What's a Scenic Route Without a View?
On Ubuntu's first boot I was welcomed by GDM and the familiar nv skew, as I've come to call my screen's offset in the absence of Nvidia's driver or further configuration. My first impression of GDM is how clean it is with it's solid light tannish backdrop and minimalistic interface: quite the contrast to Libranet's clutter, and much more subtle than KDM implementations I've seen in the likes of Conectiva and Lycoris. Upon logging in I was impressed by the speed of Gnome's load, I dare say nearly as fast as Yoper's prelinked KDE, though I haven't timed either. Overall, the entire system is very responsive, especially for a desktop environment.
Sane defaults seem to be quite a talking point here at OSnews, and I think this philosophy could very well define Ubuntu Linux. The entire desktop is extremely cohesive, and the brown on blue/gray theme is surprisingly smooth and subtle. That should be expected with earth tones, but expected it was not. Of course, I'm just relieved that it's not filled with gaudy colors and flashy effects: I'm not exactly a fan of glass and plastic themes.
Sanity By Mine!
To continue with the sane defaults theme, Ubuntu is another in the newish breed of single CD distributions. Exploring the applications menu reveals software highlights which include Firefox 0.9.3 (1.0PR available), Evolution 2.0, Gaim 0.8.3 (with Evolution integration, 1.0 available), Open Office 1.1.2, and Gimp 2.0.2 in addition to more standard Gnome applications such as Rhythmbox, Sound Juicer, Eye of Gnome, and of course we're dealing with Gnome 2.8 here. Just about the entire package selection feels just right, except I prefer Abiword to Open Office and MPD to Rhythmbox, but this is remedied easily enough. An obvious absence is a CD burner outside of Nautilus' CD writing extension, though K3B is available in the repositories (this is more a Gnome deficiency). The focus on cleanliness in Ubuntu's Gnome implementation is also readily apparent in the application menu. Perhaps this is partially thanks to the divergence of the computer menu, allowing the application menu to contain nothing but launchers, but the solid organization should not be understated.
The cleanliness of Ubuntu extends into their interesting approach to the desktop, or perhaps this is more it's foundation. I've been trying to minimize the use of desktop icons since Windows 3.11, so imagine my astonishment when I discovered their complete absence in Ubuntu! Even if you love your icons you probably won't feel you're missing anything, as they're replaced extremely effectively by the computer menu and trash applet in the panels, in addition to your standard launchers. In fact, those who fill up their desktop with icons may even prefer this design, as it frees up space and organization possibilities.
So what is this fabled computer menu I keep mentioning? It's very simply a menu on the top panel beside the application menu, replacing the actions menu. It functions as a launchpad for Nautilus, a centralization for configuration which Microsoft's control panel can only dream of, and also a collection of the common tasks it would normally handle as the actions menu. It's very effective at providing a divergence point from the desktop and applications menu, in order to keep them from becoming cluttered.
This menu happens to fit very well with Nautilus' spatial browsing by offering links to home, desktop, disks, network, recent documents, and search. However, it's still annoying since I have to mouse to the corner of the screen, so perhaps this functionality would be best served in a desktop context menu or bound to the keyboard's evil keys. It would also be nice to have a link to the root directory. Still though, this menu is a nice step in the right direction for Nautilus.
And also for configuration. This distribution has the easiest UI configuration I've seen on any operating system, and I believe anyone who's ever configured Windows or KDE to their liking would have no problems, and likely be relieved. Again it comes down to a simple diversion, this time between 'desktop preferences' and 'system configuration'. Canonical doesn't slip into splitting things into too many groups, and this keeps it elegant.
Capturing the Power of Time
It was during this very quick configuration that I noticed that my clock was set properly. This may sound like a strange revelation, but it's significant. Not once did Ubuntu ask me if my system clock was set to UTC, just which timezone to use. Yet it was properly detected that it is in fact set to UTC, and the proper offset was applied to Arizona. This is something I couldn't even get working properly in Conectiva with a good deal of effort, which, for the record, also has a nasty habit of resetting the system clock to it's liking. Ubuntu's handling of time, like so many other things, is refreshing.
