10.4LTS desktop enviroment in 12.4LTS?

[eival]

ive seen videos of the current LTS earlier this year and i really didnt like it and the word was there is no GUI alternative, other than just not upgrading.

has there been any upgrades to either 12.4 or 12.10 that has the traditional style desktop option?

if not, what is the latest version that has a traditional enviroment AND will still be supported with security updates, other than 10.4

[sudodus]

Try '12.04 LTS / Precise Classic (No effects) Tweaks and tricks' by kansasnoob:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370)

[Cheesemill]

Check out the community documentation for using the Classic Gnome session in 12.04.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseGnomeClassicTweaks

Another option would be to switch to a different DE altogether by going for Xubuntu or Kubuntu.


if not, what is the latest version that has a traditional enviroment AND will still be supported with security updates, other than 10.4
There isn't one. The only version of Ubuntu still supported that uses Gnome 2 is 10.04.

[eival]

Try '12.04 LTS / Precise Classic (No effects) Tweaks and tricks' by kansasnoob:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370)


wow thats alarming amount of code just to replicate something every previous version already had built in.


does 12.10 have that developed in as an option, or are there plans for it in 13.4?

is there any reason/explanation of the total abandoning of the traditional DE?

[eival]

Another option would be to switch to a different DE altogether by going for Xubuntu or Kubuntu.


thanks, totally forgot about those alternate versions, looks like Xu has exactly the same DE as 10.4, so ill test that one out

[MG&TL]

is there any reason/explanation of the total abandoning of the traditional DE?

Yes.

For various reasons (talk to them...) the people who make GNOME moved on from GNOME 2.x ("traditional desktop") to GNOME 3.x.

GNOME 3.x wouldn't have been controversial, (just updated toolkits and things application designers have to worry about). However, 3.x also came with a new default user interface, GNOME Shell, which looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/GNOME_Shell.png

This led to some disagreement between Canonical/Ubuntu and GNOME. So Canonical/Ubuntu made a new shell around GNOME 3, called Unity, which looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Unity_5.12_on_Ubuntu_12.04.png

This also created a lot of backlash from the community, resulting in several forks, people keeping the old GNOME in their distributions, and other things (like kansasnoob's thread).

My personal recommendation is to try it out and see if you like it (for at least a week-I'm told it grows on people), then if you don't like it, try kansasnoob's threads' suggestions, or better still Xu/Lu/Ku-buntu.

Have fun with choice!

[sudodus]

wow thats alarming amount of code just to replicate something every previous version already had built in.

does 12.10 have that developed in as an option, or are there plans for it in 13.4?

is there any reason/explanation of the total abandoning of the traditional DE?

Kansasnoob plans to stay with the LTS version (12.04) as long as possible, but he discusses the future in a thread in the Ubuntu Forums.

Gnome 2 was abandoned in favour of Gnome 3 by the development team of Gnome itself, so the old desktop environment could not be maintained.

I suggested kansasnoob's version because it looks like the old one, and it has LTS support until 2017. However, there are many alternatives, more or less different from Ubuntu's old one from 10.04. Test some of them, and select the one you like the best :-)

Unity
Xubuntu-desktop
Lubuntu-desktop
KDE
Cinnamon
Mate
...

A new desktop environment may feel strange in the beginning, but after a while you might like it (if your computer has enough horsepower to run it).