I started using Linux a little over a year ago and used Ubuntu with the Unity desktop. I never liked Windows and now I never had to touch that ugly monster again. In August I saved my money and bought a Mac. I had been programming since before I switched to Linux and wanted to make iOS apps on my Mac. I never really considered Android. (Don't ask why) Now I want to switch back to Linux, but not Ubuntu with the unity desktop. I have tried many distros with many different looks. The problem is that there are too many choices! I have some requirements and thoughts. Maybe someone could point out a few recommendations.

My current contenders are

- Linux Mint (Cinnamon)
- Ubuntu (Unity)
- XUbuntu (xfce)

I would like my OS to have a bar at the top in which everything is contained (Basically all can be moved)
I don't like putting icons on my desktop at all so some way to access them easily. (Like a dock or menu, but the menu has to be decent not like xfce's crappy excuse for one, or a search)

Note: I don't want it to look like OS X.

I will mainly use it for programming in C++, Python, Java and Ruby as well as web browsing. The distro needs to have a good window manager because things get cluttered when I am working. Any Ideas for distros? Thanks in advance!

Of the choices you've listed, I'd vote for Mint. Mint does nice work.

Of course, there's always Slackware, the distro that goes its own way.

Xfce has exactly this sort of bar (well, panel).

Xubuntu (14.04 LTS) uses whisker-menu by default, you can dock whatever you want into a panel in Xfce; Xfce's Directory tree plugin lets you browse the whole, well, directory tree from a single icon -- it's pretty cool IMHO and no other desktop has anything similar.

Xfwm can do all the window jazz like virtual desktops, shade/unshade by mouse wheel, lower a window with middleclick, various window focus options etc..

No, it's not a commercial

I dunno distro choice is a highly personal thing and I would never consider running anything but slackware and crux linux because they are the most like unix and the *BSDs and my favorite OS is OpenBSD but slackware is just better than OpenBSD for desktops (however OpenBSD makes a great firewall, IDS, or gateway etc..)and I have used OpenBSD as a desktop and it isn't that bad for it but not as good as Slackware for that role. I've also been using Linux since 1997 so I am from the time when Linux was still exclusively for Geeks and not from the windows-like Ubuntu generation.

Slackware is really good for developers because it doesn't have seperate -dev packages like Debian/Ubuntu etc.. and the 'd' package set (listed at install and on the ISO image) contains good packages for development and traditionally since Slackware is so vanilla that one can program on it and be sure it will run on other linux distros with no or minimal tweaking but with systemd that is less likely the case now probably.

The only reason I use slackware over crux is because Slackware has a bigger user community. So what is the big deal about Slackware being more unix-like than the distros you want to try ? Well slackware (also FreeBSD and OpenBSD etc.. for that matter) is more flexible than Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat/Fedora etc.. with the more 'userfriendly' linux distros you get less flexibility that is what people who call slackware 'old-fashioned' or 'out-dated' don't seem to get or care about :

"Many operating systems touted as more modern or user friendly than Unix achieve their surface glossiness by locking users and developers into one interface policy, and offer an application-programming interface that for all its elaborateness is rather narrow and rigid. On such systems, tasks the designers have anticipated are very easy but tasks they have not anticipated are often impossible or at best extremely painful.

Unix, on the other hand, has flexibility in depth. The many ways Unix provides to glue together programs mean that components of its basic toolkit can be combined to produce useful effects that the designers of the individual toolkit parts never anticipated.

Unix's support of multiple styles of program interface (often seen as a weakness because it increases the perceived complexity of the system to end users) also contributes to flexibility; no program that wants to be a simple piece of data plumbing is forced to carry the complexity overhead of an elaborate GUI.

Unix tradition lays heavy emphasis on keeping programming interfaces relatively small, clean, and orthogonal another trait that produces flexibility in depth. Throughout a Unix system, easy things are easy and hard things are at least possible." -- Eric S. Raymond

If slackware didn't exist I would only use FreeBSD and OpenBSD most likely. I'm not necessarily telling you to run slackware in fact I really don't care what you run.

Have you tried looking at the linux distros forum. Then you can see what problems others are having with their systems. Then pick a distro that you can solve the problems of.

Have you tried Netrunner? Netrunner is a great ubuntu based distro. Love the kde version!

BigxMac,


On the basis of the above, I would strongly recommend Ubuntu 14.04 MATE LTS with 5 years support.

The Home icon can be removed (see attached screenshot) leaving a blank desktop with a bar at the top containing everything.

The window manager is Marco (Metacity).


Over to you.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Have a look at the desktops via
http://www.renewablepcs.com/about-li...-gnome-or-xfce
You sound like an Xfce, Mate, or KDE person to me -- Unity isn't flexible enough for someone who has clear ideas on how things ought to appear.

I'd recommend Mint over Ubuntu. It's made from Ubuntu after most of any initial bugs are squashed, and is a little more friendly. For Xfce, Xubuntu is pretty good, though, and it was better than the Mint version the last time I looked. For KDE, PCLinuxOS seems to be the best.

As for accessing software, how about keyboard shortcuts? I seldom need the menu, having Super+a for accounts, Super+c for the calculator, Super+d for the document viewer, and so on.

In my view, there are three greate distributions
Ubuntu, a lts support version which you already know about
SUSE13.2 a lts version which is really very good.
Fedora21 a great distribution that always has some features ahead of other distributions. (my favourite)
I use Chapeau (Chapeau.org -- via Sourceforge) which includes much more than pure free Fedora21.

I look at longevity of distributions. You may want to look at Debian 8, very recently announced.

Sounds like OP needs Debian.
Look into the alternatives-system. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianAlternatives
Basically you can install all the graphic front-ends at once with Debian. It doesn't lock you down on a single one. Also you can freely change to all kinds of combinations of desktop-manager and window managers with little hassle. There's a chance you have to work without a graphic front-end, when changing, so you should be willing to use the command-line.
Look into Mate, if you want the old GNOME.

You might also want to check out Mac4Lin
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...93990622,d.cGU

Only works on Debian/Ubuntu, tried it on CentOS one time and kept returning "command not found" at various parts of the script. (Didn't have to do with apt)