Thanks xterm for the review.
I won't give any detailed opinion about the OS since I haven't gone further than booting a live cd of the alpha release on a VM, but I have some comments on the opinions voiced above:
Software Center
...
It's quite nice to see all the apps hosted on canonical's repository listed in categories with comments/ratings and get recommendations based on what you already downloaded.
It's worth noting that Ubuntu was absolutely innovative on this front, presenting a Software Center years before Apple came up with their idea of an App Store for iOS or Mac OS X (and before Google copied it for Android and now Chrome!). It's safe to say that Ubuntu knows better than anyone on the planet how to present a software gallery with seamless install. I would concede though that it wasn't until very recently that they started including non-free apps in their Center, so I would expect issues with their paid apps or payment facilities. Again, this is just speculation, I have never bought anything from Canonical so I have no idea what I'm talking about.
On the other hand, they may be good at it, but I think the idea of a Software Center sucks balls! In simple words, Software Center is probably the number one reason why I do not use Ubuntu anymore. (disclaimer: Users don't
have to use it, but Canonical really
wants you to).
I understand that app centers are the best way for platform providers (whether Apple, Google or Canonical) to monetize their products. But it puts such a burden on the developer, in the holy name of software quality, that it becomes repugnant.
There's a plethora of example of developers wrongly mistreated by app store owners (Google and Apple). Honetstly a shit-ton of examples; I don't even feel like bothering to Google anything to back my claims up. If you've ever considered mobile dev, you know what I'm talking about.
Comments and star ratings are biased, and do not make apps justice. It creates an unhealthy competition between products, with claims of slander, spamming and
uncompetitive behaviors. The unix/linux tradition is much more rooted in cooperation and not creating a separate product to compete. Sure we have our little flame wars (we are geeks after all...), but things should remain leveled, and Ubuntu (via their Software Center) shouldn't have to tell me what app is "best".
You're probably thinking that Software Center is optional, that I could always use 'apt-get' or Synaptic or whatever... This is true, but it says a lot about who is Canonical target audience and how they are reaching out to them.
- Perhaps it's just me but the pre-installed Firefox browser is a load of crap. It's slow, very slow, both on startup and through browsing. I quickly installed chrome and it was working great.
I don't know Canonical's official stand on the matter, but here's my opinion:
- There are probably commercial deals and contracts between the two organizations.
- The free/open source community has always considered itself really close to Firefox, a flagship for the whole ideology, and arguably our most successful product.
- Firefox is probably (don't bother showing numbers) the most used browser now. You may not like it, but it's not a 'mistake' to chose the most succesful browser as your default.
Diclaimer: I
hate using Firefox.
- Closing some apps that still run in the background through integration with the top panel bar gives no hint of the matter. To assist end-user with the matter, the first time a user closes Empathy or Gwibber or similar that remain running in the background, should give that user a small bubble tip of what happened.
This behavior will seem much more normal for Mac users. Also, it is in the Unix tradition
not to get confirmation when something works. It can be argued whether it's good or bad, I completely agree.