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| Authored by: sproggit on Friday, June 08 2012 @ 04:05 PM EDT |
I think you'll find that your argument is wrong. You
wrote:-
"Ubuntu changes their GUI (almost seasonly, like it is
the fashionable thing to
do). "
Actually, when ubuntu 5.04,
"Hoary Hedgehog" shipped, the default desktop was GNOME. That has remained
throughout the lifecycle of the core ubuntu platform up until the switch to
"Unity on Wayland".
In parallel with a standardisation on GNOME,
ubuntu has also offered KDE (Kubuntu), XFCE (xubuntu) and so on; in the process
being quite supportive of encouraging additional "flavours" tailored to the
preferences of their users.
I don't pretend to know what prompted Mark
Shuttleworth to go for Unity on Wayland. I read his blog article when the move
was announced and believe it relates to his view that the "legacy" "X" approach
was restrictive, despite the amazing strides forward it seems to have made in
recent years.
I've been a KDE user since I moved from Windows to ubuntu
when 5.10, Breezy Badger, was released almost 7 years ago and I've been largely
very happy with the platform throughout that period of time.
I think
it's entirely specious to accuse ubuntu of changing their desktops with high
frequency [it's only happened once in 7 years that I'm aware of].
Where I absolutely do agree with you is the speed with which
Mark and the Developers chose to replace GNOME with Unity as the default
desktop. Frankly, it wasn't ready [and to an extent it still isn't, IMHO]. I am
very supportive of the Team's desire to push for an "all new" approach to
desktops [Unity on Wayland] but my view is that they should have started this as
a parallel option, got it to say this latest release (12.04) or the next one
(12.10) and then made the switch from GNOME to Unity.
I suspect that
Mark was prompted to go faster by the somewhat unreliable release of GNOME 3.
Unfortunately, what they experienced with that release was the same sort of pain
that the KDE desktop encountered when they went to KDE 4.0. The only thing is,
swapping from an unstable version of GNOME to an immature version of Unity is
just change, not necessarily improvement.
Back to your disquiet about
the rate of change with ubuntu and desktops. I mentioned that I run KDE, but I
have always installed the GNOME version [ubuntu] and added the KDE libraries
afterwards. This gives me a clean fall-back in the case of KDE snafu's [useful
when 4.0 came along] and I have found the entire platform to be largely stable.
Before moving to Breezy Badger, I was for years a Mandrake and then Mandriva
user, which is based on Red Hat and KDE. Getting GNOME up and running under
Mandriva was a nightmare - just awful. Packages were often broken; the graphical
installer regularly broke; it was not nice. With ubuntu, "it just works".
Certainly, their ability to support multiple desktops on a single installed
kernel and to switch between them at login has been flawlessly reliable [for me
at least] for years...
I also think it's unfair to cite ubuntu's
attempts to put an "easier" skin on top of a very sophisticated release. No one
is forcing you to use ubuntu's tools. I am not yet a fan of "ubuntu software
centre" so use Synaptic if I need to search packages, but I much prefer the
command line for most of my system administration.
Don't forget, while
you're at it, that ubuntu is built on top of Debian, which gives it superb core
reliability and access to more than 20,000 software packages.
Don't
forget that unlike Debian, ubuntu offers a regular refresh cycle, so that you
can take advantage of new software technologies and releases when they come
along.
Don't forget, either, that what we're debating here is offered
for free, which means we can use it for the cost of a download. Or not:
Canonical will post you CDs if you ask them - for free: how many other distros
will do that.
I can understand that there may be things about ubuntu
that you don't like: I've had my share of those too. If you haven't already
taken the opportunity to put some constructive feedback in through the forums or
the community, then, to be honest, more fool you. Complaining about something
you're not willing to step up and change is going to get you nowhere.
But ultimately, ubuntu cost you nothing. If you really don't like it,
just use something else. Constructive criticism that will bring about change and
improvement is helpful. Requests for enhancements can be even better. But
please, if you're that unhappy, just try a different distro...
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