I've installed debian wheezy & the gnome 3 isnt my cup of tea. very unintuitive, del key isnt working, lots of other small annoyances.

I've also tried the "gnome classic" option, but it's kind of a bandaid solution. a lot of stuff still isnt working the way I'm used to.

any suggestions for a replacement desktop?

TIA

I'm guessing as a gnome user you dont want KDE 4.X or Razor-Qt. So Xfce, Lxde, open/fluxbox. You could even run MATE if you are missing gnome 2.X.

Tnx.

which ones is the most stable and gives a Gnome 2-like experience?
I want desktop shortcuts, a working del key, context menus with right click, and all the other standard features windows/gnome 2 desktops offer.

If you are missing Gnome 2, you should install MATE which is its continuation.
If you wish to experiment with other desktop environments, you could consider Common Desktop Environment or GNUStep(but you will need to build from source). If you are looking for a lightweight desktop environment, you should use XFCE or LXDE.
Finally, if you want something very simple, you can use a windowmanager such as Afterstep, Windowmaker, Fvwm, icewm or Enlightenment.

Point linux. MATE is a fork of Gnome2, started because of Gnome3 to preserve Gnome2-like experience, so if you want Gnome2-like experience, you want MATE.

"Point Linux comes with the Mozilla Firefox web browser" "sudo enabled by default" so its pseudo-ubuntu then?

I've never quite seen the point of distros like this, and IMO a lot of them are not really a distros, just a installer.

I wouldn't know what is closest to Gnome 2.X, I never liked it enough to use it that much.

You could just install some/all of the various DEs and see for yourself, it wont cost you anything apart from a bit of bandwidth and a few minutes.

It depends what do you mean by pseudo-ubuntu. It's not some corporate-wannabe, it doesn't really hold your hand, but it's *much* less fuss to install and setup MATE and everything than to start with clean Debian. Plus it's cleaner than Ubuntu or Mint.
I personally do not agree with the sudo thing, but hey, i could change it, but i don't care that much.

I know just how you feel: when I saw Gnome 3 in Fedora (the first to use it) I said "Not on my computer, you don't!"

The answer is Mate (or perhaps Xfce). If you like your Debian to be Stable, follow the Captain's advice and get Point.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...page/15/sort/7

MATE is Gnome 2 after a huge clean up and it is evolving to include newer more efficient technologies.

If you want to install MATE on Wheezy where you already have Gnome installed you could follow this HowTo.

Mate does have a couple flaws in it, but it is maturing faster as it seems to gain popularity. I'm in your same boat, I use Debian Wheezy and I like Gnome2 + Compiz, but its not really an option. Mate is an option, but I'm waiting a bit longer to use it.

So I found my solution to Install XFCE with KWIN. This gives you the XFCE Desktop, but most of the effects of compiz. I get the 3d cube, wobbly windows, explode on close, magic lamp minimize effect. So its works out for me for now. I'd still prefer compiz though, but I couldn't get it to compile right with the latest build, for some reason the windwo decorator would never load. Not sure why, but I'll play with it more later.

Sof or now best solution

XFCE4 Desktop + KWIN window manager

Such as? Have they been reported as bugs?

I can see why its less fuss, but its a bit too ubuntuish for me. Not that it matters, I wasn't going to move to MATE anyway

I meant 'a debian based' (OK, in this case pretty much just debian) OS with Gnome 2.X/MATE, icweasel replaced by fiefox, and sudo setup by default.

Its jockey away from being an updated ubuntu 10.04.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rs-4175484164/

Even though I like MATE I wouldn't be using Point Linux based on that review. The version of MATE in PL2.2 is MATE 1.4. The current version of MATE is 1.6 which come out in April this year. MATE 1.4 is not really supported anymore unless the distro itself is supporting it (which I doubt although he could be getting patches from Linux Mint and applying them). The technology in MATE 1.4 is old and Debian wouldn't accept MATE into its official repositories with the old technology so there is no support from Debian either for MATE 1.4. It may be a nice distro but based on what I know of MATE, and it is my preferred DE, I wouldn't use any small distro that is still pushing MATE 1.4 as its up to date version.

There is easy way to upgrade to 1.6, something like enable-repo & upgrade. The official reason for this is that 1.6 doesn't play well with compiz, and 1.4.x works well anyway. I'm not saying the Point linux is cure for cancer, but if you want Wheezy with MATE, it is certainly one of the best options available.

The reason 1.4 wasn't accepted into Debian isn't old technology but the then-unresolved licence of some MATE's components (according to Debian mailing lists).

Are you going to help people get their customised settings back? A script was written to help get them back but even that was hit and miss.

I'm not sure Compiz should be the reason to let security standards drop. If you want Compiz help Jasminaura work on it for MATE 1.6

I know what you're saying and you are entitled to your opinion, which I respect but do not agree with. If you want Wheezy with MATE the best option is MATE 1.6 because when it does finally get into Debian there are going to be many Point Linux users who are going to be unhappy when the upgrade comes through and they loose all their customised settings. Who will get the blame for that Debian? MATE? I hope neither of these get it because it is Point Linux's decision to use old technology and that decision will most probably cause problems (I've seen it happen back in April).

Well it was about old technology actually and duplicates http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783
If you can point me to the discussion about unresolved licenses I'd be happy to read through it.