Hello and a very warm welcome to any Ubuntu user who is visiting this topic. As mentioned in the subject, the future of Ubuntu depends on it.
As you probably know, Ubuntu will be moving to the GNOME desktop in the next stable release, Ubuntu 17.10 “Artful Aardvark.” If you have been living under a rock or have been serving jail time until recently, you can find out more in this blog post on OMG! Ubuntu!.
In true Canonical fashion, they're not going with the pure shell. Don't worry, they aren't going to make it their own, they've learned not to make that mistake again from Unity. Instead, to put it in the words of Kevin VanDine:

"There will not be a new theme or icons for 17.10, but maybe for 18.04. We’re working on CSD support in our theme (Ambiance) now, and (patches disabling CSD in some apps) should be dropped by 17.10.”"

However, Canonical want to know what their users want to see in their slightly modified shell version. So, if you wish to have an opinion, please click here to visit their Google Forms page and take the survey. And before you try to visit it many times over to make sure your favourite extensions make the cut, Google Forms is smarter than that and uses cookies to remember if you've been there before.
So please take the survey, as Ubuntu's future really does depend on it.

I wouldn't really say “the future of Ubuntu” depends on this but then again I use Ubuntu on my server so all this GUI stuff is fairly irrelevant.

However it's nice to see them asking the community before implementing these things. I remember installing an extension to switch the window controls back to the side I was used to although that was probably ten years ago at this point!

Glad they might be changing it. When I first started using Ubuntu, it was with 14.10 and I thought the Unity theme seemed pretty spiffy, but then I got disappointed when it seemed to be the same thing over and over with each release. S'pose I expected the sort of drastic changes that Windows tends to have with each release.

I don't use Ubuntu primarily anymore since I got a nice new laptop for Christmas, and Win10's been treating me pretty well (it was so weird not having to jump through a million hoops to install stuff and to actually have the right specs for games), but I recently got 17.04 for an older laptop someone gave me. I haven't fiddled with it much, but I changed the theme this time since Unity felt blah by this point.

Flamekebab wrote:

I wouldn't really say “the future of Ubuntu” depends on this but then again I use Ubuntu on my server so all this GUI stuff is fairly irrelevant.

However it's nice to see them asking the community before implementing these things. I remember installing an extension to switch the window controls back to the side I was used to although that was probably ten years ago at this point!

Heh. I grew up with a Mac, which has window controls at the same side of Ubuntu, and then switched to Windows for about a year. So naturally, I was thrilled when I saw Ubuntu put the controls on the left (read: correct) side of the screen…

Pturretdactyl wrote:

Glad they might be changing it. When I first started using Ubuntu, it was with 14.10 and I thought the Unity theme seemed pretty spiffy, but then I got disappointed when it seemed to be the same thing over and over with each release. S'pose I expected the sort of drastic changes that Windows tends to have with each release.

I don't use Ubuntu primarily anymore since I got a nice new laptop for Christmas, and Win10's been treating me pretty well (it was so weird not having to jump through a million hoops to install stuff and to actually have the right specs for games), but I recently got 17.04 for an older laptop someone gave me. I haven't fiddled with it much, but I changed the theme this time since Unity felt blah by this point.

I've only been through a couple of releases, Yakety, Zesty and Xenial, and I have to say I rather liked the fact the UI never changed much, because it meant you got great new features while still knowing how to use it. In fact, I would still be in Zesty right now, although it broke the wifi, so I had to switch to Xenial.

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Heh. I grew up with a Mac, which has window controls at the same side of Ubuntu, and then switched to Windows for about a year. So naturally, I was thrilled when I saw Ubuntu put the controls on the left (read: correct) side of the screen…

It might amuse you that I primarily use a Mac and have done for some years now. I still don't like the placement of the controls on the left side! However I barely use them because their behaviour in MacOS isn't useful to me. It seems my options are minimise (occasionally useful), close (I use keyboard shortcuts for that) and bizarre full screen mode (useless) so I mostly ignore them!

I'm really hoping this shift away from Unity will result in a desktop I'd want to use again. I cannot abide Unity!

Flamekebab wrote:

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Heh. I grew up with a Mac, which has window controls at the same side of Ubuntu, and then switched to Windows for about a year. So naturally, I was thrilled when I saw Ubuntu put the controls on the left (read: correct) side of the screen…

It might amuse you that I primarily use a Mac and have done for some years now. I still don't like the placement of the controls on the left side! However I barely use them because their behaviour in MacOS isn't useful to me. It seems my options are minimise (occasionally useful), close (I use keyboard shortcuts for that) and bizarre full screen mode (useless) so I mostly ignore them!

I'm really hoping this shift away from Unity will result in a desktop I'd want to use again. I cannot abide Unity!

