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I have been debating writing about this since we are mainly a gaming news site (I should really setup another site for all the other Linux news I want to write about!), but Canonical switching back to GNOME on Ubuntu is very big news for everyone.

Question: Is there any interest in me doing a separate site to cover general Linux news?

Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu and Canonical wrote a rather shocking blog post announcing that Ubuntu 18.04 will officially drop the Unity desktop environment. If you didn't hear about it due to living under a large rock, let that sink in for a moment. Ubuntu is dropping a desktop environment they've worked on for years and poured tons of resources into building and rewriting for Unity 8.

I've had some time to let the news sink in now, after initially thinking it was a late April fools joke, when in reality it's very real and it makes perfect sense.

Unity was part of a long-term plan for Canonical with Ubuntu as part of their convergence strategy, which ultimately failed to gain any real traction. There's only so much time and money you can put into something when it's not giving you the results you wanted and it seems Canonical is in need of investors, as it turns out it has had to cut its workforce.

This now means there's going to be a little less fragmentation when it comes to the Linux desktop too. For all the good it does having lots of choice, having likely the biggest desktop-Linux distribution use a more standard desktop will help many things. For one thing, developers will no longer have to work around Unity/Compiz specific issues in games. It will also help the stability of GNOME Shell too, since they have even more people using it and working on it thanks to this.

This, in turn, makes Ubuntu go back to what made me originally love it. A polished GNOME desktop experience released every 6 months with the latest and greatest with a little extra love and polish thrown in for good measure. A good, solid desktop experience to introduce people new to Linux with. To me, it sounds fantastic again.

As expected, Unity 8 looks like it will be carried on by a few developers. Will be interesting to see if this actually gains any traction, or if it will fade away with little interest. Personally, I don't see any need to continue it, we have enough desktops already with GNOME Shell, KDE, Xfce, Budgie, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE and the list goes on and on. Enough already I say, they all vary a lot in terms of features and time could be better spent on many others parts of the Linux desktop now.

Finally, I'm still very happy after switching from Ubuntu to Antergos. I've now settled with the GNOME Shell desktop with two extensions and it's glorious:

image

I couldn't imagine having to go back to PPAs again to get extra software, my love for the Arch AUR is never ending.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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Hamish Apr 23, 2017
Quoting: snizzoI could reply to you to all these points (like making you notice that the pure number of articles is of absolutely no meaning towards what you're trying to demonstrate (hint: objectivity and not doing click-baiting covering topics that will generate free hate, more hints?
You were suggesting that AMD and MESA were getting partial treatment due to the amount of coverage they received on Phoronix. I showed that Nvidia was getting a comparable amount of coverage, demonstrating that your initial assertion was flawed. Which, I will remind you, was the basis of my entire argument. The content of the articles is actually in many ways immaterial when it comes to that argument, although I do think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate that Micheal Larabel himself has shown any kind of consistent bias against Nvidia.

Quoting: snizzolook at difference between omgubuntu and phoronix reader base
Now here is an example of a statement that has "absolutely no meaning towards what [we] are discussing", and is merely being used as a deflection intended to shift the focus away from a point you now feel the need to dissociate yourself with. The readership of two different websites has no bearing on anything when it comes to your claims of biased coverage on Phoronix.

In fact, the opinions expressed by Phoronix readers or those on its forums also have no bearing on what you are now arguing here either. You are going after Phoronix itself, which by and large is Micheal Larabel, not his readers.

Quoting: snizzoYou're using rethoric and mixing pseudo science with real (infused?) truth, while, of course I was talking about an opinion. The fact that you replied so hard on this, and that you want me to admit my supposed guilt, simply demostrate, at my eyes, that my personal opinion was right and reinforced. Therefore, I won't reply again, my ego does not depend on people reading comments on forums.
You were making claims that are not backed up by the available evidence. While those claims certainly count as your opinion they do not in any way correlate to established fact. Call that pseudo-science if you like, get yourself further entrenched in your own head space if you like, but I will still repeat my suggestion that you try a little introspection here.
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