Ubuntu drops Unity and moves back to GNOME

[Cosmo.]

thinking it is actually time to start preparing for a need for the fallback option or better yet, seeing a need to do so.

Preparing on which base of information?
No Unity: Not of interest for Mint, never was.
Gnome as default DE: the same.
Those possible plans, where not even the smallest hint exists? Not a base for any decision.

As I wrote already: The question is, what did Shuttleworth not say and what else will change? This can be to the positive or to the negative, but at this time this is all speculation. Perhaps Ubuntu 17.10 will give more hints. Or somebody is able to extract more information from Shuttleworth ...

If - hypothetically - in one year Ubuntu 18.04 should display as being not more suitable as a Mint base, than there is at least 1 year left for Mint 17.x users to get a new Mint base for Mint 19, Mint 18.x users have even 2 years more time. The current versions will not stall at this time.

BTW: those, who are really affected on the first place, if things should go really bad, are the Ubuntu users. Hardly to believe, that there will not come a loud reaction.

[mike acker]

{snip}

Next to that, there is definitely, in my mind, malicious behaviour in Windows 10 when it is running and there was/is malicious behaviour in the way Windows 10 was and is pushed. In fact it behaves much like a virus and your pc will no longer be under your control. There is nothing personal anymore about the PC when running Windows 10. Every thing you do, keystrokes are monitored. Every file on a Windows 10 system, yes also the files that where created by you, the owner, are not private anymore.

I like your post, Jennifer; well stated.

I'll offer the following as Suggested Reading

It's like "Preaching to the Choir" here -- but -- I think this is an important thread and the information found in the link might be of some use.

[Fred Barclay]

xenopeek, I remember you switched to Arch so you could have the latest Gnome Shell. Any chance that this news could tempt you to Ubuntu? You wouldn't get the absolute latest Gnome Shell but you'd still get a pretty new one if you track each Ubuntu release.

[Jennifer W]

(Thank God.)

...Ya God....or tetragrammaton for all we know........which probably is not much,...... well in my case anyway

Paranoia has its uses, Jennifer.

...Art of Noise actually made a tune with that title....

And yes, I basically trust the LM team as well, otherwise I would not be here.
P.S.: Hey, xenopeek, it's cool. We'll try and behave, honest, gov'nor!

[Jennifer W]

Those possible plans, where not even the smallest hint exists? Not a base for any decision.

I kind of agree that it might not yet be the time to be making a decision in regards to this topic. But lets not be blind that there do exist some hints. Its just not entirley certain how it will all pan out. And sure enough this is why its to early to see what will happen. But there are certainly hints that at least indicate a few possibilities among which, canonical is being sold off in a near future.

As I wrote already: The question is, what did Shuttleworth not say and what else will change? This can be to the positive or to the negative, but at this time this is all speculation. Perhaps Ubuntu 17.10 will give more hints. Or somebody is able to extract more information from Shuttleworth ...

Yes exactly.....there are enough reasons to at least raise the question right?

[Jennifer W]

I'll offer the following as Suggested Reading
It's like "Preaching to the Choir" here -- but -- I think this is an important thread and the information found in the link might be of some use.

....Every viewpoint needs contrast to be visible.....

[mike acker]

I'll offer the following as Suggested Reading
It's like "Preaching to the Choir" here -- but -- I think this is an important thread and the information found in the link might be of some use.

....Every viewpoint needs contrast to be visible.....

I remember reading this Run Bash on Win10 a year ago...... and thinking why would anyone do such a thing?

Excerpt

"This is not a VM. This is not cross-compiled tools. This is native," he said. "We've partnered with Canonical to offer this great experience, which you'll be able to download right from the Windows Store." Third-party tools have enabled this sort of thing for years, but a direct partnership between Microsoft and Canonical should offer even more flexibility and convenience for developers who prefer using these binaries and tools.

the interesting question is not so much why MSFT would be interested in this -- but why Canonical?

the only reason I mention this here is that it might be a Clue to the Future -- which is what we are pondering. MSFT must have some sort of business plan -- otherwise I wouldn't think they'd invest in the effort it took

dunno

there was this, of course: MSFT joins Linux Foundation I thought they hated Linux. Didn't Ballmer throw the chairs out of his office cussing at Linux ?

I think we have 2 cards down and 2 up. how this plays out is anybody's guess but if Jennifer offers a bet that MSFT buys out Canonical i'll have to fold.

[Jennifer W]

I think we have 2 cards down and 2 up. how this plays out is anybody's guess but if Jennifer offers a bet that MSFT buys out Canonical i'll have to fold.

Mike, thank you for providing the contrast

Let me link another piece from someone that actually worked on this bash on Windows thing:

http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/03/ ... =omgubuntu

Excerpt (how it works / will be used)

let's break it down slowly...