Oh? I couldn't abide GNOME, until I discovered the Dash to Dock extension. So much happier.

It kind of depends on which version we're talking about - I'm talking about GNOME 2.

Flamekebab wrote:

It kind of depends on which version we're talking about - I'm talking about GNOME 2.

So you use MATE, then?

MATE didn't exist when I was using Ubuntu on the desktop. We're talking 2009.

Flamekebab wrote:

MATE didn't exist when I was using Ubuntu on the desktop. We're talking 2009.

Oh. Wow. I was using Windows XP, but at that point my true geekiness hadn't come through yet, so I was quite happy.

You can still install unity through apt

Darkwren wrote:

You can still install unity through apt

I know. But, that functionality will leave in 18.04. Granted, that's a long way away, but I like GNOME. Plus, if you can get Canonical to preinstall Dash to Dock, then that's a great perk!

The thing I'm mostly sad to see is canonical abandoning their convergence initiative. I always thought it'd be awesome to have a device that could be a mobile OS in the field and convert back to a desktop when docked. Making that happen is hardly easy though so I can see why they've given up but still…

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

MATE didn't exist when I was using Ubuntu on the desktop. We're talking 2009.

Oh. Wow. I was using Windows XP, but at that point my true geekiness hadn't come through yet, so I was quite happy.

I used Ubuntu as my main desktop OS between ~2005 and ~2009. Bear in mind that I'm 30, so this was when I was in my early 20s. I'd not had much luck with Linux before that for various reasons (mostly hardware compatibility issues - much less of a problem these days, thankfully). The laptop I was using bought the farm though (its graphics card cooked itself…) so I got hold of a desktop PC instead and it had the grunt to run various Windows games (again, Linux gaming was nowhere near what it is today).

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Darkwren wrote:

You can still install unity through apt

I know. But, that functionality will leave in 18.04. Granted, that's a long way away

18.04 is less than a year away - not that long!

Flamekebab wrote:

The thing I'm mostly sad to see is canonical abandoning their convergence initiative. I always thought it'd be awesome to have a device that could be a mobile OS in the field and convert back to a desktop when docked. Making that happen is hardly easy though so I can see why they've given up but still…

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

MATE didn't exist when I was using Ubuntu on the desktop. We're talking 2009.

Oh. Wow. I was using Windows XP, but at that point my true geekiness hadn't come through yet, so I was quite happy.

I used Ubuntu as my main desktop OS between ~2005 and ~2009. Bear in mind that I'm 30, so this was when I was in my early 20s. I'd not had much luck with Linux before that for various reasons (mostly hardware compatibility issues - much less of a problem these days, thankfully). The laptop I was using bought the farm though (its graphics card cooked itself…) so I got hold of a desktop PC instead and it had the grunt to run various Windows games (again, Linux gaming was nowhere near what it is today).

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Darkwren wrote:

You can still install unity through apt

I know. But, that functionality will leave in 18.04. Granted, that's a long way away

18.04 is less than a year away - not that long!

Oh. Right. Well, Linux is still Linux, ready and waiting whenever you want it.

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Oh. Right. Well, Linux is still Linux, ready and waiting whenever you want it.

I didn't stop using it - just stopped using it on the desktop. Even then what I like most about MacOS is the fact that under the hood it's extremely similar to Linux.

Flamekebab wrote:

TimeLordPlanet wrote:

Oh. Right. Well, Linux is still Linux, ready and waiting whenever you want it.

I didn't stop using it - just stopped using it on the desktop. Even then what I like most about MacOS is the fact that under the hood it's extremely similar to Linux.

It is! Based on Darwin, which is based on FreeBSD, which is based on Unix, Linux and macOS are like relatives!

Flamekebab wrote:

The thing I'm mostly sad to see is canonical abandoning their convergence initiative. I always thought it'd be awesome to have a device that could be a mobile OS in the field and convert back to a desktop when docked. Making that happen is hardly easy though so I can see why they've given up but still…

This makes me wonder if anyone remembers the Motorola Atrix. Apparently it wasn't compelling enough for the trend to continue, but it was an interesting product at the time of its release.

Harakou wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

The thing I'm mostly sad to see is canonical abandoning their convergence initiative. I always thought it'd be awesome to have a device that could be a mobile OS in the field and convert back to a desktop when docked. Making that happen is hardly easy though so I can see why they've given up but still…

This makes me wonder if anyone remembers the Motorola Atrix. Apparently it wasn't compelling enough for the trend to continue, but it was an interesting product at the time of its release.

Well, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is continuing the trend. Plug in a monitor and keyboard, and BOOM! Instant desktop OS running Samsung's apps and a few of Microsoft's.