Ubuntu 9.10: Better, Or Just Better-Looking?
Mark Shuttleworth recently outlined development goals for Ubuntu 9.10 (“Karmic Koala”) set to be released in October 2009 as the successor to Ubuntu 9.04 (“Jaunty Jackalope”). The innovations planned for the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, which is set for a major aesthetic makeover, look nice enough. But is this the time to be placing looks before functionality?
Shuttleworth’s vision for Ubuntu 9.10 includes the following:
- better integration with cloud-computing environments, and the simplification of cloud creation using open-source tools on Ubuntu Server Edition
- faster boot
- seamless netbook support
- taking advantage of kernel mode setting to make the boot process and virtual terminals shinier and snappier
- sprucing up the desktop by giving it a prettier default theme
I’m all on board for making it easy to use Ubuntu servers as hosts for clouds, and am eager to see the specifics of the plan when developers lay them out.
Shorter boot time would also be nice, although I thought that was supposed to be one of the chief focuses of Ubuntu 9.04–and one that, thanks to the advent of ext4, has been largely achieved. But I suppose there’s still some tweaking that could be done to make Upstart more efficient.
Absolutely hassle-free netbook support is critical. It’s embarrassing to see posts on the Ubuntu forums where people who bought netbooks with Ubuntu pre-installed complain of broken wireless drivers, for example. Unless Ubuntu wants to squander the immense opportunities presented by the netbook market, it needs to make sure the netbook experience is seamless for everyone.
Looks vs. brains
I’m a bit warier of Shuttleworth’s focus on a better-looking Ubuntu. While making the boot manager and default theme more attractive isn’t necessarily a bad idea, I wonder if featuring it as one of the focal points of the next Ubuntu development cycle is really appropriate.
Kernel mode setting opens up new opportunities to developers, but I don’t think it’s going to revolutionize the lives of many end-users. After all, I use Ubuntu every day but haven’t seen the boot splash in weeks, because I rarely shut down my computer, preferring instead to suspend. I don’t think I’m in a minority.
And while the snappier virtual-terminal switching provided by kernel mode setting is nice, how many normal people still use virtual terminals (the screens accessed by pressing control-alt-F[1-6])? I certainly don’t, unless I want to remember what DOS was like.
I’ve long found the default Ubuntu desktop theme a bit drab, but that reflects personal preference more than anything else. It also has never mattered much to me, since I can easily download art that’s more to my liking from art.gnome.org or gnome-look.org.
Similarly, users who don’t like the default wallpaper in Ubuntu will be able to find a new one easily enough. Figuring out how to make unsupported wireless cards work or fix broken screen resolutions, on the other hand, is not quite as simple. Resolving issues like these should be at the top of the Ubuntu development list. Maybe the default theme deserves a touch-up, but don’t Ubuntu developers have more important things to do than debate the aesthetic merits of earth tones?
Conclusion
The specifics of Ubuntu 9.10 won’t emerge till the developer conference in May, so extensive criticism at this point is unwarranted. But I hope Shuttleworth and Canonical don’t make the mistake of giving looks priority over what really matters.
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Something important for you to remember is that, just because aesthetics become a focus for 9.10, doesn’t mean that other things will be neglected. If Canonical decides to put a thousand artists to work designing the latest greatest interface, that doesn’t mean that they’re converting 100 programmers who would otherwise be working on kernel issues to be artists instead.
All the people hacking the kernel will keep a-hackin’, people working on upstream projects will keep fixing bugs and those will be synced, documentation will be updated and performance will be improved; in all, development doesn’t stop because interface design is being brought into the picture.
I suggest that you go to Barcelona to cover the UDS. You’ll see that a lot of technical concepts will be discussed.
However, on a final note, don’t underestimate the power of a major aesthetic change. One of the most important things about Ubuntu is the brand: people like it because it’s different, fun to use and look at, and pretty. The inclusion of Compiz by default, the colorful themes (as opposed to drab blue used by most distros), and other user-centric projects have brought a lot to the Ubuntu project, and going forward it really does serve us well to take a strong stand for the belief that “pretty is a feature” and something worth working for.
