I've been using Linux almost exclusive at the command line for decades. I've just downloaded Ubuntu. I'm vaguely familiar with fwvm from about 20+ years ago. I have several GUI-newbie questions:

My objective is to be able to customize the desktop to basically look like Window7. Is the default/shipped desktop with Ubuntu 14.04 a good choice, or would a different desktop be recommended? For example, I saw a Linux Mint GUI that looked great and I almost mistook it for Windows.

These days, gnome & kde offer the most bells/whistles/programs, but you get assimilated by them.

I am on a 'low cholesterol' WM - XFCE. It can be slow but maybe that's me.

What is windows 7? What features do you want to emulate? If you need it so much, have you tried using or buying it?

I found a couple of good sites: http://lifehacker.com/whats-the-best...ent-1646862177 http://lifehacker.com/five-best-linu...nts-1648022755. The Cinnamon desktop has a Windows look-and-feel while XFCE appears to be Mac-like. I've downloaded and installed Cinnamon on my Ubuntu desktop 14.04 test workstation:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lestcape/cinnamon
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

and it looks like just what I need.

I'll assume you are serious with this question and not just rib-jabbing. Why? Our organization is a State agency pension fund manager and at one time was an all-Windows shop. Several things have happened in the meantime.

Last year we wanted to upgrade our Small Business Server 2008 only to find out that Microsoft has dropped the SBS product and its replacement, Server Essentials, does not support Exchange. Microsoft wants everybody to move to their cloud at outlook.com. "Pension Fund Manager", not gonna happen here! So, we moved to Samba4 AD/DC and have all the same functionality as the Windows AD domain. Instead of Exchange, we're using Sendmail/Dovecot IMAP. Works just fine.

Next we tried "upgrading" to Office 2013, but downgraded back to Office 2010 because 2013 makes you register with a Windows Live Account - which is non-transferable either to another person or another machine, and if a user logs into another domain workstation and uses that Office it messes up the registered account and break Office in several places. Office 2013 probably works great in the cloud though!

Now, we are looking at the future with respect to the staff workstations which are all currently Windows 7. Apparently, Microsoft has decided to join Facebook, Google et al and jump into the data harvesting fray. Windows 10, by default, sends LOTS of your stuff to Microsoft probably so they can sell your data to people who want to sell you things: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08...rpers_cesspit/. Again, "Pension Fund Manager", no data harvesting allowed!

As WIN7 sunsets at the end of 2019, I am now looking for SECURE workstation alternatives, including Linux. Users, as you may know, loath change. My reasoning with this desktop search is that if the workstation looks like Windows, quacks like Windows ... acceptance by users might be that much easier.

So far so good.

Sorry you asked?

There are some Cinnamon themes available to make it look even more like Windows 7

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.p...content=162581

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Deskt...ht-98966.shtml

To install the Windows 7 theme -
Right-click on the Panel > Themes > Add/Remove Desktop themes > Windows 7

If you want to install themes manually, instructions are here:
http://www.shyloh.com/themes.html

There are a few linux distros, like Zorin, created to look like Windows from the start.

Hmmm, must not work quite the same for Ubuntu. I've downloaded Windows7-Aero, unzipped it into my $HOME/.themes, selected it from System Settings > Themes, and it shows there as selected, but nothing happens on my desktop. Still the original background, etc I had before. If you know what's wrong, or have an idea, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll fumble around later.