing way more to divide the community than bring it together. Snap only works properly and securely on Ubuntu because Ubuntu is the only distribution that carries the correct kernel patches and they still haven't managed to get them upstreamed after several years. So even though Canonical is doing a great thing by directly engaging with software vendors to get their software on Linux through Snap, I wish they'd do something that benefitted every distribution rather than just themselves. They're under no obligation to, obviously, but it's just annoying.

I wish they'd at least pre-install Flatpak and setup the Flathub remote on Ubuntu. Then, users from every major distribution wouldn't need to use the terminal to setup the easiest way to install software on Linux.

And Mir's still around, though it's a Wayland compositor nowadays. I don't know enough about it to say whether it was a good or bad thing. But they contribute to protocol discussions, so that's cool.

I also think System76 are doing some really cool things with COSMIC. I don't think there was anyone who thought Unity was a poor decision? Are there really people that have that opinion?

Is Ubuntu the only distro still pushing Snaps?

The extension framework did eventually land, making Shell usable again, but by that time Unity had a groundswell of fans.

Like any GNOME purist, I completely disagree with the premise. GNOME is great even without extensions and I don't use any. Though needing to hit alt when selecting the power options to get to a "hidden" option was a decision that was thankfully quickly reversed.

As usual, it baffles me that people pick on Canonical as the bad guy whenever they innovate. They're not afraid to drop things when better things come along, but they have a vision and when existing tech can't supply on that vision, they innovate. The essence of Linux, but they're constantly trashed for it.

I think Unity was cool though I've never tried it, Upstart was a good idea, and Bazaar was definitely a good idea. I thought Ubuntu Touch was probably the best idea but Canonical weren't committed to it.

I agree in general that Canonical's innovation is something to admire. Waiting around for upstream to implement your changes if they even feel like they match the project's needs is just the wrong move. Especially when you have the resources to move on your own.

Snap, though, I really don't like. Because it's doing way more to divide the community than bring it together. Snap only works properly and securely on Ubuntu because Ubuntu is the only distribution that carries the correct kernel patches and they still haven't managed to get them upstreamed after several years. So even though Canonical is doing a great thing by directly engaging with software vendors to get their software on Linux through Snap, I wish they'd do something that benefitted every distribution rather than just themselves. They're under no obligation to, obviously, but it's just annoying.

I wish they'd at least pre-install Flatpak and setup the Flathub remote on Ubuntu. Then, users from every major distribution wouldn't need to use the terminal to setup the easiest way to install software on Linux.

And Mir's still around, though it's a Wayland compositor nowadays. I don't know enough about it to say whether it was a good or bad thing. But they contribute to protocol discussions, so that's cool.

I also think System76 are doing some really cool things with COSMIC. I don't think there was anyone who thought Unity was a poor decision? Are there really people that have that opinion?

I don't think there's anyone much who thinks doing Unity at all was a bad thing. I think some felt that they were acting like it was intended to be one DE to rule them all, to "Unify" the Linux experience, and weren't enthused about that perceived attitude. I can't say whether that was actually their attitude, but I do remember such a perception existing, which was kind of helped along just by calling it "Unity".

Like any GNOME purist, I completely disagree with the premise. GNOME is great even without extensions and I don't use any.

I'm sure that's true now, (for you and many others, even though I still disagree) but back in 2010, the original Shell beta was baffling and largely unusable unless you followed blogs that described the philosophy behind it.

Just tried Ubuntu 24.04 last week, installed Steam from snap and had 2 bugs:
1. I couldn't add more than 1 item to storage (1 + default), which made it unusable for me.
2. I couldn't add Proton-GE, it didn't see folder where Proton-GE was located.

Removed the snap package, installed the .deb package from Steam - and everything worked fine.


Last edited by MaximB on 18 June 2024 at 8:30 am UTC

why do they always have to do the Not-Invented-Here thing all the time.

You are aware that most of the NIH stuff came before nowadays established alternatives?

upstart (2006) preceded systemd (2010).
Unity (2010) preceded Gnome Shell (2011).
Snap (2014) preceded Flatpak (2015).
And when Mir was announced in 2013 Wayland was a long shot from being remotely usable.
Even Bazaar (26 March 2005) came a few days before Git (7 April 2005 after a 3 day development).

