Comment 207 for bug 668415

@Robin

Unfortunately, mentioning Pantheon *is* on topic. Because this bug won't be fixed, there is a need for alternative solutions, workarounds, plans, and even shreds of hope; and a few good ones were posted here.

As someone else has pointed out, there are two kinds of users commenting on this bug: 1) users who dislike Unity and are using this space as a way to express their dislike; and 2) users who like a lot of things about Unity, and want to use it, but are frustrated because this bug breaks their ability to do so.

There's no easy solution for the first group. Sure, they can easily switch to a different desktop in Ubuntu or even to a different free operating system, but the sad way in which this bug is mishandled makes it hard for them to keep faith in Ubuntu and to advocate it to others. Mark has explicitly asked them, in various ways, to just go away.

There's also no easy solution for the second group. Infuriatingly, the Unity team has consistently ignored multiple requests here and in other places to explain how users of multiple-monitor setups and right-to-left languages are going to be able to use Unity without a movable launcher. There are vague acknowledgements that a problem exists, but no solution is offered, and especially no timeline. As far as anybody who is not an insider can tell, it's likely that 12.04 LTS will be released, again, with a default desktop experience that does not work in multi-monitor setups and for the many, many millions of RTL language users. So, we'll; be seeing millions of desktops running with this major breakage well into the year 2014.

I still have faith (based on no actual knowledge) that this issue will be resolved. Until then, I find it very helpful when people post workarounds or temporary solutions, which keep us mostly within the Unity paradigm but fix some of the breakage. Pantheon may prove such a temporary fix, once it's ready.