What went wrong in Natty Narwhal Ubuntu 11.04

It was 29th of April, 2011 and I just completed my exams. I was so excited to try the new release of Ubuntu as I knew that Ubuntu is going to concentrate much on the User Interface part of the Operating System this time. I really thought it would be a success compared to the earlier versions and new users would definitely try it. But after trying it, I was hugely disappointed.

We understand that user interface is important. But it is not a crucial element in an operating System. Many other things such as the performance, the hardware utilization, memory management determine the success of an operating system. In addition to this, it would be a basic thing to provide software without bugs. The earlier versions of Ubuntu also had some issues. But we cannot expect everything to be perfect, especially for an open source software. On the other hand, if the bugs occur every now and then when we use it; it would be irritating for any kind of a user. Remember its not an alpha or a beta release, its the final release.

There are many issues with this release, which are listed below:

• Not responding state: The users able to control the system under this state is one area where Windows is way ahead of Linux. The Windows Task Manager does a very good job, allowing the user to control the System.
• We have an applet namely Force Quit that ends any application forcibly. This applet in the previous releases used to be a decent application, which responded quickly and took control of the system immediately, when invoked. However, the new release of Ubuntu has not got any such applet and the system often goes into the not-responding state. 
• In addition to this, this release does not respond well to the Hot Keys. Even if we use Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, which is used to kill the X server and log out of the system; we are logged out of the system, which does not display the login screen, thus posing problem to most of the beginners. In this scenario, we are left with using the system in command-line through Ctrl-Alt-(F1 to F6). Thus, the not-responding state eventually makes us to use the Power Button for restarting the system, rather than the conventional way of shutting the machine down. 
• Banshee Music Player is good when compared to Rhythm box Music player regarding the ease of use. It is selected as a default music player this time instead of Rhythm box Music Player. This crashes every now and then irritating us to the maximum. To some extent, Rhythm box Music Player was better and can be used.

• Customization reduced: One main reason, I use Ubuntu is the customizations in it. However, this release left me with dissatisfaction giving absolutely no customization to the panel.
• The earlier releases had given control to the user as far as the panel is concerned, through which I was able to add the applets to the panel, which I found to be useful. But now, the panel at the top has got minimum customizations and gives zero control to the user. 
• The menu bar is another disappointing change made in the interface. The menu bar appears on the top panel according to the active window or the active application. 
• The Launcher is a new idea and it is good when it comes to look and feel. But a huge deal of it still has to be improved. Many parameters of the Launcher are pre-defined and cannot be changed by the user and the drag and drop option for the launcher is not complete. However, after using it, one makes a statement that literally everything has to be done through the launcher only, allowing minimum customization. 
• The interface sometimes crashes out, especially in the case of drag and drop. When I tried to move the files from one folder to another by using the drag and drop in the Nautilus File manager, I experienced it to be an absolute prison with the not-responding state again. Interesting point to make a note of is that the previous releases all remained stable with the same kind of mouse drag-and-drop action on the file manager. 
• The old Compiz settings are far better than the changed ones.

• Untested Software: I got a feel of using an alpha or beta release when I was using the final release of Natty Narwhal.
• The mouse and keyboard listeners are not well programmed and have to be looked into once again. Sometimes, the Close, Maximize and Minimize buttons for a window disappear suddenly. We do not know what to do under these circumstances and use the System Monitor to kill that specific application. 
• The themes sometimes get changed by themselves. These new themes are out of control of user, as they do not get changed the way we want. In such cases, the previous theme is restored only after the system is restarted and there are situations where even  the system restart does not help. 
• The dialogs or the wizards for the settings in applications especially is cumbersome as the wizard is found to be defective if it is un-maximized. 
• Under some circumstances, I came across a situation where the items in the panel are not listed. This makes us difficult to control the system, as the menu for any application appears in the panel. 
• There is another situation where everything was going well with my modem and a bug appeared in the Network Manager applet while trying to connect to the Internet. But the Network Manager applet says it does not identify network devices in-spite of everything being fine with the devices.

This release has got many attractive features as well. The interface has been the focus of the development team this time. But there are some other encouraging features as well.

