Ubuntu 11.10 Opinions

[jmadero]

What's everyone think?

[MASONTX]

When 11.04 came out, it didn't work out of the box on my computer, 11.10 does. I still have 10.04 on my computer though, and will leave it there until 12.04 comes out, then will decide to install it, or go with Lubuntu 12.04 on something else.

[daark.child]

I took it for a spin and to be honest, I still don't like Unity. The base system worked fine, but for me, Unity just doesn't cut it for my needs.

[elija]

I think Unity has come a long way in 6 months. It's faster and more stable as well as being prettier. It's a lot better than the Gnome Shell but I'm still not a fan of it. Other than that I have had no issues except ones caused by the interface. I truly hate having to click on a tiny triangle to restore a minimised application and guessing which one of multiple triangles to try on click on if I have more than one instance open.

[cynwulf]

Personally I am largely indifferent to the distro itself, but I do dislike the misleading marketing, the overzealous manner in which their forums are run and their stupid policies on things like sudo and the root account. For me FLOSS software is about freedom of information and choice, someone saying "don't tell someone else how to do that or we'll delete the post/ban you", is both morally wrong and abhorrent.

[jayd512]

Yes and No to this.
I like Ubuntu. It's a little bloated, but that's fine. That just makes it easier for new users who are making the switch, since there is an abundant amount of software installed.
Once installed, I've never had the system crash or totally freeze up. It remains stable and responsive.

But I don't like where they are going graphically. I used Unity just long enough to know that, for me, it's a distraction and a hindrance.
And Unity requires more hardware resources than some folks actually have, which causes quite a bit of frustration with the user base. Either Unity bogs down a system, or it fails to load properly.

[jmadero]

Interesting replies. For me I have become a quasi-fan of Unity and Gnome Shell, I think at the beginning I was against both but have since gotten used to them and accept that the vast majority of people have higher resources these days and there is no need to make a brand new interface be compatible with 10+ year old hardware -- for those people, there are plenty of other choices out there.

As for the limiting choice comment, I simply disagree. Ubuntu contributes back to the open source environment, and Mr. Shuttleworth has invested a tremendous amount of resources into giving FOSS a new dimension that is more available to the masses. Although for a lot of us who have been with open source for years and think "well, learn tech stuff" instead of making bloated OS's, I think this is unreal and removed from the masses and there is no better move for Linux than to get people to convert from those who are ruining all software by making ill defined patents that slow down innovation.

Lastly, 11.10 has completely failed to work on one of my systems (actually my wife's Mini) so, that's disappointing. 10.04-11.04 worked, and now I can't even get it to boot (freezes up pretty quick into the booting process). I suspect it's a graphics card issue but the reality is it worked before, and I expected it to work this time as well. Going to follow up with some bug reports on launchpad and hope that soon all of our systems can be running 11.10.

Thanks for the input, hope to hear some more opinions

[Peter D]

I upgraded my laptop from 11.04 the other day. 11.10 is certainly an improvement. I liked Unity on 11.04; it's better on 11.10. The whole thing feels slicker and more usable.

I still have 10.04 on my desktop. I'll almost certainly wait until 12.04 to upgrade that.