Stay with Ubuntu or change to other distro?

[NapkinMan]

Hello!
A month ago I finally decided to install Ubuntu on my personal and only laptop. I didn't want to make a radical change to Linux yet as I used Windows all my life so I dual botted Ubuntu 13.04 (12.10 did not detect my wireless card) with Windows 7. I really enjoyed and am currently enjoying the experience of Linux but as I kept on trying differente distros on my virtual machine I started noticing the several diferences in them. I've tried (apart from Ubuntu) Mint 14, OpenSuse 12.3, Fedora 18 and Backtrack 5r3. After that, and please forgive me if i'm wrong, Unity just seemed very "juvenile" when compared to the other ones i tried. I use my laptop mainly for rather casual online gaming, programming as i've started learning some languages, some school work, multimedia (music making, photo editing, movies,music) and was also planning to set a server at my parents' home when I go there in vacation. Also i considered the change because I don't like the tabled feeling unity has and, don't ask me why, I don't feel confortable changing the "retail" GUI. With the new intel 965 graphic drivers I also got to run many games on Ubuntu like Urban Terror and even World of Warcraft through Wine and I'm feeling more and more distant from Windows as time goes by. My main question is: Taking all the activities I enjoy most in consideration, should I keep Ubuntu or change to Fedora/OpenSuse? Also, please forgive me if I posted in the wrong forum section. It is my first thread.

[ibjsb4]

Welcome to the forums NapkinMan

Don't like Unity, just add a different desktop to it. I like the Classic desktop, but there are several others to choose from.

Open a terminal and enter:

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

And choose your desktop at boot (login) by clicking on the login icon.

[NapkinMan]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply. I already sucessfuly installed cinnamon although the one i liked the most was the KDE of Opensuse 12.3. Regarding my other question, do you think Ubuntu is right for the things I do on my laptop or do you think there's a more appropriate distro?

[ibjsb4]

What you want to do is pretty much standard on all distros. Nothing wrong with KDE, but i think Ubuntu (that includes kde) offers the greatest amount of software.

[NapkinMan]

Thanks again. I'm already looking foward to keeping Ubuntu. Don't fix what's not broken right?. I'll just wait for a few more opinions

[zombifier25]

I would say that unless you have very specific needs, Ubuntu is the best distro for doing... everyday stuffs. It has tons of softwares (including some like Steam for gaming), well supported by the community (most of the Linux guides you find on the Internet will be mainly for Ubuntu). Don't like Unity? There are other DEs you can try, like KDE.

[NapkinMan]

Thank you for the reply. The friend who convinced me to try Linux, although not explaining me why, said it was best to keep the GUI that came with my instalation. Although Ubuntu seems to be a little more slow than the other 3 I tried via Virtual machine and LiveUsb, everything seems to be working perfectly and I'm afraid of messing that up since everyone I know has run into some serious problems when installing linux for the 1st time.

[addegsson]

Try Kubuntu, it's a good alternative if you like Kde more than Unity.

[NapkinMan]

Thanks I'll download it and try it in my virtual machine

[mips]

Well there's also Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome (does it have a name yet?).