• Ubuntu Software Center: With every release, the Ubuntu Software Center is getting better and better. The encouraging feature this time is the reviews and ratings added to the softwares. The reviews put in by various users and their ratings are given.
• Easy access to items in Launcher: The launcher may not be good at the customization but it certainly gives easy access to the items in the Launcher through the simple shortcuts.
• Unity Applications Menu Support: This is a welcome development. Unity now lists the installed applications under a section "Installed". Though it looks good, it is not very user friendly yet. There are no categories as we saw in GNOME Shell before and it is not very stable as well. This still requires a lot of work. 
• Improved Search Options in the Unity: The Search options certainly have been very good compared to the previous versions. The categories such as Frequently used, Installed applications are included which makes it much more easy for the users. However the auto-completion option has not been added yet. With that option, the Search functionality would become a true class application.
• Improved Window movements: Like in Windows 7, the windows can be thrown to the corners and edges on the environment resulting in maximization, minimization of the windows.

The strategy of the Ubuntu developers must certainly change now. Anything overdone is dangerous. All the operating system concepts must be kept in mind while development and bug-free software is essential in the increase of popularity of a software and Ubuntu is no exception to that. It has been good and sticking to the right areas till Maverick Meerkat. But this time, the interface frequently leads to Force Restarts, which is not a good sign. However, there are many positives that can be made out of this release. What everyone needs is a bug-free software and good user-friendliness; both have to be taken care of. I just think that the next release is going to be a success as the testing will become important this time and will lead to error-free system.

MacBuntu and Compiz effects --Make Ubuntu look like Mac OSX

After a long gap, I have something interesting for you. The first part is to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS-X and the next part giving you some of the very interesting features of Compiz which I tried.

Unlike the earlier editions of Ubuntu which had a very dry default theme, the latest versions 10.04 and 10.10 have an interesting theme by default. Ubuntu must have definitely looked into this aspect and the booting process. The booting process is so fast that it takes hardly 20 seconds for the booting to take place. On the other hand, the Internet speed also has increased reasonably well over the Lucid Lynx (which had disastrously slow Internet). However, the look and feel of Mac-OS is top-class with glossy finishes and high resolutions.

How to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS X:

In order to get the Mac look-and-feel, a package named "Macbuntu" has to be installed. The process for the installation is given below:

1. Download the Macbuntu package from the links given below:
• https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/macbuntu/macbuntu-10.04/v2.2/Macbuntu-10.04.tar.gz for Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04).
• https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/macbuntu/macbuntu-10.10/v2.3/Macbuntu-10.10.tar.gz for Maverick Meerkat (Ubuntu 10.10).
2. After changing the present working directory to the folder which contains the downloaded file, extract the contents inside this compressed file to /tmp folder by using the following commands in the Terminal:
• tar xzvf Macbuntu-10.10.tar.gz -C /tmp
• cd /tmp/Macbuntu-10.10/
• ./install.sh
3. In the steps that follow the installation, give the  appropriate values to the questions at each stage.
4. Now restart your system to get the new look-and-feel of Mac OS.

Compiz Settings:

Getting to the later part of the discussion,  Compiz effects are something that anyone would like to have for better animations, extras, effects, Window management, Utility, Desktop effects etc.

The things I tried in Compiz are pretty easy ones and Desktop cube, cube reflection and deformation, Scale and Negative are the ones that I predominantly used. 

The negative  plug-in does get the negative version of the environment which we are working on. 

The Scale plug-in gives a list of all the windows maximised at the center of the screen just giving some amazing desktop eye candy as shown in the figure below. It is always handy to have these kinds of plug-ins.

The Wobble windows plug-in though is a good piece, seemed to be an unstable one as far as the look in the environment and the wobbling to the eyes are concerned. Among the others, all the plug-ins related to Cube are a treat to the eyes. But one should see that the performance does not get disappointed when you have an extra set of these animations enabled. Cube Atlantis and Cube gears are master-pieces in this section but demand very good hardware all around.

A balance between the performance and the look-and-feel  is the one we should look at because an operating system is not solely about the look-and-feel. Therefore, it is always recommended to think for a while before switching to high graphic oriented plug-ins.