| Perhaps ubuntu is getting closer to being ready for the desktop for some users, but I find that for the last few releases, each new version takes me further from my ideal environment. For me, Ubuntu peaked at about 10.10 (or maybe 11.04) Each time a new release comes out, I give Unity another try, but it just doesn't work for me. For a while I was just reverting back to Gnome, but now the default Gnome is Gnome 3 which is (purely my opinion) very much a regression in terms of UX from Gnome 2. I know this is Linux, and I can install whatever I want, but I don't want to have to. When I was younger I was happy to spend hours (and days!) tweaking stuff to make it work just the way I wanted it to. With all the other time sinks that growing up entails, when I get the chance to sit down at my computer these days, I just want it to work. I don't want to have to invest time I don't have learning a new way to do the old thing when the old way was perfectly fine. (Probably me just getting old and curmudgeonly I know!) Due to computers getting older and being replaced etc, I can't even reasonably keep using Ubuntu 11.04 - my latest laptop will not work correctly under anything less than 11.10 without hours of manking around compiling and installing wireless and graphics card drivers. (I blame the laptop for this, not linux). Research before buying indicated this laptop was reasonably well supported under linux. After purchase I found this model of laptop used a number of different chipsets for wireless and the one I ended up with (ath9k) was poorly supported at that time. So, after having linux as my sole computing environment since 1996 (and using Ubuntu as my main distro since Breezy Badger) I have just this month packed it in and bought a 13" Macbook Air to use as my main computer. I'm still using Ubuntu 10.10 server edition at work, (virtual machine running under xen) for development and as a production server - but I can't see Canonical breaking the command line as bad as they did the desktop any time soon! Ubuntu may be finally ready for the desktop for some people but definitely not for me. |