Ubuntu alternatives?

Thanks! I haven't made a final decision yet, but Kubuntu is my favourite ATM.

 

After playing around with Unity I didn't much like it either. I decided to switch to Xubuntu and after a couple of weeks with it I am quite happy. Then again I like a more standard interface and I'm not really into shine and candy.

I may give Gnome 3 a shot down the line. It is supposed to be very configurable so I expect it can be set up with layout I feel comfortable with. I'll let it settle down for a while first. My understanding with Unity is that by design it has limited configurability so changing the layout will be a lot of hacks, so I don't see myself returning to that desktop.

 

I suggest that you also give KDE a try.

1. Kubuntu 11.04 is very stable according to my tests. And according to a new Phoronix test KDE with KWin was (among) the fastest desktops in several benchmarks. (Xfce was not included, though.)
2. I had a short conversation with Martin Gräßlin, the lead developer of KWin, in another forum. According to him there won't be big changes for KDE in the foreseeable future (à la Gnome 2 -> 3), at least not for Plasma (even when Qt5 will come out). The only necessary big changes will be for Wayland - but this will affect all desktops and not only KDE.

 

PCLOS & your distro shopping is over. Be forewarned!

 

I tried it on a LiveUSB and while it might be fine on a real computer, I'm on a netbook and it was definitely a little slow. Plus I didn't really like the desktop, at least as default. I'm actually really pleased with Xubuntu

Now my other computer, that's the 11 year old Thinkpad, I have Lubuntu on that and it runs well but is a tad spartan, so I'm probably going to play around with Bodhi on that when I have some time.

 

Do you mean Ubuntu will be stopped/cancelled in the future?

 

Yes, Xubuntu and Lubuntu are probably faster but, IMHO, not that configurable. It's a matter of taste after all (at least on reasonably fast computers).

 

Not for everyone, but I don't think I'll be using Ubuntu as it is today.

In 2013, when Lucid ages, it will be most likely replaced by Kubuntu or Linux Mint. Some of the test instances, currently running Maverick will see that happen even sooner. And I'll continue dabbling in openSUSE and possibly Scientific.

Mrk

 

A recent Mepis review.
http://all-things-linux.blogspot.com/2011/05/simplymepis-11-my-first-experience-with.html

I still think about Mepis as a candidate for me. I believe possible benefits are, stability, long term support (no new releases every year), and KDE all the way, with tweaks to minimize differences between KDE 3 and 4.
It's KDE 4.5 note.

 

Can i ask like . . . what are the most common commands for Linux? (Specifically Ubuntu)

Like install commands, execution, changing directory, seeing what in a directory. All the basic things

 

https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/ubuntu-help/index.html

For other guides see here.

 

Found them.

I was just lazy to google them

 

Thanks to all of you contributing to this thread!

Now that my new hardware has arrived, I've finally installed Kubuntu 11.04 and it's running great

Nevertheless, I'm still trying other distros in Virtualbox VMs. Who knows what the future will bring for us ...

 

Just as a follow-up to what I wrote: There is this article about the no longer existing/up-to-date 64bit flash version.
As long as the Mint developers are making such dumb and irreproducible decisions, Mint is no alternative for me - sorry.

 

Thanks for that.

And folks who want it should feel free to go to http://bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer/ and vote for 64-bit Flash for Linux.

 

Aye, Kubuntu is pretty cool too. Specially since they don't over tweak it. KDE by default is fantastic.

Keep me posted!

 

Agreed! Some versions ago Kubuntu was regarded as kinda Ubuntu stepchild but it has matured since then. AFAIR, Kubuntu 10.04 was the first LTS version.

 

Yes, it really has matured a lot. A few years ago when I tried it, it seemed a bit buggy, but now it's quite polished. I think it changed a lot last year...

 

Slackware, Gentoo

 

Aren't those 2 for more experienced users, especially Slackware?

 

Just tried Bodhi Linux on VMware, and I'm liking it (especially customizability). Only issue is that it removes all gadgets after changing screen resolution.

Don't have Ubuntu on VMware, because Unity isn't supported, and I already have a derivative from it. I am using it on my netbook though, where performance is good as usual.

 

Just for information in case you decide on a trial run. Sandy Bridge support in 6.1 release !
(Scientific Linux 6.1 was released a few days ago. Painless upgrade for me from 6.0)

RedHat 6.1 Release Notes

Edit: I don't know about SSD trim support.

 

Ocky, thanks for this info! I might try SL 6.1 - although I won't be really able to test Sandy Bridge graphics support in a Virtualbox VM

 

I'm new to Linux, and i'm currently using Ubuntu with GNOME desktop (i've choosed "Ubuntu classic" at logon, don't really know if is gnome 1, 2 or 3), and i liked it a lot. Is very simple, clean and intuitive, for me far better than Windows desktop. IMHO, Unity is beautiful but not practical; Linux Mint is very easy to use, but seems a attempt to mimic Windows desktop; Kubuntu is cool, but too much "eye candy"... thanks

 

Ubuntu "classic" seems to be without all the effects (did a test run with Wubi a day or so ago). At first I couldn't get Ubuntu to even load right without using the classic option. Once I got to the desktop though and got my graphics card taken care of, I hated the new look. It had a lot of issues as well, such as complaining about no internet when I was surfing Wilders That sidebar is an eyesore, though I'm sure it's removable.

LinuxMint looks really nice, wish they had a Wubi-like installer as well. As far as I know, Ubuntu itself is the only one.