It is somewhat ironic that Canonical have decided to call something which is proving so divisive in the community "Unity". Unity is purported to be the computing interface which will continue Ubuntu's movement into mainstream desktop computing. "Easy, Intuitive, Simple, Stylish, Fast, Clean, Streamlined" are the words being used to describe it. "And now you can even decide how you want it to look. Simply choose between our new and classic desktop experiences..." says the Ubuntu website.
My own (and many, many, others) experience of Ubuntu 11.04 has been a little different. Not so much Natty Narwhal, more Natty Dread. I dread starting it up, and have found it to be truly dreadful.
Installation
I first upgraded my existing, flawless and beautiful 10.10 installation using upgrade manager. This eventually gave me the new Unity desktop which promptly and regularly crashed every few minutes. Eventually I bit the bullet, smiled grimly and ruefully, and went for a new, full installation.
The Ubuntu installer is a thing of beauty and I am well used to it, having seen it recently many more times than I would care to. At the end of the installation, you are prompted to reboot. If you have a proprietary graphics card (and who doesn't) you are then presented with an ugly, old fashioned X Window prompt which informs you that as you do not have the requisite hardware to run Unity (I did! I do! No really, I do!!) you will boot into Ubuntu Classic (the old Gnome 2) and you do.
It is at this point that most casual users flirting with Ubuntu and tempted to move from Windows will give up and return to the blandishments of Mr William Gates. It would make much more sense if you were asked, during installation, if you wanted to run Unity and install the appropriate video drivers for your graphics card. Because you are prompted to do this anyway, once you have reached the classic Gnome 2 desktop. But you have to go through the motions and another reboot before you are presented with your shiny new Unity desktop.
Everywhere and Nowhere...
I know my way around Gnome 2 and thus, I am used to being able to find and launch applications, navigate to files and folders, and change system settings with a few clicks of the mouse. I was hoping to find Unity equally user friendly - but in fact it is a nightmare hodge-podge of layers of overkill carefully crafted in denser layers of impenetrable obfuscation. Navigating in Unity reminds me of the first lines of the song "Hi Ho Silver Lining", made famous by Jeff Beck: "You're everywhere and nowhere baby, that's where you're at...". Everywhere, because by default the Applications icon on the Launcher opens showing applications, well, everywhere; nowhere because unless you are lucky enough for one of the six icons shown to be exactly what you are looking for, you have to take a deep breath and dive through more piles of dross.
You can't always get what you want...
System settings should be easy to find, right? No. Some genius decided to put them on the log-out menu. It wasn't until I was desperate to get out of Unity that I found them - by accident. And again, you are presented with everything without an opportunity to drill down to what you really need.
I noticed that some of the applications I have grown to rely on were not showing in the system tray. Some Googling and Ubuntu Foruming later I found out that there is now a 'whitelist' of 'approved' applications that can have an icon in the system tray. Us poor deluded users are no longer allowed to choose for ourselves which applications we find useful or necessary. This is now decided by the faceless bureaucrats at Canonical who are no doubt better equipped than ourselves to choose our applications for us. In fact, the whitelist can be circumvented by some dedicated terminal hacking, but less experienced users will again find themselves floundering when applications they install fail to show up in the taskbar. They will assume that these applications do not work. They do, you just can't do anything useful with them! This makes me want to spit. Coupled with this, every couple of hours the menu features of the system tray icons freeze and this requires a reboot to get back full functionality.
Ch... Ch... Ch... Changes....
One of the things I have come to love about Linux in general and previous versions of Ubuntu in particular is that everything is configurable. Usually, if you don't like things you can change them. The Unity Launchbar is a massive step backwards for those of use who value individuality: almost nothing about it is configurable. You can't change the position. You can't get rid of it. You can't change the icons for better looking ones. OK, you can make it smaller (if you install Compiz Config Settings Manager, find the Unity plugin and configure it). You can make the icons blink instead of pulse. But that's about it. By default it will show you icons for all your running applications, rather than those running in your current workspace, and there's no way to change that either. The workspace switcher icon does not let you know which desktop you are in or which other desktops have running applications.
It really ,really pains me to say this: the Windows 7 taskbar is more configurable and offers you more choices than the Unity Launcher. Ouch.
Classical Gas
Having found Unity frankly disappointing, I knew that I had an ace up my sleeve. I could just log out of Unity and log into the familiar, powerful and inspirational Gnome 2 desktop by selecting 'Ubuntu Classic' from the logon screen. Ahh! Back to sanity! Back to my useful eye-candy; my favourite time savers like the desktop cube. I could hardly wait. My hot little fingers, desperate for a fix of Ubuntu normality, flicked with impeccable expertise through the logoff/logon procedure. Yes! There it was! The classic Ubuntu desktop I have come to know and love so well. Honey, I'm home!
Wait: what's this? There don't seem to be any desktop effects enabled. Well I'll just enable them then. But the desktop effects tab has gone. Because, I am told in manic Googling and Foruming, we users don't need it anymore. Desktop effects are 'on' by default. Except they arent. So I open Compiz Config Settings Manager and disable desktop wall, enable desktop cube and cube rotation. I'm told that I need Open GL. I accept. I'm told I need compositing. I accept. Bang! All my window menus and borders disappear. The desktop cube doesn't cube and doesn't rotate. I look at my graphics drivers. Aha! I'm told that the Nvidia driver is downloaded, installed and activated (but not currently in use).
Never seen this before! How the hell do I tell the system to use the driver? Perhaps an uninstall and re-install will help? Bang! Five minutes later I'm staring at the blank screen of a computer that refuses to boot at all. Despite booting from a live CD, no amount of tinkering with xorg.conf will allow me to boot. Finally, it's back to the familiar, beautiful, Ubuntu installation screen. More Googling and Foruming tell me that the message that the driver is activated but not in use is a known bug. Well, now I know.
I have now given up trying to configure Ubuntu classic with desktop effects. When Compiz is enabled as the window manager, the system leaps into Unity. When I select Metacity, CCSM loses all it's settings and resolutely refuses all requests to enable the cube without compositing. With compositing all the menus and borders disappear. No two ways about it, Ubuntu Classic is well and truly broken.
How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?
So after all this, am I giving up on 11.04? Is Natty Dread the death of my relationship with Ubuntu? Well, not quite. I will stick with it for at least a month to see if updates bring back the functionality I need. In the meantime, I will explore other options like Gnome 3, other distros and will not be recommending Natty to my customers and those who want to ditch Windows.
Unity doesn't work because it takes away choice. It takes away freedom. It destroys individuality. These are all the things Linux is renowned for. These are the real reasons why Linux normally beats Windows into a cocked hat.
I hope and expect to see huge improvements in Natty over the next few weeks. The good thing about Linux is that there are many people out there who want to make it work. There is an immense amount of goodwill in the Free Software Community. Ubuntu will need every single bit of this over the next few weeks.
Edit, Saturday 7th May:
I have found the solution to some of the problems detailed in this article, including (finally) getting desktop effects enabled in Classic. This, and other fixes are detailed in my post to the sticky in Ubuntu Forums, which you can find here.
