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Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

For those who don't want to shift to a new distro, Xubuntu is a great option. It's lightweight without losing any of the features you've come to expect from a fully-featured DE.

And best of all, it's not going to pull the UI rug out from under you at a moment's notice.

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You can just apt-get install xubuntu-desktop. No need to reinstall everything (what a pain that would be). You can just install the xfce-* packages if you want to be more specific.

The only reason I don't use unity is that it doesn't handle multiple monitors correctly on my desktop. Otherwise, I find it satisfactory. I approve of a new design which tries to keep clutter off my screen and tries to be keyboard-driven, and I approve of compiz

> You can just apt-get install xubuntu-desktop. No need to reinstall everything

Yeah, that's what I meant - you don't have to switch distros, which necessitates a reinstall.

Lubuntu is also a great option and lighter weight than xubuntu. I just switched from ubuntu to lubuntu and am happy with the switch.

Why switch to XFCE? Can't you just install Gnome?

Most people dislike Gnome 3 as much as Unity.

From the article > "Mint 12 will be running Gnome 3"

OK...? The ancestors are talking about running Xubuntu and XFCE.

Mint will be running "Gnome 3", the framework, but not "gnome-shell", the user interface. Unity itself is similarly just a interface atop Gnome 3. Mint will be running its own new environment called "MGSE" (mint gnome-shell extensions), which is basically gnome-shell customized to look and behave like Gnome 2, because that traditional desktop experience is what most current users want and can get neither with Unity nor gnome-shell, which both have basically abandoned their traditional desktop user base and are now betting their future on tablets.

Mint has a version that uses LXDE rather than Gnome.

Not nearly as much, from what I've seen.

> And best of all, it's not going to pull the UI rug out from under you at a moment's notice.

I am capable of installing and uninstalling packages with apt-get, so I am not heavily dependent on Ubuntu to determine the UI for me. And I have no problem changing UIs (I used to use Enlightenment from DR13 or so)

So when a default changes away from something designed to look like Windows XP, I do not get emotionally scarred. I gather this is unusual, however, and Ubuntu's user base consists mostly of people who are terrified of package managers and can't abide anything except an XP ripoff GUI.

Maybe someone should start a new distribution which is premised on providing Ubuntu 8.04 in perpetuity.

The comment was in response to "Why switch to XFCE? Can't you just install Gnome?".

GNOME 3 most definitely "pulls the UI rug" with massive, controversial changes from previous versions. XFCE has yet to do anything like this.

Sure on Ubuntu 11.10 I installed Gnome 2.2 (see below comment for correction) as follows. This may not be possible on the next Ubuntu release. That's why I am migrating to Mint.

How to install gnome-classic on Ubuntu 11.10

# apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

# cd /etc/lightdm # gedit lightdm.conf change user-session=gnome-classic

hold down the alt key when right clicking the menu bar to add frequency and system monitor applets.

That doesn't install Gnome 2.2, it installs a Gnome 3 skin that kinda sorta looks like 2.2 but isn't.

I went through this same stuff recently, tried xfce for a while, finally gave Gnome Shell a week and have grown to like it. I don't miss 2.2 anymore.

> This may not be possible on the next Ubuntu release.

What, are they gonna stop making it based on Linux and move to something that can't run Gnome?

Gnome fallback is supposed to be a temporary feature of Ubuntu. Sorry - I can't easily find where I read that.

Yeah, but at what point does that stop the "power users" who seem to hate Unity from installing Gnome themselves? Hell, I removed Gnome entirely and replaced it with Xfce once. It's still Linux. Just because it comes with Unity preinstalled doesn't mean you're stuck with it.

Gnome 3? Not if you do want incremental improvements to your desktop environment but don't want a fundamental paradigm shift from installing the latest updates. If MATE takes off, maybe that will be a viable alternative.

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