[sc:linux-category ]For the longest time, when I wanted to build a Linux system, my go to distribution was Slackware. It was the first distro I used and was amazingly stable. However as my requirements changed, so did my distro and the last few years I’ve been using OpenSUSE.
Recently though OpenSUSE has been in a bit of a weird spot, not supporting some of the apps I wanted out of the box and delays to new releases. So I decided to take a look around and see what else was available.
My first stop was to Fedora. Now I have a BAD history with Red Hat, the few time’s I tried it were terrible with hardware compatibility issues. However that was quite a while ago and so I figured I’d give it a try. Overall Fedora was fine, but getting support for some of the server-side apps I use seemed to be an issue so while it passed muster, I eventually moved on to something else.
Which placed me smack dab in the middle of Ubuntu. I’ve toyed with Ubuntu a few times but the last version I tried was 10. Version 12 was quite a surprise, and not in a good way 😉
Unity is terrible, I tried to use it but the placement of menus, the overlay scroll bars and the overall experience left me wanting to delete the VM outright. However pretty much everyone supports it so took some time to see if I could make it livable.
First up was installing LXDE, which can be done through the software manager. LXDE brings back a nice and simple interface that does pretty much what you expect. Once installed, you have to logout and back in. When you get to the login screen, selecting the gear icon will let you select LXDE instead of Unity and then continue your logon.
Next was removing the overlay scrollbars, which are a terrible idea if I’ve ever seen one. Pulling up a command line and running:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface ubuntu-overlay-scrollbars false
Removes them quickly enough.
Suddenly Ubuntu is usable again!
I think I’ll use Ubuntu to test out an install of Zarafa, just to see how things go.
