And people laugh at me for being a Slackware guy! Guess who's getting the last laugh now? :) Mike On Fri, 08 May 2009 03:13:41 -0700, "Joseph Sinclair" said: > I noticed a very irritating "feature" of the new Ubuntu release, I'm > posting about it here so nobody else is surprised by it. > Let me preface this with a warning, there is some practical information > here, that's at the top; there's also a serious rant, at the bottom, > because this design is just plain bad, and the Ubuntu DX devs seem > completely unwilling to consider they might have done the complete wrong > thing. > > Practical: > > In Ubuntu 9.04, update-notifier doesn't display an icon, it actually runs > update-manager full-screen as a "pop-under". It's easy to miss, and > there's no way to make it NOT run (so on a laptop, for instance, where > stupid useless no-change updates are pending, you'll get the blasted > thing running every time you boot, and quite often multiple times in a > session). > There is a "magic" command to make it stop and go back to how it used to > run (which you may have to run regularly since some updates seem to > overwrite it), but it must be run for every user who can run updates: > gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false > Adding that to /etc/bash.bashrc seems to be a quick-and-dirty fix that > restores it for every user, and resets it if it gets overwritten. > There's no guarantee this will work after the 9.10 update, but at least > it works for now. > > Rant: > > I just finished reading the most INFURIATING (yes, I'm looking right at > you, Ted, even your responses had an uncharacteristically arrogant tone > to them, and most everyone else from Canonical had a tone so arrogant it > made me sick) bug report I've ever seen in a Linux Distribution (I've > seen plenty like this from Microsoft, I expect better from Linux). > It appears that the Ubuntu Desktop Experience (DX) team decided that for > Jaunty, they would "clean up" the notification area by removing the > update notification, not a bad thing by itself, although it's highly > questionable that it even needed to be done. > The problem is that they decided that having an uncontrollable > "pop-under" program was the "correct" approach to removing update-manager > from the notification area! > > One would think that at least there'd be a simple config option "Pop-up > frequently when updates available" that I could turn off, there isn't. > One would think it would be easy to disable the whole auto-update > structure, it isn't. I disabled checks for updates, but the blasted > thing keeps popping up as long as apt-get is up-to-date. > One would think there would be more communication and choice for > something this intrusive. > One would hope that at least the Canonical team, on getting hundreds of > negative comments and dozens of separate bug reports in the beta period > would revert the change until the user concerns could be addressed. > Unfortunately, none of these were done. > > There is an *undocumented* option to "revert" to the old behavior, it's a > PITA to use, and you have to keep resetting it. > > I have several problems with this situation: > 1) Major intrusive UI change with no user option to disable. I > eliminated the problem by simply running apt-get remove update-manager > update-notifier, but most users shouldn't do that. > 2) There's nothing wrong with the notification area from a user > perspective, It's not a "swamp" as Canonical claims, it's typically less > than 5 items in Linux, and I normally have 1 or 2 items at most. > 3) Notification area is a useful and valued feature. I DO NOT WANT basic > system-config programs running full-screen all the time, I WANT them as > little icons in the notification area. I also want my music player and > IM client there (and I have the OPTION to do that). If you don't like it > add options to your program and let the *user* decide. > 4) Some of us don't want to install every stupid little piddling update > when it comes out. In the past 6mo I've seen at least 50 updates to 8.10 > with a change description of "upstream version match, no change" or > something similar. WHY do I have to have programs interrupting my work > every day just because somebody decided to publish an "update" that > doesn't update anything? > 5) This whole process is being expressed (and this may be a PR issue) as > "the devs came up with this idea, and we're going to run with it because > we can, and anyone who disagrees is just > wrong/stupid/unenlightened/etc...". That's not what I expect from Linux, > or Ubuntu. I expect EVERYONE involved to *acknowledge* when a change is > un-desired by some users, MAKE IT OPTIONAL, and let the *USER* decide > what they want. Devs should NOT force users to work the devs' way, they > should give the users tools that work the USERS' way (since devs are > users too, they can have options to work "their" way as well, but don't > force a single view of the world on 20 million users (or 200 million, or > 2 billion)). > 6) Rushing major UI changes out before they're done just to make a short > release cycle is BAD. If you can't do it well in this release, wait for > the next one. NO NEW FEATURE is so important it can't wait 6 months for > a more complete and/or correct implementation. > 7) The devs say "We're going to do bold things", that's fine, but > recognize that "bold" things are often WRONG. Be humble, accept when > your "bold" new thing is not good for users and BACK OFF (you can still > do it, but make it optional, non-default, and take the user feedback into > account before you roll it out any further). Don't be like MS with > Office 2007 and "Ribbons", where a "bold" new UI design just DESTROYED > user productivity in line-of-business applications, and MS said, > effectively, "like it or lump it". > > I used to run the update-notifier because I liked that it would pre-cache > the updates for me, just download them in the background for me to > install at my leisure (typically rarely because so few actually matter on > my systems). Since it's now so blasted intrusive, I decided I can deal > with long downloads on occasion, and just removed the useless monster. > > If the whole Gnome/Ubuntu ecosystem is heading this way, I may well go > insane. I don't want to go back to using the command-line for > everything, but if everything now in the notification area, like > NetworkManager (already bad in many ways) starts doing pop-unders every > time my wireless goes weak (at home, that's about every 2 minutes), or > pidgin pops-under every time I get an IM, I cannot be held responsible > for my response! > This whole mess is destroying user trust just because a few devs seem to > hate the notification area, possibly the dumbest thing I've seen any > Linux distribution do in a long time. > > Thank you for reading, we now return to our regularly scheduled OT flood > ;-) > > --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss