Me too. It had the best workflow and multi monitor support at the time. Also it looked so slick. I would run Ubuntu just for the unity de at the time. The HUD, the dash, it was all great to me.
It's not a commercial, it's some sort of a fan-made video or, anyways, not official.
Anyways, I remember the hate towards Unity's interface back in the day, the usual Linux clowns. That interfacce has still a better workflow than most DEs nowadays. A globalmenu that actually works, an HUD with Alt key in order to easily find any function (example: in GIMP or LibreOffice), a launcher with Zeitgeist integration that would divide docs, music and videos.
About 6 months later, Canonical added the "Amazon Lens" to Ubuntu, a spyware-like feature where all your local searches from the "Start Menu" were sent to Amazon so they could show you ads.
That was not a particularly privacy-respecting feature, but it was part of their vision at the time.
In the dash you were meant to be able to search for anything: applications, local files, internet stuff, even movies and music.
That was revolutionary. At that time Windows Vista had just recently added a usably fast search in the start menu, and having the search also search the internet was a killer feature over them.
And the only way to have one search box search for all three things is to embed it into some search engine.
Back then Ubuntu had a clear, brave vision of what they wanted to do.
They wanted a full operating system that could compete with Windows and Mac OS.
And for the most part they succeeded. Ubuntu had its own desktop environment, its own init system, its own lightdm greeter, its own mobile OS, its own cloud services, and it almost got its own windowing system (mir; while it's still sort of alive, it's been turned into merely a wayland compositor and I don't know any distro that uses it at all).
They later ditched that vision. Around 2015-2016. At first they ditched upstart for systemd. Then they ditched Unity for GNOME.
The only thing that's truly their in modern Ubuntu (asides from the theme) is snap, which we all hate, because it's objectively a terrible solution.
And Ubuntu's current vision is pretty much just "don't want to use snap? we'll force you to use it" without adding literally any innovative features.
Their website doesn't even bother showcasing desktop Ubuntu anymore; they've gone full on cloud solutions.
The purpose of Unity is rather simple and now nonexistent.
Basically, in the early 2010s there was a growing amount of laptops with small screens (aka "netbooks"), and GNOME on these screens was simply impractical.
When you only have 768 or less pixels of vertical space available, you need to rationalize the use of it.
GNOME 2 could have up to four horizontal bars at the same time (the taskbar on the bottom, the system bar on the top, the titlebar of the maximized window, and the menubar of that window) which was incredibly space-wasting.
Unity got this number down to just one horizontal bar, which combined the features of a title bar and a menu bar.
I still have a netbook, and Unity on this is so much better than anything else.
Wouldn't that be more GPL philosophy than Linux philosophy?
In theory it wouldn't be a problem, licensing-wise, to create a proprietary OS on top of Linux. It's just it's relied on the GNU tools. But making a Clang/LLVM/musl and/or Rust toolchain with uutils for the base utilities would remove the GNU from GNU/Linux. Even Linus avoided GPL3 because he didn't want the kernel to be restricted in what it could do for proprietary systems (i.e. Tivo).
It just kind of would be silly to do so unless there was a lot of financial backing. Which I guess explains Canonical..
The "Linux philosophy" is generally in favor of the GPL. It's true that the kernel didn't update to GPLv3, but it still uses GPLv2, and most other projects in the Linux ecosystem use the GPL.
ThreeCharsAtLeast@reddit
Secure: You can protect your account with a password.
novaqc@reddit
"Fully customizable: you can change the wallpaper" i remember how nostalgic I was about GNOME 2
abcpea1@reddit
And then you do an upgrade and find the wallpaper you used is no longer included.
adenosine-5@reddit
Didn't Ubuntu back then already supported CompizConfig, all with windows burning up or shattering into thousand pieces when you closed them?
I remember being able to customize waaay more things than just desktop background.
I wonder if its still supported...
novaqc@reddit
On GNOME 2, yes ! Ubuntu 10.04 was the last official LTS with GNOME 2.
Unity was using compiz, but it was only working great with official effects. The other effects such as the cube were glitchy.
Krymnarok@reddit
I miss Unity
lord_mythus@reddit
Me too. It had the best workflow and multi monitor support at the time. Also it looked so slick. I would run Ubuntu just for the unity de at the time. The HUD, the dash, it was all great to me.
_Sgt-Pepper_@reddit
I hated unity.
I used Ubuntu from its first release. When unity came out I hated it so much I went back to windows ...
When windows 11 came out I hated it so much I went back to Linux, but this time to Debian ...
Finally found my happy place...
SolidWarea@reddit
Me too actually, I’ve got some good memories with both Ubuntu and Unity
BingoBody@reddit
Ubuntu was fab at first, sending out free install disks, the great wallpapers, then they just “enshittified“.
