In the past people have suggested that Ubuntu "looks like Unix" more than other Linux distributions. I'm an old Solaris and SunOS guy and I like a "standard" Unix feel.

I'm curious to here your views on which distro is a solid, robust "Unix-like" distro that is stable and relatively easy to use without going through too many gyrations just to get stuff working.

I'm looking to use it as my main desktop for professional use and personal use.

One colleague recently told me he likes manjaro better than Ubuntu. I'm open to hear any suggestions or opinion about manjaro or any other distro.

Also, with respect to "robust" and "polished" which desktop environment do you like, and which window manager do you like?

Thanks in advance,

Slackware is the most old school distro. If you are an old unix guy look at slackware64-current.

Ok, thanks, biker_rat.

I presume that any desktop environment and any window manager should be able to run on any distro. I mean, if it's designed correctly according to good engineering practices. Am I correct in my assumption?

I just want an environment where I can load the mail client of my choice, and PDF viewer, and other "admin" or "office" applications. I know GIMP, LibreOffice work nicely. And those are my stalwart applications. I just need a good mail client -- and it ain't Thunderbird.

I've been working in Slackware since 1994, when I adopted it as the "Linux to use on our x86 Workstations" against our main HP-UX [unix] servers etc.
It ain't the most easy distro, but it always done what I wanted it to do.

See the various slackware forums on this site too.

When you say "...ain't the most easy..." do you mean "more manual work to configure and operate and identify solutions to issues"? Does that include having to compile packages for applications?

I am happy to do some higher level of sysadmin type stuff as long as there is good documentation.

Thanks, ehartman.....

Oh, sorry, I forgot to say... I think I prefer something that "looks like Unix" as I'm more familiar with commands and where to find files, system logs, etc. So, if Slackware is that system, I'm happy to do a little more manual work. That being said, I don't want to get too bogged down trying to get stuff to work.

As much as I enjoy fiddling, these days time is limited. That's why I seek a balance between "easy to use" and "robust, solid, Unix-like"....

"I just want an environment where I can load the mail client of my choice, and PDF viewer, and other "admin" or "office" applications. I know GIMP, LibreOffice work nicely. And those are my stalwart applications."
Those apps are all on slackware as precompiled packages (libreoffice you have to get precompiled from alienbob's repo - and you should be specific about what email client you want or I can't answer where to find it).
As an old unix guy, everything on slackware is pretty much where you expect it to be at and works similar to unix.
The slackware installer is ncurses based and simple. The package system doesn't check dependencies so at first install whole sets of software at once ( x, libs , dev, etc.) until you know what can be left out without breaking stuff that you need.
You install and update packages with a command line application. You do most administration tasks on the command line. This is challenging to Microsoft Windows's typical users who are mostly command line eunuchs, unlike most unix guys who are mostly command line hardcore types.
Most the stuff you have to compile for yourself ( and from what you say here that won't likely be much if anything ) has a stick stone bone simple to use build script available from slackbuilds.org website, and they have a script to automate building a chain of dependencies from build scripts as well.YMMV.

OP: Manjaro is a "rolling release" distro that upgrades in place every update, and Ubuntu is a point release (?) where they come out with a new version every few years. Rolling releases tend to generally be less stable, or more prone to issues, but that's usually not a deal breaker. Point releases tend to be more stable with fewer issues.

I would say neither of those distros are more "Unix like", Ubuntu least of all, in my opinion. Ubuntu is very easy to install and use, as is Manjaro. Of the ones mentioned, Slackware is far more "Unix like", if there is such a thing these days.

Agreed, in my opinion Ubuntu is not the most unix-like distro. Slackware was mentioned but I'm sure there's others like Void, Crux, etc. I imagine a lot of the lesser known distros that aren't based on other distros, would have a similar feel. Start Distro hopping

As far as email, I've heard good things about Geary. I don't use any desktop email clients but I know what you mean by Thunderbird not being very user-friendly, it comes preinstalled on many distros.

Almost all distros will use the standard commands (I've only encountered one that used zshell rather than bash, for example) and the standard file hierarchy (again, I've only ever seen one that didn't).

