12-year-old Indian boy shot, Ubuntu Unity desktop “back to life” after 6 years!

Sorting | Peng Huizhong Editor in Charge | Tu Min

Produced | CSDN (ID: CSDNnews)

In 2017, Ubuntu developer Canonica announced that the Ubuntu default desktop would be switching from Unity to the GNOME user environment. Ubuntu, as a desktop pioneer and innovator in the Linux world all over the world, suddenly announced to abandon the Unity that it has developed for many years, which is equivalent to giving up the battle directly in the desktop field and “surrendering” to Microsoft. This is not only the sadness of the Linux desktop, but also A huge blow to Linux advocates around the world.

The last Unity update was Unity v7.5 for Ubuntu 17.04. Now, after six years, Unity has released v7.6 (https://ift.tt/hJ8Bdxr). The new version fixes and improves a lot of features. However, it did not come from Canonical, but from a 12-year-old Indian teenager Rudra Saraswat .

How much energy can a 12-year-old have?

Saraswat is a seventh grader in Delhi and is an avid Linux supporter with a passion for open source. He started using Ubuntu in 2017 and has been active on Ubuntu Discourse (Ubuntu community hub) since July 2019. In 2020, he created the Ubuntu Unity Remix project and maintains it to this day. At the same time, he is the project leader of Ubuntu Web Remix and UbuntuEd Remix.

And this time, thanks to Saraswat’s unremitting efforts, after 6 years, we finally saw the update of the Unity desktop environment. The following are the changes he made in Unity 7.6, including the user interface, Unity desktop and performance. promote:

• The Dash Launcher (App Launcher) and HUD have been redesigned with a more modern and clean look.

• Added support for accent colors for Unity and unity-control-center, and updated the theme list for unity-control-center.

• Fixed broken app info and ratings in Dash launcher preview.

• Updated info panel in unity-control-center.

• Improved Dash’s rounded corners.

• Fixed “Empty Trash” button in Dock (now uses Nemo instead of Nautilus).

• Migrated the full Unity7 shell source to GitLab and made it compile on 22.04.

• The design is flatter, but retains the system-wide ambiguity.

• The Dock’s menus and tooltips have been given a more modern look.

• Low graphics mode now works better and sprints faster than before.

• The memory usage of Unity7 is now slightly lower, while the memory usage of Ubuntu Unity 22.04 has been greatly reduced to about 700-800 MBs.

• Fixed Unity7 launcher for standalone tests (this will help Unity7 contributors).

• The test in question has been disabled and build times have been greatly reduced (this will help Unity7 contributors).

Unity’s return is a hit

When Canonica announced that Ubuntu’s default desktop would be switched from Unity to GNOME, many people were distressed, and now the news of Unity’s return once rose to sixth place in the hot discussion of Hacker News.

More than 200 developers have commented on the matter, and most of them are overjoyed at the news.

One developer said: “Unity’s global menu system is great, and once you get used to its use of vertical space, switching to GNOME is like going back 10 years. I’m using KDE Plasma now, with the global menu set up. Although It’s also good, but it’s not as easy as Unity. I’m really sad about Canonical dropping Unity. It’s so easy to use and highly recommended.”

Another developer agrees: “I’m currently using KDE Plasma’s global menu as well. Recently, it seems to have started this trend with VSCode’s menu on the title bar. For example, JetBrain’s IDE too It’s designed this way. I discovered the term for this kind of menu, it’s called LIM (locally integrated menu). Unity has done this many years ago. If I remember correctly, when it’s maximized, it’s like a global menu ; when it’s not maximized, it’s a LIM.”

Some developers, meanwhile, marveled at 12-year-old Saraswat: “How many wizards have we missed out on wizards who might be in poverty or misery elsewhere in the world?”

In addition to being terrifying, Saraswat is also pinned on hopes for the future: “He is a super smart and good boy. I hope his enthusiasm can continue and not be burned out.”

So, what do you think of this update to the Unity desktop environment?

The text and pictures in this article are from CSDN