Ok-Anywhere-9416@reddit
It's not a commercial, it's some sort of a fan-made video or, anyways, not official.
Anyways, I remember the hate towards Unity's interface back in the day, the usual Linux clowns. That interfacce has still a better workflow than most DEs nowadays. A globalmenu that actually works, an HUD with Alt key in order to easily find any function (example: in GIMP or LibreOffice), a launcher with Zeitgeist integration that would divide docs, music and videos.
nelmaloc@reddit
AFAIK Unity had a really rough start, and when it finally started getting into shape, Canonical switched to GNOME 3.
Dread_Pony_Roberts@reddit
Here's a modern Linux advertisement.
glowiak2@reddit (OP)
Back when technology wasn't evil...
now it's just a bunch of ai powered garbage.
AmarildoJr@reddit
About 6 months later, Canonical added the "Amazon Lens" to Ubuntu, a spyware-like feature where all your local searches from the "Start Menu" were sent to Amazon so they could show you ads.
glowiak2@reddit (OP)
That was not a particularly privacy-respecting feature, but it was part of their vision at the time.
In the dash you were meant to be able to search for anything: applications, local files, internet stuff, even movies and music.
That was revolutionary. At that time Windows Vista had just recently added a usably fast search in the start menu, and having the search also search the internet was a killer feature over them.
And the only way to have one search box search for all three things is to embed it into some search engine.
Back then Ubuntu had a clear, brave vision of what they wanted to do.
They wanted a full operating system that could compete with Windows and Mac OS.
And for the most part they succeeded. Ubuntu had its own desktop environment, its own init system, its own lightdm greeter, its own mobile OS, its own cloud services, and it almost got its own windowing system (mir; while it's still sort of alive, it's been turned into merely a wayland compositor and I don't know any distro that uses it at all).
They later ditched that vision. Around 2015-2016. At first they ditched upstart for systemd. Then they ditched Unity for GNOME.
The only thing that's truly their in modern Ubuntu (asides from the theme) is snap, which we all hate, because it's objectively a terrible solution.
And Ubuntu's current vision is pretty much just "don't want to use snap? we'll force you to use it" without adding literally any innovative features.
Their website doesn't even bother showcasing desktop Ubuntu anymore; they've gone full on cloud solutions.
_Sgt-Pepper_@reddit
They had a vision but it was not what we wanted.
Mir ? Why?
Unity? Why?
Amazon? Why?
Upstart was okay I guess. The rest was garbage 🗑️
glowiak2@reddit (OP)
The purpose of Unity is rather simple and now nonexistent.
Basically, in the early 2010s there was a growing amount of laptops with small screens (aka "netbooks"), and GNOME on these screens was simply impractical.
When you only have 768 or less pixels of vertical space available, you need to rationalize the use of it.
GNOME 2 could have up to four horizontal bars at the same time (the taskbar on the bottom, the system bar on the top, the titlebar of the maximized window, and the menubar of that window) which was incredibly space-wasting.
Unity got this number down to just one horizontal bar, which combined the features of a title bar and a menu bar.
I still have a netbook, and Unity on this is so much better than anything else.
vinciblechunk@reddit
"Erm, we have root"
starlasexton@reddit
Lmao canonical is the worst
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu#Adoption_and_reception
fankin@reddit
This is horrible. It's like a chihuahua on cocaine.
mofomeat@reddit
Ubuntu had commercials? On Television?
I didn't know that...
glowiak2@reddit (OP)
They're unofficial, though it looks very professional.
Ok-Guitar4818@reddit
Damn that’s nostalgic. I still think it was stunningly beautiful. Ubuntu had aesthetic down.
rewgs@reddit
This is exactly the version that introduced me to Linux. Good times!
DespicableFlamingo22@reddit
Ubuntu did a really good job to present linux as friendly, though lately their practices question the Linux philosophy.
Good Ol' days!
FattyDrake@reddit
Wouldn't that be more GPL philosophy than Linux philosophy?
In theory it wouldn't be a problem, licensing-wise, to create a proprietary OS on top of Linux. It's just it's relied on the GNU tools. But making a Clang/LLVM/musl and/or Rust toolchain with uutils for the base utilities would remove the GNU from GNU/Linux. Even Linus avoided GPL3 because he didn't want the kernel to be restricted in what it could do for proprietary systems (i.e. Tivo).
It just kind of would be silly to do so unless there was a lot of financial backing. Which I guess explains Canonical..
altermeetax@reddit
The "Linux philosophy" is generally in favor of the GPL. It's true that the kernel didn't update to GPLv3, but it still uses GPLv2, and most other projects in the Linux ecosystem use the GPL.