Oct 26, 2010

The Unity Interface in Ubuntu 10.10

My Nephew Mathew came over with his Dell Inspiron mini 10 so I thought I would upgrade him to Ubuntu 10.10. By default, the netbook edition installs the Unity interface, so I set about to teaching him and educating me on how to use the Unity interface.
The first thing you will notice is the Unity Launcher -- on the left side of your desktop.  It shows a stack of applications icons, one for every application that is running or the applications you want to have quick access to. It replaces the Start/Applications menu and the bottom panel / task manager. It seems to be easy to get used to, at least Matthew was up and running without an issue.

The Good:

  • The Unity dash can be access using the Ubuntu button in the top left
  • The Software Center recommends software you should buy or just get for free.
  • You just need to install Mediubuntu and Flash and 99% of the Internet works.
  • Google video chat works with just a couple of clicks (Matthew likes phoning with his laptop, I am hoping I didn't teach him a bad thing)
The Bad:
  • Clicking on the "File Manager" doesn't launch Nautilus, but a rather a simple file browser which isn't as useful, but one more click on the top right side makes it okay by loading Nautilus.
  • Firefox and OpenOffice don't put their menus in the top global menu bar (top panel)
The Ugly:
  • I can't figure out how to add stuff to the Unity Launcher (I am trying to add the Educational submenu)
  • The Broadcom wifi chipset crashes when I installed the B43 proprietary driver. It reminds me of 9.10 when the Huwai 3g radio didn't work.


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