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(Honest question) Is there any user-friendly alternative to Ubuntu? I switched from Win7 to 12.04 a few weeks ago, but it's full of tiny-yet-annoying bugs. EG:

(Honest question) Is there any user-friendly alternative to Ubuntu? I switched from Win7 to 12.04 a few weeks ago, but it's full of tiny-yet-annoying bugs. EG: sometimes a program disapears from ALT-TAB and I need to minimize everything else to find it. Or the resize-window border that is barely half a pixel thin.

montecarl 14y ago
I haven't liked Ubuntu very much in the past couple of years. I just don't care for the UI at all. I have really liked Linux Mint (http://linuxmint.com http://linuxmint.com) so far. They still maintain a Gnome 2 desktop that is very stable.
columbo 14y ago
It really depends on what you consider user friendly. If you want fast access to the top ten applications you will normally use and an OS that is almost entirely hidden go for crunchbang (http://crunchbang.org/ http://crunchbang.org/) (video demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBuqWPcsTig&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBuqWPcsTig&feature=relat...) . CB has been my distro of choice for several years now.
- zupreme 14y ago
  CrunchBang looks very interesting. I'm surprised that I've never heard of it. I'm downloading a copy now. Thanks for mentioning this.
- shardling 14y ago
  Crunchbang is pretty awesome on low-end systems, too. I recently tried about 10 different "lightweight" distros on an old P3 with ~128 MB of RAM, and Crunchbang was the only one that ran ok and felt polished. (IIRC puppy linux was the only other one that ran fine, and it's just hideously ugly.) My favorite distro was one that prominently mentioned that it could run on low end systems like mine. It turned out that the installer needed more RAM than the distro... I suggested to the developer that this be mentioned on the download page, and he seemed confused/offended! :(
BruceIV 14y ago
If you want to avoid the tiny-yet-annoying bugs, switch back to Windows (that's what I did) (OS X is good too).
- freehunter 14y ago
  Yes, unfortunately with all the things Linux gets right, there's always those tiny but annoying bugs. Windows and OSX have fewer because they have huge budgets and strong management to make sure things are polished.
  - shardling 14y ago
    On the other hand, I've encountered issues on OSX that I simply couldn't fix. With Linux, if you care enough about a bug you can generally find some workaround. (Assuming it's not driver related!)
    - BruceIV 14y ago
      Fair - but too often the bugs are driver-related. I realize that this is kind of unavoidable for open-source software in our economic system, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. It was the driver bugs that drove me back to Windows - doing multi-monitor is a pain in the rear, and suspend/hibernate would often break on distro update in the rare cases they worked before. Getting an up-to-date Web browser is a big plus for Windows over most Linux distros too (I know about Debian testing, Arch, PPA's, etc. - I said "most").
      - shardling 14y ago
        I believe Firefox now stays up to date on vanilla Ubuntu.
        freehunter 14y ago
        Yeah, Ubuntu updates Firefox usually the same day it's released.
viraptor 14y ago
Xubuntu has some tiny bugs like anything else, but I can't say I've seen anything annoying so far.

montecarl 14y ago

I haven't liked Ubuntu very much in the past couple of years. I just don't care for the UI at all. I have really liked Linux Mint (http://linuxmint.com http://linuxmint.com) so far. They still maintain a Gnome 2 desktop that is very stable.

columbo 14y ago

It really depends on what you consider user friendly. If you want fast access to the top ten applications you will normally use and an OS that is almost entirely hidden go for crunchbang (http://crunchbang.org/ http://crunchbang.org/) (video demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBuqWPcsTig&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBuqWPcsTig&feature=relat...) . CB has been my distro of choice for several years now.

zupreme 14y ago
CrunchBang looks very interesting. I'm surprised that I've never heard of it. I'm downloading a copy now. Thanks for mentioning this.
shardling 14y ago
Crunchbang is pretty awesome on low-end systems, too. I recently tried about 10 different "lightweight" distros on an old P3 with ~128 MB of RAM, and Crunchbang was the only one that ran ok and felt polished. (IIRC puppy linux was the only other one that ran fine, and it's just hideously ugly.) My favorite distro was one that prominently mentioned that it could run on low end systems like mine. It turned out that the installer needed more RAM than the distro... I suggested to the developer that this be mentioned on the download page, and he seemed confused/offended! :(

BruceIV 14y ago

If you want to avoid the tiny-yet-annoying bugs, switch back to Windows (that's what I did) (OS X is good too).

freehunter 14y ago
Yes, unfortunately with all the things Linux gets right, there's always those tiny but annoying bugs. Windows and OSX have fewer because they have huge budgets and strong management to make sure things are polished.
- shardling 14y ago
  On the other hand, I've encountered issues on OSX that I simply couldn't fix. With Linux, if you care enough about a bug you can generally find some workaround. (Assuming it's not driver related!)
  - BruceIV 14y ago
    Fair - but too often the bugs are driver-related. I realize that this is kind of unavoidable for open-source software in our economic system, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. It was the driver bugs that drove me back to Windows - doing multi-monitor is a pain in the rear, and suspend/hibernate would often break on distro update in the rare cases they worked before. Getting an up-to-date Web browser is a big plus for Windows over most Linux distros too (I know about Debian testing, Arch, PPA's, etc. - I said "most").
    - shardling 14y ago
      I believe Firefox now stays up to date on vanilla Ubuntu.
      - freehunter 14y ago
        Yeah, Ubuntu updates Firefox usually the same day it's released.

viraptor 14y ago

Xubuntu has some tiny bugs like anything else, but I can't say I've seen anything annoying so far.