[ale] screwing up the UI

[Ron Frazier]

Hi all,

I guess I must be getting old, at 45, because I see what I think is a 
disturbing trend amongst Linux development, and that is screwing around 
with, and screwing up, the user interface.  I was previously running 
Ubuntu 9.??.  I'm assuming that runs Gnome 2 by default.  When I 
eventually upgraded to 10.04, which I'm running now, the first thing I 
see is that the minimize, maximize, and exit buttons have moved to the 
left of the window.  What the heck.  I immediately proceed to put them 
back on the right WHERE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE.  Yes, I know, personal 
preference.  Why are they supposed to be there, because that's where 
virtually every computer user on the planet EXPECTS them to be.  After 
all, we don't spontaneously move the steering wheel in our cars for next 
model year to the right side in America or the left side in Europe, 
opposite of what we're used to.  We don't all of a sudden scramble all 
the letters on future keyboards, just because we can.  The result would 
be chaos.  Now, I saw on the tuxradar site that the Gnome 3 shell will 
not even have minimize and maximize buttons on windows.  Give me a 
break.  If true, you can bet I probably won't be using it.  Why bother 
with something that works.  I looked at this article, briefly, about the 
Unity interface.  It's a bit dated, so things may have changed somewhat.

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/taking-ubuntu-unity-interface-for-test.html

Now, from my brief review of it, I'm not impressed.  I may try it later 
in a VM.  Ubuntu 9 and 10 got me into Linux, and Gnome 2 (I presume) 
provided the UI.  This was enough like what I'm used to, ie Windows, 
that I didn't have a huge learning curve just to use the PC.  Now the 
trend seems to be, lets change everything we can, just because we can, 
whether it's better or not, and let's spring it on unsuspecting users 
for good measure so everyone will have to retrain themselves to use 
their computer.

My UI is doing exactly what I need, thank you very much.  Fortunately, 
since everyone has different tastes, it's pretty customizable, which 
apparently Unity is not.  For my purposes, I have a Gnome panel at the 
right and one at the top.  The one at the right shows system status, 
network status, firewall status, and gives me access to the sound, 
power, screen lock, firefox, the Ubuntu menu, and of course, the show 
the desktop button.  Oh, and the right panel also shows the date AND 
time, with instant access to the calendar.  The top panel is my taskbar, 
and shows a separate button for EACH window that's open, even if it's 
multiple windows for the same app.  It also shows the CPU temperature, 
and the frequency scaling widget for the CPU.  This is exactly the same 
way I have it set up in Windows, to the extent possible, and it does 
exactly what I need.

I'm sure everyone else has a different custom setup.  The point is, I 
could and did set it up the way I like it, and I don't like some 
designer coming along and saying, in the next version, we're going to 
screw with and change most of what you're used to or have customized, 
and oh by the way, these (pick a number) of features you like are going 
to vanish entirely.

Based on these observations and what I'm hearing in podcasts and such, I 
may just have to keep 10.04 until they stop patching it in 2013 (I 
think), then very cautiously try whatever the current crop of stuff is 
in VM's to see what the least painful change will be.  By the way, I'm 
still running Windows XP on one machine, and from a UI standpoint, it 
runs just fine, sometimes better than Vista.  This phenomenon is one 
reason why I'm reluctant to install Linux on my son's PC, etc.

OK, exit soapbox.  I feel better now.

Sincerely,

Ron


-- 

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Ron Frazier

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linuxdude AT c3energy.com