After trying Ubuntu/Unity 13.04 and GNOME 3.8 and Fedora 19, I have to confess that both those desktops have gone to the next level. Yes, there are complains, but if you choose to look at the big picture..
The competition to those, are Mac OS X, Windows 8 and Chrome OS, three totally different OSs by the three software – and not only- giants.
When a day starts bad
I thought to give Ubuntu 13.04 a try, and I thought to install it in parallel with Fedora 19, just to try the dual boot. To be honest, I had no other option/other disk to try it. I downloaded Ubuntu from daily builds, I connected my USB and started UNetBootin from Fedora 18, to burn the ISO in USB-Stick.
UNetBootin was refusing to discover the USB, no matter what. So I end up to burn it with “dd” which I am usually avoiding since a time that it actually “burned” my USB-Stick. The command is:
dd if="input file (ISO Path)" of="output file (usb ie /dev/sd5)"
Note that USB should be unmount at the time, and if you don’t know the device path, you can check with GNOME Disks Utility. DD worked fine, but when a problem comes (UNetBootin), more are going to follow.
Ubuntu Installation
Ubuntu installer has no match, or anyway is a really good installer. Next, Next, Set A Partition, Done! In the end of installation Ubuntu also installed GRUB and discovered all my other OSes (I suppose). These were, F18 in another disk, and F19 in the same disk.
I reboot full of confidence ..but I just saw my F19′s Grub with my old options. I was scared to death cause I thought I installed Ubuntu over my F18 or something -it has happened before! Lucky me, I realized nothing bad had happened, other than a broken Grub2 installation.
Thank you Arch!
My system is a UEFI M/B with SSDs and Grub2. After some reading.. Multi-booting in UEFI systems it is a really hard procedure. As I hadn’t -almost- a clue how Grub2 and UEFI works, I got started do some more reading, because in this particular issue, it isn’t something that you can Google, find a solution and copy ‘n’ paste it.
I managed to solve it in around 1,5h mostly thanks to Arch Docs.
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#UEFI_systems_2
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB_EFI_Examples
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface
- http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/GRUB_2
- http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Multi_002dboot-manual-config
Hint: Whatever distro you are using, if you have an issue go in Google and write “your issue Arch”.
So finally I managed to setup my boot-loader correctly using F19′ Grub and enjoy Ubuntu 13.04, isn’t it Ironic? ;)
Ubuntu 13.04 ‘n’ Fedora 19
First, both environments (GNOME (F19) / Ubuntu (Unity) 13.04) are in pre-beta versions and they have many weaknesses. Weaknesses that they won’t go away when stable releases will land. Both environments looks super cool, from the very start to the very end.
However, please allow me to say that GNOME 3.8 (but not Fedora 19) will exert a lot of pressure to Ubuntu. The work that has be done in GNOME 3.8 is so enormous that looking at Ubuntu , you are starting to think ..what Ubuntu engineers are doing?
Ubuntu’s Magic
I was about to write a post comparing some aspects of both environments like Notifications, Work-Spaces, Task Switching etc. I realized that Ubuntu has nothing better to offer, I couldn’t find nothing better in Ubuntu, other than HUD and some more details, and GNOME was much better to almost everything (in my personal work flow, I am used to GS) so that post would end up like just an “Ubuntu blaming” article.
Lets put aside for a moment the super support that Ubuntu has from everyone, lets put aside the amazing USC and all the codecs/drivers/proprietary utilities that come out of box; besides you can get all these by installing Shell in Ubuntu.
Then the magic comes. While Ubuntu can’t beat Shell almost to any single point, Ubuntu with some “trick” manages overall to offer a equal quality and a so different and so same good user experience as Shell. How does that? Just Magic!
The real question however is, if calling Unity equal with Shell is something that flatters Shell or Unity. The real difference that flatters Shell, is that Unity does it better in details, where Shell does it better in basics, Shell has enormous potential. Details can be easily fixed, and in Shell’s case will be fixed with extensions.
Unity misses a lot in basics and first off in Workspaces. Unity right now has the worst Workspaces implementation than every single OS out there, including Windows 8, Mac OS X, Android, Shell, Cinnamon, Elementary.
Workspaces situation in Ubuntu 13.04 is so bad that they decided to hide them. Yeap, Workspaces in 13.04 are off by default.. First time ever in a Linux Desktop(?)
HUD
The “beyond interface” tool of Canonical is so amazing that makes me wondering..
HUD not working perfectly
..how the same people that created HUD, created also this awful Workspace management? It is really really hard if you get used to Shell to go in Unity. HUD in my opinion is the only serious reason for someone to make the switch. However, I don’t know how the other way around feels.
Shell Dock Vs Unity Dock
As I said, I think that the real beauty of Ubuntu is hidden in details and the most perfect example is its Dock Bar.
While the default GNOME first screen seems like a bad rainy English weather, Unity first look is shiny and colorful with all these pretty icons on the left.
What I really love in Ubuntu is that you can set the bar in auto-hide and set the sensitivity for opening it! The default value, doesn’t work for me and proved impossible to open the dock.I will definitively fill a bug about it in Gnome.Bugzilla, even if pressure sensitivity is okay there.
The other thing I like is that you can open the Dock by triggering all the left edge of the screen and not just the top left. Something that I would also like to see in Shell.
Jump lists in Unity are also a benefit overs Shell’s one, but anyway Dock Shell mechanism is quite different than Ubuntu’s, so you can’t really compare.
I did enable Workspaces, but what a disaster.. It would be a surprise if anyone from inside Canonical would be proud of them..
WebApps
Have you ever heard of Ubuntu WebApps? It isn’t something important but is a really nice feature. When you open a web-page that supports a WebApp a menu will be show up in the dock.
To be honest, I was hearing so much about WebApps that I was expecting some extraordinary cool. Nop, nothing special here but still a nice feature.
Windows Overview
This is something that many people have asked from GNOME to implement. If for example you running two (or more) instances of an Application and you hit on the Dock bar AppIcon, Unity will focus on the running instances in an Overview Mode, so you can easily pick the one you want.
For some reason that will work only for instances in the current Workspace. In the above example if I was running a Chrome Instance in another Workspace, it wouldn’t be visible in Overview Mode.
There are many many nice things in Ubuntu 13.04, like an awesome animation that places an App into DockBar after installing it with USC.
Ubuntu surprisingly has a bonus over GNOME when we come in Privacy.
Yeap, Ubuntu’s privacy Panel is better than GNOME’s with many many options per application. We expecting something better for GNOME 3.10 in there!
Ubuntu’s Experience
I am not that much in Ubuntu, and I am not aware at all what they are planning to do next. However I have to admit that at least Ubuntu users will be very pleased with this release. Except all the improvements this release is super fast.
A drawback for them, is that Ubuntu is going to use an older GNOME (3.6), so they won’t get benefit from all the new features in GNOME Apps, like the amazing GNOME Disks 3.8.
Dash.. Dash.. It can’t find my favorite band (although there is in Amazon), but when I type GNOME it brings me some weird music albums. Useless Lenses, Legal Notices (on bottom right), wrong results, bad ads, endless filters. Ubuntu (bug #1) Dash, all of it ;)
Overall
GNOME does better in basics, Ubuntu does better in details (plus it has HUD) and overall they are equal (but not same) in a default installation. With Shell’s Extensions the balance is changing to the side of Shell and my opinion is that GNOME will give really hard times to Canonical. But healthy competition is always on the service of consumers ;)