As most of you are aware, Ubuntu is switching to the Unity desktop interface for Ubuntu 11.04. Although I am a fan of the KDE desktop, I felt that it was necessary to at least give Unity a shot, and see how it’s turning out.While the new Unity interface looks nice, there are more than a few problems that make it unusable, at least for me. So, here in this article, I’ll cover the annoyances that I’ve discovered. Please be reminded that Unity is still currently in beta, and therefore, some of these things may change by the time Ubuntu 11.04 is actually released.
The first thing that I would like to point out is that after about 10 minutes of using Unity, I developed a headache. I normally don’t get headaches while using my computer. And as I write this article, I’m starting to get a headache (and I’m using Unity right now). I don’t know what’s causing this, but I do not have this problem on Kubuntu 11.04.
The next major problem that I’ve run into is the inability to move the launcher to the bottom of the screen. While there may be people who like it on the left hand side, I do not. I understand the design goals of having it on the left by default, but there is no option to move it to the bottom, and according to Mark Shuttleworth, this is by design, and will not be fixed. In my opinion, this is completely unacceptable. Also, the launcher hides itself by default, if you move a window underneath it, with no way to disable this behavior. I would like to be able to have the launcher always visible.
Ubuntu comes with Firefox 4 installed as the default web browser. Firefox has the lower status bar (now called the Add-on Bar) disabled by default, which I like. It gives me more vertical space in the browser window. However, Unity puts a small resizing handle on the bottom right corner of all windows. With a web page that is longer than the vertical height of the screen (which is most web pages), this resizing handle covers the control for scrolling down, which I use quite often.
Next up is Qt application integration. In my previous review of Kubuntu 11.04 Beta 1, I mentioned that GTK applications now look very nice in KDE, with no configuration necessary, and I was expecting the same to be true of Qt applications in a GTK environment. However, I was not pleased upon installing my favorite IRC client, Quassel.
As you can see from the screenshot above, Qt applications in Ubuntu just do not look right. I’m sure this is something that can be fixed, but if Kubuntu can make GTK applications look great in KDE by default, Ubuntu should be able to do the same thing.
I have a pretty standard layout for my commonly used windows – I have my IM list on the right hand side of the screen, and my web browser taking up the rest of the available area. It’s nice to be able to snap the edge of one window to the edge of another, leaving no gap or overlapping of the windows. This is not currently possible in Unity – windows can only be snapped to the edges of the screen. This also disappoints me, especially since Unity does not seem to remember the position and sizing of windows when rebooting.
The rest of the annoyances that I’ve noticed are pretty minor – for example, the Ubuntu menu not closing if you click the Ubuntu icon again, and having to double click in the workspace switcher to switch to the desired workspace. I have also never been a fan of Ubuntu moving the minimize, maximize, and close buttons to the left hand side of the window. As you can see in the screenshot posted above, I was able to accomplish this, but to do so, I had to use gconf-editor, which is an unnecessary hassle.
Unity does look nice – I give the Canonical design team a lot of credit for that. But I cannot use a desktop interface just because it looks nice – it has to be capable of a few specific things that I am used to and use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, Unity does not even allow me the choice of changing the things that I dislike. Therefore, I cannot recommend Unity to users who follow similar usage patterns as I do, or to those who wish to customize their experience. Unity might, however, be perfect for someone who is looking for a nice looking interface, and doesn’t care about customizing it. I can see Unity becoming a good touch-screen interface, as well, perfect for tablets (if the launcher hiding were disabled). But it just doesn’t cut it for my use on my laptop.
I share the same sentiments concerning Unity.
I agree…within 10 minutes, I found it frustrating to use…let alone find anything! A couple of clicks, Terminal opens, but with Unity, search for Terminal, yadda yadda,yadda…luckily, I had the option to go back to classic interface…hopefully this stays
Unfortunately, the Classic interface will not be present in 11.10, according to Mark Shuttleworth’s comments on Launchpad. Bad move for Ubuntu, in my opinion, but, surely someone will package the Classic desktop into a PPA.
To me unity should be nothing more then the left side bar, but what got me annoyed was the fact the Ubuntu strives to look like Mac OS….. I must say that I can’t emphasize enough on how much I hate the global menu feature and the left sided buttons. If the scroll bar is on the right, why make us go all the way to the left to the close button.
OK the design does look great, but the lack of customizable features does get previous users angry…. and so on.
In my opinion, they should keep unity as a default for the simple reason of attracting new users, that just want something that works straight out of the box. The classic view with the top and bottom panel might have been confusing to many new users that just wanted something new but where unwilling to research on its customizable kinks.
But they should have left what more Ubuntu fans loved about the OS like leaving the main top panel unlocked so you as a user can decide how you want your system to look. Plus you cant even move the panel to the bottom of the screen (windows has that option). Imagine flipping the panel to the bottom along with the bar (trash flips and goes to the upper right corner, as if seen upside down), that alone would ease through the transition for windows users, until they wanted to customize it in theire own unique way…