Cheers,
Ryan
Ubuntu should just use the Willibex theme. The color combination is very easy on the eye and it can’t be accused by Trolls that it looks like Mac or Vista.
Even Mark Shuttleworth himself seems to be using it in the notifications screenshot in his blog.
http://www.ubuntu-art.org/content/show.php/willibex?content=86844n
The aesthetic aspect out of the box is very important. Do you know how many people wasn’t considering ubuntu anymore when they saw the default theme? They didn’t care what’s under the hood, they just saw the default theme, it looked unprofessional so they got impression that ubuntu is made by some geek in some garage. It won’t help to tell the new user, well you can change the default theme. The first impression counts.
I like the brown, like the gnome blue (and prettymuch hate white on black, except for the terminal), but I deleted Ubuntu and am back on XP: because stability sucked so badly; but it’s good to see that the company is “focused” and all.
I am sorry for bao’s disappointment. I always hope users can try an alternative distribution before giving up. From my experience individual releases will always have their problems, even for Windows, which is why over the years I tried all the major distributions of Linux.
When it comes to quality, and the best consultants will tell you this, it pays to focus on one target at a time. Focus helps you measure performance in addressing specific issues targeted towards accomplishing targeted results. Ubuntu (the organization) and the users do not necessarily measure performance the same way. Focus is difficult for a large general purpose distribution like Ubuntu since, as the saying goes, you have to choose your poison wisely. Each subset of the user market may be needing some aspect addressed, maybe the touchy-feely bits or perhaps a technical difficulty. Therein lies the difficulty.
Its great to see Ubuntu polishing the shiny bits in the distribution. Usability elements are definitely an important measure when it comes to uptake of a new operating system. For traditional unix users, as opposed to a migrating windows user, the lack of a virtual terminal can be a deal breaker, for example I can fix broke X11 settings within a virtual terminal without having to change to another init level when X11 is unusable. Also I can build/compile a large program while tinkering with X11 (restarting it and so on) without interrupting the build. It all depends on your use case.
As a rule of thumb, use the LTS for general production use and all other releases for non-critical applications. When you use LTS stability improves over time without life threatening transitions. Consider Windows XP has been around since 2001, and the changes in VISTA are hard to swallow. The same applies to Ubuntu and other distros where changes are guaranteed every six months. Ubuntu so far is the only distribution i have been able to upgrade consistently (albeit with some specific fixable problems). For my personal/recreational use I mostly use the pre-release software, until i ran out of hairs to pull.
F Fellini: just to be clear, no one is discussing getting rid of virtual terminals; the focus is on using kernel mode setting (with video cards that support it) to eliminate the two-second pause that you currently experience when switching between X and a virtual terminal. And you do give good examples for why virtual terminals are important to some people.
Ryan and Dixon: you make good points regarding the importance of Ubuntu’s default theme in convincing new users that it’s a stable, user-friendly distribution, not something hacked together by geeks for geeks. I didn’t really give this issue any thought before, but I do agree that some distributions–Fedora is a good example, in my opinion–have default themes that can turn new users off just by appearing drab and unprofessional.
On the other hand, I’d still argue that broken hardware support is going to turn people off to Ubuntu much faster than an ugly desktop background, so I think that should remain a chief focus of Ubuntu developers. Even if a lot of the work in improving hardware support is done upstream, Ubuntu still has a role to play in making sure that wireless drivers, video cards, etc. work out-of-the-box.
There’s nothing wrong with paying attention to fit and finish. I don’t think the desktop team is going to be stealing resources from the drivers team.
Dave
It’s high time for a theme makeover. Long overdue really. Frankly I feel that the OS itself is pretty much there as far as functionality goes. Aesthetics have been neglected for far too long IMO. Ubuntu has long won over developer types and geeks by bringing simplicity, sophistication and ease of use to the Linux desktop. Despite having a theme and look and color that was despised by many and probably merely tolerated by the rest. How many ‘awful brown’ comments have I read by offput newbies?
It’s time to start attracting bees with nectar. It’s no different than with cars. The vast majority of users don’t really care what’s under the hood if the sheet metal is hideous. How many peope buy brown or orange cars?