Stop making sense and hop on the Canonical hate train. Shoo shoo!

Jokes aside I truly for my life cannot understand all the push-back Canonical receives no matter what they do. I suspect is because I'm a former Windows user, I didn't care about things like package formats then and I still don't on Linux. I don't even know what different package formats are used on Windows. It's just one of those things that never comes up but when I switched to Linux then suddenly the community is very engaged if an app is snap, flatpack, appimage or whatever. It's like moving to a new country and realizing that you can never be fully part of the culture.

Like any GNOME purist, I completely disagree with the premise. GNOME is great even without extensions and I don't use any.

I'm sure that's true now, (for you and many others, even though I still disagree) but back in 2010, the original Shell beta was baffling and largely unusable unless you followed blogs that described the philosophy behind it.

I've heard stories. Not having a "shutdown" button was the one I remember, but I can't find sources for it.

Please, if you can find anything about dumb designs for the original GNOME 3, I'd love to see it.

I think GNOME has the best interface, hands down, but they need to catch up to KDE Plasma in terms of Wayland support, they need better multi-monitor support, and why can't they just get along with everyone else?

So I use both. And soon, COSMIC, hopefully.

I think some felt that they were acting like it was intended to be one DE to rule them all, to "Unify" the Linux experience, and weren't enthused about that perceived attitude.

There's no pleasing some people. And Linux users are the hardest to please. Cynical by nature; pedantic by vocation.

supporting externally downloaded .deb files

It still baffles me that a supposedly user-friendly distribution required you to use apt in the terminal to install .deb files until now.

Note that this is for the App Center that they introduced in 23.10, their previous app did support installing external .deb files from the GUI just fine.

I'm only speaking from experience; the last time I needed to try Ubuntu for the sake of documentation was 23.04 and I could not for the life of me figure out how to install a .deb file. When I double-clicked it, it would open up the software store and try to install the older one in Ubuntu's repositories. Maddening.

Strange, in 23.04 they used the GNOME Software Center and I routinely clicked on .debs to install them externally (though have to be said that the .debs that I installed externally didn't also exist in the repos).

Like any GNOME purist, I completely disagree with the premise. GNOME is great even without extensions and I don't use any.

I'm sure that's true now, (for you and many others, even though I still disagree) but back in 2010, the original Shell beta was baffling and largely unusable unless you followed blogs that described the philosophy behind it.

I've heard stories. Not having a "shutdown" button was the one I remember, but I can't find sources for it.

Please, if you can find anything about dumb designs for the original GNOME 3, I'd love to see it.

I think GNOME has the best interface, hands down, but they need to catch up to KDE Plasma in terms of Wayland support, they need better multi-monitor support, and why can't they just get along with everyone else?

So I use both. And soon, COSMIC, hopefully.

I think some felt that they were acting like it was intended to be one DE to rule them all, to "Unify" the Linux experience, and weren't enthused about that perceived attitude.

There's no pleasing some people. And Linux users are the hardest to please. Cynical by nature; pedantic by vocation.

Not sure how correct any of Linus's rant are here (I never used Gnome 3.x myself), but the Internet was not kind to Gnome 3 when it came out:

Linus Torvalds finds GNOME 3.4 to be a "total user experience design failure"

I only dislike the latest version of the GNOME Linux desktop, Linus Torvalds, Linux's primary inventor, hates it.

And that was for 3.4 what was the fixed version, imagine just how much was written when 3.0 came. It's the whole reason why MATE exists and for Canonical that up to then had been THE Gnome desktop they saw no other path forward than to create Unity, it was less of a NIH and more of a major user backlash.

Linus Torvalds would like to see a GNOME fork
A shiny new ornament for your Linux lawn: Ars reviews GNOME 3.0
GNOME 3: Shocking changes for Linux lovers

Linus came around in the end though: Linus Torvalds switches back to Gnome 3.x desktop


Last edited by F.Ultra on 18 June 2024 at 6:55 pm UTC

Strange, in 23.04 they used the GNOME Software Center and I routinely clicked on .debs to install them externally (though have to be said that the .debs that I installed externally didn't also exist in the repos).

