Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

[viking60]

It is a long time since I have tested Ubuntu. The last time I absolutely disliked it for violating privacy and a very inflexible Unity Desktop.
That launcher bar on the left annoyed me - but on the left it stayed.

Ubuntu did not have functional workspaces even if you could get them by scratching your head with your toes; it was impossible to move content from workspace to workspace.

So I wanted to find out if Ubuntu has improved.

And it has!
The installation process was painless and Ubuntu offers the installation alongside Windows - that is important if you want to gain market shares.

The first thing I checked were the workspaces and they still have to be activated but it is a simple marking in the settings - so that was easy.

The workspaces popped up on the launcher and I clicked it and got a nice zoom out with four workspaces - and here I could drag Firefox or Writer from workspace to workspace
Much better!

So now I have a desktop I can work with.
Initially there is no terminal on the Ubuntu launcher which annoys me but I can see why they left it out since Canonical is targeting the masses that simply want to start using something that "works" - a terminal does not fit in that concept so I can search for it and fire it up and also place it on the launcher for my future use.

Synaptic is not installed by default either only the Software Center. Good luck with finding the Virtualbox-guest-additions there But it can be installed so no worries.

Regarding the virtualbox guest additions I searched for them in synaptic together with dkms and installed the relevant stuff. After a reboot my Ubuntu popped with better and "draggable" resolution and copying and pasting worked fine too.

The Norwegian translation, that traditionally has been a disaster with Ubuntu, has also improved.


Ubuntu has also taken the privacy criticism seriously and do leave us choices and info where we can activate "dangerous" stuff - they have been listening.
Where Windows has essentially developed to Spyware; Ubuntu has gone in the opposite direction.

So what about this horrible Unity Launcher on the left - can I have a real desktop and not a smartphone please?

It turns out that I can as of version 16.04 and here is how to do it:
Simply type:

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gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom

It you want it on the left again type the same but replace "Bottom" with "Left".

I decided that those icons on the launcher are to big so I reduced the size in the Settings->Appearance

I prefer Xfce4 for my daily use and being used to that, I find the workflow in Ubuntu to be a bit staccato rather than flowing.

"Smartphoners" might disagree.

Ubuntu has changed from brown via orange towards purple and is always recognizable through that. And it does not look bad. As usual I will not spend any more calories on the looks because they can be changed.
As a branding thing, it works just fine (we don't reflect over whether the Coca Cola fonts are nice or not - it is simply Coca Cola - you know; that caffeine containing beverage ).

Ubuntu has made an effort to be accessible for the common joe and you will never be far away from Links to Ubuntu stores where you can be "tshirt-tastic" and rumour has it that you will be able to spend some dimes on other stuff too.

That is only positive for the average Joe and naturally good for Canonical too. The thing is that Ubuntu has chosen a Mac Concept - layout wise - and how common is that?

But here I go again; whining about my beloved XFCE4 Whisker menu.....
I installed the Gnome2 like "Classical menu" because the Unity launcher has none.

I also installed pacapt because I don't like apt. In this Ubuntu version Pacman simply does not work.
I can type it and I do not get any error messages but nothing happens - This works well in Ubuntus mothership Debian.
It turns out that "pacapt" works, so adding an alias like this made Pacman work like it should:

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alias pacman='sudo pacapt'

The command will not work without sudo in the alias.
After that I can do

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pacman -Syu

and

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pacman -Qi inxi

I also I made myself an alias for sudo apt-cache search called "search" so that I can simply type:

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search inxi

The really new stuff:

Ubuntu 16.04 comes with Snappy (as in Rpm Deb and Snappy) this allows us to develop and install Snaps -Snappy Apps,

Snappy creates self containing bubbles of software. The general idea of a Snappy system is that all snaps are self contained, protected and isolated pieces of code.
So these apps are Sandboxed and independent.

Developers can present their free or commercial code on the Ubuntu store....By the looks of it: Snappy Apps cannot be handled by a community only the Devs.
Anybody can be a dev:

There is no need to become an Ubuntu developer or to comply with complex packaging rules in order to publish applications for Ubuntu Core, anybody can publish any application, easily and instantly, to a global audience.

This could well lead to lots of creative and new solutions, along with a lot of crapware, but you have to break some Eggs to make a perfect Omelet.
Snappy will work side by side with the traditional repo and will be handy for devices and containers.

The future is a core with lots of Snaps on top.

To sum it up:

Ubuntu 16.04 is an OK Linux distro. The functionality is improved and some flexibility is back. And as a parallel install alongside Windows Ubuntu is a good choice because the install is likely to work.
As a linux distro they have a large and friendly community and Canonical offers Enterprise solutions that can be backed by a solid company.

If Ubuntu 16.04 is to be evaluated simply by it's own qualities then there are other and better desktop distros like Mint, Manjaro,Mageia Fedora and maybe even OpenSuse. Canonical is building an infrastructure where lots of pieces come together and need to work together: In this context it might be safer to use Canonical products only, and thereby threatening the openness of Linux a little bit....

This is not likely to be a big problem since other devs will see to that their distros will fit in by examining Ubuntus code though - just like Canonical examined Debians code - that is the beauty of Linux.
Edit:

After a short while of use the Unity launcher is gone as is the menu bar on the top so I am left with only the background.
I can right-click and fire a terminal from there but this is a showstopper.....and it turns out that this has happened before:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/475296/u ... d-in-14-04

http://askubuntu.com/questions/761035/u ... ncher-help

I could fix it with:

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dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
setsid unity

But let me rephrase my statement above:

Ubuntu 16.04 is an OK Linux distro

..It is not! This should simply not happen - especially not if you are targeting the common Joe and the "Just works" market (It is certainly not what is regarded as "stable").

I did install and alter some minor settings with the unity-tweak-tool and it probably triggered this. That makes the tweak tool bad so it is dangerous to alter (the bad) Unity
On the positive side; the Ubuntu community had already experienced it and described a fix (what should not have to be fixed).

It all looked so promising...until everything on the desktop dissappeared.

I will keep this one for a while to check if this was only a single incident (getting Pacman to work improved my attitude greatly ) sit tight I'll report back...

[viking60]

I just found out in the software center that the Ubuntu core that is the foundation for Snaps is non-free. That does not necessarily mean that it is all closed but it may contain components that are non-free.

[viking60]

It seems that the default installed theme is causing problems. There are dependencies that are not met so I cannot upgrade.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1537915

Surprisingly Ubuntu is poor quality.

[viking60]

I will remove this from my boxes now and maybe give Mint a spin again. It could be that my experience has made me fiddle around with stuff that greenhorns never would find.
Maybe Ubuntu works out of the box if you do not change anything

..and that is not for me.