Abandoning Fedora; Need a new distro
 

I have been a Fedora fan since Red Hat 9. Lately I have tried upgrading to both Fedora 15 and 17. Unfortunately, there have been drastic changes in the way things work.

1) I don't like the Gnome3 user interface. I particularly hate the single "Activities" that brings up a screen full of icons with filters on the right. I want to see the filters first, then a list of the programs (not icons) corresponding to that filter. Which brings me to my second point.

2) There is a dearth of customization options. To be honest, I've never really liked the arrangement of the taskbars, but it used to be easy to unlock the icons, etc., move them around, and relock them. With my widescreen monitor, I could put everything I wanted on the bottom line and get rid of the top taskbar entirely. Now I'm stuck with a top taskbar with nothing I want on it.

3) Things have become needlessly complex and cumbersome. Since I play several commercial games, Windows is a necessary evil. I dual-boot all my computers, which means I edit /etc/grub.conf. Except, not any more. With grub2, I'm supposed to use some hopelessly complicated config program. Why must I spend a week figuring out this stupid config program when I could simply gedit /etc/grub.conf and be done in 10 minutes?

4) In fact, why must I spend weeks trying to figure out all this *$#!+* when upgrading used to be so easy?

Are there any distros out there that continue to use and support Gnome2 and grub(1)? I can continue to use Fedora 14 for a little while longer, but I think support has already been discontinued.

Thanks for letting me vent....

Just a thought, but have you considered changing the offending software rather than disto. As an example, grub can be replaced by lilo, Gnome - by Xfce. Got to be easier than going new distro after so many years of experience with Fedora.

I think Debian still comes with Gnome 2. But also Gnome Shell has the Fall Back mode that let you go back to the old look of Gnome 2 when turned on.

Or you can find the directions to install Mate on Fedora which looks also like Gnome 2, check them out.

Good luck to you.

Why wouldn't you just install a different desktop, rather than scrapping the distro?

I think you would really like Fuduntu.

But you can't fault Fedora for moving to Gnome 3. In fact I have a hunch they will upgrade to Gnome 4 someday too. ;)

Suggestion
 

I agree with what almost everyone is saying: I personally wouldn't abandon Fedora after so many years of use. Fuduntu does look like a nice distro, but I can't say that I have used it. But if you are insistent on scrapping Fedora, I personally like Mint. It's very stable and user friendly, so it should make the switch pretty easy.

If you have used redhat 9, moved to fedora then I feel its time for you to look into CentOS . Its a clone of Redhat but without any cost.

That's pretty much the path I went: RH5 through 9 then Fedora 1 through 8, then Centos 5.x through Centos 6.x

I echo you sentiments regarding GRUB2. It has become a solution in search of a problem. Over complicated and far over engineered.

You can drop back to GRUB legacy if you wish, or you can directly edit GRUB2's /boot/grub/grub.cfg. If you do this, make sure you keep a copy, as some of the updates will try and modify/overwrite it.

Or if you are on an UEFI problem and use kernels with EFI STUB enabled you do not need GRUB legacy, GRUB2, or Lilo. You can simply invoke your kernel directly from the (U)EFI shell.

why would you need to edit grub at all?

The only reason to mess with it is if you are installing other distros.

Rather than a different distro, why not just install a different desktop environment?

kde, xfce, lxde, mate, cinnamon; or one of the many window managers.

I got off the fedora "roller coaster" back in fedora 11
new fresh installs every 6 months was getting just "too much"
-- do not get me wrong I DO LIKE fedora

Give OpenSUSE12.2 a go
the 18 month time between versions and support for TWO past versions makes it attractive
see the wiki
http://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime

12.2 just came out and 12.1 has STILL 210 days left

downside
suse IS BLOATED -- very BLOATED

rpms very often need VERY odd and obscure prerequisites
so be EXTREMELY careful when uninstalling programs

also the OBS takes a bit of getting used to
http://software.opensuse.org/search