KDE > Unity

Misc.

In my previous post I mentioned that I was getting one of the new Raspberry Pi single board computers and that I would be writing about some projects I was going to attempt with it. Well, as some of you are aware, after the first production run of the R-Pi the shipping dates got pushed back on all subsequent orders. Unfortunately, I'm in that later group and as such I won't be expecting mine to arrive until early July (at the latest, hopefully).

With that in mind I've been "keeping myself busy"(who am I kidding, I'm always busy, no effort required) with some other projects, including my old Pentium 1 "IBM compatible", which I've been planning on putting back together for a while now. I'm mostly finished with that project, and after I've done a few more things with it (like installing the "3D Accelerator" I've got) I plan on doing a full write-up.

Kubuntu to the Rescue

The main thing that I want to address in this post is recent developments in my personal choice of primary OS. I've mentioned to a few people that I had (in Unity induced disgust) switched from Ubuntu to Debian 'Squeeze' with Gnome2. Overall I was fairly happy with Debian, but as I have a handful of applications that I use which are not in the the 'Squeeze' repositories, I found myself in dependency hell on more than a few occasions. There are also several old bugs in Gnome2 that are (realistically speaking) never going to be fixed.

So, after about a month of using 'Squeeze' I decided to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and see if Unity had improved enough for me to "get used to it" as I've seen suggested several times on r/Ubuntu (amongst other places). Let me say, I've honestly tried to like Unity. I installed 11.04 just for that purpose. I tried again with 11.10 and 12.04 beta in virtual machines. And now I've tried with 12.04 on bare metal, and I just don't like Unity.

I can admit that it's become very stable, and that it's quite attractive. I can also admit that it seems very usable for people who primarily use their PC for web browsing (I installed 'Precise' on my parents' secondary PC that they have setup for general use and so far there haven't been any complaints other than my younger sister wanting to know how to make the side bar auto-hide). But it's just not for me. I can't get over the feeling that everything is backwards, it's like trying to learn how to write with your off-hand after a lifetime of writing when there's nothing wrong with your strong-hand. I feel the same way about Gnome Shell.

As I already had 'Precise' installed at this point, I decided to try out some alternatives. I tried out Cinnamon, MATE`, Xfce and KDE, and eventually settled on KDE. I've been toying with the idea of switching to Kubuntu/KDE for a while, but I couldn't shake the uneasiness I've had since the jump from KDE3 to KDE4. (Disclosure: I was a KDE user prior to KDE4). I'd actually been testing Kubuntu 10.04 (and 12.04 beta) in VM (and with USB live boot) off and on for several months and so far I'd liked what I had seen.

So once I had tried out all of the other alternatives listed above, instead of installing just the KDE desktop, I decided to bite the bullet and install the Kubuntu Meta packages instead, a decision that I do not regret in the slightest. I've now been using KDE exclusively (and extensively) for the past 3 days and I couldn't be happier with with it. That's not to say that there weren't any pumps along the way, or little changes that I made to the layout to better suite my preferences. On the contrary, there were several things that I tweaked right off the bat.

But that's part of the point really, where Unity forces you to do things certain ways, KDE gives you the option to change them based on your preferences, not Canonical's. In addition to the greater degree of customization possible, the uniformity and integration between applications seems much better. Of course that also varies based on the extent to which you utilize apps which are part of the total KDE suite, but even in instances where I used an alternative app (say, something gtk based for example) I found that things still seemed to mesh better.

Another detail worth mentioning is the greater similarity between KDE's default layout and the Windows desktop. Of course this doesn't effect everyone, but in situations were you're migrating people from Windows to GNU/Linux, or for individuals who for one reason or another have go back and forth between Windows and Gnu/Linux on a regular basis, I think this is another advantage that KDE has over Unity.

Conclusion: 

If you're in the same boat I've been in and just can't stand Unity, I can't recommend Kubuntu 12.04 LTS enough. In my opinion it's overall a much better user experience, and I think the number one alternative to Unity.

As a side note: A few months ago while I was still testing Kubuntu (along with several other distros) for my own purposes, it was announced that Canonical would be ending financial support for Kubuntu. Their excuse being that ‘Kubuntu has not been a business success after 7 years of trying‘, (like Ubuntu has been raking in the cash over that same time period) ಠ_ಠ   
Kubuntu have since found other financial backers for the project.

Update(2012.08.24): In the several months since I wrote this piece something very strange has happened; I actually did get used to Unity as many people said that I would. I still very much like the KDE desktop and Kubuntu, but things didn't work out as great as I had thought they would early on. I'm be making a post regarding this in the very near future, so for now I'll leave it at that.

"Sometimes they come back" or "Literary Diarrhea has to go somewhere"

Well folks, after a long hiatus I've decided to start writing Technical Knockout again. To be honest I've been trying to get back into writing for some time, even just to bitch blog about something or other. Anything! But alas, between my responsibilities IRL and a terminal case of writer's block it just hasn't been possible.

As some of you may know, I more or less stopped updating Technical Knockout back in 2010 so that I could focus my time and energy on another project. In the intervening time since then (nearly two years), the other project has more or less sunk and my situation in life has changed several times. It is only now that I have both the time and inclination to start writing again. And maybe now is a good time for it. We shall soon find out.

Anyhow, in the immortal word of Forest Gump "Thats all I've got to say about that", so keep an eye out for future entries on various topics.

Cheers!

Edit: Just to give you an idea of what may be in the works for future posts, I'm currently looking forward to the release of the Raspberry Pi Gnu/Linux box and the types of projects that will allow for. On a similar note, I'm also currently in the early planning stages of building a wireless router (with the possibility of NAS functionality) using a cimilar single board computer. More details on the latter once I'm further into the project.

apt-get install kung-fu

I recently read an article posted on the The Atlantic (fyi: This links directly to the article in question) regarding research into the use of fMRI to insert knowledge/skill-sets directly into a subjects brain. The full study can be read here. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, what I'm thinking is that what this needs (once it's further developed of course) is an automatic package management system like Aptitude which resolves dependencies for certain skill-sets and insures that knowledge is inserted in the correct order so as to make since.

Think prerequisites for college courses. Or think about it like this: having the entire 8300 character Simplified Chinese alphabet installed in your head is just a waste of space without also having a knowledge of Mandarin.

Maybe I'm way off on this, but it just seems to me that there would need to be some sort of structured control system in order for this to work well.