Canonical’s reshaping of Ubuntu is complete, but does 11.10 live up to the hype? Russell Barnes takes a look at the 15th iteration, Oneiric Ocelot, probably the only distro to be loved and loathed in near equal measure…
In Linux User issue 106’s beta review, we talked about how 11.10 appeared to be working hard to make good on plans laid out in the previous release. Where 11.04 was rough around the edges, with what was clearly a work-in-progress Launcher and Dash among other things, much more elegant solutions could be found.
It’s no secret that elegance and form are all very important factors for Canonical’s design team, but 11.04’s implementation smacked so heavily of form over function (a complaint arguably true of both ‘next-generation’ desktop experiences including GNOME Shell and Canonical’s Unity) that a positive reception would have been hard to wish for.
[I will never move to this version of Ubuntu with its hideous Unity interface. Worse, they have removed Gnome Classic in this version - although one can still install it from the repository. No to this version.]
