Ubuntu 11.10 ('Oneiric Ocelot') Released

Cue the Ubuntu release parties — Ubuntu 11.10 has arrived. Ars Technica has a very positive summary of the changes in 11.10; Joe Brockmeier's piece of a few weeks back explains the return to Xen to Ubuntu and the introduction of Juju (formerly Ensemble). Asks an anonymous reader: "Any outstanding reasons why I shouldn't upgrade?" YMMV, but as a long-time Ubuntu user, and like many other users, I have mixed feelings about the concerted (and now complete) move away from a conventional WIMP interface to the new Unity. With previous versions, it was possible to choose a "classic" look rather than the default of Unity; now, for good or ill, the left-hand vertical menu is a permanent desktop element. It looks great to me, in the way the Canonical developers intend: as a consistent, replicable, supportable interface to recommend to (for instance) my parents — but I'm used to (and prefer!) more traditional WIMP environments, so at least for now have switched to Linux Mint's Debian Edition.

Unity == WIMP

[Anonymous Coward]

Unity is WIMP. There are windows, icons, menus, and a mouse pointer. The only difference is that there is a new taskbar that groups windows by application rather than by window.

Err....

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is this summary about... juju, WIMP...? I've been using linux for a long, long time and I have no idea what these things are. While I can't personally abide Debian or Ubuntu, a description would at least let me know if thare things I should check out or as is so often the case, begin compiling yet more packages so as to avoid them.

Re:What distribution left for developers?

[oakgrove]

I'd rather have my advanced UI

# apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

-alternatively-

# apt-get install openbox fbpanel

I'm sure there are others that can chime in with many more suggestions.

12.04 LTS

[Rik Sweeney]

The release after this is going to be called Precise Pangolin, which is an ant eater thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin [wikipedia.org]

Re:The end of Ubuntu for me?

[TheCarp]

Ok... whew I did a quick search because.... I couldn't believe there was really no way to easily abandon Unity.... took me about 3 seconds of web searching:
http://www.liberiangeek.net/2011/08/return-to-ubuntu-classic-desktop-in-ubuntu-11-10/ [liberiangeek.net]

I get to keep it a little while longer!

Satisfied with this release

[Windwraith]

I installed it a week ago while still in beta, and for the first time I didn't have to solve any unexpected situation, it was smooth. I actually rushed just to get an updated GIMP version (ppa never updated that version for 11.04, and the update fixes ORA support and single-window mode) , but didn't regret it.

Also, am I the only one that doesn't hate Unity? I don't use it, but I like what I see. I even adapted my KDE desktop to be kind of compliant (except for the shared menubar, I use panoramic and I have a setup of 1 big window and 3 side windows, and it's a mess to use a fixed menubar for all).
I jokingly name it Kunity: http://i.imgur.com/WvwDn.png [imgur.com]
(The taskbar is Icon Tasks, a plasmoid that implements the Unity API. For launching I don't need dash, I use Kupfer. That that thing at the corner is a Conway's life plasmoid, I am addicted to that thing).

I see myself eventually using Unity2D if I ever dump KDE (2D to avoid lag when developing GL games. Some effects are hard to see with compositing enabled, I keep it disabled in KDE). And the Unity Launcher API is very fun to play with. Made myself a nice launcher for Zim and a way to switch firefox profiles very quickly in just 5 seconds (not literally, but less than 30 min. including checking the specs and examples).

Re:apt-get install gnome?

[GPLHost-Thomas]

Debian's strict philosophy is offputting to many people, who don't quite understand how they benefit from getting "Iceweasel" instead of Firefox

There's nothing guided by philosophy here, but by trademark laws. That rename was IMPOSED by the Mozilla foundation, imposed thanks to their registered trademark they old for both the Firefox logo and the browser name. Because they didn't like Debian to back-port bugs in stable releases of Debian, and thus running a different code than Mozilla is producing. The source-code being free (libre) and without trademark, Debian has still the rights to ship Firefox if it's avoiding the trademarked logo and name. This renaming isn't something that Debian wants, it's a pain to maintain and an annoyance for the users. So why are you giving this as an example of Debian's miss-behavior, when here the issue is Mozilla refusing to do long-term support, and refusing that we do it under their name as well? Shouldn't you blame Mozilla instead?

Re:12.04 LTS

[Anonymous Coward]

I was about to say that, as Ubuntu is (or at least used to be) very African-themed, they'd only name their versions after African animals. And that obviously doesn't include penguins, right?

But then I checked and found: yes, there are penguins in Africa. [wikipedia.org]

wrong understanding of "WIMP interface"

[halfdan the black]

WIMP stands for "window, icon, menu, pointing device", which you have with 11.04 I think what the author is complaining about is that Unity (or Gnome3) are not what I call "windows 95" clones. We have had this disease in computing ever since Windows 95 that every interface has to look like Windows 95. Think about it, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, KDE, Gnome 2.x were ALL essentially copies of the Windows 95 user interface. (Gnome 1.x was more of a CDE clone). All of these had some basic things like start bar and a "desktop" with files and program links. So, instead of using the term WIMP, the author should have used something like "Windows 95 based" user interface. No, I am not particularly fond of Unity, not because its different, in fact a choice between Gnome 2.x or Unity, I would choose Unity. I do however MUCH prefer Gnome 3, its much more polished, consistent, customizable (css/javascript), the workflow is well thought out, and Gnome3 does not use a unified Mac menu thats hacked onto applications that were simply not intended for a unified menu bar. I for one am ecstatic that we are finally moving away from Windows 95 being the gold standard for user interfaces.