Over the years I have used the black screen for entering text commands
to get things done in ubuntu (ubu). I think of the black screen as a
'terminal' interface, though I'm not sure if that is the correct word
for it. I never have been good at the 'shell script' language of linux
but have done much by pasting stuff into the terminal. I associate the
word 'gnome' with the terminal interface.

People also refer to something called 'unity' or 'unity interface' which
I always thought of as ubu's clickable icons and also the vertical bar
of icons along the left side of ubu's desktop screen.

QUESTION: Am I correct about 'gnome' and 'unity' ?
Please straighten me out if I an wrong.

TIA Bill S.

Am Freitag, 04. März 2022, um 12:08:19 Uhr schrieb bilsch01:

> Over the years I have used the black screen for entering text
> commands to get things done in ubuntu (ubu). I think of the black
> screen as a 'terminal' interface, though I'm not sure if that is the
> correct word for it. I never have been good at the 'shell script'
> language of linux but have done much by pasting stuff into the
> terminal. I associate the word 'gnome' with the terminal interface.
>
> People also refer to something called 'unity' or 'unity interface'
> which I always thought of as ubu's clickable icons and also the
> vertical bar of icons along the left side of ubu's desktop screen.
>
> QUESTION: Am I correct about 'gnome' and 'unity' ?
> Please straighten me out if I an wrong.

The terminal window is a Terminal emulator, in Ubuntu the default is
gnome-terminal, but that is just a terminal emulator like xterm.

GNOME itself is a desktop environment available in many distributions
and the default in Ubuntu 17.10 and later.

Unity is also a desktop environment created by Canonical especially for
Ubuntu, but the development was discontinued in 2017.

On 3/4/2022 12:19 PM, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am Freitag, 04. März 2022, um 12:08:19 Uhr schrieb bilsch01:
>
>> Over the years I have used the black screen for entering text
>> commands to get things done in ubuntu (ubu). I think of the black
>> screen as a 'terminal' interface, though I'm not sure if that is the
>> correct word for it. I never have been good at the 'shell script'
>> language of linux but have done much by pasting stuff into the
>> terminal. I associate the word 'gnome' with the terminal interface.
>>
>> People also refer to something called 'unity' or 'unity interface'
>> which I always thought of as ubu's clickable icons and also the
>> vertical bar of icons along the left side of ubu's desktop screen.
>>
>> QUESTION: Am I correct about 'gnome' and 'unity' ?
>> Please straighten me out if I an wrong.
>
> The terminal window is a Terminal emulator, in Ubuntu the default is
> gnome-terminal, but that is just a terminal emulator like xterm.
>
> GNOME itself is a desktop environment available in many distributions
> and the default in Ubuntu 17.10 and later.
>
> Unity is also a desktop environment created by Canonical especially for
> Ubuntu, but the development was discontinued in 2017.
>

I been using Ubu since about 2012 or 2014. I been using the terminal
interface and the clickable interfaces both ever since I started back
then. There have been minor changes in the GUI along the way - but not
much. I never noticed any difference in the terminal, though advances in
the scripting language I probably wouldn't have noticed. So what's the
talk I been hearing about 'unity' as opposed to 'gnome'.
I've used Ubu a lot over the years and don't understand unity vs. gnome
controversy. I just don't get it.

Bill S.

On 3/4/2022 3:43 PM, bilsch01 wrote:
> On 3/4/2022 12:19 PM, Marco Moock wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 04. März 2022, um 12:08:19 Uhr schrieb bilsch01:
>>
>>> Over the years I have used the black screen for entering text
>>> commands to get things done in ubuntu (ubu). I think of the black
>>> screen as a 'terminal' interface, though I'm not sure if that is the
>>> correct word for it. I never have been good at the 'shell script'
>>> language of linux but have done much by pasting stuff into the
>>> terminal. I associate the word 'gnome' with the terminal interface.
>>>
>>> People also refer to something called 'unity' or 'unity interface'
>>> which I always thought of as ubu's clickable icons and also the
>>> vertical bar of icons along the left side of ubu's desktop screen.
>>>
>>> QUESTION: Am I correct about 'gnome' and 'unity' ?
>>> Please straighten me out if I an wrong.
>>
>> The terminal window is a Terminal emulator, in Ubuntu the default is
>> gnome-terminal, but that is just a terminal emulator like xterm.
>>
>> GNOME itself is a desktop environment available in many distributions
>> and the default in Ubuntu 17.10 and later.
>>
>> Unity is also a desktop environment created by Canonical especially for
>> Ubuntu, but the development was discontinued in 2017.
>>
>
> I been using Ubu since about 2012 or 2014. I been using the terminal interface and the clickable interfaces both ever since I started back then. There have been minor changes in the GUI along the way - but not much. I never noticed any difference in the terminal, though advances in the scripting language I probably wouldn't have noticed. So what's the talk I been hearing about 'unity' as opposed to 'gnome'.
> I've used Ubu a lot over the years and don't understand unity vs. gnome controversy. I just don't get it.
>
> Bill S.