Ubuntu always packages an out-of-date version of Lutris, which lacks certain important features, so the newer version was a requirement. I didn't do any testing outside of that package, so it's good to know that the Lightworks .deb package would likely have worked, for example.

Not sure how correct any of Linus's rant are here (I never used Gnome 3.x myself), but the Internet was not kind to Gnome 3 when it came out:

Linus Torvalds finds GNOME 3.4 to be a "total user experience design failure"

I only dislike the latest version of the GNOME Linux desktop, Linus Torvalds, Linux's primary inventor, hates it.

And that was for 3.4 what was the fixed version, imagine just how much was written when 3.0 came. It's the whole reason why MATE exists and for Canonical that up to then had been THE Gnome desktop they saw no other path forward than to create Unity, it was less of a NIH and more of a major user backlash.

Linus Torvalds would like to see a GNOME fork
A shiny new ornament for your Linux lawn: Ars reviews GNOME 3.0
GNOME 3: Shocking changes for Linux lovers

Linus came around in the end though: Linus Torvalds switches back to Gnome 3.x desktop

Thanks! I knew a little about Linus and GNOME 3, but it's good to have a comprehensive account. Linus was more active in the desktop space back then, but it's still surprising to see him make comments (positive or negative) on the state of a particular desktop. He never does that anymore. I suppose that's a good an indication as any as to how polarising (or dire, if you take a certain view) the design was.

Like any GNOME purist, I completely disagree with the premise. GNOME is great even without extensions and I don't use any.

I'm sure that's true now, (for you and many others, even though I still disagree) but back in 2010, the original Shell beta was baffling and largely unusable unless you followed blogs that described the philosophy behind it.

Having owned a Nokia N900, it made perfect sense to me. I still miss using that phone, it was lovely.

And that was for 3.4 what was the fixed version, imagine just how much was written when 3.0 came.

The responses you've linked are pretty well. And the workflow hasn't changed since the initial GNOME 3 release. It was tweaked (more so in the recent past), but overall it's still the same (empty desktop with top bar, activities with dynamic workspaces & dock).

If, on the other hand, you really don't care what your desktop looks like and you just want to get some work done, GNOME 3 is a huge step up over GNOME 2.

[…]

As someone who has traditionally replaced GNOME's standard interface with tools like Docky and GNOME Do, I initially found GNOME 3 disorienting. But, after using it for a few days (via Fedora 15 beta), I found that GNOME 3 had slipped into my workflow with very little effort on my part.

The solid technical work that has been done under the hood really complements the new user experience features in GNOME 3.0. Despite some of the gaps in the feature set, I think that the environment and the new shell is a good starting point for building something even better. The GNOME contributors will be able to iterate on the design and move it forward in future updates.

It's the whole reason why MATE exists and for Canonical that up to then had been THE Gnome desktop they saw no other path forward than to create Unity, it was less of a NIH and more of a major user backlash.

Unity (2010) preceded Gnome Shell (2011).

Your timeline does not work out. How could Canonical release Unity as a result of user backlash when it was released before GNOME 3 was released? Mate on the other hand was forked as a direct result of the GNOME 3 release.

Stop making sense and hop on the Canonical hate train. Shoo shoo!

Jokes aside I truly for my life cannot understand all the push-back Canonical receives no matter what they do.

I'd say the problem all have with Canonical: They are really bad at developing open source software. You either take care of the project yourself (as all big techs do) or create a real open source projects. Canonical does neither and in the end they usually get abandoned. If the only way to contribute to Canonical software is to fork the project then people will rather start their own instead. With snap they even stopped pretending & just made it proprietary.

Your timeline does not work out. How could Canonical release Unity as a result of user backlash when it was released before GNOME 3 was released? Mate on the other hand was forked as a direct result of the GNOME 3 release.

Canonical was somewhat invested in GNOME development at the time and the design plans for what became GNOME Shell was announced already back in 2008 at the GNOME User Experience Hackfest in Boston and pre releases of GNOME Shell was relased in 2009.

Also the Unity released in 2010 was a pure shell on top of GNOME meant to be used on netbooks and wasn't planned to replace GNOME on the regular Ubuntu until the backlash of GNOME 3 so they brought it back and changed it for Ubuntu 11.04 in 2011.