My problems with Slackware were
> The repository is tiny — the installion disk is the whole thing. You don't even get LibreOffice. You have to get extra software from Slackbuilds — the process is not complicated, but it does take time as things are compiled from source.
> The lack of dependency resolution means that you tinker with the installation at your peril — for safety, you need to install the lot, which will include libraries for software you don't want.
> Configuration is very hands-on and the system is so old-fashioned that only Slackware's own documentation is guaranteed to be relevant.
I dare say that some of the Slackers here will have a hissy fit at this, but that's Slackers for you.

Ubuntu is very hit and miss, as Canonical don't have a vast team of developers and very few seem to download and report on the beta-test versions. The latest version has just had a bad review of Distrowatch. Manjaro is nice, but you can get a lot of updates — as a rolling-release distro, I prefer PCLinuxOS, which is more conservative.

Window managers? Well, Gnome seems to be more suited to a phone than to a desktop used for real work rather than social networking. KDE is just too fussy and flashy for my taste, although I do admire it's extensive configuration options. For both my computers, I use Xfce on the grounds that (in the words of one of the developers) it just does the job without getting under your feet or in your face. Mate is quite nice, but I dislike the fact that the configuration files are not plain text (the same applies to Gnome, by the way) - not the Unix way.

For a solid, professional experience you can't beat CentOS — I've been a Red Hat user for some 20 years. But it's getting more and more tied to Gnome — for everything to work well, you do need to have Gnome installed, even if you use something else — and when I needed a new computer in a hurry, the latest CentOS was still Gnome or nothing, which is why I have PCLinuxOS, which has turned out very satisfactory.

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Every 6 months an "interim" release, every 2 years a LTS one.
Most recent was a LTS release, 20.04, called Focal Fossa, at the 23th last month.

And *ubuntu is more M$-Windows like than real Unix, with graphical setup-tools, etc.

But that way you really learn how it works, details aren't hidden and Slackware most certainly isn't holding your hand, you have to go out and attack it.

I did say before that Slackware wasn't easy and yes, the standard toolkit is limited, but that way you have to learn how to add what you really want TO add.

And xfce happens to be one of the (only) 2 DE's that are standard available in Slackware.
On the other hand there are a plethora of plain windows managers, ranging from old-fashioned fvwm and twm to fluxbox, for those who prefer to create their own desktops.

There is KDE/Plasma 5 too, although not the default, to try it, download the CentOS-7-x86_64-LiveKDE-2003 image.

Thanks for the info on the update schedule. Personally I feel any systemd distro these days is more windows-like in terms of complexity and obfuscation of how things work. Not going to debate whether that is good or bad. If a distro does what you need it to do, who cares what it is under the hood.

Not Linux, but if OP wants "Unix like", check out the BSDs. Of any open source OS out there, they are the most Unix like, being more or less direct decendants. None of them are really an "easy" desktop though so there is that to consider.

All,

Thank you very much for the great amount of information and detail. I am going to do some "distro hopping". As of right now, my iMac still works so I have some time to try different distros to see which one appeals to me the most.

I'll get the name of that mail app that my colleague recommended. He had his "disappearing messages" timer set in Signal so I lost it, but asked him to resend. :-)

I must confess, that, although I am an old Unix dude, I was never a real sysadmin. I recall those sysadmins we had at Sun... they were orders of magnitude more skilled than those of us who just did the basics on our Sparc 1+ pizza boxes. So I'm not sure I want to be fiddling with building file systems and partitions and such on a regular basis, debugging NFS mounts, etc. But I don't mind, for example, using rsync to do backups. So it's a balance that I seek just in the interest of time.

I thank you all for your great responses...

David, most of the stuff you compiled because it was missing from Slackware (including libreoffice) was probably available precompiled by alienbob at www.slackware.com/~alien. If not there, precompiled at www.slackonly.com or else www.slacky.eu, or from ponce's repo or rlworkman's repo.But if there is something you needed ,but actually had to compile, what is the big whoop?
Xfce4 and fluxbox are the only desktop environments I ever seriously use, although I install others from time to time to reaffirm my notion that I don't want them (i3 I almost like enough not to uninstall after a couple of days). I some times install kde 4 or 5 to use the applications, but I don't use kde as a desktop environment.
Hissy fit over and out.