Here's an instance of Gnome.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/GNOME_Software_40.3_%28released_2021-03%29_--_dialog_boxes_and_other_tabs.png

And a Unity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Unity

*******

In Firefox, there is:

ui.use_unity_menubar False

which allows the traditional File:Edit:View menu bar to
be turned back on. Implying Unity is some part of the
newer Firefox interface. By them removing Preferences from the
Menu Bar, you have to use about:preferences . As opposed to
using the hamburger icon and searching around for it.
Settings == about:preferences

Paul

bilsch01 wrote:
> Over the years I have used the black screen for entering text commands
> to get things done in ubuntu (ubu). I think of the black screen as a
> 'terminal' interface, though I'm not sure if that is the correct word
> for it.

It is commonly called a terminal or console; it is officially a
'terminal emulator' and Ub's is called gnome terminal. That is also
Mint's; Neon's is konsole.

One can get a better understanding of the concept of terminal *emulator*
from the wikipedia article.

> I never have been good at the 'shell script' language of linux
> but have done much by pasting stuff into the terminal. I associate the
> word 'gnome' with the terminal interface.
>
No; that is an incorrect association. The gnome word in this context
refers to the Gnome Project's Gnome desktop environment with its
associated parts, particularly the Gnome shell, which is important for
this discussion.

> People also refer to something called 'unity' or 'unity interface' which
> I always thought of as ubu's clickable icons and also the vertical bar
> of icons along the left side of ubu's desktop screen.
>
No; the word Unity in this context means several different things; what
you are describing above is just one particular appearance of the Unity
desktop.

> QUESTION: Am I correct about 'gnome' and 'unity' ?
> Please straighten me out if I an wrong.
>
You are not correct.

But Unity needs some describing because it has evolved, and its history
is important, because historical Unity is what some people think of Unity.

To me, the historical Unity (Ub 11.04) is the most important because of
its impact; that is the Unity from Ub when Ub/Canonical 'split' w/ its
unhappiness over Gnome Shell, just like Cinnamon and Mate split over the
Gnome Shell unhappiness.

In the long run, that unhappiness didn't work out at all for Canonical
and they had to go back to Gnome. That Unity just used all of the
numerous parts of Gnome's desktop except Gnome Shell; whereas the dev/s
for Cinnamon and Mate chose to fork the numerous Gnome DE pieces as well.

Today's Unity is a different subject, altho' it embraces a few of the
original ideas and has different names.

--
Mike Easter

Mike Easter wrote:
> To me, the historical Unity (Ub 11.04) is the most important because
> of its impact; that is the Unity from Ub when Ub/Canonical 'split' w/
> its unhappiness over Gnome Shell, just like Cinnamon and Mate split
> over the Gnome Shell unhappiness.
>
> In the long run, that unhappiness didn't work out at all for
> Canonical and they had to go back to Gnome.

Here are some Shuttleworth words from 2012:

> The initial decision to develop a new interface in 2008 was driven by
> a desire to innovate and to pass Microsoft and Apple in user
> experience. This meant a family of unified interfaces that could be
> used across many device form factors, including desktop, laptop,
> tablet, smart phones and TV. Shuttleworth said "‘The old desktop
> would force your tablet or your phone into all kinds of crazy of
> funny postures. So we said: Screw it. We’re going to move the desktop
> to where it needs to be for the future. [This] turned out to be a
> deeply unpopular process."

