Decided to Roll back to 9.10 - What are my options?

[vasa1]

Xubuntu 12.04 LTS. Definitely.
https://sites.google.com/site/easyli...roject/xubuntu

You'll like what you'll get, I have no doubt!

The text editor (notepad) is called Leafpad. In the terminal without capital, so leafpad. Good to know when you want to use a terminal command that contains gedit (the text editor of Ubuntu).

You may want to fix that.

[Captainhepp]

OK, after more testing, the winner seems to be Xubuntu 12.04 LTS. It's stable, simple, and fast.

Thanks to everyone for their input so far. My only bug at the moment is the screen brightness flicker issue. It's not as bad as with 12.10 for sure, but still a minor annoyence. I read the post about additional drivers. My Netbook has an Intel integrated chip. Would you find those drivers under "Additional Drivers?"

Am I right in thinking Xfce is actually based on Gnome? It looks awful similar. If I ever want to experiment with a different DE do I just point and click in the software center? Thanks again!

[audiomick]

... My Netbook has an Intel integrated chip. Would you find those drivers under "Additional Drivers?"

As far as I know, intel graphics is supposed to work with the default drivers, but I am not absolutely sure. The easiest way to find out is just find the additional drivers application and let it run (whilst the computer has an internet connection). If there are drivers available, it should find them. If not, no harm done. As I said, I don't think there are any, but it definitely wont do any damage to look.

Am I right in thinking Xfce is actually based on Gnome?

No. As far as I know, xfce is completely independant of Gnome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfce

My guess is that perceived similarities have more to do with a mutual similarity to familiar ground established by Apple and Microsoft in the past.

If I ever want to experiment with a different DE do I just point and click in the software center?

Yes. You can install any DE available in the software centre, and choose it at log in and run it. I only ventured into this area quite recently myself, but it doesn't seem to create any problems whatsoever.

[JHawk56]

If I ever want to experiment with a different DE do I just point and click in the software center? Thanks again!

To add to what audiomick said, I've added Lubuntu DE to Ubuntu in both 12.04 and 11.10, and it was painless even for a Linux newbie like me.

[Peripheral Visionary]

Gnome and Xfce (and LXDE also) are built on the GTK "foundation," so to speak, which is why they integrate so well and seem so alike in many ways. KDE is built on the Qt "foundation." Unity, I've read, borrows a great deal from both GTK and Qt.

Adding another desktop environment is really easy to do in Ubuntu. Before you just add desktop meta-packages (Ubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-desktop, lubuntu desktop, etc) though, take a few minutes to read this description of Linux desktops. It's a little out of date now but it's still the best "layman's language" description I've ever found.