Ubuntu

So I tried Ubuntu 12.04 on the netbook and kinda liked it. I've since reverted the netbook back to Crunchbang, Ubuntu and Unity aren't quite right for the netbook. This time, I was impressed enough with Ubuntu and Unity, that I switched the laptop to it. Surprised? Yeah, me too.

Every new final release of Ubuntu has me curious to try it. The previous three have left me underwhelmed, this time with 12.04 LTS it's a much better initial reaction. That has caught me by surprise. It could be in part from low expectations having been surpassed, I'm not sure.

I'm growing increasingly impressed with Xubuntu but setting the default web browser is a nightmare. In theory, you simply choose your preferred web browser in the settings and it should be enough. Some applications just ignore this and open in whatever was set before them by the distro makers. There is a reason, and a solution.

The whole Gnome 3 / Unity thing has got me wondering if we're losing something we used to tout as a feature, a reason to free users from Windows; the freedom to change at your own pace and not have to retrain every time. When Gnome 2 becomes end of life, every distro will have to choose a new path. This post is aimed more at small companies, charities etc rather than home users but the principle does still apply. Lets step back a few years and put in a hypothetical example.

Canonical have their own ideas on what the UI should be, so they go ahead and create it. They call it Unity. They get a lot of backlash as other distributions first reject Unity, then a few accept it as an option further down the road, then reject it due to frustrations in not getting the cooperation they need from Canonical. Canonical want Ubuntu to have a unique selling point, Unity gives them that, so where's the problem?