Compared to OS X or Windows, I'd say Ubuntu gets a lot of details wrong. The window button positioning was a recent example, but it's by no means the first. Below are some bugs that I have experienced while using 9.10 or 10.04 beta. I also noted the year they were filed.
Ubuntu is improving (9.10 finally fixed a bunch of problems with Intel graphics), but the user experience details are definitely a weak spot. Considering how old these bugs are, I don't expect the situation to improve any time soon.
On the contrary, I feel that they are just beginning to get interested in the user experience: boot process, themes, app installation, IM integration, scanning app, etc... I have high expectations for 10.10 on this side.
Well, the user experience is more or less the point of Ubuntu, so I'd say they've been working on it since 2004. They've made a lot of progress, certainly, but it's not like they've just turned their attention to these things...
Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with you there. The user experience in Ubuntu is strong and consistent. Their philosophy makes sense even for power users. Users can find the all the options they normally need and power users can dig into things to customise further.
I've never hit any of these bugs (and have been using Ubuntu full time since defecting from Fedora in '05) and most of them have very good reasons for not being fixed or are a work in progress and none of them are a user experience nightmare.
Resolution: WONTFIX
"I don't have any plans to support this. My view is that any screensaver theme that requires configuration is inherently broken."
or are a work in progress
In progress for five years?
and none of them are a user experience nightmare.
I wasn't talking about nightmares, just minor things that are broken. You want nightmares? Try:
2.6.28-11 causes massive data corruption on 64 bit installations https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/346691 (March 2009) This one is particularly bad because they went ahead and released Jaunty with this bug. Then, the fixed kernel introduced a new bug that caused FS corruption on systems with Intel disk controllers.
Comments
Compared to OS X or Windows, I'd say Ubuntu gets a lot of details wrong. The window button positioning was a recent example, but it's by no means the first. Below are some bugs that I have experienced while using 9.10 or 10.04 beta. I also noted the year they were filed.
Lots of redundant fonts: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/18666 (2005)
Copy-pasting text is broken in some apps. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334 (late 2004)
No way to auto-arrange desktop icons. https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/20284 (2005, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/1260... is related)
No ability to change individual screensaver settings. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/... (2005)
Can't read some DVDs without using sudo/root. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/10... (late 2004)
Setting volume to 0 doesn't mute speakers. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/16454 (2005)
Ubuntu is improving (9.10 finally fixed a bunch of problems with Intel graphics), but the user experience details are definitely a weak spot. Considering how old these bugs are, I don't expect the situation to improve any time soon.
On the contrary, I feel that they are just beginning to get interested in the user experience: boot process, themes, app installation, IM integration, scanning app, etc... I have high expectations for 10.10 on this side.
Well, the user experience is more or less the point of Ubuntu, so I'd say they've been working on it since 2004. They've made a lot of progress, certainly, but it's not like they've just turned their attention to these things...
Yes, but until now it was more things under the hood. It was mainly a breeze to install and to maintain.
Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with you there. The user experience in Ubuntu is strong and consistent. Their philosophy makes sense even for power users. Users can find the all the options they normally need and power users can dig into things to customise further.
I've never hit any of these bugs (and have been using Ubuntu full time since defecting from Fedora in '05) and most of them have very good reasons for not being fixed or are a work in progress and none of them are a user experience nightmare.
I've never hit any of these bugs
Lucky for you. Unfortunately, I and many others have.
most of them have very good reasons for not being fixed
Some of them have inane reasons for not being fixed. From https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316654
Resolution: WONTFIX "I don't have any plans to support this. My view is that any screensaver theme that requires configuration is inherently broken."
or are a work in progress
In progress for five years?
and none of them are a user experience nightmare.
I wasn't talking about nightmares, just minor things that are broken. You want nightmares? Try:
2.6.28-11 causes massive data corruption on 64 bit installations https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/346691 (March 2009) This one is particularly bad because they went ahead and released Jaunty with this bug. Then, the fixed kernel introduced a new bug that caused FS corruption on systems with Intel disk controllers.
ehci_hcd module causes I/O errors in USB 2.0 devices https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/88746 (2007)
ath5k driver connection and performance issues https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/461419 (2009)
[karmic regression] all network apps / browsers suffer from multi-second delays by default due to IPv6 DNS lookups https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eglibc/+bug/417757
I've been hit by all of these except the first one, and I was only saved from that because I stumbled on the bug report before upgrading to Jaunty.
The user experience is mistakenly targetted at mid experience users. Which is fine; but utterly useless for the majority of average joe users.
It is very hard to understand how to pander to such people - but Windows is, unfortunately, a good starting point....
There are lots of problems with the ux on ubuntu that makes it problematic for a lot of people.
Out of curiosity, do you have another distro that you feel does a better job of this, or do you feel this is simply true for most distros?
I like how you post this comment in every Ubuntu thread. Why not sit down and fix those bugs if they bother you so much?