Windows 10 users
Can open the Windows Start menu
And type "bash" [enter]
Which opens a cmd.exe console
Running Ubuntu's /bin/bash
With full access to all of Ubuntu user space
Yes, that means apt, ssh, rsync, find, grep, awk, sed, sort, xargs, md5sum, gpg, curl, wget, apache, mysql, python, perl, ruby, php, gcc, tar, vim, emacs, diff, patch...
And most of the tens of thousands binary packages available in the Ubuntu archives!

This, together with the linux foundation membership and the current news about ditching a rather large chunk of the work that went into convergence, add to that Mark Shuttleworth stating that job cuts are to be made, and this work to be ditched in order to entice outside investors.......is what makes all this relevant to this thread IMO and "demands" for existential questions to be asked.

Mike, i am not willing to bet on someone's dream shattering, but yes, it seems exactly as you said......we will have to see how this will end....or continue....which in this case can mean the exact same thing.....

[Cosmo.]

there do exist some hints.

I don't see hints, only speculations. If I would be a developer, I would consider planning on this "base" as a waste of time. Any plan on this "base" might reveal after some months as just good for the trash bin - inclusive the wasted time for such plans. If the Ubuntu users like or dislike the move to Gnome is not the concern of Mint. If at the beginning of the next year Ubuntu 18.04 should (!) reveal as no longer suitable as Mint base, than it is enough time to find a new one. Even Mint 17.x will at that time have a life time for at least 12 more months, Mint 18.x for 3 years. If - and I repeat, that this is hypothetical - it should come out, that Ubuntu is out of what reasons ever no longer a suitable Mint base, it would (only one possibility beside others) be doable to provide a Mint 18.4 on Ubuntu 16.04 base. There is no need to invest time for such speculative steps at this time. The next steps for Mint are 18.2 in 3 months and 18.3 6 months later. That is, where time and concentration needs to get focused at.

I know, I know, humans like to see in the future. But until today no magic and reliable crystal ball has been invented. Speculations might be a nice toy, but that is all, what they can provide.

[mike acker]

{snip}
But until today no magic and reliable crystal ball has been invented. Speculations might be a nice toy, but that is all, what they can provide.

History tends to reflect the future.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana

Whither Canonical? it is well to anticipate change and to prepare for it. Our system should be based in FOSS. It will not bode well for Ubuntu If Canonical were to hook up with MSFT. In such acquisitions the more powerful company will impose its Corporate Culture on the acquisition. I've been there. Many times, both ways.

[Pjotr]

We'll see. And whatever happens: don't underestimate the power of the GNU General Public License.

[Lysander666]

Hi all,

This is my first post here having spent the last couple of months with Ubuntu [standard]. I really enjoy Ubuntu and I quite enjoy Mint Cinnamon as well, maybe I'll move over at some point - for my own reasons which I'll discuss in the future maybe. This forum looks like an openminded and friendly place, it's nice to be here.

With regard to the current issues facing Ubuntu, I'll start by saying that it is a very exciting time in the Ubuntu world. I love Unity and GNOME, so what is happening currently is interesting, and I am quite happy with either DE. The future of Canonical is another matter. There have been some particularly interesting posts in this thread, and I think Jennifer is closest to the truth. I think most likely Canonical will either be sold after gradually distancing themselves from Ubuntu desktop. OK, so let's not look at hints, let's look at facts. We know the following:

- 18.04 LTS will feature the GNOME DE
- Mark S said that Canonical would now focus on the IoS and cloud services
- Canoncial have been cutting staff and are looking for potential investors
- the company made an operating loss of £3.3m last year
- Windows 10, for its part, is now a rolling release and Microsoft do not do major releases anymore
- Windows 10 is known for its lack of privacy and 'spyware' which harvests user info

All of these are pretty much indisputable and have been confirmed in the main sites. So what are the ramifications, what can we deduce from these things?

Firstly that desktop OSs do not make money anymore like they used to. User information does. This is why Microsoft focus on rolling releases for W10 and why Canonical are moving to the cloud/IoT area. Ubuntu will likely be given over totally to the GNOME community after point releases are dropped. Those x.10 releases will go first, LTSs will stay before being given totally to GNOME. Companies tend to cut staff and look for investors when they are going to sell. Canonical will likely form a firm base in cloud services etc before doing so.

Unity will continue to be developed having been forked and maybe become an official 'flavour'. Either way, Ubuntu, such as we know it, will probably be entirely community-driven in the next few years while other OSs like Zorin, Elementary and the like become more popular as users get increasingly disgruntled with W10 etc.

Yes, these are predictions, but given the current state of things, the writing is on the wall, as another poster said.

That said, Ubuntu remains still an excellent OS and 16.04 is excellent. There are some exciting flavours coming up [Budgie, Unity?!] as well as 18.04 looks to be very interesting with GNOME. It's all good for Ubuntu. As for Canonical, I think it's accepted that their time in the sun is over. As to who will buy them? Not sure. I can see the Microsoft arguments, but I won't say anything on that quite yet.

[KBD47]

I don't agree with this article belolw as it is hyperbole and too much political correctness nonsense. But the last paragraph of Shuttleworth's comment is worth reading as I think it shows a couple of things. He seems very bitter about the free software community right now. Also he has a better attitude toward Microsoft than the free software community. Some of his frustration seems understandable, but if he had better listened to the free software community to start with Ubuntu might not be in this situation right now. I remember people were not thrilled with Unity, nor with Ubuntu chasing mobile which appeared unreachable and a waste of time and resources. If Ubuntu had done what Mint did and put together a better desktop paradigm instead of practically abandoning the desktop, Ubuntu would not be in the shape it is right now. So Mark should do a bit of self-introspection instead of blaming the community. Even among his critics I doubt many people would want to see Ubuntu fail, I certainly would not. And worse yet, I don't want to see him sell it to someone like Microsoft who he seems pretty chummy with.
Having said all that, we owe Shuttleworth quite a bit for what he pioneered with Ubuntu, and I do hope he makes his money back and more besides. But he should not blame the free software community for his ills.

I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream. When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too. The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence. F--- that s----.

(removed the bad language, you can find the full quote at the link below:

https://<blocked blogspam>/2017/04/09/ubuntu- ... n-control/

Edit:
Just thinking how far we have come from Microsoft being the #1 Ubuntu Bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

[Portreve]

Paranoia has its uses, Jennifer.

...Art of Noise actually made a tune with that title....

Great. Now I've got that song stuck in my head. Thanks!

History tends to reflect the future.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana

Very true, though I also like the Minbari (of Babylon 5) saying:
The past is prologue.

This forum looks like an openminded and friendly place, it's nice to be here.

Thanks! We try to be, though *some* of us [points finger at self] can be a touch opinionated from time to time...

With regard to the current issues facing Ubuntu <snip> and I am quite happy with either DE. The future of Canonical is another matter. There have been some particularly interesting posts in this thread, and I think Jennifer is closest to the truth. I think most likely Canonical will either be sold after gradually distancing themselves from Ubuntu desktop.

Well, as has been amply discussed above, Canonical's choice of not just desktop environment, but GUI system at large does not apply to, nor does it affect, the LinuxMint distro. Many of us here are former Ubuntu users, or former users of other distros, who did not like the direction the Gnome Project took, which of course influenced Canonical to come up with Unity. Otherwise, LM would be a Gnome 3.x- or Unity-using distro.

I can only imagine the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth which is about to come in the course of the next couple of years, both with respect to the userbase, and Canonical as a company. While it may or may not be as bad as the Gnome 2.x/3.x schism of several years ago, certainly they are going to have their work cut out for them. The more I read her posts, the more I keep finding myself in agreement with Jennifer. As to whether this is all a prelude to selling off Canonical, well... what was it the Doctor used to say? “Time will tell. It always does.”

[thom_A]

Quite a tall order for Linux Mint team to be looked up to as the messiah of the Debian side of things, if that's how I got it from some of the posts here. Makes me wonder what the other Debian distro developers are doing to achieve the kind of success Mint team is now reaping. In my mind, Mint would not be where it is today had it not picked Ubuntu as a base.

Debian distros didn't work for me as a desktop user. Been a Linux bystander for more than a decade and to me Linux in the form of Mint finally arrived. I'm not going to wait for another decade to use something that to me will never arrive.

Well, this topic is going in all directions. That some prefer LMDE or distrust Microsoft aren't really relevant to the topic. Let's try and stay on topic please.

The facts, before speculation runs rampant:

• Linux Mint 18.2 is in development and is based on Ubuntu 16.04. It's shaping up very nicely. Lots of nice improvements on the horizon! One of the things that makes Linux Mint 18.x great is that Ubuntu 16.04 is great. Both are supported—there's no change in that—till April 2019.
• Linux Mint 18.3 would be expected around end of this year and would also be based on Ubuntu 16.04.
• As for the more distant future, Linux Mint 19 would be expected around mid next year and would be based instead on Ubuntu 18.04.
• Ending investment in Unity8, phone and convergence and moving to Gnome Shell with Ubuntu 18.04 have no real impact on these Linux Mint releases that I can see. Linux Mint didn't use Unity8, phone, convergence or Gnome Shell so whether those areas receive less or more attention from Canonical isn't really a factor in Linux Mint deciding on its package bases.

Thanks for bringing back some sense.

