A disappointed Ubuntu user...

[DiracRules]

Hi there!
This is my first post in this forum, so I don't know if it's the correct place where to put this question.

I had been working for one year on Ubuntu 10.10 and I found it simply AMAZING. Then I heard that Ubuntu 12.04 LTS had been released and, since Meerkat was not to be supported anymore, I did the upgrade.
I wish I never did so: this new OS is making my life a living hell, with a lot of crashes and bugs and installations that don't work and its awful Mac-like Unity-thing.

I'd go back to 10.10, if it was supported, but it won't.

So, my question is: is there any ubuntulike OS that is as much similar to Ubuntu 10.10 as possible?

I don't know much about Debian, Fedora, RedHat, Mandriva and the other OS (their strengths, their weaknesses and their main features).
I need a OS that is suitable for engineering (not that much graphic appealing, but a good compatibility with scientific software).

Thank you!

[elija]

You may be interested in the Mate desktop which is a fork of Gnome 2; Otherwise something like Scientic Linux or Centos may suit. Both are RHEL rebuilds and don't have massively modern software but they are reliable. Excepting the RHEL related stuff, the same applies to Debian.

[MASONTX]

Try linux mint mate edition, Lubuntu, or go to Ubuntu 10.04 which will be supported for another year.

[SL6-A1000]

I don't see much point in changing distro's, as elija said their is the MATE Desktop. Which is a fork of gnome2. Why not just install MATE on your current Ubuntu system??

The alternatives have been mentioned. You could try Lubuntu, Kubuntu etc..

Ubuntu Studio or Ubuntu DE are also supposed to be pretty good. Studio is designed more for musical and audio stuff, but nothing is stopping you from using it for other things.

Another not very well known Ubuntu Distro is Bio-Linux it is designed by scientists for scientists with a lot of bioinformatics and other related scientific software pre-installed. You may have to register on there website or provide an email, but it won't cost a dime.

[Steven_G]

I've recently found, and became a big fan of, Kubuntu 12.04LTS. It is far, far more stable than the main branch. It has a desktop called KDE which is very similiar to windows. (That is a big plus for me). And Canonical has disowned it. It is now being sponsored by a German company called Blue Systems. (They also sponsor KDE and have their own distro called Netrunner.) With Canonical out of the picture you won't have to worry Kubuntu being made to dance to the tune of Mark Shuttleworth's friggin ginormous ego. So you should have a nice stable release to work with for the next 5 years.

[yagolf]

I'd say go for Linux Mint. The new release 'Maya' is really stable (much more than Ubuntu 12.04 judging by your comments) and offers 2 desktop environments: MATE (a fork of Gnome 2 already mentioned in this post) and Cinnamon, which is a pretty awesome fork of Gnome 3, both of them giving you a much more familiar experience.
I don't know about the other distros mentioned here because I haven't looked back since I found Linux Mint
Good luck and I hope to hear that you are less frustrated soon!
Y

[gbray]

Try is I might, I still do not care for Unity. I too am experiencing signficant issues running Unity and 12.04 LTS. Switched to Cinammon DT and things improved noticeably. Linux User & Developer Issue 112 (the current issue I believe) has a very good article on how to replace Unity DT with any of the following: Mate, GNOME Shell, GNOME Classic which emulates GNOME 2-style menus, and Mint GNOME Shell Extensions. I think any of these will help. No experience with Scientic LinuX or Centos. Mint seems to run well on my HW and I like its interface better thany Unity.

[kartikkg]

Yes ubuntu 12.04 seems still in development stage , given enough time and plenty of updates I think it will be fine.

[ramin.honary]

Ubuntu is especially bug-prone when you screw with Compiz settings. If you are going to do a fresh install anyway, give 12.04 install one more try with a fresh install, let it keep all it's default settings. 12.04 is a long-term support release, so if you can keep the core system and just ditch the user interface, that would be the best solution, I think.

Just try backing up your whole home folder with "tar", then fresh-install 12.04 again, let it wipe your drive. Then copy your home-folder back with "tar" and the "-k" option to keep the configuration files that were installed by Ubuntu 12.04 (so as to not overwrite the Ubuntu 12.04 default Compiz settings). Finally, install Gnome 2 or Gnome 3, or add the package repository for MATE to your package manager and install that, and use the non-Unity as your default desktop environment.

I am of the mind that it's better to learn to cope with what you have for a while before moving on, rather than dump it at the first sign of trouble. That's what we always used to do back when we were stuck with Windows or Mac, except we didn't have the luxury of being able to switch to something else easily. Now that we have that luxury, we have to re-learn the virtue of patience.

[danbar]

Why don't you try Solusos ? It's stable and updated all the time. It's Debian based.