not looking to start a geek fight

[SteeleDragon78]

buuuuut, im not liking the new ubuntu setup and i am looking to try a different flavor of linux, im by no means geek enough to choose on my own. im looking for a good gui based distro, i can do some term commands if i have a reference but not great at it. looking mainly for my laptop, a 4 year old toshiba. but i do dual box my desktop so if there is one that will perform stellar on both thats a plus. any other info i will be happy to provide, but i cant think of anything else at the moment

[Pedersen]

Well, you do have options. Far too many, actually.

First up, I've seen virtually nobody liking the new Unity interface in Natty. It's why I haven't upgraded myself. However, you could just install Gnome or KDE, and use those for your desktop (on the login screen, usually at the bottom, is a menu labelled "Session", and you can switch there).

I've heard decent things about Mint in the past, so you could consider that one. You could also go with Fedora, I've heard good things about the latest of that, too.

Anyway, those are the options I can think of that are viable for you right now. I'll let you know if I think of more.

[RichS]

First up, I've seen virtually nobody liking the new Unity interface in Natty.

Count me among those - easy to change, though, like you said. Log out, and when you click on your username you'll notice a bottom selection bar. Change the third menu option from "Ubuntu" to "Ubuntu Classic" and log back in to the traditional interface.

I did think about Mint, just from the good things I've heard from other classmates. I might have to give that a try one of these days.

[Andara Bledin]

I've heard some really good things about Mint, too, but have no actual experience. Yet, anyway.

^-.-^

[SteeleDragon78]

i completely forgot about the ability to change the desktops

[Hawaiian Eskimo]

I don't blame Ubuntu from moving away from Gnome though. Have you seen what they did in Gnome 3? They removed the *minimize* function *facepalm*.

KDE seems to be the way to go, although I don't like it much either. The Linux guys need to take some UI design courses.

[Alephcat]

i completely forgot about the ability to change the desktops

That ability will go away with the next release (well, you will still be able to use whatever desktop you like, but you will have to install and configure it yourself.) because they are removing the Gnome 2 "fallback". I can confirm Mint 10 (not got round to upgrading yet) runs on a 5+ year old laptop with no problems because I am posting from it now.

[charred]

Prefer Slackware, myself.

[TheSHAD0W]

You could also switch to a LTS version of Ubuntu. Unless you have some particular need for new kernel features, you'll still get updated for the next five years, and you can still install new software.