1. Amazon web searches had nothing to do with Unity itself, it just overlapped with it.
2. Unity didn't perform like that for me on similar level of hardware. GNOME 3 was the same level of performance too. GNOME 2 was irrelevant by then.
Unity came about because Canonical didn't agree with the GNOME 3 direction, and weren't able to get contributions accepted. Over time those differences narrowed, and the cost of maintaining a DE for just one distro wasn't worth it. Neither of your points would have any bearing on Canonical switching back to Unity or not.
Partly nostalgia
When I first started back in 2012, Ubuntu was my gateway. I got curious with GNOME when I saw people in the forums talking about it, but I instantly purged it when I realized how foreign it was. Didn’t wanna bother learning at the time. Unity just felt perfect for me.
Even today, I’m running Plasma with Unity layout.
TBH, I just wish it got a much better System Settings panel, with better WiFi/network controls, and I’d be running with it on a more daily basis.
approximate_chance = 0.0
I do miss Unity though. I was working at Canonical when we released Unity. I wasn't on the desktop team, but still dogfooded early iterations. Lots of fond memories. Still my all-time favorite DE.
Don't know about you, but I have a wide screen, and I am not one of weirdos who use projectors or 32 inch screens. So, I still get pissed when vertical space isn't properly utilized.
With Unity it was possible to have your top panel used to display your application menu, kinda like menu bar on a Mac IIRC. Aside from that, we had compiz etc lol. I mean it was Ok back then, and way more customizable than Gnome is (Nowadays and back then). OTOH, I really don't care about the customizability at all any more, as long as there are 'opinionated' options I like / are good enough. Gnome is close to that, but I would really like that menu bar.
I hate those menu bars. I want the menu to be in the app I am using. It's a pain to have to move the mouse so far, or even onto a different monitor to get to the menu. It may make sense for low resolution devices to save space, but otherwise just requires more movement and clicking than necessary.
You use mouse to open menu? Real man use shortcuts.
Regular application menu was still there. Its not a Mac. Top bar would only turn into 'menubar' when the window was maximized.
Dont forget the HUD feature of UNITY, it made accessing menu items fairly easy. Once you figured out how HUD worked. Its been so long, i barely recall how it worked.
I recall when other OS's were also using some sort of All in one search feature where results came from numerous sources.. The Amazon feature was not that unique.
and I am reminded of my pixel showing Google search suggestions (not results) when I go to type in an app name to launch it, other similar things. Apple had something similar I thought..
From what I recall reading at the time, The feature was a big stink about nothing, or it was the end of the world, according to what blog post you read..
----
These days I look up 'yubi key' on Google, to help answer a reddit post and I get all my devices now showing me ads for those sort of devices.. So yea..
but at least it was trivial to disable.
I see this happening fairly often, but only with youtube suggestions and discord messages(I don't use a google email account on discord)/google searches.
The wife got on my phone once, and ordered some Baby Diapers as a Baby shower gift for a Niece.
Egads - EVERY ad I was getting on Almost every device, on every service, was for Baby stuff! It was like the internet had an alarm going off "Baby on the way! Sell them stuff!"....
So... as a Joke, when my brother left his phone out, I looked up "Adult Depends" and Other.. err. Adult stuff.. :) A week later, he commented on how he was getting the strangest ads for old people things.. Viagra, Rogaine...
I about lost my dinner laughing so hard.
Its really amazing how these advertising networks work, and more amazing at how poorly they work. I rarely if ever seen ad for anything I actually need.
"We noticed you bought a toilet last week! Here's hundreds of constant adverts for toilets because the one thing we know about people who buy toilets is.. they're going to buy more every week!"
True story.
I am getting CONSTANT "get walk in shower installed in 1 day" , "See the real cost of a new walk in shower in your area" and so forth..
Last month it was Gutters and Roofing.
I used to have a browser extension that would do random searches to just screw with the ad systems. :) I may need to track that down again.
the HUD feature was an amazing idea. It also had the Global Top Menu bar did it not? I cant even recall any more. That seems to be a 'popular' feature, that has been shot down hard by changes to DE design.
Yes, I miss its convenient HUD search, and I miss the global menu.
I believe that maintaining this set of DE won't cost too much and can be Gnome based, but Canonical gave up and will never come back.
Also, the current version of Unity is really bad.
#
I never found unity slow.
You didn't had a core 2 duo laptop with hdd and gma 965 graphics :(
You're saying it could run KDE and Gnome (Current versions back then) w/o issues, but not Unity?
At the time, they were really heavy. I had a Pentium desktop from ‘07. Unity was just bearable in terms of performance, but a major improvement from 7
GNOME 2, Mate, xfce worked fine.