[xenopeek]

Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to be dismissive of somebody else their vision if they fail to achieve it and it didn't align with your vision. But what does it add to say: "if they would have asked me I would have told them it would fail — I never liked what they wanted to do anyway — serves them right for trying!" People have different likes and dislikes. Acting like everybody should like what you like is childish. Linux Mint and Cinnamon get their fair share of accusatory criticism for trying to implement their vision. So yeah not everybody enjoyed using Unity or saw the need for it and some, like me, may have jumped ship when it was made the default 6 years ago. But like the Cinnamon team, the Unity team had a shared vision that they believed in and put blood, sweat and tears into to bring to life. Striving for your vision should be laudable.

Phone and convergence weren't growing partners quickly enough is my impression. I didn't enjoy Unity on the desktop, though it has much improved over the past 6 years, but I did want a Ubuntu phone with convergence. Unity development goes on in the newly named fork Yunit. Right now I don't see how that will reach phone and convergence and find carrier and hardware partners. I'm guess I'm stuck with Android or iOS devices for the foreseeable future. Weak sauce

[KBD47]

Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to be dismissive of somebody else their vision if they fail to achieve it and it didn't align with your vision. But what does it add to say: "if they would have asked me I would have told them it would fail — I never liked what they wanted to do anyway — serves them right for trying!" People have different likes and dislikes. Acting like everybody should like what you like is childish. Linux Mint and Cinnamon get their fair share of accusatory criticism for trying to implement their vision. So yeah not everybody enjoyed using Unity or saw the need for it and some, like me, may have jumped ship when it was made the default 6 years ago. But like the Cinnamon team, the Unity team had a shared vision that they believed in and put blood, sweat and tears into to bring to life. Striving for your vision should be laudable.

Phone and convergence weren't growing partners quickly enough. So it wasn't a success. I didn't enjoy Unity on the desktop, though it has much improved over the past 6 years, but I did want a Ubuntu phone with convergence. Unity development goes on in the newly named fork Yunit. Right now I don't see how that will reaching phone and convergence and find carrier and hardware partners. I'm guess I'm stuck with Android or iOS devices for the foreseeable future. Weak sauce

I would never bash anyone for trying to reach their dream. Hindsight is 20/20 and it is easier to discern some things now. There was nothing wrong with the idea of convergence or wanting Ubuntu on phones, but I think it was obvious for awhile now that it just was not working out and Android and iOS owned that space. And Unity on the desktop has felt abandoned for awhile also.
Whatever Ubuntu ends up doing long term I am very glad Mint has a plan B. I had kind of thought perhaps Mint could continue an Ubuntu version even if Ubuntu disappeared for some reason, but maintaining so many packages when Debian already does so would probably be useless.

[Jennifer W]

We'll see. And whatever happens: don't underestimate the power of the GNU General Public License.

Agreed

This forum looks like an openminded and friendly place.

open source minded for sure , its nice to meet you

Quote from Mark Shuttleworth
....."I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream. When Windows was mainstream they hated on it"........and......." The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence"...

Ya read that and to me.....it was like seeing/listening to a man whose dreams have been shattered.... i really felt bad for him....
Than again, it must have occurred to him that any community has yay AND nay sayers, and at that, the open source community is very vocal...

But ya, i would never wish someone to see their dreams and work shattered in the way it has...

Great. Now I've got that song stuck in my head. Thanks!

You are welcome
And now i have a graving for Babylon 5 and being opinionated

“Time will tell. It always does.”

At least twice a day, i would say....

Quite a tall order for Linux Mint team to be looked up to as the messiah of the Debian side of things

Nah, they have shown great prowess

Probably forgot replying to some but i have read them all and enjoy reading about all the different viewpoints on the matter, Thank you!
B.T.W., am i the only one who is particularly curious what Clem's thoughts are on the matter?

Clem, would you be willing to share some thoughts on this?

[xenopeek]

Whatever Ubuntu ends up doing long term I am very glad Mint has a plan B. I had kind of thought perhaps Mint could continue an Ubuntu version even if Ubuntu disappeared for some reason, but maintaining so many packages when Debian already does so would probably be useless.

We have LMDE because some Linux Mint users prefer the Debian package base for its stability and security. While it may serve as a plan B, that is not its reason for existing AFAIK.

There's still a gap going from an Ubuntu package base to a Debian package base. For one, Debian has no PPA support or other selection of additional repositories with a broad selection of other software. Debian 9 will have snaps and flatpak support, as do most other distros by now, so if either of those are the future that may be less relevant.

Personally I think that if Ubuntu would drop the ball it could be something like openSUSE that takes the ball and runs with it. Who knows.

[DeMus]

We have LMDE because some Linux Mint users prefer the Debian package base for its stability and security.

Xenopeek, did you really say: with the main LinuxMint we don't have the stability and security of the Debian packages? It only exist in LMDE.
Now that would be a reason to skip main Mint right now and only continue with LMDE.