existence trainer

in this post i am basically going to explain why i am unhappy with the direction of ubuntu, and why xubuntu - and the xfce way - appeals to me so much more. ubuntu, unity, and xubuntu for the past few releases (basically since maverick), the company behind ubuntu has tried to redefine how we interact with our desktop through the development of unity. i've been very supportive of these efforts overall. making design decisions is tough and treacherous, and if anyone has a vision to improve the desktop linux experience, then i applaud their efforts. now i want to evaluate these efforts. does unity improve the desktop experience? meh. definitely a mixed bag. the main problem is that everything feels half baked right now, and the improvements in the next version of ubuntu (quantal) don't really fix most of the issues i have. when analyzed from a user experience point of view, the changes canonical has brought to ubuntu can be largely divided into the following categories (i...

a couple of weeks back, there was a huge community backlash to the news that the newest version of ubuntu (quantal 12.10) would send ALL queries made in the dash, via the shopping lens, to canonical as a way to help build revenue. that's right, EVERYTHING you type into the dash (when you search for programs or files or anything) will be sent to canonical for the purpose of advertising directly on your desktop. i protested as loud as anyone. canonical's response (besides defending their position) has been to include a program that can disable all internet activity from the dash. unfortunately, i find this solution unsatisfactory for the following reasons: it is opt-out vs. opt in this angers me. it works to build revenue by relying on people's ignorance of what canonical is doing with their queries. not everyone pays as much attention to the development of ubuntu as i do, and most will be ignorant of what canonical is up to. this is shitty. and unethical. it is not ...