Ever since the beginning of running Linux on my home PCs more than ten years ago, I always feel that Linux GUI is a bit less responsive than Windows GUI but it's never too bad so I just go with the default installation and never need to tweak with alternatives. However, the arrival of Unity on Ubuntu becomes a game changer for me.
Unity is the default GUI since Ubuntu 11.04 but I decided to stay with 10.10 after a short moment of trying. My impression at that time was that Unity was awkward to use and everything took longer than before. With the update of 11.10, I decided to get Unity another try, only to get more disappointed.
Unity in 11.10 gets even slower than before. Admitted that my PC's hardware is not the state-of-the-art, it's at least no worse than smart phones and netbooks which are the new markets that Ubuntu tries to grab with Unity. What is a GUI good for if it slows down everything that I'm doing with all those unnecessary eye-candies? Eye-candies can never get the work done!
Since Ubuntu ditched Gnome 3 in favor of Unity, it makes me wonder how Gnome 3 deviates from Unity. It turns out they don't differ much at all in concept because they both want to be more friendly to smaller touch screens and both use large icons. Gnome 3 runs faster and smoother, which definitely gives it a leading edge against Unity. However, it's still not fast enough for me.
Fortunately, Linux is full of choices at a finer granularity than Windows. I once wiped out Windows Vista that was shipped with a laptop and reinstalled Windows XP. I don't have to do the same to get around the sluggish Unity because I can just look for another GUI that suits my need. I finally settled down with LXDE. It's much faster with more traditional desktop interface. Most importantly, it doesn't get into the way when I simply want to get things done.
There is a tendency in software industry that features trump performance. Software gets slower while hardware gets faster, which encourages software to get even slower because the gap is meant to be covered by even faster hardware. Luckily, we have choices. May the faster and the better win.
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