The move to Gnome 3 and Gnome Shell was not Canonical's idea, it was the Gnome Project who decided their roadmap. Canonical in fact developed Unity because of concerns over Gnome Shell. Personally, I rather like Gnome Shell, especially with a judicious choice of extensions, but I have to admit my Core Duo 2 laptops do not always like a fully composited desktop.
Gnome 2 is obsolete, but lives on in RHEL 6 releases, e.g. CentOS/Scientific Linux/Springdale Linux with support until 2017 (apps and hardware) and 2020 (security only). External repositories provide newer kernels[1].
The MATE desktop is a fork of Gnome 2 built on libraries that are being moved forward. External repos for Debian Wheezy and mainstream packages for Debian Jessie. Mint also provide a MATE desktop[2], with the familiar Ubuntu package base.
A clarification: The classic look of Gnome 2 sort of lives in RHEL 7 since it will run Gnome 3 with Classic Mode[1] meaning that all that effort for a new UI/UX is wasted as the looks and the "user's workflows" will be the same as it was under RHEL 6 (IOW Gnome 2 like).
I take the point, and it is worth emphasising that the 'classic' mode is the default for RHEL7 installations when you choose Gnome as the desktop environment. However the 'mode' is skin deep - no customisation, can't remove panels, can't add panel apps &c.
I wonder how many EL 7 desktop users will opt for the KDE desktop now that both are presented as equal choices on installation?
It has always seemed strange to me too. I have just always chalked it up to being an ubuntu thing.[1] I don't know if it has caught on in other distro-ecosystems but it seemed like it started with Ubuntu; which was peculiar because you do not have to deal with dependency hell--you have apt right there in that little black box!
The other ubuntu curiosity is installing `command-not-found` by default? I never thought you could have something worse than /usr/games/sl in your path, but then ubuntu introduced me to `command-not-found`.
I find `command-not-found``a lot more useful than `sl` (sl is some ascii animation that'll be shown for a short/long while if you write it).
Usually when I get to `command-not-found` it's something I haven't installed on a new system somewhere and I've found it helpful at times. It rarely annoys me.
From what I understand, "sl" was engineered to train new users into typing correctly, by putting them back on track to their final destination, instead of railroading them into promptly installing and running new commands. Only a fascist would force them to run on time.
If I mistype something, it takes ages for command-not-found to search the entire Internet for “emacss” or whatever, during which I am slowly driven mad by the system punishing me and forcing me to wait.
Ah, that makes sense, the version on my machine runs off the local apt/dpkg database, so I was wondering why why you'd consider it worse than sl. (It does spew several lines of noise, but that's less of a problem when you have a sixty-somthing line terminal and barely a problem at all when you've got scrollback.)
What would you estimate is the ratio of typos versus "thought it was installed"? Personally mine is probably 1,000 to 1. If I type a command and bash says command not found I know the program is not installed. If I need that program I am a big boy and can use apt without anyone holding my hand.
You can do that too, although I have had an ... interesting experience jumping around desktop environments on Ubuntu. I'm not sure what exactly is happening, but some kind of config information is steadily bleeding between them every time I do a system update.
Sometimes if I pull up KDE (which I don't usually, since I found xfce), the panel will have as many as three different sound menus, only one of which is actually functional.
From looking at the Gnome Developer page "Desktop files: putting your application in the desktop menus" [1], it seems that it wasn't designed to work correctly with more than one desktop installed. This isn't surprising as it's an uncommon use case. [Edit: This is incorrect, see below]
For example, on a system running 13.04 with MATE installed, the Graphics menu has entries for Image Viewer (Eye of Gnome, the default) and Eye of MATE Image Viewer (MATE's port of eog).
Looking in /usr/share/applications there are the two corresponding .desktop files:
Xubuntu is just a set of packages for Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu LTS and one of the first things I do on a new install is sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop .
Now, if you're on RHEL then Xubuntu would be a bit of a leap, but just installing xfce on Ubuntu is going to be a lot more painful than installing xubuntu-desktop which has a little more functionality out of the box.
What is significantly different? I looked on the xubuntu site and I could not find much information. I did not realize that xubuntu was a lot different than normal ubuntu with xfce4 installed.
RHEL is primarily a server, not a desktop. All the desktops are in the repos already though, and Fedora has offical spins if you don't want to install them yourself for some reason. Gnome, MATE, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, it just takes one command to group install.
I don't think they ever provided you with GNOME2, specifically, they provided you with GNOMEcurrent version, and they still do. You make it sound like they changed their minds, which I don't think is the case.
Why are you even using Ubuntu? If you actually know what GNOME2 is and care about it, you are almost certainly not the target audience for Ubuntu. If you use something else, you will probably prefer it over Ubuntu.
Lets examine the popular non-Ubuntu choices that I'm aware of:
SUSE/RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux/SciLinux?
All RPM based, and while there's nothing wrong with that, and YUM works fine, I already know apt-get and dpkg, why should I switch?
Gentoo?
Again, no apt-get. (And no, I don't care if there's a compatibility layer.)
Debian?
Wake me up when I can get the latest nvidia driver anywhere in its ecosystem. Meanwhile there's a PPA for Nvidia-$latest that works with my optimus laptop.
Additionally, call it do-release-upgrade, call it apt-get dist-upgrade, call it aptitude full-upgrade. It needs to not cause my system to die in fun and exciting ways. Which it did, going from Squeeze to Wheezy on my server.
Mint?
I have yet to be convinced this isn't Ubuntu reimplemented poorly, with less resources, and less attention. How many 3rd party PPAs are there vs Ubuntu? Since I'm digging into using PPAs for bleeding edge releases, why shouldn't I just use Ubuntu?
Linux on the desktop is Ubuntu for me. I threw Openbox on there and I'm good to go with minimal hassle.
If you're passing off Gentoo based on the presence of 'apt-get', you might be failing to understand the point of Gentoo =)
Gentoo uses something called 'portage' -- It's for building everything from source. This gets us access to really bleeding stuff very quickly, while leaving the lid open on an absurd amount of code out there.
This helps me write libraries for the entire Windows and Linux ecosystem. If I can prove that I can support my new binary's ABI there, I've proven that it can survive anywhere.
But if you're looking for apt, you should probably consider any of the binary-based distributions. Gentoo is not for the faint of heart, but if you want to learn Linux and development, it will benefit you like non other.
Debian has apt -- and while its release cycle is a little longer, I've found it to be more stable for mission-critical "apt"/binary-based hosting. In my experience I've found they screw up the packages a little less -- look to how many patches Ubuntu maintains on PHP for a comparison on how dangerous Ubuntu will sometimes play!
Ubuntu was the easiest way for me to get Linux on a new laptop with the secure boot nonsense. And it doesn't involve a lot of tweaking, most stuff works out of the box.
I am typing this on Ubuntu right now (it seemed easier than other options to get it on a Macbook air). I have Manjaro on my other laptop (Majanjaro gets used, Ubuntu is there for the installer), and Mint Debian edition at work (I did think this was a great distro, until a recent update has made it crash a lot).
