Is it possible to change the desktop in Ubuntu 11.10?
 

Hi,

Could anybody tell me if it is possible to revert to the Gnome desktop in Ubuntu 11.10 instead of sticking with Unity?

I used the "Classic" desktop with Ubuntu 11.04 because the Unity desktop could not be displayed properly but since upgrading to 11.10 and using Unity 2D I now get the Unity desktop. I am probably a Luddite but I do not like Unity - those enormous icons put me in mind of books for partially sighted people, and I can never find anything that has been installed now - and I would like to revert to the Gnome desktop that I was using before.

If this is possible, could someone tell me how to do it, please?

I don't know if it's possible on a default ubuntu install, you could check out MATE: https://github.com/Perberos/Mate-Desktop-Environment which is a fork of gnome two that someone made, not sure if it will be in repositories for ubuntu or not so that may require you to compile it yourself.
I don't know how well that project will take off, as is it looks like it's being run and maintained by one person, so it's future is a bit cloudy.

Personally, I would say either get use to the new interface, or learn something other than gnome, because unless MATE takes off, gnome 2 is going to be end of life very soon, and disappear from modern distributions entirely fairly soon. If you stay with ubuntu, unity will be your only option for a default ubuntu install, and for most other gnome based distros like fedora, you will have gnome-shell.
XFCE may be a good choice for an alternative, or KDE, or LXDE. Maybe a window manager like Fluxbox or Openbox would be a good alternative for you, too.

Edit: mate homepage - http://matsusoft.com.ar/projects/mate/ not in english.

You cans also wait for Mint 12 to be released (or try the RC version), it comes with Gnome 3, but designed to look and work like Gnome 2.

Have a read here

Or maybe try XFCE? It's lightweight and can be set up pretty similar to Gnome 2.

Hi,

Many thanks to you all for your suggestions. I now have the Classic Gnome Desktop