By having a first class theme, wallpaper, adding some Compiz bling, you can turn those initial shrugs or grimaces into ‘holy smoke.’ Linux can actually look a lot BETTER than Win or Mac with the right look and desktop effects. It’s time to really leverage that. I actually used to think that Compiz was kind of a waste of time. But now that I’ve got it set up and shown it to non-Linux geeks, they are really blown away, and they really start to think that hey, this Linux thing is for real.
Think of why Mac’s are so appealing. A great deal of it is ‘mere’ aesthetics. They put a huge amount of effort into look and feel. Ubuntu should too.
I’m glad we have people like Mark Shuttleworth driving Linux forward and not the author of this blog post. He clearly has no comprehension of what is important to the mainstream adoption of Linux.
The average person on the street doesn’t know what cloud computing is, they don’t care what a virtual terminal is. What they care about is the thing looks cool, and is easy to use. This is why Macs are having such strong sales. Yeah they run less bloated and they don’t get viruses like Windows, but that wouldnt be enough to make people switch if it wasn’t also backed up by the nicest looking interface you can possibly get.
But this is all besides the point, because as pointed out in the first reply, if Shuttleworth hires extra people to work on the visual appeal of Ubuntu that doesn’t mean less people are working on the technical side of Ubuntu. Even the argument of “but he could have put that wage money towards more coders” doesn’t work because Linux is already superior than Windows in the underlining code. Throwing more money at the code won’t make nearly as much difference as putting it towards the visuals will.
Fact is Linux in general is fugly, and the sooner Ubuntu drag everyone kicking and screaming into looking modern and slick the better it will be for everyone.
Christopher, may I say I think you are under estimating the value of a pretty desktop environment. There are the obvious ergonomic benefits. A well designed GUI is easier on the eyes and less frustrating to use. Even Sun Microsystems made Solaris prettier to look at.
Then there are sales. Good looking tech sells because good looking tech says the company put a bit of thought and effort into the product. If JCB can put a bit of thought behind the aesthetic appeal of their diggers I think Canonical should be doing the same for it’s OS. Especially when the competition spend so much time doing exactly that.
Mac OS X and Windows 7 didn’t end up looking pretty by accident. An OS that looks good by default is appealing to consumers and corporate clients alike.
I get the impression you still look at Linux from the point of view of a tinkerer. Someone that enjoys mucking around with the guts of the OS or at least the desktop. Canonical on the other hand look at Linux as a product. And all products must finished to the highest standard. Which means they must also look good.
Oh and Canonical should be working on faster boot times until they are in the sub-5 second zone.
One of the reasons why people were eager to switch to Windows Vista, was the looks of it. I am using Ubuntu since 6.10 Edgy Eft.
I was most impressed by the dedication of about half the introduction to discussing server improvements.
It is worth noting that Mark and Canonical recently employed an entire ‘UI’ Team for this specific purpose (between 8.04 and 8.10) – to improve the user experience visually.
Its good to see that this team is finally going to deliver. He hasn’t pulled resources from anywhere else for this, he’s employed an entirely new team of full time staff to work on it.
I’m waiting with great anticipation for UDS and beyond to see how this goes.
While I agree that it is important to get what’s under the hood working seamlessly, I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of Ubuntu looking good.
I know when a few of my friends see the desktop effects on Ubuntu they are immediately interested and start wondering if Linux has finally come along enough for them to give it a try. I even converted one friend!
just by looks alone, KDE4 could surpass Gnome usage this year alone.
what could that tell you? looks sell!
(K)armic (K)oala = (K)de
I think Ubuntu shud release another distribution by the name Dubuntu(ubuntu for developers) where the traditional brown color cud be retained and all the developer friendly features be made a part off. Unnecessary hindrances like compiz and other heavy visual asthetics only add on to the boot time and dimnish performance.
As for the end-users, Ubuntu shud combine compiz and improve its theme and asethics in its releases. The current edition of ubuntu studio howver sucks big time..it needs a sea change and cud be marketed as a ubuntu for the non-linux geeks and common windows users…
I absolutely agree with Chris Tozzi’s comment “Unless Ubuntu wants to squander the immense opportunities presented by the netbook market, it needs to make sure the netbook experience is seamless for everyone.”
