My Darkest Mutterings

On Gnome and Unity

I understand that big software projects, particularly ones that provide desktop environments, have the need from time to time to renew themselves, reinvent the wheel and in the process break everything. And so it has come to pass that both Gnome and Canonical have reached that very point of critical mass, perhaps inevitably, at the same time. Alas I personally don't feel the need to participate directly in either of their brave new adventures, at least not just yet. My Gnome 2 desktop has lots of features that I've come to rely on, launching apps with Gnome-do, finding files with Gnome Activity Journal (Zeitgeist), using the "expose" feature of compiz to find that missing window .. all things that are incorporated in different ways into both new projects. Don't get me wrong the new Gnome 3.0 and Unity are splendid grand projects to admire, it's just that .. well they're new and they are big software projects and things get left out or break and I want my main desktop to "just work" because I have things to do. So I've reverted to using Debian on the desktop, after 6 years or so of Ubuntu, no great shakes, I'll return to the fold at some point, no hurry. Six months down the line and both of these new desktop environments will go through another release, rough corners will be smoothed off and community developers will have added compelling features, progress will put things right, the customisable usability I desire will return. I'll bide my time and enjoy Debian, I've set aside a partition for testing Unity or Gnome 3.0 and also I have a netbook for further experimentation, it's an exciting time for the Linux desktop.

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