Canonical was somewhat invested in GNOME development at the time and the design plans for what became GNOME Shell was announced already back in 2008 at the GNOME User Experience Hackfest in Boston and pre releases of GNOME Shell was relased in 2009.

Also the Unity released in 2010 was a pure shell on top of GNOME meant to be used on netbooks and wasn't planned to replace GNOME on the regular Ubuntu until the backlash of GNOME 3 so they brought it back and changed it for Ubuntu 11.04 in 2011.

GNOME 3 was released in 2011, the backlash happened in 2011 (see Mate fork) but the shift to Unity happened before 2011. There's a lot drama documented in various posts, it does not include "the users wanted it".

Had Canonical their users in mind, they wouldn't have released Unity in 11.04. The criticism was plenty & the release was not ready.

Canonical was somewhat invested in GNOME development at the time and the design plans for what became GNOME Shell was announced already back in 2008 at the GNOME User Experience Hackfest in Boston and pre releases of GNOME Shell was relased in 2009.

Also the Unity released in 2010 was a pure shell on top of GNOME meant to be used on netbooks and wasn't planned to replace GNOME on the regular Ubuntu until the backlash of GNOME 3 so they brought it back and changed it for Ubuntu 11.04 in 2011.

GNOME 3 was released in 2011, the backlash happened in 2011 (see Mate fork) but the shift to Unity happened before 2011. There's a lot drama documented in various posts, it does not include "the users wanted it".

Had Canonical their users in mind, they wouldn't have released Unity in 11.04. The criticism was plenty & the release was not ready.

Nope, it wasn't ready. But it was still a better experience than Shell back then, which had hidden activities and weird mouse zones and all sorts of strange workflow changes. They also considered staying on Gnome 2, if I remember correctly, but Mark (Shuttleworth) already had one eye on his upcoming phone UX, and so doing their own thing with Unity/Mir was a pretty bold step for them.

I suspect that if the Unity Phone had succeeded in their IndieGogo campaign, Unity would still be the primary desktop on Ubuntu today, and likely, powered by Mir. When the phone failed, however, priorities subtlety changed over the next five years, until of course, they abandoned several technologies (Upstart, Mir, Unity) to consolidate their efforts on cloud, core, and snap.

I suspect that if the Unity Phone had succeeded in their IndieGogo campaign, Unity would still be the primary desktop on Ubuntu today, and likely, powered by Mir.

How did Canonical seriously believe they would be able to get 32 million dollars from crowdfunding?

They got 12 million instead, which is mind-boggling. They set the bar way too high.

Nope, it wasn't ready. But it was still a better experience than Shell back then, which had hidden activities and weird mouse zones and all sorts of strange workflow changes.

That's your opinion but off-topic. There are enough people who disagree & Unity did not fare better.

They also considered staying on Gnome 2, if I remember correctly, but Mark (Shuttleworth) already had one eye on his upcoming phone UX, and so doing their own thing with Unity/Mir was a pretty bold step for them.

That's what I mean: Pushing Unity had absolutely nothing to do with GNOME 3 user backlash but was about self-interest.

I suspect that if the Unity Phone had succeeded in their IndieGogo campaign, Unity would still be the primary desktop on Ubuntu today, and likely, powered by Mir. When the phone failed, however, priorities subtlety changed over the next five years, until of course, they abandoned several technologies (Upstart, Mir, Unity) to consolidate their efforts on cloud, core, and snap.

Great point: It would be a success had it been a success. But this shows the issues with Canonical projects: They're not sustainable. They create closed projects which in turn obviously fail to attract external developers and in the end are abandoned.

That's your opinion but off-topic.

It was entirely on-topic to the comment I was replying to. Welcome to the internet, where opinions are stated frequently.

That's what I mean: Pushing Unity had absolutely nothing to do with GNOME 3 user backlash but was about self-interest.

Gnome 3 had a big impact the way I remember it. Canonical wanted to tailor the experience either upstream itself, or via extensions, but neither option panned out.

Great point: It would be a success had it been a success.

Please don't oversimplify my point just to make a snide internet victory. I said the if the phone had succeeded, we would have a very different desktop experience.