I have been using Ubuntu for years. I have Ubuntu both on my desktop and laptop. Upgrading them both when a new version of Ubuntu is released is quick and painless. But getting Ubuntu working for my Asus netbook is a real hassle. If Android works straight off with netbooks, I’d switch to that like a shot.
As someone who’s a noob to Ubuntu and still is learning how to change Intrepid’s look and feel, I’m in Shuttlesworth’s corner. I like the stability Ubuntu gives, love Synaptic, and appreciate its already-faster-than-Vista boot time. But, yeah, it does look. . . dull. Aikiwolfie is right (#10):
“Good looking tech sells because good looking tech says the company put a bit of thought and effort into the product.”
BTW, where are the best Compiz how-to tutorials, e-books, and help sites?
I originally went with Ubuntu 7.10 because all of the more stable distributions did not have the drivers (kernel update) for my 2 year old system. Only Ubuntu and Knoppix would boot on the system. As a n00b, I did not have the expertise to find ways to get anything that did not (mostly) work out of the box. As it was, when I went from Live CD to installation, the display setting broke, and I spent several days (off-time) before I finally was able to make a custom xorg.conf setting file work. I still had several weeks before I got the sound to work properly.
I am presently working on 8.10, but I may go back to 8.04 or Debian Lenny, as both work on my hardware and software updates are not an ‘adventure.’
I sometimes like to try out a new distribution, but only if I have a working system to fall back on to do things like research how to fix the new distribution and check my e-mail.
I have turned off all of Compiz because it affected my operation noticeably. I do use Cairo dock on Gnome and have used Enlightenment. I find I like the looks of E17 better than Compiz, and it is not as much a drag on the system.
I also don’t think that it is necessary to spend so much time on changing the Ubuntu look as it is very easy to change the look. If it was a difficult and expensive as changing the look on Windows, then yes.
Even though Ubuntu generally speaking, is very easy to use, it can become very challenging to keep a newbie that doesn’t have much computer experience from going back to Microsoft. Some people are just not interested in learning how to use the command line to install things or trouble shooting something.
I think a new default theme is a great thing. Been studding Human Computer Interaction at UNI, lot of research says people find “prettier” systems are easier to use. Apparently we are more creative when we are happy, so find ways around problems quicker.
Personally I am more interested in the lower level stuff.
Aesthetics is a big deal. Even to a fundamentally hacker type like myself. It is very painful to go from a Mac environment (day job) to Linux. It is getting significantly better especially with the latest KDE. But the crisp uniform text, graphics and GUI elements are much missed. To win the heart of consumers computing to Linux, fixing the aesthetics is very important. The other hugely important piece is breadth of apps and especially whether there is a good VM story for those Windows (and one hopes someday) Mac apps that there is no replacement for. The current offerings are brutal to many graphics apps, especially ones with heavy 3D like games, 3D design tool and so on.
I see both sides of the coin. The author is stating that stability is more important than looks. I agree. If you have a nice shimmering, shiny charismatic desktop background, and some noob gets a netbook that Ubuntu can’t interface with, whether it be the wireless card or graphics etc, they’re going to be put off anyway. A person starting with Linux usually goes to Ubuntu as a beginning steppingstone. I doubt they want to start the inevitable terminal work by trying to find a wireless driver, installing a .tar.bz2, using ifconfig, etc. They want compattibility. For another, screen reader access with Ubuntu is somewhat slow with Orca, until you get speech-dispatcher to interface with Orca instead of the gnome-speech system. I hear this is being worked on now, so I’m pretty excited. So in short, I’d rather use a minimalist interface and look than a overly bloated graphical fieldday, like Vista. But this is why opinions exist.
However, others are right in stating why Macs are so hot. They look great, they feel great, they are fast, sleek, and just awesome. So I believe a heavy dose of bug fixing combined with a not overly graphical desktop (but still professional looking) is in order. Either way, Linux is awesome.