You thought this is a bug of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx(10.04)?
No, this is not a bug, opensource software will not have such careless bug like what Microsoft products have.
Before I go into details, let me show you some of the screen shots of this Ubuntu Linux which will be releasing at April 2010. I will only cover the Gnome version only, not KDE or other versions.
This is the boot screen, where you will see it when you boot up for computer.
This is how the desktop looks like.
This is the default wallpaper.
This is the part that most Ubuntu users are arguing about.
Overall, the design is very nice.
But too bad, it was designed until looks very similar with MacOSX.
Myself, I am able to accept this design. But it is too bad that the orange & brown color of Ubuntu’s identity is not the main colour of this Ubuntu release’s theme colour.
The purple, white & orange combination, it is not bad at all. But I do concern about the identity of Ubuntu.
Some people is saying that I am not willing to accept new concept. Maybe, but I wish that Ubuntu will be totally stick to its own identity.
To be honest, I do like this design a lot anyway.
🙂
Besides the identity of this design, there is another issue where most people are arguing about, including myself. The window control buttons. Which is also the identity of Ubuntu…
In all previous version of Ubuntu, the window control buttons are located at the right side of the windows.
In this version of Ubuntu, the window control buttons is located at the left side of the windows.
The decision was made by the design team to place the buttons at the left side.
As you can see, it looks very similar to MacOSX.
But, hey! We are Penguins! We are not Fruit! Man!
The placement of the window control buttons at the left had caused users to have hard time to get used to it when the user wanted to minimize/maximize or close the window.
People had already used to point at the upper right edge to close a window.
But now users have to point to the left and need to be carefully point to the close button which it the 3rd button at the left. This is wasting time and can often cause accidentally clicked the wrong button.
For this changes, it is very inconsistent with every applications that you can find in Linux.
Here is some examples:
Gwibber
Nautilus
As you can see, the window control buttons is at the left, while the tab control button for closing the tab is at right. And as you all know, Mozilla Firefox’s tab buttons is also at the left. It is very inconvenient by causing a user to waste more time to make sure that they are pointed to the correct side for the windows and tabs. Window buttons must point to left, and when want to control the tab, must go to right.
Other word, it is not user friendly!
Ubuntu was known as the most user friendly distro, even much more user friendly than Windows and it was certified!
By doing such changes, it is just causing Ubuntu loosing its title as the most user friendly distro!
Dear Ivanka Majic, WTF you and your whole design team is thinking!?
Making Ubuntu looks nice but loosing its user friendly title?
A lot of new Ubuntu users are comes from Windows users. They able to accept Ubuntu because of Ubuntu is easy to use and they do not need to waste more time to get used to it. MacOSX users are having hard time to get used to it because of the window buttons too!So why make this drastic changes and causing miseries to the users? This changes will not only effect new users, but existing users will get effected as well!
Although it is configurable from left to right. But it would be nice if it is located at the right by default. Old users know that it is configurable, but new users do not know! They were not able to do anything while they are using Windows, and most of them do not know that in Linux we have the rights to configure almost everything! They will thought that it is not configurable! This will cause them go back to the world of virus instead of switching to the world that without virus!
Someone has made a python script for easy GUI tool to customize the window buttons at here.
About this issue, I am not the only one who disagree about this pointless changes. In fact, there is a lot of people do not agree with this drastic changes as well. If you google for “lucid window control buttons” or “lucid control button“, you’ll found a lot people are already complaining about it.
Besides this issues, the rest of the components in Ubuntu Lucid is working great. I would say it have a lot of improvement compare to previous versions. I would say I love it a lot, only the default placement of the window control buttons are pissing me off!
There is still 1 more month before Lucid is release. So Ubuntu Design Team, please change it before we mark Lucid as the most user unfriendly LTS version!!!
To those who trying to say, “Hey, you are not Official Ubuntu Member, so shut up!”
Then I will have to say, fuck you back! You passed and obtained the official Ubuntu membership, does not mean you have to suck up the design team! Those who not pass the Ubuntu membership interview is also Ubuntu users!
Coz I know some of the official members do behave like this.
And to those who do not agree with this changes, I stand on your side. Please try your best to fight for our claim on preserving the placing of the window control buttons.
Related Articles:
http://voices.canonical.com/ronald.mccollam/2010/03/12/window-controls-and-ubuntu-
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/easy-gui-window-button-switcher-for.html
http://yokozar.org/blog/archives/194
http://www.ivankamajic.com/?p=281
Anyway