In 2005, when I was a PhD student, my primary os was Windows XP. It was failing during the boot process but it was telling me nothing about the problem. I thought it was about one of the drivers but I was not the boss of my own computer. That was the reason to give it up and start with a new OS which gives the reins to me. It was Ubuntu, I don't remember the version but It should be 6 or 6.5.
Ubuntu was nice, easy to learn. As a hobbyist Java developer nothing changed by formatting the machine with ext3 and going on with the Gnome.
By the time, the community introduced more enhanced versions of Ubuntu. In each single revision, we get more happy to live with Ubuntu. The performance was perfect, there were lots of deb packages around and we got the chance of playing new games in our Linux boxes.
You know, Unity is the default GUI since Ubuntu 11.04. First time that I used that system, I tried to uninstall it and get the Gnome as soon as possible. In 11.10, I experienced the same thing and I saw that I can really get rid of it. Of course using XFCE or anything else should be the solution. But my problem is about the developer community.
First, why are you setting the Unity as default GUI system? Did people get bored with the GNOME desktop? Was it buggy? Have you performed a comprehensive survey about this?
Ubuntu with a Gnome Desktop is now a public good, because world is using it. People who wants to give it up can give it up. But I think it is wrong someone to make decisions about people use or not to use a GUI system by default...
Finally, I am finalizing the lifetime of Ubuntu in my boxes. The other distribution, Open Suse, seems to be more stable, say that, I am not afraid of being a dummy with my own computer.
And, when you press Ctrl + Alt + 1 in your Linux Desktop, as you know, a full screen console will be opened. When you log in, you will see a "Have a lot of fun..." message in Open Suse 11. Yes, thank you. I am having fun right now!
