Has Ubuntu Reached the End Of the Line?
I admit it. I'm impressed. I might have written a wishy-washy review of the beta of Ubuntu 9.04, but now I've had a chance to play with the final release, I like what I'm seeing. I like it a lot. Well done, Ubuntu guys!
The changes are subtle but impressive. The dramatic improvement in boot speeds is a lot more useful than it might first sound. It's no longer a matter of suspending to disk at the end of the day for me and my computers. Now I just shutdown and reboot. Hibernating is too time-consuming nowadays!
There can be no doubt that the Ubuntu guys have finally caught up with Windows and Mac OS X (and, after all, this was the whole point back in the beginning).
Crossing the line
However, I'd argue that Ubuntu actually crossed the finish line this time last year, when 8.04 was released. Sure, there were a few bad decisions rolled out as part of that release, including a sound subsystem that was essentially unfinished. But what you got with 8.04 was a genuine swap-in replacement for Windows or Mac OS X. It really was Linux for the ordinary human. No hype. No bullhonkey.
The new Network Manager in 8.10 brought significant functionality for mobile workers, but it's getting harder and harder to list genuinely new features in each release. Subsequent releases have been mostly about polishing the diamond.
All of this leaves the Ubuntu guys with a very real problem: Where do they go next? What do you do once you've won the race?
It's an interesting question, and it's not hard for those of us who follow Linux to dream-up suggestions. Just take-up a few interesting technologies that are lying about on the open source workshop benches. The Ubuntu project is already sponsoring the porting of Google Chrome to Linux, but they could be the first distro to feature Google's speedy new browser. That would be a significant coup. How about if they made Gnome Do a large part of the project? And what's been holding them back from including gDesklets all this time?
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- Dann
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Usability Issues
You do have a point, but apparently KDE4 is a very troubled project. There's a lot of bugs in KDE 4.2, and I hope they'll fix them. But what's more important is how KDE 4.2 differs from Vista. I've been an early adopter of Vista, and hence have used it for some years. When I tested KDE 4.2, I noticed that people truly familiar with Vista will have problems using KDE 4.2. There are some things that require knowledge of KDE4 concepts. For instance, the way the panels are configured is completely different from Windows: You can easily delete icons from panels, but you have to know that you can just as easily re-add them. The Start Menu like thing is also completely different from that of Vista, if you look closely at it.The same applies to GNOME: While it may appear that the concept has been borrowed from Windows 95, in fact GNOME is fundamentally different. Panels are all freely configurable, and what you see, is only the default setup provided by Ubuntu. The concepts in GNOME (and KDE) go back all the way to the earliest X window managers, like FVWM. XFCE for instance (another desktop manager for X) is based on CDE (without providing its drop-in actions, however), but can look like GNOME when configured such (as was done for Xubuntu).
BTW, there are four major Ubuntu distros: Ubuntu (the one using GNOME), Kubuntu (the one using KDE), Xubuntu (the one using XFCE), and Edubuntu (a specialized version for educational purposes).
I think that GNOME shell could be very useful. But unlike what you said, it's not something completely new, it's been borrowed from the recent versions of MacOS X and Windows Vista, as well as from existing X windowing technologies (X being the X Window System here; cf. www.x.org). The search bar thing (for programs) first appeared in Vista and was adopted into KDE 4 and GNOME Shell. The way applications can be dragged across workspaces existed since FVWM, when workspace switchers became commonplace. A workspace switcher lets you drag iconified applications across desktop workspaces. In current X window managers, there's also a pin button on the left side of every window title bar that lets you pin down windows on all workspaces. Then you switch workspaces and remove the pinning. So, the feature found in GNOME Shell is not surprising at all.
When you talk about usability, you're talking about usability for the Windows user. But you forget that the traditional X window system has been used for decades already by millions of other people that are familiar with X window managers and expect a progression of these developments. GNOME Shell is a modern progression of already concepts already familiar to X users.
Everytime Microsoft changes the user interface in dramatic ways (as from Windows 3.x to Windows 4 (NT4/95), or from XP to Vista, or from Vista to Windows 7), nobody complains about the amount of training involved for the users. So, I guess it's futile to advocate to the UNIX world to adhere to Windows concepts. Every new user interface requires learning, and Windows users already can familiarize themselves with GNOME or KDE with ease. But that's not because this has been intentional, but because the same concepts have been ubiquitous ever since Rand Xerox invented the GUI (which has been commercially adopted first by MacOS in 1983, and then by AmigaOS in 1984/85).
Users unfamiliar with traditional X concepts will get used to them over time. The more you know about GNOME, for instance, the more you can take advantage of it. But even if you're unwilling to learn something new, you still know how to click icons and choose from menus.
GNOME Shell is still under development, and so, what you see now will probably change. For instance, it's not a good idea to expect users to enter "gnome" into a search bar to find the GNOME menu applications. A simple button with the familiar GNOME menu icon that does the same thing will probably be sufficient to make the GNOME Shell accessible to users unfamiliar with it.
Linux needs a tool like Delphi
I think Linux needs a tool like Delphi which would boost the productivity of developers. There are tools for Linux but none are as polished as Delphi.I think Ubuntu group should also support Lazarus, an open source IDE like Delphi.
Sandeep
Delphi
Look up lazarushttp://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/
...a delphi clone - works OK on U9.4 with gnome but the window style is slightly different from gnome