--
Mike Easter

Am Freitag, 04. März 2022, um 12:43:16 Uhr schrieb bilsch01:

> I've used Ubu a lot over the years and don't understand unity vs.
> gnome controversy. I just don't get it.

GNOME isn't developed directly by Canonical (company that develops
Ubuntu). They use GNOME2 until 2011 in Ubuntu as the default desktop
environment and replaced it with Unity in 2011. The development of
Unity costs time and money so they decided to go back to GNOME, but
GNOME 3, in 2017. Unity is still developed by ubports:
https://ubports.com/nl/blog/ubports-blogs-nieuws-1/post/unity8-on-the-desktop-3100

On 04.03.2022 21:08, bilsch01 wrote:
> Over the years I have used the black screen for entering text commands
> to get things done in ubuntu (ubu). I think of the black screen as a
> 'terminal' interface, though I'm not sure if that is the correct word
> for it. I never have been good at the 'shell script' language of linux
> but have done much by pasting stuff into the terminal. I associate the
> word 'gnome' with the terminal interface.
>
> People also refer to something called 'unity' or 'unity interface' which
> I always thought of as ubu's clickable icons and also the vertical bar
> of icons along the left side of ubu's desktop screen.
>
> QUESTION: Am I correct about 'gnome' and 'unity' ?
> Please straighten me out if I an wrong.

You've already got some information and a few informative links. So I
just want to add an aspect or two. (Note that it's a rough description
not so much aimed at a precise technical definition but to show the
relation of some terms used in your post.)

The term terminal stems from days where you have the access point to
a computer separated from the processing unit. Terminals were stupid,
basically just accepting and forwarding keystrokes from the keyboard,
enhanced by control sequences. The devices usually were just green
or white text on black screens (no GUI elements like scroll bars, no
windowing, etc.). Later that was advanced by X-terminals where more
information was passed between the terminal client and servers, and
where windowing functionality was supported at the client (terminal)
side. Today on your computer you have both running, the X-server and
the X-clients.

What you see implemented on Linux systems and also called terminal runs
a shell, a program that is an interactive interface to the functions
of the operating systems. There are many different shells available on
Unix systems you may choose from (the bash shell is the quasi-standard
just on Linux, and you can change your shell). If you want to execute
only simple commands there's not much difference between shells (i.e.
WRT execution of the programs; there is a difference in the interactive
features, editing the command line, command completions, and so on).
The shell language is important if you use shell for programming more
complex tasks.

There's also an access to your system that uses no windowing layer,
often (also) referred to as terminal, and accessible (on my system)
by typing Ctrl-Alt-F1 (and F2..F6 respectively, for more than one
terminal session). (I can return to my windowing interface by typing
Ctrl-Alt-F7.)

Since communicating through shells is considered too technical for use
by ordinary (non-tech) people graphical interfaces had been invented.
These allow to do "everything that is usually necessary" by clicking
on GUI elements on the screen. The inherent problem of the approach is
that you just get what some developers have decided to be useful or
necessary, and also that you get the functionality the way that had
been considered as most comfortable (or most fancy) by the designers.

That's where different graphical systems appear, because any supported
graphical interface is hardly the right one for everyone. That's where
window managers appear. Luckily (on Unix systems) you have also the
choice to choose from a couple available window managers. You decide
whether it's a primitive one supporting the essentials in a clear way
(often a compact and fast one), or a more complex and/or a fancy one.

The various Unix systems and Linux distributions come with their own
standards for the default appearance of the system (Unity, Gnome, KDE).
Not surprising that there's many arguments, pros and cons, discussed.

Janis

On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 21:19:07 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

> Unity is also a desktop environment created by Canonical especially for
> Ubuntu, but the development was discontinued in 2017.

Unity is a window manager, no? The desktop environment encompasses
more than the window manager such as various applications set as
defaults.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

bilsch01 wrote:
> [...]
> I've used Ubu a lot over the years and don't understand unity vs. gnome
> controversy. I just don't get it.

It's your basic 'vi' vs. 'emacs' holy war. Nothing to get too worked up
over ;)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=64dC
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1 E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860