[puzzler314]

I've recently switched Linux Mint as a result of Canonical's new focus on eye candy rather than functionality (I couldn't take the new interface in Ubuntu). Have others gone the same way or is there another distribution I should look at?

[nickolai]

I've done so too. It seems that they will not be able to get around the Gnome3 crap in their ubuntu-based edition. They're trying to get out of the mess with their Cinnamon project. I'll see how it goes, but i'm afraid I'll have to ditch gnome altogether and go for XFCE (in Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) for example, they say its a rolling distro too, so it looks even more like a good idea).

[davidw]

The idea that you should reinstall every time, with Mint, makes it sound like a bit of a toy, in my eyes.

[dhimes]

It's a philosophy, not a requirement. Mint thinks you should upgrade Ubuntu that way as well.

I just keep separate partitions and do a full install on the ones I need. No sweat.

On the other hand, I did a "ubuntu" style upgrade to 10.04 LTS, and that worked fine, too (I run that on a netbook for their netbook interface). It took longer than a full install on Mint (perhaps being a slower machine had something to do with it), but it worked out ok.

[davidw]

Ok, but if they eventually strike out 'on their own', it's not something they're going to test, potentially leaving you in the lurch.

[dhimes]

I imagine we'll at least be warned.

[sea6ear]

I've ended up looking at Arch Linux (I installed using ArchBang which is probably a little easier/simpler than using the straight Arch installer). In actual daily use I find it about as easy as Ubuntu, but I like the more minimalist philosophy of the distribution. I already feel like I understand more of what's actually on my system and how it's really working.

[slug]

Tried Unity and didn't like it so...

Running 11.10, replaced unity with xmonad on laptop. Running kubuntu (kde 4.8 ppa) or xfce on desktop computer depending on the mood.

I still think that KDE is the best (and improving) desktop environment for Linux but for older machines xubuntu/xfce is probably a good substitute.

The reason I use [xk]ubuntu is that I like the debian package system but with the somewhat more up to date packages.

I still run some gentoo machines, some for many years, but the pain of compiling stops to be funny after a while so I run it only on servers now.

[dhimes]

I switched to Mint a while back, not because of mad h4xx0r skilz (I don't have them), but because it "just works" (for linux). As a happy coincidence, they give me an acceptable desktop option in their custom desktop.

Unfortunately, in Mint 12 my lexmark printer no longer works. I think it's some issue between 3.0 kernel, cups, and Mint, but nobody has quite figured it out yet.

This happens with Windows upgrades too, so please no flame wars here.

[jhdevos]

I've installed the xubuntu-desktop packages on Ubuntu 11.10, and am pretty happy with it, at home; at work I'm using Ubuntu with the awesome window manager -- but running a gnome-session within that to make some things a bit easier.

Ubuntu is not limited to the default interface if you spend a little bit of time; probably that is far less time than getting to know a new distribution.

[alinajaf]

I stuck with Ubuntu but switch to gnome + xmonad on fresh installs. If this ceases to be possible in future releases I may take a few days and get set up with arch linux, and then automate that with chef or something similar.

[ReturnTheGift]

Using Ubuntu 11.10 here but swapped out Unity for GNOME Shell. Works great for me; I prefer it over OS X, actually.

[curiousfiddler]

I switched back to 10.04 coz I found myself getting irritated while using unity. 10.xx were such good releases!

[arguesalot]

One thing about ubuntu (and the reason i prefer it) is that it works well with new hardware mostly out-of-the-box. If you use it on laptops that is a big plus. If you hate too much eyecandy, xubuntu is an obvious option.

But maybe i have overlooked other distributions that "just work" out of the box.