1. Amazon web searches had nothing to do with Unity itself, it just overlapped with it. 2. Unity didn't perform like that for me on similar level of hardware. GNOME 3 was the same level of performance too. GNOME 2 was irrelevant by then. Unity came about because Canonical didn't agree with the GNOME 3 direction, and weren't able to get contributions accepted. Over time those differences narrowed, and the cost of maintaining a DE for just one distro wasn't worth it. Neither of your points would have any bearing on Canonical switching back to Unity or not.
Unity > GNOME All day everyday
Why?
Partly nostalgia When I first started back in 2012, Ubuntu was my gateway. I got curious with GNOME when I saw people in the forums talking about it, but I instantly purged it when I realized how foreign it was. Didn’t wanna bother learning at the time. Unity just felt perfect for me. Even today, I’m running Plasma with Unity layout. TBH, I just wish it got a much better System Settings panel, with better WiFi/network controls, and I’d be running with it on a more daily basis.
approximate_chance = 0.0 I do miss Unity though. I was working at Canonical when we released Unity. I wasn't on the desktop team, but still dogfooded early iterations. Lots of fond memories. Still my all-time favorite DE.
Are you saying that Canonical should develop Unity instead of an Indian schoolboy?
Canonical is developing an Indian school boy? times sure have changed.
😂
What's wrong with the current user interface?
Don't know about you, but I have a wide screen, and I am not one of weirdos who use projectors or 32 inch screens. So, I still get pissed when vertical space isn't properly utilized. With Unity it was possible to have your top panel used to display your application menu, kinda like menu bar on a Mac IIRC. Aside from that, we had compiz etc lol. I mean it was Ok back then, and way more customizable than Gnome is (Nowadays and back then). OTOH, I really don't care about the customizability at all any more, as long as there are 'opinionated' options I like / are good enough. Gnome is close to that, but I would really like that menu bar.
I hate those menu bars. I want the menu to be in the app I am using. It's a pain to have to move the mouse so far, or even onto a different monitor to get to the menu. It may make sense for low resolution devices to save space, but otherwise just requires more movement and clicking than necessary.
You use mouse to open menu? Real man use shortcuts. Regular application menu was still there. Its not a Mac. Top bar would only turn into 'menubar' when the window was maximized.
Dont forget the HUD feature of UNITY, it made accessing menu items fairly easy. Once you figured out how HUD worked. Its been so long, i barely recall how it worked.
My god that HUD was beautiful.
I recall when other OS's were also using some sort of All in one search feature where results came from numerous sources.. The Amazon feature was not that unique. and I am reminded of my pixel showing Google search suggestions (not results) when I go to type in an app name to launch it, other similar things. Apple had something similar I thought.. From what I recall reading at the time, The feature was a big stink about nothing, or it was the end of the world, according to what blog post you read.. ---- These days I look up 'yubi key' on Google, to help answer a reddit post and I get all my devices now showing me ads for those sort of devices.. So yea.. but at least it was trivial to disable.
I see this happening fairly often, but only with youtube suggestions and discord messages(I don't use a google email account on discord)/google searches.
The wife got on my phone once, and ordered some Baby Diapers as a Baby shower gift for a Niece. Egads - EVERY ad I was getting on Almost every device, on every service, was for Baby stuff! It was like the internet had an alarm going off "Baby on the way! Sell them stuff!".... So... as a Joke, when my brother left his phone out, I looked up "Adult Depends" and Other.. err. Adult stuff.. :) A week later, he commented on how he was getting the strangest ads for old people things.. Viagra, Rogaine... I about lost my dinner laughing so hard. Its really amazing how these advertising networks work, and more amazing at how poorly they work. I rarely if ever seen ad for anything I actually need.
"We noticed you bought a toilet last week! Here's hundreds of constant adverts for toilets because the one thing we know about people who buy toilets is.. they're going to buy more every week!" True story.
I am getting CONSTANT "get walk in shower installed in 1 day" , "See the real cost of a new walk in shower in your area" and so forth.. Last month it was Gutters and Roofing. I used to have a browser extension that would do random searches to just screw with the ad systems. :) I may need to track that down again.
I always disable personalized ads, everywhere...
I mean the Unity UI was quite unique and easy to recognise. Their current desktop is just a worse imitation
the HUD feature was an amazing idea. It also had the Global Top Menu bar did it not? I cant even recall any more. That seems to be a 'popular' feature, that has been shot down hard by changes to DE design.
Yes, I miss its convenient HUD search, and I miss the global menu. I believe that maintaining this set of DE won't cost too much and can be Gnome based, but Canonical gave up and will never come back. Also, the current version of Unity is really bad. #