** steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk [2015-02-26 18:43]:
I have a Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS "Lucid". It was originally a server edition.
One of the reasons I updated it haven't is because I don't like the Unity GUI.
It's becoming apparent that I'm going to have to update soon, but I still don't want to use Unity.
What I'd like to end up with is either xfce or perhaps cinamon as the desktop. (any other suggestions?)
I'm wondering if this would work: uninstall the ubuntu-desktop package remove any obvious gnome desktop packages. command line update to a more recent verision of ubuntu (the most recent LTS?) then install either a package for xfce, or perhaps xubuntu-desktop package, or perhaps a cinamon package.
Do people think this would work? I'm resisting doing a fresh install from scratch then restoring data, packages etc, because I've installed a lot of stuff over the years and tweaked all sorts of things, so I think it'd take me a long while to get it right. It's my server so I don't want to be without it for a long time.
Any advice please?
** end quote [steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk]
I've not done this myself, so I can't speak from personal experience; all my servers run headless with no desktop. Desktop wise I've been quite happy with Unity, although on my netbook I use XFCE which was my desktop of choice before I got lazy and stuck with the default! (I think my desktop history goes something along the lines of Looking Glass, Gnome, Enlightenment, XFCE, Gnome, Unity with the last two being the lazy choices when I started using Ubuntu!).
Anyway, I would suggest the safest way would be to do the upgrade and then install your desktop of choice. You can then either make it the default when you login and leave Unity, or remove Unity if you prefer (a good number of base packages are likely to remain even if you use another desktop). I ran XFCE along side Unity for a while without any major issues. Mate may be another desktop to look at, it is getting quite a bit of development at the moment and is just about to become another of the Ubuntu variants so packages should be easily available in the repositories.