But this shows the issues with Canonical projects: They're not sustainable.

This is obviously false. Or maybe it's just your opinion? I remember things like Upstart being adopted distro-wide for many years before being replaced by systemd, and Uncomplicated Firewall is the default is in most distros today. Launchpad is still widely used. And a host of smaller enhancements to Gnome, like software-properties to help simplify Nvidia driver installs/change repos, or more agnostic projects, like lightdm, the apport error reporting system, or the ubiquity installer.

From the tone of your reply, it sounds like you have real beef with Canonical. I don't advocate for them anymore, but I still respect the impact they had and still have today. Why so negative on them?

This is obviously false. Or maybe it's just your opinion? I remember things like Upstart being adopted distro-wide for many years before being replaced by systemd, and Uncomplicated Firewall is the default is in most distros today.

I only remember a couple distros like Fedora adopting Upstart. I'm pretty sure it was never included in CentOS.

I've never heard of Uncomplicated Firewall. I pretty much use arno's firewall for configuring iptables. Or firewalld.

It was entirely on-topic to the comment I was replying to.

You replied to my comment. I do know that I never asked anyones opinion about GNOME Shell or Unity, the topic is still the reason & timing for starting Unity.

Gnome 3 had a big impact the way I remember it. Canonical wanted to tailor the experience either upstream itself, or via extensions, but neither option panned out.

Exactly, you even agree with me. The reason for Unity was political issues between the GNOME project & Canonical. No user interests were involved.

Please don't oversimplify my point just to make a snide internet victory. I said the if the phone had succeeded, we would have a very different desktop experience.

I don't simplify, I'm telling you it's a pointless argument. It wasn't a success so why bother with what-ifs? If Canonical had made billions with the phone they'd probably moved away from open source releases. But that's another pure speculative & useless what-if. It was a failure and as a result they killed two projects.

This is obviously false. Or maybe it's just your opinion? I remember things like Upstart being adopted distro-wide for many years before being replaced by systemd, and Uncomplicated Firewall is the default is in most distros today. Launchpad is still widely used. And a host of smaller enhancements to Gnome, like software-properties to help simplify Nvidia driver installs/change repos, or more agnostic projects, like lightdm, the apport error reporting system, or the ubiquity installer.

Upstart was killed as soon as it was certain Canonical was on their own.

Everything small (UFW, lightdm, extensiond & driver installer) are just small projects which don't show much maintenance (UFW & lightdm have rarely releases, both exactly 1 in the last 2 years).

The others have not yet been killed & apparently see development. Congratulations Canonical. What a great success story & I was wrong all along (since Ubiquity is being replaced by a new installer, it'll obviously die soon).

From the tone of your reply, it sounds like you have real beef with Canonical. I don't advocate for them anymore, but I still respect the impact they had and still have today. Why so negative on them?

I value Free Software. Since Canonical does not (as I said, the only way to contribute to Canonical projects is to fork them), I don't value Canonical. Actually, scratch that. Who am I to tell anyone how to make their money. I dislike Canonical because they present themselves as a free software company while hiding their proprietary projects behind the GPL. Even Valve does a better job providing Free Software.

I only remember a couple distros like Fedora adopting Upstart. I'm pretty sure it was never included in CentOS.

It was the init system of RHEL6. Apparently it would've been improved if it hadn't been CLAed.


Last edited by poiuz on 24 June 2024 at 7:03 pm UTC

I think the bigger issue with Canonical is that their previous open-source projects was developed, dropped in the open, and if you wanted to submit a fix you had to sign a CLA.

That's basically signalling that they didn't really want to cooperate.

A few of their projects was very successful in my opinion. Unity is one of them.

Another big issue is their doubling down on their own thing which is incompatible with everyone else, like them dragging Upstart for years after it was clear they lost to Systemd, and the same with how they Snap everything.

Canonical doesn't listen to its users, Even when they have something good (like early Unity) they make it really hard for anyone else to use, and even harder for anyone else to work on it.
Then after the initial good work, they leave it to stagnate.

Same with Launchpad. Same with Upstart.
Look at the LXD fiasco, their one project that got outside traction somehow affronted them and they killed it off.

There is some really weird culture going on there.