π

Blog: Issues with Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity

Show Sidebar

After facing problems with my computer setup using Debian/GNU Squeeze, I tried the recent Ubuntu 11.04.

Unfortunately this system does not work in a better way. Some issues are better but other issues appeared which weren't a problem before.

This is a quick list of my current problems using Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity.

Screen saver or lock screen freezes

Not touching my Ubuntu for a while caused the X window system to freeze. Sometimes the login-screen re-appeared after fiddling for approximate thirty seconds. Most of the time, I had to switch to a text console, kill screen-saver and/or X.org and therefore lost some unsaved data.

Screen still freezes after I disabled screen saver and screen locking.

Biggest No-Go to me.

Display errors when switching to external LCD

Using external TFT does no work: maximum resolution is not being recognized, severe screen artefacts appear, can not choose main screen in two-display-mode, ...

Resume does not work on lenovo x200s

I have had problems with resume on Debian sid and Debian Squeeze too. But Ubuntu seems to be unable to handle it most of the time. Subjective impression is that Ubuntu resumes hardly 10% while Squeeze resumes approximately in 50% of the time.

Ubuntu has several (severe) open issues with my hardware being lenovo X200s.

Hard to type German umlauts with US layout

Most of the time I am using US international keyboard layout (because it's handy for LaTeX, common shortcuts and haching in general). I usually wrote my own xmodmap file where I modified several things:

Writing your own xmodmap file is hard, because Xorg changes the mapping between versions (resulting in old xmodmap useless) and often a different hardware results in a different xmodmap. I did not understand the underlying reasons.

With Ubuntu I tried to find a more userland approach which I could use.

First approach: switching keyboard layout with one key ("while key pressed").

If using "switch layout while key pressed":

-> gross! :-(

Using a compose key "<compose>+u shift+2" in order to get "ü" is not handy too. An additional problem for me is, that I do not have a reasonable "spare key" which can be used (only) for compose.

The only method left is to re-define xmodmap using xev and xkeycaps or similar.

Stupid color settings for tabs: can not determine active one

Colour difference between active and inactive tabs is way too small. So it's hard to tell which tab is the current one.

You have to install tools to set up things

gconf-editor for setting up gnome configurations, compizconfig-settings-manage for setting up compiz settings. Nothing installed per default. A a Ubuntu newbie I thought that there is no way to modify those settings (besides searching for config files).

Ubuntu you do not really want advanced users, don't you?

Black terminal background in mutt/vim is not black but gray (in contradiction to config)

I am using the Terminal application for the mayority of things I do on my computer. One thing I recognised in Ubuntu is, that the black background changes to dark gray when mutt or vim is started. I do not have any clue why this is happening since there is no such setting in my .muttrc or .vimrc and on Debian no such thing happened (using the very same .muttrc and .vimrc).

When moving between LCD-only and LCD+TFT setup, it's hard to set different things

On my previous system setups, I used a script to change from LCD to TFT which did several other things like:

Ubuntu offers me to switch from TDT to LCD and vice versa but I see no hook to add the execution of other things to.

Broken virtual desktop switching

Switch to the opposite desktop requires to visit one other desktop before reaching the desired one. This is annoying. Usually, you can switch to desktop four by going left on screen one and you can switch from the last desktop to the first by switching to the right.

Occasionally switches of keyboard layout

I am using Austrian and US international keyboard settings. Sometimes the current layout gets switched to the other. Remarkable: I disabled every keyboard shortcut to switch the layout in the settings.

Some default settings are weird

Cool things

There are several really cool things in Ubuntu 11.04 (with Unity) which I want to mention too.

The "Dock", or whatever it's called here, is cool. Being a decent copy of the dock of OS X it enables switching to apps on whichever virtual screen they are. Handy.

Launching Apps and (more or less) files using the upper left corner menu is handy. Though it does not find all items: I did not understand the mechanism since it is able to find and start "Privat.org" (org-mode file) in my Emacs but "tagstore.org" being in the very same folder is not found.

The indicator plugins in the upper right corner are a cool way to extend things that should be always visible. With Ubuntu I was able to quit using gkrellm2 which I used to use for this purpose. The indicator bar consumes less additional space.

Using new WLAN networks are accessed pretty easily.

You get most of your screen space when maximizing windows.

Other people

Michael Kofler wrote (German) blog entries about his Ubuntu 11.04 in general and Ubuntu 11.04 experience and Unity settings.

Please add your opinion as a comment below :-)

Comment via email (persistent) or via Disqus (ephemeral) comments below: