So... Are you going to write a news and you expect us to comment on any visual (configurable) change ubuntu people does?

Ah I got used to the buttons now, ain't a big deal.
I am looking forward to what will be place to the right in 10.10.

I prefer Linux Hater's suggestion: Masturbating Monkey.

"I prefer Linux Hater's suggestion: Masturbating Monkey.

"[q]I prefer Linux Hater's suggestion: Masturbating Monkey.

Ubuntu 10.10 Mickey Mouse

Ubuntu 10.10 Malicious Mosquito.

To be honest I never saw the big fuss about it being justified. It's only default settings, for most users those left buttons would last just about as long as the godforsaken brown theme lasted in previous incarnations

There will be nothing on the right side. That's the whole idea. Cram everything on the left side to free the right side. this a left wing thing

Now, They have to implement a zoom button and take away that non-sense "maximize" thing. C'mon Mark, you can do it! Take your time...

Give the Ubuntu developers some credit for once.

... just open a terminal window and enter:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string menu:minimize,maximize,close

Give the Ubuntu developers some credit for once.

That would require Canonical to hire actual programmers instead of marketing people and a bunch of SC students who can only backport Fedora features.

Most users do not adapt well to change.

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... just open a terminal window and enter:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string menu:minimize,maximize,close
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That's approachable...

There are more important things than the GUI-related issues in Ubuntu. Such as making improvements on the Ubuntu Software Center, more managed repositories, and becoming more user-friendly.

In KDE/Windows, there are a million GUI options and people (rightly, in my opinion) complain that the UI is confusing and inconsistent.

In MacOS, almost nothing is configurable using GUIs.

Despite this, you can often edit a .plist or .xml file to do what you're looking to do. No one complains about this in MacOS. On the contrary, people celebrate MacOS's consistent and simple UI.

Personally, I prefer editing a file to gconftool but both are details. The point for the celebrated Mac UI is to have sane defaults and a simple UI. Gnome is attempting the same approach with gconftool

So, what do you want? A million trivial options in the UI, or something like gconftool? Pick one.

In the office settings I'm used to dealing with, most users couldn't change their defaults if they wanted to because the IT staff have it locked down.

is there really anything else out there that matches ubuntu in terms of being easy to upgrade (when it works), not installing proprietary crap by default but offering an easy way to deal with it if you must, no root, a massive and friendly community, etc?

As for Apple UIs, I didn't mean to suggest that the interface was dumbed down or that there were no options. Just that many options are not exposed through a GUI but remain configurable through text files.

is there really anything else out there that matches ubuntu in terms of being easy to upgrade (when it works)

not installing proprietary crap by default but offering an easy way to deal with it if you must,

no root

a massive and friendly community, etc?

Then I realized that I was much more comfortable with Apple's everything-in-the-upper-left-corner approach. It just made sense to me; no matter what I needed to do to an open window, I had one single place to go looking for it.

What was wrong with the everything in one place in the upper right corner approach?

Although, incidentally, fitts law suggests that dangerous things should be hard to do. Classic MacOS got this right: max/min was in the upper right by the scrollbar, close was in the upper left.