Hey guys, I have been using ubuntu for around a year now and still consider myself a newbie but not a beginner I am no command line warrior but I am not to bad but I am getting tired of unity and do not like using Desktop Enviroments, can anyone suggest some of their favorite OS's that are not to difficult to wrap your head around? Thanks,

-Gabe

I was in the same position as you several months ago. I think the best thing to do is to pick a DIY distro with GOOD DOCUMENTATION and install that. It will help you learn tons about using the shell, and fast. Might seem intimidating or beyond your grasp at first, but not nearly so hard as it appears. I picked Arch, others will recommend Slackware or even Gentoo, any or those will be good. The thing I liked about Arch is it has a really good wiki, which makes the install process not too difficult.

When you say you don't like using desktop environments, do you mean you want to try out a window manager only setup, or work entirely from the shell? If you meant the former, installing X.org (soon to be Wayland I hope) then Openbox on top then whatever programs you need is a good approach.

You don't have to switch distros. Just hit ctrl-alt-<F1> and you won't be pestered by those nagging desktop environments anymore. (Until you hit ctrl-alt-<F8>)

1 members found this post helpful.

I think it's Ctrl-Alt-F7 that returns one to xwindows, rather than Ctrl-Alt-F8.

Depends on what virtual consoles the particular distro defines. On my LinuxMint system, it is ctrl-alt-<F8>. I assumed that Ubuntu, the distro the OP is using, would be the same since LinuxMint is built on Ubuntu, but possibly not. Just hit ctrl-alt-<various_F*_keys> until you find your way back.

for an "about face" have a look at
Fedora 20
OpenSUSE 13.1
and use KDE , gnome3 is.... ( fill in the blank )

Debian! I started using Linux through Ubuntu, and it didn't last long. I can't remember why I tried another distro about a year ago (Debian 7), but that's when I fell in love with Linux. Give it a try!

Compulsory comment in any thread about exploring the different distros:

Once you Slack, you never look back!

or

You Learn Slackware, you learn Linux

There's a ton of window managers in the Debian/Ubunbtu repos, no need to leave Ubuntu to try something else. Try a different window manager of both stacking and tiling varieties, and see what you like. For stacking I like cwm and openbox, for tilers I like i3, herbstluftwm, and monsterwm. And then there's dynamic WMs like dwm and xmonad.

You could even try your hand at installing Ubuntu from a minimal installation, and build up from there, which is instructive.

No need to leave what you already know.

Compulsory addition "... as it was twenty years ago."

Seriously, here's a good pair of guides to what's on offer:
http://xwinman.org/
http://www.renewablepcs.com/about-li...-gnome-or-xfce

Incidentally, it's generally better to get a distro that uses your preferred desktop or window-manager by default. That's the best, because it has the most users and developers behind it. So Fedora does a great Gnome, an adequate KDE, and a poor Xfce. Obviously there are exceptions, but you can't know in advance and if you're not familiar with a particular GUI, you can't know if you dislike it or just a bad implementation of it.

My take on good implementations (all tried and tested)
Cinnamon: Mint
Enlightenment: Bodhi
Fluxbox: Salix
Gnome: Pinguy
Icewm: AntiX, Swift
JWM: Puppy
KDE: PCLinuxOS
LXDE: Zorin Light
Mate: Mint
Openbox: SalentOS
Razor-qt: SalentOS
Trinity: Exe
Xfce: Linux Lite

Ones I've looked at briefly
DWM: AntiX
Rat poison: Salix

Ones I had trouble with: Pekwm, WindowMaker, Wmii

David feels compelled to say something like this each time someone mentions Slackware as a choice. Last time I checked, my 64-bit Slackware laptop was running Xfce 4.10, Linux kernel 3.10.17, played all the multimedia files one could want, and last updated on Friday, March 28th.

Did it come completely configured like the "hold your hand" distros, OOTB? No. Did/do I learn about Linux using Slackware? Yes, I do. Or, you could always go with Salix, "for the lazy Slacker." I believe it's Latin, for "couldn't install/configure Slackware."

yeah DE's are a good place to start to get away from the 'traditional' desktop model

ubuntu is great for their ::

..kernel :: gentoo is a great place to start configuring your own kernel because the docs walk you through the process very clearly

..hardware support :: making your own specialised kernels with specific module selection based on your hardware is great for smaller distros like debian and slackware, arch

..package manager and repository support :: slackware requires you to install a good deal from source, which gives you complete control but dependency hunting can be daunting if you were unaware that it is a part of the comfort you give up in seeking more control


until you are familiar enough with these things to think to yourself, 'now i want to get away from these things specifically' i'd suggest sticking with ubuntu and just dropping the DE for a smaller, customisable window manager

i like using openbox

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=192106

it affords you the freedom of the UI when you want it or need it, like surfing the web in a contemporary browser, but you can also strip it down to the barest of bones, i run mine without a panel and without any cosmetics beside a conky instance running to give me system info, and do all of my work through terminals and hotkeys i configure in ~/.configure/openbox/rc.xml

if you want to get further away you can just boot to the command line and drop the UI and window systems all together
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1904347

antiX comes out of the box with fluxbox, icewm, and jwm pre-configured. Debian based. plus some of the stranger ones are available to install.