Discussion Forums > Technology
New look for Ubuntu with the release of Lucid Lynx!
fohfoh:
--- Quote from: iindigo on March 11, 2010, 11:21:04 AM ---A better screenshot can be found here:
I don't like it at all. The colors are weird (but Ubuntu seems to have a penchant for those), the widget arrangement is different from everything else for no particular reason, and the whole mess has an air of "amateur-made XP theme" around it. I don't find the new icons particularly impressive, either... the old tango ones were much nicer.
Why don't we see more Linux themes sitting in the realm of modern and cutting edge?
--- End quote ---
Why should it? It's linux. It doesn't have the billions of Sir Apple Jobs, or Baron Microsoft the rich to help.
Why should the widget be the same? And have apple users go "kekekekek it copied us!" ?
Linux wasn't meant to be Apple, nor was it meant to be windows. It's an alternative.
iindigo:
--- Quote from: fohfoh on March 11, 2010, 12:56:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: iindigo on March 11, 2010, 11:21:04 AM ---A better screenshot can be found here:
I don't like it at all. The colors are weird (but Ubuntu seems to have a penchant for those), the widget arrangement is different from everything else for no particular reason, and the whole mess has an air of "amateur-made XP theme" around it. I don't find the new icons particularly impressive, either... the old tango ones were much nicer.
Why don't we see more Linux themes sitting in the realm of modern and cutting edge?
--- End quote ---
Why should it? It's linux. It doesn't have the billions of Sir Apple Jobs, or Baron Microsoft the rich to help.
Why should the widget be the same? And have apple users go "kekekekek it copied us!" ?
Linux wasn't meant to be Apple, nor was it meant to be windows. It's an alternative.
--- End quote ---
Indeed it is true that Linux is supposed to be alternative. However, it's fairly well known that a large part of Ubuntu's aim is to attract "normal" users. "Normal" users aren't going to be so keen on switching to something that doesn't at least resemble what they previously used. Most non-technites that I've met also tend to be attracted to shinies - that is, by installing a new OS, whether it be Linux, Windows, or OS X, they want it to feel like a real upgrade every moment they're on it. This doesn't feel like an upgrade - it looks like something strait out of the XP era.
And no, I'm not saying to make the titlebar widgets exactly the same. I'm simply saying that from a usability perspective, it's probably better to use an arrangement that is already out there.
Also, after thinking about it some more, I believe I figured out what it is that Linux themes lack. It's polish. It's almost as if they get a theme's design into its later stages but never tweak all the little details and actually finish it into an outstanding, well-crafted UI.
EDIT: Fixed the link in my previous post, was an idiot and forgot to paste it. Here's it again for those who missed it: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/03/ubuntu-dumps-the-brown-introduces-new-theme.ars
fohfoh:
It's linux. There's so many ways of customizing this and that, people can go out and figure that out for themselves. Toss in a highly polished UI, people complain about resource usage. In all honesty, I really only see Mac users having a huge beef with the UI. "ZOMG IT'S NOT AS PRETTY." Seriously, wut? Those who put such huge emphasis on such pointless things are the same people who go, "OMFG A MAC RUNS JUST LIKE HOW A COMPUTER SHOULD RUN!" These being the same people who barely know how to go on the net, make a few word documents, add a picture here and there, play with a webcam (and think they're highly tech savvy for doing so) etc.
Seriously if people want flashy, they're the people spending big bucks on either a Mac, or a spiffy piece of hardware (namely Sony, Voodoo etc.)
iindigo:
--- Quote from: fohfoh on March 11, 2010, 06:25:04 PM ---It's linux. There's so many ways of customizing this and that, people can go out and figure that out for themselves. Toss in a highly polished UI, people complain about resource usage. In all honesty, I really only see Mac users having a huge beef with the UI. "ZOMG IT'S NOT AS PRETTY." Seriously, wut? Those who put such huge emphasis on such pointless things are the same people who go, "OMFG A MAC RUNS JUST LIKE HOW A COMPUTER SHOULD RUN!" These being the same people who barely know how to go on the net, make a few word documents, add a picture here and there, play with a webcam (and think they're highly tech savvy for doing so) etc.
Seriously if people want flashy, they're the people spending big bucks on either a Mac, or a spiffy piece of hardware (namely Sony, Voodoo etc.)
--- End quote ---
Polished ≠ resource consuming. Polished also ≠ flashy. Something being polished means its creator took that last stretch of effort in ensuring each detail is perfect.
A good example are most Blizzard games. Are they the most technically capable or flashy? No, not by a long shot. It's all old, low-requirement stuff. It is very polished, though, and it shows (and sells).
In fact, most of these themes could be polished without changing resource usage at all. It mostly lays within the graphics themselves (layout, color, etc) and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that swapping out these graphics will cause no performance change in any way.
nstgc:
You definately don't need to have a shit ton of resources to run a shiny UI. As I've mentioned before, using Compiz Fusion, which is far shinier then MS's Aero, with everything I use regularly running I'm currently using less than 480MB of RAM and my swap partition (equivalent to a paging file) is completely unused (I don't have one set). If you use Xfce, which is about as shiny as Aero you find that you are using about 350MB and still no swap. I have windows 7 and I believe it uses over 1GB of RAM and has a huge (>2GB) paging file. Windows doesn't do half of what Ubuntu can do yet it still eats more resources.
As for the new look and feel of Ubuntu 10.04, I don't care. As has been mentioned, a user can change that if they want, and I sure as hell will. I've posted this picture of my desktop before, but this gives you an idea as to how much you can diverge from the typical Gnome themes.
Its very clean, very shiny, and very functional.
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