For those who haven’t been following Linux in general or Ubuntu specifically, version 11.04, released at the end of April 2011, features the Unity environment by default. Unity, originally designed for netbooks and first included in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, is a radical departure from the typical two-panel GNOME (or Gnome, as I refuse to type all those capitals every single time) desktop UI. It includes, among other things, a launcher strip (called, unimaginatively, the Launcher) on the left side of the screen that functions similarly to the OSX Dock or Windows 7′s new taskbar.
The upshot of this is that, for most people, Unity is a love-it-or-hate-it UI. I think one of the most objective appraisals of Unity I’ve yet read is Paul Ryan’s review of 11.04 on Ars Technica. In it, he found praise for several features, including the Launcher, but criticized other features, such as the Dash and the uselessness of the default Lenses (I would be even less charitable than he in regards to the Files one, which is just as useless as the other two, IMO). Overall I would agree with his conclusion, that Unity is a good step in the right direction but that it certainly hasn’t reached maturity.
So now we reach the question. Canonical decided to go whole hog with Unity, despite friction with the Gnome community. In fact, they’re pot-committed now—they have pledged to make Unity the only choice in 11.10, with a 2D version offered as the fallback. The question is whether or not, in the face of everything I’ve listed above, this was a good choice on Canonical’s part. In my humble opinion, I think it was a good choice. Let me explain.
First, let me offer my full disclosure: on the whole, I like Unity. I am aware of its shortcomings, of course. The application discovery system frankly stinks. On the other hand, I’ve been using Linux distros, on and off, for long enough to know what each major application I use is called and what it does. And for this sort of user, Unity works quite well on account of the search function in the Dash. It never takes me more than a few seconds to get what I need, and that’s assuming it’s not already on the Launcher. I’m fully aware that I’m not a good analog for the “typical user/switcher” and that, for them, the lacking application organization is a bigger issue.
So what’s the point? Well, I think the outcry that has followed this release—much greater than usual for a version upgrade—is probably the best thing we could ever hope for. Unity has clear shortcomings, but it’s also the first time in a long time that Ubuntu has attempted such a monumental shift in user experience. To be honest, I had been getting really bored ever since 9.10, which would explain why I never A) completed my review, and B) revisited Ubuntu or Linux in general for very long until about a month ago. I’m intensely interested in Ubuntu now, and I eagerly await improvements to Unity in 11.10 (or augments to its capabilities pushed out for 11.04, such as new official Lenses). And I think, despite themselves, others are similarly interested. And, while many will complain loudly in forums, some will actually file bugs or requests to the Ubuntu devs. And this is where the strength of open source comes in. Unlike, say, Apple or Microsoft, the dev community takes the concerns of its users very seriously (not to imply and Apple and MS completely ignore their customers, but they clearly don’t have the same level of interaction as do open source devs). I don’t think the furor surrounding Unity has escaped Canonical. You may not like it, but the big C is behind this new interface, and they’re staking a lot on it. Therefore, more so than for the Apples and Microsofts of the world, I believe Canonical will be willing to investigate and address users’ concerns.
And that, folks, is the main reason why I believe they released Unity as the default UI in 11.04. They know that it’s not on feature parity with the traditional Gnome 2 interface, and they also know that, given the choice, few would switch to Unity to try it, especially if they read reviews that point this out. But if it comes by default, maybe they’ll spend a little time in it trying to get used to it. One of two things will happen: either they’ll find more positive bits than negative ones, in which case they’ll stick with Unity; or else they’ll find one or two showstopping shortcomings, and they’ll make a point of reporting these everywhere, on forums, in bug reports, etc. Either way, Canonical gets to tally up what works and what doesn’t, and, perhaps unwittingly, users are participating in what might be called an “extended beta.” The upshot is that this release isn’t the one that’s intended to court the mainstream computer user; next release is. If this is indeed the case, then I appreciate that Canonical won’t have tried to figure out what I need for me; they will allow me to try out their interface and tell them what I need. And if enough people agree, they’ll do it.
So fear not, folks. Unity will eventually evolve into something great, or else people will just move on to a different distro. That’s the great thing about open source: there’s always a choice. Canonical had just better pay attention to user feedback on Unity, or else many people will ultimately ditch Ubuntu.
) until this blows over. It’s not like there are any compelling forward-facing changes otherwise. I didn’t agree with Mozilla’s decision to inflate version numbers like this—if they wanted to have a rolling release like Chrome they should have made all the minor six-week updates point releases and bumped the version number once a year—and I’m not surprised that (sigh) version 7 isn’t very different from version 4.