Unity or gnome for newbie?

[maknib]

So after insalling i heard that unity is going and its going back to gnome. Ive looled at both and currently using gnome with a dock and like it
Should i stay on gnome? What are the differences?

And on that note.. Is there a good recommended videos seties for newbiez to learn it all.. I dont understand ppa or reposotories and would love to learn all about linux

Thanks

[peter d]

If you like Gnome I would say stick with it, although there is nothing stopping you installing any desktop environment that you want - KDE, XFCE, LXDE etc.

Repositories are simply repositories containing all the software that you can easily install on your system using Ubuntu software (or apt if you prefer the command line). PPA is a different way of installing software which is not in the official repositories. It's worth having a look at this, including taking a note of the caveat at the start https://launchpad.net/+help-soyuz/ppa-sources-list.html.

[ClickXT]

If you are enjoying GNOME then I see no reason to use Unity - especially with Ubuntu default going to GNOME anyway.

Outside of the desktop environment there is very little to no difference.

[metalbiker]

hello, maknib! I'm a member of the Ubuntu California LoCo team and I'd love to answer your questions really quick. Yes, Ubuntu is indeed going back to the Gnome environment with some improvements but with a lot of the same elements still in place, like the extensions to get the dash to dock and dash to panel, so forth and so on.

depending on your settings, if you don't know by now, you'll get the updated system with release 17.10 which lands in October of this year. I'm testing out 17.10 from the daily builds to check for bugs and glitches and reporting them as needed since I'm on some fairly new hardware with my laptop.

Ubuntu Gnome will go forward, starting with 17.10, only called Ubuntu. The Gnome team was already working with the Ubuntu Desktop team and have been working together to bring about this change. Depending on which release you downloaded and how you've got your software updates setup, with 16.04 LTS, you'll get the new version of Ubuntu with the Gnome shell environment, with it set to 'only for LTS versions," with release 18.04 LTS. if you set your software updates for any new version, you'll get the new updated version with version 17.10 in October.

Per your last question, there's all sorts of videos on youtube or wherever so just do an online search and you should be good to go. PPAs are Personal Package Archives and those are usually created by individuals and they update them from time to time for the software they create and store there. Repositories are similar.

you can usually find a LoCo team close to where you live if you go to this address: http://loco.ubuntu.com/

[bvz]

Another new user here. These are some useful links, thanks!

I installed 17.04 Gnome but am having frequent, whole system bugs that force me to reboot. I am thinking of doing a fresh install of 16.04 LTS hoping that it will be more stable. I was thinking of installing "vanilla" Ubuntu instead of the Gnome version, but I have come to like the Gnome desktop. If I install the "normal" version of Ubuntu and then add the Gnome Desktop Environment, how is that different than downloading and installing the Gnome version of 16.04 LTS?

[bvz]

Just an update. I tried it both ways. First 16.04 LTS with unity and then gnome installed separately. But somehow a lot of the unity layout was left intact when I switched to gnome, and I couldn't figure out how to get a "vanilla" gnome experience.

So for me it was easier to just install the gnome variant directly.